And we're back!
Sorry I took so long to update,
I was stuck on what to write next.
I'm starting my volunteer hours for school so as a warning
I may not be able to update as often
But I'm going to try and make a few chapters in advance
So I can keep updating while I'm away and take my time
With typing up a chapter since I already have some chapters ready.
Thanks for reading!
Still Breathing
'Don't leave me stranded-'
Fourth Breath: Rainy Day Thoughts
~QOoOQ~
"Come on Lu-Chan," her friend rolled her eyes as she took another bite of her burger. 'He can't be that bad, I mean maybe he's just not used to the exercises you're doing." The blonde rolled her eyes as Cana spoke up.
"Does he look hot?"
She ignored her friends question and instead stared at Levy. "I'm telling you Levy-Chan, he cannot dance for the life of him," she shook her head and sipped her drink. "Literally, Plue and Sting could do better than him." Levy bit into a piece of her burger as her friend chewed grumpily on her salad.
"Come on Lu-Chan, he can't be that bad."
Lucy gave her a bland look. "Levy, I was showing him how to point his feet correctly and he hurt himself!" She shook her head and raised her arms, 'How the hell do you hurt yourself by pointing your toe properly!?"
"Well he may not have good flexibility…" Lissanna proposed gently to which Cana slammed her drink onto the cafeteria table and shook her head.
"Nope! That's no good," she leaned in to speak more quietly to the blonde. "You need to have a guy with good flexibility!" Everyone at the tale just rolled their eyes at the brunette and shook their heads. Typical Cana, always thinking the dirtiest things when a hot guy comes into the conversation. She huffed and leaned away from them, her arms crossed over her chest, "What? It's true, the more flexible they are the more they can do."
"I'm pretty sure the girls need to be more flexible." All eyes shot to Lissanna at her statement, their eyes wide and mouths hanging open with have chewed food showing. The blue-eyed teen blushed darkly and slid down in her seat, trying her best to hide the roaring blush on her face.
"Lissanna-San…" Juvia tilted her head questioningly, a devious glint in her eye. "Is there something you would like to tell Juvia and the others?"
"No!" She squeaked, waving her hands frantically in front of her face. "No! I have nothing to say about that statement!"
"Did you and your ex do the dirty Lis?" Cana smirked.
"No!" She screeched in embarrassment. "…Not with him." Lucy's eyes widened as she spit out her salad on her plate, as far as she knew, Lissanna hadn't dated anyone before her last boyfriend so that means that she would have had to do that with someone just recently. But that couldn't be possible, Lissanna had just been telling her and Yukino about how she still missed her ex, so if she was telling the truth about her feelings then why would she do something like this? The bell rang, signalling the end of their lunch break and everyone whinnied while slowly getting up from their seats.
Lucy hastily packed up her bag and chased after her friend. "Lissanna!" She called out, watching as her friends slowly came to a stop to wait for her. "Were you being serious back there?" When her friend nodded, she asked, "Does Mira know?"
She nodded. "Mira-nee isn't very happy about it, but yes, I told her."
Lucy nodded her head, walking silently beside her friend, glancing at her every once in awhile. "But I thought you didn't date anyone before your last boyfriend?"
"I haven't."
"Then..?" Lissanna nodded. "But you were just telling Yukino and I the other day about how you still missed him, so why would you?" Her friend huffed and Lucy watched as she turned to her in irritation, a arm wrapped around her book and the other resting against her hip.
"What Lucy?"
"Well, if you still love him then why did you have sex with someone else?" She couldn't understand people like that. If they loved somebody and wanted to be together with them for the rest of their life, then they should preserve their bodies for that person. Why would you go and have sex without love? She was no pure soul, the way she often dressed made men think she was easy but despite her dress code she strict when it came to doing intimate things like sex. She wanted o wait for the right person.
"Why does it matter?" Lissanna countered. "Just because I still have feelings for my ex doesn't mean I can't try to get over him." She turned away from the blonde. "If I want to have sex with a guy then I can, you and Mira are exactly the same." She shook her head. "Mira kept herself for Laxus and look where that got her, Laxus is gone and she alone at home with a small child!" She turned away in a huff and stomped off to her class.
Lucy blinked at her friends outburst, a little hurt that she said those things about her family. Her brother wasn't gone, and she knows it but she has no proof so all she can do is hope for his return blindly, and Mira. Sweet, aunt Mira. The poor woman was working a job as a bartender to provide for her family and her son. She could see how much she hurt every time she looked at the little boy she and Laxus had produced, the anguish and sadness she felt to know that her son may never get to see his father. Sometimes she wondered if she was really the only one who truly believed Laxus would come home to them.
He would.
He had to come back.
Laxus couldn't just leave, Sting, Mira, her father and herself all alone. He had to come back. He has to come see how successful Sting is in his boxing, how their father is doing with his cases as a police officer, he needed to see Mira, with their son for the first time in his life and he needed to come see just how miserable they were without him. Lucy decided against going to her class and quickly exited her school, shooting a quick text to Sting to let him know they wouldn't be walking together today.
Her eyes watered up as she walked away. She missed her brother so much, just wanted him to come home and look at her with those warm eyes like he always used to, wrap his arms around her and Sting and tell them "I'm home", but he wasn't. Laxus is lost somewhere that even his brothers fighting alongside him cannot find. With the dark thoughts swirling around her mind, Lucy walked to the dance studio with hollow thoughts of her big brother coming home.
…
Natsu sighed tiredly as he drove away from his studio, a large headache coming on as he thought over his label records complaints about their music. He understood that everything had to be perfect before it was put on the album and they needed to get the music video out for his new song but he needed time to write his lyrics and between performing and getting dance lessons from Lucy, it was hard to stay awake long enough to make any real progress on the lyrics.
They needed to be sweet and soft but at the moment, he didn't feel that, couldn't find his inspiration to write anything about love. His mind wandered to a girl he had been with, she had been so young, so full of passion and cheer; it was like she had sucked all the energy out of him by the time they had separated, he wondered if she was still the same, doing well in everything she put her mind to. He bet she is.
She was a breath of fresh air to him but near the end, he found that he felt like he was forcing himself more and more to do things with her and keep up with, he no longer felt that same pull like the day he asked her to be his girlfriend, no longer was he excited to see her the next morning or eager for their time together, he just felt, empty. The person he thought he had loved, he had realized, was just someone he was attracted to, he wasn't in love with her, sure he may have loved her for a time but he was never deeply in love with her.
He felt like shit, like he had been leading her on but he was always reasoned that he felt something when they started dating, that he always thought it was love and sure, he may have thought it at the time but now that he looks back on it, he feels like an ass for not seeing the signs. Natsu turned on a corner and rubbed a calloused hand on his face, perhaps he really didn't know what love felt like-maybe he just hadn't experienced it yet, any time he asked, no one had given him a real explanation, just that you feel butterflies and your heart races. But that can happen to anyone that's attracted to another.
It was always "you would just know", never "this is the reason why you would love a person" but how are you supposed to distinguish just what you know, you get this feeling that its right? But he had that feeling with his ex and it wasn't right, so how? He shook his head and looked up at the road. Why was he even dwelling on this anymore? It had been awhile since their break up? Maybe it's because he's just realizing how little he knew about both his ex and himself. Suddenly, he spotted a blonde headed girl through his blurry wind shield, rain pouring down on her. He realized the girl was Lucy.
Natsu quickly pulled to the side and drove slower honking the horn at her and rolling down the window when she jumped. "Get in." He told her more than urged her, "It's raining and you'll get sick." He watched as her eyes widened and stuck her hand out of her pockets, palm facing upward and look at the small droplets of rain that fell into it, she hadn't realized it was raining, he realized. She seems distracted. Natsu hopped out of his truck and gently lead her to the passenger seat of the car. "Come on, hop in, I'll give you a ride."
"Natsu?" She looked at him strangely and he held up a finger to pause her as he raced to the driver's seat of the car before allowing her to speak again. "Why are you here?"
"Just driving around a bit, thought I might get in some extra dance practice before you came, try to impress you with my skills." He chuckled when she rolled her eyes at him. "Why were you walking out in the rain?"
"I didn't realize it had started raining, it wasn't when I had left."
"Shouldn't you be in class?"
"Shouldn't you be with your band?"
"I asked you first." He countered back, glancing at her from the side as he pulled back onto the main road, "why aren't you in class. From what I know, this isn't like you."
"You don't know me." She huffed and crossed her arms over her wet clothes. "I can ditch class if I want to."
"But I know you wouldn't." He fired back. "Now are you going to tell me why you aren't in class or am I going to have to talk to the old hag?"
"Ms. Porlyusica and it's nothing." When he gave her a pointed look she caved slightly, "I had a small argument with my friend." He raised a brow at her ,
"Now was this fight so bad that you had to sacrifice your education."
"It's only one class."
"Yes but that could cost you anyway." He looked at her when they stopped at a red light, "You parents won't be very happy about it."
"I doubt it, I'm getting high 80's in all my classes." She bragged slightly with a proud smile, "and my father isn't home most times, doubt he will be home tonight so I can just delete the message from the school."
"Tsk, Lucy's breaking the rules." She rolled her eyes and smacked his arm lightly, "Hey! Do not hit the driver!" She giggled quietly before squinting her eyes at the road.
"Where are we going? This isn't the way to the studio."
"That's because it isn't," he told her, taking a sharp turn to the right. "I'm getting us some food, you seem like you need someone to talk to."
"I'm not the only one." She grumbled. 'You don't look like you're in the best of moods either." Natsu shrugged his shoulder at her.
"How about this, fair trade, I'll tell you what's bugging me and you tell me what's bother you?" He didn't wait for her to respond as he ordered them food from Tim Hortons. He thanked the person who handed them their food and drinks before parking his truck in a quiet end of the parking lot. "You have no say in this. Now tell me what got you so upset with this fight."
She looked hesitant to say anything as she nursed her Tea; instead she looked distastefully at the donuts he had bought them. "I shouldn't eat those you know," she looked him up and down, "neither should you as a matter of fact."
"Come on, what's one donut going to do?"
"Well you aren't in the best of shape at the moment anyway and I don't really like donuts anyway." His eyes widened and mouth dropped open at her statement.
"What!? How can you not like donuts?" She scrunched her nose in disgust and shook her head. His face went stoic, "You are not human, and donuts are life." She shook her head.
"I find that they don't taste that good," she told him. "And it's not that weird! Sting doesn't like chocolate!"
"Your brother right?" She nodded. "Your family is weird." He decided before looking at her again, "But you're the real weirdo."
"Am not!"
"Yes you are." He took another bite of his donut and gesture with his head, "Now tell me what got you so upset, you said you and your friend got into a fight."
She sipped her tea. "… I was talking to my group of friends at school about you and-don't give me that look! I was telling them how bad of a dancer you were!"
"I am not that terrible."
She ignored him, "and then suddenly my friend made a comment about how girl need flexibility when they do… things." She made a face, "long story short, we found that she had just had sex."
"Okay, but how did this result in a fight between you and her?"
Lucy squirmed uncomfortably but continued to speak. "Well I asked her if she was being truthful and if her big sister knew, which it was a yes to both. I asked her why she had done that considering she had just been talking to me and another friend about how she wasn't over her ex who she recently broke up with and then she went and had sex with a guy she didn't love." Lucy looked out the window, "She told me she was trying to get over her ex and that she didn't care to wait and said some things about my brother and her sister and where that ended up."
Natsu looked at her for a moment before asking, 'If you don't mind, what did she mean by your brother and her sister and where that ended up?" When she hesitated a moment he hastily told her, "You know what-don't answer that, it's none of my business." Although he really wanted to know he didn't want to make Lucy anymore upset than she already was.
"No, its…okay." She licked her lips and nervously started, "I have an older brother, Laxus, he joined the military some years ago and he would sometimes come home to visit us, or write to us when it suddenly all just stopped." She looked pained and Natsu felt compelled to take that pain away from her but instead, stayed quiet and listened, "We soon found out that they had lost all contact with my brother and could no longer find him, my brother is somewhere out there, lost or maybe caught by one of the enemies on the other side." She wiped a stray tear. "And my friend commented that there was no point in waiting like her sister did to lose her virginity to the one she loved. Her sister had ended up pregnant and now his a little boy, but that is the besides the point. I think what her sister did was right and even though my brother hasn't come back home or may not ever, she is in love with him and is planning to spend the rest of her life with him if he returns. It just… made me think about things and I may be overreacting but it just made me upset to hear her say that."
"I'm not saying that you're wrong but essentially it is her choice, I agree that she should wait for the right person to do something like that with but if this is her way of thinking then she doesn't think that she should have to wait unless she wants to."
"But she's only sixteen!"
"And that makes a difference?" He questioned her, "Just because someone is older than eighteen doesn't make anymore right, just most times everyone is mature enough to make the right decision, if she thinks that she can make her relationship with this guy by building it off of sex then she can do it, I'm not saying I'm okay with it because there is many things that can happen with sex like with your brother and his girlfriend, they ended up having a child together. But I'm sure that your friend knows about what can happen and took the proper safety precautions, Lucy."
"But-"
"So, if this boy your friend had sex with was a person she was absolutely sure she was in love with, would that be okay with you?" She nodded hesitantly and he continued, "But she's sixteen, right? A year younger than you, how would she know if that boy loved her back? You may have know Laxus loved his girlfriend because he is your brother but if you don't know who this person is, how can anyone be sure he wasn't just trying to get her to have sex with him? This conversation is getting completely off topic here." He shook his head. "All I'm saying, Luce, is that although you may think she should wait, maybe she doesn't think she has to, maybe she wants that kind of intimacy that she never had before. But you and her sister are telling her that she shouldn't, maybe she thinks that she and this boy really have a chance together and she could fall for him and leave behind those thoughts of her ex."
She nodded. "I can sort of see you point, despite how deranged it go in the middle of it." She laughed slightly as she thought over his mixed words; she noted to herself that he wasn't good with his words unless it came to songs.
"And as for your brother and , I guess aunt?" when she nodded he continued, "I'm sure that they never thought of it as a mistake to have that child, maybe it was unplanned or something like that but I'm sure that since they both love each other so much, they will make it work when he comes back home." She gave him a watery smile at his words; he never said the word "if" he comes home, he said when and that made her extremely happy to hear that he thought he would come back to them too.
"So," she looked at him as she wiped away the stray tears on her face. "What's been bother you?" He groaned in reply and leaned back against the door.
"What hasn't?" He sighed, "Pressure is a lot of it, my record labels pushing me to get the lyrics done for the music video and they want them done soon but they don't really understand how long it takes to write a proper song, they want perfection out of me but I'm the opposite."
"Why can't you write a song?"
"Well it'd be kind of like why you can't dance to certain music, you need to feel the music and fully connect with it to really move with it don't you?"
"Well that's the way I personally like it but yes."
'Well its similar to that, I need to feel something to inspire my song, for this I would need admiration, love and devotion but as of now I don't really feel any of that and I cannot write a song based off of something fake."
"I'm getting the opinion that something happened?"
"Broke up with my girlfriend a while back."
"Oh? Why? Did something happen?"
"Not really…" He sighed. "I just wasn't really getting that same feeling I was when we first started dating. I had thought I was in love with her and I guess I did love her but I wasn't in love with her. I thought she was the one but I guess I had mistaken love for attraction but to begin with I never really knew what love felt like."
"Well, you thought you were in love with her didn't you?" He nodded and she continued. "Then I don't see anything wrong with that, if you were genuine toward her with your feelings then you shouldn't feel so bad but what did you love about her? Like, what drew you to her?"
"I guess I liked the way she was around em, just like the perfect girl that I had in my head, nice shape, perfect eye colour, she was like the girl of my dreams but I guess it was the little things that made a difference."
"What do you mean?"
"She was perfect to be frank. There wasn't anything wrong with her specifically, she was great, supportive, sweet, cheerfully, but I just didn't feel that connection after getting to know her more."
"So basically she was everything you had ever dreamt of and more?" He nodded. "Well I think that love is where some things about hat person aren't what you thought they would be, I guess…"
"How? Can you give me an example?"
"Umm." She swallowed a sip of her drink that she took and thought for a moment before shifting and sitting up straighter in her seat. "Well, it's like this. Sometimes you meet someone and, even though you never liked brown eyes before, their eyes are your new favourite colour." She looked at him, "Do you see what I mean? Just the little things that you normally wouldn't pay attention to or wouldn't normally go after in a girl would be different with this one person if you loved them."
"Yeah," he nodded. "You're really good at explaining." She smiled in response to his praise.
"But as for your writing, you're just going to find that inspiration you need to write it." He began to drive back to the studio as he shrugged.
"We'll I guess either way it's going to take awhile to get these lyrics done, so we're just going to have to wait and see how everything turns out." She nodded and a few minutes of comfortable silence passed them, Natsu driving in the now sunny area as Lucy laid her head against the window and stared at the passing scenery. Thinking over their conversation and how Natsu had been considerate enough to take time out of his day to talk to her about what was making her feel upset.
"Hey Natsu?" She spoke quietly.
"Yeah, Luce?"
"Thank you." He didn't respond back, only nodded to her and took another turn on the road, in the opposite direction they had come.
Still Breathing
'-As I reach out my hand.'
Fifth Breath
ALaViola: So this took me awhile to write, but inspiration suddenly came to me when a big storm hit my area, literally the hail was big and it fucking hurt when it came down like It did. So the second chapter for this should be coming soon after this one is published, otherwise it should already be up by the time you are done reading this one. Thank you guys for being so patient with my updates and being supportive of my break! He ending of this chapter was a little lame and not quite sure if I like it but here it is anyway! Thanks for reading!
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