You only love me when I'm drunk
Days dripped by. Cana wouldn't answer her phone. He couldn't call Lucy. Erik's house was a pool of bad decisions waiting to happen, and his own was like living in tempered chaos. Zeref never hid the drugs or the deals or the plans from him. He watched Natsu carefully, though. Every movement, looking for relapse.
Ultear found Natsu's heroin two weeks after the first night she'd met Cana. She lay on his bed with her feet up against the wall and her head hanging over the side, upside down, and she surveyed everything with such a practiced eye. "What's in the clock?"
Natsu looked up from his computer screen. Gildarts kept sending him college information pamphlets. He wasn't very subtle. He kept going big. EMS and Police Foundations were looking for people, apparently, for the semester that started in January. That was only three months away. "What?"
"What. Is. In. The. Clock?"
Natsu followed her eye to his dragon clock. The clock face was just slightly askew. "Nothing."
"You're such a little liar." She swung her legs off the bed, as lithe as a ballerina, and snatched it off the dresser. Natsu chased after her but by the time he caught up to her back at the bed again, she had the timepiece popped out and his heroin was in her hand. Just seeing it made his guts clench and his balls shrink.
Ultear clutched it to her chest and turned around. Her eyes were wide with delight. "I thought Zeref told you not to have this anymore?"
"I don't."
"Really? You don't? I'm in someone else's room?"
He rolled his eyes. "Exactly. Give it back." He needed it back. The only reason he'd been able to go so long without it was because it was there in case he needed it.
"How did you even get this?" Ultear still held it, turning it around in her hands. "No one was supposed to sell to you. Zeref's going to be pissed."
"No, he's not, because no one sold to me and you're not going to tell him."
Ultear's eyebrow came up. "I'm not?"
"Please, Ultear." He didn't like begging her as much as she liked him begging. Her smile got wicked and she leaned in.
"What do I get?"
At this point? Anything. "What do you want?"
"Get Zeref to come to the Halloween party next week," she said.
"Zeref hates stuff like that."
"I know. Which is why I want you to convince him to do it."
"Choose something else," Natsu begged.
She inclined her body toward the exit. "There's nothing else I want."
"You're asking for something impossible," Natsu said.
"Then I guess I'm going to march into his room right now and tell him what I just found."
And she wasn't joking. "You're a bitch."
"I know."
"Fine," Natsu said after some consideration. "Fine, I'll get him to come." Begging Zeref was worth it to avoid the fallout that would come from if she did what she threatened.
Ultear smiled and thrust the brick back at him. "Good."
Natsu put it away again, carefully, handling it like he was handling a tarantula.
"How long have you had that for?" Ultear asked.
"Two weeks." He'd been counting.
"And you've kept it for so long?"
"I'm trying not to smoke it," he admitted.
Ultear rolled her eyes. "Just throw it out."
Without any other distraction, he didn't think he could, and his distraction had been dutifully avoiding him as of late. "Have you talked to Cana?"
She shrugged, infuriatingly nonchalant. "Yeah, I guess."
"Has she said anything to you?"
"About Lucy?" Ultear suggested. "Nope." She sang it.
"Why's she ignoring me, then?"
"God, Natsu. Are you hung up on her now, too?" When Ultear set out to be mean, her eyes got hard.
"She's my friend."
"That you sometimes fuck."
"So what? I do the same with you."
She wagged her finger in front of his face. "You never look at me like that."
"She's just my friend," Natsu said firmly.
Ultear threw herself back on his bed. "Whatever. What are you dressing up as for this party?"
He hadn't really thought of it. Being another person for a night sounded too good.
Gildarts stood behind Natsu with his arms crossed over his chest. He was fresh off his shift and there was a fast food burger in his hand, half-eaten. "You're not going to some bush party, are you?"
"Nope." It wouldn't be in a bush. Natsu turned left and right, trying to decide if he liked the way the uniform fit him. Gildarts was taller but they were about the same width. "Zeref's dressing up as Scarecrow from Batman and he's going to sit on the curb, scaring kids, and I'm going to give them candy."
"Sounds kind of mean."
"Fear's the best part of Halloween," Natsu told him. "And candy."
"Alright," Gildarts conceded. "Take off the nametag."
Natsu unclipped the silver G. Clive pin and set it on the dresser.
Gildarts picked it up and turned it around in his fingers. He was looking serious and thoughtful. "One day, that could say N. Dragneel."
He may have scoffed if he wasn't thinking the same thing, dressed up like that. He pulled the collar straight. "It could, one day."
Gildarts smiled; it was a hundred-watt. "It looks good on you, kid."
Natsu then thought about the body buried in the quarry. "Yeah."
Most kids were afraid to approach the movie store. The ones that were brave enough got the life scared out of them; Zeref could be very, very still, and then very, very fast. He seeped danger, even when he was playing. Natsu placated the most scared with a smile he hadn't worn in a long time. It fit his face badly but stretched out after a few hours and almost felt natural again.
One podgy kid toed his way to the storefront, his Power Ranger's outfit baggy and too long. He kept one eye on Zeref's limp arms and covered face, and one eye on Natsu and his fake gun and the bowl of candy at his feet. "Trick or treat."
Natsu grabbed a handful of candy and plopped it in his outstretched pumpkin. "Trick."
"What?"
Zeref came alive and ran at the boy. The boy screamed and bolted the other direction; he didn't stop to look back over his shoulder or to laugh. Natsu doubled over laughing; Zeref joined him and he felt better. Almost good. Almost great.
Zeref took his mask off his face and lit a cigarette. "I think that one wet himself."
Natsu cackled; it was mean but Zeref was smiling almost like the boy that smiled before he left his parents' house. "I don't know if we're going to top that one."
Laughter skated around the corner. "We've got more coming." Zeref took one last haul off his cigarette then dropped it and pulled his mask on, going limp against the wall once more. Natsu schooled his features and pulled down Gildarts' aviators.
A group of girls came around the corner. They were older, nineteen, maybe, twenty. They were dressed as Ghost Busters and were bogged down by bags of candy. One of them started to swing that way, but another grabbed her arm and held her back. "We should keep going."
Natsu got hung up on her voice. He had to take off his sunglasses to see her clearly but there was no mistaking that wheat-coloured hair. Lucy locked eyes with him and he felt her dig in. She looked dangerous next to Levy and two other girls he didn't know. She stood apart, determined and hardened. That was not the Lucy Heartfilia he left sitting on his tailgate. This Lucy was thinking crazy, perilous things.
She looked away and kept walking, hips swaying, candy bag swinging, and he felt like a hole opened up inside his chest. He searched desperately for something to plug it. Zeref caught his shoulder, grounding him. He'd removed his mask. "You want to head to that party now?"
"Yeah." Anything to get out of there.
They parked the Dakota in the field belonging to an abandoned farmhouse where the party took place. Zeref turned on the overhead light and got a pipe out of the console. He packed it full of weed and then turned the light off again. A lighter swicked, swicked, and the cabin filled with orange firelight. Natsu stayed in the cab, letting the smoke engulf him.
"She might be here, too." Zeref exhaled and handed the pipe over. Natsu took it.
"I know."
"You still haven't talked to her?"
"No."
"That's your choice, I guess." Natsu took too much from the pipe; his thoughts blurred. Zeref took it back from him and killed the rest. "Come on, let's go scare some adults."
"I think I might just take the truck back."
"Don't be like that."
"I'm tired."
"Fuck that. Come on, we were having fun." Zeref pushed him toward his door; Natsu pushed him back.
"Fuck off."
Natsu didn't prepare for when Zeref grabbed him and manhandled him out the driver's door. They stumbled and tumbled over the rutted ground and Natsu's adrenaline spiked. He stood and got ready to push Zeref off. Zeref got beneath him and lifted him clear off the ground in a fireman's carry. He was laughing and running and his laughter was infectious. Natsu felt it niggled way down deep in his bones, obliterate the adrenaline he'd been feeling, and spark that small fire that had sputtered to life earlier that night. It was slow-burning but it caught. He started laughing, too, unhinged and manic. Possessed.
Everything warbled, sparse trees, bodies moving up and down the long driveway, pumpkins lit up from the inside, some with faces meant to make you laugh, some with ones made to make your heart beat fast. Zeref ran through them, bowling some over, leaping over others. He tried to dodge a person but ended up colliding head-on. They all went down, arms and legs everywhere, laughter everywhere, blood everywhere. Natsu's nose was gushing. He laughed even while he plugged it. Whoever they'd bumped into swore at them and fucked off.
Zeref helped him to his feet, the laughter draining out of him like water from a bathtub. "You alright?"
"I'm fine."
"You're bleeding."
"Just bumped my nose." He could already feel it starting to slow up.
"There's water in the Dakota, and shop towels," Zeref said.
"I'll be back in a minute," Natsu said and left his brother there.
It was quiet away from the driveway, everything was muted and dark. Natsu felt separate from the party, an outside observer watching people dawdle up the driveway. Some people loitered on the grass next to the gravel and scared others. Screams filled the hollow places darkness created.
Natsu dug up a bottle of water from the side compartment on the driver's door and found the shop towels beneath the passenger's seat. He soaked the thick fabric and mopped up the blood. He gently blew his nose, too. It didn't really hurt, though he couldn't tell if that was because the pot was dulling the sensation or if he really didn't hit his face very hard.
He packed another pipe in case it was the former, and put it in his pocket.
He threw the towels beside the passenger's door and closed up again. On his way back, he recognized Cana's dark hair. She had cat ears on her head and Ultear on her arm. Ultear waggled her fingers at Zeref and continued up the driveway.
Natsu looked after them for a moment before following.
Up top was much livelier. In This Moment's Big Bad Wolf was coming out of the ancient, decrepit barn and Taylor Swift's Look What You Made Me Do came out of the house. People danced, and laughed and screamed and threw up in the farm field and fucked wherever they pleased.
Natsu got sidetracked by Erik, who wanted to do shots. He stayed for three of them before thinking up some excuse to move on again. He spied Cana's cat ears in the thick of things. She was spinning. Mira was at her side. They went down together, right there in the middle of everything. Natsu pushed his way through the crowd to keep a closer eye on them though he did not approach, remembering the last encounter he'd had with Mira.
They were talking amicably at first, then Mira said something and Cana's expression soured. She said something back and stood. Mira reached for her hand and Cana pulled away, leaving Mira on her own looking stricken and sick. Cana had a penchant for making people feel that way. Natsu followed her through the crowd and caught her before she could get into the barn.
"Cana."
She whirled on him. The movement seemed to make her dizzy. She took his arm and steadied herself. "Heyyy."
The weeks of silence hung between them. Natsu didn't know what to say so he pulled out his pipe and asked, "Got a light?"
She got one out from between her breasts. Natsu took it and found a path to a part of the party that was quieter, more private, behind the barn and against the barn boards. Cana followed him like he thought she would, she couldn't resist a little bit of self-destruction. She put her hips against his without asking, and it wasn't awkward like he thought it might be after so long.
She asked, "Did you figure shit out with Lucy?"
He didn't want to think about Lucy. He didn't want to think about anything. He wanted to keep up the way he felt when Zeref was lugging him through the field, the way he felt when he was laughing, the easiness of his and Cana's interaction. He kissed her. If she was surprised, she didn't show it. She opened up and Natsu was able to stuff down any bad feeling and keep his high rolling.
Cana didn't care where they were. She pulled him in by his borrowed uniform and kissed him chaotically. Her mouth didn't quite fit on his, and everything she did was just a little bit off-kilter. She was on something more than just weed, she was removed from everything but him; he seemed to be her tether. They'd been that for each other for long enough now, Natsu fell into the role effortlessly.
He pushed her back against the building. Ancient wood sponged beneath her, bowing in and staying in with the pressure of their bodies. Cana took her shirt off; Natsu helped her with her pants. He was pulling at his own, too, when he got caught on red and blue flashing lights. They pulsed against the side of the barn in uneven synchronicity, blue, red, blue, red, blue—
"Fuck." Fuck. "You need to get dressed."
She wasn't listening, her eyes were still closed and her head was still back and she did nothing to cover her breasts. He grabbed her shirt and did it for her. "Cana."
It was too late. Gildarts stepped out of the shadow and asked, "What the fuck are you doing, Natsu?"
The only thing he could think to say was, "Fuck."
"You can't be here."
Natsu held up his pants one-handed and still held the shirt to Cana's chest. Her eyes were open now, at least. "I'm not."
"Damn right you're not," Gildarts barked. "Get the fuck out of here and wait for me back home. And if you're spotted—"
He was on his own. "Yeah."
"Go."
"Cana—"
Gildarts pushed him. "Would you fucking get out of here?"
He would and did, running because more police were showing up, their cruisers zipping down the driveway. People yelled and ran. Some made it, others were wrangled in by officers. Natsu raced through the farmer's field. He could see the Dakota's tail lights. The truck was running but not moving. His phone was ringing in his pocket. Natsu pulled it out as he ran; ryegrass whipped at his legs and cold October air bit at his exposed chest.
"Where are you?" Zeref asked as soon as he picked up.
"I'm coming," Natsu panted.
"The cops are here, hurry up."
One was zagging his way, the light of his flashlight bobbing as he made his way through the landmine of a field. Natsu had one thing on his side—fearlessness. He didn't care if he rolled his ankle, he didn't care if he stepped on someone sleeping it off in the grass, he didn't care that it felt like he couldn't get air.
A cop car bounced off the driveway and started following the ancient farmer's tracks through the field towards the Dakota. Natsu put on a burst of speed and leapt for the box. He was barely inside when Zeref punched the gas pedal and the truck jerked forward. Bits of grass and dirt were kicked up behind them. Natsu held onto the truck bed and tried not to think about the last body that was in there. It was hard. Though the blood was long gone, he could feel it on his pants and on his hands.
You're just tripping. It was the darkness and the police chasing him and it was the jack-o'-lanterns silently hooting, laughing, laughing at him.
They hopped the ditch and Natsu almost bounced out of the truck. He had to hold onto the back rack to keep himself inside, and even then, it was spotty. His shoulder wrenched and his stomach leapt into his throat.
The truck made it to the road and the back tires grabbed pavement. The police car was still way back in the field, its lights illuminating a gaggle of people running in front of its hood. Natsu sank back into the box and lay there just like Wally had laid there, stiff and lifeless, staring at the stars unmoving as they passed beneath them.
The truck eventually stopped. The tailgate dropped and Zeref appeared. His eyes were wide and sober. "Are you okay?"
That was a hard question to answer. There wasn't anything physically wrong with him but he felt paralyzed. He was stuck in Wally's place, pinned not by death but by some neurosis. He could not move.
Zeref grabbed his foot like he was going to pull him out. "Natsu?"
"I'm fine," he lied for the second time that night. Zeref helped him inside, where they turned on the news to watch the police clean up the barn party but instead watched them excavate Wally from his grave in the quarry.
Natsu was sick. Zeref was immobile, staring at the TV white-knuckled.
