note: The reincarnation au of my damn dreams! I'm so excited for this because while I have the 100Kinks thing going on, I'm gonna use this to balance out all the lovey-dovey smutty romance with tragic romance! In case it wasn't obvious, this fic will contain a lot of death. You know so they can get reincarnated into the next life? The chapter death will vary between Lucy or Natsu (whoever dies first anyway) but be assured that this won't focus on death! I'll be putting fluffy pieces up in here and funny ones, whatever floats my boat. The "lives" will be diverse. I'm kind of thinking about alternate dimensions or at least the concept of it but I don't have it all figured out yet. For example, one life like shown in this first chapter they're mortals but in another maybe Lucy is immortal. Time skipping will be a thing, too. Anyway, please enjoy!

warning: age difference

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─(h)arms

(New Orleans, Fall 2003)

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There's a burden in his hand, bearing a lifetime of regret that's sure to come.

In this moment, he can't afford to think of how it also holds a lifetime of the love he'd been hungry for; he knows he can't keep it, knows that mortal and immortal mix as well as oil and water. He can't keep holding her back like this and as long as he wears the band of gold around his finger, she will hope and she will want for things he can't give her.

(a long life together, nights spent by a fire never having to worry about the end of their days, arms that don't go weak and ugly with age wrapped around her at any time, no more talk of how he's old and she's not)

But he does think. He thinks many things right now: that they shouldn't have gotten married right out of college,that he shouldn't have wanted a life with her knowing that his was much more feeble and short than her everlasting one, that all of their love until now has been the best he could hope for but it needs to end─ God, he doesn't want it to, but it does.

It's hard to swallow past the buildup of ugly things in his throat, clogged in his arteries and retarding breath. But he pushes through, because he can't afford for her to talk first and say something that is sure to make him fall in love more and weaken his resolve.

This is for her, he tells himself.

"We can't be together anymore. It's not fair to either of us, we'll be unhappy in the long run." Is what he says, and he doesn't mean it, but it's what he needs to say because it's what she has to hear. He feels his hands shake, so his fingers tighten around the metal in his hands, his palms humid. He sees her urge to retaliate, but he can't give her that chance because she can change his mind with even no words; just that sad look in her eyes. He tells himself this life is wrong for them. Maybe in the next one, fate won't play with them this way and their mortalities will match.

"I've already made my decision." He says with finality that doesn't belong on him. He's old now, old enough to look like her father but he's never been the stern one between them. But he needs to be. He can't drag her down like this. "Good bye, Lucy,"

He releases her hand and leaves the symbol of her promises in it.