cut the ropes and let me fall

Characters: Lyon Vastia, Sherry Blendy

Summary: Who will love you now?

Prompt&Dedication: Skinny Love [Birdy] «—» for Berry

AN: Written for the send-me-a-pairing-and-a-song-and-I-will-see-what-I-can-do-thing on tumblr. I changed my url by the way from awitchscrime to my-illusions-gone. Also, you all better appreciate me messing around with present tense.

He is alone in his apartment — the apartment he has never liked all that much because it is too big and he has never liked shopping for anything and so it is nearly empty although he has lived here for the past seven, no, eight years — sitting on the windowsill and staring out into the night as he sips his wine —

(The same brand Ur used to drink, nearly eighteen years ago.)

(He has never felt older.)

— and tries to think which is harder tonight than usually.

He tries to blame it on the wine but really, he knows that it is not the wine. He is no drinker, universes away from Fairy Tail's Cana Alberona or Quatro Cerberus Bacchus whatever-the-guy's-last-name-is and still worlds away from the average Fairy Tail member … but he can hold his drink quite well and far better than some people he knows.

So why does he even bother with denial?

Perhasps because he is not drunk enough for the truth yet, for the simple moment that has thrown him out of his usual well-maintained balance and into something he really despises and not even wants to think about.

Still, time to be mature about this.

Time to be an adult.

Time to look into truth's ugly face and deal with it like a man his age — who is also the former student of a woman who never seemed to know fear — is supposed to because he is being ridiculous.

He has dealt with rejection before because, hell, he is not Gray who has just discovered the existence of the female gender yesterday. He has not been born yesterday and he knows the feeling of rejection because he has been rejected before.

Just … never by a woman he has rejected beforehand and who then proceeded to fall for a good-for-nothing-wannabe-womaniser. Really, she deserves far better. She deserves someone who has only ever eyes for her and who never ever flirts with someone else in front of her. Lyon has seen the pain in her face, the pain even the flowery confessions of love afterwards could not wipe away all that easily.

But it is her choice.

And when she choses the slow heartbreak and the pain that creeps in to never leave again, he cannot stop her because once, he has been the one who has hurt her.

Perhaps he is being selfish, again. Perhaps he is just afraid of losing her, of losing the one person who has seen his darkness and who has not turned away — the one who has never tried to change him either, who has never tried to drag him out of the darkness.

He presses his forehead against the cool glass of the window and exhales, watching how his warm breath fogs up the glass. »What am I supposed to do with you, Sherry?« he mutters to himself.

»And who will love me when you are gone?«

The tell-tale clickclack of heels on the wooden floor shakes him out of his thoughts and he turns his head to see her leaning in the doorframe, her face unreadable in the darkness.

»Is there space for two?« she asks as she approaches, shaking off her shoes and twirling her own wine glass — filled with the same crimson liquid he is drinking too — in her left hand.

»Hm,« he mutters as he makes place for her. »How do I deserve the honour?«

She stays silent for a moment, her hair nearly as silver as his in the moonlight. »I was worried,« she says as she leans against the wall and looks at him. »So I decided to check up on you … you gave me the key for that reason, didn't you?«

»You are different tonight,« he remarks quietly. »Where's the love?«

»I had the impression it bothered you,« she replies with a shrug, »and there is no love in bothering people you love.«

»Love, huh?«

»Always, Lyon, because you were my first love and I don't forget about something like this … but you know that, right?« she asks as she leans forwards and presses a kiss onto his forehead. »Someone has to keep the secret that you aren't as much of an ice cube as you like to make us think after all, no?«

He smirks. »And Ren?« he asks, unsure of why. Maybe because he has had enough wine to blame it on the alcohol when it all goes wrong.

»I doubt it will last,« she says softly, »because he is too much in love with life and life's beauties and I probably reached the stage where I will love myself without anything else … you guys may think I am the expert on love but really, I am as left in the dark as you are.«