Here's a short fic for Mest x Lucy. This is a new ship for me – let's see how it goes.
I totally cried while I wrote it, too.
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
They both understood what it was like to be broken.
For him, the sickening weight in his stomach and the world falling from under his feet as the eccentric, wonderful people he'd unexpectedly come to love disappeared in a blast from the sky. Leaving behind a hole in his heart as wide as the one the sea was already beginning to fill in.
For her, the tears that flowed down her face as dirt was shoveled over the casket within which lay her guiding light. The hand clutching hers offered no comfort, it's only function as a stiff, unyielding anchor to keep her from diving after, as she screamed for her mother.
He always knew what it would mean to give up his family, his cherished memories of them. But he knew that his love for them would never fade, no matter how much time passed, no matter how long it was before he saw them again for who they really were. No matter how his heart would tear itself apart, looking for ghosts he could not even name.
She always tiptoed around the man she once remembered as kind. Shouted voices and thrown gifts dogged her steps, long after the cause himself had forgotten them. A ghost in her own hallways, she haunted herself, until the day she decided she wanted to live again, and fled the stifling confines of the place where she grew up. Never to look back, always forward to a future she would fill with new family.
His best friend left him. Not of his own volition. But without a goodbye. Blood had stained his hands, soot and ash and dirt his clothing. No answers to questions shouted into the sky. He still kept the broken glasses, in a box locked up and shoved deep in his closet. He still kept the image of Lahar's smiling face locked up within his heart. But this one he kept the key for.
Her best friend left her. Of his own free will. With a goodbye in black ink; words that rang cold and empty as she clutched the crumpled letter to her chest and screamed at her abandonment once again.
Mest had been given the greatest gift. The return of a family, of comradeship and unconditional love. Only to have it ripped apart, mere moments later with its disbandment. His newly sprouted hopes were crushed just as suddenly as they'd begun to grow.
Lucy had been given a choice. Her oldest friend, her first spirit, the final reminder of her mother. Or the family she had fought so hard to gain, and to save. Only to lose both in the end, anyway.
So when people asked what they had in common, when their relationship was questioned, all Lucy and Mest could say was that they understood each other.
They'd been broken so many times before, they knew best how to put each other back together.