Black and blue and broken bones,
You left me here; I'm all alone.
Everything is aching and sore when Juvia peels open her tired eyes. A weight presses against her back, and the smell of men's shampoo and body soap clings to her. It's nice waking up beside someone. She's always liked the comfort of another body pressing against her, and for a brief time, a heartbeat, really, she feels like not everything has to be awful if only she has people to make her world better.
Like Meredy used to.
The thought is cold and hard-hitting.
Juvia blinks the sleep from her eyes and rises. Gray shifts a little, rolling onto his back and looking at her through his fringe of dark lashes. He's not ready to get up, though, and as soon as he wakes, he closes his eyes, ready to fall back into sleep.
Juvia roots through the clothing that Ultear gave her and dresses in the washroom, donning a pair of tight black jeans and a dark purple long-sleeved T-shirt, deeply cut in front and accented by a floppy bow.
She looks at herself in the mirror. Her eyes look big and red-rimmed. To her, it's obvious she's been crying. She turns on the cold water and wets her fingers, dabbing at the redness in hopes that if she doesn't think about Meredy and the deep, panging betrayal she feels, she can keep her eyes dry.
The only problem is, everything reminds Juvia of her friend, her haircut (Meredy chose it) her nail polish (the last time she had her nails painted, just before her first night at Phantom, Meredy did it for her) the rose-shaped earrings she wears. (Meredy has a matching pair, purchased from the same farmer's market vendor last summer.)
Juvia is filled with the urge to do something dramatic. Scream. Cut her hair. Tear out her earrings and throw them in the garbage. Something. Anything. Anything at all.
She closes the cold water tap and dries her fingers. She smooths her hands over her borrowed clothing. She promises herself that after she deals with Jose, she will right things with Meredy. It's her only option, she thinks, her only way forward.
Still, no one is awake when Juvia exits the washroom. Jellal is passed out on the couch with the blankets down around his hips, his chest bare with his shirt thrown across the coffee table. He's so at home here. He doesn't have much, but this, his family, keeps him as steady as he can be.
Juvia has the urge to sit down and ask him how it is he depends so wholly on people to keep him balanced, yet he has not fallen yet? Dropped off the face of the earth, forgotten? How has his 'family' not gotten sick of him and cast him to the wayside? And what will it take Juvia to find people like that? How come Meredy couldn't be like that? What changed? When? Can Juvia fix it? And worse, my own father…
Shhh, Juvia thinks. Stop wondering these stupid things. Just. Just one thing at a time. She breaths deep. Holds her breath. Lets it out again, banishing the oppressive urge to cry once more.
Jellal remains unmoving on the couch, even when Juvia tugs on her boots and fastens the ties. Even as she pulls on one of Ultear's many coats, this one long and black with dramatic edgings of white, with the vow that she'll return this piece of clothing without ruining it.
Then she ventures out into the cool spring air, though she hardly feels brave enough to face Jose of Phantom on her own.
The building looks locked up tight when Juvia approaches it. Relief hovers around her, not quite descending upon her shoulders, but threatening to if only the doors will not open. She can walk away from here and say I tried, and not feel guilty.
She tries the handle of the frosted door and is elated to find that it doesn't move. She knows she should try calling, even pulls out her phone to match the late-afternoon sun with the time but puts it away again without attempting to reach out.
Juvia swivels on her heel, thinking again about Meredy when disappointingly, a shiny bright red Cadillac pulls into the parking lot, the lettering on the back reading CT5. Jose is at the wheel and once he spots Juvia, there is no turning back. She sighs and plants her feet while she waits for him to exit his car, lock it, and approach the door with his keys at the ready.
"Miss Lockser. I take it to mean Gajeel delivered my message?" He grins as he speaks, stretching his black lipstick beyond what it's comfortable with and revealing the pink of his lips beneath.
"We spoke," Juvia says with as much uncharitableness in her voice as possible.
Her attitude flies over Jose and he ignores her. "Come, come." He opens the door with a squeak of the exhausted hinges and ushers Juvia into the dark club. She feels like she's walking into something dangerous stepping in before Jose and hearing the lock click into place again. She feels like she's made a huge mistake, coming here by herself. She feels like she's about to find out how unforgiving Jose can be.
Jose punches a code into the beeping alarm system, then clicks on the lights over Juvia's shoulder and throws the club into sharp relief. With the shadows banished, so are some of Juvia's misgivings. What is it about the light that dispels the ability to sense wickedness? Why are so many people fooled by its reassuring glow?
"This way, my dear," Jose says as he treks toward his office.
Juvia follows closely behind. Her stomach quietly pangs with nerves. She's afraid of him, on some level, but too submerged in what she thinks of as reality to really be terrified. Jose isn't Mard, and he isn't Jackal. He's a club owner. He lives in the real world. Has real employees. And if she doesn't think about how Gajeel grabbed her arms so tight, he almost left bruises, she doesn't feel that threatened. After all, there are rules to follow in the working world. And it doesn't seem like anyone can break them.
Jose turns on his office lights, too, and sits behind his desk. He reminds Juvia a bit of a spider, his eyes too large, too glossy, his fingers too long, his coat bright purple and dramatic, warning stupid girls away, he's poisonous.
She should leave.
"I didn't appreciate you sending your goon after me." Juvia lifts her chin as she speaks. Best to start strong so Jose doesn't think he can bully her with a few short words.
"I didn't appreciate you breaking our bargain so early into our bargaining days," Jose responds just as coldly as Juvia.
"I wasn't feeling well," she says.
"And I'm not feeling charitable. You either show up for work, or both you and Meredy are out."
"It was one day," Juvia says.
"Two."
She opens her mouth but cannot refute his claim.
"If you don't like my rules, then you can leave," Jose says, sensing the advantage Juvia was so determined to covet. "Go on. If you have anything in your locker, you can clean it out. Take Meredy's stuff with you." He goes so far as to wave a dismissive hand.
"What?" Juvia asks though she understands perfectly well.
"You need this job, or so you made me believe. It doesn't need you. You're gorgeous, but so are lots of others." Jose doesn't even look at her as he speaks, choosing instead to open his computer and click through various programs. The screen lights up the blacked-out window behind him with its artificial light.
Juvia feels her panic spinning into a sickening ball. "You can't."
"I can and just did."
The clock on the wall ticks in the quiet. Juvia fumbles for something to say.
"I'm—I'm sorry. Meredy needs this job." Meredy. What would she do without it? Spiral. Hate Juvia even more than she already does. Get herself into trouble. Find something worse than Phantom. There are lots of places people like Meredy can get lost. Tons of people looking to take advantage of her.
"Meredy needs this job, but do you?" Jose's eyes are finally on Juvia, but she wishes they weren't. His cheekbones push against his sallow skin like knives threatening to burst through. His gaze is caustic.
"Yes." If only because Meredy does.
Jose's eyes roll over her body. She resists the urge to cross her arms over her chest and hide. Some of the meanness in his face subsides and changes into something that's more difficult to identify but Juvia is almost sure is worse. "You have a lot of assets," he says at length, bringing his gaze up from her hips. "Our customers want to see that. If you're serious about working here, then dress to impress."
Juvia bites her lip, too stunned to say, or do anything but nod her head.
"You start at ten tonight. Come see me before you go out on the floor," he adds. "I want to make sure you're acceptable."
"Okay."
Jose returns to his chair. "Don't be late." The threat is clear in his voice, but what lies at the end of it, Juvia can't say.
"Is Meredy going to be here?" Juvia dares to ask.
Jose's jaw tenses and his thin lips press with obvious displeasure. "This is a business, not a social playground."
Juvia stands there for a moment more, trying to figure out how to rebuke his statement. Nothing tactful comes to mind and Jose doesn't try to pursue the issue.
Juvia lets herself out of the building, wondering if the front door should be unlocked. A black mustang races into the driveway then, behind the wheel a mass of muscle and dark hair, and Juvia hastens her steps before she can find out if it's Gajeel.
It's funny, she thinks, dim the sun from the sky, put Meredy in front of her, and Juvia is as vicious as they come. Right now, though, she feels small and meek, willing to comply with Jose's demands for Meredy's sake.
Meredy, who hates me right now, she thinks unwittingly. She's almost overcome by tears again, but Juvia bites her cheek so hard, the pain pushes down the urge. Her eyes only sting, not overflow, and she counts it as a win.
Juvia pulls out her phone and presses on Meredy's number, the most dialed number in the system. It rings and rings and rings and goes to voicemail. Juvia leaves a tentative call me back before hanging up and calling again, though she knows Meredy hates when she does that. It's not like I'm going away, Meredy used to say. If I don't pick up, I'm busy, and leaving me a hundred messages in an hour isn't going to change that. I'll call you back when I can. I promise.
Juvia used to believe that. The third time she calls, though, she's put through straight to voicemail. Meredy hung up on her.
Macbeth looks up from the front desk and sighs in exasperation when Juvia lets herself into the safehouse. "Look, I've told you already, I'm not supposed to let you up."
"Please?" Juvia grips the counter as hard as she can for support. She doesn't know what she'll do if he denies her.
"Batting your eyes doesn't change anything," he answers coldly.
"I just need my stuff," Juvia says, which is true enough, and if she sees Meredy there, well, it's only natural, it is where she lives. "I left it in there the last time I stayed and haven't had a chance to pick it up."
"I'm sorry," Macbeth says again.
"I have things in there that I need," Juvia emphasizes, desperate now. "Feminine things."
She hopes to make him squeamish but Macbeth stares at her like he's dead inside.
"And important prescriptions," Juvia adds. "They won't give me refills until they're due."
That gets through to him when nothing else can. "Lord knows you need medicating," he mutters under his breath. "You're in and out, got it? You can't stay."
"Right," Juvia agrees, too pleased to be insulted by his mutterings.
Macbeth buzzes her through and Juvia bounds up the stairs. There's a new hole in the grey wall and the carpets look dingier than normal.
Or has it always been this way, she wonders? Has she seen it in a different light because Meredy has? This place has been Meredy's saviour for years, her haven. Juvia wanted to think it so, too, but now she hears the dark laughter from rooms adjacent, Toby's crying on the floor above, the short, sharp scream of anger from a few doors down, and then pregnant silence as all the residents get themselves back under control again.
The entire building seems to be sitting on an eroding edge, the whole thing at great risk of breaking apart. Just a gentle push, a meltdown, someone with a lighter, and it'll all be up in flames.
How has Meredy lived here for so long and not be pulled into the madness?
Then Juvia thinks of her sitting with Jellal begging him for Ice. She thinks of Meredy's new job, her new friends, her new desire for all things bad for her.
Juvia looks down the hallway again. She wants to place all the blame on this place. Can almost just. It's a relief to think if she can only get Meredy away from here, she can change the things she doesn't like.
Juvia finds the groove in her cheek again and bites hard. She cannot change people. She cannot force people to feel certain ways about her. She knows this. It's also easy to think she's doing what's best for Meredy, though, when she looks at this subsidized housing, dug out, dressed in grunge, and begging to become a monument to all Meredy's sins.
Juvia closes her eyes and breathes in deep. Breathes out. Pushes the negative out. This is a good place, she knows. It does a lot of good for people. For the nobodies with nowhere to go and nobody to love them. It gives them the chance the rest of the world will not, and for that, Juvia can forgive it and take a step toward thinking that Meredy's actions are her own.
She knocks on the door and waits.
The door doesn't open immediately and Juvia knocks again, listening. She can hear nothing inside. She tries the handle, and the door opens without issue, which is a jolt to Juvia. Shouldn't Meredy lock herself inside? Anyone can come in if they wanted, and take her things, or hurt her.
She quickly discerns the room is empty. She tries Meredy's cell phone again and just as before, it goes to voicemail after ringing only once. Her concern shifts to, threatening the edge of panic. She calls Ultear instead, who does answer her call on the first ring.
"Meredy's not here," Juvia greets instead of the traditional hello. "I don't think she came home last night. We should call the police."
"No," Ultear says.
"But Meredy is missing. And she's not picking up her phone."
"Calm down. She's not missing. I spoke to her just a few minutes ago," Ultear says. "She stayed with Mard."
And Juvia knows she should be alarmed, and she is, but the only thing out of her mouth is, "Meredy spoke to you?"
"She says she's okay," Ultear consoles, not immediately understanding Juvia's anguish. "Mard washed her clothes for her and she's waiting for them to dry before she comes home. She'll be back in a few hours."
Juvia feels doors in her heart slamming closed against the sting of yet another rejection from Meredy, but she's not quick enough.
"Hurry back," Ultear is saying. "I'm making homemade waffles. Gray's out getting whip cream and strawberries."
"No, thanks," is Juvia's immediate reply.
"Juvia." Before, Ultear had sounded nonchalant and unconcerned. Now her voice takes on a note of empathetic imploring. "Come back. We want you here. We can talk about this other stuff in person."
Juvia feels a shiver start from her head and worm its way through her chest, down into her stomach. She feels ill.
"Okay?" Ultear says.
Juvia's tongue is knotted behind her teeth.
Jellal says something in the background and Ultear pulls her mouth away from the phone to answer. It's muffled, but Juvia hears her say, "Meredy's."
"Juvia?" Ultear returns to say.
"Yes," Juvia manages.
"Are you okay?"
"I have to get my stuff," Juvia says at once. "We'll talk later, though." Then she hangs up. She hates Ultear. (I don't.) She wishes she never came into Meredy's life. (That's not true.) And she wishes Ultear would just leave them alone.
A/N: Sorry I missed my last thank yous. I had some shit going on. But please know that I really appreciated your reviews, always, but especially those few days ago.
Okay. Onward.
Ahri: You're one of my favourite humans and your biasness toward Jelray gives me and this story life it wouldn't otherwise have. Thank you so much for reading!
Guest: Thank you! Thank you! Angst is my lifeblood, and we're not done bleeding. There's something so fun about writing furious Gray and existential Jellal. I hope to entertain you until the end.
Morrigan: I don't know what to say to thank you enough for all the little confidence boosters you give me along the way. Writing is hard, but it feels easier when you get as excited as I do about my weird characterizations.