notes— the request was for crying broken laxus but in the end all we get is drunk prideful in-denial self-pitying laxus. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ im sorry i tried im a failure ok bye (its kinda shit, this is ur warning)

vix vivere

;;

none of it was ever worth the risk—
darlin', i'm where beggars go to die

.

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He's too tired for it when she tries talking to him. Ignores her when she shakes his shoulder. Hungover, exhausted, miserable, and alone alone alone because she went and fucking left—

"Leave it." He brushes the maid away. "Leave me alone."

She flutters around him like a mother, worried, anxious, hovering over his hunched body leaning against the foot of the bed.

"Laxus-sama, Laxus-sama, Laxus-sama." Sounds like a broken record.

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"Laxus!" Glowing hair flowing, bending over with her hands on her waist, eyes squinted as she looks up at him through body-racking laughter. He's coughing back his laughter as well, fiddling with the music player, trying to fix the needle so it stops jarring. The music continues to play back over itself, the same two seconds of piano chords blending with her voice. Beautiful. Broken records. White hair. Flushed cheeks and shining eyes, stopping to smile at him in the middle, and he can't fix the player, and she can't keep from twirling around the empty ballroom like she's free and flying. He gives and joins in. Lets his smile show.

.

.

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More aggressively this time, raising an arm to brush the maid's worrying hands off him. "Fuck off already."

And it pisses him off, really really makes it all worse, when she isn't surprised, when his roughness elicits no reaction except a quiet sigh and gentle hands on his cheekbones, raising his head up so she can see his face.

Looking at her, he feels like shit. Young, definitely younger than him, blonde hair and brown eyes and determination that reminds him of exactly why he's in this state, why he's left alone to drink to his demise in a fucking self-pitying stupor. And pretty, too, which makes it even damn worse. But with hands of a mother, the touch of a parent, gentleless of family — something no fucking stranger has any right to give him, no damn obligation to.

Fuck, but he's too drunk for this.

And what is she seeing? What's she looking at? Three days of stubble, three days of dried tears of frustration, crusted eyes, the stinking breath of a hide-away, a newly made hermit.

He hasn't left his room in three days. The thought doesn't register until she's looking at him like she's going to fix him for him, and God, it's—

It's the worst feeling since Mirajane left.

Left him.

Left him.

Too much for her. Even for her. Too much even for her, his Mirajane, he took it too far even for her—

"Come on," the maid murmurs. Her voice is quiet. Laxus realises that in the silent room, it's his heavy breathing, his crying that's taking up the most space. There isn't even space for the humiliating to slip in through the numbness from the alcohol, but the tears don't stop even though he can't feel them burn. "Come on. Let's get you cleaned up." Her hands under his arms are straining, trying to pick up a man twice her size. "Come on."

Laxus wants nothing more than to hang his head, drown out his shame in a bottle, forget the memories in a haze — forget her, forget his Mira — but he can't.

Not sure why. Maybe the maid. Maybe three days is as far as he can manage down the road of self-destruction before it's even too pathetic for him.

He's got his pride, after all. That hasn't left yet at least.

So he does get up, and he does follow her into the bathroom, and she lets her strip him down and push him into the gilded bathtub, and he pretends. Pretends life's the same. Pretends the last four days didn't happen. Pretends Mirajane is downstairs at dinner wondering aloud why he isn't there, too.

All he can do is pretend. Wallow in his misery, and make believe.