I am the voice inside your head (and I control you)
I am the lover in your bed (and I control you)
I am the sex that you provide (and I control you)
I am the hate you try to hide (and I control you)
Water slops beneath Juvia's boots and she lists like she's drunk, though the only thing that's running through her veins is intense hurt and denial. She doesn't watch where she's going. She doesn't care about cars. People. Pets. Pedestrian signs. She barely sees the sidewalk beneath her feet, barely registers the people passing her in the street, until one puts himself in her way and does the unthinkable—wraps his arms around her and holds her tight.
Her first thought is danger, but the smell of his deodorant and cologne fills her nose and Juvia spares him a wildcat response. She goes limp in Jellal's arms and lets him hold her. His grip is so tight. Too tight for her to breathe erratically, as though if she cannot gasp for breath, she cannot cry. And it works, in a way, punishing her body into a silent release of tears when she wants to wail right there in the middle of the sidewalk.
People bow around them, barely looking at Jellal or Juvia as they pass. It's like they're invisible in this great big world, all their pain whittled down to nothing consequential. Juvia used to hate those people. Now she envies them. She doesn't want to feel all this stuff. She wants to be numb. She wants the world to be quiet. She wants the world to go away.
Jellal turns his head and presses his lips to the place just above her ear. The way he holds her, the strength and desperation in his grip, is revealing. He needs this as much as Juvia does. It's only when a truck squeezes by them that Juvia realizes they've stopped in a cut-out in the sidewalk that leads to a driveway.
"We should move," she muffles into Jellal's coat.
Inch by inch, he loosens his hold on her, reluctant, and slides his hand down to hers. His grip is firm and solid as he deftly turns back the way he came from and starts leading her through the city again. Juvia can't find the will to complain. Jellal takes her duffle from her and walks at a steady pace that feels impossible to break.
"She wouldn't answer my calls," Juvia says, breaking the tension.
Jellal squeezes her hand. "I know."
"She hates me."
"She thinks she does."
"She spoke to Ultear first."
"Meredy needs a mother, not a friend."
"She thinks she needs to self-destruct."
Jellal's cheek pulls back into a small, sad smile. "Don't we all, sometimes?"
Juvia should say no and fill the silence with something healthy and productive, but his words resonate in her mind like a bell tolling out the hour and she's revisited by that sense of dramatics again. She wants to do something drastic. Something that will pull Meredy in and maybe if she is here, she won't leave.
She doesn't want to feel this way.
Juvia takes out her prescription and chooses a pill though it's much too early in the day for that. Jellal eyes the bottle like Ultear had, as though it might fix something broken in him, too. She puts them away before he can ask and instead, Jellal takes out his cigarettes and lights one, letting the smoke choke the air before the wind breaks it up.
"Was she mad on the phone?" Juvia asks. "Meredy?"
"I didn't hear anything," he says a little too quickly.
"Liar. You listened." Someone like him would, of course. Whether or not he likes it, Jellal is addicted to the bad and will go searching for it at every opportunity.
"She was hysteric," he says at length.
"Because of me?" She feels like such a fool for calling so many times. Why did she do that?
Jellal's next words almost stop Juvia in her tracks—would, likely, if he weren't dragging her ever onward, out of the city proper and into suburbia. "I think she was coming down off something."
"Off what?" Juvia presses. "What? What was she taking? How do you know?"
Jellal closes down. He hadn't meant to say the words or hadn't foreseen Juvia's spiral, or hadn't banked on it being so bad. But her chest is quivering; she cannot get breath, and she wants to race over to Mard's house, grab Meredy up and bring her home.
But she cannot.
She knows she cannot. It will only make things worse. So when Jellal says, "Maybe I'm wrong and she was just tired," Juvia closes that door in her heart, too, slams it as tight as it will go, and forces herself to calm down with the threat that she'll make herself sick if she does not.
Jellal casts a tentative glance her way. Juvia schools her expression into something impassive, pretending its some other girl that's made of porcelain, some other girl that's been thrown to the ground and is scattered all about.
He still hasn't released her hand and gives it an encouraging squeeze, though she can tell he doesn't mean it, not entirely. Jellal likes it best when he's not suffering alone. He cannot feel anything small and doesn't want anyone else to, either. Even knowing this, Juvia confides in him because of anyone, she thinks he'll understand the best.
"I'm going back to Phantom tonight."
Jellal doesn't even seem surprised. "Do you want company?"
"Are you allowed?"
He lifts his shoulder. "The public's invited in, aren't they?"
Juvia realizes she should have asked, "Should you?" instead. She's too lonely to set things right, though. Too lost. Too anxious to feel something real in the wake of Meredy's absence. She sees the trail of her mistakes, beginning with the swing set, a kiss by a half-frozen pond, an embrace too long, but she cannot see a way to right the wrongs, or even if they are wrong, to begin with.
Ultear has indeed made waffles, and Gray has brought strawberries, and there's real whipped cream and real maple syrup.
Ultear piles it all upon Juvia's plate and then watches her like a hawk, waiting for her to eat. Juvia imagines if she doesn't, Ultear will lean across the small kitchen table and make her and judging by the encouraging looks both Jellal and Gray give Juvia, they believe it, too.
So she eats, though her stomach is in knots and everything that should be savoury and sweet tastes like sawdust in her mouth.
"Have you heard from Meredy yet?" Juvia asks for the second time in fifteen minutes. The first time, Ultear entertained her by pulling out her phone and checking the blank home screen. This time, she merely shakes her head and when Juvia suggests she didn't check, Ultear informs her in no uncertain terms that she has the sound on and they all would have heard the text.
"You'll see her tonight, likely," Jellal puts in.
He looks innocent enough, but his words are leading, prompting Ultear to ask, "What's tonight?"
"Work." Then Juvia puts a piece of waffle in her mouth because she's still embarrassed by the whole thing, working at a place like Phantom and she doesn't want it to be a big deal.
It is, of course.
"I thought you quit there?" Ultear asks.
"No. I just didn't show up for work." Juvia wishes she could sink lower in her chair. Ultear's looking at her like she's committed seven different crimes and will have to pay for her sins. She's expecting a coming lecture about how Phantom is the worst place on earth, but amazingly, and suspiciously, Ultear's face settles into a benign mask that Juvia doesn't trust at all and she smiles at Jellal.
"And what are you doing this evening?"
It's Jellal's turn to cast his eyes to his plate. He lifts his shoulder.
"Cut the crap," Ultear bites.
"I thought I'd go for a bit," Jellal says. "Moral support."
"Then I guess so are we." Ultear includes Gray in her group. He opens his mouth to protest but thinks better of it after one swift, cutting look from Ultear. Jellal's wince is almost imperceptible.
"Guess we're going to Phantom," Gray says drolly.
Ultear fills the space Meredy used to take up. She tells Juvia she looks cute when Juvia showcases her chosen outfit for that evening and pulls Juvia's hair into a high ponytail.
"You look good," Ultear assures her. "Too good for that dump."
Juvia turns her head left and right, looking at herself in the vanity mirror, judging Ultear's claim. Maybe.
Ultear steps back from the mirror and starts pulling at her clothes. Juvia looks away from Ultear's full form, swiping dark kohl beneath her eyes. By the time she's done, Ultear's dressed in all black, black torn-up jeans, a black band shirt, long black hair loose and falling in waves around her shoulders. The only splash of colour on her are the bright yellow round-framed glasses she digs out of a basket of multicoloured glasses on her dresser, and the red, red lipstick she scrapes across her lips. Somehow, Juvia feels plainer in a pair of fishnet stockings, shorts, and a long-sleeved crop top, but when Ultear tells her she looks good, Juvia wants to believe her.
Gray and Jellal are leaning against the hood of Ur's car, waiting for them when they exit the apartment. Gray's lip looks less swollen today, but in the setting light of the sun, Juvia can see a deep dark bruise blooming on Jellal's chin that she'd noticed before but is getting notably worse as the hours pass.
Jellal's grin can only be described as wolfish when he sees them. Gray is a little subtler, looking at Juvia through a cloud of exhaled smoke, but she feels his eyes like a brand. She becomes more confident under his gaze, feels beautiful, almost, brave enough to do this tonight.
Gray takes the backseat with her, and Jellal takes the front, and then they're rolling.
The doors to Phantom are open and the club is lively as it wasn't that morning. Juvia checks all the people outside of the building, hunting for Meredy's pink head of hair. When she doesn't see her there, she does the same inside the doors, moving up the stairs slowly, catching the eye of every one of Jose's staff, trying to discern if any of them are her friend.
A seed of panic starts to root in Juvia's chest when she cannot find Meredy. She whirls on Ultear, the only one of the group left, the two boys disappeared somewhere. "She's not here."
"Relax. It's early," Ultear tells her in the calming way she has.
Juvia tugs at the bottom of her shirt, stretching the material in anxiety. "What if she doesn't show?"
"She will. She wants this job." Ultear takes Juvia by the shoulders and points her toward Jose's office. "Go. We'll be here once you talk to old saggy balls in there. I'll keep an eye out for Meredy in the meantime."
Juvia doesn't want to talk to Jose. What she wants is to tear apart this bar screaming Meredy's name until she answers her.
But if she doesn't see Jose, she'll be fired, and so will Meredy and any hope Juvia has of repairing what she messed up will be gone. So she rolls her shoulders back and parts ways with Ultear. She spots Jellal moving his way toward the stage area and reaching for the back door marked Staff Only. Gray appears before he can intrude and pulls him back toward the bar instead. Jellal goes, albeit reluctantly.
Before Juvia can knock on Jose's door, a girl with fiery hair storms past her and into the office. Her expression is so wild, Juvia almost doesn't recognize Erza. Things make a little more sense now, Ultear's sharpness with Jellal, Jellal's willingness to throw himself alongside Juvia and come to this place, Gray leading Jellal away from a rash decision.
Juvia waits outside the office while Erza and Jose speak. She cannot hear what's being said, the music is too loud, but the raised tenor of their voices are unmistakable.
The door whooshes open again, Jose on the other side. "This is your job," he tells Erza. "At least try to be professional."
Erza looks at Juvia with a bit of recognition. There is nothing friendly in her face tonight, though.
She leaves. Jose straightens his suit jacket, looks at Juvia. "Come in."
Juvia squeezes in between Jose and the doorframe and Jose closes the door firmly behind her. The noise from the club becomes muted and soft, and it feels like they're the only two people here.
"Jellal's arrived with you?" Jose asks as he makes his way to his desk.
Juvia doesn't know what to say. She shrugs. "We came in the same car."
"He doesn't come to Phantom."
"Is he banned from it?" Juvia wonders aloud.
Jose's eyes narrow and he doesn't answer as he sits. He looks at her for a moment with his sticky gaze, judging her and stripping her of the warm feeling she had when it was Gray's gaze instead. "Come here," he commands, and Juvia, pliant, pleasing Juvia, approaches the desk.
"Here." He mimes the space in front of him, taking her hand and pulling her almost into his long legs when she doesn't stand exactly where he wants her.
He's tall enough even sitting that he doesn't have to stand to push her ponytail back from where it rests against her shoulder. Juvia holds still, biting her cheek, surprised by his boldness as he picks fluff off her shoulder and then leans back to look at her. A long beat passes in which he does nothing more but examine her, then he presses his thin lips together, and reaches for her again, this time going for the buttons on the front of her shirt.
Juvia pushes his hands away after he undoes the first. "Don't."
"Then you know where the door is," Jose says in his slippery and barbed voice. So many threats are piled into that one sentence.
Juvia hesitates. She doesn't know what her face must look like at that moment, her heart is beating fast, and her breath feels like it won't fill her lungs. But Jose knows. He reaches for her again and she stays still, letting him undo the buttons he wants and pull the shirt wide. He smooths his hand down her sides then, gently scraping his thumbs over the tips of her breasts, touching her in a way that could almost be mistaken for indirect but Juvia can tell he's testing her, seeing how far she'll let him go. She's never had anyone do this to her before; she doesn't know what to say or what to do.
It's over before she can decide.
Jose sits back. His pants stretch tightly over his front. "That's better." Her breasts are almost out. Juvia won't pull the shirt up again, though, not in front of him while he gently smiles, daring her to comment on his situation, or let her gaze linger.
Juvia refuses.
A moment passes, and Jose says, "You're on the floor tonight. Talk to the bar, they'll train you."
Juvia doesn't dare argue and leaves as fast as she can.
Morrigan: My love, I can make angst from a grocery store job, if that's the challenge :D
Thanks so much for reading this mess and for your reviews! I appreciate them!