A/N: Huge thank you to whoever it was that nominated this story for the Guild Awards! I have no idea what this is (yet) but I'm very happy that someone thought my story was worth putting forward. ~CS

Homeward Hours

By CrimsonStarbird

Chapter Twenty-Three – Not What He Signed Up For

There was nothing unusual about Zeref's lacrima ringing, no matter what time of day it was. Now that Lucy had settled back into the role of Guild Master – a responsibility that, after two years of chaotic adventuring, she was more than ready to embrace – she was often too busy to travel up to see him in person when she wanted his opinion, though she made a point of visiting Elfame Court at least once a week, bringing him his usual requests for food and making time for a proper chat.

Nor was she the only one. Mira wasn't the only person who had grown comfortable with his presence during Lucy's two-year absence, and many of them had extracted from him a grudging consent to connect his lacrima to their own personal devices. They didn't contact him nearly as much as Lucy did, but, as much as he hated to admit it, it was nice to speak to someone else every now and again. They kept things unpredictable. Then, there was Levy, who had resumed studying runes with him once or twice a week whenever she could secure a babysitter – and the others who had found the courage to follow in her footsteps, and brought him ad hoc queries on magic or an ongoing job (or, in Asuka's case, her history homework) with increasing confidence.

In fact, sometimes it felt like the only person in the guild who never asked their unusual prisoner for help was the one whose presence Zeref felt now at the other end of the lacrima connection.

It was Lucy's lacrima – he could identify its distinctive signal in his sleep – but it wasn't her magic that had activated it. No, the magical presence he could detect was the only one in the world he knew better than Lucy's. It was, in more ways than one, part of his own.

He didn't answer the first time.

He knew he probably wasn't going to like it, and he wasn't in a confrontational mood.

But when it rang off and immediately began ringing again, curiosity got the better of him, and he answered the call. "Hello, Natsu."

The static shuddered with reluctance. "…Hello, Zeref," Natsu ground out.

Zeref heaved a sigh. He should have been used to Natsu's hostility by now, but the truth was that they spoke so infrequently that it still managed to grate. Still, that only made him more curious – and more concerned – as to what had made Natsu reach out, and on Lucy's lacrima no less. "What's going on, Natsu?"

"Lucy needs your help."

"Lucy does," Zeref echoed flatly.

"Yes."

"Then why are you speaking to me?"

"Because she's unconscious!"

Zeref's grip tightened around the crystal. He should have known Natsu would contact him for nothing less.

"We're on a job," Natsu continued tersely. "This mad wizard's laboratory. His son hired us to clear it out and make it habitable. Shouldn't have been too tough, since he's been dead for a decade, but we got down to this room where the walls were covered in runes. Luce said she'd seen them somewhere before – it was a riddle, and we had to activate them in the right order to move on, but as soon as she touched the first one, she blacked out. Now she's unconscious, and these scrawly black letters keep appearing over her body." He had sounded more frantic with every word, and now he snapped, "You've got to help!"

"Of course I'll help, Natsu," Zeref responded tiredly, rubbing at his temples. Why was it that the volume control embedded in the crystal couldn't tone down Natsu's searing passion? "I'm just going to need a little bit more to go on than scrawly black letters."

A grunt. "They look like something that you would write."

"Still not helpful, Natsu; I'm fluent in twelve ancient runic languages."

"You know I don't know any of this crap!" Natsu burst out. "Or I wouldn't need you, would I?" It was a valid point, but it did nothing to help their predicament, so he forced himself past it with an effort Zeref could feel from here. "Don't you have some magic that could let you look at the runes from afar?"

"Not from inside the Fairy Sphere, I don't. It blocks all my magic from affecting the outside world."

"But your lacrima connects to Lucy's just fine," Natsu countered. "Aren't there lacrima that can transmit images as well as speech?"

"They exist, yes. Unfortunately, this isn't one of them."

"Can't you make it into one?"

Zeref had to choke back a laugh. "I'm flattered by your faith in my abilities, Natsu, but even if I could somehow convert my lacrima into one that can transmit images, how do you propose I do the same to the one you're holding?" Natsu ground his teeth, and Zeref took a moment to curse the sensitivity of the lacrima which decided to convey the sound to him before adding, "Can you describe the runes to me?"

"Uh… the first one looks a bit like a fish on its head. Tuna, maybe? No, more like salmon. Yeah, a salmon drawn by Happy."

"…"

"Dammit, Zeref, you're supposed to be helping!"

"I don't know what you expect me to do, Natsu!" He hadn't meant to shout. Natsu's anger was seeping through the demonic connection between them, usually so tightly shut, but it was the fear not fully hidden beneath it that was getting to Zeref. In the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a wisp of darkness wrap around his fingertips, but when he glanced again, it was gone.

He tried for a deep breath anyway. "I can't tell what it's doing to her unless I can see it. My magic doesn't work beyond the Fairy Sphere, so unless you can bring her to me, there's nothing I can do."

"Of course I tried to get out; I did everything I could before calling you! But the entrance sealed shut the moment Luce touched the rune. It's like the whole room's gone magic-proof. Hell, she's shaking, Zeref, we don't have time for this!"

Zeref closed his eyes. Tried to think through the seething waves coming from the lacrima.

Why was he drawing a total blank?

"You can affect the world outside the barrier," Natsu growled abruptly. "When Gajeel's wedding was attacked and I got cursed, you-" He struggled for words that weren't as humiliating as saved me "-you reversed it using the Book of END, didn't you?"

"…Yes."

"Then you can do that again. Can't you give me the power to read runes, or something?"

"It… doesn't really work like that, Natsu."

"Then can't you get it to show you what I'm seeing? We're already connected, aren't we?"

Zeref barely noticed how he spat the word. He spun the idea through his mind, twirled it between his fingers, dressed it in numbers and runic symmetry and let it dance, and a feeling came back to him: maybe, maybe, but it would take days- weeks- months for him to work out how to do it, let alone how to implement it safely while Natsu was very much alive and active.

"That's not how it works either. I'd need time- testing- I don't know if it's even possible-"

"Then what the hell's the point of me being END?"

In that moment, Zeref didn't know either.

But at least Natsu was coming up with ideas. Why were his own thoughts running so sluggishly?

He knew, though. His life wasn't the life of a guild mage, an adventurer, even an emperor. It was… sedate. He didn't have to deal with crises.

He wasn't used to feeling like what he did in the next thirty seconds could make or break everything.

An echo of Natsu's fear flashed down the lacrima connection: "No, Luce- it's gonna be okay- fight it, you can do it-"

Oh, hell.

Zeref felt like he was falling. Terror plunged, and his emotions broke free as pure, hateful magic. He doubled over with a silent cry as darkness flooded the inside of the Fairy Sphere just as it did his mind.

Nothing but despair and defeat.

This was the truth of why he was in here, and they were out there.

He wasn't allowed to care like Natsu did. To let emotions in as easily as he could; to let the rawest, truest part of humanity overcome him. It wasn't his world. It never would be. He would always be apart from it, cut off, isolated-

"Zeref, there has to be something you can do!" Natsu cried.

No hate this time.

Only desperation.

Natsu's emotions and his, indistinguishable through the link.

"You have to get her to me, Natsu," Zeref said. "To the other side of the barrier. I can't help, but I might be able to tell someone else how to if I can see the runes."

"I told you, I can't get out-!"

"Natsu. I need to talk to the guild. I'll call you back in a minute, okay?"

"Don't you dare-"

Even after he'd cut the connection, Natsu's rage continued to seep into Zeref's mind, down a demonic bond just a little too active for having finally been acknowledged. He couldn't blame Natsu for it. Rage was better than nothing, and nothing was all he could do right now.

He shoved the feelings down inside him and pushed his magic back into the lacrima before Natsu could attempt to call him back.

Mira answered immediately. "Hey, Zeref. What's up?"

"Who's at the guildhall right now?"

"Nearly everyone." Perhaps she could sense the urgency in his voice, as she continued almost immediately, "Who are you looking for?"

"Mest to take Gray and Erza to the location of Lucy's current job. Levy, Wendy, and Freed to come up to my house right now. Everyone else to stay the hell away until I say otherwise. Do you understand?"

"Yup, I'm on it," she told him briskly, unquestioningly, and closed the connection.

Her implicit promise of assistance had helped him, but more importantly, her calm attitude reminded him of what it meant to be in control. That was what he clung to as he re-opened the lacrima link with Natsu. That was what helped him weather the second barrage of emotion, of hate and fear and uselessness that burnt hot down mental pathways he had long since stopped using.

"Natsu," he commanded, over anything his brother was trying to say. "Listen to me. I am going to channel my power through the book and awaken END. That should give you enough power – curse power – to break out of the magic-resistant runes."

There was a pause as Natsu fought down his initial reaction and processed those words in full: the cost, the risk, Lucy. He was trying so damn hard. "When that happened during the war, I completely lost control."

"I know."

"You can stop it?"

"No. I'm going to be too busy with Lucy."

"You can't. I'll hurt her, I'll-"

"Mirajane is sending some people from the guild to help. They'll hold you back long enough for me to help Lucy and then shut the book down again."

"Zeref-"

There were a hundred protests in that word.

You can't use me like this, like a weapon.

You can't take away my conscious mind at a moment like this.

You can't force me to leave it all in your hands.

You can't-

"Do it," Natsu growled.

Zeref slammed the Book of END open.

He knew it had worked when the lacrima link dropped out. Natsu no longer had the presence of mind – the rationality – to maintain it.

Zeref should have been glad he no longer had to put up with the audible frustration coming from Natsu, but all he felt was alone.

The fear they had shared was all on his shoulders, now.

Levy arrived first. He had no memory of speaking to her – every second seemed to last an hour as past and present blurred together – but he must have told her something, as she was already whirling through the guest house, laying towels out on the dining table on the safe side of the Fairy Sphere. Freed was next, with half a sandwich in one hand and an assortment of books in the other, followed by Wendy, who eyed Zeref nervously as he paced back and forth on his side of the barrier.

He couldn't blame her. In fact, he admired the professionalism of all three of them, preparing for an unknown catastrophe while pretending not to notice the waves of black magic breaking against the inside of the shimmering dome. At any other time, he'd have hated his own lack of control: the humiliation, the failure, the reminder of what he was. But compared to everything else, it was just so irrelevant.

There was a shimmer of energy and Mest appeared, Lucy in his arms.

He was shouting something about Natsu and demons and utter devastation, but Zeref's vision had narrowed right down to the woman that he laid upon the table. The one who trembled as black letters crawled across her skin. Whose eyes roamed, unseeing.

He owed her so very much.

He was so scared.

Another wave of darkness thudded against the inside of the barrier, momentarily obscuring his vision.

"Zeref!" Levy was shouting. "I can't read it- I think it's some kind of demonic script-"

Breathe.

He was better than this. Reckless love and dangerous passion were the purview of Fairy Tail mages, not him. It was END's fault. Releasing the limiters on Natsu's demon side had only strengthened the connection between his magical core and Zeref's own. Those human emotions, fleeing from the takeover of his demon self, had nowhere else to go.

Zeref had to surpass them. To him, this had to be just another puzzle. A mystery of magic for him to solve. A game.

Carved into Lucy's skin.

A howl escaped him. He collapsed against the Fairy Sphere and sank down to its foot. Caught in the throes of his own cursed magic, he drew his knees up to his chest and trembled.

"Zeref!" Levy tried again, because they needed him, Lucy needed him.

"I know what it's doing," he choked out. "Levy. I need you to write the counter."

"In… demonic script?" she worried, knowing as well as he did that, even with help, writing in a language with which she wasn't competent was a recipe for disaster.

"No, any magical language is fine. Just create a rune circle that will do as I say."

"Got it."

He could not see her determined nod, but he knew her well enough to be able to picture it perfectly. His grip tightened for a moment, fingernails digging into his own shins. The pain helped to ground him.

Accept it. Work through it.

Let the curse rage. It couldn't break the barrier. He wasn't going to let it break him.

"Innermost level. Water affinity. One rune, self-balanced."

"Uh… elsivera?"

"That will do. What has it done?"

He couldn't see a thing through the darkness filling his vision. Even if it miraculously vanished, the tears in his eyes would do the job just fine. But it didn't matter. He didn't need it. Those on the other side would be his eyes.

It was Wendy who answered. "The letters have gone still. So has Lucy. She's-"

"It's fine. Second level of the circle. Write four runes, two water, two fire, alternating, to form the base. Then…"

How long it lasted, he had no idea. He had never known an outburst of his cursed magic to last more than a minute before, yet every time Wendy shouted an update on Lucy's condition, it ploughed anew through the rockpools left by the previous wave. His throat burned. Every word he choked out was another hot coal. He rocked back and forth, sometimes hitting his head so hard against the Fairy Sphere that dizziness competed with the pain for control of his waking mind, yet both of them remained subservient to the tenacity still churning through runic algebra with Levy and Freed's help.

He didn't remember passing out, though he must have done.

He raised his head to yet more darkness. It took far longer than it should have done for him to realize that it wasn't the hurricane of his curse, but plain, simple nightfall. The world was silent, still. His magic had obliterated the part of the guest house that lay within the barrier, but that was all. Just a building. It could be replaced.

The Fairy Sphere stood as strong as ever.

"Zeref?"

Lacking the strength to stand, he twisted to look over his shoulder. Lucy was there, on the other side of the barrier. She must have been waiting for him to wake up.

Though she was resting on the sofa, her eyes were so bright. The golden glow of the lamps replenished what colour the ordeal had drained from her face.

A sob escaped him.

He didn't care who heard it.

He slumped back, his head resting against the Fairy Sphere, always separated, but close enough for today.

"Thank you," Lucy murmured.

"Yeah." Too exhausted for anything more. "Natsu?"

"He blacked out when you did. Gray is claiming it as a victory for his Devil Slayer powers regardless." She shrugged, like they weren't talking about her husband being taken over by his demon side. For their family, it was quite normal. "Still, he and Erza did manage to keep the damage to a minimum once Natsu broke out of the laboratory. Porlyusica says he'll be just fine. Levy and Freed are also recovering in the guildhall infirmary – they're alright, just used up too much magic."

"Good."

"Zeref." Her voice was tentative, dreamlike, in the still night. "What you just did for me-"

"Is nothing compared to what you have done for me. The fact that I was able to save someone's life at all, working alongside your guild, is testament to that."

"Zeref-"

"Don't thank me for something anyone else in your guild would have done without hesitation. It's just… normal, right? How many times do you help each other when missions go wrong? Or have to run back to seek advice or healing from the rest of the guild? The fact that it was me rather than Natsu or Wendy doesn't make it special."

"But-"

"I don't want it to be special." The clarification slipped out before he could stop it. All his self-control had been burned up several hours ago. "I want it to be expected of me. I want- to be the same as you, as all of you."

Lucy crouched down beside him, an inch of perfect magic between them. "You are," she murmured. "You are, Zeref."

He shivered against the barrier. "Please… promise me you won't do anything so dangerous again."

"I'm sorry, Zeref. I can't promise you that." He glanced up despairingly into eyes that seemed to shine like the stars, another level of reality from him. "The life of a guild mage is dangerous. Sometimes, all it takes is one mistake. Confusing one esoteric rune with another, coming up against a foe whose magic happens to be the perfect counter to your own… these things are always going to be a risk. And the only way to avoid that risk entirely would be for me and Natsu and everyone else to give up Fairy Tail altogether, abandoning our friends, abandoning our clients, abandoning the people who need us more than ever – and that would mean abandoning who we are."

She smiled at him, gentle and quietly magical. "We can't do that, Zeref. Because we're heroes, and we always will be."

"Sometimes, I wish you weren't," he said weakly.

"I know. Believe me, I feel the same every time one of my mages takes on anything more dangerous than a delivery job. I don't know how Master Makarov used to stand it, all the crazy things Natsu and the others got up to when they were kids. But, I'm proud of the people we've become. All of us."

"Yeah," he agreed in an exhausted whisper.

It didn't change anything.

Fairy Tail didn't treat him any differently after the incident. Lucy called him a little more often before touching cleverly disguised runes in mad wizards' dungeons, but that was all. Once he had woken up, Natsu had made his way up to Zeref's house to thank him, and then went straight back to pretending he wasn't part-demon and his brother didn't exist.

Things carried on as they had before.

And that was how Zeref knew that Lucy had been right.

The guild didn't treat him differently, because for a long time now, they had taken for granted that he was the kind of person who would fight through the torment of his curse to help Lucy and Natsu. His actions weren't radical or unexpected. They were just a particularly vivid confirmation of what they already knew: that he was part of their guild in all but name.

Heroism was just expected of him.

It was the highest accolade a guild like that could have afforded him.

That wasn't, however, the last time that Natsu asked him for help – as much as the Dragon Slayer clearly wished otherwise.

Oh, he put it off for as long as he could. Months. Maybe it had been years. Right up until the end, he was squeezing every extra second out of it; Zeref had never seen anyone move that slowly up the forest trail towards his home. But it couldn't postpone the inevitable, and now here he was, standing awkwardly outside the Fairy Sphere, wishing he were somewhere nicer, like the dungeons of Mercurius or the inside of Acnologia's stomach.

And it was almost civilly that Natsu said, "Can we talk?"

Suspecting that being too nice would only get the other's guard up, Zeref nodded cautiously.

Natsu pointed – not to the guest house that had steadily been increasing in size over the years, as said guests added more and more facilities for their own convenience, but to Zeref's own house at the centre of the Fairy Sphere. "Can I come in?"

"Sure, but what's wrong with the guest house?"

"Someone might walk in," Natsu answered stiffly. "This… is gonna need privacy."

After a moment, Zeref shrugged. "If you want to take the risk."

Natsu squared his shoulders and stepped through the barrier. He was careful to keep his distance as he followed Zeref into his house proper. It probably wouldn't be enough to protect him from Zeref's curse, but Zeref knew that if he lost control, he wouldn't get an explanation for Natsu's behaviour. And curiosity always had been a powerful part of him.

It was safe to say that Zeref's home wasn't prepared for visitors. That was what the guest house was for, after all. The guest house had started out life as Warrod's gazebo, before being upgraded into what had been advertized a fancy shed, and over time, it had grown to be larger than Zeref's own residence.

It was a space designed for a cursed man to safely interact with the mortal members of his guild. The Fairy Sphere ran straight through the main living space, his armchair on one side and an assortment of furniture on the other, where they could sit together and talk or watch a film or just be. Neither Zeref nor his magic could pass through the barrier, but inanimate objects could. Many nights had been spent playing chess with Jellal or Monopoly with Asuka and her parents, sliding the board back and forth through the barrier so that each could make their move, while a strategically placed fridge and an abundance of claw-grabbers added a surprising amount of functionality to the shared living space.

It was an arrangement that worked well for all of them – once Zeref had got over the perceived humiliation of it, and accepted whatever was necessary to make his cursed life liveable.

Besides, although he couldn't stop people from turning up at the guest house without an invite, if he didn't feel like interacting with them, he could stay within the sanctuary of his own house. That remained, as always, fully enclosed by the Fairy Sphere. Messy wasn't the right word to describe it – barring the few occasions when the apathy of his curse managed to get its claws in deep, disorganization wasn't in his nature – but every chair except his favourite was stacked with books, and he had to clear a space for Natsu in uncomfortable silence before his visitor could sit down.

Even then, Natsu didn't speak. His gaze lingered on the furniture, the fruit bowl, the assortment of teas in a half-open cupboard, taking extraordinary interest in the open books for a man who couldn't read any of the languages in which they were written.

Zeref let him.

He didn't know how to do this, either.

Natsu said, without looking at him, "Me and Luce and trying for a baby."

Zeref blinked. That was not what he had been expecting.

"Been trying, I mean. For a while. Without success."

"…Oh," Zeref said, now starting to see where this was going.

"Luce went for a load of tests at the hospital," Natsu continued, still doggedly not meeting his gaze, "but they all came back clear. The problem's not with her. I mean, my tests came back clear too, but it's me, isn't it? I can't have kids. Because of… what I am."

"I suspect so," Zeref told him heavily. "The Etherious demons couldn't. They were made of magic, and the first rule of magical theory is that magic is always conserved. It can't create more of itself, in any form."

"Right," Natsu said. "Well. Okay. That's that, then."

He didn't sound angry.

He should have done; he'd lost it with Zeref for so much less, in the past – and so much of his ideal future had been sacrificed to Zeref's actions already.

But he just sounded… empty. Like he'd come to terms with it long before coming here.

He'd never had hope, Zeref realized. He just wanted a definitive answer to take back to Lucy, and put their dreams to bed.

"But you're not like them," Zeref said, not stopping to think it through, only finding that that emptiness bothered him more than outright hate. "You're only part-Etherious. You're part human, too."

Natsu snorted dismissively. "The dead part."

"Not any more," Zeref persisted. "You're unique, Natsu, in all of time and magic. I don't understand how the parts of you interact, not completely."

"You should!" he snapped. "You made me!"

"I only wanted you to live," Zeref murmured. "That's what I focussed on. Whether you'd be able to start a family of your own someday wasn't exactly high on my list of priorities." His shoulders collapsed beneath the weight of yet another regret. Drawing his knee up to his chest, he wrapped both arms around it and stared at the floor. "Hell, Natsu, I was little more than a child myself."

Natsu scrutinized him for a moment. "So," he said, with a very deliberate glance down, "what you're saying is, I should just be grateful that any of it works at all?"

Zeref choked. "That's not what I- Natsu- that is not something I want to think about-!"

Natsu's lips twitched, and then evolved into a full-blown smirk.

Zeref had never seen that before. Not towards him. All thoughts fled his mind in that moment, completely at the mercy of the brother he knew he would never stop loving, no matter how hard he tried to pretend otherwise.

"Well," Natsu said, getting to his feet and mercifully turning away, "I guess I'd better go tell Lucy."

"Don't tell her yet," Zeref said.

"Why not?" Animosity flashed, as always when he perceived Zeref trying to order him around.

"Because… I might be able to do something about it. Don't get your hopes up," he added, a swift warning, a vain attempt to protect this strange truce they had. "I don't know whether understanding how your human and demon selves interact will make a difference, or whether… this… is something that can be influenced at all, or if the fact that you are part-Etherious will forever preclude it. But give me a bit of time. I'll see if I can get to the bottom of it… while trying my hardest not to think about it at all."

Natsu was giving him one of those looks again, one that assured Zeref he was finding his discomfort even more amusing than beating him up, and Zeref closed his eyes with a groan. "It's an academic problem," he muttered. "Just an academic problem. Just numbers and runes and magic on a page…"

It was going to be a long few weeks.

Especially if that grin on Natsu's face was any indication.

"Well, you know," Natsu said offhandedly, "if you need any experimental testing doing, me and Luce would be happy to-"

"Please stop talking, Natsu."

Zeref knew the moment Natsu appeared.

It wasn't just because it was the first time Natsu had ever not looked reluctant to talk to him, hurtling up the forest trail as though he couldn't get there fast enough. It was the sparkle in his eyes. So truly, truly alive, with the whole world in his hands.

Maybe Zeref should have been jealous. He could never have what Natsu did.

But all he felt was gratitude, that he could be part of this at all.

He set his pen down as Natsu burst into the guest house, grateful that they were on opposite sides of the Fairy Sphere for this treasured moment.

"Lucy's pregnant!" he exclaimed. "You can't tell anyone yet- it's still very early- but we wanted you to know."

"…Huh."

Natsu's eyes narrowed at once. "You don't seem very pleased," he accused.

"No, no, I am, it's fantastic news," Zeref tried to placate him, as he flicked through the papers in front of him. "It's just… strange, that's all."

"Strange?" Natsu demanded. "What do you mean, strange?"

"Well…" Zeref let the corners of the documents flutter through his hands again, before fixing Natsu with a puzzled look. "Are you sure the child is yours?"

All the colour drained from Natsu's face.

"Of- of course I'm sure!" he blustered. "Luce would never- I mean- I- I-"

Zeref was laughing.

"…Oh, you jerk," Natsu groaned. "That was not funny."

"Mm." Zeref's eyes sparkled in the lamplight. "I've not had a very fun few weeks, Natsu, but the look on your face made it all worth it."

Natsu gave a grunt. "Yeah, well, it's about to get worse for you when I tell Luce what you just said."

"…Ah. Please don't do that." Strangely, though, Zeref didn't think he would. Natsu's mood was too buoyant for it. His future, just too bright.

"How'd you do it?" he asked.

"Do you really want to know?"

Natsu pulled a face. "Probably not."

After a moment, Zeref shrugged. "Well, it wasn't that bad. I just had to disentangle the Etherious influence from your living human body a little more. You could think of it as the laws of magic not being sure whether to allow it or not, so they were blocking it just to be on the safe side. I just had to convince them that you were more human than not." He brushed aside the countless pages of complex equations that dictated the nature of Natsu's being like it was nothing. "It may have knocked a few years off your natural lifespan, though."

"Worth it," Natsu said immediately.

"Mm."

"Zeref?"

"Yes?"

Natsu struggled, briefly, but the words thank you still posed too much of a challenge, and he deflected: "My child… is gonna be fully human, right?"

"…You probably should have asked that up front, Natsu."

"You mean-" Onyx eyes widened, and then immediately sharpened again. "Zeref, if this is another prank, I swear I'll-"

"Fully human, Natsu," Zeref sighed. "Or at least, as close as it is possible to get with you and the guild teaching him or her manners."

"Isn't that what you're here for?" Natsu said sulkily. At Zeref's startled look, he clarified, "Just saying, things have been a lot less fun around the guild since you put your foot down about how we had to deal with the Council."

"Mm, but imagine how long it would have taken you to save up for your wedding if you'd still been paying all those damages."

Natsu scowled at him, but for perhaps the first time, he didn't really mean it.