And I love you so much, I'm gonna let you kill me


Despite entering the apartment in the wee hours of the morning, Angel was awake and waiting for him. She sat cross-legged on the couch in a hoodie and a pair of pink panties and scrolled through her phone. The pale light shining up and dancing over her cheekbones and lashes made her look like a skeleton—a beautiful one, but a skeleton all the same.

She unfolded herself and the tired cushions sighed. "Any problems?"

Natsu thought of Lucy's mouth leaving marks on his neck and her body closing on his like a warm and velvety glove. "No."

Angel's teeth shone in the headlights of a car sipping down the road. "Good."

Natsu took out her money and gave it over. She counted quickly. "You didn't even skim. Gee, Natsu, you're such a good boy."

He didn't feel like one at that moment; he didn't recognize himself.

Oblivious to his turmoil, Angel divvied up the money, putting almost four hundred in his hand. Accepting it, Natsu's cheeks were hot and his heart was pounding again almost as hard as it had been when he sat at the bar. He hurried away from her, closing himself in his bedroom. He hid the money beneath his single mattress and it was almost like out-of-sight, out-of-mind. His heart stopped palpitating, at least.

He stripped off his clothes and climbed between the sheets. Adrenaline and memories of Lucy clashed together, making it hard to sleep.


He was passed out by the time Zeref left for work the next morning, which meant he could spare himself an inquisition. Not that he thought Zeref was going to rake him over the coals for going out anyway, he'd come home, after all, and that's what Zeref cared about most. Natsu just didn't like lying to his brother. And not for the traditional reasons.

Zeref always seemed to know. Like when Natsu was sixteen and took their parents' car in the middle of the night, without a fully-licenced driver to accompany his learners permit. He'd been so careful, rolling it out of the driveway with Erik, the lights off, and not starting it until they were on the street. They'd taken it to a house party Natsu hadn't even drunk at and brought it back two hours later the same way they'd taken it out.

Zeref had been waiting on the porch with an unlit cigarette in hand, blending in with the shadows until Natsu was reaching for the front door, and then he'd piped up, scaring Natsu so bad, he thought he'd pee himself. He gave Natsu an earful.

Getting caught that night had seemed like the worst thing that ever could have happened, but sixteen-year-old Natsu hadn't endured much. He hadn't been beaten to the point of hospitalization for loving a girl he shouldn't, he hadn't been arrested and threatened by a man too rich for his own good, he hadn't sold drugs to some unknown, for them to end up who knew where. Nor had he ever woken up to his brother's girlfriend parachuting speed at the kitchen table. She had coffee ready for him, though, and didn't ask any questions when he stepped outside into the pouring and freezing, rain.

He stopped at the bank on the way and deposited the money he'd earned last night. He had negative seven dollars in his account so after keeping fifty back in cash, and after everything balanced, his grand total was three-hundred and thirty-three dollars and ten cents. Not much, but enough to help his mother out, anyway.

He did an e-transfer on his phone and sent her a text. She called him a moment later. He answered after a long debate with himself.

"Hey, baby."

"Hi, Mom."

"Is the password dragon still?"

He touched the dog tooth around his neck, feeling silly. "Yeah."

She typed it into her computer. "There's only three-thirty here."

She wasn't much better than a loan shark. "I'll get the rest of it to you tomorrow." He hoped, anyway. "Is that okay?"

There was a long pause, some clacking of keys. "I can wait, but why are you taking care of this and not your brother?"

"He asked me to," he lied.

"He doesn't want to talk to me, does he?"

She always made it about her and he was always trying to make her feel better. "I don't think that's it. He just started a new job, has a girlfriend—"

"Zeref has a girlfriend?"

"I guess, yeah."

"This is the kind of information about my boys that I want to know," she said huffily. "How come he never called?"

"Busy," Natsu said again.

It was hard to tell whether or not she believed that. It was hard to tell if it mattered. "Tell me about her."

This was the mom he knew best, the gossip hound, the busybody. He had a while to go yet so he conceded and told his mom all of the nice things he knew about Angel. The list was short; it basically began and ended with her working at the hospital.

"What about you, baby? You still have that girlfriend… Liz?"

"Lucy," Natsu corrected with a hint of irritation.

"The lawyer's daughter."

"Yeah." Natsu narrowly avoided getting splashed as a Lincoln drove through a deep puddle.

"She's in school now, right?"

"Yeah."

"And things are still working out between you two?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" He hated how defensive that sounded.

"Zeref thought you two were on the rocks."

Zeref sold him out? He felt betrayed. "We're just working through some stuff. It's fine."

"Of course, baby. But if it's not, that's okay, too. There'll be others. You'll see once you go to college. You'll meet all these people and the ones you thought were important you'll find weren't really. The world's a big place." She started rambling then, and asking him about his plans and Natsu didn't know. Any thoughts of the future just balled together in his chest like one great ball of anxiety and he felt hopeless and lost.

She eventually picked up on his evasion tactics and asked, "Are you mad?"

"No," Natsu lied because he knew if he voiced any of the mean things in his mind, she'd break. For all of her blurting and crassness, she was sensitive and prone to over-the-top emotional responses. "Just trying to cross the road."

"Watch for cars."

"I know, Mom."

"I'm just saying. I worry about you all the way out there with your brother in that dirty city." Natsu knew what was coming next but it still made his chest tight when she said, "I wish you'd come home."

"There's a reason I'm out here in this dirty city," he said. Tactfulness be damned.

"Things aren't the same as they were. I got a new job that makes more money and your father hasn't been gambling in six months. We're doing a lot better. We miss our boys, though. Zeref won't come but that doesn't mean that you can't."

Her pleading ate through him like nothing else ever could. "I might come up for a weekend or something."

"I'll tell your father," she gushed. "We'll make turkey on Saturday and watch movies."

This Saturday she meant. Natsu started to tell her he hadn't decided when yet but she sounded so jovial, he didn't have the heart, making plans about changing the sheets on his old bed and buying him a pillow because that one in there was flat. It was hard to get a word in edgewise, he had to cut her off. "We'll keep in touch. I have to go, though." His destination was ahead, its stout frame looking ominous through the layers of sleeting rain.

"Okay," his mother said reluctantly. "Let me know when you have the rest of the money."

"Yeah."

"I love you."

"You, too." Natsu hung up and it was only the noise of traffic in his ear and the chirp of a soaking and miserable chickadee sitting in one of Magnolia's few pines. He put his frozen hands into his pockets and J-walked to the music of a few horns.

The motel's lot wasn't shovelled, small clumps of snow melted in the centre of walkways. They must not have had that many customers in the winter.

Natsu picked the safest route to room five and tapped on the door. He listened to its occupant come; he imagined her leaning into the door and standing on tiptoe and looking through the peephole, he imagined her smile. It perfectly matched the one she wore when she pulled the door open and Natsu came through. He knew all of Lucy's smiles.

She closed and locked the door, then took his hand and pulled him in. Her mouth tasted like her favourite blueberry lip gloss and she smelled like something too delicate to be cheap, Shoppers-bought perfume.

"Did anyone bother you?" she asked.

Natsu took off his wet jacked and slung it on the armchair by the door. "Zeref was at work. You?"

"My dad thinks I'm at a pottery class that goes for three hours."

"Isn't he going to be suspicious when you don't bring anything home?"

"I bet he won't even notice," Lucy said and pulled him toward the bed. She climbed into his lap as soon as he was sitting. Natsu locked his hands around her waist. The fabric of the green tunic-dress she wore was light-weight and gauzy. It felt almost like beach sand running through his fingers.

"I'm surprised you didn't tell him you were out with Loke again."

Natsu knew he failed at being subtle when Lucy scrunched up her nose. "Loke?"

He shrugged as nonchalantly as possible. "You said you were out at the movies with him before. Does your dad think he's your boyfriend?"

She snorted. "Probably."

Rage licked his heart but he kept it in check. "Does Loke think so, too?"

Her brows came up in surprise. Then she teased, "Natsu, are you jealous?"

"No."

She smiled her I-see-through-your-weak-lie smile. "That's kind of sweet. I mean, it wouldn't be if you were mouth-breathing at me and getting crazy but this is okay."

"Lucy," Natsu said exasperatedly.

Her smile got wider but she didn't tease him anymore. "He was my tutor for my Astronomy class. I thought it would be an easy course but I was wrong. Loke, though, he's a wiz."

So Loke was another residual from Lucy's university life. "Does he have a girlfriend?"

Lucy laughed and rolled her eyes. "And a boyfriend, and a sidepiece and a couple waiting in the wings."

He was right on the Slut money when he saw him. The knowledge didn't make him feel vindicated—he suspected that Jude was way more perceptive about that stuff than he was, but he'd said nothing. "Why's your dad okay with him hanging around?"

"I'm pretty sure we can find better things to talk about." She wiggled her hips and Natsu didn't think she had talking in mind. He'd be more interested if he didn't recognize the distraction technique.

"He's rich, isn't he?"

Lucy sighed. "Seriously, Natsu?"

"Isn't he?"

"Does that matter?"

"To your father. He has good grades too, right? He goes to your university, he drives sick cars, he says all the right things at the right times—"

"So what?"

"So he's perfect for you."

"Did I say that?"

"No, but your dad—"

"Doesn't fucking choose who I date," Lucy barked. "I'm not interested in a fucking Ken doll. You know that."

Natsu pressed his lips together and leaned away from her. His mind was racing, trying to think of ways to make things right—to prove to Jude that he was a better choice. There wasn't much point though, was there? Jude had already made his position abundantly clear. According to him, Lucy wasn't for guys like Natsu. She was better than that.

It was all so frustrating.

Lucy kissed his neck. "Stop thinking so much."

"I can't, it's fucking in my head, Lucy, and I can't—"

She kissed him quiet, a slow and steady push of her lips and her tongue that brought him from frustrated to absorbed with a few well-executed movements. She shimmied her hips again and Natsu held them. She murmured, "I want to think about this. I want to think about us. I don't care about anything else, not while I have you here for a few hours."

"You're trying to distract me."

Her voice got low and her fingers pressed into his shoulders. "Is it working?"

"It shouldn't be. This isn't a solution." The day would come when they couldn't sneak into motels and hide. It was hard to deny the short-term benefits, though.

"But it's a way we can see each other for now, so just enjoy it." She cut off her words with another, much slower and longer kiss. Some of the craziness Natsu had been suffocating under slowly eased back for a warm feeling in his chest he hadn't had for a long time. A knot in his lungs came undone and he took in a deep breath.

"There," Lucy purred and pulled his hands from her hips to her breasts. The dress she wore could be undone by buttons. He did that with care and by the time he could see her sternum, he was hard and pressing into her backside.

Lucy pulled up the hem of her dress and showed off the small black lace panties she wore. They were new, maybe even bought for today. She slid back and forth over his length. Natsu split his focus between the feel of her body and his fingers fixing the buttons. Soon, he could push the dress off her shoulders and take her in.

The bra she wore was only a half-cup and designed to make her nearly spill out, it matched the panties, sheer and black. He liked her colours, her wheat-gold hair, hazelnut eyes, freckled pale skin. The hollow ache in his chest filled up a little more like Lucy was the mortar holding him together.

He unsnapped her bra and took the straps from her shoulders. Her breasts came out, heavy, the tips erect. He filled his hands with them and kissed each, open-mouthed and wet. Lucy moaned. Everything happened in a blur after that. Natsu's shirt was torn off and thrown on the motel floor, Lucy backed up enough to undo his pants and pull him out. She didn't let him get them off, though, not completely. That was fine, he didn't want to be very far from her.

He made do with lying back on the bed and pulling her forward by the hips so she was lying down on his body and he could reach her with his tongue. It was awkward for her to twist and put his cock in her mouth but she did anyway. It didn't last for long, and Natsu was okay with that because afterwards, Lucy allowed him to sit up and put her on her back. He liked her like this because he could watch her face contort in pleasure and her breasts bounce and her hair, fired gold, spread over cheap motel pillows. Her breaths came short and fast and her fingers marked his shoulders. Natsu propped himself up and looked at her red cheeks and her wet lips.

He loved her.

He loved her lack of inhibition.

He loved her fervour.

He loved her impatience.

Love burned him up like a fever.


The rain had turned to snow by the time he got home. It was late enough that the lights were out, all except that pale screen lighting up from the couch again. Tonight, Angel had taken to lying beneath a blanket. She tapped on the screen of her phone impatiently, taking her eyes away from it only to address Natsu.

"Richard said you talked too much but were okay. Do you feel like doing another run?"

While the universe was still being so kind? He came to sit beside her and got the details.