This request has been in my inbox forever. Finally was able to do something with it.

Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.


Title: Caffeine

Pairing: Mest x Lucy

Requester: papalogia

Prompt: "For your own sake, I'm cutting you off your caffeine supply."


"For your own sake, I'm cutting you off your caffeine supply."

Lucy had never imagined that those would become her famous last words. Ok maybe not… last, but at least ones she now regretted a great deal.

In her defense, they were well warranted. Mest had stayed up a few too many nights in a row at the guild hall, zealously researching something in the archives there. In the process consuming far more caffeine than any one human should in such a short time frame. So not only was he hyped up on lack of sleep, he was also cruising with enough pharmaceutical grade caffeine in his system to down a Vulcan (how Mest had even procured the stuff was half a mystery by itself). So Lucy had had no choice but to declare him cut off, and dispose of his stash. Wendy was beside herself with worry, and Lucy wouldn't allow Mest's bad health decisions to affect her teammate. Whatever had piqued his insatiable curiosity to that extent could just wait for him to be of sound mind once more (and not be a literal terror to his guildmates).

Mest had not taken this too well. But the second he attempted to do something about it, he'd collapsed on the spot and had to be carted to the infirmary.

And now, thanks to that, she was sitting by the man's bedside, two days later, wracked with guilt. Not for having taken away Mest's caffeine, no. She felt guilty for not having done so sooner. Before it got to this point.

Wendy had assured her (multiple times) that he would be fine once he slept it off and she had him on a drip to prevent dehydration and vitamin deficiency and, "really why are you still worrying, Lucy, it could have been much worse."

But the celestial mage couldn't seem to help but be concerned. She kept telling herself that she'd feel this way for any of her guildmates, but it felt a little hollow in her more honest moments with herself.

Was it because she blamed herself for not noticing earlier and acting on her concern? Really, it wasn't a secret that Mest could be singularly reckless in his quest for knowledge, and Lucy knew full well the extents he was capable of and willing to go to (Wendy's recounting of how he'd once swum in a freezing canal during a snowstorm had Lucy in cold sweats).

The man's curiosity was like a ravenous beast, Lucy thought. It would devour him whole one day. And she couldn't help but wonder if it was a side effect from wiping his own memories, his brain feverishly trying to fill the void left behind and ultimately unable to slake his hunger for the world.

Watching over him, Lucy resolved to make sure that that outcome would never come to be. It was altogether too much like how she once was – trapped in the confines of her house with naught but books and rumors of the outside world to sate her own starving mind.

She'd help him, like she should've before. She'd help him to quiet his unquenchable thirst, or at the very least make it easier to restrain or circumvent.

Once he woke up, she would.