Downstairs and Dead
Chapter 5
Timing
She enjoyed studying him. They hadn't interacted much during their time in the guild, so there was a good deal to study, and – as they were interacting a lot now – she had the luxury of time to do so. Dissecting the depth of emotions in the subtle change of expression made for a good way to pass the time, if nothing else.
He had a habit of looking at the world with heavy eyelids and a neutral mouth. Tired, uninterested, apathetic; it was the varying light in his eyes and tension in his forearms that made the distinction. That gave him away. That helped her to know him, outside of their rooms.
Where he let himself go and became the awkward boy he'd probably locked away when his father was kicked out of the guild.
Of course, during dancing practice, he closed down again. Which was good. She told him so. He needed to be his most stoic on the dance floor. "Your way to charm the ladies," she had told him, and he looked at her in a way that would certainly do the job. So intimidating, yes, but good goodness. The power. The control. If she were so inclined in that direction...
She giggled.
From the other side of the carriage, he glared at her. True, he wasn't as bad as Natsu, but he was clearly uncomfortable. Hiding his sickness behind a gruff exterior and slouching into his coat. Hiding in the protection of his soundpods. Poor child.
Basically, he was pouting. His mouth was also a tell, though not as clear. It was somewhat obvious to her while dancing. But the downward twitch of the corner of his mouth, indicating his irritation when he messed up a step, was so small that she doubted a temporary partner would notice.
Anger was in the flexing of his shoulders. Rage she saw only once, when he turned away from her. His back hunched and the muscles there tightened so much that he bent slightly. They'd been going back through the folder, reading case after case. Trying to find a pattern in the women who were raped versus the women who were not.
She thought he would break something.
He broke nothing that day. Their entire stay at the castle, and they left the place completely undamaged. The hotel they'd stayed at the night before, undamaged. Lucy was entirely unsure what to do with herself.
Most Fairies were so extreme in their emotions, especially their happiness, that his slight smiles were easily missed. It made catching them a special occurrence. It made receiving them a gift. Sure, so far she'd gotten all of like two, but wow. Unexpected! Not those cocky smirks, which were a more common expression, but the smiles. The true smiles.
Laxus was easily the Fairy Tail mage most popular with non-guild, non-magical women, and she was selling him on that bad-boy scowl, but Lucy could imagine one of those smiles sending the lot of his hordes of wannabe fan-girl harems into swoons.
She laughed at the mental image and got a full frown in response. He was transportation-sick, so it was to be expected.
"Pretty damn rude for a person to laugh at a sick person. Hell, a teacher to laugh at her student."
"Ah, but you're not my student anymore. I no longer take any responsibility for your dancing or your eating." His skin went faintly olive-colored at the mention of food, and she grinned quite evilly. "We should arrive to the house today in time to have a late lunch on our own, but dinner will be served with the full party. Expect a massive number of courses to celebrate the fact that it's the first stop of the season. Turn down nothing and eat as much as possible. As Elfman would say, Be a man! It's one of those stupid dominance things. A healthy appetite will impress them. It is understood that great magic burns a large amount of energy. Eat. Just remember to do it politely."
He swallowed hard and stared so fiercely at the passing forest that she was surprised it didn't explode. "Anyone ever tell you you're a pain in the ass?"
"Huh? Of course not. Mama always said I was perfect," she teased.
"That would explain it."
His voice was gruff, and his glare was sharp, but the corner of his mouth was not turned down, and the muscles in his shoulders and forearms were as relaxed as they would ever be.
"Don't worry, Laxus. We'll be there soon. You can head up to the bathroom and puke right away if you want."
"I don't need to fucking puke..."
She rolled her eyes, "Mmm, of course you don't. Forgive me for even suggesting it."
"And I think we should worry..."
"What?"
"We're late," he told her, all signs of sickness leaving him as he focused more on the window. The sound around them changed as the wheels left the public paved road and moved onto the smooth-packed stone drive of the Mason house.
She lifted the curtain on her own window and twisted to look out, "We're not late. It doesn't..." She watched as doors were shut on a medical truck, and a driver climbed on the bench. The vehicle was flanked by local guards, and behind them stood a dozen servants, half weeping, half expressionless. All watching as they drove away.
"No..." Lucy breathed the word, barely able to vocalize. "No! Before even..." She tensed and then wilted. Lifting her face slightly, she whispered, "May she, whoever she is, find her way safely to the stars, and rest."
"At least we know one thing: The man is already here."
"Yes. And impatient. Barely three in the afternoon on the first day of the first house. Found at three, which means done sooner. We need to know if anyone arrived last night."
"How much damage? Could've been a quick kill." She wanted to moan, and his look was apologetic as he continued. "Could've been accidental. Might not be our guy. Maybe we're paranoid."
"Maybe."
But neither of them believed that. She didn't. He didn't.
"Loke. Gemini." She called her spirits, and they came to her. "We are approaching the gate. Are you able to act as our servants?"
"Of course, Princess."
"Good. Gemini, go for Lisanna's basic form, but in a simple dress. Like was discussed. I'll just need you to get the bags up. While the house itself is very large, the family is not all that wealthy, so they don't have many footmen."
Gemini did as asked and the remaining few minutes were spent in silence. When the carriage came finally to a halt, Lucy let out a whoosh of breath.
"Here we go."
"Lady Lucy Heartfelia. Mr. Laxus Dreyer." The short man who opened the carriage door had a deep voice and a sly smile. "Welcome to the house of Mason. If you will follow me, I will direct you to your rooms."
She nodded to him and preceded her large partner out of the carriage, hoping to set an example of behavior for him. As well as distraction from the combination of his lingering transportation-illness and growing energy towards the grieving servants to their left. The hair on the back of her neck was standing up, and she didn't think it was a mental or emotional reaction to events.
There was electricity in the air.
"Laxus," she made her voice soft and pleasant and not trembling and frightened, "will you help me?" Lucy paused and reached out a hand. The confusion on his face was absolutely comical, but it did break up his magic. It took a moment, but it finally came to him to lift his elbow to her, and she grasped it and together the two of them followed the short man into the large mansion.
Trying, and failing, to ignore those weeping people still watching the guard vehicle finally fading into the distance.
Her limbs were trembling. She was glad, for perhaps the first time ever, of the massive skirts she'd put on that morning, which hid the shaking of her legs. And glad for Laxus, who kept her standing upright when she would have much preferred to collapse.
Large doors opened without touch – a nice magic – or spoken command, and the small man led them inside. The place was huge. Large enough to rival the castle, and opulent enough to surpass it. The Masons were a family born from the construction business, so it was no mystery that their house was impressive.
"Lady Lucy," the small manservant motioned to the positively gigantic staircase to the right of the glittering entry, "a small suite of rooms has been set aside for you and your companion on the fourth floor. Will that be satisfactory?"
"The fourth floor?" she looked up at the high ceiling of the first floor and the implied height of the second, assuming the extreme amount of stairs she'd have to climb.
"Yes, Lady. I am very sorry, but most of the other rooms have already filled. There are single rooms on the second and third floors, but they are not connected, and when you wrote that you were coming with an escort, we assumed that you would like rooms that were together or connected."
Lucy lifted a hand, "Oh please, don't worry. Yes, I am very grateful that you gave us a suite. I am certain it will be most comfortable. I was just," she glanced quickly at Laxus, who was still a bit green around the edges, "a little overawed by the size of the place."
The manservant chuckled. "Yes, the Mansion can do that to people. Well, it was made to be that way, after all."
Together, the five of them climbed those four flights of stairs. Behind Lucy and Laxus, Loke and Gemini-Lisanna silently carried their luggage. Lucy tried not to grumble, climbing all those stairs in her heavy skirts and heels, and did what she could to disguise her faint – very, very, very faint – signs of breathlessness as the manservant handed the key to her.
"Thank you. Do you know what time dinner will be served?"
The man bowed, "The bell will ring at five until 7 for the diners to make their way down for the opening of the evening."
"Thank you again," Lucy acknowledged him with a slight nod. To her right, Laxus did the same. She pressed her lips together before smoothing her face in a pleasant expression. "Liz, if you could please go and request something refreshing to drink, um, I," she coughed, "seem to be suffering from a bit of nausea from the road."
She could hear the manservant chuckling as he left them. Yeah, Laxus wasn't fooling anyone. But, this time at least, it would serve them in more ways than one.
"Find out as much as you can," Lucy whispered to her spirit, as it curtsied and with hasty but graceful steps, passed the short Mason manservant to fulfill her orders.
She and Laxus stood watching for a full minute before he cleared his throat. "We should go inside."
"Yes. Yes. We should."
And still she stood.
"You have the key, Lucy."
His voice was so gentle.
Like sharp glass on water-softened skin, the words, the gentleness pulled and cut her. Hurting but drawing her back to where she needed to be. The door. Him. The door. The key. Him. The lock, the key, the door.
She opened it, and Laxus moved in front of her to examine the place. It was easily as big as their suite in the castle. Though the furnishings were older, and not as fine. The fabrics that slight bit coarser, which told the difference between the merely rich and the royal.
The difference that made these people, people like her father once was, so jealous of the crown.
"Loke, can you put my bags in the room on the left?" her voice was a hollow echo. A combination of the silence in the large room and her own buzzing ears.
"Of course, Princess." Loke bowed, and did as she asked of him, while Laxus attended to his own luggage.
"Beds here are a lot smaller," he called from the right-hand room. There was laughter around the statement, but even from the distance she had created to shield herself from the horror downstairs, she realized he was forcing himself to humor.
"Will I fit?" she called back. Trying to engage him. To participate in what he was doing for his own distance. Or maybe he was doing it for her.
He popped out of the room with a smirk, "You did say you're okay with being on bottom. I think we'll fit."
She rolled her eyes. But that was a mistake. Rolling her eyes had her looking at their hall-door. And now she couldn't look away.
"It's a long time until seven."
"It is," he agreed.
She wanted to say something else. Witty conversation, as she was trained, to fill the silence of waiting. But there was nothing to say that wasn't hollow and uselessly false. So they waited in their emptiness for Gemini to return.
The quick knock at the door startled her, but Laxus called "Enter!" without hesitation. Lucy took that to mean it was her spirit returned.
And it was.
A meek version of Lisanna walked into the room carrying a tray of drinks and light foodstuffs. She placed them on the short table in the sitting area before the small fireplace before turning back to face them both.
"What did you learn?" Lucy asked the question. Bluntly. Ripping the bandage.
"She was a kitchen servant, a baker's assistant. The girl was a new servant, but not very young. She was in her mid twenties. No one could remember exactly when they saw her last, but they did know that she helped the baker with the morning pastries, and they were finished at nine. She was found in the ice room when the house was preparing lunch. There was a tourniquet, but she died of a broken neck. No other injuries."
"So... it was him. If there was a tourniquet and it was a servant at one of these houses, it was him. But," Lucy looked from Gemini to the floor to Laxus and back, "he screwed up? It was meant to take longer, be longer, but he broke her neck on accident when trying to put on the tourniquet?"
"Sounds right. We've seen the pictures; this guy can break a bone, no problem. Obviously it's possible. But he doesn't kill that way. For the bastard to screw up like this when the house ain't even full, yet..."
"Right. Right..." she stroked the keys on her hip, hidden slightly by a fold in her dress. "Right. Okay. Right."
"Lucy."
"Yeah. Right." She didn't look at him. Couldn't look at him. All she could see was a woman with a broken neck. Underwear wrapped around her throat. Knotted with a spoon. One woman like eighteen other women.
Nineteen. Nineteen.
"Right."
"Lucy."
"It's okay. I'm okay," she told him. Ignoring the ringing in her ears. Tapping her keys. Trying to steady her breathing. Because of the ringing, she didn't hear him stand and move next to her. Because she was focused on her breathing, she didn't see him reach out a hand. Because she was drowning in a place of internal, solitary fear, she was surprised when he pulled her to him.
She closed her eyes. Clinched her jaw so hard that she thought her teeth might break. She couldn't breathe.
Nineteen. Nineteen. Too late. Too late. Sweet stars, too late.
He was hurting her. His arms were too tight. He'd pushed his head down to her shoulder, she supposed to comfort her, and there was just so much of him surrounding her that she felt engulfed to the point of pain. It hurt. It hurt. But there were nineteen broken girls who faced pain far greater, and entirely antithetical to care.
She licked tears from her lips, and realized they weren't hers, that she wasn't crying. That it was him. That Laxus was the one crying. Remembered that it wasn't only her mission. That this wasn't only her loss. It wasn't a death that rested only on her heart.
She struggled to get her hands up from between them, but finally she was able to wrap her arms around his neck. Hearing him cry, tasting his tears, freed her somewhat. She tilted her head so she could whisper in his ear, "As soon as this party is over, we'll leave here early. We'll take a faster carriage. Next time, we won't be too late."
OOOOXOOOO
AN: So, I'm on a month long trip to America. Obviously I'm writing, but not anywhere near as much, and I'm a bit preoccupied. I'll be back soon, so things should get back to normal, but be a bit patient with me for a little longer, please!
Sorry this is a short chapter done on portable tech. Sorry for the errors. Please don't forget about me. I know I won't forget about you!