and i'm a bloody big mess inside

Characters: Juvia Lockser, Sherry Blendy, Gray Fullbuste, Lyon Vastia

Summary: This is the orchestra, the rhythm and the drum.

when it all comes crashing down

Characters: Juvia Lockser, Sherry Blendy

Summary: What do they say, again? A friend in need is a friend indeed.

Note1: Weird BrOTPs, god, I know. Also, shameless self-indulgence because seriously, who (but me) BrOTPs Sherry and Juvia?

Note2: Also, please tell me how I handled Juvia's 3rd person habit. I decided that she dropped it mostly after her childhood but sometimes slips.

There was no sound in the entire concert hall.

Juvia Lockser's entire posture had become rigid and she stared at the ivory keys in front of her.

She had messed up. She had practiced this particular part of the song she had been playing a million times and she could have sworn that there was no way in hell that she could ever not get this right. She knew this song. She knew how the melody flowed gracefully like a river by night. She had played this over and over to the point that her fingers had hurt, had burned in agony.

Her career was as good as over.

It had been a honour for her to play her favourite song (and this added to the painful irony of this all) during this benefit concert. It had been a honour because she had just made it, because she had just signed her first contract. And now, she had screwed up and she would lose the contract and the pretty apartment and everything else.

She wanted to curl up and die because the world of the rich and famous was merciless, mistakes were not forgiven easily, no, no. She had known this long before she had joined the circus, her old teacher had repeated it over and over to the point that Juvia had had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. And Juvia had remembered this. After finishing school, she had polished her skills for four long years in a small school for musicians and other artsy people.

The climate there had been rough as well because of the underlining rivalry between everyone but she had believed that this would get at least a little better once it was all over and she would get her first contract. She had believed that she would get rid of the arrogant young men and the snobbish girls, that she would leave their superficiality and their immaturity behind one day.

(Preferably the day she would graduate.)

One year in the big circus had proven her wrong. It was still exactly the same. Everyone was still worried to save their own hide, everyone would still backstab their best friends to get a better role. It was still exactly the same way it had been when she had been at school and beforehand.

Everything was still the same.

Everyone still cared for the scandalous relationships of others, about what others wore and what they earned. Oh, and who had gotten cosmetic surgery and who had been send to rehab because of alcohol and-or drug problems.

And Juvia still left like she did not belong there, that she still looked too plain, too mousy and that her choice of friends was, once again, not generally approved of. Not that she would trade Gajeel against anyone else in the world. It just got her into trouble that she was best friends with a more or less infamous rapper.

(Not the right sort of company for a classical pianist, people said.)

Then, all of a sudden, reality caught up with the unfortunate pianist.

In the first row, someone had gotten up and was now clapping as loud as possible to get rid of the silence that was so heavy that Juvia could hardly breathe right anymore. A shifting spotlight revealed the woman's identity. Deep pink hair and a beautiful black dress, Sherry Blendy was towering over the seated people and clapping as if her life depended on it.

Juvia was confused and awed at the same time. The other woman was one of the most popular guests, one of the most famous actresses at the moment and the newspaper were full of whatever she did, whatever she wore and whatever she ate.

A few years ago, the blue-haired woman would have hated the actress because Sherry Blendy was the very embodiment of everything Juvia was not. There was no doubt that Sherry had been prom queen when she had been to school and there was little doubt that Sherry made more money with one movie than Juvia made in an entire year. Sherry was, although just one year older, in an entirely different league in the show business because she was already something akin to a veteran with her experience and with the influence she had gained.

Right now, however, Juvia could not hate Sherry.

Especially not when more and more people rose, like the famous athlete Erza Scarlet, the Titania-awarded script writer Lucy Heartfilia, some comedians and all in all people who had made it already, people who had long celebrated their victories and who mattered even in a world where everything changed to quickly and nothing could be taken for granted.

This might not have saved Juvia's career but this was at least a better end than having to leave the stage in complete silence while everyone stared, some pitying, some smug. And at least so she got to bow and leave the stage with her dignity more or less intact.

Juvia Lockser found Sherry Blendy by the window where the older woman stared out into the night and once more, Juvia felt weird and plain. There was the actress who had, as she had just heard in the hall, just gotten her first Titania nomination and Juvia had nothing achieved but a contract with a small record label. But saying nothing at all would be impolite.

"Thank you," she stated, rubbing her neck and staring at her shoes. "For, you know."

"No need to thank me," Sherry replied, turning around. "I quite liked the performance, just the end was a little unfortunate … but we all have good days and not so good days, no? But as long as we do everything with love and because we love what we do, I see no harm."

"Can't remember ever hearing of you having a bad day," Juvia muttered because this was unfair and it should not be this way, she should not depend on someone else like that.

"Oh, I had my blackouts as well," the actress said with a dismissive wave of her hand as a waiter with plates full of chocolate cookies passed by. "I played in the theatre before I started out in movies, you know? Sometimes I wonder if the theatre life was perhaps more, I don't know, honest than the movies but I love it all the same, yes."

"So you messed up your line or something like that?" Juvia inquired with a frown.

"Far worse than that," the pink-haired one said with a sigh. "It was a solo scene and I entirely choked up. I stood on the stage, everyone looked up at me and I couldn't not speak. It was terrible, I never felt like this before. Anyway, all of a sudden, someone in the audience got up and clapped and more and more people clapped. She claimed, later on, that she had truly believed that I was playing my role – the character just had lost everything – but when I went to thank her later on, she told me that she knew just too well that I was all choked up and that she did not want to see me cry on stage, not for something like that."

"That was awfully nice of her," the pianist muttered. "This is a terrible climate out here."

"She was no actress and I bet that there is less that might hold you back if you help someone who cannot threaten your own career," Sherry suggested, pursing her crimson lips.

"Can we quote you on this, Miss Blendy?" a reporter with purple hair asked, a notebook in his hand and a pen at the ready. "We would like to interview you, who designed your dress?"

"No, you may not quote me on this or on anything else and my dress was designed by, uh, Heartkreuz," she said, a little harsh. "And no, I do not wish to be interviewed today, Mr Suzuki."

"You should have accepted the offer, he works for the Iced," Juvia remarked quietly. "They are big news, not many can afford to turn down an interview offer when it comes from them."

"I have more dirt on Yuuka than he has on me," the actress smirked. "Anyway, if he's here, the other reporters are there as well. I can only advise you to get out of here. Actually, I have a meeting early tomorrow so I will go. I have a car here, I can drop you off somewhere."

She was not doing this because she was such a good person, she was merely not interested in another promising young woman getting torn apart by the press. She had been there, she had encountered the sudden stage fright and the panic afterwards, the numbing fear that all might be over now. She knew the feeling when the most urging desire was for the scene to fade away and to make it off the stage and back home in one piece.

"This would be nice, Ju- I have a headache," the blue-haired woman said, nearly slipping back into her childhood habit. "If you could drop me off at the Crimson Sakura? I have a room there…"

"This might be a bad idea," Sherry remarked. "The Crimson is the reporter camp at the moment. Um, this may be a bad approach but my cousin is out of town at the moment, you can stay with me for the night – god, that came out so wrong. Urgh, just for the record, I am straight. Anyway, Chelia isn't there at the moment and so I can hide you from the reporters."

"After the save earlier, people will start talking if we leave toge-" Juvia started but Sherry grabbed her arm and dragged her along.

"You see," the older woman said, "Yuuka owes me many favours. If people start talking, I will tell him to spread some rumours about me making out with a nameless man in some restaurant and all will be well. And it wouldn't be the first time for me to be connected to such rumours, when I had this pathetic catfight with Heartfilia, people claimed unresolved sexual tension as well. Also, you aren't dark and broody enough to be my type, just saying."

"You are a weird one."

"I have been told that," Sherry said drily. "Okay, dear, now you have to keep walking and try to smile a little, you are still today's big star and remind them to treat you like this. You are the princess today and let them feel that you are still the biggest star that they will ever meet."

And so they walked, Sherry's grip on Juvia's arm never easing up because truly, she wanted this night to end without tears and she wanted to make a new friend, someone she could fix and piece back together (all to distract her from how much mending her life needed at the moment).

"Ju- I watched Twisting Fates, last Saturday on the plane," Juvia said quietly as they approached the exit. "Did you sing the songs yourself?"

"I was asked to sing myself, yes, because I played in a musical years ago and the director believed me to be 'perfect' for the role because of that experience," Sherry muttered, her face betraying a certain discomfort because she was not much of a music person. "I am not much of a singer, to be honest. This was probably why my relationship with a real singer failed big time and why a lot of things have gotten messy lately for me."

'Messy' was the understatement of the century. The breakup had been hell for her as it had happened just before she had had to leave for a promotion tour all over the continent. She could not count how many nights she had spent in anonymous hotel rooms, curled up on a bed that was not hers and crying her eyes out. At the time, she felt like he had ripped out her heart and crushed it in his palm. She had felt numb, as if she had stopped breathing the day she had caught him cheating on her. And she had wished she could go back to Lamia High, could go back to swimming in the lakes of her hometown with her old friends. Many of them, she had had to leave behind when she had rushed off to become a star in Fairy Hills and she had regretted that because while she had had gotten the glamour and the luxury, she had lost her friends. She had gotten her freedom but the prize was loneliness.

"I have read about some events," Juvia said awkwardly. "I guess I am sorry for you."

"Ah, don't say something like that," Sherry said as she continued to drag her along. "I just keep in mind that one day, I will meet someone much better who will put me first."

A cell phone beeped twice.

"Was that yours?" the older woman asked, a frown on her face.

Juvia shook her head. "I have one but I have no one to call but my manager so I left it at the hotel," she admitted, feeling more and more embarrassed with every passing second.

"Remind me to give you my number so you can call me whenever you are in town so that we can meet up for some sushi or whatever you like," the bubbly actress smiled widely as she finally found the beeping offender and frowned. "Okay, this is seriously weird," she stated. "The phone is red and there is my name engraved into it … but this is not my phone."

"And what else?" the pianist asked, worry lacing her voice.

"A message," she replied, a little hesitant. "I will open it … okay?"

"Okay."

"It says – oh god, 'It's true what they say, you never know what you have unless it's gone, wouldn't you agree, Sherry?' … oh dear, this is really for me," she whispered and she remembered, against her will, someone she had lost when she had gone away, someone she had been missing for quite some time now because even if bad things in life happened for a reason, this did not mean that she had to feel alright with all of this.

"Do you think whoever wrote this is dangerous?" Juvia asked, hazel eyes wide and scared.

"No, no, I don't think so … the story seems familiar, the story of someone leaving a loved one behind … only that the loved one never knew…" the other mused aloud. "Well, this probably made no sense at all, did it? Urgh, I will try to reply later on when I got my thoughts back in working order. And when I get home, I will try to get my thoughts back on track before the meeting with Mr Dreyar tomorrow … it's about a new movie."

"Isn't Mr Dreyar a music producer?" Juvia asked as they rushed down a staircase.

"Yes, I think so too … so probably this is about the score or something like this … sometimes, the directors want the actors to make the decision about what sort of song is played in the establishing character scene … and my, I would love something understatement and seemingly cheery with a warning…" she went off on a sidetrack, once again. "Urgh, my ramblings have to be boring to you. I am seriously sorry, I have no clue what's up with me lately."