Laxus wiped the rag over his fingers but he thought maybe the oil stains were permanent. Everything felt that way lately. Permanent.
"Just fuck off, Laxus!" Mirajane's words stuck in his head the way burrs stuck in the fur of his grandpa's old dog.
"Fuckin' dog," he muttered, tossing the rag aside. "Fuckin' everything!" The dog whined from the corner of the garage. Laxus glanced back over his shoulder and beyond the yellow pool of overhead light. "Sorry, boy. It wasn't personal."
Law chuffed and stretched. His paws and tail hung over the edges of the lump of fluff that used to be a chair cushion. It was nearly flat and almost just as old as Laxus.
The sound of crunching gravel and the sweep of headlights cutting across the mostly darkened garage drew his attention from the open hood of his grandpa's truck. Laxus squinted into the lights and tried not to clench his jaw. Only one person would have the nerve to visit so late.
"Well, now," Ivan Dreyar's voice didn't sound much different than the gravel his car had rolled over on its way up the property. "Isn't it a little late for a school night?"
"You knew I'd be up," Laxus muttered, turning back to the guts of the truck. It was a lost cause but he couldn't help it. The truck was the glue that held together his childhood.
"Just checkin' in, just checkin' in." Ivan's eyes slid over the truck before settling on Law in the corner. "I see everything around here's still alive and kicking. How's the old man?"
"Fine," Laxus bit out.
"Chatty as ever, I see." Ivan leaned against the body of the truck and Laxus avoided the sidearm strapped to his father's waist.
"What do you want?"
"I can't pop in on my boy without the third degree?"
Laxus snapped a little. He stood up straight – he was just as tall as Ivan now – and got right in his father's face. The brown fabric of Ivan's uniform top was still smooth and prim even after a long day.
"No. Why are you here and what do you want?"
Ivan sighed and pulled the matching brown hat from his head. "Heard you'd be graduating soon." He paused and Laxus's stomach twisted. He hated the feeling. Somehow after all these years of disappointment he still managed to have the capacity to hope. "You need anything? Money?"
"I don't need anything you've got." His mind flit to Mirajane and the baby – baby… he'd been trying to form the word in his head without cringing. "Get out of here."
"Come on, son," Ivan pressed. "I'm tryin' real hard here."
"You should've tried harder when I was younger and Gramps wasn't sucking down pills." Laxus felt the rage mounting. His hands curled into tight fists. "You should've tried harder when I was just a little kid waiting for you to come home."
"Laxus –"
"Fuck off," he growled, recycling Mirajane's words from before.
"What about that pretty girl of yours?" Ivan drawled. "She's gonna want something someday and she might not like motor oil smeared all over it."
"Get out."
"Alright, alright." Ivan fitted the brimmed hat back on his head. "Don't say I never offered. You know where to find me if you change your mind."
Laxus watched Ivan duck back inside his car and pull a tight u-turn in the driveway. He half hoped the car would slide into the ditch. The lights mounted on the top of the squad car caught the low glow from the garage.
Red, blue, red, blue.
Lisanna tapped her pen cap against her bottom lip and watched Natsu bob in between of the other boys on the court. Jellal's notes held no real interest for her when Natsu was around. His plays were so erratic and he moved so fast none of them had a chance. The muscles in his back flexed when he jumped up above the others to sink a basket. Natsu's smile was bright and he appeared almost completely weightless. His shoulders never slumped when he was playing. She wished he could be so carefree all the time.
A gust of wind ruffled the pages of her notebook and Lisanna sighed. Her eyes strayed to the playground on the other side of the park. A mother and her toddler played on the plastic slide and a boy and girl chased each other in a circle around the swings. In only an hour or two the shadows would fall and the souls that lurked in them would grow sharp, and dangerous, and bold. Sometimes she wondered if any of them still had flakes of her mother's blood under their nails. Or bits of her father's hair clinging to their jackets.
Lisanna's gaze stretched all the way past the playground to the street and tree line beyond. The tangle of trees and brambles that lined the north side of the neighborhood would eventually thicken into the wood that choked the mountain slopes.
On the far side of the street was the only bus shelter on the north end of town. Twice a month a Greyhound coach would roll by the shelter and the truck stop down by the highway where Mirajane worked nights. The shelter was old and the fiberglass panels, cracked. Inside was a bench in similar disrepair. One of the support beams was missing on the back of it but the boy with midnight black hair lounged as if the other planks weren't digging into his spine. He smoked his cigarette casually and Lisanna knew he didn't see her at all. This particular boy only had eyes for Natsu. Lisanna bit the inside of her cheek until it hurt.
"Hey," Natsu cut into her thoughts and blocked her view of the boy in the bus shelter. He grabbed his t-shirt from beside her backpack and mopped his face and neck dry. "Did you see? I wiped the pavement with those guys!"
"You always do," she said, her smile inevitable. "You should play at school."
"Nah. That's not a challenge." He ran his hand through his messy hair. The spikes of pink stuck out even more than before.
"Maybe not. But it might be fun to be in front of more people than just me."
"Are you kidding?" He said with a wide grin. "You're the only audience I need, Lisanna!"
She tried not to flush but found it to be just as inevitable as her smile. Natsu reached into her bag and pulled out one of her water bottles. His head fell backward as he sucked down mouthfuls of water. Lisanna leaned to the left and peered around his shoulder. The boy with the black hair had gone.
"You want to come over for dinner tonight? Mira's got the night off and Elf brought home some of the meat from the store. I guess the freezer leaked all over the floor and he got it on discount."
"Maybe." Natsu crushed the water bottle and screwed the lid back on tighter than it needed to be. "I should run home first."
"You've got spare keys in my room," she whispered. "For when he locks you out. Remember?"
He stared hard at the crumpled plastic. "I know. I just need to make sure everything's okay. Mom was on the couch this morning."
"Is she alright?"
Natsu shrugged. "I just need to check." He sighed and grinned at her again – but Lisanna had always been able to tell his real smiles from the fake. "I'll just be a little bit, okay?"
"Okay." She tucked a strand of hair behind one ear and bit the end of her pen cap again. The basketball court was empty now. Shouts from the boy and girl on the playground still made everything feel normal. Safe. "I'll wait for you here and then we can walk together."
"I'll put a rush on it." Natsu's eyes lingered on hers in the way that made her heart thud and her stomach twist. "I promise."
"Go on, then. Hurry up or Mira will put you on the grill instead of the beef."
Natsu snatched the spent water bottle from the picnic tabletop and swung his legs over the bench. He jogged across the field and tossed the plastic into the bin on the far side of the park.
He almost put his shirt back on but it was too dirty. Showing up to dinner with Lisanna and her family would be nice but he couldn't do it in a dirty shirt. Natsu's eyes fell to the haphazard pile of weeds by the rusted railing. He should've told Lisanna he just needed a clean shirt instead of blurting out that stuff about his mom. She had enough of her own junk to worry about without his junk, too.
The television blared from inside the house and Natsu sucked in a deep breath. He took the steps two at a time and yanked open the screen door. The house smelled like cigarettes and Natsu's heart sank. He'd like to just once show up at a place not reeking of tobacco.
"Natsu?" His mother's voice cut him. It always did. She turned around on the couch to face him. Her eyes were wide and glassy, and her smile was sloppy. The mostly empty bottle of vodka on the low table in front of her cut him even more. "You're home late."
"It's not even six, mom," he muttered, inching around the perimeter of the living room. "I'm going back out."
"I made dinner." The words came from a mouth Natsu wasn't in the mood for. Zeref's cigarette smoke curled from between his fingers as he stood in the doorway that led to the kitchen. His eyes were flat black and sober – unlike their mother's. "Get cleaned up."
"I'm going back out," Natsu said again. He took another step toward his bedroom.
"You got somewhere to be? Mom's home."
"I made plans," he hedged. Natsu avoided the watery gaze of his mother and spun on his heel. He charged down the short hallway and slut his bedroom door behind him. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," he whispered in a heavy breath.
As quickly as possible, Natsu dug in the back of his tiny closet for the extra large sized sealable plastic bags he kept hidden. The clothes he washed at Lisanna's house on Saturdays when Mirajane worked doubles were kept sealed off from the stench of his mother's vodka and Zeref's cigarettes. Natsu breathed a sigh of relief that he had one clean, sweet smelling shirt left. He rolled the bag as thin as possible and stuffed it into the waistband of his pants before pulling on a clean white t-shirt.
Natsu grabbed a stick of gum from his sock drawer, opened his bedroom door – and froze. Zeref blew a mouthful of smoke into his face.
"Mom's been in the tank for two days and you're gonna bail on dinner?" he said in a tone Natsu knew better than to think was casual. "That's rude."
"I told Lisanna I'd have dinner with her and her family." Natsu tried to step around Zeref but his older brother was quick.
"That's not a good place for you."
Natsu's jaw twitched. "If that's true, then it's your fault."
Zeref's mouth slid into a grin and Natsu's heart skipped a painful beat. Before he could blink Zeref's cigarette was bouncing on the matted green carpet and Natsu's back slammed against the wall. He tried to avoid his brother's eyes but couldn't. They were black holes that ruined everything in their vicinity.
"Things are the way they are," Zeref whispered. The scent of smoldering carpet hit Natsu's nose and he felt like retching. "Once you realize that, you'll be happier. Stay the fuck away from that family. It's no good for you or me." Zeref's gaze didn't waver even though the smell of the carpet was overwhelming. "Or mom."
"Fuck you," Natsu said with the last of his breath. He shoved Zeref off him and made sure to step on the cherry of the still burning cigarette before stalking through the house back to the door.
He half expected Zeref to follow him. Natsu didn't need to look back to know his brother had stayed behind the screen door. Even out of eyesight, Zeref could be felt.
The sky was bordering on twilight when Natsu found Lisanna still flipping through her notebook in the park. He slid the last button of his shirt through the loop and stuffed the empty plastic bag in his pocket. It crinkled but he ignored it. Using his last clean shirt on dinner with Lisanna instead of school would be worth it.
"Hey, sorry that took so long." She jumped and spun around on the bench. Natsu felt a stab of guilt. "I didn't mean to scare you."
"It's fine." Lisanna stood and returned her books to her backpack. "We should go, though." He watched her glance at the empty playground and his heart twisted over on it self.
"If Mira's mad, I'll take the heat. It's my fault."
"It's okay. Let's just get out of here." She slid her arms through the straps of her backpack and hesitated for only half a second before grabbing his hand. Her shoulder pressed into his as they crossed the park.
Lisanna didn't let go of his hand even once they'd cleared the stretch of land he knew sometimes haunted her dreams. Somewhere between the park behind them and her front porch, he slid his fingers between hers.
A shadow settled over her locker and Erza tried to paint her face with a gracious smile – as gracious as she could be before the first bell, anyway. She'd never been a morning person.
"You ready for the game tomorrow night?" Simon asked in a too-loud voice.
"I guess," Erza muttered.
"You're starting, right?"
"Yep." She pursed her lips and snatched the bottle of Tylenol she technically wasn't allowed to have from the very top shelf of her locker.
"You talk to Jellal this morning?"
"No, why?"
"Well, I guess he's been a little distracted."
"What?" Erza huffed frustratedly. She twisted the cap off a water bottle and knocked back three of the pills.
"Yeah, you know. Him and that little Strauss girl. They've been in the library all morning. He was at her house last night, too."
"Last night Jellal was with me," Erza snapped even though she knew it wasn't exactly true. Jellal hadn't been at her house since Sunday. "And the night before that, too," she added for good measure. Erza slammed her locker shut and turned to Simon. "What's this about?"
"Nothing." Simon shrugged but his grin was smug. "He's a busy guy, I guess."
Erza's eyes narrowed and her head tilted to the right. She blinked once and then again. Words tangled on her tongue.
"Anyway, good luck tomorrow, Erza. I'm sure you'll do great!" Simon stepped past her and sauntered down the wide hallway slowly filling with students.