Cobra passed the prim little white cat in the hallway, her arms full of take-out food, they barely acknowledged each other on the way to their respective destinations. The small cat had a whole lot of nothing nice to say floating around in her mind when it came to the company that Wendy was keeping and all it did was cause Cobra to growl under his breath at the cat.
Bickslow was filling the mini-fridge with a few choice beverages when the Poison Slayer came into the room. Bickslow immediately grabbed an Elderflower infused beverage and tossed it toward the slayer. He grabbed one more for Midnight and a caffeine-infused dark beer for himself. They unceremoniously sat themselves on the bed, Bickslow and Cobra facing each other with Midnight laying on his side just behind Bickslow.
The food had already been laid out by Midnight for them to eat while they discuss their current situation. Cobra idly wondered if Midnight ever stayed vertical for more than a few hours at a time as he watched him awkwardly trying to feed himself from the lazy position. Midnight broke the silence first, "How is she doing Cobra?"
Cobra opened his drink and took a long slow sip. Arranging what he wanted to say in his head. "She's been through a lot, like tower level shit. Although not quite to the extent of Sorano." Cobra stared down at the bottle in his hands.
Midnight nodded his head in understanding, "how is she adjusting so far?"
"In the short amount of time she's been here? She is barely holding her shit together, she is locking it down faster than I can keep up with." Cobra said as he picked up a fry and popped it in his mouth.
Bickslow shook his head, "I don't know what happened to you guys in the tower, but there is no way someone can ignore a year's worth of being held captive without cracking a little."
Midnight interjected before Cobra could, "The tower was a living nightmare, those of us who survived are still struggling to deal with what happened."
Bickslow looked down over to the reflector mage with a solemn expression, "I hear ya man. I didn't have the tower but we all have our own living nightmares to reconcile." Bickslow paused a moment thinking back to his past before finding Laxus and Fairy Tail.
Cobra picked up on a deep low thrumming base threading through the seith mage's soul. It was a haunting sound that he heard occasionally when Bickslow got lost in thought. Curiosity piqued, he vowed to himself that one day he would find out what the seemingly care-free mage could have experienced that rivaled his past the tower and Brain's control over him.
Bickslow shook off his brief rumination and turned to Cobra, "So what do you know so far?"
"She has foggy recollections of most of what happened to her. They kept her in a drugged state for a lot of the time she was there. Memories are triggering at random it seems, the pieces she remembers involve a lot of knife play and old school torture techniques. They had a sorry excuse of a healer mage in the guild but he only did the bare minimum to keep her alive. Apparently it was a shitty job at that according to Wendy."
Cobra signed and glanced at Bickslow who showed signs of an eerie understanding. "Her leg and feet are in bad shape, they had branded her feet and had her walk on the wounds for a few days. She can't walk steadily at all. Wendy confirmed that she wasn't raped outright, but there were a few sick bastards that did shit to her that I couldn't even dream up." Cobra growled out the end of his sentence through gritted teeth.
Cobra observed the Seith mage tighten his grip on the bottle he held, an eerie green aura coming off of him. Something about his reaction got under his skin slightly. "Cool your jets Bix, she's here now, and I didn't leave anyone alive."
Cobra smiled a grim and sadistic smile at the memories of how he dispatched the assholes. Papa took this moment to fly from his quiet position in the other room to float around Cobra's head signing, "so much fun, so much fun" Cobra swatted the totem away as if it were a fly buzzing in his face.
Bickslows voice trembled with anger, "You damn well better have man, because if anyone survived they will certainly wish they were dead if they run into me." Bickslow was not the killer Cobra was. Bickslow was remorseful over the lives he took, all of which had been accidental at best. In this case, however, he was hard-pressed to keep his emotions in check.
Cobra smiled an even broader one at Bickslow as he heard what his soul wanted to do to anyone that hurt his Cosplayer, "I hope you let me watch if that is ever the case." The words had a flirtatious lilt to them that surprised Cobra more than the others in the room. Papa flew around his master's head repeating "Sour snake likes to watch, Daddy will let him if he is lucky".
Bickslow glared at the totem who seemed to be the only one active at the moment, "Seriously Papa go take a nap before I make you take one."
The small totem slowly bobbed away, "you guys are no fun right now".
Bickslow looked at Cobra to gauge his reaction, he felt apprehensive over what was happening with Papa when it came to the Poison Slayer. Cobra just chuckled at the insanity of it all, "Whatever, we are all batshit crazy. Right now I am more worried about Sunshine than that little shit."
Bickslow found himself mildly relieved that the Poison Slayer didn't take offense at his oldest soul's antics. He just hoped none of his other souls would act as strangely as Papa. He knew they had wills of their own and they did show silent favoritism to individuals; like Popo did with Lucy and Pippi with Wendy but Papa and Cobra were an enigma. His souls shouldn't hear others, let alone react individually to them without his influence fueling them.
Shaking off the mystery, Bickslow asked, "So, what are we doing?"
Midnight piped up, "From the sound of things, Lucy is in no shape to travel all the way back to Magnolia, and this Inn is not exactly cheap enough for us to stay for an undetermined amount of time."
They both looked at Cobra for an answer, "Why the fuck do I have to figure this out?"
Bickslow shrugged his shoulders, "Look, Midnight is right, we can't stay at this inn and Magnolia is too far away for her to travel right now. Everyone thinks she is dead and I don't know if she is stable enough to deal with their shit."
Cobra nodded his head in agreement, "The pipsqueak will need more than a few sessions to help Lucy heal, so we need to be somewhere more comfortable than here while she recovers."
Bickslow knew that Freed had a safe house about a day's travel from where they were currently. He knew how to get there and knew how to get through the enchantment locks that Freed set up.
"Sounds good to me man, let's head out in the morning," Cobra responded to Bickslow's unspoken idea.
Midnight rolled his eyes at Cobra, "Hey asshole, can you please enlighten me to what you just agreed to?"
"Whatever sleeping beauty, Freed has a safe house in the northern woods, we are heading there," Cobra replied with a hint of snark in his voice. He was half expecting a retort from the reflector mage but he was unsurprised to see him almost instantly fast asleep.
Bickslow chuckled and stood up collecting the emptied food containers and drinks bringing them to the small sink. Cobra also stood and followed him. Listening to the eccentric mage's thoughts about the blonde spiral out of control, he clasped a hand to Bickslow's shoulder, "She'll be alright man you can see her in the morning."
Bickslow turned to Cobra, "It's been hell back at home man, I am so fuckin' happy you found her and that she is alive man."
In a moment of overwhelming emotion, Bickslow felt his eyes sting with tears. They were tears of relief and happiness but also of worry and agitation and fear. He quickly tried to adjust his visor to hide the evidence of his self-perceived weakness.
Cobra didn't know what possessed himself but he slapped away Bickslow's hand from his visor in a moment of anger. The poison slayer reached for the ridiculous visor and took it off Bickslow's face none too gently, he looked into a set of eyes the same color as his own hair and saw an overwhelming range of emotions filter through his eyes.
"You go ahead an hide this shit from Laxus and the guild but you're not with them right now. So fuck them, they are a bunch of fuckin' emotionally constipated pussies who can't handle the real shit life deals you." Cobra stopped his spiel mid-thought as he looked at Bickslow.
Bickslow's thoughts had changed to something that quite frankly scared the poison slayer, the same type of thoughts that Lucy all those years ago that had scared the shit out of him then and still does now. Cobra shoved the visor into the seith mage's hands and turned toward the door.
"Get some fuckin' sleep man" and with those words, he closed the door behind him leaving a surprised Bickslow behind.
Cobra paused with his back to the door and took a moment to compose himself before heading back to his room.
Entering the room he heard the soft melodic breathing of the blue-haired slayer. He was relieved to find her curled up in a tight little ball with her prissy little exceed, both sleeping soundly. He was not in the mood anymore for human interaction. He had enough and was ready to ignore it all for a few hours. He realized they were asleep in his bed and let out a small puff of air through his nose as he instantly conceded to the idea of sleeping in his own bed.
Switching his attention to the blonde-haired woman in the opposite bed he felt her agitation as she slept. A light sheen of sweat on her upper lip and brow with her eyes shut tightly; paired with labored breathing were all indications that she was having a nightmare. Cobra relaxed his magic to flow freely about the room, allowing him to listen to what was happening in Lucy's dream. He received sounds and images like polaroid snapshots of scattered events over the past year. No particular order to them but each one depicting excruciating pain and anguish.
As if in a trance, he found himself sitting beside her as she breathed erratically, her actions making more sense as he experienced her nightmare in real-time with her. He laid a gentle hand on her head wiping away her sweaty matted blond locks from her forehead, a snapshot of himself and her rescue flitted through her mind.
He nestled next to the blonde crossing his legs and shutting his eyes to ride the nightmares with her. It was a while before he noticed it, but at some point, he started humming quietly to her. He now watched as her nightmares morphed into various vignettes before the rescue. He fell asleep laying next to her, allowing her enough space to toss and turn freely without disturbing him.