Hospitality

Chapter 10

It felt good to be in Magnolia once more. Truly, it did. Erza had been out of it for a week and, well, it was always nice to return.

Even nicer was it to have a home to come home to.

Her house was dark when she arrived, just as she'd left it. There was just something in the way that the door stuck slightly and she had to push against it and the scent that, though she was sure was unique to her, she could no longer smell. That was what home was.

She heated almost immediately to the kitchen, wishing to get a glass of water and relax some. Part of her was always a little disappointed when she came home from a job to find her place empty It was never that way at the dormitory, after all. But then she'd find herself liking the peace and quiet.

Especially if her last mission had been with Natsu and the others. Then she really needed that silence, if only to find her sanity once more.

That night was much the same. She had gone off on a job with the whole team, which, as always, ended in an extended adventure. Not that she was complaining. Oh, no. Though she craved solitude at times, there was nothing she enjoyed more than being around her team.

They were the best of the best, after all.

While she was in her kitchen though, she heard the distinct sound of a door opening and closing. She froze, over there by the sink, before slowly turning off the tap and turning around.

Natsu and Happy had just been with her, after all, so she knew that it could not be them. Then-

At the sound of footsteps, she took up a post by the entranceway to the kitchen, back against the wall, waiting. Just then the person walked into the room.

"Arg! Erza!"

She'd tackled him effortlessly to the ground, pinning the intruder beneath her. At the sound of the voice though, she knew exactly who it was.

"I am beginning to think," he complained as she stayed atop him, only staring down at him in shock, "that you are doing this on purpose."

"Jellal," she breathed, still only grinning down at him in the darkness. "I-"

"The last time I was here, you attacked me while I was sleeping."

"But-"

"And the time before that I was in the shower when you arrived and-"

"I just was not expecting you," she told him as she slowly pushed off and got to her feet. "Any of those times."

"You gave me a key and told me to use it as I please." He took her hand and used it to pull himself off when she offered it to him. "You even said if you were not home, to wait for you. So I have. And now you-"

"I have apologized," she complained. "What more do you want?"

"You didn't apologize!"

"You never gave me a chance!"

But they were both grinning, regardless of their tones and just as quickly as she had helped him stand, she about brought him back down again.

"I think you gave me a concussion," he complained after she moved to hug him. He fell for it like always though, ending up with his head slammed against her armor. "Again."

She only grinned though. "How long have you been here?"

"I only arrived this afternoon and was planning on just staying the evening when I found you gone. Good timing, I suppose." He was still rubbing at his head though. "You were out on a job, I take it?"

"With Natsu, Lucy, and Gray."

"And Happy."

She nodded. "Of course."

Dropping his hand then, he looked her over. "And I suppose you are returning victorious?"

That got him a look. Instead of retorting, she only headed back over to the sink for that glass of water.

"Is Meredy here as well?" she asked.

"No," he sighed, coming over. "She went down to the guildhall. I do not know if she plans on returning here or not."

"Then you can tell me alone of what you have done," she said slowly, glancing at him. "Since I saw you last."

It was always awkward at first, when they were around one another again. Since that first horrible drunken mistake, they'd made a shaky arrangement that had served to keep them together for the past six months. He would come and visit her whenever possible and, when he did, they tried their hardest to date.

It wasn't easy.

Neither very too well versed in relationships to begin with and, honestly, the idea of being together, though very enticing, also scared each for different reasons. He always seemed to be convinced that she was still harboring ill will against him for his past actions while she never rightly believed that he would stay interested in her. And even when they got passed all of that, they had her guild members to deal with.

Mirajane had to have teased her about it, oh, over a thousand times. And Lucy, Lisanna, and Levy were annoying about the whole thing too, constantly asking her about him. Natsu and Happy just appeared to be concerned that if he was around, they weren't allowed to crash with her, which she assured them was not the case.

"Yeah, but," Natsu said as Happy snickered from behind him, "then we might have to hear you guys having sex or something."

Which ended with him getting a swift knock to the head as she only blushed and Happy ran for cover.

"No man gets left behind, Hap," Natsu growled.

"Those rules don't apply when Erza's involved!"

And Meredy wasn't any better. She didn't bother Erza much, but whenever they came into Magnolia, she would immediately begin bugging him about it, taking jabs left and right.

Of course, those times were rare. And in those six months, they'd only seen each other a total of four times. And the first was so completely awkward that it hardy counted, the second was much of the same, but by the third, they both seemed to come around to the idea.

And now, apparently, he just walked around her house like he owned it.

Not that Erza hated that.

They found themselves that particular night in the living room, after she put a pot of water on for the tea and found a snack. He wanted to hear about her latest job first, but she deferred.

"I'd much rather hear about you."

"Erza Scarlet not wishing to talk about her accomplishments? I'm shocked."

"Please," she retorted with an eye roll. "It's more ground breaking that you have yet to brag of yours."

He only smiled at that, looking rather ragged in that moment. She figured he had been napping when she arrived.

They must have talked for an hour or two, a feat that was becoming the norm for them. So much went on in their lives while they were apart that they usually found themselves spending half of their time together just retelling events.

It was late though and, after about the fifth time she caught him stifling a yawn, she decreed that it was time for them to retire.

"If you are tired," he mocked as he got to his feet, pushing up from the couch slowly. "It is your house, after all."

"If I am tired?" she repeated, scoffing. "I was more than prepared to have an evening workout."

"Ah, yes, well, that would only ruin the great night we have ahead of us."

When he caught the way her cheeks darkened at his remark, he almost tried to backtrack. But given the look in her eyes, he figured it was a good blush and left it be.

"I see you did some reading," Erza remarked when they made it to her bedroom, him immediately going to grab the discarded novel from the bed, where he'd left it. "Anything interest?"

It was his turn for a blush, though he only nodded his head slightly, returning it to the bookcase.

"I have found that most of it is," he said as he quickly crossed back over to her, laying a hand softly on her shoulder, the armor feeling cool to the touch. Erza only stared at him though, waiting for him to speak.

"You know," Jellal said slowly as he only grinned at her, if only slightly. "You do not always have to reequip."

Raising an eyebrow, she waited for more. "Oh?"

He nodded, bowing his head as his voice hardly a whisper. "I hear disrobing is half the fun."

"You hear?"

"I read," he corrected, making her grin. He liked that. Making her grin. He unhurriedly moved his hand from her shoulder, instead wrapping his arm around her and pulling her closer. Allowing this, she took to resting her head against his chest.

"You haven't showered," she remarked softly. He only frowned.

"You're not too fresh here either."

"Mmmm. Don't make me give you a real concussion."

"You have quite the mouth for a queen, Titania."

"Would you rather I just have you beheaded?"

He only hugged her tighter then. "No. I definitely wouldn't."

Jellal was restless for most of the night. He was tired, sure, and he was content, fine, but he just couldn't fall asleep. Erza had no problem with it, but he just…

He didn't know where they were going in the morning. Usually he and Meredy already had a destination in mind the second they finished one job, but that time, nothing had seemed to pop up. She'd gone down to Fairy Tail though, so he was sort of hoping that someone there had given her information.

It was doubtful though, as if he knew Fairy Tail members like he thought he did, the second they got a whiff of adventure, they'd snag it for themselves.

Maybe, he thought at one point, we just won't go anywhere.

Which was a bad thought to have. He would never find a dark guild if he didn't go hunt one out. And he'd taken too much time off in the past few months for Erza as it was. But he just couldn't…

He liked it too much. All of it. Just being around her. And for so long he had kept her forbidden, all of her. He thought that restricted access would be enough after that, but all he found himself doing was craving more. He found himself toying with the idea of unrestricting her all together. Of maybe…staying.

It wasn't like he didn't know though that that was completely out of the question. He was still atoning for many, many things. And just because Erza found it in her heart to let him in, it didn't mean that his hands were still stained, a blot that only eternity would was away.

"You can't do this forever," Meredy would tell him at times.

"I can," he assured her. "And I will. You, however, can't."

"I'll never leave you, Jellal," she laughed. For some reason though, that didn't make him feel any better. About anything.

Eventually, he wanted Meredy to find true happiness. It was out there for her. She wasn't completely guilty. Not in his mind. Not of the atrocities that he was. She could be normal. Really, she could. And she should.

He heard her at some point that night enter the house, quietly. She only went to the guest bedroom, trying to not wake them. Erza though was the most alert person he knew.

"At least she's home," she mumbled to him as she laid with her back to his side of the bed. "It was getting late."

"Thought you were asleep?"

"I was."

He grinned, glancing over at her. "You have the hearing of a mouse."

"Is that a compliment?"

"Is it not? I assume that mice have great hearing."

"They have a good sense of smell and great stealth abilities, but-"

"Just let me have this one."

She rolled over slowly, staring at him with bleary eyes. "What time are you leaving in the morning?"

"Go back to sleep," he sighed as he shut his own eyes. "I don't know yet."

"You are quite lazy now," she agreed. "You'll probably lay around in bed for a few hours, like a sloth."

"I'm not rising to the bait, Erza."

"I do not know what you are talking about."

"Of course not." He yawned slightly. "I can't sleep."

"Reading always helps put me to sleep."

"As shocking as this might be, Erza," he said, "your books do anything, but lull me off."

"I do not only own erotica," she told him with a frown, as if offended. He'd have rolled his eyes, had they been opened.

"But mostly," he sighed. "And books on things such as acupuncture. Or, in other words, books that teach you how to torture me."

"I do own a detailed book on medieval torture methods," she told him as she drifted off once more.

"Do you know?"

"Only to read the descriptions of the different weaponry."

"I might have believed that," he said, "before you tried to paralyze me."

"You do something one time," she complained as he only grinned.

She was curled lower on the bed than him and her head was only a few inches from his chest. When she would breathe out, he could feel her breath against his flesh. It was…comforting.

Without even thinking about it, he fell asleep. Huh.

It only lasted a few hours though. As promptly at her usual hour, Erza was up and leaving the room. She'd tried to do so without waking him, but not used to guests, had shut her bedroom door a tad loudly on her way out.

He shot up and rushed to catch her, not calling out, as he was fearful of waking Meredy.

"You can come," she sighed as, after hurriedly dressing, he managed to find her doing stretches on the front porch. "But do not hold me back."

He could never quite get over how dedicated Erza was to her workout regimen. She was a machine. Even at the end of it, she did not seem the least bit tired. Or at least she didn't let it show.

And when Meredy asked once they arrived back home, he'd let her win the race back.

"So she could have the shower first," he explained as he stood, drenched in sweat in the kitchen, waiting for his turn. "It's only courteous, after all."

"Uh-huh." Meredy only grinned from where she was seated at the kitchen table, already having got up and made herself breakfast. "Or you just got your butt kicked by your girlfriend."

Erza didn't call herself that and he never referred to her as that, but hearing someone else says so felt…nice.

"Maybe," he sighed as he went to claim a chair at the table. "But don't let her know that."

"I think she already does." She grinned at him. "So when are we taking off? After your shower?"

He raised his head slightly. "Maybe tomorrow will be better."

"Oh?"

"Aye. Erza will brag endlessly next time we around near that I was not brave enough to stick around for all three training sessions."

"Is that your excuse?"

"We do not even know where to head next," he told her. "So what would be the point of heading out with no destination?"

"Then how long do you plan on staying here?"

"Just as I said," he replied. "Tonight. And then, if you have not picked up any leads from the guildhall or around town, we can just visit neighboring areas in hopes of picking something up."

Meredy only bit into a piece of toast before saying, "Or you could admit that we're staying at least three days and we could both go on with life."

Or that.

Erza did not take long in the shower and, after his, she started on their own breakfast.

"I always feel odd," he admitted to her after Meredy had headed down to the guild to see if Juvia or someone equally as fun was around.

"About what?" Erza glanced over at him from the counter, where she was scrambling eggs in a bowl. "Being here?"

"Watching you cook," he corrected. "As if I am imposing."

"You are a guest," she said with a shrug, going back to what she was doing. "It would be impolite of me to ask you to help. Unhospitable."

"I-"

"Inhospitable," they both heard then from the basement doorway. Erza frowned when she found Natsu standing there. "I finally got one. You said it wrong. I was right. You-"

"When did you-"

"While you guys were out training," he said. "I tried to go to my room, but you apparently have been letting Meredy sleep in there. How long has this been going on, huh?"

"Since the beginning," Jellal said as Erza only rolled her eyes.

"I thought I told you to stay out of my armor?" she said, tone a tad harsh.

"You told me not to mess up your armor," he corrected. "I was just testing out weapons."

"You-"

"A sword would suit you fine, I would think," Jellal remarked, just to get under Erza's skin.

It worked.

"Don't encourage-"

"I agree," Natsu said. "But then I would need one of those belt thingies. And how would I incorporate it?"

"You have quite the vocabulary today, Natsu," Jellal said. "Incorporate, inhospitable-"

"I did have the best of teachers, eh, Erza?"

She only frowned at him. "Why are you here? When I left you, Lucy, and Happy at the train station, you were all-"

"The two of them formed a cop and kicked me out of the apartment!"

"A co… A coup." Jellal shook his head. "Never mind. Your vocabulary is back to normal levels."

"What did you do?" Erza hadn't let him off punishment just yet. "Natsu?"

"Nothing!"

"Natsu-"

"I got hungry in the middle of the night, you know, when my stomach stopped being queasy?" He went to claim a seat at the table with a shrug. "And I mighta eaten some rotten meat in the back of Lucy's little fridge, see? And it kinda sorta gave me an upset stomach. They said that I stank! And told me to get out!"

"So you came here?" Erza rolled her eyes before going back to making breakfast. "Why did you not go to your own home?"

"I thought about it, but your place is closer. And I figured you'd be missing me, you know, after getting to spend the whole week together. Didn't know that you and Meredy were back in town, Jellal."

"Only for the day."

"You told Meredy three though," the fire mage argued. Erza glanced back at him then.

"You eavesdrop now?" she asked.

"They talk loudly."

"Yes, well," Jellal slowly said before glancing at Erza. "How does three days sound?"

That only got a shrug as her mind drifted to the damage that Natsu could have done to her costumes and armor.

"If you damaged anything-"

"How could I?" he asked. "All your stuff is, like, practically indestructible! That's how you know that it belongs to you. Nothing short of an apocalypse could destroy it."

Jellal nodded his head in agreement. "He makes a good point."

Though he was not weary of him any longer, it did make Natsu wonder at times why Jellal was always so nice to him. In the few times that they had run into one another since he and Erza had begun dating, he'd always been kind. Not in a condescending way either.

"I think he admires my power," Natsu bragged to Lucy once when he brought it up to her. "Fears going up against me again."

She'd only rolled her eyes. "You're one of Erza's closest friends, Natsu. Of course he's going to try and be a buddy to you. It'll only help him with her."

"Oh." He had been flexing, but dropped his arms then. "Like how you pretend to like Happy?"

"Exactly."

"Hey," the Exceed complained then, though the two mages only giggled.

In that moment though, Natsu was just glad to have the backup. And really, he hadn't destroyed anything of Erza's anyhow, so he didn't know what she was so worried about.

…Oh yeah. Probably the fact that he could hardly even go down to the guildhall without trashing the place.

Maybe she had a good reason to be concerned.

Nah.

"Hey, so are you making me something to eat too?" Natsu looked at Erza with pleading eyes.

"I thought you said that your stomach-"

"It's all better now," he insisted. "Just need something to fill it right back up with."

"Fine," she sighed. "But you go back to Lucy's right after."

He got his fill though before that happened. And Jellal could tell that Erza was a little put out, but he only grinned at her.

"Wouldn't want to be inhospitable," he mocked, "would you?"

"Careful," Natsu warned him. "She'll send you to Lucy's too."

After Natsu left, it was just them again, the afternoon fast approaching, which only meant one thing to him.

Another workout.

Wishing to put that out of his mind for as long as possible, he was glad to find that Erza, having just returned from a mission, had plenty of armor for them to polish and clean.

"So are we going to go out tonight?" he asked at one point as they sat on her living room floor, armor strewn around, each with a rag. "To dinner?"

"If you wish," she said, not glancing up at him. "But do not think that it shall get you out of working out in the evening."

"Never." When she felt his eyes, she had to look up, just in time to catch his wink. "I'll just get a glass of wine in you, huh, and-"

"Never again."

"You say that," he sighed. "But I have to admit, you were quite amusing when you were intoxicated."

"Yes, well, I suppose that is my one weakness."

"One?" He grinned. "You only have one?"

"Name another."

"No thanks," he said, shaking his head before he dropped his eyes once more. "I know how that game goes."

Erza only rolled her eyes before getting back to the dagger in her hand, rubbing her cloth gently across the blade.

"Will you end it tonight then?"

"Hmmm?" He looked at her, but that time she refused to meet his eyes.

"The date," she said. "How many days now has it been, then, since we started it?"

"Too many," he sighed. "I think, Erza, that we can call it now. It only gets sillier."

"Fine," she said, shrugging. "Succumb then to the curse of the third date."

"If we were honest with our math, this would be far more than the third," he said.

"When are we honest with anything?"

He only shook his head at her. "It doesn't matter, just so you know, if it was our thousandth date. You were all I wanted for so long and now I have you. Every odd, quirky thing about you. And I know that you have me."

It was another one of the good ones, her blush then, that only made him smile in return.

"Of course," he said slowly. "I could, at times, do without constantly having to clean all of this armor, but I suppose at this point, that you and all of your things are a packaged deal."

"Well," she said slowly. "Apparently I am donating a sword to a very needy mage."

"Natsu needs many things," Jellal said with a shake of his head. "But a sword is not one of them."

"For some reason, I could foresee it causing him more damage than anyone else."

"Probably."

There was a minute or two in there when they both reached an comfortable silence, where he found himself giving thanks that gauche was no longer something to describe their moments together.

"Hey, Jellal?"

It was her that broke it that time as he only glanced up at her.

"Maybe…maybe you don't wait so long next time, alright?" She was staring at him. "Between visits?"

His eyes went back to the weapon in his hand. "I'll try my best, Erza. But you know-"

"Because," she began again, not allowing him to finish. "It seems that every time you show back up, you are severely lacking in the athletic department."

That got a blink out of him.

"Oh?"

She nodded. "I am sorry to say so, but yes."

"Well," he said slowly. "If I write off these visits as training ventures, then I suppose I could squeeze more frequent ones in."

"And perhaps even Meredy could workout with us," Erza said. "I am sure she'll enjoy it. In fact-"

"Erza?"

"Hmmm?"

"Quit while you're ahead."

From that point forth, the workouts became something that he looked forward to, if only because he knew that they were what kept him from admitting that he was breaking one of his vows. That he was giving more of his life to pleasure than he was to punishment.

Because those workouts were plenty painful, he hated to admit. Especially when stacked together.

They practically washed away the fact that he knew every night he was there, in Magnolia, suffering through them, that he'd get to go home to the hospitality of Erza Scarlet and her many, many erotic novels.

Practically.

I know that this was way late, but I just fell out of the habit of writing for this story. Sorry. But that's the end of it, anyhow. I don't know when I'll be doing another Jellal/Erza fic, but it's definitely not off the table.

And anyone waiting for a Parenthood update tonight, it's just not happening. I mismanaged time and only had time to update one thing tonight, so I figured I'd make it this. Sorry.