Love, is it real love? It's like smilin' when the firin' squad's against you and you just stay lined up.
Zeref's knuckles were white on the steering wheel all the way down Main Street. The colour made the fresh scabs really stand out against his skin. Natsu tongued his cheek. His face was fucked up, sure, but was it that level of fucked up or did Zeref find someone else to cut through in an attempt to satiate his rage? It was hard to say and he didn't know how to ask, afraid of another outburst.
"Lucy came by the apartment last night."
Natsu's guts sank. "I told her not to."
"She's not really the kind of girl that does what you tell her. I thought you knew that?"
In fact, it was part of what he loved about her. It was proving to be really fucking troublesome now. "Was there trouble after?"
Zeref considered his next words carefully, obviously weighing the pros and cons of dishing up his next bit of information.
Natsu ripped the words out. "Did you have to go back out to the quarry?"
Zeref looked at him sharply. "Shut up about that, will you? How the fuck can we move on when you've still got your head all tangled up with that shit?"
"Did you?"
"No. Now like I said, shut up. It's not any of your business."
Natsu found he was still mad. Mad enough to pick a fight.
Zeref sidetracked him. "Her family's got her watched. The guy changes every few days but one of her tails is a friend of mine. He was on her last night and didn't care that she came over."
"So... her father doesn't know?"
"For now. I didn't tell her not to come back."
"Why would you do that?"
He took in a breath so huge, it made his shoulders lift. "Because you're my little brother and I want you to be happy."
"I can't be that with Lucy."
Zeref looked supremely disappointed, though they both knew it was a terrible idea from the start.
They didn't say another word to each other again until Natsu was in the living room, looking at the mess they'd made. Zeref got a broom and started sweeping and while he worked, he told him, "I called Gildarts."
"What for?"
"To tell him you're staying over for a few days."
"More chop shop business?"
Zeref didn't look at all surprised that he knew; Angel must have told him she blabbed. "You need a few days and so do I. I'll get this place cleaned up and when you come back, everything will be better."
"Define better?"
"We'll stop pretending," Zeref said bluntly.
Natsu wanted clarification but Gildarts' yellow muscle car pulled up in front of the building and Zeref went back to cleaning.
"I packed a bag for you."
"What if I don't want to go?"
He didn't give him an answer.
The door was knocked upon. Natsu waited for Zeref to move but he didn't so Natsu got it.
Gildarts had schooled his face into a smile but Natsu could see past it to the worry. "Hey kid, ready to go?"
Not really. When he considered telling him to go away, though, he played out a scenario where he stayed at home with his brother. He didn't want to. He didn't want to think about the silent awkwardness that followed after you spent the night with your brother's girlfriend. He didn't want to think about staying there to clean up the mess they'd made when Zeref pushed him through the coffee table. Going back to his parents was somehow worse and he didn't relish spending the night out on the street.
He wondered if Cana would take him in but thought probably not. She was skittish, afraid of anything getting too real.
"Let me grab my bag."
Gildarts had the day off, which was a blessing and a curse. He made lunch, which Natsu wasn't too interested in eating, but then he hooked up the SNES and they played Mario Cart for hours. The first hour that ticked past was rough, but by the second, Natsu had drunk a litre of water, picked at the curly fries Gildarts made and felt a little more human. He won a round, he laughed some, he petted Rosie and then helped make dinner, though he was dreading the last. Standing at the counter with food splayed out in front of him? That's when Gildarts always broached the hard subjects.
Today was no exception. Natsu was chopping up an onion and Gildarts was heating up the skillet when he asked, "Why'd you and Zeref get into it?"
"Who says we did?"
"His face is fucked up, your face is fucked up, and you're over here. I don't need to be a detective to figure it out."
No, he supposed not. Natsu sighed. "I don't know. He just flipped."
"For no reason?"
There were plenty of reasons. None of them was very good.
"Does it have to do with that girl? Angel?"
"How do you know about her?"
"Because Zeref came here looking for you and when he didn't find you, he said he was going to check her place."
Natsu took the onions to the skillet and dumped them in. Oil sizzled. "It wasn't about Angel."
Gildarts waited patiently for him to spill. Natsu always did.
"He goes through my shit and throws it out. I called him on it and he had a meltdown."
"Don't hold it against him. His methods are shitty, I know, but he didn't know how else to get through to you."
Natsu didn't know if it was better or worse that Gildarts seemed to know. On one hand, he didn't have to sneak and lie but on the other, he felt like he'd disappointed him, somehow.
"He shouldn't have touched it."
"That could be said of both of you but people make mistakes."
Natsu's mouth worked itself into a frown. "Everything's fine."
"It's not, Natsu. You know it's not. You're not the only one in the world that's ever gone through it, though."
"Ah, fuck." He didn't want to sit through an 'everyone has struggles' talk.
Gildarts marched on stoically. "When Cornelia left me, I got bad into the sauce. My work almost fired me."
"You did?"
"Yeah. I thought I didn't have anything to fill my nights with so why not booze? Things got pretty fucked for a while."
"How'd you pull out of it?"
"Things were going badly for Zeref and your family and I knew you were going to be out next and I told myself that I might not have Cornelia but I still had people important to me."
Natsu stared at the ground uncomfortably. "I guess."
"And you know how he feels about snow, but did Zeref ever tell you about when he was in thick with Black Pearl?"
"No."
"There was a six-month stint after he first moved out where I pulled his head out of more than a few toilets."
And that's why they didn't fuck with heroin.
"My point is, you have people that understand and care and that want to help if you'll let us."
He didn't want to be that person, wrung out on the street corner begging for change so he could pay his dealer. He didn't want it to be the only thing he thought about. He didn't want to fuck his brother's girlfriend because he couldn't discern right from wrong. "Okay."
Gildarts made sure to tell him, "It's going to be hard. You might even have relapses, but that's okay. We'll get through it."
The third night Natsu was "clean"—he allowed himself only cigarettes—he was lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling when he heard a key in the lock of the Bunkie. He pushed up on his elbows, expecting Cana and glad, she would be a good distraction for his sweaty, anxious and sleepless night. The person that came through, though, wasn't Cana. He knew as soon as he smelled her perfume and wasn't sure if he was furious or glad; that seemed to be his usual state whenever Lucy was involved, though.
He watched her in the moonlight. She was wearing high tops and took them off at the door. She was in a jean jacket and took that off, too. Under that, she wore a dark crop top and a pair of shorts that really were more like underwear.
She gathered her hair over her shoulder and scrunched it between her two hands like she was wringing a towel dry. She always did that when she was nervous.
Her shoulders got straight and her hands dropped to her sides and she crossed the room.
Natsu watched her come to the head of the bed and felt her weight settle down on the mattress beside his shoulder. Her hand rested just gently against his bicep and she squeezed. "Natsu?"
He considered faking it until she went away. Like she read his mind, Lucy said, "I know you're awake. You always snore."
"No, I don't."
Natsu watched Lucy's cheeks fill with a smile. "You're asleep, how would you know?"
Natsu pulled himself out of their familiar banter. "You shouldn't be here."
"Zeref said you were going through some stuff."
"What?" Natsu croaked.
"And that you'd be at Gildarts' for a while." She wrung her fingers together.
He sighed and pressed his palms against his eyes. "So you rushed over and invited yourself into my room?"
"I spoke to Gildarts first," she said defensively.
"You didn't knock."
"You never used to knock on my window, you just climbed inside. It's what we do."
"Did."
Her eyes were bright by the pale moonlight. She was crying because she was mad or sad and Natsu didn't want to ask which. She didn't attack him for making her feel that way. "Do you want to talk about what's going on with you?"
"Nothing's going on."
She gave him such a look that he sighed and came back with, "Talking to my ex-girlfriend about it is actually literally the last thing I want to do."
Lucy's fingers crushed the blankets. "Okay. I understand."
She wasn't meant to. But she always seemed to.
"Can I lie down with you?"
"Shouldn't you go home? Won't you be missed?"
"My dad is out of the country again and Jellal sicked one of his lackeys on me. He's Zeref's friend, though, and said if I wanted a night to just do me, then to take it."
"And you believed him."
"Why wouldn't I?"
Lucy was such an idealist. Trusting everyone too quickly. And stubborn, lying down on his bed without his express permission. She curled in on herself, leaving a bit of space between them. He could stand that space less than he could stand her presence. It was another thing to withhold himself from, though, and it distracted from the hollow in his belly.
They were quiet, staring at each other through the fabric of shadow.
"I kissed someone," Lucy told him. "After I saw you and that girl at the beach. I thought, why should Natsu get to move on and all I do is miss him?"
"Was it Loke?" Natsu asked, though he thought he didn't really want to know.
"I don't even like him," she said in answer and he felt his guts clench. "I just wanted to hurt you. The worst part? He wouldn't even kiss me back. He's a fuck boy that wouldn't fuck."
Where did one sign up for classes on that? That kind of fortification could have saved him a lot of guilt.
Lucy got quiet again like she expected a confession from him. And he wanted to tell her. "I hooked up with Zeref's girlfriend. And he knows. He's acting like it didn't happen, though."
"Would you rather him be mad?"
A little. The silent treatment was just another testament to how out of control his life had gotten lately. Zeref wasn't angry because he thought it was the drugs doing the fucking, not his little brother. It was infuriating. He didn't want the drugs to be the problem. He loved them.
Lucy shifted and put her hand in his. "Even at your worst, you're still Natsu. Competitive. Obsessed with skeeball and dragons and food. Zeref knows it, I know it. Things are just kind of weird right now."
It shouldn't have made his throat close tight but it did. He didn't know why it should make him reach for her either, but it did.
Lucy settled beneath his hand on her cheek, surprising him. He thought she would have scooted over a little more, tried to pry a response out of him, but she didn't. Not having that from Lucy left him feeling more afloat than he already was.
It was selfish but if he couldn't count on Lucy being Lucy, he couldn't count on anything. "Didn't you come to convince me that we could actually do this? Be together?"
"It's more important that you be yourself again," she said.
"But you still want this."
She searched his eyes. "I've told you how I feel."
He kissed her. And he kissed her again. The way she kissed him back spoke of want but surprise. She wasn't lying, she was the same old Lucy, wanting the same old things. She felt the same, soft skin, generous waist, warm. She smelled the same, vanilla and hints of lavender. She kissed the same, she always touched his bottom lip with her tongue when she wanted entry, she always moaned on the tail end of her sighs when she was excited, she always wrapped her leg around his and pulled him on top.
Natsu rerouted his frustration into her and kissed her hard and long. Each second that passed made her grasp at him more frantically, made them both forget the months that stood between them, the hurt and the lies.
She grabbed his holy and well-loved band shirt and pulled it over his head. She did the same for her own and then pulled him right back down so there was no space between them.
He could have just continued to kiss her and be happy but Lucy wriggled out of her shorts and her underwear and showed him what she wanted and he gave it to her because being with her again, he felt like himself. Or as close to himself as he could get.
Afterwards, she stood and started to dress. Not just dress, but get her shoes on, too.
"Is that it?"
Lucy looked back over her shoulder. "It's what you want, isn't it?"
He sat on the edge of his bed and dug his hands through his hair, trying to think of an answer. Was it? Was it not? And if not, what did he want?
"Because I could tell you that I found a way for this to work." He hung onto her words despite himself. "I could tell you all about Jellal's mistress and the information I've been gathering on her. I could tell you about my dad's shady business deal and the horrible, terrible things I think him and my uncle have done. I could tell you about the work I have ahead of me, proving it."
All those sounded like dangerous things.
"You need to be careful, Lucy."
"I didn't think you'd be interested. I'll see you around," Lucy said with a glibness Natsu didn't think her capable of. She left him with a warm spot on his bed that still smelled like her body lotion.
I woke up wondering, what if I did something terrible?
