Homeward Hours

By CrimsonStarbird

Chapter Sixteen – All Weddings Need Family Drama

Zeref was grumbling loudly enough for Lucy to hear outside his house. "I can't believe I spent all that time trying on ridiculous modern suits only for you to turn around at the last minute and tell me I have to go in fancy dress."

Lucy rolled her eyes at his closed front door. It felt like the only sane response. "Well, if you'd made a decision a little faster, maybe you'd have received a suit that fitted on time," she called back.

"That's not my fault," he sulked. "Maybe the next time the date of a wedding changes from 'postponed indefinitely' to 'this Sunday', you'll actually tell me straight away, so that I have half a chance to put an outfit together."

"Yes, well, unless you get a move on, I don't think your chances of being invited to any more weddings is particularly high. Seriously, how long does it take to put on a pair of trousers?"

"When you've never worn them before, surprisingly long," he shot back. "I'll lend you a set of my clothes one day and we'll see how well you get on."

"No, thank you," she snorted.

There was a lull in the conversation as Zeref turned his full attention towards wrestling with modern-day clothes. If the banging and crashing and cursing was any indication, he wasn't winning.

At last, the front door opened, and an almost complete stranger stepped out. Zeref was wearing a Rune Knight uniform, from the standard-issue tunic down to the utility belt and sturdy boots, each proudly displaying the emblem of the Magic Council. The only part of the outfit he looked remotely comfortable in was the voluminous cloak, which may not have been as extravagant as he was used to as an emperor, but still flowed around his shoulders with practiced ease.

As well as the clothes, there was a hidden brooch clipped to the inside of his collar. It was embedded with a small charm to temporarily change the colour of the wearer's hair, and Zeref's was now barely a shade darker than hers. Although it was usually easy to tell when someone was wearing one, they were common enough fashion accessories that no one would question it, and with him drawing the line at using hair dye, it was the best Lucy could get. His eyes were rather distinctive – either midnight skies or hellish portals, depending on his mood – and she had a feeling that coloured contacts wouldn't hold up against that primal manifestation of his curse. Fortunately, he had agreed to wear some unfashionably thick spectacles she had sourced for him, which acted as a distraction.

Besides, on the assumption that no one was going to be looking out for the Black Mage at a perfectly ordinary wedding, the disguise only had to hold up at a distance against people who had never met him in real life. Lucy actually thought she'd done a fairly good job – especially considering the effort it had taken to get Zeref to agree to it.

"Well?" he demanded, folding his arms over his chest in an almost endearing display of self-consciousness.

"Well, for obvious reasons, I'm not going to look too closely at how you've done your trousers up, but from a distance, you look passable," she responded. "I think this is going to be better than a normal suit, anyway. No one is going to look twice at you in a Rune Knight uniform."

"Apart from all the genuine Rune Knights there, who might find it a bit suspicious that I can't name my commanding officer."

Lucy laughed. "Zeref, if you think we are letting you anywhere near the genuine Rune Knights, you've got another thing coming. You're staying well away from anyone who works for the Council, and you're going to be on your absolute best behaviour."

He glared at her, but didn't contest it. He probably considered making small talk to Council officials about as much fun as she did.

"Right, then," she began courageously. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yes."

She took a step forward, and then paused. "Are you in a murderous and/or psychopathic mood?"

"Lucy, if I was, do you honestly think I would tell you?"

"Probably not," she reflected. "I don't think you'd have spent so long complaining about your trousers, though."

"…Fair enough. Let's get this over with."

Lucy touched her palm to the Fairy Sphere and let its golden light flow down onto her arm. She was so used to the markings by now that she hardly noticed them, except to marvel at how mighty they looked next to the pastel pink of her bridesmaid dress. Although she wasn't sure she would ever get used to thinking of herself as the Guild Master, she was fiercely proud to carry the legacy of the guild across all aspects of her life.

She wasn't really expecting Zeref to attack her the instant the barrier disappeared, but it was nice to have it confirmed. He stepped out of the circle of dead grass that perpetually surrounded his house, and they headed towards the city together. To tell the truth, her dress wasn't the easiest thing to trek through the forest in, but he was having equal difficulties with the ceremonial fixings attached to his belt, so both were happy to meander.

In fact, if she didn't know better, she'd have said he was walking slowly on purpose. Whether it was the crowds, the formality of the whole situation, or simply the thought of being in a room with so many people who hated him, she wasn't sure, but she thought his apprehension was a good sign.

If he was acting confidently, she'd have been worried. She did not want Emperor Spriggan causing trouble at her best friend's wedding.

"So, don't forget, your name is Rigel and you're my distant cousin on my mother's side," she said, more to fill the silence than anything. "You're staying with me for the week while your father is undergoing specialist treatment in Magnolia's hospital-"

Zeref gave her a flat look. "If I'm not allowed to talk to anyone, why do I need a cover story?"

"Just in case," she assured him. "I will be doing my utmost to keep you away from people who don't know who you are, but I can't exactly be with you the entire time. I've got to sit with the other bridesmaids, and Levy wants a load of photographs beforehand-"

"You don't have to go through the whole thing, Lucy," he sighed. "I've been to weddings before, you know."

"Right," she said weakly. "Yes, of course you have."

"Mm. Officiated a few, too."

"Really? You can do that?"

"There wasn't a great deal I couldn't do, in Alvarez," he answered, shrugging. "Well, that was before I was declared legally dead, of course."

Intrigued, she pressed, "Who did you perform weddings for?"

The emotion fell at once from his face. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Zeref…"

"You know, I'm pretty sure there's an old law in Fiore that allows Guild Masters to officiate weddings between guild members," he deflected, his spirits rising again as she paled, like a vampire sucking all the enthusiasm out of her. "Want to see how quickly Levy can change her plans for the ceremony once I tell her that little detail?"

"You breathe one word of that to her before this is over and you're going straight back in your Fairy Sphere," Lucy warned him.

His eyes sparkled, but he didn't say anything more. Lucy found herself missing his apprehensive mood.

The wedding had originally been planned for early August, but no one in the guild had been in the mood to celebrate following the Master's unexpected passing. One thing had led to another, and most people in the guild had assumed that Levy and Gajeel would delay the wedding until the following summer. Zeref was not the only one taken by surprise when Levy had suddenly announced that they were going ahead in mid-October.

Well, Lucy knew why they'd done it, and the whole world probably would in another few weeks, but it was also true that the guild needed a proper celebration, and a wedding ticked all the boxes.

It was surprisingly mild for the season. A pavilion had been set up in the grounds of Kardia Cathedral for the reception later, guarded by a ring of fire-heaters not yet turned on. Guests drifted across the lawns, greeting family and friends and waiting to be called in to the cathedral proper.

Lucy was as popular as ever – half the guests wanted to officially greet the Master of Fairy Tail, and the other half simply wanted to hang out with her before she was called away for her bridesmaid duties – but very few people took note of the fictitious cousin at her side. By contrast, she could see Zeref taking very careful note of the people around them.

"Just out of curiosity, how many people here know who I am?" he asked neutrally.

"Natsu, Gajeel, Wendy, and Laxus; there was no point trying to hide it from the Dragon Slayers," she answered. "The other strongest members of Fairy Tail do too, since they'll be… well…"

"The ones tasked with stopping me if I go crazy?" he volunteered, eyebrows raised.

"Pretty much," she sighed. "So please don't do that; I'll lose my deposit if I don't return that Rune Knight uniform spotless, and your blood will be a nightmare to get out of that light shade of teal."

He snorted in amusement. She decided to take that as a good sign.

In retrospect, it was quite easy to identify the people who knew Zeref was with her, because the majority of them were staring at 'poor cousin Rigel' with unrivalled suspicion… which actually made the Rune Knight uniform a good choice, as Fairy Tail being suspicious of the authorities was par for the course. While a part of Lucy had been worried that Zeref would resent it, he seemed to be taking the disguise in his stride, seeming more relaxed around his enemies than around those who knew him only as a stranger. He just liked making people uncomfortable, she thought. It was a common lament to hear from those who had ever tried to strike a trade deal with Alvarez.

Still, she was pretty sure she knew what was going to kill the mood, but she was already late, and she couldn't put it off any longer. Gathering her courage, she ventured, "Alright, I'm going to have to go inside now for the bridesmaid photographs. Will you be alright?"

"Lucy, you do realize that I managed just fine for four hundred years before becoming your prisoner, right?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"This wedding celebration involves your entire guild, a handful of Council officials, free food and alcohol, and all of it mixed together in a listed building. I don't think I'm going to be the one causing trouble here."

"I'm glad to hear that," she retorted. "I'm sure you'll be totally calm and mature in Natsu's capable hands while I'm with the photographer."

"…Ah."

Before he could turn that noise of concern into anything more, Lucy waved Natsu over. It was safe to say that he didn't look happy about the whole arrangement, but – in honour of the promise she had extracted out of him the night before – he didn't voice a word of complaint.

He didn't look at Zeref either, but it was a start.

Still, as Lucy jogged towards the cathedral as quickly as her stiletto heels would let her, she found herself praying that neither one of them would kill the other before the day was out.

"Hello, Natsu," Zeref said neutrally.

Natsu ignored him.

The Dragon Slayer's arms were folded over a suit he looked marginally less comfortable in than Zeref did dressed up as a Rune Knight. Without his usual scarf, his neck seemed strangely bare, not even the impeccable tie Lucy had knotted for him able to compensate for its absence. No matter how smart he looked, it was only a gesture, anyway. Even surrounded by friends, family, and free food – on supposedly the happiest day of one of his best friends' lives – Natsu looked as tense as if Acnologia had risen from the grave to confront him.

No prizes for guessing why.

Maybe Zeref should have left it alone. He'd told Lucy he wouldn't cause trouble, after all.

Then again, wasn't half the point of weddings and funerals to bait confrontations between estranged family members?

Zeref saw Lucy most days – if he wasn't helping her with the guild's finances and sorting out their statutory reports for them, then she was bringing him shopping or just stopping by for a chat. Levy turned up once a week for their runic study sessions, and Ultear always dropped by whenever her guild was in the area, either to discuss rare magic they had found on their travels, play a game of chess against the only person in Magnolia who could give her a run for her money, or sometimes just to annoy Jellal, who was still struggling immensely with the moral implications of actually getting on with Zeref.

Natsu, though, avoided the little house in the woods like the plague. Since that time he had broken in after Lucy had been elected Guild Master, Zeref hadn't seen his brother once.

Idly, he observed, "Even when you're acting as my jailer, you still can't bring yourself to acknowledge the fact that I exist, can you?"

A muscle twitched in Natsu's face. "I promised Luce that I'd keep an eye on you, not that I'd make nice," he growled. "It's not like I'm stopping you from going to talk to someone else."

There was a very deliberate insinuation in those words, which Zeref ignored. "Not that you could stop me, even if you wanted to," he pointed out mildly.

Natsu ground his teeth.

Still didn't look at him, though.

"You have an interesting interpretation of keeping an eye on someone," Zeref remarked. "Why is that random Rune Knight you're staring at more interesting than me?"

"He's fastened his belt in the same way as you."

Zeref blinked. He hadn't been expecting an answer, let alone one that made no sense at all. "I beg your pardon?"

"Left to right," Natsu growled, still watching the uniformed figure who loitered at the edge of the pavilion. "All the other Rune Knights have gone right to left. Like it's regulation. It's obvious why you got it wrong, but why him?"

At this distance, Zeref had no hope of making out that little detail. Despite himself, he was rather impressed – not just with the Dragon Slayer's enhanced eyesight, but with the observational capacity needed to register something like that. "Do you think he's an imposter, then?"

"Who knows?" It was probably the closest Natsu would let himself come to agreeing with Zeref. "It's not like there's any security here. They let you in."

"I was invited," Zeref reminded him. "That's why we're having this pleasant conversation rather than an epic final fight, in which you would try and fail to drag me back to my prison."

The muscle jumped again in Natsu's jaw, and it was with immense self-control that he ordered, "Stop talking to me."

If there was one good thing about wearing trousers, it was the ability to put his hands in his pockets. Classical togas were hardly made for slouching in. There was too much pride woven into the design. "It's going to be a long wait for the ceremony if we just stand here in silence."

"I don't care."

"Suit yourself."

Natsu endured the silence stoically. Zeref passed a few minutes waving at anyone who caught his eye and seeing who gave him the most ferocious glare back. Jellal held the top spot so far, but Laxus was putting up a surprisingly good fight.

"Quit it," Natsu spoke, through gritted teeth.

"Quit what?" Zeref asked pleasantly.

"You know what."

"Waving hello to my friends?"

"Friends?" Natsu gave a bark of laughter that suited his demon self far more than his human side. "They don't want anything to do with you."

"Fair point." For some reason, it seemed to irritate Natsu a lot more when Zeref didn't argue with him. Although Natsu was still stubbornly not looking at him, it was clear that Zeref held every ounce of his attention – not least because the strange Rune Knight had vanished now, and while an uninvited soldier might justifiably have been more interesting than him, that plant pot definitely wasn't.

Zeref waited politely to see if Natsu would volunteer a topic of conversation as they waited to be called in for the ceremony.

He didn't.

Zeref decided this meant it was up to him to make conversation.

"So," he offered brightly. "When are you going to propose to Lucy?"

That got a reaction.

"Oh, no," Natsu snarled, rounding on him with blazing eyes. "You do not get to do this."

Zeref tilted his head curiously. "Do what?"

"Pretend like we're brothers who get to banter and care about each other's relationships!"

Zeref stared at him.

"Pretend," he echoed flatly.

"Yeah, pretend!" Natsu snapped. "Because you're not! Just because we supposedly have the same parents – parents I don't even remember! – doesn't mean you automatically get to be part of my life! Look around you!"

He waved his hand towards the crowd of people beginning notice their raised voices; towards the church, where one of his rivals and best friends was trying not to show his nerves as he prepared to be bound in ceremony to the woman who had stolen his heart. "These are the people who have been here for me through light and darkness! This is my family, not you! You don't get to treat me like that until you've earnt it!"

"Earnt it," he repeated in disbelief. "What more do I have to do for you, Natsu?"

"You could start by not acting like you're entitled to my life!" he roared. "But no, I'm not allowed to just live; I have to account for you in everything that I do! You take up most of Lucy's time, and you're the reason she's had to practically retire from going on jobs with us in order to take over the guild! You're the reason why I'm not S-Class – why I can't just live my best life without worry! I'm not even allowed to enjoy Gajeel's wedding! No, I have to babysit you, because you insist on butting in even when you're not wanted!"

Zeref stared.

Just for a moment, he couldn't say anything.

"Well," he said, an old, old sneer dropping onto his face, "I wonder what it says about you that, even after everything I've done, this so-called family of yours would choose to put you through all that just to indulge me-"

That did it.

Natsu's fist hit him before the flames had even finished forming around it.

It was far from the first time. Whenever Natsu had snapped before, ploughing through the Fairy Sphere with no heed for his own safety, Zeref had taken a dark kind of satisfaction from it that dwarfed any pain. It was so easy to goad him. It was entertaining to see how Natsu had nothing but his own strength to fall back on, believing himself defiant with it, free, himself, never fully appreciating that he could only hit Zeref because Zeref was letting him.

This time was different.

This time, the fire that failed to find any purchase on Zeref's immortal body managed to catch on something deep inside him, igniting.

He didn't want Natsu to get away with this.

He didn't want Natsu to walk away believing that he was right.

Natsu knew the moment Zeref decided he wasn't going to take it. A connection formed. A spark flashed and was suddenly a wildfire, exploding out of all control.

Zeref didn't fall to the ground; he reacted in mid-air, seizing control of his flight in a surprising display of strength for his slight figure and landing easily on the balls of both feet.

Natsu was already there. Flames erupted around his fist, fully fledged this time, as if they could be otherwise with so much emotion surging between them – but Zeref blocked it, a swirl of night-black energy sheathing his forearm, equal and opposite to the light blazing from Natsu's.

The resulting explosion silenced the grounds of the cathedral.

Natsu spun out of it first, following up with a crushing kick and a Dragon's Roar without even waiting to see if the first had made contact. Perhaps he would have done so even if it had made contact. The point wasn't to win, but to fight, to hurt, to express rejection and rage and sheer single-minded hatred in the only way he knew how.

Forsaking his defence, Zeref met it head-on with an overwhelming wave of dark energy, throwing all that anger back at Natsu and then some.

There wasn't a single wedding guest who wasn't watching the two of them now – most with exasperation, for surely Fairy Tail wouldn't start a brawl before the ceremony had even started, but a select few with fierce, frightening alarm. They saw the hero of Fairy Tail fighting its greatest enemy. The final confrontation of the Alvarez War was repeating itself, right here, right now.

Before any of them could reach the combatants, the cathedral's double doors burst open. Still clutching a bouquet in one hand, and trailed by the bewildered camera flashes of the photoshoot she had abandoned, Lucy threw herself between the two of them with a scream: "THAT IS ENOUGH!"

To the astonishment of the crowd, both Natsu and Zeref checked their swings at the same time.

Flames still blazed around Natsu's body, heat shrivelling the already-dead grass at his feet. There was so much hatred in his gaze as he caught Zeref's eye over Lucy's shoulder, but she was firmly between them now, and the only thing he wanted less than to let Zeref walk away unharmed was to hurt Lucy.

Yet it wasn't Natsu Lucy rounded on, but Zeref. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" she yelled.

"Surely you don't believe that I am the one who attacked him," Zeref sneered.

"No, but I also don't believe for a second that you didn't goad him into it," she snapped back. "All you had to do was be civil to him for ten minutes! Ten minutes! I should have listened to all the people who tried to talk me out of this. I thought you were better than this, I really did."

"Yeah," Zeref said, quietly, feeling the mad rush that had started this fade to nothing.

Being here when Natsu didn't want him to be was amusing.

Being here when no one wanted him to be wasn't much fun at all.

This time, when he looked into Natsu's hate-filled gaze, he didn't feel anything at all.

"Guess I'll go home, then," he murmured, before turning on his heel and vanishing into magic's embrace.