A/N: I'M FINISHING THIS BEFORE JUNE, I SWEAR TO GOD.
This was a hard chapter to write, but she has been done.
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail, Hiro Mashima does. I also don't own any products mentioned in this chapter or this fic as a whole.
On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Ten lords a-leaping.
Lucy wasn't having a panic attack.
"You're having a panic attack," Erik said evenly.
"No, I'm not," Lucy managed to get out between gasps. If there was ever a time that she needed a 'needs more jpeg' bot in real life, it was now. Her head was so light and fuzzy that Erik looked like he'd been screenshot fifteen times and sent on rounds throughout facebook before being dropped in front of her sofa; if she looked at his hands, his face seemed to be in an entirely different dimension.
"According to Google, you are," he replied. His free hand scratched her head lightly as he scrolled through his phone.
"You have a doctorate in Googling? Funny, I thought it was toxicology."
"My doctorate taught me how to Google shit properly. Anyway, according to this website you need to meet four of the following symptoms to be having a panic attack: palpitations, pounding heart, or accelerated heart rate-"
"80 beats per minute is fine."
"Your resting heart rate is 60. Trembling or choking."
"It's freezing outside! Do you see the blizzard? Do you?"
"Feeling dizzy, unsteady, light-headed, or faint."
"I haven't eaten since I woke up because you ate my fucking ramen."
"Sensations of shortness of breath or smothering."
"You know just as well as I do that the junkie across the hall set his kitchen on fire and the smoke is fucking my lungs."
"Right," he deadpanned, throwing his phone onto the other end of the sofa and propping his arm up to cushion his cheek. "According to the website it should be fine in a couple minutes."
"You're the shittiest half-boyfriend ever," Lucy groaned, burying her head into a pillow. Her day had started off just fine: she'd woken up to Erik descending The Rope into her balcony to raid her fridge, spent ten minutes yelling at him for eating the last of her ramen ("I'm looking out for your sodium levels."), and then went online to see if she could find a breakfast recipe involving what meager ingredients she had left in her pantry. It was then that she saw the cursed orange glow on her email icon.
Everything after that? A blur of her dropping onto the sofa and, to quote Erik, "sounding like you'd just been CPR'd to life in a shitty hospital drama", followed up by the aforementioned sprinting across the room to make sure she hadn't gone and died on him.
Fucking sweetheart, Inner Cana cooed.
For doing the bare minimum? Have some respect.
"If you want to unlock 'caring Erik' you have to upgrade to the 'full-boyfriend' package," he said. Despite his aloof tone, his brow was furrowed and he kept lowering his hand to her neck to check her pulse. She would scoff if breathing wasn't already such a hassle. He could pretend to be as annoyed as he wanted, he wasn't fooling her.
"Too broke for that right now, call me back in a couple months," Lucy said. "How long does the trial last?"
"Eh, until your panic attack-"
"Brief moment of shock, thank you."
"Panic attack ends. I'm assuming whatever it is has to do with an email you read. What, you fail a course?"
"Worse," she said grimly, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. Pulled into tight ball, Lucy found it easier to focus on slowing her breaths from 'post-400 meter sprint' to 'walked up a flight of stairs'. "My father emailed me."
"That sucks," Erik said tonelessly. It wasn't that he didn't care (well, that was a lie, he probably didn't) but Lucy had never actually sat him down and explained her sordid history, starting with her being born at the ass-crack of dawn, and ending with her stuffing all her worldly possessions into a backpack (and her bra), stealing a motorcycle, and driving three towns over to crash at Natsu's for the night. Now that her breathing was somewhat stable, she could likely condense it down to three sentences or less.
"To make an extremely long story short, my dad's a jackass and because of his jackassery, I ran away from home a while back. We haven't spoken much since, so this email was a bit of a shock. Why did I run away? Well, it was a decision that was a long time coming, but really the straw that broke the camel's back was him getting me engaged to Sawarr Junelle." Four sentences. Close enough.
"He what." Erik looked as though he had just dunked his bare hands into a dirty sink and touched a bit of food stuck to the bottom. Lucy watched, amused, as he schooled his features into a weak approximation of his regular impassivity. He couldn't quite keep his eye blank enough, nor could he hide the tightness of his jaw, but she gave him a gold star for effort. "Are you two still…?"
"God no. I mean. I never signed the contract, so…" She nibbled her lip thoughtfully. "I hope not?"
She jerked back when he slammed his head into the cushions and ran his hands through his hair. He mumbled something that sounded a lot like 'give me ischemia' before lifting his head high enough to make eye contact with her. "Why'd he email?"
"He's throwing a Christmas Ball and, uh, given the timing of our last...meeting…" she trailed off sheepishly.
He blinked. "You left on Christmas Eve?"
"Yup."
"Do you take all your life inspiration from MTV dramas?"
The look Lucy threw him could have curdled blood. Ok, so it was a little over the top, and maybe she had plotted it while listening to old Kelly Clarkson tunes (maybe she'd even been specifically listening to Breakaway), and maybe she'd penned the idea down a thousand times since her mother had died, but that did not mean she watched MTV dramas. She picked up a pillow and tucked it under her chin, huffing. Erik rolled his eye and sighed deeply. "So. You going?"
She opened her mouth to spit out a very firm 'no', and stopped. The unease settling in her gut crept up to her heart and lungs, gripping on tight to her blood cells and flooding her body with trepidation. She wanted to say no; she'd made her peace with running away before her motorcycle's tire treads had cooled enough to let the falling snow cover them up. The only happy memories from her time in that mansion were trapped in her head, engrams upon engrams clinging to one another like a chain-link fence. She had no need to return, no need to walk the halls that had more ghosts in them than she cared to think about.
And yet.
And yet, there was a part of her, stubborn, childish, and naïvely hopeful, that longed to see her father once more. The foundations of the chain-link fence in her head were built upon his rare smiles; his deep voice reading to her when her mother was unwell; Sunday's spent in his study, watching him pour over documents she couldn't understand, with him filling in the blanks for her. Half of these memories were so faded that all she had access to were sounds and smells. They would never be as close as they were when she was four, but if there was a chance she could see him smile at her for real, just this once…
"We're going, I take it?" Erik drawled. "Great, I can finally put that stupid graduation suit to use again."
She sat up so quickly that the room rotated upside down for a hot second. "What?"
"I would say that I'm there to support you all the way, however that's unlocked after you download a version patch for the 'full-boyfriend' software." Erik ducked her light-hearted swat, catching her wrist. "So what I can say now is that I'm bored, avoiding a lab report, and I figure your shitty pops will have some good quality food set up, so I can probably knock out eating escargot from my bucket list."
"They're pretty gross," Lucy said. The finer details of that night escaped her mind, but she vividly remembered trotting over to the balcony and throwing up through the bars. The upchuck had fallen all over some poor sod below.
"I like gross things," Erik said cheerfully - which, from Erik, sounded more like sadistic glee - as he patted her knee. "Case in point."
"I'm demoting you to booty call."
Stepping onto Konzern grounds, Lucy felt as though she had entered a pillar of amber. Everything was just as she remembered, right down to the top left mismatched screw that fixed a plaque beneath a statue of a lion that sneered down at them. The path leading up to the imposing mansion had been swept clean and salted, and Lucy found herself hopping on familiar stones as she slowly made her way over. Her eyes fell upon the fountain she'd played in growing up. She wondered if the third brick was still loose enough to wiggle out, or if her father had noticed the imperfection and corrected it like he always did when something wasn't to his liking.
Her musings were cut short by Erik's hissed, "Wanna hurry it up? I'm losing feeling in my gut tissue."
"Is my little toxsicle feeling chilly?" she cooed, shooting him a bright smile over her shoulder. Where she had elected to wear a coat, hat, and gloves, Erik looked ready to hike up Mount Everest. All she could see was his one eye glaring at her between the small strip that his hat and scarf allowed him. "Kill you."
"If tonight is as bad as I think it's gonna be…" she muttered. The entire four hour train ride over had been spent running over every possible way the evening could end, starting with Junelle declaring his intentions to marry her right there and then (culminating with both herself and Erik busting their way out like it was a Naruto filler episode), and ending with her mother rising from the grave to...do whatever zombies did. Erik had spent those four hours passed out, courtesy of the lorazepam he'd knocked back at the platform. Sorano, who'd come to the station bearing the pills, had said only one thing: 'motion sickness'.
The door swung open before her fingers even touched the doorbell, and Lucy nearly fell over as a stout body barrelled into her with a cry of, "Miss Lucy!"
"Mrs Spetto!" Lucy gasped, returning the hug tightly. Of all the people she regretted never saying goodbye to, her childhood nanny ranked high up. She squeezed her eyes shut and breathed in deeply. The scent that clung to Mrs Spetto could only be described as uniquely home.
Erik shuffled past them with a quiet 'thank fucking god', and Lucy watched out of the corner of her eye as he leaned against one of the ornate pillars that stood to the side of the doors, relishing the heat from within. One of the butlers stared at him, scandalized, and opened his mouth to protest just as Mrs Spetto pulled back and ushered Lucy in. "Miss Lucy, it's been far too long! I've missed you so much!"
"I missed you, too! I'm sorry I-"
"Lucy."
She felt like the only thing in current time in a world that had come to a stop. Everything faded to white noise as her eyes snapped up to the top of the stairs.
His beard was a little thicker and his hair was greying at the temples, but his blue eyes were as cold and unfeeling as she remembered them to be. Those were the same eyes that had assured her that her scraped up knees would be okay, and they were the same eyes that had unflinchingly told her there was no way out of marrying Junelle.
Her lips remained tightly fused as she struggled to say something. Hello? Hi? Dad? Fuck you? What did one say after abandoning her only parent in the dead of the night like a coward? If she'd said something to his face before leaving perhaps she would be staring at him with an equal coolness to her stance, at ease knowing that her conscience was clear. Instead, Lucy was eighteen once more and the ground had split open under her feet, a canyon that grew deeper and deeper with every step he descended. Her breathing hitched, pulse skyrocketed, and -
Panic attack, Inner Cana said grimly.
Just because Erik said it once doesn't make it true.
No, I mean you're having one right now. He's hissing it in your ear.
Lucy bit the inside of her cheek until she could taste copper on her tongue, forcing herself back to reality. She could freak out in the shower later, when her father wasn't staring at her with faint disappointment clear on his features.
"Father," she said. "Hi."
"You forgot to RSVP," Jude replied. "Nevertheless. Jared." The butler from before snapped to attention. "Make arrangements for two extra attendees." Jared bowed so deeply that the tips of his hair brushed the ground, and he scurried off to the left wing.
"I see you brought a guest. Allow me to introduce myself, if Lucy has not mentioned me before. I am Jude Heartfilia, President of Heartfilia Incorporated," Jude said, tilting his head in greeting. If the slight sneer wasn't seen, then the judgement wafting over was certainly felt. Lucy knew exactly what he was pulling away from Erik, because Jude had trained her to pick out those things, too. Scar over the eye, the casual stance, non-branded clothing, zero deference on his face...at thirteen, Lucy would have easily labeled him a good-for-nothing delinquent and ignored him without a second glance.
"Dr Erik Vivas, head of the toxic substances subdivision at the Center for Disease Control," Erik drawled. "Nice to meet you, Jude."
Mrs Spetto squawked, Jude raised a thin eyebrow, and Lucy wished she'd brought Macbeth with her instead. The worst he could do was sleep through the whole thing. Erik? No, Erik was here to uproot power structures and leave scandal in his wake. Even Junelle, when he was gearing up to present her with an engagement ring, called him 'President Heartfilia'.
"Mrs Spetto." Jude turned his head to her. "Show our guests-" Lucy winced. "-their accommodations. And Lucy. My office after you've settled in."
"Right this way." Mrs Spetto shooed them up the stairs.
It was only as they brushed past Jude and Erik's grip tightened that Lucy realized he'd had his arm around her waist the whole time.
"Very IKEA-inspired decor."
"Thanks. I'll be sure to pass that along to my ten-year-old self."
"You were this boring at ten? You sure you're not actually thirty-something? Cougar."
Lucy shot him a dry look as she rifled through her bags for her makeup. "Let me guess, your room at ten was a lot more...posters for wallpaper."
Erik flopped back on her bed and hummed. "Let's see, at ten I was being fostered at the Conbolt's, so...blue walls and matching sheets."
"Nice to see we were both extremely boring at that age." Lucy pulled out a tube of lipstick and made her way into the bathroom to smear on an extra coat. Once she did that and smacked her lips, she pulled out a comb and went through the motions of brushing out her hat-hair. French braid or no French braid, that was the question…
"What do you think he wants to talk about?" Erik called.
Lucy paused with her brush halfway through her hair. "I don't know. Maybe ask why I left. Maybe tell me to sign the contract to marry me off to Junelle. Hell, maybe he wants to have a teary reunion away from prying eyes."
"I want to be there for all three, albeit for different reasons." She jumped, narrowly avoiding smacking him with the brush. "Stop being such a ninja creep. And you're not coming."
He took a step in and boxed her in against the counter. There were a lot of things she could do in this situation. Hop up on the counter, wrap her legs around his waist and bang him like they did in the shitty romance thrillers that aired at 2 am; drop to her knees and also do something out of a romance thriller; pull him down for a kiss that would blow his mind and leave a lipstick stain that would last for days; or escape the box and continue to do her hair.
She settled for poking him in the chest with her brush. "Leave room for the holy spirit."
"Nah," he replied, leaning in closer. "Why can't I come?"
"What happened to the half-boyfriend package being bare minimum?"
"You've received a temporary upgrade to premium, enjoy it while it lasts."
She rolled her eyes and turned back to the mirror, patting her hair down. She watched his reflection in the mirror, and felt the heat of his breath a split second before she registered his lips at the shell of her ear. "Fine, I'll stay back. But remember, I can hear you."
Lucy's legs were starting to go numb. Still, she kept them firmly planted to the ground. It wouldn't do to be crossing and uncrossing her legs under her father's scrutiny; 'the mark of a nervous, weak soul' he'd always told her. The corset she wore straightened what little of her back stubbornly continued to slouch, and the high collar kept her head high even when she tried to duck down and pick out patterns from the carpeted floor. Mrs Spetto had clearly selected this outfit for more than style.
Across from her, Jude continued to stare.
Lucy exhaled slowly and tried to force herself to break the silence, but froze up once more. Three fucking times. She'd tried this three fucking times, and every time she so much as managed to get a sentence strung together in her head, her throat felt like it had swollen up and she couldn't breathe. No amount of self-talk or breathing exercises was helping. Coming here was a goddamn mistake. Little purple half-moons blossomed on her skin from where she was gripping the back of her hand too tightly in an attempt to ground herself.
That'll look terrible at the party, she thought absently, rubbing them.
"You seem to be doing well in classes," Jude said.
Buddy, what the fuck? Inner Cana said.
"Thank you," Lucy responded, though she couldn't help the note of confusion in her words. She'd run away some three years ago and he wanted to talk about her grades? No 'how dare you' or 'how are you fending for yourself'?
"I assume you are living with…" The blood in her face drained before soaring up full force. Lucy waved her hands so fiercely she felt something in her wrist crack.
"No!"
Yes!
"No, he lives a floor above mine. We're not...like that."
Yet.
You shut your whore mouth.
"Ah." Jude seemed to perk up a little. If he'd been anyone else, Lucy would say he seemed...happy about that. "I take it you are currently single, then?"
"...yes?" Kill Bill sirens were blaring in the back of her head, and Inner Cana was doing her 'fuck this shit I'm out' dance, however morbid curiousity bound her to the seat, even though she knew what was coming next.
"Then your engagement to Sawarr Junelle can proceed-"
"Are you serious?" Lucy exploded, leaping up. Blind with fury, she cleared the gap between her and the desk in a quick step and slammed her hands down, taking a bit of vindictive pleasure in the way his jaw twitched. "I've come back here after three fucking years - after running away - and you just...jump straight into this shit? You know damn well why I ran away, too! What makes you think I'd just fucking prance back here with open arms now? You're unbelievable!"
Her heartbeat thudded in her ears, drowning out all other senses. She was burning and freezing all at once, skin itching with the desire to do something other than stand there with righteous fury in her eyes. She wanted to break the stupid desk he called a home and shatter the computer he treasured more than her; throw away the pens he'd tried to sign her life away with and set fire to the papers he thought were worth more than her life. If she had it her way, this entire room could be torn to shreds and she'd be happy for it. There wasn't a single good memory hidden in the walls. Her own mother - god, the woman he'd married and who'd bore his child - avoided this godforsaken room because she knew the only thing that mattered in there was your net value, and even though she had been the one to give him the money to start up at the end of the day his first and only love were his stupid fucking contracts.
"I'm your daughter," her voice broke, much to her mortification. She was supposed to be strong and confident, goddammit, not doing everything he'd ever taught her not to do when making a deal. She'd had the mantra of 'show no emotions' beaten into every nerve of her body since the day her mother had passed away, and here she was, biting her lips until they bled to keep the tears at bay. "I'm not a commodity to be bought and sold. Why can't you…"
I ain't Erik. I ain't your stable person and I'm not gonna save you with snark. But I am you, whether you wanna admit it or not. Stop thinking, start talking, Inner Cana ordered. You know him. Every minute you waste breathing is a point off your credibility.
I can't. You know he won't listen. Or care.
True, but he made a big mistake, didn't he? He taught you all his tricks.
Lucy wiped her eyes and steeled herself. "I am not your bargaining chip. If your incompetence is such that you are unable to absorb the Junelle's estates without signing me over to them, then state that instead of pretending that a merging of families is in our best interests. You know as well as I do that Sawarr would be an extremely poor heir to the Heartfilia fortune, seeing as he has squandered his inheritance away on drink and games. Your interest lies in the land. If you are willing to give me away for something as cheap as that, then your business ventures have succeeded out of divine intervention rather than talent.
"Erik and I will be attending the ball. It's too late to travel back. Tomorrow? We're gone and you'll never hear from me again."
Make him proud.
Lucy paused and then tipped the pen-holder over.
For you.
You make me proud, you stupid bitch, Inner Cana sniffed.
"Okay," Erik said calmly. "That was the ninth lord of whatever to look down your dress. One more and I'm about to give you an impromptu lesson on making poisons out of cleaning products."
Lucy rolled her eyes and took another sip of her champagne. If there was one thing she missed from her high-society days, it was the booze. Broke university students considered fireball and four-dollar-wine a luxury, and though she had grown to appreciate the tang of the cheap shit, she'd grown up on thousand dollar chardonnay and hundred-year-old whiskey. It was hard to adjust. She eyed an unopened bottle longingly. Maybe if she hid it under her dress…
"Don't worry, I nicked a couple bottles already," Erik informed her as he helped himself to another slice of salmon on a cracker. "God this shit is good. How do you live off ramen knowing what heaven tastes like?"
"With great patience," she murmured, losing herself in the crowd once more. There were many faces she recognized, and many she didn't, though the former outnumbered the latter. She could spot some girls she'd played with as a child with babies bouncing on their hips, mingling in distinct circles that Lucy quietly scoffed at; those were the same circles they'd held at the age of four. How much had changed, and yet how little. Try as they might to shed their former selves and step into the shoes of their parents, Lucy knew better. She knew that Martina Wright avoided Catherine Zales because at the age of six, Catherine had worn the exact same dress to their ballet recital, not because Catherine at 21 was in the middle of a heated bid with her for the same mall. She knew that Martina's husband, Theodore, was only talking to Richard De Leon because Theodore's father had been telling him since he was ten that Richard was his in at the governor's office.
Looking around, she'd never been so thankful for running away.
"Princess!"
Lucy stared at her glass. If she broke it on the table and then slammed her face into it, she'd probably terrify Sawarr enough that he would run away and she would be free to go home and sleep in her curry-stained pj's.
You know that's a damn lie. He'd find that hot.
Kill me. Please.
Much like the mansion, Sawarr hadn't changed a bit in the three years since she'd booked it. He was still a full head shorter than she was, still wore rounded glasses, and still looked and dressed like the jawbreakers she'd get Mrs Spetto to sneak her on occasion. He extended his hands towards her, to which Lucy's fight or flight response went 'option number three, freeze!' She could smell, more than see, the sweat that clung to him despite the fact that he'd drenched himself in that horrid perfume they banned in schools for inducing asthma attacks.
Ooh, asthma attack, that's a new idea...quick, start gasping!
I hate you because I might actually do this.
Lucky for Lucy, before she could put on her best impression of a patient in a hospital drama going into anaphylactic shock (all for the drama, Inner Cana purred), Erik stepped in.
Lucy snorted.
She'd definitely taken into account Sawarr and Erik running into one another in her 'what could possibly go wrong' fantasies on the train, but the mental images did zero justice to the actual scene. It was as if somebody had taken an Oompa Loompa and had him pose next to a firefighter in one of those 'for charity' calendars they made every year at the local fire station. Erik loomed over Sawarr. He'd discarded his suit jacket an hour ago and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt, so his muscles pressed against the fabric in a way that hinted at their presence and tantalizingly went, 'wait! There's more'. She pinched herself firmly.
Stop drooling over him!
Like I said before, I'm you, so don't go pointing fingers.
"Princess?" Erik repeated slowly, the same way one would when trying to say 'you're a fucking idiot' without actually saying 'you're a fucking idiot'. Lucy felt a small part of herself die on the inside. Today was The Day. The Day he'd realize why she absolutely fucking despised being called princess. Sure, she could've told him before but it seemed so...weirdly anticlimactic to tell him over a bowl of popcorn. 'Hey Erik, you know why I hate being called princess? Cause my gremlin looking not-really fiance used to call me that, so basically, Pavlov himself held my hand and conditioned me to break out into hives whenever I hear it. Pass the coke.'
...So Erik was probably right when he called her a drama queen. This would be a little more interesting to watch.
"Of course!" Sawarr exclaimed. He grabbed her hands (Erik looked both immensely amused and grossed out on her behalf) and shot her an ooey-gooey, lovestruck smile. Lucy managed to keep herself from looking ready to retch. "Why shouldn't I call my future wife a princess? Look, she's even wearing the same dress she wore when the date was announced!"
Lucy looked down. Red and white and sparkly all over. She knew she'd seen it somewhere before…
"Really? I thought you picked that out 'cause it looked like our tree topper," Erik told her.
"That's what it looked like!" Lucy drew her hands back and clapped them together. "I knew I'd seen this somewhere!"
...our tree topper?
Cue the record scratch.
Oh no, he's not playing this game. There's no way-
He's playing this game, Inner Cana cackled, and he's killing it.
"You two are roommates?" Sawarr pressed on a little too forcefully. Lucy winced ever so slightly. Rule two after 'don't show emotions' was 'never look desperate'. Her honey eyes caught her father's cold blue ones from across the room. Daringly, she cocked an eyebrow as if to say 'this is your future son-in-law?'
Jude turned away with a frown.
Victory.
"Nope. She's my half-girlfriend," Erik announced cheerfully. "But she designated me booty call earlier, so I guess that's our official status."
A group of girls who'd been tittering nearby like vultures looking for meat let out a unified gasp at that. Lucy could feel her reputation sinking faster than steel in water, but she didn't care. In the very room where she'd shed sweat and tears over building the perfect reputation, to declare that she didn't care, even if to herself, was the most intensely freeing act of them all. It was as if a cloak of lead had been thrown off, and she stood proudly before prying eyes, daring any of them to come forth and say otherwise. She was Lucy goddamned Heartfilia, and she didn't give a fuck about her reputation.
You totally hummed that to the song, didn't you.
Shut up.
"H-how? She's - we agreed to - Lucy?" Sawarr looked at her tearfully. "It's not...you're my fiancee!"
"Yeah, about that...I never signed a contract. You've been single this whole time." Lucy shrugged. She'd yelled at her father, declared she was shacking up before marriage with what amounted to a total stranger, and was on her fourth drink of the night. What was a little heartbreak to perfect the shitfest? They'd be talking about this for months.
"How dare you," Junelle Sr, a man who had clearly contributed most to his son's genetic lottery, snarled. "You knew damn well you were his intended. Running off to philander with this...delinquent-"
"Doctor," Erik interrupted. "It's the missing eye, isn't it? Lab safety, kids, take it seriously."
"Like a little whore?"
"I wouldn't say that if I were you," Erik said, a touch too excited. "She's got a mean left hook. Seriously, I've seen her get the drop on two linebackers before."
Natsu and Gray had been blackout drunk, so all she'd really done was shove them onto the bed and roll them on their sides. They didn't have to know that, though. Lucy flexed her biceps, nodding the whole while.
"There's someone out there for you," Lucy told Sawarr earnestly. "She's just not me. Try Tinder? Er, right, you." She pointed to Junelle Sr. "I've never wanted to marry your son. You're also a bag of dicks in human form, so there's that. Erik and I are gonna spend the rest of the night in our corner, so if you could leave us alone that'd be nice."
"You're not gonna hit him?"
Lucy paused, shrugged, and went for the nose.
"Worldstar!" Erik yelled from behind his phone.
"You should've kept your thumb out."
"I'll remember that for next time. Hey, my other hand is fine, so why don't we try it out on you?" Lucy asked sourly, pressing a pack of ice to her knuckles.
"Nah, we've had enough fun for the night, don't you think?" Erik asked. He pulled the kettle off the stove and poured out two mugs of hot water. Taking his sweet time with measuring out the ingredients let Lucy appreciate the way his shirt clung to his back muscles.
As always, you know my suggestion.
And you know mine.
"I've literally made it so I can never return, but I've never felt so free in my life," Lucy said. She pulled the ice pack off and ran her fingers over her knuckles. They were so numb she could hardly register the light pressure she applied to them, but they weren't puffy anymore.
"Good." He slid one mug over and raised his own in a mock toast. "To burning old bridges to light the path up."
"Thanks," she said softly.
"For the coffee? I mean, if-"
"You know what for. Thank you. Really." She could never find the words to express how grateful she was that he'd dragged her back here for closure. She hadn't even known how deeply she'd internalized her emotions over running away until stuck in an office with her father. After all that had been said and done, Lucy doubted they'd ever meet up again. His approval of her and Sawarr 'officially' breaking it off was her blessing to leave once and for all, and for that she was grateful.
"Sure," Erik drawled, but Lucy didn't miss the gentle upturn of his lip for a split second before it morphed into his customary smirk. "So, has this trial run been sufficient enough for a full software upgrade?"
"You didn't punch Junelle Sr for me, so I'll stick to the trial run for now." She kissed his cheek and left the kitchen.
"Oh, come on! I was being supportive and letting you take charge! I'll go knock his teeth out right now if you want! Hey! Blondie!"
A/N: So the whole half-girlfriend/half-boyfriend thing comes from this Bollywood movie called 'Half-Girlfriend' and I thought it would be funny, idk. It's gonna be a running gag from now own. Also, I really enjoy the Inner Cana/Lucy banter, probably because it reminds me of early on Naruto fic with Inner and Outer Sakura. I'm kinda mad at Kishimoto for getting rid of that in canon, that was an AWESOME plot point that should've continued. I'm ranting but whatever.
ALSO If you follow/read Chaos Theory, I'll be making that my next pet project after 41 Days (other stuff will also be updated but CT is getting some special love), and as such I'm gonna be rewriting the chapters a bit, mostly just to change the tense to present, which has slowly become my preferred style of writing (which is PROBABLY why writing for 41 Days has become so hard for me now). There might be some new lines/scenes in the three chapters, so all I'm saying is be on the lookout.
Review pls.
-Eien