thanks to all of you who have favourited and followed!

this is where all the shenanigans begin...

(deep thought, boredom, and seriously just what is that candle stick holder made out of?)

Chapter 6

"look what the cat dragged in"

Martha was a lot of things, but she wasn't delusional.

Just because he was able to cover his entire arm in flames, didn't definitively mean that Natsu Dragneel was the inspiration for all these terrible rumors circulating around the town.

Martha has been around for a long time. And being a resident of a town that also happened to be the home of one of most irresponsible and famous wizard guilds in Fiore, she has seen a whole lot of magic in her time. More than she ever really wanted to. But this was Magnolia and it wasn't a Tuesday morning without some blast of magical energy shooting into the sky or someone leaping across rooftops fighting something. And for someone like Martha, who seemed to only attract over powered assholes and people with very little magical 'self-control', she bared witness to magical feats that even the citizens of Magnolia wouldn't believe. Floating office equipment. Tenants being turned into werewolves by 'accident'. Weird looking celestial creatures―seriously, what even is Plue? A dog? ―sneaking into her office and stealing all her paperclips. And then there was the time when Makarov accidentally turned the apartment building, and everyone in it, invisible.

And in her expert opinion? Elemental magic was a pretty standard type for any wizard.

In fact, it wasn't even all that impressive. Not when she really thought about it.

Hell, Fairy Tail had at least ten wind type wizards on their roster at any given time. Twilight Ogre was practically overflowing with earth and lightning elementals. And she had heard that, at its peak, Phantom Lord had at least twenty-three water type wizards on record. It really wasn't particularly difficult magic to learn―all it took was a moderate level of magic energy, a basic understanding of particle physics, and practice―and that was why beginner wizards usually started by focusing on one element before moving on to the more difficult, fancy stuff. But, admittedly, elemental magic that was cultivated through years of training was one of the most powerful types that Martha has ever seen. The kind of power that Makarov, light wizard saint, commanded. And it took work. Advanced elemental magic, the type that that crying water nymph commanded, took a high level of magic power, an iron will, and a whole heap of innate skill. If mastered to such a level it could be pretty powerful stuff and if taken further? One could obtain power akin to that bulking bald wizard saint―Jara, Jaka, Jure? Whatever. The dirt slinger.―and maybe even more.

But that was all beside the point. Which was: elemental mages were a dime a dozen. It wasn't necessarily impressive.

And even less impressive?

Lighting your forearm on fire.

She has seen fire type wizards come in and out of Magnolia enough times to know mastery of that particular element wasn't exactly rare.

In fact, at this point, it was nothing but a cheap parlor trick ―capable of entertaining simpletons who have never set their eyes on real magic, but offering nothing but warm air for those with experience.

Hell. She was six when she first saw someone set a limb on fire and hadn't even given the fool a mere glance then. And on one particularly uneventful trip to Crocus, a couple years later, she'd even seen a man engulf his entire body in flames. Her father had been the only one thoroughly amused―the thin, fragile man had asked the mage for an autograph―and she had been thoroughly embarrassed. Her mother, dressed to the nines in an extravagant assemble of silk and pearls, had been even less impressed. And that man―a circus performer wearing one shoe, tattered trousers and not much else―had clearly had very little magic training and, if the dopey look on his face and the way he had leered at her mother were anything to go on, very little in terms of…significant cognitive ability.

And based on that and the stupidity that Natsu, himself, displayed around Magnolia daily she reasoned that fire magic was fairly easy to learn. Hell. She had even seen Makarov erupt into flames when he was feeling particularly dramatic.

So despite that little…encounter it was clear that she had little to no evidence that Natsu Dragneel was anything more than a delinquent and arsonist. One that would be on the receiving end of a very large bill once she properly evaluated the damage that idiot had inflicted in her building.

But that didn't rule him out as a suspect. Nope. Quite the contrary actually.

While his magical skills and rambunctious nature didn't necessarily label Natsu as the 'flaming pervert' she was searching for, his appearance in Lucy Heartfillia apartment did raise a few interesting questions.

The first being: how the hell did he get into the apartment in the first place?

The most likely answer would have been that he used the door―but there was the mystery. Because Martha knew that that wouldn't have been possible.

Because Martha had done what she always did when it was rent collection day: sealed the front door with magical runes. It may have seemed extreme but it was a practice that she had implemented after weeks of Makarov dodging her attempts of getting him to pay his back rent by preforming shoddy teleportation spells (his voice was usually shaking in fear and his words so rushed that he ended up teleporting sans clothes on many occasions). The runes themselves were created by Yajima, a gifted letter magic user, who had felt especially guilty about the 'hard time' that the hot headed friend was giving her―and perhaps apprehensive of the situation, since she had told him that she was considering saving herself all this trouble and just suing the guild in its entirety if Makarov didn't pay up―and decided to give her something to level the playing field. And this assistance had come in the form of several prewritten magical runes that could be fueled using a lacrima fuel cell, which would effectively trap the little elf in the building. And it had been extremely effective―so effective, in fact, that she had used the runes during every one of her collection rounds since then.

And regardless of what Makarov may have said, it wasn't cruel. The runes barely lasted three hours per fuel cell, so it wasn't like she had trapped the cry baby in his room for days. And besides the only conditions that the runes had was that anyone who didn't pay their rent couldn't leave, unless given written permission by Martha herself, and that only tenants were allowed in. It was ultimately their choice whether they were trapped for the full three hours or not. And more times than not, her tenants quickly paid up when they realized it anyway.

But that was also why Martha was suspicious.

The runes, although highly effective and powerful, had one weakness.

While the stopped access for all outside exits for the tenants, when outside visitors were concerned they only applied to the front and back doors of the building. This meant that tenants could walk in and out of their own apartments whenever they wanted, with only access to the front and back doors being blocked for them and the general public. This was mainly in place to stop any mages particularly gifted with runes from reaching the initial casting point. But because the majority of Martha's apartment building have multiple levels, with the first level of each building having only a small reception areas and no actual apartments, Yajima had neglected to expand the rune to include windows. Because who, in there right mind, would scale all the way up to second floor window of an apartment building? Someone would definitely spot them and even if they didn't it was dangerous. The side of the building was covered in grenery and vining which was purposefully slippery and the fall from that height would definitely do more than just bruise. So, it had seemed unnecessary, and a waste of magical energy, to block public access to the windows. But it also meant that the windows were virtually unguarded.

Which was fine. It had never really been an issue back then―aside from that one occasion where Makarov had smuggles a guilt-ridden Yajima through his window, after wrongfully and melodramatically blaming the young man for selling him out to some "chick", and almost escaped. And while it took a few more years for her to understand exactly how a teenage boys libido could convince him to scale the side of a building up to a window on the fourth floor knowing full well that he did not have the upper body strength necessary, her fury had been enough to scare them all away too.

And so she had never seriously considered fixing the problem. The runes did what she needed them to do. So they weren't perfect. So?

(But then again, she had never had to deal with a rumor like this one before.)

But that little magical glitch gave her the answer she needed. Natsu Dragneel must have climbed up to Lucy Heartfillia's third story window. She was sure of it.

He clearly had the physical strength required to complete such a feat, plus a flying cat, and it was the only logical answer.

Martha had arrived at Strawberry Street immediately after leaving the guild hall, and on her way out she had actually seen the pink-haired deviant gorging on food at one of the tables by the bar. And if the vigor of his actions and the sheer amount of food he had in front of him were anything to go on, then he was bound to be at the table for at least another hour. At the very least. And even if he had finished earlier, the walk to Strawberry Street from Fairy Tail was barely ten minutes. By the time he would have finished she would have been in the building and set up the runes already.

And then there was that look.

It was just….just…she didn't exactly know what to make of it.

It had been so peculiar. Watching how Natsu could go from ruffling up the blonde's hair like an annoying friend, completely ignoring her state of undress, to moving wisps of her hair out of her face like she was made of glass.

This was the guy that regularly faced opponents with the tenacity of a dragon and the gentleness of an earthquake. The guy who had destroyed countless building―many of them, hers―in Magnolia with nothing more than a careless sneeze. The guy who was one of the leading forces behind Fairy Tail's jaw dropping victory at the last Grand Magic Games. The Salamander. The Fire Dragon. The pain in the ass. Natsu Dragneel.

But the way he looked at her in that moment just seemed so familiar. Like she had seen that exact look―that loaded gaze―on someone else's face.

It had been so normal at first.

He had looked at her, hand buried in the gold of her hair, like she had seen him look at Lucy every time before. You would have to be incredibly out of touch with Magnolia, or trapped under a rock for the last couple of years, to not know that Natsu Dragneel and Lucy Heartfillia were a pair. Where there was one there was always the other. Always a little bit of Natsu in every one of Lucy's smiles and a dash of Lucy in Natsu's laugh. Whether it be local festivals, holidays, or even those weird contests that Fairy Tail held yearly, those two were always together. And if they weren't you could bet that they would be stealing little glances at the other, just making sure that the other was there. Martha had seen it many times. The way their faces brightened with childlike glee when they spotted each other, but she also notices something deeper. A glint that they shared in their eyes. A sadness just around the edges of ever look, one of a shared loss. And while Martha didn't know much about guild life, she was sure that was something that was common amongst guild mates. Comrades. Nakama. Best Friends. And on that day he had looked at her just like that. Like she was his best friend. But it ran deeper than that for them.

When his hand had brushed her cheek, it had changed.

He had looked at her as if he was in awe.

As if the feeling of her skin against his hand had reminded him that this wasn't a dream. That she was actually here, standing right in front of him. Awake, aware and very much…alive. It had felt so intimate, so personal, that Martha had felt like a stranger happening upon something that was rare and precious, but something that they also had no business watching. If she had been anybody else she would have looked away, sporting the same pretty pink blush as Lucy but she wasn't. So she watched the dragonslayer and celestial wizard with barely conceal curiosity. Had noted the fondness exuding from the young man's laugh and the tension draining from the young woman's shoulders. Had seen Lucy―Subconsciously? Consciously?―damn near melt against his touch and heard the airy nature of her yelp as she moved away. The hitch of Lucy's breathing as his fingers, tan and clearly worked, gently graze her smooth skin. She'd watched it all, unashamedly. But his eyes. The emotion bared in his onyx eye? It had been painted so thickly that it had been difficult for her to read.

What exactly was he so in awe of? That was what she didn't quite understand.

But it had tapped into something within her. Something she had kept buried under years and years of bitterness. Something that had once been so beautiful. Something magnificent. Something completely and utterly maddening.

And she had buried it again and went home.

But it had left her with no doubt in her mind.

Natsu Dragneel was the one she should be watching.

And she would be doing just that.

Honestly? I only went along with this because I thought it would be exciting. Or at the very least more eventful than sitting on the couch all day was. But this? The hag whined. This is shit.

Ignoring the hag was now second nature for Martha and so she carried on unpacking the box of kitchen appliances from the box on the floor.

This was a good idea. She was sure of it.

She needed to keep a close eye on Natsu Dragneel, and any other suspicious characters who might make themselves known, so what better place to do that than the apartment building itself?

At least that was how she had rationalized it to the more skeptical part of her brain. The part that did not want to give up her spacious two bedroom cottage for an apartment that she hadn't lived in for years and a mattress that is older than any of her tenants. But luckily her need for comfort was far weaker than her need for sanity―which was rapidly slipping―and it won out.

And besides, it wasn't like her old apartment was terrible. In fact it was kind of...nice. It had been renovated at least twice since she had first moved out and now had the same modern layout that all the other apartments had. A modernized kitchen, complete breakfast bar. Modest living area, more than enough for one person. Large master bedroom and ensuite. Not to mention tons of windows, allowing for full use of natural light. It was a great place and living there for a few weeks wasn't going to kill her. Plus, it happened to be right next door to Lucy Heartfillia's home―so what else could she really ask for? Other than a comfortable mattress, which she could remedy with a shopping trip later on, she was set.

And so here she was, sat on the black and white tiled floor of an apartment she hasn't lived in since she was twenty-four, wonder why she had though owning three different types of toaster oven was beneficial in any way and finding herself agreeing with the hag. A little.

She sighed.

She just hadn't expected this plan to take so long.

She had moved into 3A four days ago and spent every night by the living room window, like some kind of creep, staring at the windows that led to Lucy's living room and bed room. And other than getting a crick in her neck from falling asleep on the couch, and the occasional boob flash from Lucy, her stakeout had been uneventful. All she had learnt was that she needed to get a new sofa, something comfortable and perhaps black, and that Lucy Heartfillia―blonde bombshell, celestial mage, Fairy Tail wizard―was actually kind of boring.

Her days were pretty average.

She woke up, got dressed, had breakfast, and left. Usually she went to the guild, other times she went to the market. And once, when Martha was particularly bored, she had followed to a cafe where, much to Martha's disappointment, she had met up with some short blue haired girl who had been reading a book that was bigger than Martha's head. They had been discussing the girl's affections for one of their guild mates, but their high pitched giggles and excitable yelps had given her a headache and she had left before finding out anything useful. Lucy always arrived back at the apartment late in the evening, wrote in her journal and went to bed. Sometimes she would spent ages at her desk, writing what Martha thought was a letter before crumpling it up and stuffing it into a drawer. It was strange, to say the least. And when Lucy actually spent the day in her apartment, she spent most of her time writing. God, she could do that for hours. And she usually did. That is until she was interrupted by one of the colorful characters from her guild. Day two had seen Erza Scarlet, sword in hand, burst through Lucy's front door and demand that she accompany her to some bakery a few towns over. Lucy had not been impressed by the door now hanging crookedly on its hinge, and Martha had quickly scribbled down repair bill. Day four had seen a nearly naked Grey Fullbuster scurry into Lucy's apartment, grab a duffle bag from her hallway closet and leave. All without even addressing the gobsmacked blonde who had opened the door for him.

And while that may have been entertaining for some people, Martha had once lived next door to Makarov Dreyer and so she wasn't as easily amused.

In fact she was getting more frustrated because not once in the four days since she had begun her stakeout has she seen Natsu Dragneel. Not once.

Maybe she had missed him during one of those times when even her sheer determination couldn't keep her eyes from sliding shut? Maybe she had over reacted to the whole flame thing? Maybe the rumors really were the invention of some bitter old realtor whose only chance to secure a sale was through slanderous lies? Maybe it really wasn't true? Maybe it wasn't him?

Doubt had started to grip her mind.

She rose from her seat on the floor and wandered over to the large window in her living room. The black candlestick holder―which she had carried with her because it would seem that some part of her was determined to carry around that old ghost―glistened in the sunlight as she sighed. The sun was now high in the sky and she could see Lucy, sat on her balcony with her black typewriter sounding as she hit the keys. And as she looked out at the town, the figure of Fairy Tail identifiable in the distance, she wondered:

Is this a waste of my time?

That night, Martha decided to actually sleep in her bedroom rather than the lumpy excuse for a sofa that had been her bed for the last four days. Her back had finally had enough and her neck was so stiff that turning her head wasn't going to happen that night, so why not? If nothing had happened in the last four days, she doubted that anything exciting would happen at Lucy's apartment tonight. (And even if it did, her aching body really didn't care.) Especially since Lucy had actually come back from the guild earlier than usual today, and had been locked in her bedroom ever since. She was slightly concerned for the celestial wizard, she had seemed kind of upset.

But it wasn't her place to pry, so like a good stalker, she was going to mind her own business.

So Martha had picked up her binoculars and blanket off the couch on the balcony, and had taken herself inside for a quiet night in. All thoughts of spying, rumors and wizards pushed to the very back of her mind.

Tap.

What the hell?

Tap. Tap.

What is that?

Tap. Tap.

Who the fuc-

CRASH. THUD.

"Ow."

Martha has been living alone since she was twenty years old, so when she hear the crash, like someone had thrown a bolder through her living room window, she was prepared. She sat up in her bed, swinging her legs over to calmly slip her plush slippers on to her feet, and reached under her mattress and pulled out a metal bat.

Leaving the lights off and slipping her glasses back on her face, she made her way down the hall and into the entry way of the living room.

She leaned against the side of the door way, cautiously gripping the handle of the bat, and peeked in the room. The window, as she expected, was nothing more but shards of glass littering her floor. The black candle stick holder, which had once been sat against the large window, was on the floor surprisingly in one piece―an irritating sense of relief warmed her―but she couldn't say the same for the small wooden table that had been under the window. She heard the sound of a rough groan sound from somewhere in the room, she couldn't exactly tell where, but there was definitely someone else in the room. She heard the rustling of glass, the intruder must be standing.

"Well, that hurt."

The voice was male and the words slurred, as if he had been drinking and the scent of whisky filled her nostrils. He began moving, glass moving along with his steps and he neared the entry way.

Martha's grip on the bat tightened.

Well, she thought, no use waiting here.

She moved to the center of the entry way, raised the bat above her head, held her breath, and swung.

The intruder fell with a loud bang to the floor, hands holding his head where she had landed her blow. She groped the wall, looking for the light switch and blinked as the lacrima turned on. Her breath quickened, adrenaline pumping through her veins, as she entered the room and looked at the heap of man now laying on her wooden floor. He raised his head, eyes unfocused and barely adjusted to the light, and said,

"Lu-lucy?"

"Natsu?" A high pitched voice asked as its owner swooped into Martha's living room through her non-existent window."Natsu?" He landed alongside his friend." What's going on?"

"You hit him with a bat." Lucy says."Really?"

"He snuck into my living room and broke my window. He deserved it." Pause. "Be grateful. I could have stabbed him."

"How do I know you didn't?"

"I think you would have noticed if I stabbed your best friend."

"Well, I don't know. He does heal quickly."

Pause.

"You are a horrible person. Would you have even cared?" Martha scoffs."It does not matter anyway because I didn't stab him." Pause. "I just hit him with a bat."

"So you say."

"I still own that bat."

this chapter was really hard to write. not sure how I feel about it. let me know what you think!

i wrote a mother's day inspired story, check it out?

edit: there seems to be something wrong with the review system. i'm getting the emails but they are not appearing. guest reviews are also on.

next chapter will be the...interesting. here's a sneak peak:

"The whole town does not need to see you falling off my balcony, so for gods sake, use the door. Please?"