wearing our vintage misery
note: very late, but inspired by the 2022 fairy tail rarepair week day 7 prompt: promise. title from the phoenix by fall out boy.
…
Aries stood at Lucy's window, her back to Loke. It was tranquil in the apartment. He didn't want to ruin the quiet energy of Aries staring out the window, but it was finally a private moment between the two of them. They had not been able to talk for so long, not when he spent three years in the human realm and then contracted under different owners. Stars, how he had wished he could see her in that eternity apart. It was strange, the connections they made despite the years of alternating between fighting together and against each other.
"Is the Miss upset?" Aries asked, not taking her eyes from the world outside the window, her hand holding the yellow curtain ajar.
"You can call her Lucy," he said. "And no. She's at the store."
Aries turned her head, her bangs curving over the bridge of her eyebrow, her hair cupping her cheeks. He wanted his hands to replace the hair over her cheeks, remove his rings and thread his fingers through her hair; but he wouldn't.
"Leo?" she asked, fully turning to him, and he realized he'd been staring.
"I missed you," he said, the honesty of the three words burning him. "And I'm sorry."
Her eyes widened in comprehension, remembering that old conversation. Was it when she first became a Celestial Spirit and met the Lion? Or was it when they had first realized how awful Karen was, after Aries' first beating? With his age, with the damage he took from staying in the human world so long, his memory was not what it used to be.
Are you scared? he'd asked and she had nodded. I'll protect you, he had promised. I won't leave you. Not willingly.
Well, the second promise he'd failed at and the jury was out on the first.
"You don't need to say that."
"But I do."
Aries shook her head, her pink curls swaying over sad cheeks.
"I'm serious," he insisted. "I've thought about this for so long. I failed. And Lucy saved me. But I still failed."
She hugged her sides and turned back to the window. Loke didn't understand why she wouldn't look at him. "Aries, c'mon."
"Don't say you defending me was a failure."
"I left you."
"You saved me from her."
"Was Angel any better?"
"If you're going to almost die because of me, at least don't call it a failure."
"I still left you. Please look at me." His voice sounded raw, even to his own ears. When she did so, she was so close that he could see the pink of her eyelashes, the hint of crystal tears over them. "I broke my promise. I can't forgive myself for that."
"To me, there's nothing to forgive." Stars, why was she so kind? Why couldn't she understand that he'd spent so long in the human realm thinking about her? Wishing she was safe? Hoping her new owner was kinder than Karen? That his agonizing death wouldn't be for nothing, yet still knowing that in his heart and mind, no mage would ever deserve her key?
What could he say to her? That he'd almost forgotten that exact shade of her doe-brown eyes? That he'd searched for a fabric as soft as her hair, but nothing was quite right? That in his weakest moments, he had wished the women he went to bed with were her, that he'd asked for the lights off, so he could imagine the strangers he kissed were her?
Aries put her fingers through his orange hair. He stilled beneath her touch. She didn't seem to notice, just said: "It's shorter like this. It's not like it was before."
"When I come out on my own power, it looks like this." At her quizzical look, he explained: "Lucy gets tired when she summons both of us, so I came out on my own."
"Does it hurt?"
Loke shrugged. "I got used to it."
Something in Aries' face shifted. Slowly, her hand cupped his cheek. He couldn't move, confused at her tenderness, at the knowledge that she trusted him enough to touch him.
Then, her chapped lips grazed, not his lips, but the corner of his mouth.
"I missed you too."
…
note: don't ask me how they ended up in lucy's apartment or why leo is out on his own power, dressed how he was when he was pretending to be loke. it just is.
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