Important A/N:
There will come a point in this chapter where we brush over the evidence of a rape scene. If this makes you uncomfortable (I'm not going into grizzly details, I promise) then pass it on by and I'll see you next chapter :)
Natsu scurried to catch up to Lucy. "Wait."
She didn't. He reached for her hand. She was as slippery as a fish, dodging out of his grasp.
"I can't."
He jogged. She could really move when she wanted to. "Lucy. Hang on. Just—why would the earrings be yours?"
Still maintaining her brisk pace, Lucy held up her necklace. It was an exact match to the earring Natsu held too stiffly. Around her throat, the stone grabbed and reflected the sunlight, brighter than blood.
"Creepy," Happy said from above. Natsu almost forgot he was there.
Dismissing the cat's words was an easy way to bar out fear. "It still could have been that girl's. They're heart-shaped earrings, sure, made from garnet or—"
"Ruby," Lucy said mechanically. "They're ruby."
"Or not," Natsu replied stubbornly. "Anyone could have bought them at any store—"
"Not really," Lucy returned. "My father had them made for me for my tenth birthday. It was a custom piece. Earrings and necklace." It was impossible, but she imagined that her necklace felt cold despite her body heat and the hot summer sun.
"Okay, but let's look at the facts," Natsu said, trying to channel Erza or Gray. "How would your earrings end up beside dead girls?" Girls that looked an awful lot like you. He didn't voice that, worried of terrifying her. terrifying himself. "It's not like you go around killing people."
"Of course not," Lucy snapped.
"Maybe someone stole them?" Happy suggested.
"How?" Lucy asked. "I only switched them the other day when I went on that date with Riley." The motel came into view, looking as frumpy and beaten as ever. The gardens out front were overgrown with weeds. There was a garden gnome that stared out into the world with a chipped face and one missing eye. Lucy felt a surge of revulsion, most of it stemming from the sense of being violated. You don't know that. Maybe it really is just a coincidence.
Natsu said, "I don't get why someone would steal and leave your earrings around."
Eyes fixed on the motel doors, Lucy shook her head. "I don't know." She reached blindly for the entrance.
"Maybe they're trying to frame you," Happy said.
Natsu chose watching his feet so he didn't trip on the steps over glowering at Happy. It was a close call, though. "This is stupid."
Lucy didn't bother answering Happy. It was warm inside Briar's Lock, warmer than it was in the blistering summer sun. The front desk was empty. She made for the stairs, taking them two at a time. Natsu stomped up behind her. She could feel his agitation.
The stairs terminated in a landing. Lucy pulled out their room key before she even got to the door. She couldn't get it open, though. Her hands were shaking too badly. Natsu's hand closed around hers, warm and callused and familiar. He guided the key into the lock when she could not. The door popped open.
"It's fine, Lucy." He followed her in and closed the door, then locked it for good measure.
Lucy hardly looked at him, going to the pile of clothes Virgo left for her. She dug through for the clothes she was wearing the first day back in Magnolia. The skirt had a grass stain on it from when they went fishing. Through the pockets she rummaged, the fronts, the backs.
"They're gone."
Natsu stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Maybe they fell out? Check around."
Lucy started throwing the clothes aside. What she didn't unfold Natsu grabbed and shook out. Maybe he would have been embarrassed when she got to the part of the pile where she dug through her underthings, but he was too focused to think about stuff like that.
"Natsu, they're not here," Lucy said. "Someone—someone must have taken them."
"From our room?" Happy asked. "Wouldn't you have smelled it if someone strange came in here, Natsu?"
The dragon slayer dropped the lacy shirt he held, shaking his head. "I don't know. It's always musty in here and it smells like a hundred different people all the time. I can't tell."
Happy puffed up his cheeks with a breath.
"I guess I should mention that I found an earring just like that," Natsu said.
"What?" Lucy asked sharply.
"At the old age home," Natsu explained. "It was buried in the dirt by the garden."
Lucy's heart sank.
Natsu went to the pants he was wearing that night and found the earring in the pocket. It was still dirt-caked. It still smelled like blood. Lucy appeared at his shoulder, standing close enough he could feel her breath breaking over his forearm. She shivered slightly.
"When did you find it?" Lucy couldn't look away from the swelling curves on top of the heart, the gold cap that locked the ruby in place, the checkmark that would slide through her ear. She felt barren without them, yet she couldn't bring herself to touch them. Not yet. She hated that something her father gave to her was tainted like that.
"The night the guards took me in for questioning," Natsu said. "Just before I went looking for you. Maybe they just fell out when you were wearing them, Lucy."
Lucy clutched her elbows. "Natsu, I hadn't even gone to the old age home then. We went after, remember?"
A chill spider-walked down Natsu's spine. "Are you sure?"
"Of course. Besides that, I haven't been to the pier yet."
He expelled a giant breath and scrubbed his hair. "We shouldn't tell the guards about this."
"Why?" Lucy asked.
"Because, they're going to ask why you were at the crime scene, Lucy," Natsu reasoned.
Lucy blinked and blinked. "What?" She'd never felt dumber, or slower.
"I was kidding before, but they might actually think you were involved," Happy explained.
"That's ridiculous," Lucy said.
"But true. The killings didn't start until we got into Magnolia," Natsu said.
A knock sounded on the door, making them all jump. It was Happy that collected himself enough to answer it. Gray, with Juvia at his back, entered. Gray shot a furtive look Lucy's way but focused most of his attention on Natsu.
"What's going on?"
Natsu looked to Lucy as if asking for her permission. She wasn't looking at him, or anything, really. She was staring out the dust-coated window. "Sit, I'll fill you in."
"We can think of an action plan, too," Happy said. To Lucy the cat added, "Don't worry, Lucy, we'll figure it out."
She gave him the barest of smiles.
Levy, arms crossed, hair blowing wildly in the wind, stared at a crater left in the earth, standing on top of what was at one time considered a rocky knoll. "It's like something exploded here." The soil was all but barren, with only the hardiest of shrubs hanging on, and even those were sunburned and wilting.
Gajeel crouched beside her and grabbed up a handful of dirt. He snuffed it like a dog might, breathing deeply of the iron and phosphorous and sodium that made this land hard to bear without the added stress of whateverthehell happened there.
"It looks more like something was extracted." Lily was in his exceed form, small yet still somehow fierce.
"Do you think this is what Draculos was talking about?" Levy wondered.
"Must be," Gajeel said. "I don't sense anything from the earth. No magic."
"It's like an anima," Lily added. "Someone's been using a similar process to take out the magic."
"I was looking over the locations of some of the other drain sites," Levy said. "I didn't think anything of them at first, but when I had them all up on the map, well…" She took off her pack. "Here, take a look." She searched through the top most pocket and came out with a huge map folded several times over again. She spread it out on the red soil, Gajeel and Lily gathering beside her to peer over her shoulder. She was aware of Gajeel's proximity, as she was always lately. Her heart beat strangely. She strangled the sensation and focused.
"Notice anything?"
Gajeel stared at the names of several towns scattered throughout Fiore for so long he felt stupid. Nothing jumped out at him.
"I don't know," Lily said, easing Gajeel's ego. At least he wasn't the only one that couldn't connect the dots.
Levy explained, "Over the last fifteen years, these are all locations of mass tragedies, or a huge gathering and release of magical power. This here?" She tapped a region that was mountainous. "This is where the Oracion Seis found Nirvana." She tapped another region off Fiore's coast. "This is where the Tower of Heaven accepted the etherion blast. This is where Silver froze Sun Village, and this was one of the Face locations. And those are only the ones that I know."
The look Gajeel gave her was one of both awe and horror. "You pieced all that together."
"It's just a theory," Levy said.
He quirked his mouth into a smile and shook his head. "I haven't seen one of your theories go sideways."
Levy flushed. Then she sobered. "Let's hope that I'm not right about this one, though. These events… they'd leave scars in the land, Gajeel. Like a memory of magic. I think on their own they're not much to really worry about—that, and I didn't think it was possible to extract that kind of magic from the land—but together… can you imagine what someone would do with that kind of power?"
"Fiore would be a memory."
"Earthland," Levy corrected. "It would be enough to destroy Earthland."
Erza stared at the rock wall with mounting irritation. "Rockslides."
Carla dropped out of the sky, landing with grace on Queen Moro's gleaming neck. "The blockage is at least a kilometer long, but I saw another route to the west. It'll probably take us a few hours to circle back around and get out, though."
"And by then we'll be walking in the dark," Erza reasoned.
"Right," Carla agreed.
"And we run the risk of breaking our horses' legs. Then we really will be walking the rest of the way."
Wendy looked to the sky. "What are we going to do? I could try my roar on it…"
Erza shook her head. "I have swords that would do the same kind of damage, but if we do that we run the risk of causing another rockslide." The ravine walls looked unstable, to say the least, broken rocks held together just barely by the roots of twisted pines and birches. "If we can get around to the other side safely in the morning light, we should do so."
Wendy popped her thumb into her mouth and chewed on the skin surrounding her nail. "But Raven's Canyon—"
"Is on the other side of this rockslide," Erza said. "We'll be safe enough."
"You said you didn't believe in ghosts," Wendy reminded her.
"I don't," Erza agreed. "There are worse things than ghosts that wander through this region."
Wendy imagined that Erza's voice held a note of ominousness. "Like what?"
The redhead sighed. "Thieves, bootleggers using the valleys as roads to get from one side of Fiore to the other, hungry creatures, wolves and hounds of various descents."
"What does that mean?" Wendy asked.
"That we'll be taking turns taking the watch," Erza said.
Lucy stood at the windowsill, arms crossed. From her motel room, Magnolia looked dark. The sun had set an hour ago and only a quarter of the streetlights were on. Next door, the sounds of a live band could be heard setting up in the Thorn and Thistle. It would be a loud, busy night for the bar.
"I don't want to be sitting here all night," Juvia muttered.
Lucy stiffened at the sound of her voice. Every time Juvia spoke was like getting slapped in the face. She looked over her shoulder and saw the water mage had made herself comfortable on the loveseat, Lucy's blankets folded and shoved to one end. She could only see the back of Juvia's gleaming head of careless curls but she imagined she looked miserable.
"I should be helping Gray-sama."
"Juvia…" Lucy hedged.
Juvia turned and met her eyes directly; it was a huge change from the way Gray was treating her. So much so that Lucy didn't know how to proceed.
"He might need me," Juvia reasoned. "But I suppose if someone is targeting girls that look like you, you should remain out of sight and I will remain to protect you."
Lucy snorted depreciatively, trying to outpace her own demons. "I don't really need protection."
"Then I can go to the pier and assist Gray-sama." She actually started to rise.
"Wait," Lucy said, absolutely torn.
Juvia halted.
Lucy cleared her throat and tried again. "I don't think we should be splitting up and wandering around by ourselves. It's dangerous. So what if they've only been attacking girls with blonde hair? That doesn't mean that they won't attack you, too."
"I'm a skilled mage," Juvia said.
Lucy's chest panged. She doesn't mean that you're not. She smothered her insecurities with a smile. "I know, but why take the chance?"
Juvia flopped back into her chair and tipped her head back to look at the cobwebby ceiling. "I suppose you're right."
Trying to make the best of it, Lucy offered, "Did you want anything? Water, or tea? We have a kettle."
"No, thank you."
They fell into what Lucy thought was an awkward silence. Lucy faced the window again, Juvia went back to slumping in her seat. Several long minutes passed.
"Were you sad on your own?" Juvia asked suddenly.
Lucy looked away from Magnolia. "Pardon?"
"When everyone left." Juvia sat up and angled herself so she could look over the back of the couch. Her gaze was hard to bear. "Erza and Wendy took to the southern regions, Gray and I went north. Natsu… it sounds like he went all over. And you remained behind. Was it lonely?"
Lucy wrung her hands together. "I guess at first, yeah." Not just at first, but she'd managed to bury herself in her work at Sorcerer Weekly, so she got by.
"Did he ask you to go with him?" She hadn't broken eye contact.
All the breath felt like it had been squeezed from Lucy's lungs. "Natsu?"
"Gray-sama," Juvia clarified. "The night we left, when you two were in the Thorn and Thistle. Did he ask you to go?"
'I would try to stay with you.' That didn't qualify. "No, Juvia. He didn't want me to go with you."
She looked like she was going to ask something else. Lucy half hoped it would be what happened after she left the Thorn and Thistle. She half hoped that she'd just drop it.
Juvia finally turned her dark eyes to another direction. Lucy collapsed against the bed, wrung out and weak, unable to say the things she longed to say.
Gray couldn't smell out blood like Natsu could, but he didn't need a hellhound nose to feel the bruise left on the land after last night's attack. Every inch of his skin was crawling, and had been for hours. Since yesterday. Since he stepped foot in Magnolia. He itched around his throat, his forearm. The skin was cold, cold, cold. He almost shivered but refused.
The docks smelled like brine and blood and metal crates. Rust. Natsu had his nose in the air, breathing deeply. Happy flew above, seeing everything he could. Gray alternated between looking out at the ocean and down at his boots and the cracked concrete ground he stepped on, stained white with salt from so many winters gone by. There was a sick weight resting on his chest that he couldn't shake. It didn't take long to identify it: he didn't want to leave Juvia and Lucy alone together. It was a selfish, petty request, one that, at the time, he didn't bother arguing because it would either mean that he was going to get trapped alone with Lucy while Natsu and Juvia teamed up, or they were going to look suspicious. It was not the way to play cool, to act normal. It was also not the way to repair things with Lucy, but fuck, he didn't know what to say. 'Hey, I'm a lying piece of shit that fucked and ditched?'
A+.
There was a knuckle-sized rock in front of his foot. Gray kicked it hard and sent it skidding into one of the rusted freight crates.
Natsu winced. Not just winced… jumped. When he recovered he glared. "Be quiet."
"Why? You don't think this guy will attack at the same place, do you?" Gray asked.
"I don't know," Natsu replied in a muted voice. "That guard said he was going for girls…"
"His name is Ackles. And he said out of towners specifically,' Happy said. "If you ask me, it makes sense that he'd be hanging around the pier, waiting for people to get off boats."
"The pier isn't the only place girls hang around. In fact, I might say that this is probably the least likely place we're going to find a hot blonde," Gray said.
"Then where would you suggest?" Natsu asked.
Gray sighed. "Thorn and Thistle?"
"That dive?"
"Yeah," Gray laughed humorlessly. "That dive."
"Just hang on," Natsu said. "Before we leave I want to look around a little more. Let's find the place she was killed." More morbid curiosity dragging him along. "I wish I knew what that girl looked like."
"Why?" Happy asked.
Natsu glanced at him. "Just because." He didn't want to explain that it was so he could convince himself that they didn't really look like Lucy, that he was just drawing parallels. That sounded crazy. He shrugged instead and bullshitted. "I just think that guard—"
"Ackles," Happy supplied.
"Does a very shitty job."
The wind shifted. Gray let Natsu and Happy's words flow over him, distracted by the pain radiating under his skin. His arm was so cold now that it ached. He was starting to get a migraine. Something's wrong. "Hey."
Natsu dropped off mid-sentence, alert to the same thing Gray was. He tipped his nose to the sky again and huffed hugely. "You smell that?"
Gray was about to deny but took his words back. The air was rank. "Gods. What is that?"
"It's the same thing we smelled the other night, Natsu," Happy said. "Remember, when we found the earring?"
"Yeah." Natsu followed the scent through the stacks of crates, every sense on high alert. The smell got worse. Enough so that he had to breathe through his mouth. Behind him, Gray pulled up his shirt and tucked his nose into its collar. For the first thirty seconds he could smell his own cologne, deodorant and laundry detergent. Then the stench leached into his clothing and invaded everything.
Sulfur and rot.
"What the fuck."
"It's so gross," Natsu complained.
Happy looked like he was going cross-eyed. He flew a little higher. The lights from the street lamps didn't get to the spaces between the crates, but he didn't need to see in there to see where Natsu was taking them. thirty feet out the crates ended and the docks came into view. There was a huge slab of open concrete. There, beneath one street lamp, was a large stain that could only have been blood. It looked like it had been wiped clean, but nothing, not soap and water, not bleach, could get the red from the porous concrete.
"I think I found it, Natsu," Happy reported. Looking down, he could barely see the pink of Natsu's hair. Gray was a pale shadow.
"We found something, too," Natsu said. He sounded strange. Worried, Happy thought. The cat dropped to the dragon slayer's shoulder. Natsu's face was shadowed so Happy couldn't see all the apprehension in it.
"What is it?"
"A shirt," Gray said.
Happy squinted and found him in the dark. He held a burgundy tank top between his fingers.
The smell hit Happy and he realized that the shirt wasn't burgundy. It was saturated in blood. "What the hell?"
Natsu swallowed a tennis ball sized lump in his throat. "There's another girl here."
"The guards probably just missed this last night," Happy said.
Natsu was already on the move, though, weaving between the crates. It was Gray that explained, "It's fresh blood, Happy."
Now that he had the scent of blood in his nose it was easy to follow the trail. Too easy. Natsu dodged in and out of crates, leapt over skids, and left behind Happy and Gray. Happy was calling his name. Natsu wished he'd be quiet. Gray was silent, following his trail. He was good like that.
A crate marked 'Port Credit' was smeared with something that gleamed in the dim streetlamps. He didn't need anyone to tell him that it was blood. Fresh, too. His legs felt like two cement pillars, unwilling to bring him around the crate's opposite side, and yet, some force dragged him along.
Stumbling into the streetlamp's glow, Natsu found her on the ground. She was a tangle of blonde hair and limbs. Naked save for a pair of pink panties, torn along the waistband and the right leg, she was pale skinned, nearly grey. The only things that held colour were her rose-bright lips, the dark stain around her throat where she'd been cut deep enough to bleed out slowly, and the golden key she held in her hand.
There was plenty to look at, the bruises, the scrapes. Yet Natsu could only focus on the key. The key that was capped with red. The key with the zodiac symbol. His mouth went so dry; his lungs went so small.
"Natsu?"
Happy's voice jarred him enough that he could look away from the key so he could study her face. Her eyes were open, dark brown and unseeing. Her cheekbones were just right. Even her body structure, not too thin, not too thick. His focus narrowed. Three more seconds passed and he had himself convinced.
You're not looking at this right, his mind reasoned. She's back at the motel with Juvia. The wind blew, grabbing one of her tresses from her face. Her nose was the exact same, straight, lightly flecked with freckles.
"Lucy?" She left the motel room and wandered out here.
"What?" Happy asked. He was right over Natsu's shoulder.
"Holy fuck." Gray cursed when he saw what Natsu did. "Holy shit." His voice was distant. Natsu dropped to his knees and reached, fingers searching for that key.
"Don't touch her, Natsu." Happy's voice was shrill.
He kept reaching.
Gray jerked himself out of his panic enough to grab Natsu's wrist. He yanked the dragon slayer away a millisecond before he could touch her. "Don't." The pain in his arm only grew. His eyesight blurred, his migraine reaching new heights.
Natsu yanked out of his grasp and went back again. This time Gray pushed him back. Natsu fell flat on his behind. He cussed and scrambled. "Fuck off, I have to help her—"
"She's dead, Natsu, stop."
"The key—"
"Looks like a house key or something," Gray said, trying to be reasonable. Reasonable people didn't look at wet smiles or think about how dead eyes saw through you. "Or a cabin key. Maybe… maybe she was staying on one of the boats docked out there."
Natsu gave him a 'are you blind,' look. "It's—" But when he looked back the gilded surface had turned brass. The red on top was gone. It was monochromatic, bland. Not a celestial key. Not Loke's key. He reached for it again with a panging, ice-cold hand, needing to be sure. This time he skirted beneath Gray's grasp. The metal was cold and unmoving in the girl's stiff fingers. There was no energy signature coming from it, nothing to say that it was celestial.
Gray was talking behind him. Swearing, really, rather impressively.
He lifted his eyes to her face. It wasn't Lucy that looked back at him, but a girl with black eyes and a red painted mouth that was really too wide. She didn't just have freckles over her nose, but all over her face. She was similar to Lucy only in that she was the right age, the right height and build, and the right colours. Blonde and ivory.
You're cracking up.
"I'll go get the guards," Happy said. "You two hang out here, in case the killer comes back."
By the time Ackles and his team showed up, asked their questions, did a sweep of the area and relieved Natsu and Gray, it was late. Beyond late. The large city clock tolled three in the morning. Gray, despite everything, yawned. Natsu followed suit.
"How are we going to catch this guy?" Happy asked. He'd given up flying, dropping to land on Natsu's shoulder. Natsu carried him but even Happy's weight seemed to be too much. Despite the exhaustion in every bone, he walked with vigor back to Briar's Lock.
"I don't know. We can't keep showing up late to the party," Gray muttered.
"We can take a catalog of every blonde girl in the city and keep an eye on them," Natsu said with not much hope.
As expected, Happy shot him down. "There's no way. It would take too much time, and how do you explain to them what you're doing? There'd be panic."
"Yeah, yeah," Natsu grumbled.
"There can't be much left anyway," Gray said, "Not Lucy's age."
"We could use Lucy as bait," Happy mused.
"No," Natsu said sharply.
"I was mostly kidding," Happy replied in a weak voice.
Gray said, "We'll figure something else out. There has to be something."
They fell into silence, each pursuing their own line of thought.
Natsu said, "I'm going to go back tomorrow morning, when the sun is up. Maybe there'll be a clue or something that the guards missed."
Briar's Lock came into view. Beside the motel, the Thorn and Thistle was closing up for the night. A waitress bustled back and forth, picking up chairs and setting them down on top of tables so the morning staff could mop the floors. Outside, there was someone in the alley that clung to one of the dumpsters and heaved their guts onto the pavement. Gray looked at them with some kind of longing in his eye that Natsu didn't understand.
A woman wearing a soft green dress clopped on by. Her hair was coral, her eyes shadowed by the night. She looked at Gray and smiled widely. His father's mark burned more than ever. Demon, he wondered, but his mark had been acting up for days. With no definite answer, he looked after her, wondering, until he couldn't see her anymore.
"What are you doing?" Happy asked, realizing Gray had stopped.
The ice mage shook himself. The pain in his arm turned into something bearable. "Nothing, I guess."
The woman was completely out of his mind when Natsu grabbed the motel's door and pulled it open wide, replaced instead by the two upstairs.
Lucy was fitfully asleep, dreaming of confessions and keys and Aquarius. The sound of voices in her room woke her. Blinking blearily, she sat up on the bed and watched Juvia unfold herself from the couch. She went to Gray and kissed him.
"Everything went well?"
Gray didn't look at Lucy; he was stiffer than a board. "Maybe we'll talk about it in the morning."
Natsu came into the room, Happy at his side. He locked eyes with Lucy, greedily watching her, as if he had forgotten what she looked like. "Alright, Luce?"
"I'm fine, Natsu," Lucy said. "It was quiet here."
"Come on, Juvia," Gray took her hand. "Let's get back." The door closed, leaving Lucy, Happy and Natsu alone.
Lucy asked, "What happened out there?"
"There was another girl," Happy admitted.
"Really?" Lucy's heart sank.
Natsu looked like he wanted to silence the cat by any means necessary. He refrained, saying only, "Yeah."
Lucy didn't know how to ask if any of her other stuff showed up there. There was a room full of stuff back in Crocus to appear and spook her.
"You got your keys, Lucy?"
Lucy's heart jumped. "Yeah."
"You should keep them on you. Even when you sleep," Natsu said.
"You're freaking me out."
He tried a smile. "I wouldn't worry about it. You'll be safe in here with us, but just in case."
Right.
"If you're good, Lucy, I'm going to have a shower," Natsu said. "You in, Happy?"
The cat looked at him longingly. "After that disgusting pier? You bet."
In an effort to appear like everything was normal, Lucy asked, "Do you guys want anything? I think there was a vending machine down the hall… chips, or maybe some chocolate? It's not real food, but nothing's open right now."
Natsu looked torn. Finally, he shook his head. "I'm okay."
Lucy watched the door close behind him and Happy then stood. She knew that look anywhere. Going for her change purse, she took out some coins then strapped her keys to her belt. As ever lately, Loke's was hot. He was watching her. It was nice to know that he had her back.
She slipped out of the door and wandered down the hallway. In the nighttime, the motel turned their lights way down low to conserve energy. It took her a few seconds to adjust, but when she did she was able to see pretty well. The vending machine was located at the end of the hall, the light from its interior reflecting off the wood paneling on the opposite side. She hurried to it, keeping her ears peeled for anything, not wanting to get caught by anyone out here, let alone someone that was hacking blondes to bits.
Coming around the corner, she saw that the vending machine was scarcely stocked. There was a bag of peanuts and a caramel chocolate bar. She bought both. They fell to the bottom of the machine with a definitive clunk. She bent to grab them. The PUSH bar almost didn't work, the hinges squealing with the effort she put into getting inside.
Down the hall, the balcony door opened. She glanced over just in time to see a familiar figure slipping outside. Lucy grabbed her treats out of the greedy machine and stood, having every intention of going back to her room. She hesitated, though, remembering Juvia's strange question and the way Gray wouldn't look at her.
She bit her tongue hard and summoned her courage.
Every step was too loud. She made an effort to quiet them, but her peanut package just crinkled, making up for the silence. At the balcony, she grabbed the door's handle like she was much braver than she actually was, and threw open the door. It had started raining again, and it was colder than hell for the middle of summer.
She found her quarry leaning against the balcony, facing Magnolia. His shoulders were as rigid as steel, his elbows propped on the bannister. He looked over his shoulder, hair blowing in front of his eyes. He didn't even look particularly surprised to see her.
"What are you doing out here, Lucy?"
Lucy closed the balcony door and stuffed the peanuts and the chocolate bar in her pocket. She came to stand beside Gray, again pretending that she was more sure of herself. "What are you doing out here?"
He shook his head. "Forgetting a shitty night, hopefully."
She didn't realize he had a bottle of whisky in his hand until he brought it to his lips and took a huge mouthful. He didn't flinch swallowing it.
"Natsu told me about that girl."
Gray brought himself to search her eyes and decided that he didn't actually. Maybe Natsu told her that they found her, but not how. "You got your keys with you?"
"Of course I do. You guys are scaring me," Lucy said.
"Just—"
"A precaution?" she wondered. "Natsu already said as much. I got it."
She sounded both scared and irritated. He shot a look her way. Her mouth was definitely in an annoyed frown. He took another deep swallow of his whisky. A chug, really. It was already going to his head with nothing much in his stomach. "You should go back in."
"So no one sees us together?" Lucy asked. She didn't mean to say it.
Her words cut him right through to the bone. He flinched. "Yeah. Something like that."
His face was shadowed but Lucy imagined that it was pinched, as it always was when he saw her now. The bottle came up again. Another good portion disappeared. "Fuck, forget it. I don't know why I'm out here anyway." She turned away, meaning to head back in.
"Lucy, wait."
She ground to a stop like he'd grabbed her wrist and kept her there. "Yeah?"
He cleared his throat. "Sorry. About earlier, you know? I shouldn't have sat back down when you were heading back to the motel. I told myself that it wasn't far, and that Happy was with you, and Natsu was finishing up with that guard, but…"
She pinched her lips together. "It's okay."
He nodded stiffly.
She started to turn away again.
"I—I have your keys."
Lucy's shoulders fell. Her breath came out in a weak puff that was supposed to be, on some level, a laugh. She came back and held out her hand, keeping her eyes off his. It was supposed to help dispel awkwardness. It didn't. She asked, "You kept them all this time?"
Gray went digging through his pocket and pulled out his wallet. "What was I supposed to do with them?"
"Throw them away?"
"They're your keys," he said.
"It's not like I live there anymore."
"Most people just say thanks." He dropped them into her outstretched hand, annoyance palpable.
"Thanks." She tucked them into her pocket and started off again. Her legs were being contrary. So was her mouth. "Gray?"
"Yeah?"
She faced him again. "How do you live with the guilt?"
His mouth quirked in an ugly grin. "Since coming back to Magnolia? Mostly try not to think about it."
"How? It's all I think about now."
He lifted his bottle of whisky. "Want some?"
Lucy snorted. "That's what got us into this mess in the first place."
"I don't think that's going to be a problem this time," Gray said. "I can barely look at you."
Lucy felt tears press against her eyes. "Fuck you."
He held out the bottle again as if in apology. "Come on, I didn't mean it like that. It's just hard. I feel like a piece of shit. I don't know how to be friends with you, Lucy, but I want to be. Isn't that stupid?"
A tremor took hold of Lucy's body. A tear snuck past her lashes. She swiped at it in exasperation. "Yeah, pretty stupid."
"Drink with me. Maybe we'll remember how to be friends again."
She hesitated. Then decided what the hell, it wasn't like things could get any worse.
Natsu had three circuits of the motel behind him before he heard Lucy's snorting laughter coming from a set of doors that he at first thought was a room. His heart skipped. What was she doing in someone else's room so late? Then he heard Gray's voice and he relaxed some.
Sort of.
"They're this way."
Happy, tail erected behind him, matched Natsu's long steps with four of his own.
The dragon slayer forgot about politeness and just ripped open the door. He almost hit Lucy with it. She was leaned back against a bannister, her golden hair damp for the third night in a row while the outside air played over her skin. She was cold, her arms full of goosebumps, but she didn't seem bothered by it. He saw why a second later, a half empty bottle of whisky in her hand.
"Natsu!" She looked startled, like she was caught.
"What are you doing out here, Lucy? I was looking for you." Natsu couldn't properly articulate the fear he felt coming out of the washroom and finding her gone. The certainty he had that she was going to be the next victim. It almost made him mindless.
"Oh…" Her tongue went between her teeth while she dunked her hand into her pocket and pulled out the peanuts and a half-melted chocolate bar. "I got you stuff. And then I found Gray."
It was harder to be mad at her after that. He redirected his anger, finding Gray looking very much on the rough side of drunk. "The fuck?"
"We were just…" Gray trailed off.
"Getting really drunk when there is a killer on the loose," Happy supplied, voicing what Natsu was too angry to.
Lucy snorted. It was brimming with scorn. "No one would come to challenge Team Natsu. We'd kick their ass."
He couldn't tell if she was mocking or serious. Maybe both. Natsu breathed deeply, finding calmness from somewhere. "Are you cold, Lucy?"
"Mm…" She ignored him. Her eyes, as dark as rum, found his. "Do you like your peanuts?"
"Yeah. Thanks. Let's go back to the room and you can share them with me." He felt like punching Gray. He didn't. He'd save that for later.
"Yeah?" She took a wobbling step towards him and almost stepped on top of Happy. Natsu grabbed her up around the waist. She took that as an invitation to wrap her arms around his neck and slump into him heavily. With a grunt, he picked her up from beneath the legs, totally supporting her weight. "Door."
Gray sobered enough to take the whisky from Lucy then get the door like Natsu asked. He didn't say a word as Natsu took Lucy away, more than glad. His only regret was that Happy stayed exactly where he was.
"I didn't mean to be gone so long." Lucy's fingers were in his hair.
Natsu lied. "It's okay, Lucy."
"We were trying to be friends."
Natsu met her eyes from the corner of his. "Trying to be?"
She nodded.
There were a lot of questions on his tongue. He swallowed them back. "You've been weird as shit lately. You and Gray both."
"I know."
"You think you're going to tell me why?"
"You want to know?"
His heart turned. Something told him no. Something equally loud said yes. "In the morning, okay?"
"Why not now?" She felt brave enough to say it.
"You're not sober."
"That's the point."
He only got more nervous. "If you're not brave enough to say it sober, you're not ready to say it."
Lucy chewed over that in silence.
Natsu juggled her to open the door. Her skin was so warm. Inside, the bathroom light acted like a nightlight. Natsu didn't bother turning on any of the other lamps. He was just going to have to turn them back off again. "Can you stand?"
"Yeah," Lucy said.
Natsu didn't believe her until he set her feet on the ground and she didn't topple over. "Do you want the bed or the couch?"
"Bed," Lucy said after a millisecond of thought.
"Alright." Natsu started towards the couch.
"You didn't like last night?"
His ears roared. "What?"
"In the bed. You didn't like it?"
He sweated. Turning to look at her, he tried to strum up an answer. "Yes," came out first.
Lucy smiled. "Then we can do it again?"
"You hate sharing your bed." Natsu didn't know why he reminded her of that.
"This isn't my bed," Lucy said with a carefree grin. More soberly she added, "I don't want to sleep alone tonight, Natsu."
He almost said he'd be in the room, but he wasn't that strong. "Okay."
Lucy watched him as he came back to the bed and shucked down to his shorts. He'd never felt more exposed with her eyeing his every move. She didn't look away until he was pulling back the sheets and sliding inside, and then it was only so she could grab her shirt and pull it straight over her head. Her bra was slate gray shot through with white stripes. Her shorts came next. Her underwear matched. Natsu realized he was staring and lifted his gaze to hers. She met his eyes with the vague detachment all drunks have and gave him a look that said she knew he watched and knew that he liked what he saw.
She stepped out of the circle of her shorts and kicked off her shoes. Her socks next, then padded barefoot to the bed and slipped between the sheets. Natsu reminded himself to breathe as she shimmied close enough that they were body-to-body. Of course there was no room. He propped himself up on his side to give her a little more space. She took it, a greedy girl, until she was practically beneath him.
Then she touched his cheek as if she needed to center herself so she could find his eyes. "Thanks for coming to find me."
He remembered how to speak. "You're welcome."
"I really did just want to get you something."
Beneath him, she was autumn by the dull bathroom light. Her lips were as red as maple leaves, her hair so gold it was rye. He was too close to her but couldn't pull away. Her fingers were cool against his cheek, keeping him rooted in place. Her skin. There was so much against his. His body reacted; it couldn't be helped.
He tried to focus on the issue at hand. "Don't just take off again, okay? Even if you're just going to hang out with Gray, let me know."
"Are you scared after all those murders?"
Natsu was truthful. "Every time I look at one of those girls all I see is you." Something told him it was all he wanted to see. That's not true. It was all he could see. All he was made to see. "I don't want that to be reality, Lucy."
Her fingers inched into his hair, then down so she could cup the back of his neck. "I like the way you care." She licked her lips.
"…Yeah?"
"Were you really going to kiss me the other day? Before I went out with Riley?"
Natsu felt brave enough—stupid enough—to be truthful. "Until you ran away."
A look overcame Lucy. Natsu's heart puttered. Then stalled as she both came up and pulled him down. Her lips tasted like sugar and rye, sweet and bitter. She was soft. She opened her mouth and changed the kiss from something that was a little less than sweet to something that burned him up. Her tongue was silken, her breath potent. His immediate response was to do nothing. Then it was to kiss her back. He started, earning a pleased trill from somewhere deep in her throat. Then he stopped and leaned away.
"Natsu—" Lucy managed to sound both vexed and hot as fuck.
He rested his forehead against hers and panted, out of breath after doing so little. "I think it's time to go to sleep, Lucy."
She licked her lips again, honey eyes boring into him. "You didn't like it?"
He couldn't help pressing his hips into her just a little to prove how much he had. Her eyes went wider, then heavy lidded. Natsu said, "Don't think that." Gods. He wanted to kiss her again. "It's just—it's really late. You're really drunk."
Her fingers tightened on his neck again, like she was going to call his bluff. He didn't know if he'd be able to pull away for a second time. He willed her to release him. He'd never ask, though.
Her hand slid down his neck over his bare back only to stop on the waistband of his shorts. His body got rigid twice over again. Then she said, "Maybe you're right." She looked abashed, ashamed.
He wanted to shout that he wasn't, he wanted to tell her to keep going, he wanted to say the hell with caring about taking advantage of her and just do it. He couldn't. Maybe if things were different. Maybe if it were him out there drinking with her tonight. But that wasn't the way things were.
"Good night, Lucy."
"Good night, Natsu." Her fingers loosened. Her eyes were already closed.
Natsu edged out of her grasp and sank down in the bed in a more comfortable position. He was mostly wrapped around her body, his cheek in line with her collarbone. He relaxed and closed his eyes. His palm ached the most it had ever. He thought it should keep him awake; it only dragged him into unconsciousness.
