CoLu Week 2018

by LoadedEel

It's that time of year again, the one we've all been waiting for, the one that brings together a smooth talking snake charmer and a badass Star Child. June 17th to 24th, we'll be exploring 7 prompts with a bonus to keep things real. I hope you're hanging onto your hats people because this is CoLu Week.

2. Defect

All Rights to Hiro Mashima

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Diamondback

Day 1: Defect

---

Everything slowed down for a moment before there was an explosion of white.

—then nothing.

---

Now

---

"Demon."

"Erik."

"I told you not to fucking—"

"I know. I know, don't call you by your given name. But Kinana and Lu—"

"Just…fucking stamp the request and let me leave, goddamn it."

"…fine. Only if you tell me why they can use that name without getting their heads ripped off, or food poisoned. Lucky Wendy was there and Jet is such a forgiving person."

"I don't give a shit about other people. Cu was my first friend and Starshine…"

"Star—"

"Fucking…shut up Demon. Just…shit…stamp the paper so I can get out of here before the masses swarm."

The sound of the rubber stamp was quiet in the light of the morning, just after dawn. Macao and Wakaba snored quietly face down two tables away. Cana murmured about the perfect honey ale and shifted restlessly.

"When are you leaving?"

"Next train."

"And when he asks? You know he always asks."

A sharp smirk split the silence. "Make something up. Tell him I ran away from his blueberry ass. I'm a free man now, he's not my damn keeper."

Her head bobbed in a nod. "Solo mission? Or perhaps something else?" A certain sparkle in bright blue eyes belied the sharp brain hidden under all that platinum hair.

He hated the way she fished for information. This was no one else's business but his own. "Something else."

His cloak swirled softly as he turned suddenly and exited the guild.

It was quiet, but with his magic, he could hear everything again. He always did. You're a good friend Cobra…

He scowled as Mira's voice filtered through the flat air, then scoffed quietly.

When it came to her, he would be whatever she needed him to be.

And what she needed right now was to get out of this fucking town, away from the guild and her heavy-handed teammates who smothered her to death.

It was that time of year again. And he couldn't believe that something like this had all but fallen in his lap.

And by fallen into his lap he means the Demon barkeep's soul had screeched so loud when she had read the request last night after the dinner hour that he had to actually clap his hands over his ears. All he could hear for an hour after that was goldkeygoldkeygoldkey. It was fucking annoying.

But, it was perfect, and exactly what Starshine needed. Get out of the suffocating guild, go on a long job, get a new key, fuck shit up.

Maybe get drunk.

His hand crumpled the request until it was scrunched tightly into a ball.

He would be anything she needed because he owed her everything. And for once in his pathetic life, that shit didn't make his balk, or make him afraid or whatever.

No, the feeling in his chest was nothing but relief and acceptance.

And trust.

God, it was disgusting, but there was so much trust sometimes that it choked him tight enough to leave invisible bruises. But he wanted those bruises to show.

How fucked up was that?

-ooo-

"Oi, wake the fuck up."

Lucy's nose scrunched and wiggled, which he thought in no way was absolutely adorable. Because it wasn't, it was stupid. Like a stupid cute little bunny.

So, he poked her again.

She batted his hand away and he smirked as she rolled over.

"No…'nther f've min' Nasuuu." She slurred with the best of them.

That smirk slid off his face like water off a duck's back. He pinched the blonde's shoulder a bit harder than he probably should have. "Fucking get up."

Lucy shot up and rubbed her skin with an evil glower aimed at him, eyes squinty against the weak morning light. Was it weird that he found that it was more endearing than scary?

Probably.

"What the ever-loving shit Erik? That fucking hurt."

Ha, served her right. Mistaking him for that pink haired menace. "Do I fucking sound like Natsu?"

She only rolled her eyes at him in that time honoured way that she had from putting up with too much bullshit in her life. "What are you even doing here at—" she rolled slightly huffing when she finally found her clock. "—Five fucking…Jesus Erik. Five fifteen in the morning! What could you possibly want so early?"

He shoved the slightly crinkled paper into her face until she was squinting hard at the words, her eyes practically popping out of her head as she read about the reward. Amber shot up to him with tentative hope bleeding through. "Gold, Erik. Gold. Do you really think…"

He shrugged. "Maybe. Or maybe they're talking out their asses."

"But what if it's her?"

It was his turn to roll his eye at her. "Then it's fucking her, Starshine. If it isn't, then it's not. Get it?"

"You're right."

He smirked again, toxic as his magic. "I know."

"You're a giant dick, Erik."

He pushed her over into her bed as she laughed at her own words, sitting down next to her as she rolled around with tiny hiccupping giggles. "Shut the fuck up Starshine."

Lucy only smiled at the words, she had heard them enough to know that they were nothing but fond, which made it harder to intimidate her anymore. Like he had ever been able to do that in the first place. Even feeding her to a gigantic clock hadn't broken her spirit.

"Where's the job?"

"Snowdrop."

Her head shot up off her pillow again, her eyes filled with something close to understanding and hesitation. But not pity, never pity. Not from her.

"Erik…"

"What?" His voice was gruffer than he intended. He had a feeling that he knew where this was going, it was just like Lucy to ask.

"You're sure?"

He flicked her in the forehead. "Wouldn't be here if I wasn't."

Lucy sighed and dropped back down to her bed, resigned and accepted his word without another thought. She shuffled around under the covers until she was closer to him than before, cradled between his chest and his arm.

"We walking there?"

His hand came down in a well-practiced movement to play with the ends of her golden hair. It had taken awhile, but casual touching like this was the norm for them when they were alone and comfortable enough. He had absolute trust in her because she deserved it.

"Are you stupid? Do you want this to take six months? We're taking the damn train."

"You know what tomorrow is, don't you? Is this to distract me?"

"Yeah." He would never lie to her.

She was silent for a while. Then—

"I think my mother would have liked you."

And against all odds, she held absolute trust in him.

Cobra never doubted it, because her soul never wavered in that regard. "Course she would."

The smile was audible in her voice. "When do we leave?"

He let the hair slip between his fingers slowly, flowing like silk. "In two hours. I'll wake you up. Is your bag ready?"

"Yeah, always ready. Thanks, Erik." She tapped his chest twice with her fingers, patting the shattered pendant that he always wore under his shirts. Lucy was asleep before he knew it. But her touch burned him for a long while after. It was like his skin was telling him to remember.

As if he could ever forget what had brought them together.

He wanted to say something stupid, something idiotic like anything for you Starshine. But that was dumb and fucked up, and so incredibly not good.

Didn't make it any less true.

---

Then

---

There were exactly two people in the entire world (still alive) who knew why Cobra trusted Lucy above everyone else.

The first was Makarov because he was an intuitive old geezer and knew just about everything and had that stare that disarmed even the most stoic bastards. Cobra had spilled everything ten minutes into a meeting with the guild master and hated every minute of it because he despised it when he was made to look weak.

He only felt marginally better when he heard that it only took five minutes for that Rust Bucket to spill his entire life story.

The second was Lucy herself. Because she was the only person there, the only person who truly knew what it looked like when he was vulnerable. The only person who had helped him and hadn't said one word about it. Didn't ask for anything in return.

She was just so undeniably good. He had hated her a little for it at the time.

But now.

Gods. Now he was pretty sure he loved her for it.

---

Now

---

"How much of a fit will Natsu throw once he finds out you left without him?"

"Depends."

"On?"

"Whether or not he remembers to come up for air any time soon."

"Oh. Fuck. Stop thinking that shit."

"Don't even Erik. You weren't the one who walked in on two of your best friends fucking on your couch."

"Doesn't mean I want to know about it now, dumbass."

"If I can share the evil in my brain with anyone, I will. I'll take you down with me."

"Fuck, why do I put up with you?"

"You can't lie worth shit Erik. You love my clumsy ass."

"Keep telling yourself that Starshine."

"I can't believe it's been two years since they got together though. Who ever thought Gray and Natsu would get their own heads out of their asses and you know…"

"Fuck?"

"Date, you idiot."

"I don't think what they do can be classified as dating. With all the fighting and shit? It's like foreplay to them."

"You can hear that?"

"Jesus, it's like a loop of the most violently tender porn I've ever heard. Constantly. They want to like…beat each other senseless in every competition then hold hands and fuck softly. It makes no sense."

"Urg. Stop it. They're like my brothers. Ew."

"I'll take you down with me Starshine. Isn't karma just the worst bitch?"

"I hate you so much right now."

"Lies."

-ooo-

The train arrived in the early afternoon eight days after they had left Magnolia. They disembarked in the lightly sleeting town of Snowdrop. The last place Cobra ever wanted to be again. Although that list didn't include the Tower because Lucy was there and told him it was destroyed, razed to the ground, or water as it were in this case. He didn't even listen to her soul when she said it, she didn't lie. Not to him.

Not about that.

But he was here again in this shitty town with Starshine, just like last time. And the witch was dead, like so incredibly dead that he knew he didn't have to feel this panic, this shame that welled up in his lungs like hoarfrost.

Just like all the other times he had asked her something, Lucy had only told him she had done what she needed to do, and he hadn't asked a single thing more. He didn't listen to her soul for the truth, because he trusted her, implicitly.

Lucy took his arm, just above the sensitive scars left by too tight shackles, and led him away to the Weeping Maiden, the one and only Inn in this tiny little city.

"Come on Erik. Let's get a room."

He didn't argue with her like he usually would. And she didn't say anything after that. Just let him be in silence. That was another reason why he trusted her. She knew him, knew when to push when to pull back, and inexplicably, her soul did the same thing. If he needed it, the sounds that her soul made would drown out everything else when the guild got too loud, or if he needed more silence to hear something from an enemy or when they were out on a job and needed complete concentration, with just a single look had her soul song pulling back.

He had once asked how the fuck do you do that?

She had only shrugged.

But just as she did now, the silence was all he needed, just that.

After all, it wasn't every day when you came back to a place where you had felt stripped raw and gutted by a single spell.

For Lucy, though, he would probably do just about anything. As terrifying as that thought was.

-ooo-

They slept mashed up together, a tangle of limbs and snoring and drooling that he wasn't proud of, but who the hell cared anymore? Lucy had seen him at his absolute lowest, what was a little spit between best friends? He's heard her snort like a pig while laughing before so they were pretty equal in black mail material.

And the closeness? The way they sort of gravitated together like that no matter where they were, he only pretended that he didn't notice it. Lucy didn't give a flying fuck about it, not after having a pink haired Dragon Slayer use her as a glorified body pillow for almost a decade now.

Having never had someone touch him so casually before, Cobra felt unmoored for a couple weeks when Lucy had started to unconsciously tap him on the shoulder here, squeeze his arm slightly there. The kicker had been a grateful hug she had given him only six months after he had joined Fairy Tail. All he had done was remember (hear from a little birdy shaped suspiciously like a Demon Barmaid) that it was her birthday and given her a gift.

A necklace with a dangling constellation of Horologium. To everyone else, it had been him showing that he knew the most important things in the world were her spirits. To them, to him and Lucy, it was a joke, probably in poor taste, about how everything had started with a clock.

Still, the hug was—nice. He couldn't remember when he had last had one of those. Then it hadn't really stopped, but it was just when it was the two of them. He was more comfortable when they were alone, not that he was necessarily ashamed, but because he was a very private person.

Lucy seemed to know that instinctively. At the guild, the closest they got was sitting right next to each other so that when Starshine was in a particularly flailing mood, her elbows would connect with his ribs from time to time.

Which would dissolve quickly into him elbowing her right back, then to a shoving match until one of them broke out their magic and then all bets were off.

He never pulled his punches with Lucy. If asked, it was because he knew she could take it. She was strong. She was resilient. She was one badass mother.

But he knew deep down it was because he had done so much worse to her and she had stood up taller than before. That Gajeel had beaten her to hell and back and she snarled in his face, Laxus' electricity had flowed through her and her eyes had only blazed brighter. The absolute shit Jackal had pulled…and she had gotten up, given her heart and ripped her soul apart just to save her family.

She was a fierce bastard.

These were things that he had heard from the Slayers souls. Each as impressed as the last. Gajeel and Laxus had all but adopted her as their little sister. Sting hero worshipped her harder than he ever had when he idolized Natsu. Rogue was silently worse than his brother, thinking that the very sun shone out of Starshine's ass because she didn't hold a grudge against him (or his future self) when it had taken Natsu, one of the most forgiving people on the planet, so long to be fine when they were in the same room.

And Cobra. Well, he respected the shit out of her. And thus, the trust had led to the closeness that he seemed to grudgingly accept but secretly coveted.

As Lucy snuffled quietly in her sleep, breath evening out again into light snores, Cobra shook his head at the fact that someone, anyone, could be this close to him after everything that he had done.

---

Then

---

Crime Sorciere's pardon came completely out of the blue and blindsided them all so badly that even Cobra hadn't even heard it coming, ironic as that was.

Jellal, of all people, seemed the most—flustered by this turn of events that it took almost two months of silently contemplating both his existence and lot in life, for his ultimate decision to just keep doing what they had been doing (helping the people of Fiore as best as they could, especially Fairy Tail) for the past however long. This revelation was surprising to anyone that couldn't hear souls. Especially Angel, who was under the impression that their esteemed leader would be on a one-way trip towards his Amazon lover as soon as possible.

But Cobra could hear that blueberry bastard and even though he still kinda hated Jellal for being so weak as to be controlled by another mage, he could see the merit in their actions. Just because they had been formally pardoned by the law, didn't mean that their acts, especially those under Midnight's direction, were any less…monstrous.

Crime Sorciere had been drifting from town to town in Fiore for almost a full year after they had been pardoned for their crimes when Richard finally put his foot down.

He wanted to find his brother.

With that came a rash of requests (demands, more like) from everyone in the wandering guild. Sawyer and Midnight wanted to go back to Fairy Tail, having bonded with some of the wizards there. Jellal wanted to join them, but he was such a self-sacrificing bastard that it took Meredy threatening to bitch slap him to admit it.

Angel practically direct-lined herself to her sister's side, vowing never to leave it again.

Meredy felt her place was with Mermaid Heel, she had left the next day with a smirk and a wave.

And Cobra, he…

…stayed.

His guild, his purpose, was disbanded, broken. But he didn't begrudge his family for trying to find their own happiness. They had enough shit in their lives that they deserved a little goodness.

He had no plans, even though he was invited to go back to Fairy Tail with the others, he left his options open. Wide, wide open.

So, he drifted through Earthland, seeing things, hearing things that he never had. Just for the hell of it. From the reflective pools in the Red Plains in Seven that held stones that only sparkled in star light. (He stole one of those.) To the frigid High Steppes of Iceberg that boasted the tallest mountain in Earthland. Took a boat to Minstrel, which was a massive mistake, hiked the Giant's Backbone, a deadly trail through the foothills. Took a wrong turn somewhere and accidentally crossed the borders into Joya.

He had just enough money to make it back into Stella by train. But he wasn't done, he was finally seeing everything he couldn't in the Tower. For the first time in his life, he had no master, no leader. He was his own person, a man that could do anything.

So, he did.

---

Now

---

"So according to your request, which you sent to all the guilds in Earthland practically if my understanding is correct, you need someone to find a…plant?"

The woman who had posted the request looked like a stereotypical grandmother complete with tiny round body, warm smile, and a house that smelled like baking gingersnaps. It immediately put his teeth on edge, poison pooling in his mouth in advance. From his experience from working with Fairy Tail and against them for a while there, it was like the mages the guild pumped out had a blaring sign above their head that screamed and blinked in bright lights about how they invited trouble. It was as if disasters actively sniffed them out and the worst perpetrator was currently seated right next to him interrogating this little old lady with a scrutiny that was probably unwarranted.

What the hell ever though, screw being polite. He had almost backed out of the meeting the moment he had stepped into the requester's house. For some reason, he couldn't fucking hear her soul and he couldn't smell anything over the scent of cinnamon sugar.

But if this panned out, then Lucy could get something she had wanted, that key that she had been looking all over Earthland for.

"Yes, it's a very specific herb, one that only grows under the snow and ice at the summit of the Sunderheim."

Cobra pulled in another breath trying to scent the air that way, but fuck, the cloying aroma of cookies pervaded everything. His goddamn clothes were going to smell like pastries for weeks after this, he was sure.

The woman (who had introduced herself as Ms. Potts) waved down at herself with both hands. "And as you can see, I'm no spring chicken anymore, dearie. I couldn't climb that mountain even if I wanted to."

A timer dinged in the background and Ms. Potts tittered and excused herself to pull the gingersnaps out of the oven.

Lucy leaned over the request still sitting in her lap, whispering because she knew he could hear her still. "I don't trust her. Something isn't right, I can't put my finger on it though."

He swept his fingers over the back of her left hand, her fingers finally unclenching from where they were balled up on her thigh at the familiar touch. "Trust your instincts, but let me try a damn cookie first. Who the fuck knows what's in them?"

Lucy didn't argue with him. It was logical, his body could process things that would kill her in an instant. He was glad that Starshine wasn't an unreasonable person. That she didn't see this as him trying to be a knight in shining armour, that he didn't see her as a damsel in distress.

She nodded slightly.

A plate of those damned cookies settled with a quiet clatter on the table in front of them. "There we go, fresh from the oven. Go ahead dearies, try one."

Cobra reached out and took one, broke off a piece and looked into the little old lady's bright eyes as he chewed and swallowed.

Then he smirked. Ms. Pott's kindly smile fell as he let the poison build up in his mouth slip out in a heady fog.

"Monkshood and Foxglove? Really? Is that why you used a fuckton of cinnamon and nutmeg?"

Lucy whipped around and silently summoned both Leo and Virgo who leered dangerously out of their gates. "A compliance potion?" The demure mask that she used when meeting new clients slipped away as the true absolute badass pushed forward. Lucy absolutely hated secrets, hated when people weren't fucking straight with her.

Thank Gods Cobra didn't give enough of a shit to lie to her, ever. He was just too blunt for that.

"You fucking tried to dose us with a serum that would make us so suggestible that we wouldn't be able to not answer your questions?"

Ms. Potts, or whatever the fuck her name actually was opened her mouth to speak but Cobra held up his hand. "Why the fuck can't I hear your soul? And why can't I smell you?"

Lucy whispered from beside him, eyes never leaving the kindly old woman who had just tried to poison them. "Why didn't you tell me?"

He kept silent for a moment.

The blonde put two and two together faster than he ever could, eyes narrowing in distaste. "It's a damn glamour, isn't it?"

Ms. Potts disappeared like ripples on a pond. Or the image of her did, at least.

Loke squawked from behind the couch as it wavered and shimmered, finally dissipating like the rest of the house they were in.

Cobra hissed his displeasure as his ass hit the freezing ground, concrete, and stone decidedly less comfortable than the cushions had been. But his brain was stuck on something that he had only heard, only seen, once before. "Starshine. Is she….?"

Lucy was standing, being guided up by Virgo and nodded her head. "Yes. Undoubtedly. Have you ever known any other kind of person able to rob you of your senses so completely?"

He snarled as scales burst over his skin, sizzling with his magic. "Witch."

Lucy waved both Leo and Virgo back through their gates, their expressions both bemused and slightly wary at his reaction. But they trusted their key wielder's judgment and Cobra was thankful for that. She turned away from him and screamed up at the empty decrepit shack he was only just noticing, whip uncoiling from her waist in practiced movements.

"Show yourself, coward!"

It took an entire agonizing minute before a spindly woman drifted suddenly from the shadows as if she had melted out of the walls themselves. "You've guessed right, it was indeed a glamour."

Cobra was struggling to get his breathing under control. Of all the shit they had to encounter here, of all the places. A witch here, in Snowdrop, again. It couldn't be a fucking coincidence.

"Why make the request in the first place if you only wanted to deceive the wizards that made it up here? Why the truth serum? Why the glamour?"

The woman snarled and tried to take a step forward but was stopped by a snap from that deadly whip cracked down in front of toes.

"I didn't fucking do it just for anyone. That request was specifically tailored to the person I wanted up here." She spat the words as if they were so toxic that she couldn't keep them in her mouth anymore. "No one gives a shit about golden keys anymore. They aren't common, not after someone collected almost every single one of them, and I have it on good authority that there are only three celestial mages left in Earthland. And one of them doesn't actively practice anymore. And one of them has been searching high and low all over the world for that key. Leaving quite the trail for anyone to follow."

Lucy stiffened and covered her keys with one hand, angling her body away with a choppy movement as her eyes widened at the implication. They had been lured up here, there hadn't been a fucking key for them to find. "You will never get these keys."

Black eyes glowed with fury as the witch glared hatefully at them both. "Stupid girl, I don't want those worthless keys."

"Then what could you possibly want?"

"Revenge."

Cobra sighed with an eye roll. That age-old excuse was damn annoying. "Fuck you, lady. Who the hell are you anyway? I've never met you before and from the expression she's making, Starshine doesn't recognize you either."

The witch stretched out to her full height and scoffed down at them. "My name is Tamsin. Tamsin Willard."

Cobra watched as Lucy's face drained of all colour before she turned and sprinted for him, hand reaching out for his. Mouth forming the words he recognized to change into a Stardress.

The witch cackled and snapped her fingers, loud in the still air.

Everything slowed down for a moment before there was an explosion of white.

—then nothing.

---

Then

---

Shortly after he had made it to Stella, he knew he needed more money if he wanted a hot meal and a warm bed, and maybe even a train ride back into Fiore. He was tired of sleeping in the woods and catching his meals, wanted a damn sandwich in his stomach. There was only so many rabbits you can eat before wanting something more substantial.

So, with the anonymity he had here in Stella and the fact that they didn't have a working guild system and a substantial lack of practicing wizards who stayed within the borders and hadn't flocked to Magnolia or Hargeon yet, Cobra had many choices of jobs that paid a substantial number of Jewels, more than enough to get him back into familiar surroundings.

But there was something about this one request that had him immediately accepting and starting out towards the mountain known to the locals as the Sunderheim. Snowdrop was a small, old town rife with superstitions and everyone told him to be careful. There was something there, everyone could feel it that seeped evil into everything around it. The air, the wildlife, even the water was bitter.

They told him to be cautious, to think about this before he left.

But whatever was up there, it was taking children. That shit just didn't fucking fly with him.

---

Now

---

He woke up with aching muscles, a massive headache and he could tell that he had at least one gash on his forehead because the damn thing kept dripping blood in his one good eye.

It took a moment before his vision stopped wobbling enough for him to notice that he was in a large cavern, cave, dark place…whatever. He could barely see, which didn't have anything to do with the blood that slowly dripped down off his chin. He was a Slayer, even in the darkest spaces he could usually use even the smallest amount of light to see more than a regular human.

Which probably meant—

Cobra glanced up above him to see that he was being suspended above the floor by his wrists. It wasn't the manner of which he was being held to the rock wall behind him that made his blood boil (even though he had seen enough manacles in the Tower to last him ten lifetimes) it was the runes that flowed choppily over the metal as if they had been carved in haste.

The witch hadn't anticipated that he would be there too. Lucy had been searching high and low for that Golden Key completely by herself, without Natsu and her team, stirring up the muck and mire all on her lonesome for so long that the witch probably assumed she was always alone.

Which made the runes even more problematic, or perhaps less. The witch may have done it as fast as she could and had made a mistake somewhere.

He couldn't read them per say, but he was intimately familiar with their combination.

They were just like the cuffs that held his arms when he had been imprisoned by the magic council, used for a single purpose.

Magic suppression.

Which meant—

His head whipped around so fast that his neck cracked painfully, but he gave it no mind when he saw to his right that Lucy was strung up in the same way, head bowed, golden hair matted in the back where her blood had soaked through from a head wound he couldn't see at this angle.

That made him growl, something that he couldn't help no matter the situation. His senses were dulled, his soul listening and Dragon Slayer magic suppressed so that it was writhing just beneath his skin, where he could feel it but not access it. It was maddening.

Even though the magic couldn't make a connection the innate unconscious abilities, like increased muscle mass and dexterity from being a Dragon Slayer didn't just disappear, although the ridiculous over powered strength had.

He glanced back over to Lucy and realized in stunned silence, mouth gaping, heart hammering that she was awake again, looking at him, mouth moving…but he couldn't hear a single thing she said. It wasn't just her soul he couldn't hear, but everything.

He had almost forgotten the side effect that magic suppression had on him. It made him weaker, more vulnerable than he hadn't been since he was a child. Since the Tower. Since before his magic had manifested.

Suddenly, the silence was overwhelming. He hadn't the chains jingle when he moved, nor had he heard his neck crack when he had whipped around or heard the growl in his throat earlier. He had felt all those things without the corresponding sounds that would have accompanied them normally.

His eyes snapped back to Lucy and he shook his head in jerky little movements that made his vision swim sickly. It probably wasn't helped that he couldn't seem to pull enough air into his lungs or that there was an iron band around his heart, weighing it down until it was dangling somewhere between his knees. "Lucy—I can't…I"

He stopped speaking, the words dying in his throat, tasting worse than ash and dust. He could feel his tongue and mouth moving, but couldn't hear his words.

Cobra was terrified, and that hadn't happened since he was last here in Snowdrop. Since that damn witch.

It took him longer than it probably should have to realize that one of Lucy's hands was moving in a pattern, a very practiced pattern, over and over again. One that it took him minutes to focus on, but only seconds to recognize.

Breathe.

She was signing for him, spelling out that single word repeatedly. Cobra had almost forgotten that she was fluent. Or rather he had pushed that knowledge back into a locked part of his brain filled with things he would rather forget.

Breathe.

He took a breath. Then another, until he felt his hammering heart calm down.

Breathe.

She was only fluent in sign language because of him. Because of this liability. Because of this…weakness, this defect that he was born with.

Breathe.

So, he breathed deep in that cave, because Lucy was asking him too.

Breathe.

Wasn't it just so sickeningly ironic, that a soul-listener had been born completely and utterly deaf?

---

Then

---

Cobra had found that witch in Stella easily enough, too easy if he was being honest with himself. She knew someone would eventually come for her, and had waited for him to march up the Sunderheim like a complete jackass and fall spectacularly into a trap.

It was the first time since facing Natsu down in a battle that his magic had failed him. Later, much later, he found out that he couldn't hear through glamours because they themselves were a type of suppression magic mixed with illusions that were both real and then not real.

The fight between them was bitter and drawn out. She had knives coated in poison that she slashed him with but realized quickly that they gave him extra energy when his body metabolized the little gift she had been granting him.

He couldn't hear her approach, couldn't hear her intention or her muscles as they moved. Didn't know what was real and what wasn't.

Cobra's venom did little more than slow her down as she seemed to have a ridiculous immunity. He knew it was magic but didn't seem to be something that she could innately do. He thought belatedly it had something to do with the pendant that hung from her neck, an all-seeing eye with a massive green stone worked through the middle.

"Why do you continue to fight little snake? Why not just curl up and fucking die already?"

Those words angered him beyond sense. "I'm not a damn coward, bitch. Where the fuck are the children you took?"

Her smile was more toxic than all the venom in his body and suddenly the dread in his body made him almost violently ill on the forest floor.

"Gone…"

"What the fuck did you do to them!?" He was yelling, his anger pumping blood and adrenaline, venom and fire through his veins.

"Disposed of. What use is something when it's all used up…?"

He moved faster than he ever had in his life, darting out with claws and teeth, all instinct and monstrous, animalistic intent.

The witch was slashing with spells left and right, throwing potions that splashed and burned bright against his skin. But he didn't stop coming, couldn't stop moving.

Nothing would stop him in this.

Fury poured off him in waves until finally he got his clawed hand into the side of her stomach and his teeth at the juncture of her neck and shoulder.

He tore chunks out of her, clamped down and ripped with his fangs.

Blood pooled and viscera tore.

She screeched and swore loud in his ears until they rang.

It tasted viler than anything he had ever had in his mouth before, bitter with disgusting power that came from innocence and fear. Cobra was a fucking bastard, he had killed, tortured, maimed, destroyed and laid waste before. But he had never, not a single time, gone after children, born or unborn. That was his line, that was the thing that he would never cross. They were innocent, they could grow and make a living, something that he had never had until recently. They could play and imagine, they could have a childhood, and he would never willfully take away something like that from anyone. None of the mages in Ocracion Seis would ever step across that line, and even though they were his family and friends, he would tear them apart with his bare hands if they had tried to make him do that. Brain was wise to never try it.

But this witch, this creature had stepped right over that line and talked about a source of pure innocence as if it was a thing, like a battery that could be used to gain power then thrown away and discarded. She didn't deserve to stay breathing.

So, he tore and he clawed and she screamed and threw everything she had at him in retaliation. She sunk her nails into the skin of his neck then pulled back just as quickly as the flesh of her fingers started to bubble and peel. Bitch didn't think he was poisonous as well as venomous, but her immunity was incredibly high. Her bones should have melted.

His fangs pumped every toxin he could think of into her body through her neck but it just made her whine and twist in his hold. Damn that pendant was good, but he wasn't in the right frame of mind to try to rip it off her neck. He dug in a little deeper, trying to tear through as many arteries and veins as possible.

He was so sure that she would fucking bleed out and die that he didn't see her other hand come out of nowhere, didn't hear the spell she muttered quickly under her breath.

The witch slapped him in the forehead and the resulting magical explosion tossed him through a sturdy pine tree and flattened the rest into a nearly perfect circle, but he didn't see any of that until later.

Because he had already passed out.

He didn't see the witch burn her wounds closed with green fire and limp away until she was swallowed up by a cloud of smoke.

He didn't see the lightly glowing rune scribed just between his eyes.

The next thing he saw more than a day later were two gigantic amber eyes filled with concern he didn't want. But it was better than pity.

He didn't realize it then, and he wouldn't for a while, but those eyes would be attached to the person that would come to mean everything to him.

---

Now

---

An indeterminate time later (there was no light, no window in this cave), when his breathing had slowed and deepened to something much more manageable, Cobra signed Thanks back at Lucy.

Her answering smile filled with relief was small, but it was something.

Alright? Her fingers moved smoothly, a little slower than usual. She either realized that he couldn't really see her or maybe thought the angle was wrong for him to totally catch everything if she went at the same speed she had only a year before this.

Lucy was so fucking smart. So damn intelligent that it made him grit his teeth sometimes but also swelled with so much damn pride it was lucky he didn't puke it up some days.

He nodded back. He was fine.

Or he would be fucking fine when he got out of these damn restraints.

Because Lucy didn't have the same range of motion and the fact that her fingers were the only part of her other than her head she could truly move, she had to spell out everything letter by letter. But that was fine with him, as long as she kept speaking at him, he could focus on that and not on the fact that the silence in his ears would slowly make him lose his damn mind.

Anything hurt?

He shook his head again, but crooked an eyebrow in an answering question. Luckily there seemed to be enough light for Lucy to see him, barely, but it was enough. Compared to the fact that even in the dark his eyes usually allowed him to see as if he was standing outside in direct sunlight, it was shitty. But it was better than nothing.

No. I'm fine.

He scowled back and she rolled her eyes.

Head hurts.

Cobra snorted, glad that her injury wasn't that bad. She seemed coherent enough, eyes bright and calculating. She was always thinking, always planning. Thank the Gods for that.

Lion?

She grimaced and shook her chains above her head. The script that flowed over the restraints curled elegantly without a break in the runes. Suppression magic. Special made for stars. I think.

He nodded as his eyes tracked her hands carefully. The witch had thought of everything when it came to Lucy, but perhaps she had made a mistake when dealing with him. This witch probably thought that he was just a poison user. He didn't know for sure, but the runes on his shackles were too familiar to be anything but one for general magic. Her face earlier when he had taken a bite of the cookie and hadn't succumbed to her tricks was no act. That was genuine shock, and he should know for someone who was incredibly adept at reading lips, it was just a step up to reading expressions and body language.

It made it easier in the Tower.

He signed again. Keys?

Gone. She answered back, fingers choppy in her anger. Close though.

That was good. Lucy could still feel a connection inside her, that probably meant she could pull a Stardress out of her ass when she got out of the restraints.

Which made him mad all over again. Starshine should never know the feel of restraints against her skin. Not again. Not after what he had done to her with the clock. Not after he knew just what shackles did when they bit into flesh and bone.

Who the ever-loving fuck was this bitch anyways? Why had she wanted Lucy? Why come after her in the first place?

His eyes burned as he signed his question. Who is she?

Lucy hesitated but relented when she saw his expression. Sister.

Sister?

Sister of—he caught the pointed look she shot the necklace that had slipped out of his open collar, the jewel suddenly a burning presence against his throat. Constricting him better than any snake ever could.

No.

No.

The fucking sister of the other witch? The one that had he had met on the Sunderheim a year ago? The one that had disarmed him so completely?

What?

That was the only word he signed over and over again. He was stunned and angry, but he had a feeling he now knew why this bitch had gone after Lucy so specifically.

He had never asked. And Starshine had never said anything past I did what needed to be done, nothing more, Erik. It had been the first time she had ever called him that, called him by the name he had gone by so long ago and nearly forgotten how it sounded on someone's lips.

She never stopped.

It was then, while he signed a single word on a broken loop at the blonde, that he actually did want to know what happened. Did want to know exactly what Lucy did that had made the sister of the witch go through so much trouble to find Lucy.

Why she had fastened a necklace with a destroyed jewel around his neck that day.

Tell me everything.

She shook her head, gold hair flying in a curtain around her face. Not now. Later. Promise. I'll show you everything. I promise Erik.

The way she signed his name threw him out of his little world of frustration and annoyance and anger. She hadn't ever signed his name, spelling it like that letter by letter before. Usually, she just used a bastardized version of something between snake and cobra that he knew meant him when she signed. It had been a year since she had used it, though.

He maybe kind of missed it. When she had first used it, it had been a stupid mistake when she had tried to sign his name. She was flustered and blushing and he had laughed even though he couldn't hear himself. She had smacked him and made a damn point to use it constantly just to piss him off enough to get a rise out of him.

It was a little ritual they had. She butchered the sign. He would growl. She would smirk at him. He would flick her in the forehead and then when the elbows had started flying and the pinching (she had surprisingly strong fingers for someone so tiny) started, Leo would sigh at them like he was their babysitter and they were errant children.

Sometimes the lion would have to separate them to opposite sides of the camp, only to have Lucy grin and flick tiny pebbles into his ridiculous mane of auburn hair until he inevitably noticed.

That sign was his name from then on.

She looked at him, and he looked back. Lucy didn't know just how much he fucking trusted her with everything. She had been the one to get his ass in gear last time, took the point in tracking and finding food because he fucking couldn't. She got him out of the goddamn mess that he had gotten himself into last time around, and this time it would be his turn to get them both out of these restraints.

Alright.

Then—

I have an idea.

He grimaced and glanced up, determined and only slightly put off about what he was about to do. He took one last glance at Lucy who had that stupid pinched look on her face like she had smelled a fart and was too polite to say anything. It meant she knew what he was about to do and didn't like it one bit, probably wanted to offer to do it instead because she was a self-sacrificing bastard like that.

But she didn't open her mouth like others in the guild would have, didn't argue his choice. Because she knew it was the logical choice to get them both out as fast as possible. He was the one who needed to do it for at least three reasons, three good reasons.

He slipped a sharp smile over his face and slammed one iron shackle into the bone of his thumb on the opposite hand.

It shattered with a crunch he couldn't hear, but sure as hell felt all the way down to his fucking toes.

---

Then

---

It took him five days (or so Lucy said) before he was coherent enough to sit up in a slight daze next to a glowing fire at twilight.

He knows her, Lucy that is. How could he forget? How could he ever forget the clock or the way she derailed all their carefully laid plans with nothing more than her mind and determination?

The Fairy with the golden hair.

"What the fuck?" Not the best first words, but his everything hurt and he didn't really give enough of a fuck to care about what flew out of his mouth.

But those first words shattered the peace for him. He knew he had spoken, but he couldn't hear anything.

Cobra didn't realize he was hyperventilating before two small hands pushed him up from where he was wheezing bent over the ground. He tried to bat them away, but he was still weak.

Why was he still so fucking weak? He should have healed by now.

His eyes snapped to the Fairy's mouth, tracking their movements just like his mother had taught him before she was murdered and he was made a slave.

"Cobra."

He frowned as she kept speaking, but his mind wasn't catching up. The words that he wanted to hear but couldn't, kept slipping through his brain like water through a sieve. He couldn't grasp all of it. Too fast. Too much. It was too soon.

"…you alright?"

He growled again. He hated when people were kind to him like this, all pity and deceiving smiles. In his current state, he didn't know if it was genuine or fake or whatever. He couldn't hear her soul. Couldn't hear her words. Couldn't create the venom he was famous for. His strength was gone and he was just…Erik.

Cobra hated Erik most of the time.

He shook his head, willing her to stop for a moment as his world spun out of focus.

Nauseous and tired, he slipped back into unconsciousness and the last thing he saw was the little blonde Fairy's mouth shape his name.

He didn't wake up for two more days, but this time he felt more like himself and the sight of Lucy reading a very old book by yet another fire (or perhaps the same fire) didn't startle him nearly as badly.

He winced and clapped his hands over his ears because ironically, the overwhelming silence was more deafening than anything he had heard before. He despised silence. It reminded him of his seven years being captive by the magic council, but that wasn't too bad because he was in a contained cell and he was looked after by Lahar.

Lahar had known his secret. So had Brain.

Food, water, shelter, clothes, all provided for. But here out in the open, with everything confusing and silent, with a woman he had taken advantage of and fed to a gigantic clock sitting less than six feet away from him…not his idea of the best time.

She had turned to him and started to speak almost immediately once she realized he was conscious again. But this time, it was too dark for him to track her lips. He couldn't make anything out past his name, the word cymbal, and the fact that she kept gesturing to the book in her hands.

He shook his head again, thankful that his head didn't swim this time, and pulled all his shit together. It was obvious that she didn't realize that he couldn't hear him, and not a single person was left alive on Earthland that knew that without his magic, he was stone deaf.

"I can't fucking hear you Blondie."

Her mouth stopped moving and she pursed her lips in either annoyance or contemplation. Or she could have been constipated. He didn't know her well enough to judge.

She held up a single finger and dove quickly for a bag just out of sight of the fire and came back with a notebook and a pen.

Well, that worked too.

She uncapped the pen and started to scribble madly like she had so many ideas in her brain and they just couldn't wait to leap onto the page.

So, he rolled his eye and waited for her to finish.

She turned the page to him and offered him the pen.

Cobra, I don't know if you remember me, but my name is Lucy Heartfilia from the Fairy Tail guild. I have a feeling the fact that you can't hear anything is because of a symbol sitting between your eyes on your forehead. It glows orange sometimes. I think it's some type of rune. I've been looking it up in some books I've had brought from the spirit world. Are you alone? Where's the rest of Crime Sorciere?

He huffed and hugged a knee to his chest feeling slightly self-conscious. But no wonder he had thought she was saying cymbal. He rubbed his forehead in thought. "Course I fucking remember you. You think I don't remember every person I've sacrificed to a giant clock?"

He didn't think she would laugh, throwing her whole head back in mirth. A tiny part of him wished he could hear it. "And yeah I'm alone. Why wouldn't I be? And what do you mean Crime Sorciere? We disbanded almost ten months ago." Give or take, he wasn't always around a calendar but it was spring now and they had parted ways in summer. So, ten months seemed just about right. She should know that, seeing that her guild mark was still in place on her hand.

Lucy looked down and grabbed the notebook back from him so swiftly he jolted away. He wasn't used to the fact he couldn't hear everything coming.

If Lucy saw it, she didn't comment.

I've been away from the guild for…a while. Longer than a year. But I send postcards back sometimes so they know I'm alive at least. I didn't know you guys disbanded.

"Our esteemed leader, Midnight, and Racer all joined Fairy Tail. Angel joined Sabertooth. Meredy went to Mermaid Heel. Hoteye is searching for his brother."

I actually ran into Wally a couple months ago when I was tracking down a lead in Sin. He was working on a cruise ship that sailed from there to Midi and back to Minstrel. I hope they find each other. I'm glad we'll have more guildmates when I get home.

Suddenly he remembered a very loud, very obnoxious pink haired Slayer that was practically attached to Lucy's side the last time they had…encountered one another. "Where's the flamethrower?"

Back at Fairy Tail, I think? I've been out searching for something I lost for almost a year and a half, chasing leads and following whispers around the world. I'm assuming the Master threatened to pull his S class status if he followed me. He would have had to hold something over Laxus and Gajeel's heads too. This was something I had to do alone.

"I can understand that." And he could. He of all people knew that sometimes it was necessary. But this time, going up against the witch, he shouldn't have been. And maybe, fuck, maybe he needed help. Especially now, with the fact, he couldn't hear jack shit. He was useless.

So, what happened? I only came up the mountain because I just happened to see that massive magical discharge from down in town and the citizens asked me to investigate. I found you unconscious against a boulder with that symbol on your head in a circle of pine trees that had been flattened.

"I went after a goddamn witch. But I couldn't fucking hear anything. Not her steps, not her, not her soul. Fucking nothing." He was getting worked up by the end of his sentence, and he chanced a glance up at Lucy again, just willing her to look at him with pity or sadness.

There was nothing of the sort in her eyes, just an intensity that probably meant that she was actually listening to him.

The words he wanted to say started to jumble in his mouth and in his frustration his hands shot out in choppy movements, and it was like that saying said, you never really forgot how to ride a bike. And in his case, he never really forgot these hand movements.

I'm fucking deaf again.

He wanted to say it out loud, and hear it. But he couldn't so he just signed it into the still midnight air.

Lucy's eyes shot down to his hands. Drinking in his signs with rapt attention.

I can see patterns, structures. Those movements aren't random, are they?

He sighed again. "No. It's a language. Sign language."

How do you know sign language?

"Someone taught me."

Why?

Before he had a chance to think about whether or not he wanted to tell Lucy that he was defective. She put it together. Her mouth formed the words and he could only really make out the one for deaf.

So, he nodded.

He was really thankful that they didn't speak again that night.

---

Now

---

Slipping his broken hand through the shackle holding him was uncomfortable and so incredibly painful that Cobra knew he whimpered once, and he hoped it was quiet enough that it didn't arise suspicion. Skin and tissue warped and tore from the sharp edges, his blood, morbidly enough slicking the way. But then suddenly—

His left hand was free.

So, he reached up without a single glance at Lucy and broke his thumb on the other side as he dangled from one arm, his shoulder joint screamed in pain at every movement.

This time he didn't have to pull, his body weight yanked him down to the dirt and mud. He had just enough time to lay both hands flat on the ground (lest his hands heal wonkily) before every single one of his senses went into overload.

The worst was his hearing, as both all the sounds that he had been missing as well as the souls of the people around him careened into his brain again after having been deaf for less than a day. As black spots danced in his vision, he remembered the last time this had happened and the fact that he was laid out unconscious from sensory overload for damn near three days after he got his magic back.

He staggered to his feet and rotated his thumbs in place, wincing at the pain but thankful for the fact that he had his advanced healing back.

"Cobra wha—"

He slapped a single hand over Lucy's face and she arched a brow at him in question. He held up his hand and signed in front of her eyes. So fucking grateful to hear her voice again, but he needed for her to be silent.

She's still here. Be quiet.

She nodded as her eyes widened in understanding.

Cobra reached up and gripped the metal of the bands that held Lucy tight against the rock wall. She glanced up once, then back to his eyes, then nodded and gritted her teeth.

He needed to do this as silently as possible, so he couldn't just rip Lucy away from the cuffs, and he couldn't smash them like he had done his, they were too heavy, so he let his magic (thank the Gods that was back) slither up his arms and into his hands, letting the smallest amount of venom out of his palms and into the metal.

Lucy hissed as quietly as possible as the purple cloud eroded away the shackles into a light dust. Cobra held Lucy as she slumped to the ground and quickly as he could, wrapped his lips around her wrists and laved his tongue over the bruising bleeding welts.

Only Lucy knew that his…bodily fluids created a potent antivenin to just about every fucking toxin in Earthland. Her let her hands drop when he knew she would be fine.

Still so fucking weird. Every time. Her hands were fluid and graceful, just like her voice was when she spoke. He could hear it in his mind every time she signed.

Whatever, Stashine. He hoped that his dry sarcasm was coming across from his hands.

Where is she?

Cobra shut his eye and concentrated and silently thanked the fact that Lucy's soul dimmed so that it sang very quietly in the background. He still didn't know how she did that, but it was fucking helpful.

Not far. That way…Somewhere close, enclosed. Through a door. Keys are there too.

He watched as she nodded and rotated her arms a couple times to get the blood flow back.

Stardress?

Go for subtlety. Use the lion later.

Lucy nodded and slipped silently into Ares' dress. For some reason, either because the spirit was incredibly shy and soft-spoken, or something to do with the wool, Lucy was completely silent when in this Stardress. He could hear her soul of course, but everything else was dampened until she was like a shadow.

A shadow in a very short, adorably inappropriate fluffy dress.

And thigh highs.

Let's go Starshine. We've got a bitch to skewer.

He didn't notice the grimace that Lucy shot him or just how close his signed words hit close to home.

---

Then

---

"So, what now?"

Now, we hunt down the witch that did this to you. I already have some ideas about what the hell is going on. I had been under the impression that the symbol on your forehead was a rune meant for silence, or one to make you lose your senses.

"No. I've…I was born like this."

Then my second assumption was right. It's magic suppression, and it's difficult to do without the correct magic or runes. The one on your head looks so different from anything the Rune Knights or Levy or even Freed write that I didn't know where to start.

His eye snapped up towards her. Why was she helping him? "Why are you doing this?"

Doing what?

"Helping me, after…"

Far worse has happened and I've learned to forgive and forget. Everyone deserves a second chance.

"Your guild is fucked up."

Here, Lucy laughed again, eyes shining and happy.

You bet your ass they are. And so am I. My best friend is a fucking demon, my older brothers have both tortured me and I was turned into a massive fish because of a clock. My mother died because of her magic, I've waged war on an immortal King and re-written an entire soul-book from memory. I was frozen in time for seven years, been crushed, broken, scarred and burned. I held a future version of myself while I died once. My entire life is fucked.

Cobra chuckled and shook his head. "What about what you're searching for, you would uproot your plan to help me catch a witch?"

Yes.

No hesitation, no questions, no thinking about it. Just a straightforward answer. It rattled him enough that instead of answering out loud he signed the word why?

What was that sign?

"Oh…uhm…it was the word why."

Do it again.

So, he did, again and again until, to his great surprise, Lucy copied him. It was a little choppy, a little too slow. But she did it.

If I help you with this, I'll only want one thing in return.

This, he understood. Tit for tat, compensation. He knew nothing ever came for fucking free. Not the kindness of strangers, not anything. "What could I possibly offer you?"

Teach me sign language. I want to learn, and I have a feeling this is going to be a long journey and I'm going to run out of pages in this book. It's the last one I have.

Why?

Because it will be easier than writing because then we could talk to each other without people listening in. Strategically it's brilliant, and it's interesting. An entire language that only uses hand and arm gestures.

Cobra was too stunned to do anything more than nod yes. He had never shown sign language to anyone before, it had been only his mother and him communicating back and forth like that. There were magical implants of course that could have corrected it as a child, but they were too poor to buy it. Then he was ripped from his home, placed in a Tower and used as a slave. Then Brain had pulled him out of there and taught him magic…then when the soul listening manifested, he could hear everything.

Where did you learn this? I've never even heard of something like this.

"My mother taught it to me when I was small, before…before that time. I can read lips when the light is good."

Lucy smiled and placed the book down, pen on top of the closed velum cover. She reached down her shirt and before Cobra could even comprehend when she was doing, she pulled out a delicate gold chain, holding a twisted lump of metal, rusted through and looked like it was about to crumble apart into dust.

"What the hell is that?"

Lucy disregarded the question for a moment and only looked down at the lump in her hand, then back up so he could watch her lips move. "I want to thank you for telling me something about your mother, Cobra. I should know just how precious memories are when they come from someone like that. So, I wanted to show you something I got from my mother. This key—" And he could see now where once it could have resembled a golden gate key, but only barely. "—was given to me by her, along with two others. One was stolen when she was sick, Capricorn, but this one, Aquarius was my oldest and only friend."

Cobra let her speak, silent as he could be as she told him of Tartaros, and exactly how much she had lost and what she had gained after.

"For the longest time, I thought I had killed her. But no, she's out there again, somewhere in Earthland. I just have to find her key."

She fell silent after that and tucked her prized possession down her shirt, he glimpsed a flash of a black tattoo but decided to not question it. Lucy was an enigma of sorts, and against his better judgment, he felt a strange understanding fall between them as they watched the sun travel through the sky.

But he knew that in his state now, he wouldn't be able to do anything on her own. So, with a sigh and a grimace, he accepted her help without saying another word about their mothers.

"Where do we go from here Blondie?"

That question launched a journey that he didn't know he would enjoy so much. The days of silence were broken up with teaching Lucy everything he knew and she devoured the knowledge like a five-course meal. What he didn't know (technical terms and the like for all types of magic) Lucy called forth a giant cross from the Spirit World and borrowed book after book. They traipsed all over Earthland, following leads and connecting dots, talking to dozens of people with even the smallest connection to witchcraft going off nothing but his description of the bitch.

But before they had left, he had led Lucy towards where he had met the witch. They had found a hut, searched it high and low for clues on the witch's whereabouts. They had found a trap door (which he thought was so fucking cliché.) Lucy had laughed at that and bounded down those steps before he could tell her to be careful dammit, it was fucking dark down there.

He wished she had never turned on the light.

Blood saturated everything, old and new, smelling of rot and spoiled iron, death, and desecration. Lucy had taken one look, doubled over and heaved the stewed rabbit they had had for lunch all over the floor.

It was then that he remembered the reason he had gone after this witch in the first place.

"Children."

What? (He had taught her simple terms earlier that morning. Like colours and questions. The alphabet. That woman soaked up knowledge like a fucking sponge.)

"She was abducting children. That's why I rushed into this. I thought that I could save them. But she said…"

Lucy was so pale and horror-struck that he tried to usher her out the trap door again, away from the crimson that had been spilled on the stone floor. She shook her hands at him and waited, grimacing at the smell, for him to keep talking.

"She said that they had been…used up."

"I'll kill her for this." He read her lips then, but it wasn't as if he needed them as a guide. He could see the intent on her face, in her eyes, easily enough.

They left that killing room and searched the surrounding area.

Lucy heard nothing, saw nothing more, but Cobra—well he had found an area of the forest that had been disturbed. The ground over tuned, the leaves of the surrounding plants waxy.

They left that forest, climbed down the Sunderheim and skirted around Snowdrop as if it carried the fucking plague.

But not without vowing that they would come back. They would go back to those children and give them peace. To their parents as well.

For four and a half months they took trains, boats and once a very memorable magic mobile ride that left even Lucy's face a little green until they were positive they had cornered the witch by a set of cliffs in Bosco that housed a small town. The residents believed that something wicked and evil had cursed them, for nigh on two weeks earlier…their children had started to disappear into the night without a single trace. Save for one, a small girl with haunted eyes that never seemed to go away. Eliza didn't speak, but she had pointed them in the direction she had come from and they had (after a long and pointed argument complete with flailing limbs and angry signs) retired for one night to keep their strength up.

They had fallen into an uneasy sleep. It had been the first time that Cobra had slept in a bed with another person, but Lucy had become something over these past few months, something closer than his friends had been in the Tower.

He watched her snore slightly into the pillow, cheek creased and mashed up against the fabric. He realized that she was his friend too. His best friend.

Cobra vowed to get her back home, come hell or high water. His magic didn't really matter all that much in the grand scheme of things (fuck didn't that hurt to admit), not when it was compared to the loss of life that could happen tomorrow. Not when they had a chance to get those children out of there before they became little more than a battery to a woman that needed to be wiped from the Earth.

That morning, they had left at dawn. The plan simple. Lucy would go after the witch, while Cobra found the children. Just because it was logical and good, he didn't have to like it. Because it was dumb, a dumb stupid idiotic plan that he hated.

But he trusted Lucy to do what needed to be done, so he gritted his teeth instead of snarking back at her, and followed her lead. She was the one with the magic, after all, he was a burden who taught her sign language, nothing more. But he trusted Lucy above everyone because he had realized that she was so damn good, right to her very core that she would put the children's needs and safety above both herself and him. And he was surprisingly okay with that.

They found another little shack that looked suspiciously like a carbon copy of the last hut they had found on the Sunderheim. Lucy made to go, Sagittarius Stardress on, bow in hand. Cobra grabbed her by her arm and forced her to look at him one last time.

Be safe, Starshine.

You too, Cobra. Get those kids out of there as soon as possible, I'll distract her for as long as I can.

He nodded, then turned back to her. "Call me Erik."

She smiled wide, and then she was gone.

Luckily for him, his part of the plan went off without a hitch and he found two pale shaking little girls in the basement chained to the dirty floor. He saw freshly spilled blood and drag marks on the ground and pretended they didn't exist. Cobra smashed their shackles with the heaviest thing he could find, bundled them up and moved away from the cliff towards their town. He ran as fast as he could with the added weight and made surprising time. He left them at the Inn, prepared to set off back towards Lucy to do something to help, hell he would yell and scream at the top of his lungs so that he could be the distraction if he had too.

But before he could, his forehead burned fiercely, and the poison in his veins roiled, boiling and bubbling to the surface. Thankfully something heavy and white slammed into his mind before he had a chance to lose control of his Slayer side before he poisoned the whole damn town.

He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

---

Now

---

It was surprisingly easy to find the witch that had imprisoned them. Cobra had thought there would be a maze of tunnels, too many doors and spells to dampen sound and smell.

But there wasn't.

Lucy quirked an eyebrow at him when he held up his hand in the universal sign for stop.

He pointed at the plain wooden door to their left.

Seriously? She signed and rolled her eyes. I was expecting more of a cat and mouse scenario.

Cobra wanted to laugh at her dry wit, he loved when she made light of serious situations. Kept him grounded and his mind off more troubling things, focused on his senses and on her soul.

Plan N?

She clapped a hand over her mouth in a desperate attempt to muffle her giggles. I still can't believe we named it that.

Cobra smashed the door in with his foot as quickly as possible, hopefully catching the witch off guard.

Plan N.

By far the easiest plan to ever execute. Don't think, all in, smash and pray.

Plan Natsu.

The witch was, ironically, or perhaps not, standing by a massive cauldron, stirring the lightly boiling liquid with an oversized spoon.

Cobra wanted to say so many fucking things about this holy shit, but his best friend beat him to it.

"Gods. I didn't actually think witches did this kind of shit. Is that a fucking cauldron?" She sounded both incredulous and elated at the same time. They would laugh over this later, he had no doubt.

She veered off suddenly and snatched up her keys that layout pretty as could be on a table where anyone could see. Cobra snorted and shook his head. The witch should have known that they couldn't hold two Fairy Tail wizards for long.

Fucking amateurs.

Lucy didn't even pause in her advance and between one moment and the next, she stepped out of Ares and into Leo Star Dress while Virgo and Leo leered out of their gates and pushed the witch they were after into a corner of a room with a shriek that pierced their eardrums.

He was still happy that his hearing was back though, no matter the abuse to his senses.

Cobra let loose a Poison Dragon Roar, delighted beyond everything that his magic listened to his command again. The dense fog herded her farther and farther towards the wall, lest she step into his attack and risk death. He knew how potent the shit that came out of his mouth was.

This time, for the crap this witchy bitch had put them through he had mixed as many different kinds with as high a potency as he could and delighted in the fact the stone ceiling and floor were starting to sizzle and smoke.

"Oi. Don't bring everything down around our ears Erik."

He huffed and pulled some back inside his body as Lucy made a complicated hand signal (that had nothing to do with sign language) into the empty air and manifested two massive glowing swords from a pocket of the Spirit World. She gracefully strode forward, holding the halves of Cancer's weapon of choice easily, as if they were an extension of her arms.

The first time she had shown them to him, he had never seen more intimidating gardening tools. Coupled with the fact that she could pull bits and pieces from different Stardresses at will made Lucy all that more dangerous. And amazing.

"Did you truly think that you were a match for us?" Leo's elegant black dress billowed around her as she stalked the witch until her back hit the wall, red stilettos clicking against the ground like the heralds of war. He loved Lucy like this, filled with righteous anger, eyes glowing with fury and pride. It made a little piece of himself shiver in delight.

She was glorious. It was half of why he called her Starshine.

Lucy was blinding.

Cobra silently slunk up beside Lucy, shadowing her from behind. They worked well like this, he was better at actions, always had been. Lucy was the one with the endless words.

The witch seemed to bolster at the sight of him. She made to throw a flask filled with bright red liquid but stopped abruptly as chains wrapped tightly around her arms, immobilizing her.

"Thank you, Virgo."

"Punishment time Princess?"

Lucy shook her head with a fond smile. "Perhaps later, Virgo." She murmured, never taking her eyes off the witch. It was in her best interest not to, of course.

Cornered animals tended to lash out with everything they had, even if it hurt them in the long run.

One of Lucy's daggers shot out and was held to the witch's vulnerable neck, so close that with every breath she took the blade sliced her pale skin.

"Now, why don't we all just have a little chat, hmm?" Lucy's smile was as vicious as her swords, pointy and so very sharp. Leo looked just about ready to swoon into a puddle, but mercifully, he held off this time.

"How did you even break out of those restraints? I worked for months on those!"

The blonde smiled then with too many teeth. "Just because you subdued our magic, doesn't mean you left us helpless, little witch. I've been through tougher days than this when I was a teenager. This is nothing compared to the shit I've been dragged through. One of my brothers is END, I helped him defeat Zeref the most terrible black wizard ever known. I've seen wars, I've lost loved ones, I've seen more death than I ever wanted to. I've been beaten and tortured and abandoned. This was practically a vacation for me. Have you ever even heard of the Starbringer here in Stella?"

The witch, although angry and petulant, nodded with a quick jerky movement.

Cobra leered over Lucy's shoulder. "Well, you found her bitch."

Poisonous green eyes snapped to his. "You the hell are you? And how did you survive the poison in the cookies I gave you? Everything I've ever heard about the mage that killed my sister made no mention of you."

Lucy smiled and winked. "This is my best friend, Cobra, the Poison Dragon Slayer. Perhaps you've heard of him?"

Although he wanted to preen, Cobra set his face in the nastiest glare he could rustle up. He was getting tired of this and just wanted to go back home. This witch was nothing compared to her sister and hadn't even done them much harm.

"Starshine, I'm bored. Let's get on with this shall we?"

"Of course, Cobra. This is tawdrier than what I thought was going to happen. Even Juvia put up more fight and she was love-sick the entire time." She murmured.

The witch tried to protest a little, but with a smack to the head from the pommel of one dagger from Lucy, she was out cold.

"Well, princess, that was pretty anti-climactic. Although, you might want to sterilize our keys after that witch hand her grubby little hands on them."

There was a meaningful pause then, in a quieter voice than he's ever heard from the lion, "also, she wants you to know that she's looking into some beautiful jewelry right now."

Lucy smirked her mind whirring to life immediately plotting a route to Joya. She thanked her spirits, letting them and her Stardress and daggers fade back into the spirit realm. "Please thank Cancer for me, won't you?"

With a final nod and a bow, both Leo and Virgo were gone.

"So, Starshine, what do we do with this one?" Cobra poked the unconscious witch with the tip of one of his boots, reluctant to get too close.

"Turn her over to whatever authorities out here equal the magic council. I don't think they'll have any problems keeping her contained. As long as she can't write runes, it'll be fine."

Cobra listened intently for a moment. "She doesn't possess any true magic, no spark. She's completely human. Fucking crazy, but still human."

Lucy shivered a little but cracked a smile at the sight of the cauldron again. "Bix is gunna lose it when I tell him about the potions she was cooking up."

Cobra groaned and nodded. "Let's just get out of here. I'm tired of looking at the cave walls, and you know I can't fucking stand bats."

She laughed and called up the boots from Taurus' Stardress, bodily lifting the slightly drooling woman over one shoulder. "Alright, Erik, let's go."

He sucked up the last of the poison in the air and sighed happily as it sung in his veins. "We need to get drunk."

"Whatever you say, snake-boy."

"Fucker."

"You love me."

---

Then

---

"Shit. You have no idea how good it is to hear your soul again Starshine, sound for sore ears. How long was I out, what happened? Is she gone?"

"It's been three days, calm down, alright? She's gone. I promise Erik."

"How?"

A pendant he recognized easily was slipped around his neck and tucked underneath his shirts. Jewel shattered and cracked in the center.

"I did what needed to be done, nothing more, Erik."

He didn't ask about it again, accepting that answer as gospel.

The next morning, they left that town in Bosco, traveled slowly on foot back to Snowdrop for over two months, detouring once or twice to gather more money.

At sundown in the middle of a week, they reburied fourteen small bodies in their own graves, marking their headstones out as the townspeople watched on silently from a distance.

Lucy didn't speak again for two days.

They took the express train back into Fiore, and Lucy didn't even have to ask where he would head next. Both knew where one would go, the other would follow.

Six days later, to a nearly empty guild at daybreak, in front of Mira and the Master, a wine-drunk Cana, and a snoring Elfman, he was invited to be in Fairy Tail.

All Lucy did was smirk and bump his shoulder, their easy comradery, and bond startling both barmaid and guild master.

"What took you so long child?"

"Just waiting for the right time old man."

His stamp landed perfectly on the side of his neck, acidic purple and as bold as his personality.

---

Now

---

"Show me, Lucy."

The use of her given name startled the blonde so severely that she stopped in her tracks in the middle of the road back to the train station. "Are you sure you want to see it Cobra?"

He held his knee-jerk asshole comments and quips behind his teeth and actually thought about what she was asking.

"Yes."

"Well, I did promise."

And without a second to center himself, he was sucked into the middle of her soul.

"Foolish child. Why would you ever come after me? I know you're out in the trees somewhere."

Lucy stepped out from behind a large willow that was hiding her from sight, bow held high, arrow notched and waiting. "You took something precious from the man I love."

The witch cackled high and long. "And you thought you would kill me to get it back? And who did I wrong so completely little girl?"

Sparkles burst beside her into three gates filled with furious spirits. "The Starbringer, you hag." She fired the arrow at the witch's head, grunting in disappointment when her target vanished.

"Leo, Capricorn. You know what to do."

The fight was overwhelming, the witch able to disappear and reappear seemingly at will. Capricorn was sent back after a devastating blow to his legs made him crumble to the ground. Lucy whispered to her last forgotten spirit as another one of her light arrows failed to hit its mark. "Virgo, I believe it's time to get a bit dirty, don't you?"

"Right away, Princess."

Virgo was below the earth for so long, that the witch forgot about her. After Lucy had been hit in the chest with a whip made of flames conjured from thin air, Virgo burst from the rocks below and locked her in place.

Lucy pulled the string back another time on her bow. She would not miss this time—

"You never answered my question Starbringer. Why would you go after a witch of the Willard family like this?"

"You stole his magic from him and used it to power your own. You used innocence as a battery, you've killed children. You disgust me. Do I need another reason?"

The witch's face twisted into a mask of grotesque fury as she unconsciously palmed her scars on her neck. "That little snake? He deserved all he got."

"Give it back you bitch." Lucy's voice was low and steady, filled with ice and splintering iron. "Surrender, I have you tra—"

Rocks crumbled as the witch forced her way out of the prison that Virgo had created. Lucy swore and loosed the arrow, prayed that it would fly true. Prayed that it would strike the monster in front of her through the heart.

But—

At the last minute, the woman turned and the arrow stuck fast into the pendant hanging heavy around her neck.

Time slowed down and crept until she was sure it was flowing backward.

Then, just as Lucy pulled back to create another arrow from her magic, the witch let out a fearsome shriek, pain-filled and wretched. The veins of her body turned black, while skin peeled, eyes bled and hair shriveled.

The witch was dead, nails and lips and ears flaking away into black dust.

Lucy pulled the pendant from the twisted, blackened husk eyeing the body before her with a wary sort of confusion. "What the hell just happened?"

Leo only shrugged before he and Virgo collapsed their gates with a parting kiss blown goodbye and a puzzled expression.

Pocketing the jewelry, she turned and retraced her earlier steps towards the place where she knew the children were, in Erik didn't run into any problems.

She didn't spare a glance back.

He heaved and shook before his senses came back. Two hands grabbed his face and he almost flinched away.

Almost, but not quite.

"I researched for two days while you were unconscious but couldn't figure out what the hell happened to that witch. My magic is pure, light, it burns from the outside in. She looked like she was disintegrating, her veins went black as pitch and she started to turn into dust. It wasn't until I remembered what you had told me about the day you fought her."

While his vision cleared up some, he could only see those bright amber eyes. Cobra felt a kind of strange déjà vu, but it was fine. He was fine. Lucy was here with him.

It was fine.

"Poison—" he rasped out quickly, then cleared his throat. "—it was poison."

Lucy nodded and sighed. "I know. That necklace that she wore had kept her immune from all poisons, including the ones you pumped into her body when you bit her. Either she didn't know, didn't care, or assumed in her arrogance that she would live forever."

"What? Live forever?"

Then it clicked.

"The children? She was…"

Lucy's eyes filled with a pain filled sadness he hated. "Yes. I looked into it after, researched the tools she was using and asked Levy and Freed. They confirmed my suspicion. That Witch was using those innocent—gods, those innocent, pure children as sacrifices in some fucked up ritual for immortality. The boosts to her power were just a nice aftereffect. As far as I could tell, the witch that you melted a year ago was close to five hundred years old."

"Then how did she have a sister that didn't really know how to use magic? It makes no fucking sense!"

"My best guess is not a true sister, more like a prodigy, or a student. Did you notice the plants hanging above the hearth in that room she was in, above the cauldron?"

"…I was more focused on the fact that there even was a damn cauldron in there honestly."

"Yeah." She smiled tightly. "Poison Ivy, Hemlock, Wolfsbane, Nightshade, Oleander…"

"All poisonous. Every single one."

"I know. She had fucking Foxglove strung up beside a bunch of Moonseed."

Cobra wheeled around and started marching back towards the cave, Lucy hot on his heels. "Fuck, do you know how rare Moonseed is? That shit doesn't grow anywh—"

"Anywhere except the deserts of Desertio? Yeah, I know. I grabbed a bunch of it while you were poking an unconscious witch with your toe. Along with a couple of Bleeding Hearts."

He all but ripped the flower away from Lucy, smelling it delicately before stuffing it in his mouth like the glutton he was. He moaned loudly, fresh poison coursing through his veins. "Jesus fuck that shit is good." It certainly paid off for him that Lucy was so observant.

Lucy giggled and hauled him by the arm so that they were back on track towards their destination. She left him quietly in his contemplation, humming contentedly when his body broke down more of the toxins in his bloodstream.

"So, she's dead. Her sister is in prison…everything is fine?"

"Are you asking me? Or saying that?"

"I don't fucking know Starshine."

It was silent for a moment, so they kept on walking towards the train station while Cobra soaked up everything he could, souls, sounds, Lucy. "Yeah, Erik. Everything's fine."

"You know I do too. Right?"

And because Lucy knew him, and he knew her, trusted her beyond everything, she didn't even for a moment ask what he meant. "I know, in your own fucked up kind of way." He nodded and smirked, slipping his pinky around hers as they walked.

It was quiet again before they were standing in front of the board for all the connecting trains and the times they would leave.

"So…you caught that hint the lion gave you right?"

"Oh please. It was too easy. They should know by now that I'll eventually figure everything out."

"Smartass."

She laughed and smiled, that way she did when she was caught off-guard. "You up for a trip to Joya?"

"What do you think idiot?"

"Oh, fuck you snake-boy."

"You love me."

"No, I'm pretty sure I hate you."

"Lies."