"Just because you've forgiven your father doesn't mean I have to forgive mine," Laxus snapped, jerking away from the hand Lucy had laid on his shoulder and striding away from her to stand by the window instead
She recoiled in turn, her eyes sparking more fiercely than his lightning as she glared him down. "That's not what I'm saying!" she said heatedly.
"Sure sounds like it to me!"
"That's because you're not actually listening to me!"
Laxus let out a growl of frustration. "Why the hell are we fighting about this?" he demanded.
Lucy opened her mouth to shoot back a sassy reply, then seemed to think better of it. She sighed, closing her eyes and taking a steadying breath. Across the room from her, her boyfriend did the same, arms crossed tightly over his chest.
"Look," Lucy said after they'd both taken a moment to collect themselves, "All I mean is that hating Ivan… it's not productive, Laxus. All holding onto that anger does is hurt you."
He shook his head. "Maybe that's how it was for you. Your relationship with your old man was different. But I spent years forgiving that bastard over and over. Defending him. Fighting with Gramps about it. Until I was almost twenty, I was still trying to justify what he did to me, blaming myself for it. I'm done with that. I can't forgive him, Lucy."
She looked at him standing there, silhouetted against the rainy windowpane, shoulders hunched in and arms wrapped around himself. His posture was instinctively self-protective, and his expression was guarded, yet it struck her that he was still watching her with honest eyes that begged her to understand what he was trying to convey.
"Okay," she said simply.
She crossed the room in three quick strides and embraced him. She loved that he instinctively opened his arms to wrap around her the second he realized what she was coming to him for. This was how it always was with them— they had no defenses when it came to each other, no guards they could hold, and Lucy hoped that never changed.
Burying her face in his chest, she said, "It's not how I would handle it, but it's your father and your feelings."
"Yeah. It is."
"But can you try not to dwell on it?" she asked, still speaking directly into the fabric of his shirt.
"Usually don't," he said, one of his hands coming up to play absentmindedly with the ends of her hair. "Just… stuff today kinda brought things up to the surface."
She nodded. "That's understandable. I kinda made things worse, didn't I?"
She felt him shrug. "Not like you knew. It's fine. Sorry if I was an ass at the guild earlier."
Lucy snorted. "Not any more than usual."
"Hey!" He tugged lightly at her hair. "Now who's being an ass?"
She giggled and tilted her head back to look at him, chin resting against his chest as she gave him a grin. "Kiss and make up time?" she asked.
Laxus's reply was wordless, but deliciously eloquent, and Lucy appreciated it enormously.
