Disclaimer: I (unfortunately) do NOT own Fairy Tail or any of the characters. I only am responsible for the (albeit poorly written and devised) plot.

I am so sorry.

I forgot about this story completely because I turned my fanfic notifications off, and I just returned to the website THIS MORNING and wet "shit... SHIT."

Because my priority right now is just FINISHING this chapter that should have been finished and posted like a month ago, I'm not going to give my thank you's to anyone specifically, because you all know who you are. Thank you guys for supporting me, and for reading my story and leaving reviews and favoring/following because really, that means the world to me.

(ALSO PLEASE FORGIVE ME I SWEAR I'LL TRY HARDER.)

It took Sting roughly four seconds, four incredibly long, painful seconds on Yukino's side of things, to react.

He just looked down at her, this tiny little bundle of pale blue in his grey shirt, looking up at him with her cheeks wet and her hopeful expression. Her tiny hands are clasped at her chest, as she prays, she begs for some higher power for him to say yes, that he can and he will forgive her for that.

But he doesn't say that.

Instead he lets out a nervous laugh, his breathing becoming uneven as he leaned back on the desk for support. The feeling that something has been terribly misunderstood washes over him, making his skin crawl.

"Yukino... what?" He asks, tilting his head to look at her, disbelieving. He must have misheard her. Right? She seemed to draw back into herself then, packing herself tighter and tighter together like the strength she uses to pul herself together will keep her from falling apart. It isn't working well.

"I- I know that I don't have any right to ask you for this but- I mean I know interfering with mates is wrong but... well, I would like to still be your friend," Yukino said, with a smile that was not nearly as convincing as she'd hoped. Kinda looked like a grimace she realized, in retrospect.

"You- you want me to-"

"Just forget about all of it," she nearly begged then, falling to her knees in front of him, grabbing his hand. She couldn't look up at him. She wouldn't. Because this was humiliating enough, but having him stare into her vulnerable eyes, with every emotion she held for him bared free for him to see was too much for her to handle.

"Because I will do everything I can to stop loving you," Yukino cried, tugging down on his hand. "I did the research when I found out you'd found your mate. And I know that there's no more serious crime to a Dragon Slayer than to get between them and their mate. So this girl, this girl who is so damn lucky to have you; I promise I will do my best to like her too. Because I know, I know that being around someone who's crazy about you when you already have your soul mate is all kinds of awkward. But please, Sting, forget. I promise, I swear that I'll never bring how I feel up again. And your-"

Yukino sobbed on the word, as it got caught in her throat and left a nasty feeling in her mouth. She was crying again, sniffling, feeling like a fool.

"-mate, tell her- tell her I won't do anything. I'll just be your friend. I promise, okay?"

Sting just shook his head, sinking down to his knees to press his forehead to hers.

"No, no," he said, shaking his head. "No, we did not go through all of this, I did not spend months of you avoiding me, months of being alone and wondering what I'd done, months of just wanting to be with you, months of trying to wrap my head around the idea of living without you... I did not go through all of that for you to love me too."

Yukino looked up at him, her pale cheeks and her rosy lips just inches from his face.

"Sting," she sad softly, taking in his own tears and the frustrated, borderline furious look on his face.

"No," he repeated, shaking his head with own sob escaping his lips. He stumbled back, letting her hand drop from his. His back hit the wall, and slowly he slumped down against it. He wouldn't look at her, he couldn't, for fear that this was some sick joke. Because the universe, if it was true, was really fucking with him.

"I didn't love you all this time for you to get it in your stupid little head that I've been mated to someone else."

Her eyes going wide with realization, Yukino gasped, her panicked eyes flying up to meet his own despaired face.

"No," she mouthed, shaking her head slowly. "No, Sting you're not really telling me that-"

Sting nodded his own head slowly, letting his head drop in his hands. He was silent, unwilling to look at her, because after all this time, after all this waiting and all this pain, he... he could allow himself to hope.

But he was afraid. Because what if this was some kind of joke, if he got his hopes up only for them to come crashing down again... Well, he did't think that he would survive the fall.

What Sting failed to realize was that, while he was having this internal struggle, there was a teary eyed Celestial Wizard very much waiting for him to say something.

Do I...? Does she- could she actually-

And by the time he looked up, he found Yukino's face just inches from his own, her upper lip quivering and more tears streaming down her face. She was seated just in front of him, leaning forward just enough for him to feel her uneven breaths on his face. And then she gave him that smile, that lopsided smile that just about melted his heart overtime he saw it. The same smile that killed him with a sickening, burning jealousy every time it wasn't directed at him.

And that smile, that smile made it all go away for just a second. It was like a dose of morphine that left everything else numb and blurry around him. The pain was just gone. And then a shadow flickered across her face, and she wasn't smiling anymore.

It brought the pain crashing down around him again, waves of agony washing away at his insides, flames from the very depths of hell licking at his heart.

She looked down at her lap, her short hair falling to cover her eyes, and he swallowed thickly. She was messing with him, and he couldn't even be mad at her because he loved her so damn much. It made him sick to his stomach, thinking that maybe it was because she'd pitied him enough for her to give him one pathetic, false moment of happiness. Or because she wanted to mess with him or the whole universe was messing with him or that he was just dreaming and this nightmare would end but-

I have to go. Was suddenly all he could think, the walls suddenly closing in on him. He would stand and sprint for the door. Or the window. Yeah, maybe the window. They were only a couple stories up, he could take it. Natsu did it all the time.

Before he could set his very poorly put together plan in action, Yukino cleared her throat.

"Stay."

And then she sprang forward, bringing her small pale hands to grab the sides of his face, and crashed his lips down onto hers.

Lucy scratched the back of her neck nervously, under Natsu's withering glare.

"I'm sorry?" She squeaked, her wings opening and closing with her restlessness.

"Lucy," he thundered, looking down on her with an odd shadow cast across his face. "You... you almost died all for a couple of hours with me?" He was the oddest expression on his face, something resembling... was that guilt? "Lucy, I- I lived for almost a month thinking that you had died, and I-"

"I chose to stay," Lucy interrupted firmly, looking up at him. "It was my decision, and I promise, I swear that I'll be careful from now on."

Natsu inhaled heavily through his nose, exhaling actual steam.

"...you're so damn lucky that I'm in love with you," he grumbled after a minute and his breathing evened out.

"Yeah," she mumbled. "I really am."

Mira yawned, stretching her arms and rolling her neck. Walking out of her and Lisanna's shared hotel room, she blinked at the sight before her. Bleary eyed, with all of her hair tied up into a ponytail in her lilac pajama bottoms, there was a stark contrast between the Take-Over Mage and the little gaggle of people currently standing outside her door.

"So, uh, morning Mira?" Wendy squeaked, nervously toeing the carpeted floor. Mira was notorious for being able to go from clam to demon in the blink of an eye, and no one had been brave enough to interrupt her sleep since she was a prepubescent teen with unusual high hormone levels.

No time like the present to see how she reacted to it, right?

And then Mira beamed at them, her toothy smile causing them to relax into the wall behind them.

"Well, what's going on out here?" She asked, looking from the Sky Dragon Slayer, to Rogue, t Gajeel who looked all kinds of uncomfortable, and then her eyes landed on Laxus and she momentarily forgot how to breathe.

"Well, come in," she said cheerily after a moment of trying to remember how she was supposed to inhale.

"I assume there's something important I missed."

Gajeel snorted.

Mira's jaw had dropped, as the whole tale was told to her.

So Sting knows, huh? Poor Yukino. And oh god, she was going to have to be around Sting's mate because she'd probably come visit their guild and-

"Wait, are you telling me that Sting is up there, alone, about to say his final goodbye to Yukino and leave because the love is unrequited?" Mira asked, rubbing her temples. Rogue nodded, leaning back into his chair.

"Well, considering how well I know him, I'd say that most likely how he's going to handle the situation," Rogue said, lifting his glass to his lips and feeling the alcohol burn a trail down to his stomach. "I... I can't believe it," he said softly.

"I don't know if you'd understand, seeing as you're not a Dragon Slayer, or mated to one yet," he said, breathing out the last word quietly, glancing over at Laxus quickly. Laxus turned to the wall, scowling. "But it's just... now that he knows that she doesn't want to be around him because she can't stand the idea of him being tied to her for life-"

"Whoa whoa whoa," Mira said, her hands gesturing wildly. "What?" She hissed, leaning over the small round table to grab him by the front of his shirt. Rogue, looking oddly like a frightened small, woodland creature, turned white.

"What?" he spluttered, hands held high, like one would when surrendering.

"Repeat that," she ordered, not even caring that Laxus was watching her behave like an escaped asylum patient. (Okay, so maybe she cared a little bit, but she had more pressing issues at hand.)

"Uh, well, Sting was just about to leave because he's fallen in love with Yukino and she just said that she can't be around him anymore because now that she knows he's found his mate she's disgusted by him and did I mention that he's probably going to disappear for a while after this to roam the continent alone to accept that he's going to die alone," Rogue rushed out, getting lightheaded at the very act of spitting that all out in one breath.

"Wait wait," she said, waving her hands.

"Yukino's been in love with Sting for like, over a year." She said, confusedly, her eyebrows arching.

Gajeel sprayed his whiskey all over the bed coughing.

Yukino's lips were suddenly moving softly against his own, and Sting was fairly certain that he'd either died and gone to heaven from jumping out of that window, or fainted in some embarrassing display of crying until he couldn't breathe. (It had happened before, not all that long ago.)

But then she pulled at his bottom lip with her teeth and he let out a moan that sent shivers down her spine, and he knew that hallucinations and dreams didn't feel like this. Couldn't feel like this. She was kissing him.

Yukino was kissing him.

Yukino was kissing him.

Sting, not having moved since she's practically jumped on him, looked sickly pale. Yukino, silently cursing herself, withdrew and turned her head down in shame.

You idiot.

But then the pads of his thumbs were brushing the tears of humiliation away, his gentle hands tilting her head up to meet his eyes. His bright, awed, amazed eyes.

And then he was the one to kiss her this time, cradling her heart-shaped face in his hands. Her hands snaked up his neck, then into his hair as he kissed her breathless.

Yukino melted.

Her eyelashes fluttered, brushing softly against the top of her cheekbones. She gasped for air when he finally pulled away, already missing the feeling of having him so close.

The awed look he gave her as he pulled back to see her flushed face made her heart flutter embarrassingly in her chest, and when he pursed his lips with his eyes crinkling, she knew he could hear it. At least he had the decency to try and suppress it.

Key word: was vibrating with laughter, his shoulders shaking with the effort of trying to keep a straight face.

He was failing miserably.

Stupid, gorgeous jerk.

He gave in then, guffawing at the adorable pout of hers as she glared at him. She distracted him with a mind-blowing kiss just then, threading her fingers into his golden hair and tugging softly, effectively shutting him up and causing his torso to go still.

And after their third first kiss, they finally separated, both rosy cheeked and awestruck.

"So... you too then?" Yukino asked shyly, twirling on of his side bangs around her finger distractedly. Oh god, she could actually hear her heart knocking desperately against her ribcage this time. She flushed from her collarbone to her hairline, suddenly very interested in picking at her nails.

He smiled, glad that she couldn't hear his own heartbeat, beating in harmony with Yukino's. And then he leaned in close, their noses just fractions of a centimeter apart.

"I love you," he breathed, with relief washing through him as his long-carried burden being lifted off his shoulders. She looked up at him then, eyes wide and watery. He cleared his voice, suddenly feeling teary-eyed himself.

"I love you so damn much that it hurt just breathing in the air from a room you weren't in. It hurt so bad when you stopped talking to me; I took mission after mission and just threw myself into fighting and training because all I could think about was you," he confessed. "I- I thought I was going to die wandering around Fiore, alone. And you know what's funny? The one regret I couldn't get out of my head was that I would eventually die never having kissed you. Never having told you that I loved you or that I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

He gave Yukino a minute, just a minute to let all of that sink in. He'd thrown it out as more of a warning; to give her just a glimpse of what she'd be getting into. Because maybe she loved him, sure, but human love was a fickle thing, and he'd seen love fade away in humans a depressing amount of times. But now, he was regretting he had.

What if she realizes I'm crazy? That this is crazy? That she'd be crazy for staying around after that because this whole thing is crazy?

His eyes were screwed shut, so he wouldn't have to see if doubt would flicker across her face.

"Well, I don't think you're going to have to worry about that," she said finally, breathing out a laugh. He really was adorable with his nose all scrunched up and worried like that. He peered up at her, his lashes uncomfortably stiff from the tears that had dried there.

"Sting, I think from now on, your biggest problem will be prying me off of you."

So she kissed him again, just to prove her point.

Well, this chapter sucked.

Anyway, so sorry again and I hope you'll hear from me soon! (Because I won't forget next time. Probably.)

-Pyro