Okay, so, I've started writing a bunch of Jerza drabbles. Should I start posting them?
This one's a little longer than the others x) The other chapters are about this length, too :)
Went away for a night, and somehow got addicted to this iPhone game called DragonVale. I'm such a joke.
NOTEWORTHY
"What... What's..."
But that's as far as he gets before Milliana pounces on him, pushing him to the ground and ignoring the flailing of his limbs to plant a big kiss right there on his lips. She draws back before he can, leaving him utterly stunned, and chirps, "Jellal! You made it after all, nya!"
He sits up, but she's still on his lap. He hasn't seen her in person – hasn't spoken to her in eight years, and he forgets how much he misses her face and her hair and her ears and her whiskers, this deceptively innocent, jovial girl, who has seen and survived and understood more than most have in a lifetime. Milliana, the one whose magic manifested into chains and twine so that she may never be bound again. Milliana, the only one who had never been afraid of him. Even now, she plays with his hair, pinches his cheek. They're adults, now, they should have grown out of this. He walks with the dark, now, and he shouldn't be happy receiving affection. He doesn't deserve-
Wally's face comes into vision. He cocks his head, block jaw cocking, saluting with two rectangular prisms, fingers.
"You're late," he says softly, accusatory. "That's not dandy at all."
Jellal scraggles for a foothold, pushing Milliana gently aside. He's only just become aware that there are a lot of other people around – more than just those who were his good friends. He gets to his feet, spinning this way, then that, wearing a cloak and boots and gloves and a cape in the sand and the night with the fire. He spins and he looks at who is around him, and most faces aren't friendly. Angel marches straight up to him, and pokes him in the chest.
"Late!" she snaps.
He notices Cobra follows behind her, smirking as she tells him off. She stomps on Jellal's toes, threatens him, scolds him, yells and rages about what they've done, how they've talked and put things behind them, worked through the dark tunnel and could finally see the end; and anyway - how could any summons from any girl ever not have right of way over whatever he was doing - and what has he been doing, anyway? "What is it that was so important you didn't answer her call?"
For a minute Jellal wonders whether he could take the remaining members of the Oracion Seis, plus Milliana, Wally, and Shou – wherever he was – in a fight. It's his island, after all. The collapse of the R-system and his subsequent merge within the Etherion-fired crystals made this place almost a part of him. It responds to his breath, his thoughts, his every movement. Everything that tingled with nervous energy now shakes with arcane residue. He can scarcely breathe. Angel pokes him again, but he's finally caught sight of Erza, her long legs peeking out from under a white and blue kaftan, bikini visible beneath the thin fabric. Her hair is long and so, so beautiful and she's tangled up in Shou – the boy – but not. The twenty-two year old. Closer to her age than anyone else here.
Angel pokes him again, but Erza's eyes are on him. He hears himself croak a response, and doesn't know he's said, "Fear."
There's a hand on his waist all a sudden, rings on fingers he feels through his clothes. Masculine hands. Midnight, who pushes Angel away and coos about nightmares, licking his black lips. Jellal regards him warily, completely on edge. But he loses himself in black eyes so that he doesn't have to push himself to read into Erza's expression – the narrowed eyes and set mouth, glazed with drink and mischief. Midnight pushes a drink into his hand and steps away. Most of them form a circle around him - a ring of old friends, victims and burning torches. Only the moon above bears witness to this strange reunion.
"Welcome home, Jellal," Midnight sneers, and everyone echoes the sentiment. Everyone downs the drinks they hold.
When he doesn't do the same they stare until he does. It's strong – hardly mixed. He feels his brain tingle and blinks. Stay in control, he thinks, but it's so tempting not to. He knows he shouldn't, but he wants to let go.
And almost as soon as he thinks that, someone crashes in to him – who knows who – and he's in the bottom of a massive pile of adults, now once again children, and they let go, uninhibited with drink, free, now, in this one place they never were. Midnight does something to him – forces something into his mouth. He swallows, and everything starts to blur.
x
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x
Jellal arrived too late for them to speak.
Erza is already far too drunk, and the feelings part of the day is over with. She dances with Milliana, Shou, Racer and Angel around a camp torch, singing parts of a song they all used to sing together. She's holding Racer's hand, and it's big and strong, is all she thinks. She meets his eye and he smiles, and she can feel her cheeks hurt with how hard she's smiling back. She'd been scared to host this – to call them all back. She'd been scared, but she refused to wear armour. She carries the spirit of camaraderie – of Fairy Tail – with her. Fairies can make friends anywhere.
She's glad Jellal's come. She's happy beyond words. But she won't go to him him because she knows he wants to stay away. He might approach her later, if she's lucky, and she decides it's best to wait for that.
Her head is clearing, though they're on the ground now, Milliana having stumbled and taken them down like a ring of dominos. She blinks and suddenly she's far away from there, with Midnight, who pours her another drink. They're watching the black sea and their shoulders are touching, his arm around her waist. She hears Jellal howl about... something, and her new companion laughs.
"I slipped him something... to lighten the mood," he tells her, leaning over to kiss the side of her mouth between words. "You can get your man tonight, Erza Scarlet. It's been fifteen years. Don't wait any longer." She feels herself responding to him, moving in to his touches, hand up her kaftan, nails trailing soft against her belly. "I've seen the children in your guild. None of them would satisfy you, would they? You've never done things like this before."
Erza sees a thought go by. She should defend them – her friends – the men that Natsu and Gray have become, strapping and determined and true. But tonight all that matters is the island, and these people, her childhood and her past. What she was and what she is, so she stays quiet.
She feels she knows the others like she's never known anyone. Gray's parents are dead – Lucy's now, too. Natsu's ran away. But she has no old memories of familial love and smiles. She has chains, pain, hunger and slavery, and the clear green eyes of a boy she lost to darkness.
"Will you kiss me?" she asks when he comes close again. She slides a hand up, under his shirt, brave under the influence, frustrated, twenty and beautiful and frustrated. She repeats herself when he holds back. "Midnight? Will you kiss me?"
She sees him smirk.
"That's not my real name."
He seems so calm, controlled. How much has he had to drink? He seems to lurk in the shadows, dangerous, but she believes he's her friend. He came when she called, and he splashed her in the waves, playing in the ocean where slavers used to use the salt against their wounds. He's okay, she thinks. He's strange, but he's okay. They're all strange. They're all twisted little freaks, really. Even she, who pretends to be normal.
Erza tries to be sensible, to care whether kissing him will be a bad idea or not. But all she really knows is that he's like her, that he's handsome – alternatively handsome but handsome – and he's over her, and she wants to express things that she can't say in words – things that are too ridiculous. She scratches the skin on his stomach, and he answers with a grunt, approving the pain. He pins her against the sand as it gets in her hair.
"I'll kiss you, Erza Scarlet," he whispers, and he does.
x
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x
Wally feeds Jellal drinks, because he misses Jellal, and he loves Jellal like they all do, despite the things he's done. It's strange to be with him again.
This Jellal smiles, and he laughs, and then looks like he's about to cry, and he needs a friend and doesn't have one – not a proper one. He's kneeling in a pool of vomit, now, though, over the lid of a coolbox full of never-melt ice and spirits – dear fuck, so many spirits yet to drink – and he's talking at a hundred words a second, and Wally's drunk too, and instead of bothering to keep up anymore he just nods and rubs his back. Jellal cries into his gloves and swears, then sits up, reels and falls backwards. Wally follows, because Wally is a good friend.
"I kissed her. I kissed her, I kissed her, I kissed her. I kissed her and I said I was getting MARRIED, Wally."
"I know."
"No, you don't know. I kissed her but said I was MARRIED, and then suddenly Ultear and Meredy said that I was a jerk and do you think she knows I'm not because Ultear does, and they said I was a bad liar, and we fell down the cliff and I was so – I just wanted right there to forget – time – and SEVEN YEARS, Wally -"
He continues on like that, babbling, and Wally sips at his dandy drink – which is mostly just a lot of spirits in a hip martini glass. He tunes out, then in again as Jellal speaks to the sky, babbling like a loon. Wally's had a few of Midnight's potency pills in the last few hours, and he doesn't know if he'll be any sort of help to Jellal the way he is now and- ...dear dandy fuck is that Shou on top of him now?
IT IS.
"SPEAK. SPEAK!" Shou shouts, and he slaps Jellal's face, straddling his hips in a way that is completely ridiculous and also mildly traumatic. "Why did you hurt Nee-san and why were you LATE and why haven't you KISSED HER YET I KISSED HER, YOU -"
"I kissed her FIRST!" Jellal shouts back, sitting up, before realising what a bad idea that was. He comes crashing back to the sand with his lap-passenger following so hard they smash their foreheads together. Jellal grabs for Shou's shirt, but the boy isn't wearing one, so he grabs his shoulders and shakes instead. "BEST DAY OF MY LIFE. BEST DAY OF MY FUCKING LIFE. BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!" and over the top of him Shou just shouts, "WHAT KIND OF MAN ARE YOU?"
He only leaves when the constant shaking motion makes Jellal throw up, vomit running all down his chin and soaking in to the high neckline of his undershirt. Shou makes a sound of disgust and gets off him, leaving the ex-saint to curl on his side and heave more on to the sand. It gets in his hair and on his hands, because he's too wasted to be able to move them. The man himself laughs, thinks it's hilarious. Wally drags him to his feet, and takes him to the water.
"WHERE," he shouts into Jellal's face, because it seems like he's going to pass out. "WHERE ON EARTHLAND IS YOUR DANDINESS, JELLAL?"
NOTEWORTHY
Watched Scream 1 and 2 last night. I really enjoyed them! The second one made me really miss being a drama student. Weird motivation? Oh well.
Lady Ashen! Good to see you again!