Jellal opens his eyes to cardinal red splayed out in front of him. It fills him with a feeling he can't name. It's both calming and madness-inducing. His head empties at the sight of it and he goes single-minded. Erza. His mouth curls at the thought of her name. Erza. She is sickness and pain. She is his love and his shame. And he will never, ever be the same.
Beside him, her eyebrows are knitted. She's caught in the web of dream and it's not a gentle one. Erza's never are. She reaches out to him in her sleep, though, and her touch is both strained (She hates me) and gentle (She loves what she hates.).
Jellal used to ask her what happened in those dreams, but she's never been forthright. When pushed, she lies. He knows Erza, though, and is almost positive she dreams of Siegrain. He's mixed up on how to feel about this, too. Terrible, obviously, because how could he do that to Erza? But also… relieved in a sense. She's withstood a landslide of bad and his memory is the worst that haunts her dreams, but still, she manages to make love to him. Perhaps there is hope in this world. Hope that the worst of the storm has passed, and everything now is just residual waves.
Erza mutters in her sleep, unnerved, and tosses her head. Jellal props himself on his elbow and looks down on her. The soft skin around her neck is not so soft and not so pale, not now. It's transformed and is now dark, like scalded metal, and cut into a diamond pattern and raised just slightly. He brushes his lips across it. It's smooth and cool, like snake scales, but the edges are also sharp. He can feel her magic straining against her skin. A beast struggling to break free. She could destroy the whole world if she let it.
"Wake up, Erza," Jellal nudges.
Her eyes flutter. He catches a glimpse of a narrow black pupil set in a yellow iris.
"Erza."
Her fingers cinch in the blanket like claws. Jellal pushes his body against hers, hoping the contact will bring her out of her dream.
"Erza, wake up."
Erza draws in a startled breath and her eyes come open. At first, her yellow eyes skirt back and forth and it's like she can't recognize him or this place she's in, but Jellal strokes his fingers through her hair and that seems to bring her back to herself. The yellow drains out of her irises rapidly. He'd be foolish if he didn't admit it's chilling.
She sighs and falls back against her pillow. Her hair fans around her head in a blood-soaked wave. "What time is it?" Her voice cracks coming out of her throat like she's spent years in solitude. Is that what it feels like in her dreams, when he's standing over her and the Tower of Heaven is throbbing against her like the flexing throat of a hungry beast?
Jellal pulls away from the memory of Erza broken on the ground. It makes him feel villainous again and that's a dangerous way to feel. "An hour before sunrise."
Her eyes flutter closed and Jellal wonders what he'll do if she opens them and they're yellow again. Erza's worst secret is her best-kept. She's an early riser and a light sleeper, mostly, and can usually pull herself out of a nightmare. Once, she told Jellal she thought Natsu knew. She woke from a sweating nightmare to him leaning over her in the darkness, nose cocked like he was smelling her. She'd been so panicked, she'd smacked him, pushing him back.
Natsu has a keen nose. He can smell a waffle from a kilometer away. Surely, he can smell a threat when it's sleeping next to him?
Jellal watched him for days afterward, a hole in the earth ready for his corpse, prepared to do what Erza had been strictly against—anything to keep her secret safe. But aside from a black eye, Natsu was his old, cheery self, quick to smile and laugh. He didn't treat Erza differently and didn't whisper with Gray or Lucy when she wasn't around.
Hesitantly, Jellal let it go. Maybe Erza was right, and he hadn't seen anything. Maybe he was good at keeping a secret. Or maybe he was just dense and didn't realize the depth of the peculiarity he'd seen. Whatever the case, Natsu got a free ride and Jellal didn't have to do something unforgivable to one of Erza's closest friends.
"The council is expecting me back this morning," Jellal says. "I'll come to you again if your team is still here." He keeps his voice carefully normalized so Erza feels normal, too. He's never had to calm her from hysteria (the time with Natsu was the closest her cool exterior came to cracking) but he doesn't want to give her any reason to feel guilty. None of this is her fault. She shouldn't feel like it is.
"Where is the rest of your guild?" Erza asks.
"Investigating reports of a black mage in Oarsville." He names a town in the south, where reports of satanic rituals have run wild for the last three weeks.
"The council trusted you not to be with them?" Erza fixes him with one eye; the other remains closed.
Yes and no. He's under strict orders to bring them back by lethal force if necessary. He's sworn to uphold it, too. Beneath his arm is a brand that will boil his blood if he disobeys. It's the only one they've bothered to inflict upon him, trusting that human things will keep him on the straight and narrow. Erza things.
She's a true angel, Jellal has heard some of the men say. There is no one purer than her. Only he knows the beast inside the beauty. It's one of the few things that makes him feel special.
"They'll return," he promises.
Erza closes her eyes again. She's more relaxed now that her dream has settled like grounds in a cup of coffee. Her fingers brush Jellal's bare shoulder. The blood is gone from her hands, but he can almost feel it smearing across his skin. A lesser man would feel guilt at being her accomplice. But he doesn't hate that she's so possessed by this rage. When she first told him of her troubles, he'd been relieved. Was still, deep down. It meant he wasn't the only one still tainted by darkness.
They were both monsters.
Erza brings her hand to his neck and plays her fingers through his hair. Her eyes are open again and locked on his. They're brown, but not like a doe. Wolf brown. Predatory, beneath her splendid exterior.
She pulls him in, and he kisses her. The horizon is lightening, and he needs to get ready to go to the council, but he makes a concession for another few minutes in bed with Erza. They so rarely get moments like these, most of their time is stolen here and there, lavishes Creekside, rolls through the underbrush, desperate pawing in the shadows of rocky outcroppings so the rest of her team can't spot them.
Jellal longs for lazy mornings posed over Erza in the comfort of a room with four walls. They've seldom had such luxury and he wants to give it to her.
Erza curves her spine and pushes into him. The blanket slides aside and her bare skin is hot on his chest. He moves his kiss from her mouth to her pert nipple and nibbles it gently to get a rise out of her. She gasps and scrapes her nails across his back. Her legs open and he uses his hand between them, playing at her opening. She gets slick and he gets hard. He inserts two fingers and feels her body open for him, welcoming him deeper and asking for more.
Jellal curls his fingers and finds the one spot that will make Erza mindless. Her body arches, arches, arches, and her breath catches. Her neck has flushed, and her nipples are stiff. She cascades into an orgasm. Her muscles go rigid a second before they loosen and she crashes back against the bed, riding out the pleasure.
Her eyes flick open, heavy-lidded, her mouth a damp smile. She wraps her legs around his back and pulls him in toward her. Jellal slides inside her heady warmth and allows himself to be lost.
Jellal looks to the horizon where the sun rolls up like a bulbous eye freed of its socket. Its light spills shadows on the city ground. No crowds walk through them yet, it was still too early, but the odd person—a baker, a handmaiden, out for supplies. A few city guards yawning hugely over cups of tea that have already gone cold in the brisk air.
Era's council building is modern and gleams like quartz in the early sunlight. Two guards (new additions after the building's prior destruction) hold open the door for Jellal without question. They recognize him and are expecting his arrival.
Jellal walks through a veil of magic that detects weapons and unclasps his dagger when it glows red. A flat-faced guard is waiting to take it from him and then waves him on.
The meeting chambers are large and cavernous with many windows that look out to the city with one-way glass. Hedges crawl up them and birds settle in the branches. Jellal can hear their trilling, the room is so quiet.
He walks to the waiting pedestal and stands in front of it like he's on trial.
"Mister Fernandez," says interim Councilman Tweed. He's borrowed from Era's sister office and runs the council shrewdly. "Report?"
Jellal looks away from the birds and gives a rundown on his latest conquest, the locations of the bodies. No one had been taken alive, they refused.
Councilman Tweed nods once in affirmation. He isn't soft like members of the old council had been and he doesn't scold Jellal in his tactics. He believes if swifter action had been taken against their enemies, the council wouldn't be in shambles now. Jellal is of a mind to agree with him.
"I've also had disturbing news," Tweed continues. "Louis Hemming and Irving Grog have been found dead. Hemming was found in the alley outside the council building, stabbed through the heart, and Grog was in the street, surrounded by people. And before you suggest it was an accident, his body reeked with magic." Tweed sits forward and eyes Jellal intensely. "This is the third time bodies have been discovered. We cannot ignore it any longer, Councilmembers and their associates are being targeted."
Jellal does what he can to look surprised. "That's unforgivable." That these men walk free while Erza is tormented. He will hold every one of her demons steady so she can jam her sword through their hearts. And then he will lay down himself if it means her night terrors subside.
"I will give you every resource you deem necessary, just find the murderer, Mister Fernandez."
Jellal nods. Tweed's dismissed him, but he doesn't move yet. "Councilman…"
Tweed looks down on him from on high. His beard is bristly and big, more grey than brown these days, and his fingers are sausage-like and unusually rough for a man that spends his days signing papers. "Yes?"
"Have you considered my application?"
"We're in review now, Mister Fernandez." A woman to Tweed's right speaks. Jellal desperately tries to remember her name. She is also on loan and is usually content to listen quietly while the other councilmen debate. They listen to her when she speaks, likely because she does it so infrequently.
Tweed is a glorious shade of apricot pink. "Now isn't the time, is it? When you're supposed to be hunting a killer."
"Forgive me, but I'm afraid if I leave it, you'll ignore my bid." He bows slightly to add to his contrition.
Tweed's shade darkens. "It is highly unusual for an ex-criminal to seek entry to the magic council."
His words are designed to cut and prod but Jellal has called himself worse things than Tweed could possibly throw around during polite, political conversation. "These are highly unusual times. I think I would be an excellent contribution to the magic council, especially with the might of my elite force standing behind me."
"Your criminal's guild?" Tweed scoffs. "They work for whoever pays."
"I pray you don't try that theory on your own. It was annoying rallying them to my cause once, I would hate to have to hunt them down again." Jellal speaks to the clean beds of his nails. His hands are a little ragged after weeks on the road, nails broken too short, a gash across his left palm. He didn't feel it when he had Erza in his hands but now the skin is hot and inflamed.
"This sounds suspiciously like blackmail," Tweed says. His whole neck is red now. It doesn't take much to elevate his blood pressure. Jellal's worried one day, he'll drop dead from an aneurism or a heart attack.
"Not at all," Jellal responds innocently. "I'm merely telling the truth. Crime Sorcière is a ragtag bunch with their own minds. The unfortunate truth is, I'm their unifying factor. Without my influence…" He doesn't actually think they'll all turn to criminality overnight, but he knows better than most the urge runs deep.
"We'll send word to you as soon as we're able," the woman says again. Her name hits Jellal. Verity.
"Thank you." He bows respectfully and makes his exit. He can hear the remaining councilmembers arguing over his bid to become one of them again and they're right to be wary. He destroyed them last time. Why should this time be any different?
A/N:
Haiiiii. Chapter two of Eleeka's request, done! (contact me if you want to make your own.)
Soo Happy quarantine, everyone. To get our minds off it, I'm going to be doing some readings on my Instagram—follow me for sneak peeks at secret projects and glimpses at other cool things I'm working on.