XXVI: Jellal

Once Mira had swished past him, Erza slid off the bar and climbed onto the stage. She spent some time wandering around with a tequila bottle in hand, looking at gear and checking cords were properly secured, pretending that she didn't know Jellal was there, watching her.

Her dress was the same colour of bruises, tight and small in every way. Her breasts were precariously perched and her legs were bare of everything but fishnet stockings. He could see the thick hem at the top where they clung to her thighs every time she took a step. She was Jessica Rabbit's incarnation and he felt like the stupid detective watching her.

He came to rest at the edge of the stage, where Tante Alba's dais had been once upon a time. She was gone, though, and Erza had taken over completely, a rosebush in what had once been a garden of hemlock, both dangerous but in their own ways.

She turned and looked down upon him. She didn't try to act surprised or apologetic for making him wait. She came over and crouched down, unashamed, taking him by the lapel of his winter coat, and kissing him by way of hello, something she very rarely did. Her tongue dripped tequila. The bottle pressed into his neck, warmer than his skin after he'd sat in the parking lot for so long, watching Laxus wait for Mira to return, watching the quiet street, watching Purgatory's fluorescent lights zip around a tube shaped like a margarita glass. Watching the Girls! Girls! Girls! sign light up, and beneath that, Boys! Boys! Boys! And below that, was a small printed sign that said Registered Brothel, and had all of Purgatory's information.

His head had been spinning out there and that hadn't stopped much after Laxus peeled out of the parking lot without saying anything to him and he realized that he had to go in.

"Thanks for coming."

"I always want to see you."

He worried he'd pushed too far but Erza expelled her breath and said, "Come up here."

"On stage."

"It's for boys, too," she winked.

He felt suddenly nervous. "Erza—"

She laughed. "Get up here."

How could he honestly say no?

She waited until he was standing equal with her and then she peeled his coat back from his shoulders. It flopped on the ground and stayed there, a dark beige puddle. Her fingers slid from the hollow in his throat to the centre of his chest. "I thought you wanted to talk?" That's how she made it sound on the phone, anyway.

"There's time for that after. I've been thinking about you."

Five simple words worked down through his chest and into his belly and then into the head of his cock. "About?"

"You'll understand better if I show you."

"Please."

Her lips were dark, dark red lifting into a smile, her fingers were mischievous moving over the buttons of his shirt, leaving each undone in their wake. When his chest and his stomach were exposed, she started at the top again and touched his skin, sliding all the way down to the button of his pants. She opened those with a practiced flick of her fingers and peeled them back so he was almost exposed but not quite.

"Do you want some?" She shook the bottle in front of her to emphasize her meaning.

"I could."

Erza commanded, "Get on your knees."

Jellal felt his nervousness fade and dropped down. This was her favourite way to have him, dishevelled and hanging on her every movement. She was buzzed, maybe even drunk, she was smiley and dangerous.

She rested her foot on his shoulder and took off one stocking. Jellal helped her when she got it down around her knee. He tried to throw the fabric aside. Erza took it and used it as leverage, wrapping it around his neck and pulling him in with one hand. Her foot came up and rested against his lips. She dumped tequila down her leg then. Most of it when everywhere, all down Jellal's front, his arms, his back, all over the stage, but some ended where it was supposed to.

Once he'd swallowed, Erza pushed him back and did it again. More ended up down his throat. He thought he shouldn't like it but he was addicted to the expression Erza wore. She looked powerful and mean and ready to do it all over again. He let her but once he'd finished swallowing, he kissed up the side of her ankle to her calve. "This is why you called me here?"

"It's been a hard few days."

That he could attest to. He put his mouth to her knee and then her thigh, guiding her leg over his shoulder. Erza let him find the small panties she wore under her skirt and let him push those aside, too. It was the most control she'd willingly given him all at once and though he was suspicious, he was eager to prove to her that this wasn't so bad, they could have a give and take relationship without one party suffering.

She was wet and soft and exhaled with his tongue against her. She'd never expressly told him what she enjoyed from her lovers, he suspected it was because it made their arrangement seem more permanent if she was telling him how she liked to be pleasured, but he'd watched and he'd learned. It took time and it took effort but every moment was worth it when she came.

She looked proud afterwards, like she'd accomplished something grand rather than been totally satisfied by him. It was her scheming face, he thought. It was disconcerting when Erza donned that. He was wary but not enough to stop and ask what she was grinning so meanly about.

She drank tequila for herself and lowered down into his lap. This seemed to be her favourite way to enjoy herself, on top and in control, hands on her hips to guide her but never at the mercy of a man. Jellal gave up his control, he hadn't much use of it today.

It was late when Erza finally lifted her head off Jellal's chest and started to rise. Her hair had lost its coiled ringlets and was now scattered across her shoulders. She pushed it back impatiently and fixed her corset, stuffing her breasts back in through the top. They spilled out even more now, he could almost see where they got a dark shade of pink.

"Is Purgatory through now?"

"Why would you ask that?"

He looked around the empty stage. Erza explained, "I transferred ownership to Mira this evening. We're having an Under New Management opening in two days. It's closed to the public for now."

"Mira's Purgatory's new Tante?"

She inclined her head.

"Why?" She risked her mother's wrath going behind her back and hiring Mira, she risked their relationship, too, reopening Tante Alba's club with a new name and a new face, and he knew it was important to her, regardless of what she said or how she avoided it. She risked his never speaking to her again only to give it all up just as soon as she could.

"I never wanted to be my mother's heir. I wanted to do my own thing. So, now that she's in prison, I gave Mira the club and I've set aside some time for my own endeavours. I'll be around if she needs me but as far as the public will be concerned, Purgatory is hers."

And she was following directly in Tante Eileen's footsteps. He wasn't brave enough to tell her so.

She stood and fixed her remaining stocking. "Purgatory is actually what I wanted to talk to you about."

"What about it?"

"There's still a place here for you."

"Hm?"

"I'm looking for an enforcer with Gildarts in prison. I still want you."

"That's what the sex and tequila were about? You were trying to soften me to the idea?" She didn't try to look innocent. He determined she was serious. "I'm a cop, Erza."

"You're a suspended cop with a history working in brothels."

"I was a kid with no family and nowhere to go."

"And now you're an adult almost in the exact same position. That can change, though." She geared herself up for what she said next, Jellal watched it happen. "I want you to be mine—like Gildarts was my mother's."

Jellal determined all of the things that that could mean. Her killer, her lover, her confidante. "Do you know what you're asking me to do?" he said after an extended silence. Because he wanted her to explain it to him so there was no room for supposition.

"I'm asking you to help me. I need you. You were built for this work."

Built for it. Magnolia's darkest corners were his well before the comforts of warm beds and hot meals. But Tante Alba stopped that. She'd given him love and purpose when he thought those things weren't for people like him. "Tante Alba—"

"Paid for you to be a cop but your force has shunned you. You were taken off a case and suspended until your Captain waves her hand and forgives mistakes you couldn't help making." Erza was giving no quarter. "You don't belong with those people. You belong here. With me."

Part of him wanted to agree with her, the part that was still furious with Ultear's decree. The other part that had some time to think things through felt like he could consider Ultear's choice rationally. Major Crimes had done a shitty job, though, in his opinion. They hadn't followed Gray's lead with the dealer, not to confirm the story they'd gotten out of Juvia or Brandish or Angel. They just called Eileen guilty and put her away for it.

She was. She was guilty of so much.

It didn't sit right with him, though. Everyone made mistakes, sure, but the Eileen Belserion he knew was careful. She'd been that way for years and years and had only started slipping up when Erza stepped back into her life. It didn't seem rational she'd make so many sloppy decisions all in a row and for what? What was her motive? No one asked these questions, though, and he was told if he asked, a reckoning would come upon him faster than he could blink. This case needed to be closed and Major Crimes were above reproach, apparently.

Erza brushed back the hair in front of his ear. "Does that look mean you're considering my offer?"

"I think you should know I think Major Crimes was hasty putting your mother away."

"Oh?"

"And I think you might be a bad person, Tante Erza."

She never flinched. "Tante Erza was a bad person. Erza, however, is not."

He latched onto her taciturn behaviour; some things never changed. "Did you have a confession you wanted to make?"

"Not even a little."

He looked her in the eye. "The truth always has a way of making itself known."

"Really?" she asked with a straight face and a monotone voice and touched his chest. "Because the last secret we swore to keep between us is still living there."

Sometimes, the memories of that night were so powerful, they almost crippled him. The colour red, the champagne, the hard floor beneath his knees. Waking up to a gunshot and finding his service pistol missing. The lies that came afterwards and the anxiety in the months—no, years—to follow. It had just started to ease when he'd met with Erza again and every mistake came rushing back to him.

"I can't lie anymore, Erza."

She smiled her razor's smile. The one that meant she didn't believe him. He was a wealth of lies when she was involved.

It didn't have to be that way, though. He could do the right thing.

"Did you kill those men and set your mother up?"

"What if I said yes, Jellal? What would you do?"

"I'd have to tell Ultear. The case would be reopened. Your mother's charges dropped, maybe."

"Hm." She sucked on her tooth and examined him. He felt like a bug under a microscope. He remained vigilant, though, and unwavering.

"Hm isn't an answer."

Her expression never changed. "No. It's not. Eileen Belserion committed those murders. Ask any newspaper. And almost any cop." The last was a jab at him but he wasn't biting. Erza's lips lifted. She went across the stage, bare feet padding along, and picked up a card on the ground he hadn't noticed before. When she returned, she lowered onto his lap again overtop of his softening dick and tucked the card into his hand.

Jellal lifted it. "What is this?"

"My contact to get a concealed carry permit. I imagine you'll have an easier time getting it given your professional history. He likes to take that stuff into account."

"I didn't agree but even if I did, going to him wouldn't be right. Flint Ram sells unregistered weapons. The MDP has been trying to shut him down for years."

"He's a registered arms dealer, actually, completely legal, and the one Somnium has used for years. All of her enforcers have been permitted through him and all of their guns have come from him, too. Everything's gone through the right hoops, always."

"A front. He overpays for shipments but hides it in freight fees. Everything looks on the up and up but his shipments are double what he's claimed. The extra he sells on the street."

"You sound so sure."

"He was one of my first cases when I became a detective," Jellal told her.

"And yet, he's wandering the streets, free. He must have been alright."

"I wasn't very good at my job back then."

"Your Captain would probably say you're not very good at your job now." That was delivered with a straight face. Jellal tried to pull away from her. Erza locked her legs around his body and pressed into him. Her breath was heady with the scent of alcohol and warm across his lips. "What I mean is, your talents are wasted on the police. They don't appreciate you. Not like I would." She shimmied against him. She was warm and his body was betraying him, feeling her against his cock like that. "And there are benefits to being a Purgatory enforcer."

"There are benefits to being a cop," Jellal said to escape the purr of her voice.

"Not the same kind of benefits. You'd make your own schedule here, too."

Jellal tried to stay strong. "I get good bonuses."

She kissed his neck. "I'll double them."

"The Christmas parties. They're good."

She kissed his jaw. "We have those."

"And the Secret Santa."

"I'll get you whatever you want for Christmas. That's better than a twenty-dollar stack of condoms Laxus will give you."

"That was one year."

"Five years ago and now it's been every year since. No one else wants to shop for you, you're hard to buy for."

She'd done her research.

With nowhere else to turn, Jellal leaned on the truth. "If I was an enforcer for you, tell me you wouldn't stop this."

"This?"

"Us. Seeing me."

She looked like a rabbit in the headlights. "I see lots of people."

"Not like you see me. It's different between us and if I was here all the time, you'd withdraw so things didn't get too real and pull out."

"It is different between us, and I might think about it. If it's real, though, I might not act on my most base nature."

"I'm pretty sure it's real."

She looked down and her lashes rested against her cheeks. "Me, too."

She kissed him slow and softly. He put his arms around her and she didn't stiffen much. She pressed her palms against his cheek and kissed him deeper. Very quickly, he forgot she was asking him to low-key do all of her most unsavoury work. He took her by the hips and pushed up against her. she sighed. The sigh was chased by his ringtone. She didn't make any indication that she'd heard it. Jellal tried to ignore it, too, but only got to a count of five before he was pulling away from her and searching for his coat. She was giving him a dirty look. Jellal chose not to acknowledge it.

"Captain."

"Are you available to come in?" Ultear greeted.

"When?"

"Now."

He looked up to where Erza was curling her hair, bolts of red silk, over her fingers. She watched him and in that gaze, he saw glimpses of cunning. She could say what she wanted, she wasn't as in love as he was. Some things never changed.

"Jellal?"

"Yeah. Yes. Yes, I can come in," he said.

"Good. I'll see you in a few." Ultear hung up in his ear.

Erza pulled back and stood, allowing him to rise. She watched him get dressed and fixed the collar of his shirt when it was time. Her hand slid down his arm and gripped his. She pressed Flint Ram's card into his hand and told him, "People can be more than one thing."

He thought about her words all the way to the station, and through his meeting with Ultear. He thought about it as his service pistol and badge were returned to him and he thought about it while he sat in a booth at Be Frank's, watching Jenny Realight on-screen report that Zeref Dragneel had been gunned down in his own home.

"I'm glad that's not coming our way." Laxus threw himself into the spot opposite Jellal and flagged down the bartender. She brought him a red beer without his asking. He sucked it back.

"Who's taking it?"

Laxus shrugged. "Dunno. Don't care. I want our next case to be some dickwad that didn't pay his dealer and got dropped in the canal. I want opened," he held up one hand, "And closed," he brought his other hand over and slapped them together. "I want my fucking ego back. What do you want our first case back to be?"

"Erza asked me to be Purgatory's enforcer," Jellal spat out.

Laxus paused with his beer halfway to his mouth. "Oh?"

He felt better having said it aloud. "Yeah."

"What'd you tell her?"

"Nothing yet."

"What are you going to tell her?"

"I don't know."

"What's not to know? It's yes or no."

He was being aggressive, even for Laxus, leaning forward and looking at him challengingly.

"I have to think about it."

Laxus drank most of his beer. He set the glass down, fixing the coaster unnecessarily so he was looking at the table when he said, "I don't want to train a new partner."

It was kind of nice Laxus didn't want him to go. "She said she'd match all my benefits."

"Okay, but the Christmas parties."

The MPD got wild but he thought a place like Purgatory would have some crazy Christmas parties of their own.

Laxus swallowed the last of his beer and got another. He waited until it was in his hand to say very levelly, "You're a cop, Jellal."

"I know."

"You like it."

"Yeah."

"We just had a shit case. It happens."

"I know."

"Besides, you wouldn't like being an enforcer for a place like Purgatory. You'd have to leave all your morals at the door."

"Yeah."

They drank in silence while on the TV, Jenny again went over the details of the murder at Zeref's mansion. She talked about Natsu being in jail and she talked about upheaval on the streets.

Jellal asked, "Did you get funeral arrangements figured out?"

"Saturday at the Kingsmen Funeral Home. We're just going to have an urn, we'll spread it after. Ultear wants it to be a huge thing because he was Captain for so long, have everyone come out in their monkey suits and shit. I wanted it to be quiet but Mira thinks it's a good way to honour him."

"Mm. She's right." Laxus rolled his eyes, prompting Jellal to ask, "How are things going with her?"

Laxus said, "She moved in. Temporarily. I don't know. I might ask her to stay." Jellal lifted his eyebrow. Laxus' neck got red. "It's kind of nice. The house doesn't seem so empty."

"Good."

"Erza likes Beau, eh?"

"I'm not gossiping with you."

"Men don't gossip."

"Right. So stop prying and drink your fucking beer," Jellal said without much heat.

Jellal was well asleep when he heard his apartment door open. It was early enough that the sky was a dusky pink. Beau leapt off the bed and went to investigate. She came back without barking and Jellal invited Erza into his bed. She chose to lay under him once she was sure he was awake and receptive.

She didn't push him on Flint Ram and he didn't broach the subject, accepting her need for attention and giving it. She lay down beside him after they were both spent and fell asleep with her head mostly on his chest. He thought he could be happy if he tried. He could have this always. He didn't ask her what happened if he denied her offer.

Maybe nothing. Or maybe she'd push him aside and find another enforcer to take into her bed to ensure they were loyal only to her.

A text came through his phone, lighting up the small bedroom. Jellal reached for it and saw that again, Ultear was on him. She'd texted him an address of a murder. Laxus' name popped up on screen before he was finished looking it up on his Maps app. He said simply, I'll meet you at the station.

Jellal looked toward Erza. Her eyes were open and her mouth was just a little bit curved. "Police work?"

"Yeah."

She reached for him and brought him down to her mouth for the goodbye kiss she was always shy with. "Good luck."

He came to the same conclusion Erza had already: he hadn't agreed to be Purgatory's enforcer but he hadn't not, either, and she was in it for the long haul. It was going to be a long and brutal war.