Autumn Skies // A miraxus fanfiction

// Chapter 12 //

Chapter 12- Lost

Have you ever been so deep within your own emotions that there is no room left in you mind to take note of the world around you? Grief does that to you- it strips away everything around you until there is nothing left but the sound of your own despair, echoing about in the hollowed out organs that have ceased to function. I can't remember exactly what happened after I collapsed into Laxus, but I will try to piece together a story based on the fragments that reached me.

There were the voices of two strangers- no- almost strangers. The tin can sound of concern, and the skittering clanking of uncertain worry, played back on a scratched up record on a rickety player. Sounds that followed me around, sounds that orchestrated my existence. There was a warmth too, the heat of an Italian roof in July, then suddenly a swooping sensation as if the clouds were lifting me up in their arms. I, cocooned into the shape of a fetus against it, found something akin to comfort in the custom made scent of a living thing.

My ears were heavy with salty tears- my eyes leaked them too- as if there were a hot spring in me overflowing into some small scale waterfall. No, nothing so poetic. That kind of brokenness cannot be summed up in any combination of words, and turned into something to stir emotion when read. I was merely a sobbing girl, and my face was probably rouged from crying, my eyes crumpled at the corners and my nose running like a child's.

There were two branches curled beneath the crease of my knees and the curve of my back, melded into the splinters of my body. Beside those knees, a heart beat, beside my ear, a pulse. I entertained the thought, for the time taken for a leaf broken from it's branch to drift to the earth, that perhaps I were an astral projection- that I had quietly slipped from the restraints of my body, and was a life time closer to Lisanna.

Lisanna, eyes dancing, heart bounding, as if you were made up of a hundred different life forms all feeling at once. I remember the way we used to dance in the garden beside the disheveled swing seat with it's broken spine, me lifting you up and twirling you through space, the butterflies on you pinafore twirling about the curves of your rounded stomach. You were two, a tiny girl with the chubby limbs of a toddler about to stretch uncertainly overnight, and you would never put on your shoes; you liked the way the grass felt when it was trampled beneath your tiny feet, because you were happier as a wild thing than you were a little girl. I still have your first pair in the cabinet beside my bed- the practically unworn pink plimsolls with the sequin strawberry on the side- alongside the copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales in which I still have the skeleton of the daisy chain you made me, when you were ten. I wouldn't wear it- I only wore black, violet and the odd splash of grey, and my hair was always pulled back into a pony tail by a worn out ribbon.

"Mira... Mirajane... Look at me, I've got you, it's okay," were the words to pull me out of my memories, and anchor me back to the safety of his body. "I'm going to take you home. I'm sorry, would it be better if I left you alone? I don't want to leave you by yourself like this- should I call someone? God, Mira, God I hate myself." His voice was a whisper when it reached me, but I was drowning, and he may have been screaming at me and I could not say. This voice was not like the others. Tones- tones in the shades of blue to red- a record polished fiercely with the sleeve of a t-shirt- singing through the cone of a gramophone. The words themselves meant little to me, as they were the stuttering of a foreigner who did not speak my language of misery, but the notes of each syllable ricocheted along my ear drum and danced across my vision.

"Mira, please, you're scaring me."

This was the point at which I opened my eyes, and from that moment forwards every breath we shared is engraved upon my memory.

My cheek was pressed against the tear stained shoulder of a black coat, my fingers gripping to it's collar, nails grazing the skin of his neck. Laxus had me in his arms, swaying a little with each step he took, eyes not on me but staring glassily along the path ahead of us. My throat tightened with all the words I could have spoken, but none seemed to fit quite right into the space between us. Powerful as they may be, all the languages on earth spoken is unison are sometimes nothing compared to a single movement, a single touch.

My hand slid up the side of his neck, over the angle of his jaw, to the dampened corner of his deep sea eyes. He stopped moving, but still would not look at me. The heat radiating from his neck seemed charged with lightening, pricking my skin. There was a moment during which I didn't quite dare to breathe, afraid to break the quietness of that moment with a clumsy, emotional sign that I was alive. Stillness. Him and I, no memories to break apart the completeness of that single moment together.

"Mira, what do you want me to do?" he finally looked at me, eyes like storm clouds, and everything shifted again.

Oh God, Laxus, don't leave me alone. Don't leave me like this.

My hand slipped from his cheek,my arm suddenly too tired to hold itself up, even for a moment. I was so deeply exhausted.

"I want to sleep."

He seemed to think for a moment, then made his decision and gently placed me onto my wobbly feet. After making sure I wasn't going to fall, he gently wrapped an arm around my middle and began to walk me along a path I didn't know. I was in the custom of always carrying a tissue, as break downs had become a part of my daily routine, so I slipped one from my pocket and wiped my eyes.

It occurred to me that my jaw hurt.

I did not care.

To onlookers, we no doubt looked like a couple taking a walk beneath the fiery Autumn skies, amongst the flickering colours of the November trees. Those who came close enough to see the tear streaks across my cheeks no doubt fabricated an argument between this young pair, ended quickly and passionately with a kiss in a back alley. I liked this version of events better than I liked reality, so I lent a little closer into Laxus.

After what seemed like only a few paces, but must have been much more, Laxus led me to the front door of a small, run down house and, unlocking it with a brass key from the depths of his coat pocket, nudged me gently inside and closed the door.

I slipped off my shoes, though he kept his on, and allowed him to lead me up a flight of stairs and to a room I assumed to be his. White walls, a simple bed spread with nothing but a grey, tartan blanket, a book shelf filled to the brim with a huge number of titles I did not recognise.

"You can sleep here for a bit, then when you've got yourself together I'll drive you home. I'm assuming you don't want your parents to see you like this."

With that he let go of me, pushed me not quite gently towards the bed, left the room and shut the door behind him. I listened for the sound of his feet creaking softly down the stairs, but did not hear it- merely a shuffle as he slid down the wall, and a muted thump as he hit the carpet.