A/N: Just so there's no chance of confusion, this is set before Heartbreak and will move toward during Heartbreak and maybe a little bit after, too. I'm also going to need more than ten chapters. I'm a filthy liar. Also, my Narrator has been busted since about August and I can't seem to fix it so there are mistakes abound in everything because my brain insists on inserting words where I've missed one. SORRY!
Love let my nightmares turn into dreams
There were stars on the ceiling, the kinds parents spent too much on in department stores and stuck on with sticky tack. They used to glow bright green when the lights went out, now they blinked weakly for about ten minutes before fading.
Natsu hadn't been the one to put them up, but they'd been there for as long as he could remember. Gildarts had bought this house when Natsu was still a kid, barely old enough to tie his shoes; it was supposed to be his family home, a fixer-upper that he worked on in his time off, though he still had his townhouse, because he and his wife wanted to get pregnant and they had Rosie and they needed more room.
Before the renovations were done, things started to fall apart because, from what Natsu understood, they couldn't have a baby. The information was second-hand, whispered around the kitchen table at dinner time and then translated for Natsu by Zeref.
Things were tense but they tried to make a go of it for almost two years, in which time Gildarts worked more often than not. Eventually, though, enough was enough. Cornelia moved out, they sold the townhouse and Gildarts moved into the cottage.
Natsu never asked if he put the stars on the ceiling before or after the move, it seemed intentionally cruel and he didn't like the way Gildarts' face scrunched up at the mention of it.
The football he was throwing hit one of those stars and they came crashing down on him, hitting him square between the eyes. He swore.
"Alright?" Gildarts asked from the kitchen over the sound of Led Zeppelin.
"Yeah." Natsu found the star over his head on the flat pillow Gildarts left in his guest room.
Gildarts appeared in the doorway. "Those things are always falling down." He didn't mention the football. "Watch your eyes."
"Mmhm."
"In fact, it'd be best if you get out here and help me, lazy ass."
"Doing?"
"Making dinner. I need you to peel potatoes."
"Are you cooking Shepherd's Pie again?" Natsu groaned.
"My house, my rules, and it's one of three things I cook," Gildarts said defensively. "Come on. There's beer in the fridge."
That was a nice way of telling him to stop moping.
Natsu didn't immediately move. Gildarts came in and made like he needed help up, grabbing his hand and tugging him vertical, then he led him out of the room to the kitchen sink. Natsu washed his hands, Gildarts gave him a towel to dry off and then handed off a potato peeler and some Yukon Golds.
They worked in silence for a little while, Gildarts chopping carrots and Natsu dumping the peels in the green bin. Then Gildarts asked, "Is it snow?"
"Yeah." As soon as cocaine got involved, gone was Zeref's 'clean house' rule. He could say what he wanted about heroin but that fine white powder was his real paramour. He'd go for months without it and then it'd crop back up in his life again and he'd become unreasonable.
"How long?"
"Two days. He missed work today." Angel was still over and Zeref had locked himself in his room, acting like Natsu didn't know he was on one of his legendary seven-day binges.
Gildarts sighed. "I'll open up the Bunkie so you don't have to see me in my gauchies in the morning."
"Don't worry about it, I'll find somewhere else to crash tonight," Natsu said.
"It's fine," Gildarts said. "I like having you here. Rosie does, too."
"Because I save her scraps," Natsu said to smooth the moment that shouldn't have been awkward but was, somehow.
"She's a traitor, all's you have to do is offer the right price."
At the sound of her name, Rosie came to Natsu's feet and sat. He snuck her a potato peel just to see if she'd eat it. She chewed it up and spat it out on his sock. After an accusing look, she waddled over to Gildarts and flopped down at his feet.
"So?" Gildarts asked. "Are you going to tell me why you're so bummed?"
"My apartment's a zoo?" Natsu suggested.
"It's not just that. You've been in the dumps for weeks."
He couldn't think of a good reason to lie. "Lucy's done school for the summer and she's coming back to Magnolia." He'd hoped after she'd ratted out her dad he'd send her off somewhere else but it seemed that enough money got you out of anything and once the charges were dropped, Jude was a forgiving man.
"Still not talking to her, eh?"
Natsu thought of the compromising pictures she sent to his email every day; it was turning into a hoard and the worst part was, he was looking forward to them and had been after the first day he'd opened his email on his phone and dropped the stupid thing in the sink. He'd never been more thankful for waterproof cases, though he did sort of wish that it'd been ruined, that way, he wouldn't be temped to open those photos every night when the lights went out.
"Something like that."
Gildarts looked over his shoulder and used his cop stare. It made Natsu want to fidget. With no more prompting, he spilled, "She keeps contacting me. She won't drop it."
"Have you told her to stop?"
"I haven't said anything to her."
"There's your problem. Lucy's a smart girl, she's reasonable. If you really don't want to talk to her anymore, just tell her."
The last time he'd tried that, he was tearing at her clothes and trying to fuck her on Sting's counter. It was better to just stay away completely.
Five days after Gildarts opened up his dusty Bunkie and cleaned it out for Natsu, Natsu received a call from his mother. He watched the phone buzz loudly across the coffee table, blocking out the sounds of Die Hard. He wavered, twice on the verge of answering, but in the end, he let it go to voicemail. She didn't leave a message.
He couldn't focus on the rest of the movie after that and when it was through, he took Rosie for a walk. She waddled along slowly, old now. By the time he got her back home, his mother had called again. She still hadn't left a message. He texted Zeref and got no reply. Who was to say if it was because he was jittering in his room or out? Or he could be dead. People OD'd all the time when they went on binges. And that's why Mom's calling.
It was irrational, but Natsu was suddenly convinced that's what happened. He scrawled a letter for Gildarts and left it on the kitchen table, then locked the doors behind him and ran most of the way home, though his work boots weren't good for it.
The apartment was dark when Natsu, sweaty and exhausted, entered; it smelled like stale food and cigarette smoke and beer, and Zeref's shoes were missing from the entryway. There were empties by the door; that was a good sign. Zeref had started to clean up some.
Natsu dropped his coat on one of the couches and checked the kitchen. There were dishes in the sink and the fridge had been left open a crack. Natsu peeked inside. An entire pizza box that looked like it'd been there all week was the only thing that greeted him, besides a carton of milk.
He closed the door and filled up the sink so the dishes could soak, then he checked the bathroom. It was a mess but manageable. He tidied that, too. His room was next on the agenda. His bed was not the way he left it, the sheets were twisted up on the floor and there was a pair of pink panties thrown on top of them. He picked those up with a pair of disposable chopsticks he found in a drawer in the kitchen and threw everything right in the garbage. He wanted to do the same with the sheets but they were the only pair he had so he went to Zeref's room, a disaster area that smelled like sweat and unwashed clothes, to hunt for money for the laundromat.
He turned on the overhead light and a lump in the bed moved. He thought it was Zeref at first but then he saw strands of platinum hair and decided that was Angel. He worked quickly and quietly, tiptoeing over to Zeref's once-tidy dresser and went through the few books he kept on his desk, Tithe, Desperation, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Just like he thought, he found the money stuffed into Desperation's pages, though it wasn't nearly as much as he was expecting. Zeref usually had a five-hundred-dollar float but there was only twenty there.
He closed the book again without taking the money and exited, closing the door behind himself.
Natsu got to work tidying the kitchen. There were cigarette butts fizzled out in McDonald's drink cups and water bottles half-drunk and left on the table. A few loose coins floated around and loose papers, too. Mail. Natsu picked up one and it was their cellphone bill. The numbers were in the red and had been since the last time the bill was paid, back at the beginning of March.
He dropped that and found a credit card statement. It, too, was way, way in the red. He tidied all that up, stacking the papers neatly, and then washed the dishes. Halfway through, his phone rang again. Natsu sighed and answered it this time.
"Hey, Mom."
"Natsu, I've been trying to call you for hours."
"Yep. Saw that." He dropped a bowl into the drying rack too hard and it cracked. He glowered at the offending piece of china.
"Oh, so you were ignoring me?"
"Just busy. What's up?"
She cut right to the chase, always no-nonsense. "I need the money back I lent you two, Zeref said he'd have it in a week and it's been two and your Dad's starting to ask about it."
None of what she said surprised him, but it made him mad all the same. "So he can go spend it on a fucking slot machine?"
"Don't talk to me like that."
"We might as well just not even talk then."
"Don't hang up on me."
There was a tone in her voice that made Natsu hesitate; it was like he was a kid again.
When she next spoke, her voice was more gentle. "Tell your brother he needs to get me that money as soon as possible, Natsu. We need to pay the land taxes this month."
"How much is it?"
"Six hundred."
That gross sum didn't surprise him, either, somehow. "I'll tell him."
"Thank you. I love you."
"Love you," he wrenched out and hung up.
He stared at the kitchen sink for what felt like a long time. He heard Zeref's bedroom door open, and the bathroom door close. He could hear Angel peeing through the thin wall, too. He huffed and threw the sponge into the sink and went to the living room where the barriers were a little thicker.
Angel stopped in the doorway a moment later and looked in on him; she was in a pair of blue underwear and a tank top and that was it. "Hey."
"Hi."
"I heard you talking."
"I think you should go home, Angel," Natsu said shortly.
She acted like he hadn't spoken. "I have methamphetamines. We'll split the profit, seventy-thirty."
"What?"
"All you have to do is make the trade," she said. "I can't risk being seen and no one knows your face. It'll be easy."
"I'm not selling your stolen drugs."
"You'll make back at least half of what Zeref owes your parents and probably enough to pay your cellphone bill off, too. One night, minimum risk," she dangled the offer like a piece of steak. "You just need to go to a party and meet up with a friend of mine."
Natsu was on the verge of shaking his head but then his phone rang again and it wasn't his mother's name on the screen but an F. Dragneel. He pressed end on the call and dropped into the spongy couch cushion. Angel read him like a book and, with a smile, came to sit beside him.
A/N: I mean, this wasn't the chapter I was expecting to come out when I started writing last night, but it was the one I was hoping for. Thanks for reading.
