Resident Art Tart

Now the only member of the Dreyar family was Laxus, Fairy Tail had fallen into reck and ruin, and Laxus was stuck under the heel of a cultist lord who knew exactly how fucked he would be the second he left. So morning after morning, Laxus would wake up with the birds, shovel as much shit as he was required, and try to blink away the stinging of his eyes. The day he didn’t do that, he’d be kicked to the gutter in whatever corner of the country Mard had dragged him to and would have to sleep in the streets until the day he didn’t wake up again.

So becoming accustomed to the smell of shit was something he wished he could do, but he never would.

At least the cool air of the north of England didn’t make things worse. Laxus had never been a morning person, but he had grown to realise that a chill in the morning would at least wake him up and shake off the cobwebs. It was spring, so at least it was light enough for him to see what he was doing. More than once, he’s dirtied his shoes and the cuffs of his trousers by stepping in a pile of manure, and he had scant too few pieces of clothing to be doing that, so when the sun shone brighter it was always a mercy.

And he liked the birds, truth be told. When the birds were singing their morning song, it was as if they were telling him that Mard was sleeping, and he could breathe as he worked.

Time passed as he cleaned the stables, a job that technically wasn’t meant to be his own. Mard always offered Laxus’ service to get in the good graces of their hosts, either because they could let their own staff rest, or simply not pay them for work they didn’t need to do. It was further humiliation, nothing more, but Laxus couldn’t do anything about it. At least with a stable, his work was confined to a small space. Sometimes the horses would be left to wander, and Laxus would be told to catch every pile or face the shared wrath of their host and his master.

Rolling his shoulders back, Laxus took a moment to look up. The stables were well on their way to being clean after an hour with a shovel and a broom, and Laxus was starting to feel his throat drying up. Was the air dryer in the north? Was that possible?

As he opened his eyes, he saw movement. The movement of someone walking past a window in the house that loomed over him. Not a startled movement, Laxus thought, but not a smooth movement either. Not the movement of someone who had already been walking before Laxus looked up.

“Dreyar, isn’t it?” A voice had Laxus freezing with a jerk. It was a smooth, honeylike voice with a taunting edge. Footsteps clicked against the cobbles, louder and more pronounced than any man should be able to do. As if the shoes were plated with metal or ivory. The hairs on the back of Laxus’ neck rose. “Laxus Dreyar, I believe my darling wife claimed.”

Slowly, following the instincts that might arise when dealt with a beast rather than a man, Laxus turned. He swallowed at the man he saw, then bowed his head before he could truly look at the man. With a bow so ramrod straight it put him half a head above the other man, Laxus bowed. “Your lordship.”

A pleasantly mellifluous laugh came. “I expect you probably detest calling me that, don’t you Laxus?”

Both the use of his first name, and the casual humiliation of his thoughts being voiced to the world, had Laxus’ grip on the shovel tightening. The man might have a pretty voice and a charming laugh, but a lord was a lord and their vacuous cruelty remained. This wasn’t the first conversation he’d endured like this, nor would it be the last.

“You can look at me,” The lord mused, voice teasing and taunting. “I’d quite enjoy it, rather. Blue eyes are a rarity here.”

Laxus’ gaze snapped up, not knowing how the lord might know such a thing, but all thoughts died when he saw the lord in his totality for the first time.

He was beautiful.

A tall man, though obviously a few inches shy of Laxus’ own height, with hair that flowed down to his waist like a green shawl of silk. His skin was pale and almost delicate looking, in the way the romantics might describe a prince in a fairy story, with regally pointed features and sharp bones that might heighten the viciousness of a sharp glare. His clothing of maroon shades and greys covered a trim, broad shouldered physique, similar to that of the pugilists Laxus had once knocked around with in his teenage years. His lips were thin and stretched into an amused smirk at Laxus’ expense.

His eyes, though, were magnificent. Dark, and toxic, and taunting, and cruel all at once. Hypnotic and endless, and knowledgeable beyond his years.

So entranced in the lure of those eyes, Laxus almost missed the pull of a fully growing smirk. It burned any attraction that Laxus might have felt blooming, and he readjusted his posture to stand at his full height. Beautiful men were ten a penny in the gentry; they had the money to purchase their way into handsomeness. Most of them could do little better than getting a bruise or two to improve their appearance.

“Might I help you?” Laxus did his best not to spit the words out.

The lord tilted his head. “’Might I help you?’” He quoted back, inclining his head to a tilt. “I believe you might be forgetting a little bit of the question, don’t you?”

Laxus could all but feel his knuckles going white at the tightness with which he was holding the shovel. A flash of an image wherein he stoved the damn man’s head in with it struck Laxus, but he swallowed it down and gave him what he wanted, promising himself that the continuation of his employment was worth the degradation. “Might I help you, my Lord?”

“Much better,” the lord praised, and Laxus thought it might be safer for him to put the shovel to the side lest his urges get the better of him. “And no, I don’t believe there’s much you can do for me as of now, not when you have such a lot to do here already,” he gestured to the ground. “Horrid business, but it needs to be done. I can’t envision myself doing it, of course, though I’ve an excess of pride. My Mirajane often speaks lowly of my love of the finer things, and my repulsion of the dirtier side of life. Thank heavens for men like you, I say.”

It was the most demeaning, passive aggressive bullshit Laxus had ever heard. He leant the shovel against the wall with more of a thud than needed. “As you say, it needs to be done,” Laxus grunted out, then reluctantly added. “My Lord.”

“Certainly does,” The lord agreed. “And a man of your stature certainly does suit the menial lifestyle, does he not? Why would the good lord grant you such strength if not to use it? He sends us the horses to transport us, and the poor to clean up after them. A perfect system, don’t you agree?”

Laxus had to take a step from the shovel, so that it wasn’t within reach. Through gritted teeth, he barely stopped himself from snarling, “Yes, my lord.”

The lord laughed, and it was just as melodious as before. “If it’s of any help, I am aware that I’m being a rather tedious prick to you,” The lord said calmly, and the open admission of it wasn’t a balm to Laxus’ anger at all. Lords often were aware of who they were in their souls, both for good and for bad. “I expect if I were in your position, I would be asking me why I decide to be so openly cruel and prejudice for no obvious reason?”

The answer was obvious. It was the same reason any lord would treat someone below them like this; because they could get away with it. Still, if the lord wanted to play this game with him, then Laxus had no choice but to play his role. “Why?”

“Again, Laxus, we’re missing a vital aspect of the question.”

“Why are you being such a fuckin’ arsehole,” Laxus growled. “My lord.”

A little pleased grin split apart the man’s handsome face. “Well, it’s simply scientific, isn’t it? I believe the term is ‘exothermic reaction’, though I wouldn’t be saying that around town. Don’t want anyone jumping the chronological gun. Ah, the whimsey of time. But I distract myself. The reason I’m being such a ‘fucking arsehole’ to you, Laxus, is the same reason I might fan a fire,” he took a step closer to Laxus, and the pleasant scent of bergamot filled Laxus’ senses, far stronger than the manure surrounding them somehow. “A flame that has been stoked burns brighter, and the burns will hurt all the more.”

Patience snapping and ire growing at being toyed with, Laxus himself took a step forward. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You’ll understand, when the correct time presents itself, I’m sure,” the lord smiled at him, a dangerous glint in his eyes and his breath danced over Laxus’ lips. “And a little tip for when that moment comes. I have a slight bone fracture right here,” he ran a finger down his jawline. “It causes little pain on the day to day, but when pushed it can be agonising.”

“What?”

“And of course the throat is a particular weakness of all men, should you care to use it. As is the gut. Should the urge of particularly degrading vengeance come up, there’s of course the natural vulnerability of going below the belt.” He laughed at his own words, and Laxus had no idea what the hell the madman was saying. “But again, I’m getting ahead of myself. I get creative, you see, but I promise you’ll get no suggestions in the moment. Not that I came here to influence you in advance. I did have a reason to be here.”

“And what is that?” Laxus demanded and felt a fire burn in anger at the lord’s little inclination of the head. “My lord.”

“Simply to warn you that, while most of the house is an open book for anyone who cares to read it, there is one place you must not go, under any circumstances.”

The lord walked past Laxus, and to the far corner of the stable yard. He had a presence to him that forced Laxus to follow with his gaze. Maybe it was the clicking of his riding boots against the cobbles, maybe it was the uninhibited confidence and arrogance, or maybe it was the urge to grab the man by the hair and hold him down in the shit pile until he damn near choked on it. Whatever it was, Laxus had his eyes on him, and was forced to notice the way his tailored clothes hung to the slope of his spine and the curve of his arse.

A pretty face and a firm arse were not enough to turn Laxus’ head or quell his anger, but suddenly it was far more tempting to shove the man up against a wall than it was to shove him into the shit. Though not by much.

“This here,” the lord said, nodding down to the locked and bolted cellar doors tucked in the corner. “Is not yours to enter. Stay away from it. You won’t like what you find, I assure you,” he grinned a malicious grin. “It tends to overwhelm people.”

The order had Laxus pausing and remembering his place. Not the servant to the master, but the man to the cultist. Mard Geer did not travel so far from his home if he did not hold the believe that someone in this house had true insight into breaking through the veil of life and storming the halls of hell itself. Though the lady of the house might be all smiles and laughter, and the man of the house might play the part of the most obnoxious lord, somewhere here devilry was taking place. Laxus would not be dragged into it.

Whatever was in that cellar, it wasn’t his to trouble himself with. He would keep his head down, be as forgettable as he could, and leave the house in two weeks’ time with his mind and body intact. He would neither be dragged into Mard’s hellish endeavours, just as he never would have in another home. He would remember his place.

“Of course, my lord,” Laxus nodded, averting his gaze again as was his station, and lowering his tone.

The lord made a noise that hinted at disappointment, but Laxus didn’t allow himself to analyse it. “That’s all I had to say to you, so I’ll let you get back to your work.”

“Thank you, my Lord.”

“Hm,” The lord hummed. “I should say, if your master hasn’t yet told you, I am Lord Freed Albion Justine of Drenchwich county. I feel that, should you wish to curse my name, or indeed pray to the Almighty that I should fall off of the roof in some fashion – perhaps onto that very shovel if you’re looking for irony in my death – then you should do it with all the information.” He gave Laxus a bright smile and lifted his hat slightly. “Good day to you, Laxus. I’ll be seeing a lot of you.”

Lord Freed Albion Justine of Drenchwich walked off without further word, his shoes clicking on the cobbles as he did. Laxus was left alone with the horses, eyes drifting from the most maddening man he’d ever met, to the cellar door that he had been forbidden from entering.

It would serve his lordship right if Laxus stormed in and showed him how much it took to overwhelm a man like Laxus. Toffs and lords and their prickish lot were all too sensitive and fearful that they’d throw their toys out the pram at a poorly cooked pheasant. The life Laxus had lived after leaving Fairy Tail would make the man scream. Had he ever woken up in the gutter? Had he ever kicked a rat off his trousers? Had he ever been so hungry as to see scant more than the flickering dots of exhaustion in his vision? Cultish nonsense would be nothing compared to the reality of living without a penny to his name in London.

Looking at the doors, though, Laxus felt a sense of nausea he’d never had before. Bile rose up in his throat, his arms shivered with chills, and his throat ran dry. He forced himself to look away.

None of this would do any good. He focused back on his remaining work and ploughed through it. Handsome men, degrading cruelty and cultish nonsense was a distraction that he couldn’t indulge in. If Mard woke and found his work not completed, Laxus would have hell to pay.

Perhaps an hour later, the stables were as clean as could be expected, and Laxus walked back into the coach house with tired bones and weary eyes. He rubbed grit from them as he walked inside and halted at the front of the hallway. Was it longer than before? It couldn’t be, of course, but the painting on the end seemed smaller somehow. He took a step forward, dismissing such nonsense, and cringed at the long, aching creak that came from his weight.

With each step, the floorboards creaked. They seemed to ring together, getting louder and louder. Even standing still, they rand in his ears.

He blinked at the blur of walking, telling himself that his eyes were tired and his head was aching.

It was just the dryness of the air.

The unfamiliarity of the house.

The rage of the conversation with his lordship.

Upon opening the door to his bedroom, everything was wrong.

His bed was drenched in blood. His mind was screaming at him to run and flee and don’t turn back. The windows shook in their frame and the door slammed behind him. The fire taunted him and licked at the room, as if desperate to engulf it in flames. The tin bath clanked and groaned and squeaked. The floor was too hard and too soft all at once. His ears were screaming, and blotches of his vision died.

On his pillow, there were bones.

Bones of various sizes and shapes were clustered together, wrapped up in an ivory-white ribbon. He stepped towards them on instinct, and saw it was a morbid reflection of a bouquet of flowers. In place of the roseheads, the skulls of a creature Laxus knew not to be real looked up at him. Tendons took the place of stems, and fractures bones were carved into petals. The blood that drenched his bed flowed from them like honey, and yet the scent was like ambrosia.

He reached out to touch them.

To take the flowers of bones in his hand.

To take what was his, dammit!

The moment skin grazed bone, it all disappeared. The ringing. The blood. The screaming of wrongness. He was alone in his room, with a hot bath waiting for him, a lit fire, and a perfectly made bed. Nothing from a horror novel, nothing infernal, and nothing made for him to hold. A regular room in a regular house.