Chasing Tails

by fairydares

It's been 7 years since Natsu and Lucy's 5-yo daughter (along with several of their friends and allies) went missing, but never once have him and Lucy given up on looking for them. Yet the last place he expected to find her was a horrible, Magicless world even Team Natsu's never been to...and that's only the beginning. (sorry but please click chap 1 for full review - no more room).

5. Chapter 5: Missing Cookies & Old Crysta

~Chapter 5: Missing Cookies and Old Crystal Balls~

Chapter Summary

~Preview~

"HARLEY!"

Natsu scrambled across the living room, eyes wide and sparkly as they fixed on the little cat, clearly not registering her increasingly aggressive body language. His cheeks were flushed beneath the dirt.

"It's you! It's you! Man, Happy's gonna be so—"

"Oi, don't—!" Layla tried to warn—but too late.

"MreeEOWARHHH!"

"OW!"

~End Preview~

*Reminder to please check the tags (on AO3, which is definitely a better reading experience than here with this piece occasionally because I update them as I realize things I should probably warn people about. I fumble with this kind of thing and am (yes, STILL) hammering out the plotline so please be patient with me. Feel free to lmk if I missed anything big.*

Chapter-Specific Warnings: Layla and Harley are mean to Natsu, especially towards the beginning :( ; mention of incarceration/forced psychiatric hospitalization ; drug abuse/addiction mentions (particularly pain pills); implied nonspecific animal harm ; mentions of nonspecific violent abuse towards children

Author's Notes:

Sorry it took so long for me to get this chapter up! Life essentially unloaded on me right after I published chapter 4, so I really can't blame myself too much this time around.

Will preface that more events were supposed to take place this chapter and it was also supposed to be pared way down, but my laptop is having hard drive AND keyboard issues so I just gave it a quick edit and thre it up (btw if you see any missing "w"'s…that's where they went lol…use an external keyboard as much as possible for your gaming laptop, kids!)

Thanks so much to everyone who gave kudos, follows, favorites, and feedback in the meantime! If you hadn't, I really don't know if I could have written this at all, so I'm very grateful and want you to know you are very wonderful.

Without further ado, please enjoy:

---

"Don't you dare damage anything! And another thing...do NOT step foot into my bedroom, 'kay? [...] What did I just fucking say, stupid cat—!" -from chapter 419 (page 12), "The Message of Flame", Lucy's line to Natsu and Happy

---

As Layla pulled Pinky—Natsu's one sleeved arm more securely over her shoulders, she tried to figure out when she'd lost her cookies. It'd definitely happened, she just needed to figure out when.

The guy had seemed crazy enough before he came flying out of that tree for the second time that day, bellowing some ridiculous shounen move name loud enough to deafen the entire block despite literally starting with the words "Ninja Attack."

The "Fire Dragon" part, though...that had rung a bell. Hadn't he said something like that when he went trying to fight Lee?

What a fucking dork.

Of course, really, his ridiculous outfit and all his other...everything should've told her that much, already. But he'd somehow managed to shock the hell out of her—again—with that outrageous attack.

He'd been so confident and committed, she'd almost been more surprised when it ended with him normal-punching Mad Bitch once then flopping to the ground, wheezing than by the fact that he did it at all.

Almost.

Ducking slightly to scoop up the laundry bag she'd weaponized with her free hand, she glanced at Mad Bitch. Still on the ground. Possibly playing dead. Narrowed brown eyes slid from his swollen, bloody nose dripping his cheek to the lump swelling under his chin.

She could grudgingly admit she was impressed by the two actual hits Natsu had landed in-between the crazy yelling, tree-diving, and corny do-gooder monologuing.

Well...okay, "impressed" was probably pushing it. He had clocked the bastard's nose by accident. He must have. If he'd done it on purpose, it would actually have been a pretty incredible feat of athleticism; difficult enough to precisely aim a punch hard enough to break someone's nose standing, let alone while falling, injured, and hollering nonsense.

And then he'd finished Mad Bitch with an uppercut to the chin. Mad Bitch was a shit fighter, someone who'd obviously gotten cocky throwing his not-insignificant weight around on the streets without facing anywhere near enough real challenges. Still, knocking such a big guy flat that fast wasn't nothing. From the strength in his exposed arm and the heaviness of the one slung over Layla's shoulders, she knew Natsu wasn't exactly a shrimp. Still, watching him KO Mad Bitch had been a total David-and-Goliath moment.

If she hadn't known better, Layla might've almost thought Natsu had enough fighting experience to know that spot under the chin—"the sub" Mak had always called it for some reason [*1]—was one of the best spots to hit someone if you wanted to put them down, or even intentionally exploited damage she'd already dealt the bastard the previous night.

But she did know better. Natsu was just her homeless, hapless stalker. One who'd just once again demonstrated he was legit violent and still firmly standing by the belief she was his possibly-real missing daughter.

So of course, she was inviting him to her home.

Where she lived.

With her cat.

And her roommate, who was already taking the only couch.

Alright. Just where the hell were her damn cookies?

She turned to look at Natsu, all prepared to tell him he could stay for one night then fuck off in the morning, plus tack on a death threat for good measure...only to nearly topple over in shock when she found him beaming down at her and weeping like a man who'd just won the lottery.

"Oh, Nashi!" he blubbered. "You really are just like Lucy—my little angel!" He was way too loud, and practically sparkling down at her as tear waterfalls streamed over the dirt on his cheeks. She cringed, overwhelmed by the sudden feeling she'd just volunteered as a crutch for the sun.

"It-it's Layla!" she spluttered, cheeks pinker than both their hair. "Now knock it the fuck off!"

And yeah, it pissed her off to no end that his only response was to chuckle at her and keep beaming so wide it made his eyes close, weirdly sharp white teeth gleaming under the street lamp above them, but for some reason she just couldn't make the demands and threats leave her mouth. Not even the death threat.

It was like she didn't even know who she was anymore.

"Ugh...dammit! Just come on," she grumbled, pulling him towards the road.

As the pair shuffled against the tide of unhoused people seeping into the park like they did every night, confusion and doom tried to creep over Layla. Just what the hell had gotten into her? What was she doing? More importantly how the hell was she going to fix it?

Fortunately or unfortunately, Natsu kept either confusion, doom, or any of those lines of thought from really taking hold of her when he tried to bumble straight out into the road.

"Oi!" she barked in alarm, hauling him back with a muscly shrug that made him jerk slightly in surprise. "Look first, dumbass!"

"Huh?" He blinked owlishly as a car whooshed right past them, then chuckled sheepishly. "Oops, my bad!"

"No shit, it's your bad! What is this, your first day on Earth?"

His face brightened. "No, it's my second! So you believe me now?"

"NO! I was insulting you!"

"...Oh," he muttered. "Well, that's a dumb insult."

After glaring incredulously at his pouting profile for a second, she huffed and pushed forward.

The way he hissed as they descended from the sidewalk, started sweating slightly, and—most shocking of all—kept quiet in focus distracted everything else to the back of her mind.

She glanced down at his leg. His body hunched a bit with each stride, subconsciously transitioning weight to his right leg and hip while his left leg remained in as neutral a position as possible. It was enough for her to recognize a knee injury from a mile away, even if she hadn't seen him rolling around in the dirt, clawing and cursing at the joint just that morning.

Her lips tugged into a deeper frown.

He could at least put some weight on it. In fact, he seemed (dumbassedly) to be trying not to lean on her too much. That was something. Still, she wasn't stupid enough to think positive just yet. If Mad Bitch hadn't been licking his wounds back there and she wasn't still goosebumping like a motherfucker over those texts, she'd have made Natsu let her take a look right in the park.

Better yet, if she fought in the "real" octagon, or even made as much prize money as male victors in the semi-underground cage, she could've afforded to bring him to a hospital despite all the money he'd already wasted. Maybe even get him real tests and treatment, some kind of mental evaluation (though they'd have had to be careful not to do or say anything that might get him thrown in some institutional hellhole. As much as she didn't want him to be her problem anymore, she wasn't willing to do that to anyone after her prolonged stint in juvie.)

But that wasn't how shit worked. Despite having hunted down and essentially bullied her winnings out of the shady commission rep just after beating Mad Bitch, she was definitely still on a tight budget. It'd stay that way unless—until she beat that douchebag, Helio.

Natsu was shit out of luck, though, because he wouldn't be around on Friday night—or even tomorrow. Of that much, Layla was certain. She may have lost her cookies, but she hadn't lost them enough to let him camp out on her couch for more than a night. He just didn't know that fact yet.

All she could do was give him some basic first aid and a safe couch to crash on for a bit (she'd have to bite the bullet and let Gracie sleep in her room for a night) tell him to quit climbing around like a damn monkey, then boot his ass out. She just needed to figure out how she was going to go about all that, that was all.

---

By the time they finally stood in front of the apartment door, Layla hadn't figured out how she was going to go about a single damn thing. In fact, she was too busy coming up with ways to kill this motherfucker to think about anything else.

"You're lucky you didn't puke in that elevator, or I swear to god I'd have left you there!" she snarled, digging for the keys in her pocket.

Realizing they'd have to take the lift had been bad enough without Natsu pretending not to know what an "ele-vator" was, digging in his heels as soon as the doors creaked open, and squeaking dumb-ass questions like, "Does that tiny room move!?" and "Where the hell'd it come from!?"

Meanwhile, she'd asked questions like, "Can you quit LARPing for five fucking seconds?!" and, "Do you want to die?!"

After multiple minutes of this, she finally lost her patience and shoved him into the lift with a partial kouchi gari throw, carefully controlling his weight to make sure she didn't hurt his knee more. (That would just be counterproductive).

She might've felt more embarrassed by her own mini-panic attack induced by being shut in the wheezing, shuddering death trap had it not been for the antics of the grown-ass man she shared the ride with. That dirty, homeless, pink-haired freak had pawed at the doors, wailed his betrayal at her, and—worst of all—started gagging and belching the instant the elevator began its quaking ascent.

Yeah, it'd been hard to feel too bad about choking on phantom smoke through deep breaths with that going on right next to her. Still hadn't been too fun, though. Once before, after a pretty tough fight, Layla had attempted to brave the building's elevator.

Once.

Now she remembered why she hadn't given it another whirl.

Never again, she vowed to herself at present, still pale as she continued digging through her pocket. I'll piggyback every wingnut in this city up and down the stairs before I get on that piece of shit ever again!

"Never again," Natsu whimpered, making one of her eyes twitch. "Never make me get on one of those 'ele-vator' things again! Or Magical Vehicles! Or carriages!"

"'Carriages?'" she repeated, annoyance and disbelief making her forget their disturbingly paralleled thoughts. "Seriously?"

"They're evil..." he supplied in a groan. "They're all evil...why they gotta move around like that?"

At this, Layla paused briefly in her aggressive key-fishing to side-eye Natsu as a strange, random possibility occurred to her:

Maybe...he had motion sickness?

It was something Layla vaguely recalled having a pretty bad problem with as a child. There were even a couple mentions of it by Little Her in that police file. She didn't really remember when she'd grown out of it. Sometime before the fire, definitely.

After a moment's consideration, she shook herself free from the line of thought. She was starting to get really fucking sick of the way this guy kept reminding her of that embarrassing-ass file and the shittier parts of her already fucked up life. Not to mention the way he seemed to make her...PISSED OFF when she wondered about why he was such a damn mess.

Who the hell knew or cared about the list of things wrong with this guy, anyway? It wasn't her business, and she had her own shit to worry about. Again, cookies.

"You're not fucking real," Layla half-decided, half-wished under her breath, ignoring his continued groaning as she resumed her key search.

Finally fishing out her key, the fighter sighed as she thought back to when she'd stopped by the apartment for her laundry earlier and realized she couldn't recall if she'd seen Gracie around. Those stupid texts had distracted her too much. She really should've thought of this sooner. After all, how her roommate would feel about having to share with a guest was a pretty significant factor.

Guess I'll find out how she feels about it now, she sighed internally. She already had enough of an idea how this would go to know she'd better have Natsu wait outside for a sec.

She extricated herself from under his arm slowly enough that he was able to catch his balance easily against the hallway wall. With his bruised and blood-caked fingers splayed against the yellowing paint, he glanced at the door then peered at her questioningly, two sharp eyes amidst a face coated in dirt and grime.

She grimaced. Despite her tight budget, she'd have to let him use enough water to take a shower before throwing him out. Probably buy him some clothes, too, she thought as she eyed his preposterous, mangy costume. If only she'd kept any of the sweats Drake used to leave at her old place...

"Wait here a sec," she muttered before he could ask questions. She unlocked the door, took a steadying breath to brace herself for a confrontation with Gracie and any guests she might have over, squared her shoulders, put on her scowl, and pushed her way in.

To her surprise, it was quiet. And clean. Well, okay, not clean. But cleaner than it had been that morning or during her pre-gym drop-by. Mostly, the crap on the floor had been pushed against the walls. A couple garbage bags full of beer cans and bullshit were piled near the actual trash can. Even a couple dishes had been done.

Had it been this way when Layla came back for her laundry? She wracked her brain, but really couldn't remember. Damn. Just how out of it had she been?

Gracie was nowhere in sight, but Layla's eyes spotted a note on the counter. Curious, she ditched her laundry bag in the entryway and went over to read it.

phone much? cleaned the shithole. staying somewhere else tonight. -G

Layla couldn't deny the rush of relief she felt, realizing she didn't have to sleep with Gracie in her room or deal with her reaction to the situation tonight. Actually, she was happy she didn't have to deal with Gracie at all.

Dropping the note, the exhausted teen scrunched her face and rubbed a little at the back of her head, annoyed by the guilt slowly but surely replacing her anger. Guilt for being glad Gracie was gone, guilt for calling her "Third-Base Grace," and guilt for being too caught up in her own shit to even notice if she was around when she stopped by earlier.

She even felt guilty for thinking Gracie's butt looked like a horse's.

She looked around some more. It wasn't perfect, but Gracie had put in some effort. And she'd left a note, which was...actually pretty weird. Even if Layla didn't answer her texts, she'd normally just assume Layla read them and leave it at that. She sure as hell wouldn't write a note like an actual mom or something.

That counted for something, right?

One thing Layla knew for sure: Gracie wasn't going to actually apologize. Neither of them were. If "stick together" was the number one rule of foster care, then "never, ever apologize" was juvie's. The word "sorry" was a confession and a concession. That lesson had been learned the hard way by both of them long ago, sentenced and beaten right into their bones.

Which meant that this was Gracie's way of trying to make up. And if she was making an effort...well, shit, Layla guessed she needed to, too. Especially because she'd need Gracie's help getting back in contact with Rose once she'd gotten a new burner. She was pretty sure Rose was rolling again. In which case Layla also need Gracie to help her find the friend who'd kept their trio-ship intact. No doubt she'd be a pill about it, but whatever. They at least needed to know Rose was safe. Hopefully they could convince her to go to the Harm Reduction Center, too.

But even more importantly for the time being, Layla really needed Rose to come to the Championship fight. It made her feel selfish to admit it, and she was still pissed Rose hadn't shown up for her semi-final fight, but it was the truth.

Rose was the only human in the world who actually, truly gave a shit about Layla, even if her own problems kept her from showing it all the time. She had to come through this time. She just had to. Otherwise...

"So this is your crib?" The gravelly voice from the doorway snapped her out of the cold feelings.

She turned to glare at its owner over her shoulder. Natsu kept balance with a hand on the doorframe as he looked around at the landlord-y paint on the walls, the thin living room carpet, grime-coated linoleum in the kitchen area, and booze can fort with sharp eyes.

It was strange, but despite how crappy he looked, the sight of him in her apartment was weird, like he didn't belong there at all. Might've been the ridiculous clothes. That, or his expression, way too open and curious to be in such a dingy little place.

She trudged over. "I thought I told you to wait."

"Eh, what's the point of that, though?" He waved a hand as she helped him towards the couch. "You worried about the mess or something? Don't be, Nashi! Your place looks way better than ours did, before Lucy got her hands on it."

Lucy? Layla wondered absently. He'd said that name back in the park, hadn't he?

She bit back her questions about it. Asking him about any of the crazy shit that came out of his mouth would probably only make him spew more crazy shit, none of which she wanted to hear. She had no intentions of keeping him around long enough to actually explore the world of delusions that lived in that spiky head of his. Besides, she had to get to the drugstore before it closed. No time for his shit.

So instead, she retorted, "It's Layla, dammit. And like I give a rat's ass what you think of the mess! Beggars can't be choosers."

"Well if you don't care, why'd I have to wait then?"

The nerve of this guy!

"For your information, I thought my roommate might be here!She usually isn't decent! So you're lucky she isn't here, or I'd throw your ass out here and now!"

Rather than tomorrow morning.

She added that part only in thought, fully aware kicking him out was likely to be a fight in itself given his unhinged nature.

"Ohh...I didn't know. Sorry," he said, not looking it with that stupid smile still in place. "I just really wanted to see your pad! It's not as bad as I was worried. You sure drink a lot, though. You're worse than Cana."

"These aren't mine!" Layla bristled. They're my shithead roommate's!"

She was one of the few pro-athletes—especially in the semi-under—who took her job seriously enough not to constantly party like some fucking frat loser. She took pride in that fact. Always had. She kicked a stray beer can out of their path, sending it to join its buddies against the wall.

"Now"—she gestured aggressively towards the couch they were nearing—"sit down and pull your weirdo pant legs up so I can see your knees. Both of 'em."

After sinking to a cushion with a satisfied grunt, Natsu obeyed. He actually had to untie some little black knots at the hems to pull them up. Once the pair of large joints was exposed, Layla quit eyeing him exasperatedly to crouch down and examine them with an informal but practiced eye.

She glanced between both legs a couple times, then grimaced. His left knee was about twice the size of his right, too swollen for her to make out his kneecap. Even under a layer of grime (he was definitely taking a shower before he slept on her couch) its color was bright and deep.

"So? How is it?"

"You look like you're fucking half-flamingo."

"Aw, c'mon! It ain't that bad, is it?"

"I don't know," she replied honestly, resisting the urge to poke it to see if it was squishy. "How'd it happen?"

"...Tch."

Looking up, she saw that the bright-haired man had suddenly gotten an annoyed, stubborn look on his face. His bottom lip even jutted out.

Brown eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"For the record, I won!"

Two and two came together quick enough. "You got in a fight."

"He started it! I just finished it!" he barked, as if she'd asked.

So that's what happened to his knuckles, she realized with an internal groan. For fuck's sake, taking in a rabid weasel would've been less dangerous than taking in this dude!

An overdue ache started to build behind her eyes.

"Okay, but how did your knee actually get hurt?"

"Bastard kicked my thigh. Managed to punch my nose, too." He added with a frown, reaching up to rub at the appendage.

Yet another mystery explained.

"Did your knee swell up right away? Like within the next couple hours?"

"Eh? Nah, I mean, I don't think so...I'm pretty sure it didn't swell up on me too bad till this morning."

She straightened, scowling as she considered his answers.

"So!" he said brightly after a stretch of silence. "It's probably fine, right?"

"Did I fucking say that?" she snapped.

His smile faltered.

"Honestly, it sounds like it might not have been too bad at first, but then your dumb ass just had to go run your crazy all over the damn place! Now?" She threw her hands up. "Who knows? All I can do is some basic aid. Then, you'd better rest and quit climbing and jumping and fucking around! Because if you need an X-Ray or surgery? You're shit out of luck, dude."

She expected him to finally start sweating, even just a little bit. Instead, his expression scrunched into one of infuriatingly childish irritation.

"This is stupid," he whined. "If I were in Earthland, Jeela and Tally [*2] would totally have fixed me up by now!"

Once the sentence registered, it filled Layla with a feeling which she could only call: "No." Of all the wild shit he'd said so far, "someone exists who can un-flamingo my knee overnight" had to be the one that that left her rolling her eyes the hardest.

As a kid raised on violence turned pro fighter, Layla still suffered from injuries months, years, over a decade old. Magical Healing was the bullshit he'd come up with she was least willing or able to indulge—right after his "long-lost dad" schpiel.

"Uh-huh...yup...sure." She didn't even bother to ask questions or return fire as she drifted off across the room. Scooping up her laundry bag, she shut and locked the front door then ambled towards her bedroom. Her mind was fully on her drugstore run and dinner as soon as her back was to him. After that shitshow of a day, bed called like a siren.

Thinking through everything she'd planned to do, she wearily resigned herself to skipping meal prep for the night. She'd just have to buy something for her and Harley's dinner tonight, then worry about the rest tomorrow.

Natsu, as far as she was concerned, could go fuck himself. He'd apparently eaten enough to get him through a whole winter. And like she'd already decided, he wouldn't be here longer than a night, anyway. That was if he even stuck around till morning after realizing she had nothing good to steal and kept her bedroom door locked.

"It's true!" he shouted at her back as she reached for her door. "Ah, I guess you wouldn't remember, though. See, Tally's a Solid Script Mage, like Levy. And Jeela...she's actually a Dragon Slayer, but she can—OI! Where are you going?! Don't ignore me, damn it!"

"Uh-huh...yep...sure..." she repeated absently, ignoring him.

She made to push her way into her room only to nearly jump out of her skin as a small, white bundle flew out. It leapt to stand between her and Natsu, bristling and exuding as much of a threat as a tiny white cat could.

Natsu gasped and flopped off the couch.

"Dammit, Harley!" Layla shouted, wrestling back her heart palpitations with a hand over her chest. She really should've been prepared for the intrusion; hearing Layla talking to some random guy in the apartment would for sure freak her protective feline best friend out. "Jeez! You scared the shit out of me, you fish-addicted—"

"HARLEY!"

Natsu's shout was so loud, even the ever-battling couple next door briefly fell silent. He scrambled across the living room, eyes almost as wide and sparkly as when he'd dropped into the octagon as they fixed on the little cat, clearly not registering her increasingly aggressive body language. His cheeks were flushed beneath the dirt.

"It's you! It's you! Man, Happy's gonna be so—"

"Oi, don't—!" Layla tried to warn—but too late.

"MreeEOWARHHH!"

"OW!"

As Natsu reeled hard enough to fall on his ass and clutched at his hand, Layla hurried over and scooped Harley up.

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" she shouted at the now-bleeding man, squeezing the little cat against her chest. Harley shivered against her, stoking Layla's anger.

"What's wrong with me?!" Natsu, now sitting on the floor, had the gall to look hurt, confused, and outraged.

"Yeah, you! Haven't you ever heard of asking before fucking with peoples' pets?!"

"Don't call her a 'pet!'" he snapped. "And how was I supposed to know she'd go scratching the hell out of me?! If anything, it's her you should be yelling at!"

"It's okay, Harley..." She stroked the shivering little bundle's soft fur, ignoring the sound of outrage her not-so-welcome guest let out as she searched for injuries. "C'mon, baby, don't be scared like that...everything's okay..."

"What the hell, Harley?!" Natsu yelled, making Layla snap her furious gaze up to him, teeth bared. He ignored her in favor of glowering accusatorily at the cat in her arms. "Don't tell me you've forgotten me, too! Even if you have, talk about rude! What've you got to say for yourself, huh?!"

The rage detonated in Layla like fucking dynamite.

"You'd better shut the fuck up right now if you know what's good for you, you ungrateful, batshit, degenerate asshole!" she snarled.

Her words made shock, disbelief, hurt, then fury flare in Natsu's sharp, dark eyes. She noticed, but she didn't care.

Her heartbeat thundered red across her vision.

"I don't give a shit if you're actually insane enough expect her to answer or not! Do not fucking talk to Harley like that! EVER! Got it?!"

"'Expect—expect her to...?'" Suddenly, Natsu paled. Infuriatingly, he looked more horrified by what she'd said than scared of her threats, and his eyes stayed on Harley. "Don't tell me—you don't mean—she can talk, right? Harley, this isn't funny! C'mon, answer me!"

Harley buried herself deeper into Layla's chest at the sound of older male's deep, loud voice, shivering harder. Ignoring the unsteadiness she always seemed to feel with these (now) rare, wild losses of temper, Layla backed right up to the bedroom doorway, putting as much space between herself and the bastard terrifying her friend as possible while still staying in the same room.

Squeezed her cat tighter. Dropped her lips to her little bauble-shaped head. A silent promise to protect her, just like she always had. Always. They always protected each other. That was what Harley had just been trying to do, too, even though she was so scared.

With that thought, Layla felt a surge of warmth and strength. The kind that'd come rare, this past year. It was strange, but despite the rage itching hotly across her shoulders...just for a second there...she felt good. She felt that fire inside of her give a strong flicker.

Natsu's lips parted as he stared up at them with wide eyes.

"Of course she can't talk, you motherfucking nutcase," Layla bit out, working to keep her voice calm-ish for Harley's sake even as she stared a dark, violent promise into the man sitting on the floor. "She can't talk or fly or...or turn into a catgirl or enter the multiverse or see the future or any other stupid shit you made up! She's a cat! My cat! She freaks out if anyone but me gets near her, so don't even think of touching her again or I'll rip you limb from fucking limb!"

"B-but why?" he spluttered, face more worried and horrified by the second as his gaze bounced between Harley and her own eyes, shining with a plea she didn't understand. His bleeding hand lay on the floor at his side, forgotten. "What do you mean? She...she really can't talk? Her voice can't be gone, too! It can't! That would be... th-that's too..."

After his voice cracked, he shut up suddenly, scrubbing at his head with his unscratched hand like he was trying to rub a demon out of his skull, expression twisted in pain.

The hand dropped abruptly. "Even if it's true she can't talk, that makes no sense! Why would she be scared of everyone but you?! That's ain't like Harley, not at all! And that...what's that scar, there?"

Layla couldn't understand why he was talking to her like that, like she was the one trying to trick him, like she was the one who needed to knock her shit off, but it pissed her off more. A lot more. She felt like seething, white-hot rage was pouring off her skin.

"Oh, you wanna know why? Well so the fuck would I," she sneered. She stroked the cat's fur, smoothing the white strands gently over the burn he'd dared to mention. "I don't know what you found out with your creepy stalker digging, but just 'cause the cops found me and Harley together, doesn't mean we got to stay together. Believe it or not, fosters don't usually want shit to do with your pets!

"And that's not a scar,"—she nodded down at it—"it's a fucking burn. She got it the same way I wound up in juvie, but I'm sure you read all about that." The sneer became briefly tinged with bitterness. "By the way, if you think we were allowed to stick together in there? You're not just insane, you're tripping, too. Harley and I have been separated over and over. We've been apart more than we've been together. Somehow, she always found me again, but she was different every time. It was bad enough after she got burned, but...whatever the hell happened to her alone out there...she got worse and worse. Eventually, she'd only let me near her. That's just how it is. So just stay. The fuck. Away."

Pinky Wingnut's face was ashen under all that dirt.

"But...but I didn't read anything! His voice was a croak he seemed to barely manage to pull from a well of shock and horror. "I don't know...how'd she get burned? And...what the hell's 'fosters'? What's 'juvie'? I don't—"

"Enough. Just piss off with your stupid, fake questions already, you lying piece of shit!"

"Oi—!"

The slam of her bedroom door cut him off.

As soon as she'd locked the door, Layla leaned back against it. Her mind was an incomprehensible mess of boiling rage, most of it directed at Natsu but quickly swiveling around to point right at the real person to blame for this mess: herself.

"Mew," came a muffled little squeak from her chest.

Comforting her still-shaking cat was more automatic than anything.

"Jeez...what were you thinking, anyway? You were just being too protective, huh? Silly, brave cat...come on, baby, calm down...I won't let anything bad happen to you...fishies, soon..."

Even Harley's favorite word only went so far to stop her shivering, this time. It'd been a long time since Layla had been stupid enough to let someone else get that close to touching her best friend.

The soothing nonsense she murmured steadily was at complete odds with her raging mind. By the time Harley stopped shaking and squirmed to get down, the full gravity of what Layla done taking this guy in had hit her like a semi.

The biggest night of her life was in four—now closer to three days. The damn eleventh hour, and here she was not only engaging with this weirdo freak, but taking him in. He didn't need a Gracie-stained couch and a bag of frozen peas; he needed things she didn't have the resources to give, serious medical care and around-the-clock attention.

Or another busted kneecap, for even thinking of touching Harley! the still-furious part of her screamed.

But no, if there was anyone to be mad at, it was her own self. She'd known he was crazy, known he was dangerous, yet she'd practically carried him right into to her apartment.

And why? Just because he'd fought Mad Bitch and said all that lame, cheesy stuff? Who cared. She hadn't asked for his help. Hadn't needed it, hadn't wanted it. She didn't owe him jack, so what the hell had she been thinking? What if he kept showing up at her apartment, or tried to break in after she threw him out?

Mak, Drake, Gracie—everyone was right about her. Her and her stupid, naive bullshit. She was the biggest fucking idiot of all time. She was all alone, and there was no one to blame for it but her own self.

Her eyes and throat burned. She clung to Harley for her own comfort for just another couple seconds, then crouched to let her go, wiping at her nose with her forearm and stifling her sniffles. No way she'd let stupid Pinky Wingnut hear any sign of her annoying weak tear ducts.

What was I thinking? What's wrong with me? Crouched there, she asked herself those questions again and again. The only explanation for her shitty decisions which presented itself, though, was a flickering image of that damn corner. She didn't even know what that meant. She didn't want to.

There was one thing she did know, though:

Fuck tomorrow morning. Natsu was leaving tonight.

She'd give him some basic treatment since she'd promised and all, but then? His ass was out. He could go find more dying plants to bear-nap in. Layla just couldn't fucking do this and was starting to move past trying to track down her cookies and on to damage control.

Harley peeped uncertainly, tail flicking slowly as she stared up at Layla with wide eyes.

The living room beyond her door was suspiciously quiet. Dread and grim determination supplanted some of the numbness as she realized the living room was going to be really not quiet when she threw Natsu out. The guy was nothing if not loud.

And if her stomach was churning uneasily? If that bitterness in her mouth tasted an awful lot like guilt? She ignored it.

After several seconds, the fighter's legs finally pushed her up.

"Meow?"

"I'll be right back with food, 'kay?" Layla murmured thickly, wiping at her face and eyes as she went over to her nightstand.

There was a second "meow" as she snatched up her trusty bottle of pain pills, then grabbed a big wad of cash from her drawer. Her scowl was firmly in place by the time she stomped back out into the living room.

Tension hung thick in the air between her and the couch she refused to look towards as she relocked the door, fished a few pain pills out of the bottle, and pulled together a cup of water in the kitchen. She brought both the pills and the water over to Natsu, who'd managed to get back up on the couch and was peering at her, expression tight and searching.

"Is Harley okay?" he asked tentatively. "I didn't mean to scare her. I'm really—"

"Just take these," she ordered.

His eyes flashed with frustration, then dropped to her palm and went curious. "What are they?"

"Pills. Obviously. They'll help with pain and swelling."

He took them and popped them. After wrinkling his nose, he accepted the glass of water she held up to him and chugged some of it.

"Ugh, those were nasty-tasting," he muttered, then squirmed slightly. "And they ain't even working! It still hurts!"

"What are you, five? You're not supposed to taste them, and they don't work right away!" With a huff, she straightened and turned away. "I'll be right back. If you need the bathroom, it's right over there." She pointed. "Otherwise? Don't. Fucking. Move."

She made to leave.

"Wait! Where are you going?!"

She stopped with her hand on the doorknob. "The drugstore," she answered through gritted teeth, "because someone didn't go to the hospital like I told him to, and I'm out of the shit I need to deal with that moron at home!"

It was true. Even her good ice pack had split a while back. That blue goop had been a real pain in the ass to clean out of the couch.

She took an imperceptible deep breath, steeling herself to inform him of the decision she'd just made. "Look...after that—"

"I'll come, too," Natsu interrupted because apparently his ears were for decoration, moving to stand.

"The fuck you will!" Layla barked after a second's shock. She stomped over and shoved him back down. "Are you deaf, or just stupid?! I said sit. Your ass. Down. And don't move!"

"Lemme up," he panted, pushing against her. She shoved him down harder, barely repressing the urge to rip her hair out. Or maybe his. Or both of theirs.

"Nashi!" he thundered after several moments of struggle, surprising her with the amount of anger and authority in his voice. "You'd better knock it the hell off, now!"

Layla bared her teeth defiantly and pushed harder. The guy wasn't weak, which she'd already known, but there was an odd, almost boneless slipperiness to his strength. Sorta like someone who was just waking up. She was sure his injured knuckles and wrist played into it, but she also had to sweat a little at the way he just tried to just muscle her off like he thought some sort of super-strength would kick in at any second. Dude really thought he was in a manga or some shit, huh?

"Are you trying to permanently fuck your leg up?" she demanded. "Is that it? Is that what you want, Natsu? To need a cane for the rest of your life? Keep dicking around, and that's exactly what will happen! Don't you get it?! There isn't any goddamn Magic! 'Abracadabra' won't fucking heal you!"

"I don't care! I don't care about any of that!" he shouted with a discernible note of panic in his voice. Despite herself, Layla paused, narrowing her eyes at him while he tried to pry her hand of his shoulder. "What if Man Cow comes back? What if something bad happens to you when I'm not there? I don't give a crap about my knee! I don't care what happens to me, but come hell or high water..."—he muscled harder, hard enough to actually make her jerk slightly—"nothing...bad's...gonna"—he grunted—"happen to you...on my...watch!"

The grunt turned into a growl. The growl turned into a ridiculously dramatic roar. His face turned pissed, eyes angled even sharper than usual in anger as they snapped up to meet hers.

"ALRIGHT! Just how the hell are you so strong here, huh?!"

Layla stared back at him, eyes slightly wider than they'd been. It took her several moments to answer.

"...Tch. I'm a pro athlete." She hesitated. "Just...stay here." She pushed him down firmly. "Just for a sec, alright? I'll be right back."

After removing her hands and making sure he stayed laying there—ignoring the angry eyes glued to her like he thought she'd make a run for it—she headed to her room again.

This time, as she grabbed what she needed, she was too preoccupied with her newly discombobulated thoughts to really hear Harley's questioning meows.

When she'd locked the bedroom door behind her once more, she wore a forest green hoodie and carried a handful of the random manga volumes she'd kicked across her floor that morning.

The well-loved volumes—grabbed on a whim—dropped to the coffee table with a thunk in front of the man who was now looking up at her with shrewd belligerence.

"I have to go to the drugstore down the road," Layla said slowly, "and...you can't come with me."

When he opened his mouth, she continued quickly, "I know you want to, but you can't, okay? Knee injuries are serious, Natsu. If something gets infected or breaks even more in there, you can even die."

"Oh, yeah right," Natsu scoffed. He rolled his eyes and made to cross his arms over his chest, only to wince as—Layla could tell just from looking—that wrist injury he'd picked up in the park smarted too bad. He dropped his hands with a frustrated sigh.

"It's true."

Another scoff, another eye roll. "Like hell I'm gonna believe a busted knee will kill me. Try the other damn leg!"

"It almost happened to my coach, Mak," she revealed darkly.

That got his attention. She balled her hands into fists as dark eyes swept over to search hers, and blamed her newly-re-jumbled thoughts for the fact she'd brought it up at all.

"...'Coach?'" he questioned, something in his voice she couldn't quite place.

"Well, old Coach." She shoved her hands in her pockets. "He's dead now."

"From a knee injury?" Natsu looked skeptical again.

"No, he died of...something else," she said gruffly, dull eyes unfocused on the ground. "He got the knee injury forever ago, back when he was still a fighter. He ignored it, kept fighting and training till one day, it'd gotten too bad. By then it was too late; the infection stuff had traveled right through his blood. He lost his leg, his eye, and his career 'cause of it. He told me he was lucky he didn't lose his life, too."

"So?" she remembered the old man growling after he told that story. "You'd better have listened this time, ya damn brat! I told you my unbelievably tragic, heart-wrenching tale for a reason! Well?! Any thoughts in that fucking empty female head of yours?!"

"That's so freaking gross," thirteen-year-old her had responded, nose wrinkled. "Stupid, too..."

Somehow, her dumb little ass still hadn't seen the head whack coming.

"So yeah. Shit's serious," she plowed on at present, "and there's no quick fix. Just time and whatever the hell I can pull together around here to deal with it, for now...but I'm out of shit, alright? So I have to go, and you have to stay. But here, look!"

She pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up over her hair, even made a show of yanking and knotting the little ties at her chin so every last strand was covered. Then she spread her arms. "See? No one will recognize me like this. No pink hair? No Layla. Even if I do look like a fucking turtle." She grumped that last part under her breath.

Natsu glared up at her mutinously. His hands remained braced on the cushion like he was going to get up despite everything she'd said. But to her surprise and relief, after several moments, he fisted the fabric and grit out, "Ugh, dammit...FINE! But if you're not back in five minutes, I'm coming after you!"

"Fifteen."

"Six!"

Immediately. Immediately, he started haggling.

"Fifteen, dammit!" she barked, exasperated and firm. "Look, there are some manga for you to read in the meantime." She pointed. "I'll be right back, so don't. Fucking. Get up!"

---

So she left Crazy on the couch and went to the drugstore.

Lingering paranoia from the day's events still prodded at the edges of her mind, making her vigilant on autopilot. Truthfully, though, even Drake's scary texts were mostly forgotten. As she absently remembered she needed to grab another burner in the morning, she barely thought of him. Mad Bitch was yesterday's news.

Natsu trying so desperately come along had wreaked a brand new kind of havoc within her. In that moment, not only had she been forced to acknowledge that she did, in fact, have some idea when and why she'd lost her cookies—but also, some of the weird stuff she'd been ignoring about him had suddenly caught up with her. Not the crazy stuff (well, okay, all of it was crazy) but the weird stuff. All the inconsistencies, all the questions she'd been stifling.

For one thing, there was the stuff he kept saying. So much of it creepily close to the details written in her file, but with these little twists he stuck to stubbornly, even seeming upset when she didn't know them. Like "Drag-Neil" instead of "Dragon O'Neil," as those shitty cops had written down all those years ago. Even the way he'd seemed shocked and horrified by how Harley wouldn't talk, and brought up "Fairy Tale"—not a specific one, just "Fairy Tale."

Just like Little Her in that file.

Wasn't that weird? Layla was way more of a Goku than a Detective Conan, but the mystery was a little too odd to slip past even her notice.

She'd assumed Natsu was her stalker. Still did, she guessed, since she couldn't really come up with a better label for him. But what the hell kind of shitty stalker was he, anyway? That dude had threatened her, argued with her, told her to get lost so he could sleep, and even laughed his ass off at her when that stuffy hag thought she was trying to brawl a plant.

If he was really just some superfan superfreak, shouldn't he have been worshiping the ground she walked on?! If anything, he'd acted half like a mischievous little kid and half like...well, that thing he kept saying he was.

And that was the other thing, wasn't it?

"It's 'Natsu'! 'Dad', to you!" he'd shouted that morning, apparently not caring about how badly she'd taken the declaration just the night before.

She scowled while checking out, not noticing how the checkout guy kept glancing fearfully at her intense turtle face.

Obviously it was a delusion, but Natsu really did seem to believe he was a dad. Her dad.

The fact she really didn't have a dad was, she figured, kind of just an unfortunate coincidence, if only because she didn't have anyone to point at and say, "Nope! That's him."

Too bad the PI Mak had hired all those years ago—that chain-smoking grouch who'd dug up her old police file—hadn't found her real parents. Alternatively, if only that little plan she'd had to get her famous as a fighter so that her parents might see her on TV or in the news and come find her (which she now realized was as fucking stupid as Mak and Drake always said) had actually panned out. If only she'd managed to find her real parents somehow, someway...then she could've settled this matter easily enough.

Of course, for about a second, there, when Natsu had first said it, she'd actually been dumb enough (a-fucking-gain) to think it was true. That he was her real dad.

What abandoned kid didn't want to hear that she hadn't really been abandoned? That her dad—no, both her parents, she recalled him saying that first time—hadn't actually wanted to lose her? That they'd been looking for them ever since they were separated?

But then he'd claimed to have been looking for her for seven years.

Not twelve.

Seven.

The math had been wrong enough to jolt even her out of La-La Land. She'd realized the obvious: that there was no way it could be him. Years after her desperate search for her birth family came to fruition and then to nothing, that guy shows up? And it's actually him? Yeah, right. It was just too crazy. He was too crazy.

The only thing she was even more sure Natsu wasn't was some kind of pervert. It hadn't even occurred to Layla that was something she should've been worried about till she actually took a second to consider the implications of taking in a strange man, here in this Rite Aid.

He'd looked Layla over today, and even (jarringly) managed to touch her multiple times. But in each of those instances and now, she was dead sure there was nothing weird or creepy about it. If there was one thing in the world Layla trusted, it was her own instincts, and they were telling her that all he'd been doing was fretting over her injuries.

Honestly, just thinking about the possibility of him having been trying to touch her or look at her in a creepy way just felt wrong, in more ways than one: It felt incorrect, and the notion was also vomitrocious.

Her brain wanted to fuck off from the subject, so she just let it. Left it at the pharmacy register when she bounced and didn't look back.

With that option discounted and forgotten, the only explanation left was that he really, genuinely believed all the shit he kept saying. He believed he was her dad. He believed they were from another world. He somehow believed Harley could fly and talk.

He believed someone who didn't look out for their friends was weak.

He really had been worried she was injured.

He really was bound and determined to protect her.

He really just cared.

Her forehead puckered in thought as she made her way down the road, mind working fast enough to worsen the throbbing ache behind her eyes.

His random knowledge about her could be explained by the file, even with those weird, stubborn little twists on the details. Even him knowing Harley's real name was somehow explainable, she was sure.

But being asked to reckon with someone who actually, truly gave a shit...that threw her for a loop. It was the one thing she could never have prepared for and was unable to understand.

For as long as she could remember, every single person in her life had ulterior motives. People always secretly wanted something more than what they were saying. Even some of the people who'd looked out for her the most had really cared about how she could benefit them.

Makar had grudgingly seen athletic potential in her, a chance to help make a name for himself as a coach and for his gym after his grandkid refused to fight anymore.

Gracie had wanted someone to watch her back in juvie and then high school (as briefly as they both attended), a couch to crash on.

Those foster families had wanted an outlet for their anger, a babysitter for their real kids, a paycheck from the government, a live-in maid, to play saint or martyr.

Rose was really her friend, but Layla would be lying if she said the friendship always went both ways. Rose struggled enough that it left their relationship basically functionally similar to all Layla's other ones a lot of the time.

Yet all Natsu seemed to want was to protect her and bring her "home," even if it meant risking his own safety—something he'd demonstrated he was willing to do more than once, now. He'd leapt out of a tree to protect her even though he was injured. And even though it'd hurt him, he'd gotten up as fast as he could and fought for her again. Back there in her apartment, he'd said it explicitly: he didn't care about his own injuries...at least not as much as he cared about protecting her.

And all that stuff he'd said...sure, it'd been cheesy as fuck. He sounded like someone from a manga—but he'd also meant it. That much, she could tell.

It forcibly reminded Layla of back when she was in foster care and juvie, always making big speeches and declarations about foster kids sticking together and friendship and sentimental bullshit till, at some point, it finally hurt too much that no one ever stood up for her, too. No one else...until now.

And apparently, her cookies didn't give a shit that it was years too late.

She paused in front of her apartment building, scowling down at the things in her arms—the ice pack, the cat food, the brace, the food, all of it—with an odd lump in her throat, feeling kind of like an idiot as her thoughts went all quiet on her without her damn permission. Eventually, all that was left was a fog of tiredness, confusion, and something weird and crawly and warm floating around aimlessly inside her, a wretched little glow that just kept glowing up again no matter how many times she mentally stomped it out.

Boundaries, she decided finally, moving everything awkwardly to one hand so she could unlock the door. That was what they needed. Boundaries. Ever since Rose lucked out and finally got a good foster home and therapy, she was always going on about shit like that.

Layla didn't understand Natsu, but he'd helped her. More importantly, he'd done it without ulterior motive. Even if he was crazy, even if he was confused about who he was protecting, and even if she could've dealt with Mad Bitch and his groupies on her own, he'd still tried to protect her—was trying to protect her, in his own, ridiculous, feral way. And no matter how hard she tried, that was something she couldn't seem to make herself dismiss so easily. Not with the state she was in these days, anyway.

The one thing that might've kept her from changing her mind—and almost did—was what'd happened with Harley. But now that she'd had a little time to cool off, Layla could grudgingly admit that Natsu's concern for Harley had seemed sincere, too. Honestly, he was far from the first person her viciously protective best friend had been aggressive with. She grimaced, remembering how many times Harley had scratched the shit out of Drake. Rose was the person Harley liked best other than Layla, and even she'd gotten it a couple times. The fighter hadn't been lying about what her best friend had been through. But even though she'd scratched him, Natsu had still seemed more worried about her.

That meant something to Layla, too.

So...she'd help him as much as she could, little though that was. Not just till he was cleaned up, not just till tomorrow morning...she'd actually help him, if only just so she wasn't in anyone's debt.

But there'd have to be rules. As Layla slowly climbed the stairs, she ironed it all out in her head.

---

"Nashi! You're back!" came a relieved, excited cry the second she opened the door.

She grimaced, adding the name thing to her mental list.

"What are you, a dog? I was barely gone fifteen minutes!"

She locked the front door for the last time that night as she eyed his ridiculously happy, dirty face. Was this guy just always smiling or what?

No, she remembered that intense, threatening look he'd given her in the park today, the one that'd made her realize he as dangerous. Not always smiling. He did seem to bounce between extremes, though.

"Can ya blame me? I was worried about you!" He waved his arms for emphasis.

Layla felt her cheeks warm at his words, annoying her. "Yes!" she blustered. Seriously, who just said shit like that?! Still, she grudgingly admitted his words only solidified the decision she'd made.

He was acting so animated and ridiculous...it was almost like the tension and awkwardness from earlier was completely gone. Was he so crazy he'd actually forgotten about it? The idea both relieved and annoyed her.

Sighing against her growing headache and exhaustion, she dumped her haul on the coffee table. "Right, I brought food, but"—she snatched the steaming bag away from his grabby bear paws in the nick of time, ignoring his cry of indignation— "you ain't gettin' any till you take a fucking shower. You reek, dude."

He bitched and moaned a bit, first about not being able to eat right away, then about her insistence that he change into the stock mens' clothes she'd scooped up at the drugstore.

"Those stupid Aladdin clothes are trashed to shit anyway!" she blared, shoving him into the bathroom with the packages of plain t-shirts, boxers, and dad shorts. Tomorrow, they'd have to grab him jeans or something, too...the weather was getting warmer, but it was still plenty cold enough.

After some muffled whining and grumbling, Layla finally heard the squeak of the tap and the hiss of water.

She shoved the ice pack she'd bought in the freezer, fed Harley in her room, then set about doing a quick clean of the apartment, scarfing down some dinner as she went. All the while, she braced herself for the conversation she needed to have.

When Natsu reemerged from the shower, she was shoving cans in a trashbag with a curry bun sticking out of her mouth.

He let out a stricken-sounding cry, hobbling over to the steaming bag still on the coffee table. "You didn't eat it all, did you?!"

"Rmph grmph mmrgrmmph rmmph-mrmph, grmmph!" she retorted through the bun, slamming away more cans.

His shoulders sagged on a sigh of relief, the man somehow understanding her bun-muffled tirade.

"You sure curse a lot!" he chided as he dropped back into his seat on the couch and grabbed one of the bags. "And threaten to murder people."

"MMPH?!"

"Soo I don't care"—his face brightened as he opened the bag and reached in like a giddy kid—"but I'm not gonna make any promises about—mm—Loosh...oh, man, theesh are GOOD!"

She had no clue who the fuck "Loosh" was (maybe that Lucy person he kept mentioning?) but Layla was quickly distracted from wondering about it when he started singing the buns' praise.

She kicked a can into her hand and threw it into the garbage bag with a grimace, then dropped the bag next to the real trash can with a defeated, shoulder-sagging sigh. The whole reason she'd bought those buns in the first place (other than the fact that they were the best damn curry buns in the whole city) was because she'd hoped the heat on them would somewhat deter Natsu's apparently ginormous appetite. It was with grudging respect that Layla noted that this dude seemed to be made of sterner stuff than either Rose, Gracie, or even Drake.

She could literally hear how quickly and disgustingly he was inhaling the damn things. However, she whipped around for a visual confirmation as well as to tell him off...only to blink owlishly when she caught sight of him.

Rather than crabbiness, it was curiosity that dragged her feet closer and closer, until he was blinking up at her from her shadow even as he continued to gnaw on another bun.

"Mm-what?" he prompted (again, disgustingly) through chipmunk cheeks.

"So this is as cleaned up as you get, huh?"

"Oi! What'sh that shposhed cha mean!?"

Rather than answer Natsu or return his glare, Layla continued scrutinizing him.

She had to admit, this guy looked way different with a shower behind him. She was surprised to see that the t-shirt she'd bought fit him fairly well around the chest/shoulders/serratus area, but was a little loose—even looser from the waist down. With his ridiculous appetite and the weight of his arm over her shoulders earlier, she'd just assumed he was bigger than she'd bothered to actually notice.

Despite still being wet enough to cling to his face and drip down his sharp jaw and into his eyes, pink hair formed a few rebellious spikes at the crown of his head, at the back of it, near his ears. She couldn't help but notice it was the same deepened rose pink shade as hers whenever she got out of the pool or a shower. She chalked that up to another coincidence; it was a rare hair color, but they were far from the only pink-haired people in the city.

His newfound cleanliness revealed some stuff that was more attention-grabbing, anyway.

"That's a gnarly-ass scar," she said bluntly, eyeing the jagged, dark line [*3] that clawed its way up his right cheek, past the corner of his mouth, and came dangerously close to crawling straight into his eye.

He looked puzzled for a second before his brows suddenly lifted in understanding. "Ooh, oo mean my faesh?"

He sucked down the remainder of his current curry bun like a repulsive monster, making Layla repress the urge to sneer in disgust. Then he reached up to touch the scar gently with newly cleaned—but still scabby—fingers, the fresh scratches on the back of his hand standing out slightly swollen and kind of making Layla feel bad.

"Your Uncle Zeref did that little number on me," he elaborated with a frown she couldn't quite read—and didn't really try once the sentence registered.

She tensed at the reminder of the conversation they still needed to have, then sighed, letting her shoulders drop. "Your brother?" she figured out, but moved on even as his mouth opened: "He give you that one on your neck, too? It looks older though..." She noted that last part more to herself than anything.

"Nope!" He grinned. "Teenage Me gave me that one, back when 'me' was just Little Me!" [*4]

Fucking...what? Layla wondered in irritated confusion, feeling herself sweat.

"You know what? No more talking till we're done eating...also after we've dealt with your injuries," Layla mumbled, glancing at his knee again before she dropped onto the other end of the couch. As she reached for the buns, she noticed something alarming. "What the—how the hell'd you eat that many buns so fast?! You better have left me enough!"

"You're the one who didn't get enough! Told ya you should've let me come along...I'd have made sure to get enough!"

"Yeah, right! You'd have ordered me out of the rest of my fucking rent money!"

He snorted, looking amused in an oddly nostalgic way, like there was some kind of inside joke between them...only she wasn't on the inside. So she scowled at him.

"Now like I said, no talking till we're done with the eating and shit!"

"So bossy..." he huffed, earning another glare. He was surprisingly good from there on out, though. Actually, he was too good. As Layla shot side glances at him, she kept catching him peering at her, too, and it occurred to her that he really hadn't forgotten the awkwardness from earlier. In fact, there was a settled sort of determination about him that told her she wasn't the only one who'd made some decisions during their little break from each other.

Once the food was eaten, she ordered him to lay back on the couch and put a pillow under his knee. Meanwhile, she grabbed the new ice pack.

Sliding the manga to the far end of the coffee table, she sat on its edge and got to work. There wasn't actually all that much of it. Mostly, she just wrapped the ice pack and set it on his knee; smeared antibiotic ointment on his split knuckles, scratched hand, as well as various other cuts he'd accumulated; and slid on the wrist brace she'd bought. Also slapped some Hello Kitty band-aids on the cuts where they fit.

She expected him to be unhappy about the band-aid choice, but instead he brightened as she smoothed the first one over a knuckle. "Oh-ho! That cat looks like Carla...only nice! I wish Wendy were here to see it!"

Not for the first or last time, she chose to ignore his absurd yet shameless chirping.

"Well, that's about it," she sighed when she was done.

"Really?" He seemed shocked. "All that crap you spewed about me dyin', and that's all you needed to do?!"

"Well...yeah?" she admitted, scratching at her head and ignoring his irritated groan and expression of exasperation. "I mean, if I wasn't broke as shit, we'd go to a hospital and get you an X-Ray and stuff. But, well, I am broke as shit. So for now we just gotta try to keep the swelling down. And I meant what I said about you cooling it with the climbing and fighting and bullshit, you hear me?" She shot him a stern glare. "Unless you want to end up going all Pirate like my old coach, you'd better take a chill pill!"

"Aye, sir," Natsu said glumly.

She had half a mind to tell him off for calling her "sir." But in the end she just rolled her eyes. If she picked every battle with this guy, she'd just exhaust herself. For now, she'd throw out the wrappers and bags left over from dinner, and then it'd be time to talk.

However, just as she was about halfway through gathering everything up, he spoke first:

"Nashi." Natsu's serious tone made her freeze and turn to look at him, instantly finding his eyes already on her. He took a slow, deep breath, then said, "I'm didn't mean to scare Harley. I had no idea she'd get so afraid. I'm really, really sorry."

Layla couldn't help but blink.

"Never, ever apologize."

Years of that rule sentenced and beaten into her, but Natsu did it without so much as a teeny bit of hesitation or shame even as the seconds stretched and they kept staring at each other. Instead of it being awkward, it just seemed like he was burning his sincerity right into her with his gaze, willing her to believe him.

Layla let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding and slowly re-perched on the edge of the coffee table, setting dinner's trash aside for the moment. "Well, I wasn't kidding about...you know...how Harley is." She grimaced. "You aren't the first person she totally flipped on, and you won't be the last. We protect each other. For a long time, it was just the two of us against the world, really."

"Oh yeah?" Natsu murmured with a small, sad smile, sounding more like he was talking to himself than actually asking.

"But," Layla continued emphatically, not wanting to lose her chance to have the little meeting she'd been planning since her drugstore run, "it can't happen again, got it? Just stay the hell away from Harley. And also..."

She faltered. As she stared at him, and he stared back, she tried to steel herself. She really did. Somehow, though, she couldn't stop feeling the weight of that intense gaze. In the end, she was unable to stop her eyes from lowering to the floor before she continued in a huff, "And also, you've gotta quit with the 'I'm your dad' shit, okay?"

There was an instant burst of earnest outrage from the couch. "But I am your—!"

"I said. Fucking. Don't," she snapped. Anger allowed her to meet his glare once more—and glare they both did. It was every bit as intense as the most charged pre-fight stare-downs she'd ever partaken in, angry sparks seeming to fly from the meeting point of their gazes.

After several moments of no one backing down, Natsu was the one who finally lost his patience with a growl. "Dammit, Nashi, if you'd just listen—!"

"Listen to what? Your insane bullshit?" She rolled her eyes with a snort. "Well, you know what? I will."

"Huh?" He reeled slightly, clearly taken aback.

"I thought about it while I was out and figured...well, you probably can't really help that you're completely batshit," she sighed with a shrug.

"Hey!" Natsu shouted. "Talk about rude! I am not—!"

"Besides, at least the crazy shit you come up with is entertaining, in its own way. It's almost sorta like reading a manga," she continued like he hadn't spoken, looking thoughtfully up at the ceiling before lowering her eyes once more to level his vibrating, enraged form with a stern glare. "You can stay, and you can even talk about your crazy stuff. But I'm making some fucking rules here, got it?"

"You're making the rules?" Natsu looked and sounded as incensed as she supposed anyone who believed they were a dad being told off by his kid would.

"Yes!" she retorted, cheeks flushed in irritation. "I'm setting some god damn boundaries!"

"BOUNDARIES?!" he thundered the word like it was the worst thing he'd ever heard.

"YES!" she roared back. "BOUNDARIES! First off:"—she lifted a hand to tick rules off with her fingers—"stay the hell away from Harley!"

"Like I was gonna go scaring her again after what happened earlier!" Natsu mostly still sounded pissed, but he also seemed genuinely offended Layla thought he might do that, which she privately acknowledged even as she continued like he hadn't spoken:

"No eating me out of house and home,"—she ticked off another finger—"no jumping around or doing anything to fuck up my healing job on your leg,"—another tick—"no coming in my room,"—another tick—"no calling me 'Nashi', and most goddamn important of all:"—and here, she morphed her hand into a fist, one which she held up to drive the next rule all the way home—"No trying to convince me you're my fucking dad!"

"Why, you little—!" Natsu bared his weird, sharp teeth at Layla, but she just glowered back. It was hard to be too intimidated by a guy littered with Hello Kitty band-aids and squeezing a purple throw pillow in rage, no matter how sharp his weird teeth were or how pissed off his expression. "And what if I won't follow your dumb rules, huh?!"

Layla forced herself to exhale slowly through her nose and cool off. She needed to say this part calmly so he'd take it seriously. "Then you can walk right out that front door and try not to let it hit your ass on the way out. I've got a really important fight coming up, and—well, I don't have time to deal with your super crazy shit, alright?!"

Natsu closed his eyes and started grinding his teeth, jaw muscles jumping as he appeared to wage some kind of great internal battle. Well, let him, Layla figured, but he'd better quit wringing her throw pillow to a pulp or so fucking help her—

"Like I said before, forget about that damn fight, Nashi," he ground out, redrawing her annoyed attention. "I'm trying to tell you, compared to the fights in Earth Land, it's no big deal! Just basically—"

"Well it's a big fucking deal to me, alright?!" she barked. "Look, the guy I'm up against...he's the only one who's beat me in the semi-under."

Hating the still-bitter taste of the words on her tongue, she puffed out a cold breath to try to get rid of the taste. And—because apparently he didn't have so much as a crumb of a single goddamn self-preservation instinct—Natsu just had to go rubbing salt in the wound:

"Oi, you actually let one of these losers beat you, Nashi?!"

Her eye twitched. "If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand fucking times: My name is fucking Layla!" She felt marginally better when he gulped and cringed, squeaking something that sounded like "scary like Loony!" Seriously, had she not just laid out the rules?!

"And"—she clenched her teeth hard enough they creaked—"I'll admit it, that douchebag Helio might've gotten the best of me last year. But I'll have you know I worked my ass off since then! I've trained till I could barely walk every single day, never even took one day off! I've gotten way stronger! That scumbag'll eat my fist a hundred—no, a thousand—no, a million times! The Dragoness is back to show everyone who's best, bitches! And I'll be damned before I let you, your Pinky Wingnut bullshit, or anything else stand in my goddamn way!"

She panted in the wake of her tirade, pointing at Natsu and staring straight into his eyes with all the wildfire she'd managed to stir up while talking.

It still burnt to admit Helio had beaten her. As the old saying went in the fighting world: "There's no better feeling than winning. There's no worse one than losing."

But she also had to admit that in another way, it felt good to have someone to confess her greatest failure to—as well as the resolve which had grown from it, a flower she'd tried tirelessly to cultivate all alone in the dark for the past year. It'd been forever since she had anyone to talk to about fighting, especially someone interested like Natsu.

And interested he obviously was. Layla was surprised when the man didn't even get pissed about her calling him 'Pinky Wingnut' again. Actually, he didn't seem to have heard that part at all. Somewhere over the course of her rant, an odd gleam to his eye: one part excitement, one part amusement, one part...well, she didn't know what the hell the third part of that gleam was, but it made her cheeks feel annoying and warm.

Even after she'd quit panting and dropped her arm, he stared at her like that for several seconds until she was squirming with impatience and irritation.

"Alright."

Layla stopped squirming, wondering if she'd heard wrong. Had this guy actually agreed with her? Calmly? "Really?" she asked skeptically. "You'll follow my rules?"

"Yep." He grinned.

She continued eyeing him warily. Somehow, she was sure the other shoe was about to drop any second.

"On two conditions."

There it fucking was.

"As if you're in a position to bargain," she groused, but she kept it pretty quiet and was side-eyeing him with a curious pout while she said it. How could you not wonder what was going to come out of this guy's mouth next? He just always managed to be surprising.

He demonstrated that by suddenly donning a deadly serious expression, making her blink. "First off...you gotta hear me out after your fight."

Layla huffed. That was it? If—WHEN everything went according to plan Friday, and she got her prize money, the first thing she was gonna do was get Natsu some real help. All of this would just be one big non-issue, and he'd more than likely be completely out of her hair.

Again, she was really just doing this so she wasn't in his debt. Obviously.

"Fine," she conceded easily.

"Second: I got questions." He leaned forward slightly, eyes intense. "When I ask them, you gotta answer. Honestly."

He stared at Layla intently. She side-eyed him back, chewing the inside of the cheek facing away from him. "I'm not promising you that," she finally replied flatly. Standing, she began scooping up the trash. "Don't get me wrong, I'll answer your questions—but only the ones I want, when I want, if I want."

And as far as that shameless bastard was concerned, those words were apparently as good as a straight-up green light.

"Earlier, you mentioned something like 'juvie'...does that have to something to do with a person?"

"You're gonna start asking stuff right now?" she mumbled under her breath, rolling her eyes.

"Her name"—he pressed—"would be Juvia. Juvia Fullbuster."

Layla froze with her hand halfway reached out towards the last bag, eyes flitting to Natsu in shock. The man now staring right up at her with those keen, unblinking eyes had made her think of that shitty file more times in the past 24 hours than she could probably count on one hand now, but this was the first time a line from the interview actually flashed across her mind's eye:

---

"Layla" [sic] Doe: We have to find Greg's [sic] mom...before Pygmy [sic] helped me, Julia [sic] helped me! We've got to find Julia!

---

"...You mean Julia?" she asked slowly at present, watching Natsu almost just as carefully as he watched her.

"What? No!" He was visibly agitated. "Juvia. Just like you mentioned earlier!"

"I wasn't bringing up anyone named 'Joo-vee-ah'"—she sounded out the odd word...name...whatever—"earlier. I said juvie. You know, like 'juvenile detention center'?"

The blank stare he gave her made her wonder if he genuinely had no idea what that was. Mostly, though, his frustration just seemed to get worse.

"What about Wendy? Or Carla?"

"Don't know anyone with those names," Layla dismissed with a sigh.

"Think harder!" Natsu demanded loudly, with enough desperation in his voice to jar Layla rather than really piss her off. "Wendy—she's a wizard. She's tall and she has blue hair...and Carla's an ex—a cat! She looks a lot like Harley, or this!" He pointed to one of his Hello Kitty band-aids, eyes full of enough hope and urgency to make Layla feel uncomfortable. "Wendy's super nice, but Carla's super mean!"

"Look, I don't know either of them, alright?!" Layla grit out.

More frustration. "What about Gildarts? He's an old guy with long grayish-reddish hair"—Natsu flapped his hands near his shoulders, then waved one hand close to one side of his body—"and he's also missing an arm and a leg on one side!"

"Yeah, no...definitely don't know anyone like that. Especially anyone named fucking 'Gill-Darts'..."

"Gajeel, then! He's really noticeable! He's tall and hideous and annoying, with long black hair and a bunch of piercings...and his wife Levy's super short and cute and nice, I've got no clue why she dated him in the first place!"

"Don't know them, either."

"Then Gajeel's partner, Pantherlily! He's an exceed like Harley and Carla, only he's black! He kinda looks like a panda bear!"

"No! Still no!" She finally scooped up the last bag and stamped her way over to the garbage. "Also seriously?! What's with these names?! They're fucking ridiculous!"

"What about Queen Hisui?" he plowed on, urgency only seeming to gain momentum. "Yukino? Or...oh, I know: her son, Yutaka! He'd only be a little bit older than yo—"

"For fuck's sake, NO!" Layla finally whipped around and exploded, head throbbing. "I'll only say this once, so listen the fuck up: Me and Harley were found alone in a park at the edge of the city when I was five. We were all alone. That's all I know. Got it!? No one ever came to claim us, not even when I made my old coach help me look for my family." She ended with a pissy huff.

Silence hung in the air between them, seeming to magnify the distraught lines to Natsu's face.

Layla groaned. "Look, no more tonight, okay?"—she turned off one light, then another—"Your blanket's on the arm of the couch there—I just did laundry, so it's fresh as a baby's ass. There's a toothbrush in the drugstore bag and toothpaste in the bathroom. Put the icepack back on your leg if you get up. Now I'm going to fucking bed."

She was in the middle of unlocking her room door when she heard the defeated sigh. "Alright...I'll ask more questions tomorrow, though."

"Oh, word? I'm so fucking surprised," Layla breathed sourly, finally rattling her door open, but couldn't stop herself from pausing at the very last thing she heard Natsu say:

"Good night, Nashi. Don't let the bed bugs bite!"

She turned to look at him over her shoulder, wide-eyed, and was somehow shocked to find him smiling softly at her, that same warm look that made her feel weird back in his eyes again.

"Er...Night, Natsu," she managed eventually, gruff, just before she locked herself in her room and finally crawled into bed with her cat.

---

11:23 PM [*5], August 5th, Year X812 Unknown Town, Unkown Location, Unknown Country (Earthland)

Agent's fingers tapped against the wood at the clawed foot of the old, crystal ball-shaped-and-sized Communications Lacrima Crystal as it glowed with its search. The glow illuminated Agent's tight lips in an almost sickly pale, purple light.

A soft chime sounded through the otherwise pitch black room, indicating the Lacrima Crystal had reached the individual it'd been trying to contact. Agent sat up straighter, hand slipping from the table.

Instead of showing the face of the person meant to be communicated with, sparkling blackness filled the inside of the sphere, leaving the room darker than it'd been. As with all such older Lacrima Crystals, the image (in this case, the blackness) was close to perfect near the center, then faded towards the edges. Occasional interference streaked sluggishly across the inky gradient.

"Agent Maeleon," a voice rose from the blackness, making Agent stiffen further. "I trust you have a good reason for contacting me. You know how I hate communicating in this barbaric way."

Their tone was thick with distaste and a threat.

"I do, Your Dominance." Even as Agent Maeleon spoke, a bead of sweat slipped down the side of their face. It dangled briefly from their ashen jaw before falling to land on the hand now curled against their thigh.

"Hmm, I suppose you would," the voice hummed thoughtfully. "For all your many faults, foibles, and deficiencies, you at least were never unintelligent."

Pale purple lips thinned even further.

"Your Dominance," Agent spoke calmly, "I am contacting you because of something alarming I just heard."

"Oh?" The tone was half-bored, half-intrigued.

"Yes...apparently over the course of a Quest, Natsu Dragneel vanished from the Sight of Fairy Tail's Witch."

The way sudden coldness emanated from the Communications Lacrima Crystal and seemed to pervade the entire room both defied all logic and betrayed all known laws of Magic.

"What?" came a cold and furious hiss.

Agent took a deep breath. "The Quest...the Quest involved Jewel Skull."

"That wretched guild you foolishly tangled with last month? I begin to think I was wrong to claim you were not unintelligent!" the sphere thundered.

"Your Dominance...as I said before, I was attacked without warning and—"

"As if I care!" the voice snarled. "When did Dragneel vanish?!"

"This afternoon, Your Dominance."

" And I am only just hearing about it now? What is the meaning of this, Maeleon?"

More sweat dripped from Agent's jaw onto the hands clasped in their lap. Ignoring the accusatory question, they continued shakily, "I have it on good authority he is not in any of the other known worlds, either. No one...no one has any idea where he might have gone...save us, obviously, Your Dominance."

The temperature sank, then sank further, until Agent's breath was visible even in the sparse light. The blackness in the crystal deepened until it extended to the furthest end of the Lacrima's circumference. Agent cringed in their seat, hoping childishly that the darkness in the room was too complete for their display of fear and weakness to be seen through the crystal.

Then, without warning, the cold began to dissipate. The edge of the Lacrima regained its glow, and the steam billowing from Agent's chilling nose cleared.

"Well," the Lacrima sighed coolly, a blip running lazily across the bulging screen, "It was bound to happen eventually, though I still am not quite ready for my pieces to be in motion so soon." Here, their voice was a childish pout. "Still, I wonder if he actually found that daughter of his, like he always said he would? If so, I fear he is in for quite an unpleasant treat. As far as I know, there's still no way back to Earth Land. Then again, that 'Fairy Tail' is nothing if not a persistent thorn in my ass..."

Agent's hands formed fists in their lap. "Your Dominance," Maeleon cut off the Crystal's musings, "I am wondering...what are my orders? What should I do?"

"Nothing," was the word that came abruptly. "You are to do nothing but monitor the situation as ever you would, Maeleon. And remember what is most important: You must never, under any circumstances, allow yourself to be found in that little corner of sin you have built yourself. Do so, and death will be a mercy you sorely wish I granted you."

"Yes, your Dominance."

"And another thing...save your strength. It may not be long now before we must gather our Fallen Angels."

With that, the Communications Lacrima Crystal chimed. With ide eyes, Agent watched as it flared pale, sickly purple, turned pale sea green as such old models usually were, then slowly lost its glow, leaving Agent hidden in perfect and unpenetrated darkness.

---

Footnotes

*1: On the "sub" (AKA the submental area) being a good place to hit if you want to KO someone: This is true! When people get hit hard under the chin, the are at risk of suffering brain damage. This is especially true if they're hit in the chin area at an angle, because it is more likely to make their head pivot on their spine and knock their brain around inside their skull. Of course, hitting someone under the chin (the submental area) is illegal in actual MMA (counts as going for the throat). Disturbing little facts for any who actually read these footnotes, I love my loyal readers 3

*2. On the third Gajevy child, "Tally Redfox": In case you didn't see that I edited the last chapter, I originally (and very briefly) introduced the youngest Gajevy child as "Polly" but then changed it. Bet you can guess why I chose "Tally"! If not, it'll be explained in-story sometime.

Also changed the Miraxus child's name from "Mirai" (which I didn't really like and just couldn't bring myself to stick with despite previously using it as a placeholder) to "Mikhail", running on the Russian name theme with Yuri and Makarov.

Finally, "Airon" used to be spelled "Airin." This was more phonetic than anything as, in my head, I pronounce it sort of like "Eye-Ruhn."

I only made these changes because it's early enough in the story that I felt I could get away with it (these three characters were just introduced, after all) and because I'm going to write these names so much that I want to be attached to them and like them. However, I promise no more meta name changes from here on out. Consider the matter signed and sealed.

*3. On Natsu's Cheek Scar (given to him by Zeref in Chapter 477): I know Mashima & Ueda healed it away by the end of the original series, but I always wished Natsu kept the scar Zeref gave him! Sooo bit of a divergence from canon, here.

*4. On Natsu's neck scar being given to "Little Him" by "Teenage Him": For anyone who doesn't know/remember, that is, in fact, what happened! It was revealed in OVA 3; Team Natsu (minus Wendy and Charle) went back in time and teenage Natsu accidentally gave his younger self a scratch.

*5. On "Agent" calling "Dominance" at 11:23 PM: To restate a footnote from the previous chapter, I roughly calculated how time would move between "Our Earth" (as one commenter dubbed it a while back) and Earth Land. I also put effort into making events happen fairly close to chronological order in the narrative unless otherwise indicated. For the sake of this fic, I also took a look at Mashima's map of Earth Land and applied two rough time zones to the world, an hour difference splitting right through Iceberg, Stella, Minstrel, and the absolute left edge of Midi. Still doesn't really give you any info on the bad guys, but who knows? Could help you put things together later ;)

---

Author's Notes:

More Natsu perspective next chapter, I promise.

Because I feel this bears repeating: I swear all this seemingly extraneous stuff—Gracie, Rose, Drake, Mak, etc.—has relevance to the story and even to Fairy Tail's OC's. Again, there is much to be revealed, and many of the characters characters are more than what they appear. All will make sense in the end…*swirls red wine, taps fingers villainish-ly*

As ever, thanks so much for the reads, love, and reviews; I couldn't have done it without you; and I'll try my best to publish more quickly from now on! As I said in the beginning ANs, my computer is having some problems. But I seem to be making due for now, a new keyboard is on its way, and fortunately the rest of my life has also calmed a bit—so here's hoping my fanfiction author's curse ends and I can become more prolific like I want to. Till Chapter 6!