Strung up, strung out for your love


Houses built on lies crumbled. Their foundations mouldered and the walls weakened with every false word. He'd seen it in his parents' house when his father would lie about where his paycheque went on a bi-weekly basis, and he was seeing it in Lucy's as she told her father time and again she was going out with friends or Loke or going to that damn pottery class while instead, she was sneaking off to the motel, sometimes to lay beneath Natsu, sometimes to, with Natsu's help, climb up on the roof and lay beneath the stars like they used to.

The point was, people lied all the time. Some, with every breath they took for no other reason than the truth was much more boring, and some to do what they wanted while circumventing the disappointment of their loved ones.

Natsu thought what he and his brother had was different, though. No matter what shit went down, Zeref was always his confidante, and likewise, Natsu his. He thought they were too close for lies like, I'm working at this motel—Natsu's—to explain where the money was coming from and where he was going, and I'm going to work—Zeref's—when in reality, Zeref was actually going to a shoddy apartment across town to do who knew what. Natsu had caught him early one morning when he was on his way back from a visit with Lucy that went on for longer than he'd planned.

It was childish, but as a punishment for his brother's deception, Natsu only left a note the day he asked Gildarts to drive him to his parents' house, and let Zeref think of it as he wanted.

"I'll be out again this way tomorrow morning," Gildarts said as he pulled into the driveway of Natsu's childhood home. There was very little in the greater Magnolia area so Natsu figured he was coming out only to pick him up. It was generous of him. And Natsu didn't want to be there a moment longer than he had to be. A day and a night were more than enough.

"Thanks. And thanks for doing this." On his weekend off, no less.

"I don't mind, but one day, we should think about heading to the scrapyard to pick out a car. I'll show you how to fix it up so you're not stranding Zeref whenever you want to go somewhere." Gildarts' mouth quirked into a genuine smile that Natsu struggled to return, not because he was ungrateful but because it shouldn't have been Gildarts doing this kind of stuff.

"Thanks."

"I'll have my phone on if you need me."

"Thanks," Natsu said again and stepped out.

There were no snowbanks on the front lawn now, this week had been warm and winter was fast-retreating, but Natsu could see where once, he'd wait for Zeref to get off the bus so he could pelt him with snowballs.

There was a little roof covering the well out front and a garden in the shape of a heart. A new Volkswagen was in the driveway and the porch was tidy. Everything looked just so. Natsu couldn't tell if it was staged, though. When his mother was happy, everything was ship-shape. There was a great contrast from the woman she was when Natsu was five to the woman she was when he turned thirteen. His memory was good, though. He could remember the orderly kitchen filled with clipped daisies, and, years after, he could remember the crowded countertop choking under breadcrumbs and, yes, even mouse droppings. There always seemed to be a rotting squash lost behind the stacks of stale bread, too.

Before he could get up the steps, his mother had the door open and was coming out to greet him. Her hair was a raven's wing, just like Zeref's. Her smile was Zeref's, too. She gathered him in for a hug that Natsu returned. She smelled like apples and cinnamon and felt thinner beneath his hands, older. She squeezed him tight, though, and kissed beside his ear so loudly, it hurt his hearing.

"I missed you."

"Missed you, too," Natsu said. His father appeared behind his mother's shoulder. He was greyer and thinner and his shoulders were less broad than Natsu remembered. His smile made the skin around his eyes crinkle.

"Hey, Natsu." His voice was a smoker's, craggy and familiar.

"Hey." Natsu thought it would be weird but his dad brought him in for a hug and he decided that the passage of time eased everything, hate and pain, and made decent the worst men and women.


Natsu helped his dad put away the snow blower, then climbed on the roof with him and helped clean out the chimney. It was messy but Natsu didn't mind. This was Zeref's job when they still lived at home, back when Natsu was young enough to be jealous of Zeref's responsibilities. Doing the work gave him a weird sort of validation. He almost felt like an adult. Now if only he could get all of his shit in order.

"Your mom's missed you." His dad lifted a tarp as he spoke so he didn't have to look at Natsu. "You should call her more."

"I know. I've just been busy."

"She thinks Zeref's telling you to stay away."

It was a trap. To deny him would mean that Natsu was admitting he was ignoring them of his own volition. To accept his accusation meant Zeref would be on the firing line.

His father let the silence stand while he folded the tarp over the snow blower. Its wheels were tucked away when he said, "How are things going in the city?"

"Fine."

"I drove by the address Zeref gave us and knocked on the door." Likely the day Natsu didn't answer his phone; Natsu didn't want to speak to ask. The address was given to their mother in case of emergency. She said she'd hide it. Either she didn't, or her husband had gone through her things looking for it. "You're living in an old movie shop."

"Zeref knows the building owner."

"It's not an apartment."

"Our couches and bedrooms say otherwise."

His father continued like he hadn't spoken. "I'm not even sure it's legal."

Natsu bit his cheek hard to keep from continuing with something nasty.

His father got to the point. "Maybe you should move back into the house. It'd be more stable for you. I'll clean out the basement and you can have that space."

"What's that going to cost me?" Natsu asked dryly.

"Your mother and I were talking, we could rent it out to you for nine hundred, inclusive."

That was more than double what he was supposed to be giving Zeref. "That's a lot."

"Most apartments in the city go for almost double that."

"Which is why I live illegally in a shitty movie store."

His father was undeterred and still flinging around the parent card. "It's not a good atmosphere. You're trying to get your life together; you need something steady."

"My father taking my money to pay off his gambling debts is hardly good or steady."

"How dare you?" his father looked angry, Natsu was angrier.

"Am I wrong?"

He opened his mouth. Natsu knew lies were about to come out. He huffed and turned on his heel, leaving his father behind.


Natsu's feet took him through an old quarry to a place he hadn't been in months. He felt guilty when he stayed away for so long, and sheepish when he sat by the mound of rocks that wasn't where Lisanna Strauss was buried but was her favourite place to be when they were young. It was a better place to honour her than in the graveyard, Natsu thought.

Red sand baked beneath the sun and the smell of clay was on the air. His boots picked up a layer of it and got heavy. He found a pile of sand some locals used as a dirt bike jump and threw himself down on it, just meters from Lisanna's memorial.

"Hey," he told her like she was there and could speak back. She could, in a way, if he closed his eyes and imagined her drifting over in her favourite blue dress and sitting down beside him. He needed a friend like Lisanna so Natsu exercised his imagination and saw her vividly.

She was older now than when she'd died. Thinner, her baby fat cheeks now full of sharp angles, cheekbones protruding in the same dramatic way her sister's did.

"You look sad, Natsu," he imagined she'd say.

"Annoyed, not sad," he said to empty air.

The real Lisanna would blow her feathery bangs from her forehead and say, "One or the other. Doesn't matter. Talk to me about it."

The real Natsu would tell her to forget about it, it wasn't important. This was pretend, though, so he watched puffy white clouds go by and told her every little thing, from Lucy to her family to the drugs to his own fucked up family and everything in between. She listened with practiced patience. Lisanna was always good in this role.

"Now I'm wondering what to do next."

"Run away," she said at last.

Natsu squeezed warm sand between his fingers. "That's your answer to everything."

"It works."

He felt a dull pang where his heart was. "No, it doesn't." It didn't work for her, she'd found that out the hard way, and it wouldn't work for him and Lucy. Her family would find them. And if it wasn't that, then it was going to be something worse. "We'll have to figure something else out."

Fake Lisanna dug the heels of her sandals into the dirt mound and watched the grains of sand roll down the hill. "It'll work out."

Natsu didn't know if that was true or not, but he felt a bit better anyway. "Thanks, Lis."

She turned to look at him; late afternoon sunlight caught like glitter in her hair. She sparkled. Then she squinted, looking at something behind Natsu, and dimmed from view.

Natsu felt the weight drop down beside him before he addressed his company. Mira was no longer stick-thin, though she was still done up head-to-toe in black. Her hair had fluorescent highlights that were slowly dulling and her eyes were heavily lined with black. She fiddled with the lip ring she'd had for the last three years that Natsu had known her and didn't immediately say hello. They sat in silence and the only thing that made it uncomfortable was Natsu's wondering how much of his conversation she heard and how crazy she thought he was.

"Sometimes, I come out here to talk to her, too," Mira said like she knew his thoughts.

Natsu said nothing.

"I hope she gave you some good advice. Everything she's been telling me lately is shitty."

Mira's sour attitude surprised him, if only because it was directed at her sister. "Why?"

"I told her Elfman and I were moving to Fairy Hills and she told me it was good."

"The group home?" Natsu asked.

"Yeah."

"Your parents—"

She was short and to the point. "Mom got cancer two months ago and then Dad got into a car accident."

Natsu stared at her disbelievingly. "Mira…"

"Every time I turn around, something fucked up happens. I'm cursed," she muttered and lit a cigarette with a lime green zippo. It didn't smell right. Natsu realized it was because she'd mixed the tobacco with marijuana.

"You and me both."

"I think it's this town," Mira said.

When she was alive, Lisanna thought similarly. Natsu was inclined to think otherwise. "It's the people." People made a thing ugly or beautiful. People, not places.

Mira let him have his vehement response. She laid back. "Will you see us when we move?"

Natsu laid back, too. "You'll be pretty close to me, so yeah. But why are they sending you to the group home? I thought you were nineteen."

"It's for Elfman, mostly," she said. "There's a therapist there and they want us both to attend, so Mister Dreyar said we could just move in for a few months."

"That's…" Good? Alright? Unlucky?

Mira saved him. "Do you smoke?" She held up her cigarette.

Once, it might have been strange to share a joint with her, but a lot had happened since she was Scary Mira. Natsu accepted her offer and the smoke burned down into his lungs. "You can tell me, too, you know," she said while Natsu exhaled. "What's bothering you, I mean. Lisanna's gone but I'm still here." A thing she'd been struggling with, Natsu could see the evidence on her arms where she'd scratch because she was frustrated, but not too deep because she was scared of ending up on the other side with no way back.

Natsu took another inhale while he thought about it. Eventually, he decided that Mira was almost as good of a confidante as Lisanna. She knew nearly all of his family secrets, too. "There's a girl."

Mira plucked at the sand with a small, wistful smile. "There's always a girl. Does she know you're agonizing about her?"

"I'm not agonizing."

"If you agonized much, you'd realize how much of a lie that was."

Maybe she was right. "Things have been… better, but—"

"Does she know? Yes, or no?"

"Sure she does. Stuff is complicated, though," Natsu said haltingly.

She got dreamy. "The best stuff always is."

Mira was toeing a chasm. Rage on one side, kindness on the other, a black hole of sad straight below. Each day she was reaching for something that seemed unattainable. She was complicated's living definition. Knowing that was what made Natsu comfortable enough to edge around the truth.

"It's her family. And my family. Zeref's been weird, Mom and Dad are cobbling their lives back together poorly, and I'm… Trying to make it work."

She fingered her scabbed arms. "Things always get worse before they get better. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's some stupid self-help bullshit I read online."

"Oh." Should he be reading self-help things? That seemed like a lot of effort. Like Lisanna said, things had a way of working themselves out, right?

Footsteps signaled another's arrival. Natsu looked back over his shoulder and watched Elfman approach. Mira stabbed out her cigarette and then put the butt in her pocket so she didn't desecrate Lisanna's memorial site.

Natsu said, "Hey, Elfman."

"Hey." He was so much more melancholy now. Larger than ever, though, burly through his shoulders and his neck and his arms. He kind of reminded Natsu of an oak tree. "The movers just called, Mira, they're on their way."

"I gotta go," Mira said to Natsu. "But here's my number. Text me some time and we'll hang out."

"Thanks." Natsu took out his phone while she sprouted numbers and plugged her information in. "When do you move?"

"Tomorrow." She stood and wiped sand from her pants. "They don't want us staying in the house by ourselves."

"I'll probably text you next week or something then," Natsu said.

Mira stooped and hugged him quickly around the shoulders. She used the same laundry detergent Lisanna used to. "It was good to see you. Take care of yourself." Elfman was there to put his arm around her shoulder when she stood.

Natsu watched them until he could no longer, and then he said goodbye to Lisanna. Her ghost was long gone if it had ever been there at all.

Crickets sang him home down a stretch of country road. Thick pines stood guard on either side and greedily swallowed back the headlights of any car that passed—a total of three. Natsu walked less carefully than he should have. Mira's weed was shitty but he'd been that person and hogged most of it, so sounds and lights and shapes were all blurring together.

Out of the din came two voices, raised so much that Natsu could hear them a kilometer down the road. The trees opened up and he confirmed what he'd suspected—they were coming from his parent's house.

He went in through the front door and up the stairs without detection, his mother was laying into some insult hard and his father wasn't taking it on his back.

In his room, Natsu dropped down the rest of the money Zeref owed them onto the bed, and two hundred extra, then gathered his things and left.

Three hours into his walk back, Natsu considered the intelligence of his course of action. It was late, it was getting cold, and if he wasn't mistaken, those were thunder clouds on the eastern horizon. A rumble confirmed it.

The next car that passed, he stuck his thumb out and was blatantly ignored. The next car swerved around him hugely. The third blasted their horn.

He tried again seven more times before the glow of red brake lights lit up the tar top road. He thought of Lisanna with every step he took toward the idling vehicle. It had been some time since he'd thought of her with such clarity. He half-expected her to pop up beside him again and express to him the dangers of hopping into a stranger's van.

She did no such thing so Natsu thought it was relatively safe to approach. (Ludicrous for a guy that didn't believe in fate and didn't really believe in ghosts.)

It was a craggy old lady in the front seat that looked at him shrewdly, a snarl on her lips and a wry and challenging tilt to her brow, her features visible by the green glow of her dash. "If you're looking for an old lady to mug, I'll chop you up and leave you on the side of the road."

He believed it, too, there was a cleaver sitting on the floor of her van and a myriad of other chef supplies strung up in the back. "No, Ma'am. Just looking to get to Magnolia."

"Get in then, boy, hurry up."

Natsu did as she said.

They listened to Peter, Paul and Mary on the way. It was a lot for a thirty-minute car ride. The silence wasn't filled by talking; the woman seemed more comfortable to mouth along with the songs and Natsu was busy fielding furious texts from his mother. He had to tell her something, otherwise, she'd be calling Gildarts and telling him to go on the hunt so he told her Lucy showed up. She accepted his answer after he told her he left cash upstairs.

The music changed to Johnny Cash just as the woman pulled up to the main intersection just outside of Magnolia. Natsu thanked her and tried to hand off five bucks. She pushed the bills at him and told him a surly, "Keep your damn money."

"Thanks," Natsu muttered and got out. Exhaust clouded around his head a second later.

It took an additional thirty minutes to trek back through Magnolia to the movie shop. In that time, he answered a text from Lucy and told her that his visit home was going well. it was too hard to explain otherwise, and dodged two homeless, one man and one woman. The former tried to sell himself for money, the latter begged Natsu for drugs he didn't have.

He thought as the apartment came into view that he could finally relax, but when he opened the door he was greeted by the colour red. Zeref was covered in it, and the body at his feet looked like it had stopped bleeding it.


A/N It's been a while but I am actually alive. This is taking a direction I didn't foresee. I don't hate it. If you do… well. Just well. I'm actually too tired to stick up for myself. This is what I felt like doing.

(I think I might do a one-shot for Lisanna in this universe and post it to SleeplessComplication. It'll be dark as fuck, though. Her last days on this earth. People say I'm mean to Juvia. It's a lie. Lisanna is my scapegoat. Poor, sweet Lisanna. (That also is a lie. I'm just mean.))