Downstairs and Dead
Chapter Eleven
Pocket Full of Rosemary
According to Plue, there was no mint smell coming from the room she had been assigned, which was a floor up and two halls over from Laxus's. "Open the Gate of the Maiden. Virgo!" she whispered.
"Princess."
"I need you to sneak into the room and see if it is empty or not."
Virgo's chains chimed as she gave a shallow bow, "Of course."
Lucy and Plue waited outside of the door for a moment while their pink-haired friend vanished inside. She was cold, so very cold. She couldn't remember a winter so cold-
"Princess..." Virgo popped back out, bowing. But not before Lucy caught the faint hint of concern in her usually calm, blank eyes.
"Yes?"
"It's empty, but it has been damaged."
Lucy's cold blood froze. Crystallized. It was hard to force herself forward. Cracks broke her apart. She opened the door.
She gasped.
It was chaos.
Chaos.
Damaged?
The bed was broken. One of the four-posts was cracked and on the floor. The mattress was ripped. Side tables and chairs were thrown on their sides. Firewood flung around. Mirror glass shards stuck in the walls like knives. Flashing with the light of the small lantern in the middle of the room that still worked.
Her hands convulsed and she raised them to grasp at her chest. Remembering the need to breathe.
"Oh… oh…" she shook her head. Lifted her hands to press against her mouth. Her eyes.
He might hurt you, Laxus's voice was very clear inside her head. Almost as if he were actually standing in the room with her. She swallowed.
"No," she disagreed, "he won't."
She was strong. She was certain.
She was.
Maybe.
Yes.
The keys were warm on her hip. Warm through layers of skirt, fabric and petticoat. She touched them. Cursed through the sudden pain. Not warm; hot. Blistering.
"Leo," she whispered, blowing on her fingers.
"Princess." Loke came to her, sparkling, glittering; glorious in a dark place.
"What's wrong?"
He pushed his glasses up his nose, and his lips twisted into a concerned frown. "Nothing's wrong but that you're planning to face a serial killer by basically making yourself bait."
Ah. Worry. Loke knew her well.
"It's the best way," she argued.
He clearly didn't agree. "I beg to differ-"
"The fastest way."
He had no rebuttal to that.
"Why isn't Laxus with you?"
She smiled, "Does my strongest spirit," the smile faltered, returned, "not feel up to protecting me?"
He wasn't amused. "I won't play games with your safety, Lucy. Where is Laxus?"
"Where I need him, in the off chance that I am wrong. He's a teleporter, Loke. If I need him, he'll come to me." She managed to completely ignore the fact that he'd have no way to know if she needed him or where to find her if he somehow did know.
"I don't like it."
"I know. Close the Gate of the Lion-"
"Lucy!"
"Sorry, Loke." She took one last horrified glance of the devastation of the room assigned to her, of that place she should have been sleeping, and left. "Come on, Plue. Runnar's room next."
0000
It took Laxus less than ten minutes to get to the healer's and leave the girl, Maggie, and the guard. Though the man requested that he stay, Laxus refused. There wasn't a single damn thing he could do for her. The healer had everything under control. She had a type of time-distortion magic that allowed her to stabilize patients who were terribly injured, just as the girl was. There was nothing he could do to help with that.
And he had other important things to get to.
First, notifying Gajeel and Lily. He didn't want that to be number one, but the house would need searching, and he couldn't hit the whole place as fast as it needed covering by himself.
Second, getting back to Lucy. What he most needed to do. What he most wanted to do. What he had to do.
He left the healer's house and pulled his power around him. The Council guard had stationed themselves near the town, and were easy to find. He dropped down mere feet from Gajeel's tent with a thunderous roar that woke the entire unit.
"Lily! Gajeel! Another attack at the house. Girl survived, but is unconscious." Laxus watched the men roll out of their tents, half-dressed and alarmed. "I-she'll probably die. Surviving that... she'd need a good healer. More than the basic shit they've got here. Send someone for Wendy. Call Mest. I've got to get back. Left Lucy alone." He began to spark, no one else had said a word. "Leave us out of it when you tell Wendy what happened."
Without waiting for a reply, Laxus ripped energy from within and without, and shot away. There was an afterimage of Gajeel giving orders and the lingering sound of Lily's growl in his ears as he landed at the Holens' front gate.
He had a moment of concern. What if Runnar reset the wards? Which would be the perfect way to keep him out and away from Lucy. But there was no alarm, and he entered the house with no difficulty.
He wanted to scream her name. He didn't. He scented the air. No mint. Nothing to help find the killer.
Lucy.
Lucy.
Fuck.
He ran upstairs.
Second floor. Third. Fourth. Other side of the hou-
Her door. Her door, and Runnar's scent was all over it.
Runnar's scent was all over it, and Lucy had been by, but hadn't stayed. Still no mint.
Runnar had come. Just like he'd been afraid of.
Lucy had come, but hadn't stayed.
He knew the room was empty, but he opened the door anyway. He shouldn't have. He shouldn't have. Holy fucking shit, he absolutely shouldn't have.
The room was a wreck. A wreck. Had they fought? No blood. He couldn't smell blood. There was a hint of Lucy's magic, but no mint. But then this guy, this guy left no blood!
He was popping with sparks, probably scorching the carpet. He couldn't give the slightest shit. Neither of them were in her room, and the room was a fucking wreck. Where. Where? Where was she?
Track her. He had to track her scent. No mint, but he could smell her. He wasn't hiding her, so maybe he didn't have her. She'd be somewhere in the house. She had to be.
0000
Plue led her to Runnar's room. She knew where it was, she gave him the general direction. He stumbled a few steps in front of her on his soft paws. When she reached the doors, she was terrified. Without question, she was terrified. Hundreds of pictures, pictures she never wanted to see and wished she could forget she ever saw, flashed before her eyes, and she was terrified.
Plue nodded at her. Making no noise, keeping quiet, but patting her knee frantically. Lifting his nose, indicating the room, and the smell.
She was seconds away from hyperventilating.
She opened the door.
The room was empty, and cold. Literally cold. This wasn't her fear. This wasn't her guilt or her sorrow. She let out a breath and her vision of the room was obscured by the mist. Empty, she somewhat expected. Cold, she did not. The temperature of the rooms had been very well regulated. Gray would have felt very at home in Runnar's room.
The hair on her arms raised as goose bumps rolled over her skin.
The sharp smell of mint stung her nose and bit at her tongue as she breathed in the chill air.
She was right.
She'd grown up with this man. She'd never been overly fond of him, she would have never married him, but this... this... this!"
Lucy crept farther into the room. Fingers dancing over her keys, prepared for attack. Terrified. Horrified. Saddened. Char, his family... Not that she'd had an overabundance of affection for the lot of them, either, but she didn't hate them, and to find out that a monster like this - because he was a monster - was living under your roof… that would be heartbreaking.
She pitied them. This was not going to go well. For anyone. There would be no amount of money or power that would stop her and Laxus from telling the full story. All those girls would get their justice, and Runnar would be known for the monster he-
The monster he-
The monster he-
The monster-
She stopped walking.
There was a body on the bed.
There was a body on the bed, limbs stretched to form an X across its dark expanse.
Cold. So cold.
Empty. So empty.
"Runnar," she whispered. Whimpered.
But the dead don't talk.
She knew that.
She did.
…
…
…
She did.
His gray skin and cloudy eyes and blue lips were all the answer she needed in that exact moment.
She called to the man's corpse once more, unable to stop herself, before covering her mouth with one hand and putting the other on her keys. "Crux." Her voice was a shout in a room where the dead was silent.
The sleepy cross answered her, "Miss Lucy."
"Can you memorize the scene?"
It wasn't something she'd had Crux do before, but Crux was an archive spirit. If he could memorize words, she guessed he might also do this.
"Yes, Miss Lucy." He tilted slightly in the air, eyes oddly wide without bugging. Taking in the room. "Done."
"I have to go," she told him.
"Be safe." He faded away, and she shivered to watch it. To feel it. The fading of her magic and her friend back into the Spirit World.
She ran, confused. She had been so certain in who the criminal was that this turn threw her. Who was the murderer if not Runnar? Who fit the profile if not him?
She was hyperventilating. So many options. Possibilities. Complications. She couldn't be the one to find Runnar.
Her keys.
She was running.
Breathing.
Wasn't crying.
Her keys.
She clutched at them as she ran, "Virgo. Can you and Aries clean away any traces of me?"
"Yes." Virgo's voice was in her ear, though she couldn't see the spirit.
"Do that. And quickly! Please!"
She barreled down the hall. Searching for the warmth and safety of her room. Of her room with Laxus.
Sweet stars. What was she going to do about her assigned room? No. No. That wasn't a problem. Virgo could probably fix much of that damage, too.
She would be okay. They would be okay.
Lucy turned a corner, hit a wall, and landed on her ass. Or would have landed on her ass, had that wall not been Laxus' chest and had he not grabbed onto her at the moment she tipped backwards.
"Lucy!"
0000
He grabbed her. Probably hurt her, but fuck, all he could see was blond hair, broken arms, and a messily copied lock. Part of him registered brown eyes shadowed with her own personal horror, but couldn't process it. Not yet. She was still alive, and currently safe. Here. With him. Whole. Unbroken. That was what he had to remind himself before he moved onto anything else.
"-xus. Laxus. I'm okay. I'm okay. It... no. I'm okay."
She was struggling to breathe, and that was what snapped him out of it. The ragged gasp for breath around the whispered reassurance of his name.
He let her go.
"He took another girl," he informed her in a rush. "This one didn't die."
"Runnar's dead," Lucy whispered back. Like him, she seemed caught in her own discovery, but hers pulled him out of his.
"You-"
"It wasn't me!" Her hands went up and she almost stepped away in defense, but he didn't let her.
"I didn't think it was." Laxus considered what she said. Considered those brown eyes and their shadows. "You found him... so it wasn't him?"
She shook her head, "No. He was... he had to have been killed by the killer. Had to be. Mint was so strong I could smell it."
"But the girl, Lucy..." he hesitated. This would hurt. This would hurt, but it was information, and she needed all of the information they could get to try and figure out who their killer actually was. "She looked like you. Not exactly. But the hair," he reached out a hand to touch hers. "She's blond. Not quite as long, though. But more than the hair was the posing."
Her knees went weak. He caught her.
"How?"
"She was on her stomach. To show off how her back was bare. And her hands were … were a lock..."
Now her knees weren't just weak, they weren't working at all. He held her. She shook. He held her closer. The drumming he could hear of her frantic heartbeat was loud enough to replace thunder, and an appropriate match for the storm that had raged inside of him since finding Maggie.
"H...how?" she asked again, stumbling over the word this time.
Laxus wanted to make the words kind, to gentle the story for her because it was so incredibly obvious that her emotions were overloaded and she was on the verge of a breakdown. And damn if he wasn't seconds behind her on that. But this story. Fuck. This story was incapable of being gentled. He clinched his jaw and then kept talking.
"Broken, like the others, but the tourniquet wasn't tight enough to kill her right away."
"...does that mean... does that mean he leaves them alone to die all the time? He doesn't stay, like Gajeel said? Or did he mess up again?"
"We only have one example," he offered But both of them thought it. Thought the first thing. Both of them believed it. Believed the first thing. The night had been too goddamned awful to have any faith in the mistakes of evil.
She shivered in his arms and pushed back. Stood on her own. He didn't quite let go. He'd like to say it was for her but that might be a lie.
She cleared her throat, "We have to wake the house."
"I've already told Gajeel and Lily, after I took the girl to the village healer. They'll have the guard here, soon enough. But if you think someone else should tell 'em first, before the guard rolls in, whatever. That's your call. But, you're going nowhere alone. So don't even suggest it, Lucy. Not now. I'm going with you. Who are we waking?"
Her balance shifted slightly, and he thought she might fall, but she didn't. She was thinking. She bit her lip and seemed to sink into her own body and solidify. Her heartbeat calmed slightly, and the tremors in her arms stilled, for the most part. After a handful of seconds she gave a decisive nod.
"Lord and Lady Holen. No one else."
"Sure it should come from you? What about the younger brother?"
"I don't know how the parents will take it. And I don't think we should involve any more people than necessary. We tell the Holens that you found the girl, took her to the village. I went to tell Runnar; I found Runnar." She touched her keys, "I'm sorry Virgo, I take it back, can you instead stand guard over his room in case someone comes back and alert me if they do?" She felt assent resonate through her connection.
"So then," Laxus said, holding her hand and pulling her forward, "I told Gajeel and Lily, came back, found you-"
"-In understandable hysterics-"
"-and we came to report it to them, before I went off once more to search for whoever did this. Good?"
"Yeah. Yeah." She reached up to take the hand that he had left on her arm, squeezed it, and let him take control for a moment.
"Gajeel and Lily will have to come to the house soon. It is better if we tell them now. I didn't know about Runnar. I just said about the injured girl. They'll still come."
"You're right. Come on. Second floor. East wing." She pulled him at a run for the room of the parents of a dead man. A man they had both thought was a murderer, but who was instead a victim.
They had been wrong. She had been wrong.
The murderer was still free.
0000
The house emptied.
Well, not really, but it felt like it. As soon as Lucy burst into the elder Holens' suite, the house was flung from one state of madness to another. Lord and Lady Holen were at first enraged at the intrusion, understandably. Then confused. Followed by insults and arguments. Then disbelieving. Followed by pushing and shoving and a trip to Runnar's room, which was still being guarded by Lucy's spirit, Virgo.
Then Lady Holen shut right the fuck down, completely blank. While Lord Holen began to howl.
Devastated.
Laxus didn't particularly like any of them, but he couldn't imagine the grief that came with losing a child.
He was grateful then that Gajeel, or rather grateful that Pantherlily - cool, calm, level-headed Pantherlily - entered the house and took over the role of whatever the hell it was he and Lucy had been doing with the two parents.
Witnessing.
Room-by-room, the house woke up to a Guard at their door and a quick interrogation followed by a brief, heavily censored explanation. The occupants of that room were then advised that it might be best to quickly pack, and leave. That the house would be a crime scene for the next few days, and not at all suited for entertaining.
So, within a few hours, it emptied.
Emptied until no one was left but Lord and Lady Holen, Char, the servants, the Council Guard, Lucy, and Laxus. And Laxus sure as shit didn't want to be there. Wanted Lucy there even less. He didn't like the way the elder Holens looked at her like she was responsible for their problems.
The four former Fairy Tail guild members stood in a small hall, for some measure of privacy, before he pulled Lucy out. He leaned against the wall and watched Lucy talk to the others, not exactly feeling the need to participate in much of their conversation. They were basically just rehashing shit, making sure it was all down. Which was fine.
When they finally began wrapping things up he flexed his shoulders and stretched a bit against the wall. More than ready to leave.
"We're sending a team of five of our own people ahead to your next destination, so you'll have a contact there," Lily told them.
"It's Levy's district, I thought," Lucy said, looking at Gajeel. "Can't you use her people?"
"Shrimp's been transferred in the shuffle, just like us, but we got in touch with the actual district commander. She gave permission for our guys. They know the case, so it's good to have 'em on site. Plus, it means she doesn't have to pull off her own people from their own jobs."
"...it's so odd hearing you talk like a responsible supervisor," Lucy gave an exaggerated shudder beside him.
"Shut it."
"No," she laughed, and it was such a pleasant thing to hear, no one gave her any crap.
"You'll go to the next house," Lily, who was leaning against the wall beside her, and so closest to her, made a really close study of her facial expressions. Noticing, Laxus looked at her again, but couldn't see anything there particularly surprising. She looked tired as all hell, but they all fucking did, so…
"Yes. I talked to Brath. They decided not to cancel the tour. Just delay it a week for mourning. We'll stay in town here long enough for the funeral to watch the Holens, then spend the rest of the extra week in the little town outside of the Wilnlo estate and vineyard."
He put one of his giant paws on top of her head. Laxus watched her lean into the weight of it.
"Be careful." Gajeel looked at him. "Both of ya."
He nodded. "You, too."
0000
Another town, Lucy sighed, another inn.
The funeral had been … sad, she supposed. She hadn't felt much about it. All of her agony about him had come out the night after she found his body. The guilt of suspecting him was still there, though, and it made watching the funeral... uncomfortable. She stayed in the back with Laxus, and left early. Before anyone could or would ask her questions.
Probably no one would have. It was mostly family. Most everyone else had left. Gone home for the week of mourning. Gone home to decide if they were continuing on. She and Laxus had considered staying longer, there would be a sort of banquet after the funeral itself, but Lucy couldn't bring herself to stay.
Because on top of being uncomfortable and guilty and somewhat sad, she was angry. The extreme amount of passion, the sobbing the railing against the world, the demands made to the Council Guard by the Holens following their son's death, while generally overlooking the troubles of their servant girls... Watching it, listening to it, Lucy was angry. And the longer she did, the angrier it made her. So they decided to move on.
Emotionally unbalanced in general, she spent the next two days in bed.
Laxus transported them to the small town with the charmingly punny name of Winelow, which was the town closest to the Wilnlo house. The Wilnlos being famous the country-over for their winery.
They hadn't bothered, when they checked in to their inn, to get two rooms. Lucy couldn't be bothered to care. She took just the one, and both of them had crashed into it in exhaustion, emotional and - in her case at least - physical. She hadn't slept since she found the body. She'd barely eaten.
In Wilnlo, in the new inn, Laxus wouldn't let her go too far down the rabbit hole of depression. He made her eat, at least. They ordered food up, and he watched her until she finished what she'd ordered. They stayed inside the entire day, resting. Her sleep wasn't very deep, but it was better than it had been in Holen.
Laxus got up the next day, and Lucy stayed inside a little longer.
Day three, she forced herself to reconnect to her body and the world. There was a job to do.
"Good morning," she whispered to Laxus as he put on clothes and stretched. "What are you going to do?"
"Breakfast. Didn't want to wake you by bringing something in. But now that you're up," he rolled his shoulders.
"Yes," she yawned. "Yes. Yes. Please. I need to get out of this bed. I need to stop crying." She lifted her hands and gave him a sort of limp smile as he reached down to pull her up and out of the bed.
His hands were large and warm, "Do what you gotta do at whatever pace you gotta do it at. Don't get down on yourself for feeling bad when things are shit. That's a completely normal reaction."
He pushed her in the direction of the bathroom, and her limp smile mended, if only a little. "Thank you, Laxus."
"En. Get dressed. I'm starving."
The fact that he was putting such a natural face on for her, gruff and calm, despite the fact that there were unhealed wounds in his eyes - she could see them, his blue irises almost purple with bruising - was a great gift. She took it gladly and showered and dressed with far more energy than she had showered and undressed when they had first arrived.
When she finished, they left the inn and walked out into the town, looking for breakfast. They found it in a nice cafe in the center of town, the only seemingly open at such an early hour. The rest of the town was pretty sleepy as well. Few people up and about in the sun's weak rays.
They didn't talk during breakfast. They didn't talk after. They just walked. They explored the town itself. They wandered. They listened. And Lucy, after days of hibernation, thought.
The Wilnlos were the oldest house on the circuit, but at the same time headed by the youngest couple. Lord and Lady Wilnlo had died in a carriage in Seven the year before. The new head of house was Maso, a thirty-eight year old man and Vew, his twenty-four year old bride. A woman Lucy had known quite well when she was a girl.
Known, but not been close with. Their fathers were competitors in the transpiration business, so they were not allowed contact. No play-dates as children, no shared tutors or outings as young women. Not even in groups. She didn't truly know anything about the modern makeup of the Wilnlo household.
Sending Gemini-Romeo out, they noticed that most of the household employees were male, and that there seemed to be fewer staff in general.
"You went drinking last night," Lucy said to Laxus when they finally returned to the room, "did you learn anything from the people here?"
Laxus sat in the fireside chair and stretched out his legs. "You mean about having so many men at the house? Yeah. They're all temps. Sorta like what you said when we talked about, or when I talked about the killer maybe being a servant. You said this was a good time to give servants vacations. Well, that's what's happening. The female servants are on vacation."
"On vacation. Interesting…" The Wilnlos were prepared. More prepared, even, than the Holens had been with their general protection wards, because they were ridding their house of what the killer came for: Servant girls and women. Lucy tapped her lip with a finger, "Not all of them, though, right?"
"The women who have stayed all have personal wards," Gemini-Romeo told them. "People like the head cook, Vew's stylist, several of the musicians; specialists. People they can't just change out randomly. They've all got special protection wards on. Good ones, Crux says."
"Which aren't going to have an aggression exception on, like a general spacial ward. Or any exception." Lucy curled her fingers into fists and sank onto the rug in front of the fire. "Maybe they'll be safe here."
"Maybe," Laxus agreed, but she could hear the hesitation there. Clear and sharp, just as hers was.
She tapped Laxus' ankle with her foot, "Can you bring me one of my books, please? I don't care which one." Lucy flopped onto her side, soaking in the fire's warmth and light. His feet disappeared from her peripheral vision as he did her the favor, and then reappeared. He dropped a book in front of her face, and returned to the seat beside her. She opened the book and tried very hard to get lost in the pages.
It was a good book. A solid, simple fantasy. No gore, no complex mystery. There was good, and it grew, and it learned, and it faced a great challenge, which it overcame - that challenge was evil in nature, but that evil was not overly violent, and perhaps that evil was even capable of change, someday - and happiness awaited it on the other side. It was a book she owned and read for comfort. She'd read it many times when the world was at its harshest. But it wasn't working today.
For so many reasons, it wasn't working today. A pop from the fireplace distracted her, and she found her attention caught by the fire. She shivered.
"It's snowing, again," Laxus said, his voice startling her from her malaise. "I'm going to run down to the lobby and grab more firewood."
When the door closed behind him, with an echoing click, she wanted to cry out. She didn't want him to leave her alone. Not here. In front of that dazzling red seducer of flame, while her toes and back were chilled and she could so easily see, just to the side of the flue, frost-rimmed windows and lazily-drifting snowfall. They were northerly, and it was winter. It was cold, and there was a fire.
Hot on one side, cold on the other.
She was swamped with a feeling of grief before being hit with the pounding agony of bitterness. She was emotionally unbalanced, and she well knew it.
She missed everyone, but they were the hardest on her… she'd known them the longest. Been closest to them. And then they left her without a word. Hastily scrawled letters left after breaking into her apartment didn't count.
Snow continued to fall; fire continued to burn; her heart continued to hurt. She hoped that wherever they were, they were safe. And healthy. Well, maybe just a little injured. Maybe a broken nose or a black eye.
The fire popped, and the snow made soft sounds as it hit the window and began to pile up.
The room was so quiet. So still.
"He just went down for firewood, dummy," she hissed at herself. "He's not leaving you."
She knew it, but still she worried. Everything about the world was tenuous, and Laxus could be taken from her as easily as anything else could be. To believe him invulnerable when nothing else was … well, that's what she'd thought of … of … she looked at the fire and frowned. Nothing was perfect or safe forever. Especially not if you simply expect it to be and do nothing to keep it that way.
She rolled from her side to her back when she heard the doorknob turn, and tilted her head to watch Laxus, seemingly gigantic considering her position on the floor, and glowing golden from the firelight, walk in, with several logs under his arm.
"You look relaxed," he commented at her splayed form.
"Looks mean very little," her vision blurred, and she saw him as being so far away, so easily lost. "I'm no more relaxed today than I was two days ago. My muscles just can't keep up the tension anymore."
"Maybe you should get in bed." He put the wood into the basket beside the hearth.
She sighed, "I'm tired of being in the bed, and the floor's alright for now."
He unbent and looked at her, and the way the shadows flickered, she thought maybe he was smiling. She was being difficult, she knew. Perhaps, for some reason, that amused him. With no rebuttal, he returned to the chair to meditate to his music.
Lucy didn't roll back around to face the fire.
0000
It had been a fucking terrible week. Not as terrible as it would have been if the whole week off in Runnar's memory hadn't happened, if they'd had to go immediately from funeral to another ballroom, but still pretty damn terrible. Lucy'd been wiped. He'd felt … it was like being exiled, that extreme sense of failure and rejection, self-rejection. Self-hatred. Less personal connection, maybe, but far more mortality and lasting consequences, and he was very much involved. Very much a part of what happened.
Maggie was still alive. That was the one bright spot, and it wasn't really all that bright, since she was an absolute wreck herself. Gajeel and Lily had called in both Wendy and Chelia from Lamia Scale to see to the girl, and they'd managed, after days of delicate work while the girl was under the time-seal, to put her arms back together, piece-by-piece. But her arms weren't the worst injury she received that night.
Mentally, Maggie seemed to have simply shattered. She would respond to basic stimulus, she ate when fed, slept when tired, and - Lily passed on from Wendy - had enough presence of mind to actually use the lavatory on her own, but she wouldn't respond to language. Wouldn't look people in the eye, or even at their faces. She'd become, understandably, more nervous around men, though Lily didn't see any specific trend to a type of man that scared her. Just men.
Which was fair, if not very helpful.
Laxus hurt for her, that girl he'd held so briefly and thought of so little, thinking of her only in terms of how she might as well be Lucy. That wore on him, a weight he struggled with, which made him feel like complete shit because as soon as he talked to Lily or Gajeel about Maggie, his first thought was always fear for Lucy and not concern for Maggie.
He was a fucking terrible person.
That poor girl, though.
They still had another week before the next event, and hopefully they'd both be back on their feet by then. Or at least better than now. He was barely sleeping. Like now. Been in bed three hours, and no sign of sleep to come. Lucy'd dropped off for a bit, but she'd shudder awake with hands grasping at her hips. Miming for her keys, trying to fight off nightmares, but not having her friends there to help her. She'd done that twice already, and had yet to fall asleep again. He hadn't said anything, so he didn't think she knew he was awa-
"I'm emotionally compromised," she whispered to him, her voice muffled by her pillow.
He sucked in a breath in surprise at her unexpected words. "What?"
"Sad, because of Aquarius and the guild and the girls, and, and, and Runnar. Worried and scared because of the killer. Generally uncomfortable in the houses. All following months of loneliness. Which makes the rest of it hard."
The rest of what hard? There was a slight sheen of sweat on her skin from whatever nightmare had ruined her sleep. He wanted to… He took a breath. Another breath. She smelled nothing like herself, and the turmoil in her voice was making it worse.
"With everything in knots, how can I be sure?" her hands were clutching at the comforter around her chest and her eyes stared at the ceiling as if it held the answers to the universe.
"Of what?" he asked, still completely confused.
"If I love you."
Sound roared through the room. Heat rushed over his skin. If he wasn't trapped between her and the wall, he would have fallen out of the bed.
She was still talking.
"I say it in my head, and it feels true. But so much is jumbled up in my head. Too much emotion. It might be reactionary. Clinging to you because you're all I have left. But when I try to tell myself that..." her voice trailed off.
He barely noticed the silence. His thoughts clung to the sound of her voice speaking that one word: love. He was distracted by the sound. By the fullness and texture of it. She rolled over him and pressed her lips to the corner of his mouth.
Not a true kiss, and she didn't linger long enough to give him time to respond before pulling away and laying back against her pillow.
"It hurts," she continued to be the only one who spoke because he continued to be dumbfounded. "Nothing imaginary can hurt like that, can it? And yet... I know I'm not coming at it from a stable mindset. Like is easy. Of course. Attraction? How could I not feel that? At the risk of inflating your already overlarge ego... well," she chuckled. The sound was weak and forced. "But this … this feels like love, and that scares me, Laxus."
He swallowed, wanting nothing more than to push her back against the pillows of their bed and kiss her properly. In the last month, he'd had thoughts much like hers, but... but…
He cleared his very, very dry throat. And considered.
"Like and attraction are easy. And now is complicated," he agreed. "So if you don't feel comfortable carving it in stone, don't. It doesn't mean you have to abandon the feeling, Lucy. You know where I am; I know where you are. When this ends, if that doesn't, then we'll know."
He caught the sweet sound of a shuddering breath, "We'll."
"Yeah. We'll." He couldn't look at her. "It's not something I'm good at, but even I know... even I've noticed..."
Thing was, it might change for her. For her it might just be that he was all she had at the moment. She was so used to having and needing people.
He wasn't that kind of person.
He didn't need people. He'd been with his three only real friends since the guild ended, while she'd been alone. Been away from his team this whole time, this whole month, and not really missed them, awful as that probably was. He didn't need people.
But he'd been steadily coming to the conclusion that he might need her. Separating from her, just the idea of it, felt like amputation. Organ removal. Losing the most vital thing that kept him on his feet and living. So, yeah. It might change for her, when she had other options, but not so much for him.
He wouldn't pressure her. She deserved the chance to find out for herself. And to be certain. He wanted her certain. Certain that it wasn't just an emotional reaction to the guild breakup and a serial killer.
Laxus could turn her over. Kiss her breathless. She'd spent weeks in his bed and was no stranger to sex. It wouldn't take much coaxing to free her of her clothes. To share with her all the feelings that had built up inside of him. She'd slept with barely-known people out of convenience and necessity.
She thought she loved him.
He knew he loved her.
But it didn't matter that they were neither of them strangers to sex. That didn't mean it couldn't be cherished. That he didn't value the opportunity to savor the time before. He could have tempted her into it that first week through simple physical attraction, like she said. She was comfortable in her sexuality.
But.
She thought she loved him. He wanted her to be sure. He wanted her to come to him and to be sure.
Finish this, and then give her time to think. And he thought he might enjoy the possibilities that would come from a long-distance relationship. Make her come to him. Make her see that she wanted him. He'd never been much for slow seduction before, but a month with her let him see the possibilities. The benefits.
"Will you charge me a fee if I come to be entertained at your new guild?" she asked as his thoughts wandered onto those benefits.
He choked.
She laughed.
It opened something up inside of him that had been knotted and hard. The sound of it cleared his blood. Sweetened the flavor of the air.
"Freed will be devastated, of course. But then, I'm a very modern and understanding young woman. It's not always true that a new love must break up an old love, and anyway, I'm not necessarily against the idea of Freed in a thr-"
He kissed her. To shut her up. To shut that wicked, deviously annoying mouth of hers, he pulled her to him and kissed her. Not that it really worked, since she giggled through it. Knowing his intent. He pulled back and glared.
"Now listen here, cut all this 'modern woman' bullshit. I don't share." He grinned and kissed her one last time. Possibilities. "Freed," he told her, "is mine."
She slipped off of the mattress and almost hit the floor - would have, had he not caught her - as she lost herself in laughter. In happier times, she would probably do that a lot. They'd have to consider switching bed-sides. That or getting pillow-covered flooring.
"Oh god, that was glorious. Well done. You win. Though, it's not like you'd have to stake your claim or anything. Given an option, you or me, he wouldn't touch me with a ten foot pole."
"Damn straight on the first, and ha! Bullshit on the second."
"Come again?"
"You're bookish, hot, nice, and your magic isn't predicated on punching people. Freed is interested in all of those things."
"Really?" there was an odd, hopeful quality to her voice that he didn't exactly approve of.
"Yeah. Not that I think you should-"
"So what I'm hearing you say is that this threesome idea of mine is totally possible."
He blinked at her a few times before collapsing back onto his side of the bed. "You're a scarier person than anyone gives you credit for, you know that?"
"Mmm," she agreed, rolling into his side, and slipping an arm around his midsection.
"Night, Lucy."
"Goodnight, Laxus." With her words, her voice, she blessed him with the calm he needed to sleep.
0000X0000
Author's Note:
A corpse, a survivor, and a lovey-dovey scene: this chapter in a nutshell.
I totally didn't expect to get this out, but here it is. All of the crazy crap I had going in chapter 10's AN I still have going now… but I just wasn't able to let go of this. I feel so stressed for time with the conference, so I REALLY shouldn't have done this, but I did and it's done, so … WHATEVER.
Please, show me some love. Now that you've read, throw me a review. I don't usually beg for reviews but I'm having a really freaking terrible November.