A/N - I'm hoping to address some of the unfortunate lack of Jellal content with this fic. This fic will be whumpy, a bit funny, and heavy on the friendship. This takes place in a sort of vague post-canon au where Erza and Jellal are dating and Natsu and Gray are dating.

This will be four chapters.

"What do you think of the bracers?" Erza asked Jellal, holding up an armored hand to show them off. "I'm not sure they're spiky enough. I really like a lot of details on my bracers."

"Right now, we're just perfecting the fit and shape," the designer who was helping Erza in and out of the armor said. "This is just a prototype, and we'll be adding more details at the end."

"Alright, thank you. As long as they end up spikier, but not so spiky that they hinder my movement."

"I like spiky bracers," Jellal added.

Erza was at an armor fitting for a set of Ice Empress Armor - she'd known Gray long enough that she thought it was kind of an oversight that she didn't have something that had been actually designed to fight him. And anyways, it was impossible to predict if Lyon may someday become evil again, and then she would need armor created to fight him too.

Jellal had come along as well. Erza always liked having a second pair of eyes on her new armor sets, just to make sure everything ended up completely perfect. The fittings could go long, so there usually wasn't anyone she felt comfortable asking aside from her boyfriend. She knew it could be a little boring for Jellal, but at least today, he was being a shockingly good sport about it, engaged and enthusiastic and asking questions.

"What about the chest piece?" Erza asked, examining herself in the mirror. Her stomach was exposed, but the top piece went almost as high as her everyday armor. "I usually like my specialty armor cut a little lower."

"I like it," Jellal piped up.

Erza raised her eyebrows at him. "You like it? You want to see less of my chest?"

Jellal blushed a little and shrugged.

Erza grinned and put a hand on his forehead. "Are you running a fever? That doesn't sound like my Jellal."

"I just…want to make sure you're safe, is all. And I think armor with more coverage in the front will do a better job with that. After all, I wouldn't want to risk anything damaging your…cleavage."

Erza laughed - she supposed that did sound like him. "Fine, fine, I can leave it alone." She turned to the designer. "The chest plate is fine as it is."

"Is there anything else that feels off?" the woman asked. "If not, I would say you're pretty much done."

Erza took one last look at the Ice Empress armor, and decided she was satisfied, even with the higher chest. "I think everything looks good. I'll come back in two weeks for the final fitting."

The woman grimaced. Erza knew she pushed her designers to the limit in terms of turnaround time, but she was pretty sure she spent more money here than all of their other clients combined, so she thought that was the sort of treatment she had earned. And anyways, the designer hadn't said no, which must mean it was possible.

"Thank you for your hard work," Erza said politely, and gave the designer her best charming smile. She occasionally struggled to differentiate this smile from her threatening smile or from her seductive smile, but she'd been practicing with Jellal in order to perfect it. Behind the designer's head, Jellal nodded and gave her a quick, subtle thumbs up.

"We'll see you in two weeks," the designer said, helping her get the last of her armor off. She sounded only slightly unhappy. Erza decided that was probably the best she was going to get.

"Ready to go home?" she asked Jellal, knowing that the answer would be an emphatic "yes." To her utter shock, he shook his head.

"I have to pick something up first. I'll meet you at home - I made dinner reservations at Ristorante de Olio for six o' clock."

"Ristorante de Olio?!" Erza usually liked to get dinner after an armor fitting, both since they were painfully long and they always made her feel extra attractive, but she and Jellal rarely went to a fancy restaurant like the Magnolia-famous Ristorante de Olio.

"I felt like doing something special," Jellal said, smiling at her in a way that made Erza very angry that she was still in public. "I'll see you later."

He bent down to kiss her goodbye, waving as he walked away. Erza watched him go, thinking about how lucky she was to have such a thoughtful and romantic boyfriend.

Jellal sank a little deeper into the cushions of Natsu and Gray's couch, contendedly listening to them argue about nothing. Happy was off with Lucy, presumably bullying random Fairy Tail members, so the house was empty apart from Natsu, Gray, and Jellal. Natsu and Gray had also invited Erza to hang out, or at least they had thought they had. Unfortunately, when they'd asked Jellal if he wanted to go see a bodybuilding competition (ostensibly to cheer on Elfman, but realistically mostly to look at muscles), he'd forgotten to ask Erza if she was interested. Part of him had assumed that any plan made by Natsu and Gray had a low chance of actually happening, part of him had assumed that Erza wouldn't be interested in a bodybuilding contest that didn't involve women, and the most important part had just plain forgotten. By the time he'd remembered, it had been too late to get her a ticket. Jellal didn't used to forget things like that, but he supposed that was the price of years of brainwashing, amnesia, and torture.

Later, he'd also agreed to go to Erza's Ice Empress Armor fitting. Unfortunately, he hadn't realized that it was the same date as the bodybuilding competition, and by the time he'd realized his mistake he was too embarrassed to admit it to anyone. He'd spent a vague few days hoping something would happen to get him out of it, like maybe a dark guild attack or food poisoning, but nothing did and the closer the two events got, the less he felt able to extricate himself.

He'd eventually settled on what seemed like the only option at this point - recreating Siegrain, the double he'd used to infiltrate the Magic Council. Then he could go with Natsu and Gray to the bodybuilding competition, which was a once in a lifetime opportunity, after all, and Siegrain could cover for him at the armor fitting.

Once summoned, Siegrain had readily agreed to go to the armor fitting, and Jellal had had a wonderful time with Natsu and Gray cheering on Elfman and looking at nearly naked men. He could only assume that his plan had gone out without a hitch, since he hadn't gotten any sort of angry call from Erza. Now, all he had to do was wait for Siegrain to finish at the armor fitting, and then he'd go meet up with her and they'd go home.

Are you almost done? he asked, using the mental link he shared with Siegrain to communicate directly into his mind.

No response. That was…a little weird, but not that weird. Siegrain was normally very responsive, but that might just mean he was busy - after all, Erza could be pretty demanding during an armor fitting.

"Are you sure Erza doesn't want to hang out for a few hours now that the event's over?" Gray asked.

For obvious reasons, Jellal hadn't told them that he'd forgotten to invite Erza and then made a body double to cover for it. They thought that Erza just hadn't been interested in the bodybuilding competition. They didn't know about the armor fitting, and didn't know about the tricky timing Jellal was trying to balance now.

"She was very adamant," Jellal said stiffly. "I'll be going back home to her in just…a few minutes."

Jellal was starting to run out of excuses to stay at Natsu and Gray's house. Granted, that was kind of his own fault. Natsu and Gray would have never minded to have him, but Jellal was pretty introverted, and had a tendency to disappear the second an event was over. He knew that it was getting a little weird that he was still hanging out with Natsu and Gray, even if they were having fun. But he couldn't leave until he got the signal from Siegrain that Erza was done with the fitting.

"That's fine," Gray said, but he sounded confused. "Take your time…."

Answer me, Siegrain. What's going on? When are you supposed to finish?

There was still no response. Of course. Jellal tried to keep himself from frowning, at least not frowning more than usual, and looked forward to the moment when this would all be over.

Gray was happy that Jellal was still here, but he was starting to get a little confused. Jellal didn't exactly seem like he wanted to be here, but he hadn't made any effort to leave. Occasionally, he would stare blankly at nothing for a few seconds and look angry, which was a little weird even for Jellal.

"So, uhh-" Gray had been intending to ask which bodybuilder Jellal had liked the best when there was the sudden sound of breaking glass from the window to their left. Framed in the window was Jellal, looking absolutely furious.

For a moment, this seemed impossible, since an identical version of Jellal was still next to him on the sofa (looking absolutely dumbstruck), but before Gray could put too much thought into it, the second Jellal hopped down from the windowsill and landed in a crouch on the rug. He straightened up, pointing a finger straight at the first Jellal, and Gray automatically rose into a fighting stance. The first Jellal had beaten him to it, and Natsu was still half-seated on the couch, looking confused.

"You know what you've done," the second Jellal snarled. Above his head, dark clouds began to gather. Gray recognized Jellal's insanely destructive Heavenly Body magic, and he took an instinctive step back, pushing Natsu backwards as well as the Dragon Slayer finally got to his feet.

"Feel the full wrath of the heavens!" the second Jellal shouted, and Gray threw up a hand to shield himself. But instead of the explosion of magical force that he'd expected, the room lightened as the dark clouds cleared. The intruder was staring at his hands, eyes narrowed in confusion and anger.

"FUCK," he shouted, then threw himself at Jellal.

Gray was fast, faster than Natsu or Erza even, but as soon as Jellal moved to intercept his double's path, Gray almost lost sight of him. The older wizard was so fast it seemed almost unnatural, and Gray was watching a fight between two of him.

The intruder threw a brutal-looking punch towards Jellal's face, but with blinding speed, Jellal blocked. Gray saw him start to go for a lock, but the other Jellal seemed to anticipate it and twisted away, lashing out with his other hand.

As they twisted, Gray lost track of which one was which, and even though he had his hands up and ready to cast, he didn't want to hit the wrong Jellal. All he could do was watch with bated breath until finally the blur of blows and flurry of curse words ended with a sharp gasp, and one of the Jellals was falling.

Gray was fairly sure, but not completely sure, that the Jellal that had been pushed over was the same Jellal that had started out on Natsu and Gray's sofa. Gray watched as he fell hard, reaching out blindly to catch himself on something. It didn't work, and he cracked his head painfully on the corner of the milkcrate they used as an end table.

The other Jellal took a step forward, and for a second Gray was worried he was going to try to take on him and Natsu. He was pretty sure they would win, especially since this Jellal didn't seem to be great at magic, but they would likely destroy their house in the process, which didn't seem very good at all.

But the other Jellal seemed to think better of fighting. With one more glance backwards at the original Jellal, who was starting to stir painfully from his place on the ground, the second Jellal retreated to the window. He forced himself out of the window the same way he'd come in. Gray ran to the window in time to see him hop Gray and Natsu's fence and sprint down a side street.

The other Jellal had a head start, so Gray was pretty sure he wouldn't be fast enough to catch up to him. It wouldn't be worth going after him, as much as Gray wanted to.

Gray turned back to the first Jellal, who was still lying curled on the ground, blood flowing freely from a nasty gash on his forehead. Natsu was kneeling next to him.

"Ummm, you're the Jellal that was sitting on our couch to begin with, right?" Natsu asked.

Jellal nodded shakily.

"And you're the same one who was at the bodybuilding competition?" Natsu clarified.

Jellal nodded again.

"And you're the real Jellal?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, good." Natsu reached out, and helped Jellal carefully into a sitting position. Jellal wavered a little at the change in orientation, looking disoriented and in pain. After a moment, he cupped a hand around his forehead, which did little to stop the flow of blood.

"Let me get you something for that," Gray said. He retreated to their bathroom and brought Jellal out a towel, which Jellal held to his head. He thought Jellal might look grateful, but he also mostly just looked out of it, so it was a little hard to be sure.

"Are you alright?" Gray asked, looking closely at Jellal. The flow of blood from his head was rapidly turning their towel red, and Jellal seemed pretty out of it. But then again, he sometimes seemed pretty out of it even when he hadn't recently been hit in the head.

"I'm okay," Jellal said, sounding confused, but about as with it as Gray could expect from a man who'd just gotten in a fight with himself.

"Great," Natsu said, giving Jellal's shoulder a pat. "Wanna tell us what the hell that was about?"

Jellal frowned. "I'm…I'm honestly not sure. Give me a minute."

Jellal closed his eyes, reaching out to Siegrain via the mental connection they shared. He was pretty sure that it was Siegrain who'd attacked him - anything else seemed like far too great of a coincidence - but he wasn't entirely sure. Could someone have turned Siegrain against him somehow?

Why did you attack me? Jellal asked, half-expecting the connection to stay silent, as it had the previous times he'd tried contacting his double. Somewhat to his surprise, he immediately felt a voice in his mind.

Isn't it obvious? You should have gone with Erza! She deserves your full attention, not lies and misdirection.

Jellal winced. He hadn't thought of that, because the double was supposed to be an exact copy of him. Erza was still receiving his attention, as well as a considerable chunk of his magical power. But she wasn't exactly receiving his full attention, because a large part of that had been devoted to mostly naked bodybuilders. Siegrain had a point.

Next time I won't skip the armor fitting, Jellal offered, unsure why he was arguing with a magical clone of himself, but spurred on by the guilt twisting in his chest. He really had been a terrible boyfriend, and if Erza knew, she probably would have attacked him too. He couldn't even really be angry with Siegrain, not when Erza had been so excited about her new Gray-proof armor, and he'd chosen to look at muscles instead.

No, you won't, Siegrain agreed calmly. Because I'm going to kill you and take your place. Erza should have the best Jellal. And with that, the connection cut off.

"Oh god," Jellal whispered, lowering his head into his hands. The pressure from his palm hurt the cut on his forehead, but he didn't care. It was less than he deserved.

"What's wrong?" Gray asked, sounding worried, and Jellal felt a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm a horrible boyfriend," Jellal announced to the world at large. "And I'm going to die."

Natsu and Gray looked at him blankly.

"Were…were you that guy's boyfriend?" Natsu finally asked. His eyes narrowed. "Wait a second…that wasn't Erza, was it?"

"What? Oh no, oh god no. It's…." Jellal hesitated for a second, then decided it was probably going to be impossible to actually keep any part of this from Natsu and Gray after what they had just witnessed. He quickly explained the whole situation - Erza's armor fitting, the accidental double-booking, the creation of Siegrain. He told them what Siegrain had said when Jellal had asked why he'd tried to kill him.

"Hey, you're gonna reopen that cut," Gray said, reaching forward to pull his hand away. Jellal realized he'd been grinding the towel into the wound on his head, which certainly couldn't be good for the tender skin there. He hadn't even noticed the pain.

"I probably deserve it," he mumbled.

"That doesn't make any sense," Gray said. "I mean, I skip Natsu's weird stuff all the time, and Natsu doesn't want to kill me."

Natsu frowned at him. "Hey! What? No you don't! You love my weird stuff."

Gray brushed the comment off with a small movement of his hand. "Shhh. Go get our first aid kit. We need to do something about Jellal's head before we can take down Siegrain."

Natsu flicked Gray in the shoulder, but he obediently got up and Jellal heard him rummaging around in one of their cupboards, presumably for the first aid kit. After a minute, he returned, holding up a plastic sandwich bag containing the likes of bandages, alcohol wipes, and a thermometer.

He gave Gray the first aid kit, and then started pacing around the room. Jellal watched him anxiously check the window, as if he expected Siegrain to pop in through it again.

"I doubt he'll be coming back here," Jellal said. "I don't know what he told Erza he was doing, but if his main purpose is to be a better boyfriend than me, I doubt he'll leave her for too long."

Jellal paused, thinking back to the way Siegrain's magic had gathered over his head, and then dispersed the second he'd tried to attack Jellal. "And anyways, he'll need time to regroup and make some sort of a plan. It didn't seem that his magic worked on me."

"Well, does your magic work on him?" Natsu asked.

"I'm…not sure," Jellal admitted. "But I don't suspect it will."

"Hold still," Gray ordered. Jellal had been staying still, to let Gray look at his head, but he supposed he could stay stiller. Gray's fingers wrapped around the back of his head, and Jellal gasped as Gray began vigorously scrubbing out the wound with an alcohol wipe.

"Oops. Sorry. This might hurt a bit," Gray said, returning to his overzealous first aid. "It's gotta be kinda rough, 'cause we should probably clean it out real good."

"Yeah. Honestly, we got no idea where that milkcrate's been," Natsu said, returning from the window and sitting down by Gray. He laid his head on Gray's shoulder, which jostled Gray's arm and elicited another gasp from Jellal, but Gray didn't seem to mind. Jellal did, but he wasn't sure what to say to make it stop.

"You're so good at this," Natsu said quietly, as Gray dropped a crumpled, bloody alcohol wipe on the floor and tore open another one. Was this what being good at first aid looked like? Jellal was pretty sure it wasn't, but it was cute that Natsu seemed to think so. Sometimes Erza thought that Jellal was good at things when he wasn't….

"Stop it, Natsu," Gray said with a giggle as Natsu moved behind him, pressing his lips into Gray's neck. "I'm tryin' to focus."

"You can keep doin' that," Natsu answered, and moved to kissing Gray's cheek. Gray's hand slipped again, dripping alcohol into Jellal's eye, but he was almost too focused on how much he loved and missed Erza to notice.

Almost. It still really, really hurt.

Finally, Gray was done abusing Jellal's forehead, and Natsu was done trying to make out with Gray, and Jellal had ended up with a strip of bandages wound haphazardly around his head. Jellal was sure that it looked ridiculous, but at least he wasn't bleeding on Natsu and Gray's floor anymore.

"Okay," Natsu said, narrowing his eyes at Jellal. "I think the first thing to do is make sure we can tell you guys apart. I can kinda smell the difference, but if you're too close together it's gonna be hard to tell. And Gray won't be able to."

"Take off your jacket," Gray suggested, apparently unconsciously following his own advice.

"Your shirt, Popsicle," Natsu said, elbowing him gently in his now-exposed chest. Gray looked down, blushing slightly, and began pulling his shirt back on.

"I'm going to be cold if I take off my jacket," Jellal mumbled, but he would rather be cold than be mistaken for Siegrain. Slowly, he began pulling off his long jacket, leaving just his tight, sleeveless shirt.

"And we should get you something to cover up the bandage," Gray said.

"Why? Shouldn't that help me look less like Siegrain?"

"Not as much as a fun hat will!" Natsu supplied happily. "Besides, the bandage looks…."

"Kinda messed up," Gray finished. "Your hair has seen better days. If we're bein' honest."

Gray vanished into the bedroom and emerged holding the hat he had stolen from Rufus when he'd fought him during the Grand Magic Games. It was huge, bright red, and covered in pink feathers.

"This is my favorite hat!" Gray said excitedly.

"No," Jellal said flatly.

"But-"

"No. Too many feathers. Don't you have something more…simple?"

"Gray has a baseball cap," Natsu said happily. "It's so he doesn't get sunburned if he goes out in the sun."

"That sounds perfect."

Gray looked vaguely embarrassed, but Natsu ignored him and went to go dig out the baseball cap. It took him a minute, but he finally presented Jellal with a green baseball cap. Jellal felt that green clashed with his hair, but at this point, he thought he didn't have the grounds to make any further complaints.

"There," Natsu said proudly as Jellal adjusted it on his head. "Now it's really obvious which one you are. Now, you're sure you are the real one, right?"

"Yes," Jellal said wearily.

"Sounds like something the fake Jellal would say," Gray said.

"Say something only the real Jellal would know!"

"Well, Siegrain has all my memories…."

"I dunno, that kinda sounds like an excuse," Natsu said. Jellal had no idea if he'd somehow managed to convince Natsu that he was the real one, but Natsu completely dropped the subject. Jellal figured he should perhaps just count his blessings, because he had no idea how he was actually supposed to prove he was the real Jellal anyways.

"So what's the plan?" Gray asked once it was clear the conversation was over. "Can you…I mean, can you just send him away?"

"I can, but I would need to be touching him. It's not possible to do from a distance."

"Huh. So we gotta go find him now?"

Jellal thought Natsu and Gray were accepting this entire situation a little too easily, but he didn't exactly want them fighting him on it either. "Yes. I guess we have to go find him."

"Okay!" Natsu said happily, and started towards the door. Jellal stared at him in blank confusion for a second, and Natsu paused. "Uhh, how?"

"Can you tell where he is, or somethin'?" Gray asked.

"He must be blocking my ability to sense that," Jellal answered with a frown. "But it doesn't matter. Siegrain has my memories, and my thought patterns. I know him like I know myself. I can just predict where he is."

"Where is he then?" Gray asked, and by the slightly glazed look beginning to appear in his and Natsu's eyes, Jellal could tell he was beginning to lose them. Quickly, he mentally shuffled through what he knew of Siegrain.

Siegrain was trying to be a better boyfriend than Jellal was, which narrowed it down pretty quickly. After armor fittings, Erza loved to get dinner. Jellal usually took her to one of their favorite restaurants around Magnolia, but it would be just like Siegrain to try and one up him by taking Erza to a much fancier establishment. There were a few possible options, but Jellal had been planning on taking Erza to Ristorante de Olio for her birthday, so Siegrain had almost surely chosen that one. Luckily, it was still too early in the day for dinner, and Siegrain couldn't have made reservations in the minimal time he'd had since attacking Jellal, so the three of them could easily beat Siegrain to the restaurant and set some kind of trap for him there.

Jellal was a master of self-sabotage, but this was taking things to a whole new level of ridiculous. Pushing that to the back of his mind, he carefully explained his thought process to Natsu and Gray, clearly laying out the logic as to where Siegrain was surely headed.

Gray blinked. "What? You think he's where?"

"At the restaurant," Natsu supplied helpfully, then narrowed his eyes. "But why? And which restaurant? I'm confused. Are you sure you're the real one? Is this your plan? Confuse us? 'Cause it's workin.'"

"Never mind," Jellal snapped. "He's at the Ristorante de Olio, okay? Let's…let's just go there."