A/N: So today's Jerza interaction in the anime inspired me to write something about those two dorks being happy dorky dorks. Before I knew it, this came out! Apologies for the cavities - please collect your dentist voucher on the way out!
August x794
On a warm summer night, Erza Scarlet lay down sleepily under the stars.
That sort of thing tended to happen when one chose to share their life with an astronomy nut, which she supposed went with the territory of being specialized in Heavenly Body Magic, as was the case for Jellal, the life partner in question.
He wasn't, by any means, a demanding boyfriend, usually picking date locations and activities based on her preferences. That was what made stargazing during the biggest meteor shower of the summer something exceedingly… special. It was something he loved and wanted to share with her and although she had to admit that she lacked the patience to just lay down and look at the stars for hours by her own volition, that completely changed when he was present – it was all worth it, if not for anything else, for the childlike fascination etched onto his face every time a star shot by or the joy he got from telling her the legends attached to each constellation in the sky.
She had a feeling such an excursion might become a yearly family tradition: they had already come the previous year and that one they were back again. The following year, if they came, there would be three of them rather than just two, she thought, resting her hand on her slightly-curved abdomen. Of course, the logistics of bringing a seven-month-old baby into a camping trip wouldn't be easy if any of the child-rearing books she'd read so far were to be believed, but she vowed to make an effort because she wanted that little boy or girl to experience the same joy she did upon falling asleep in his or her father's arms under the stars on a yearly basis. In fact, she was just experiencing such a thing herself at the moment…
"Erza?" she heard Jellal whispering in her ear.
She ignored him, unwilling to let go of that increasingly comfortable sleepiness
"Hey, don't fall asleep just yet," he said, placing a kiss to her temple.
"Mmh," she mumbled to make it know that she was not happy that he was forcefully pulling her back to the world of the wakeful.
"I know you're not really asleep. There's something I need to do and you have to be awake for this," he informed her. His voice sounded strange – both excited and nervous at the same time. She felt tempted to crack one eye open to see if his facial expression matched his tone. "Open your eyes, Erza. The brightest star is shining right above you and you're missing it."
That time, she did open her eyes, immediately spotting the 'star' in question. It shone red in the moonlight, red the same shade as her hair, and dangled from a silver chain that Jellal was dangling over her face. Her eyebrow rose.
"That's not a star," she casually pointed out.
"No. I suppose I may have exaggerated a little," he admitted sheepishly. "But I think we can both agree that an actual star would be a little too big for the given purpose."
She looked at him and found him lounging sideways on his sleeping bag, the arm that wasn't curled around her lifted up as he dangled the chain over her head. He was biting down on his lip but his eyes were hopeful. Yes, his expression did perfectly match his tone indeed. She turned away and looked back up, reaching upwards with her hand to brush her finger against the object in question, first the stone sparkling the same color as her hair, then the metal band attached it was attached to and then the chain holding it. "Yes. I do admit the weight of a star might be a nuisance when the time came for me to wield my two-handed swords."
His face lit up. "Is that a 'yes'?"
She looked at him and raised an eyebrow. "I didn't hear a question."
He sighed. "You are actually going to make me ask it?"
"It is part of the process, isn't it?" she replied. She wasn't planning on getting asked that question ever again, so she wanted everything she had a right to during her one, single time. "I'm waiting."
Feeling the nerves slowly fading away, Jellal grinned. By now, he was starting to feel almost certain that he was not going to get a 'no' and that made the whole process a lot less tense for him. "Shall I get on one knee?" he asked, feeling a little playful.
"Hmm," she mumbled thoughtfully. Okay, maybe not everything she had a right to… "I suppose you can skip that bit," she offered. Somehow she felt like him pausing to get down on one knee would ruin the moment even though it was customary. Besides, the closeness of lying on his arms felt so nice… And certainly, he couldn't have picked a better background to make a proposal against than a sky full of shooting stars.
"Alright," he said, a hint of amusement in his tone. He brought down the arm that had been holding the chain over her head and, securing it inside his closed hand, he brushed his knuckles against her cheek to push a loose strand of her hair away from her face. She closed her eyes for a moment at the feel of his touch but the increasingly incessant thumping of her heart wouldn't allow her to revel in it for too long.
"Still waiting," she reminded him, opening her eyes to send him a look of impatience.
"Okay, okay," Jellal said, chuckling a little. "Erza Scarlet… 'just Erza'," he added in reference to the title she had identified herself with all those years ago when she hadn't had a family name to speak for… before he had given her the one that fit her so well. He saw her eyes widening in surprise and then softening fondly, nostalgically. "Will you do me the honor…" he hesitated, taking a breath "…of becoming my wife?"
She smiled a smile that could have lit up the sun in the middle of the night. "Does it need to be said?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Yes. You did make me ask with all the pump and circumstance," he pointed out. "It's only fair you answer me in the same fashion."
"Well, if that is the case…" she said, leaving the sentence unfinished.
He looked at her expectantly. "Yes?"
Her lips curled even further. "Yes. What else could it be?"
Fireworks exploded in his mind upon hearing her saying it and, without any hesitation, he dove in for a kiss. It was probably his mind tricking him but he could swear she somehow tasted sweeter, even more wonderful all of a sudden. She cupped his face with her hands and they kissed until they were out of breath. After breaking apart for a few seconds to catch their breaths, Jellal leaned down for a second round… only to be stopped by Erza pushing him back up with her right arm. "What is it?" he asked, confused.
She waved her left hand in front of his face. "Aren't you forgetting something?" she inquired.
He blinked in confusion for a few seconds before it hit him. "Oh, the ring!" he said, just then noticing he was still holding it in his hand. He pulled back into a kneeling position and used both hands to try to unlatch the silver chain it was hanging from, which proved to be a complicated task due to the lack of artificial lighting.
Erza chuckled in amusement at his fumbling. "Did you just get that chain so you could tease me with the ring?"
"No," he replied while trying to undo the little clasp. "I got it because…" he stopped himself before he could finish that thought. Certainly, it wouldn't be a good idea for him to tell her that he had gotten the chain just the day before because it had occurred to him that, due to her pregnancy, the ring might cease to fit her finger very soon, as she expanded along with the baby. No, definitely not good to allude to her future… growth, which she'd been very sensitive to lately. Thankfully, though, it wasn't hard to find another reason for Erza to find it more practical to keep the ring around her neck rather than her hand. "… because I thought it might be impractical to keep it on your finger while in a battle setting." Phew. Good save. Cheers for the bad liar who managed to squeeze out a tiny, partial lie successfully out of his month. Just then, he finally managed to undo the chain and slip the ring out of it. "Ah, got it. May I?" he asked, getting a hold of her hand, intending to slip the ring onto her finger.
She nodded, her lips tilting upwards, and he did it. It fit perfectly and, once she saw it in place, she felt like it had been there all her life, as if a part of her. It was girly but not too obviously so; pretty but not fussy; eye-catching (mostly due to the color) but not bulky. It reminded her of herself in a way…
"Perfect," Jellal whispered, bringing her hand up to his lips and kissing it before leaning back down to do the same to her lips. "May I now kiss the future bride?"
She blushed a little and was thankful that the night's darkness didn't give her reddening cheeks too blatantly away. "I suppose…"
He smiled and leaned down, placing a soft, sweet kiss right on her lips. It felt like they had just sealed something. As if, from then on, walking down the aisle would just be a formality because the promise of forever had already been made and neither of them intended to go back on it.
Once he pulled back, looking at her from above, he seemed a little concerned. "You do know I didn't just ask because of the baby, right?" he felt the need to ask.
He sounded so embarrassed by the possibility that it made her want to giggle. "I know."
"I've wanted to do it for a long time," he went on. "I've had the ring for months too…"
"I know," she repeated.
"I mean it! I have a receipt to prove it and everyth…" He was interrupted when she impatiently pulled him down by the collar of his shirt and crashed her lips onto his, quieting him down.
Didn't the idiot know the meaning of 'I know'? Of course she knew he wasn't just asking her to marry him because of the baby. His deeply ingrained sense of chivalry might have left her somewhat in doubt, weren't it for the fact that she had stumbled into the ring months before, hidden in the pocket of his old, beaten coat from his Crime Sorcière days (a piece of clothing that she might or might not wear on occasion when he went on particularly long missions because she missed him and his smell was so deeply ingrained into it). After spending about half an hour staring at the ring box and debating on whether or not she should shove onto Jellal's hands and make him propose the moment he arrived from the mission, she'd decided, in a rare moment of self-control, that she should let him take his time because, after all, she had taken the initiative in many of the milestones in their relationship and he had a right to have his turn. Though having to patiently wait (so very much against her nature) had felt like having her teeth pulled at times, it was clearly worth it for that memorable moment under the stars.
When their lips had separated again and he just lay there atop her. Any and all thoughts of wanting to prove things that didn't need to be proven seemed to have vanished.
"Jellal?" Erza said.
"Yes?"
"You're not particularly light, so you might want to get off me unless you want your child to be born looking rather flat," she pointed out.
"Oh, right," he mumbled before rolling off her, back to her side. As he lay sideways propped up his elbow, his free hand reached tentatively to rest on her midriff, feeling that tiny bulge that could almost pass as the result of a large meal under her abdominal muscles. Ever since she had developed the bump, little gave him more joy than to touch it, speak to it. "Sorry, baby," he said to his child. "You're still so little I almost forgot you're supposed to be in there."
"Not little enough that it will let me fit into my wedding dress," Erza pointed out with a pout. "I guess the wedding will have to wait until after he or she comes out and I can get back into shape."
"You're not out of shape," Jellal assured her. "And I thought they made wedding dresses of all sizes including maternity ones."
"They do but I'm not about to buy another wedding dress," she pointed out.
His eyes widened. "You already own one?! When exactly did you buy it?"
She looked away, blushing. Damn it, she'd said too much. He'd think she was crazy for buying a wedding dress on impulse long before they had even got together. "That's irrelevant. The point is that it would be a shame not to wear it after I had so much work getting the blood stains off it," she commented.
His eyes widened. "Blood stains?!"
"Oh, don't worry. It wasn't my blood."
Although that appeased him a little, she was still missing the point. What on Earthland was had she been doing while wearing a wedding dress that would get it showered with blood?
"You don't mind waiting a little, do you?" she asked, unsure.
He shook his head. "We've waited ages for each other already – a few more months won't make a difference… especially when we're bound to be busy in the meantime," he added, his fingers still brushing her growing bump. Suddenly, his face brightened. "And I guess a picture of the three of us together wouldn't come amiss in the wedding album," he added before shifting his position so he lay flat on his back in an inviting sort of way.
Imagining it in her mind widened the smile already gracing her lips. She couldn't think of a more perfecting thing for their wedding day than their baby being present in it. "You have the most amazing ideas sometimes," she said, reaching to place a kiss on his lips before accepting the unspoken invitation and snuggling against his side, effectively turning him into her very own body pillow.
He chuckled. "Only sometimes," he replied, his hand stroking her long red hair. She was already falling asleep, fast as an arrow – that had been happening a lot, the baby's presence draining her energy in a way no battle would. "Good night, then," he whispered.
"'Night," she replied, burying her face deeper on his chest before mumbling something that sounded along the lines of 'wow woo'. He took it as meaning 'I love you'.
"Love you too," he replied, kissing the top of her head.
And so, on the finger attached to the hand resting on his chest, a ruby sparkled brighter and more beautiful than any star Jellal had seen, lulling him to sleep as he already counted the days for when there would be three rather than two of them watching the starry sky.
A/N2: The wedding dress I referenced is the one Erza bought on impulse during the Fairy Tail Movie and wore while defeating one of the baddies.