That night
"Hey!—" The sharp tone of the raven haired maiden spoke within the whizzing crowd of insects. The raven haired maiden held a scornful look for her fellow guild mate as he rejoined the camp and hands resting aggressively on her curvaceous hips. "Where the hell were you, Jellal!?"
"I was out—not that it was any of your business." The dark mage coarsely retorted as indifference would be a word to define his mood that night. His travelling pack thudded against the ground, and the man prompted to rest in his own makeshift seat before being stopped by his peeve of a guildmate.
"You know very well what he's been doing Uru!" A certain pink haired little Meldy noted, her snide remark insinuating Jellal's vulgar actions. She wasn't so far off actually. If he committed to his initial intentions, then maybe her statement wouldn't be so far from the truth?
"You're right. I was with—"
"Smoochy smoochy—" The little girl interjected, willing to mock poor Jellal whenever she could.
"She showed me around. That's all." His monotone voice spoke justly; eyes shut, arms folded back, and wrists working as a comfy pillow for the uninterested bluenette.
"Showing you around huh? Don't lie! We know what you two have been doing." Meredy grinned, speaking for the two of them. Her pink wisps dangled downwards due to gravity, and her face looming far over Jellal, who seemed to pay no mind for her.
He had been unusually defensive that night which intrigued his fellow guild mates.
"Enough, Meldy." Ultear raised her horizontally flattened hand. Although she'd been struggling to hide a smile and she knew better than to act childish. "Hopefully you've been productive in your work? We still have an entire team of mages to finishing enhancing for the tournament."
"What more information could you want?"
"Her 'showing you around' doesn't explain why you were gone for so long. You knew we were going to do this together yet you haven't shown up till the end." Deftly retorted the raven like time mage, crossing her arms. "We could've used a little help restraining those rowdy Fairytail kids!"
"You should've seen them, Jellal! They flop like fish—really strong fish that could whack your face off if cornered into a worse—ugh. If you were there to hold them down, we wouldn't have gotten so many bruises." Pouted Meredy, poking Jellal in the face.
He swatted her finger away like a fly, and gave the girl an irritated look. "Well that's too bad then. I was busy. "
"Oh? Hey Uru—Jellal said he was busy." A fox grin was growing on her pixie-like features, "You know what that means?"
"I don't know. What could it possibly mean?" Tauntingly the time mage wondered, aloud and at Jellal's full expense.
"We have a lover boy on our hands."
"Good… maybe he won't be so sullen and gloomy now. A nice change of pace around here for once." Her onyx eyes gave the nonchalant mage a sharp look following her chastisement, clearly referring to his former behavior.
"There's nothing going on between us." He groaned lowly under his breath.
"Oh, there's nothing going on now is there?" Her voice drawled out in wonder. This excited Meredy quite a bit. Too much to be precise, and it began to annoy the hell out of Jellal. They curiously glared at Jellal, who even then remained calm in such a strenuous situation. Jellal had a way of ruining their imaginations. The very notion that he admitted what he'd been doing l—to admit such a secret endeavor going on under his sleeve was satisfying yet still a bittersweet disappointment for them.
Both Ultear and Meldy knew how close the two lovers were and there had been no shame in denying it. They loved to tease Jellal about his adventures into the city, boisterously asking him if he had chanced upon a visit with the legendary Titania. But there had never been any luck—he would always shut them down like the entire situation meant nothing to him. Like everything else had.
But it was amusing to witness such denial and frustration coming from a posed man like Jellal.
It's like they were planning something behind his back, but for all he knew, it wouldn't be something to cry and moan about. These two always leered toward the annoying, pestering older and younger sister kind of relationship, and he was the awkward in-between brother that the two would always pick on whenever they felt like it. They teamed up with each other quite often and questioned his actions to an extremely irritating extent—but it was fine. He's learned to deal with it. He'll get what he always wanted in the end, as good things come to those that wait.
Starting again, her high pitched voice called for her blue haired team mate and prompted to change the subject. "Hey Jellal?"
"Hmm?"
"What happened to all those bad guys you caught on your mission? Did they disappear? You never really told us about it when you got back."
"When?" He answered softly, and uncaring of old news.
"It was last week Jellal!"
The raven haired time mage raised an eyebrow and wondered what kind of excuse Jellal would make this time, all while polishing her treasured time orb on a crude wooden stump.
"I can't remember. I get a lot of missions, you know it really messes with my—"
"Didn't the wanted poster mention something about there being an estimate of a dozen dark guild members involved?"
"Yeah, I took most of them out—but a few managed to slip through my fingers."
The two very dependent teammates paused at his surprising words.
Ultear's observant onyx eyes continued to row his expressions over. He'd been tasked with such an easy assignment—to snuff out a weak dark guild hiding in Oak town, and he simply let it pass through his fingers? How unquestionably suspicious of him to admit such a blunder.
He usually said most were sent to jail and then dangerous ones—they were sent away. And according to Jellal, they were "safely detained in a maximum security prison," but she checked the data books and there hadn't been any noticeable increase of those in criminal related custodies. And considering how often Jellal had been away, it was unorthodox to accumulate such lousy numbers.
What had he been doing?
Maybe it would be best to let this little excuse play itself out, eventually all these lies will implode on the façade he so desperately composed to a pedestal. She continued to observe him with not much expression on her face, and on the other hand—the little pink apprentice mage was taken aback by the entirety of the situation.
"Jellal…" Meldy's mouth gaped open, shocked that Jellal could let anything like that happen during his missions. He was a perfectly capable mage! His record of dark mage extermination service was untouched by anything short of perfection, so it didn't make any sense in her eyes. She looked at her adoptive mother, who suppressed her emotions yet obviously retained as much shock as she had. "You should take your missions more seriously. You know much it means to us when you go out there and take out the bad guys!"
His darkly shaded face looked away, the constant moving shadows of the campfire swaying on his contours. "I was just a bit tired and all and I—"
"Maybe you need some rest." Ultear's sharp voice cut off. She knew something was up. He was playing with them, and the thought of that made her ground her teeth down to the very core. "You've been in a bad mood lately and I don't need any more fuck ups from you. Especially during the tournament. Jellal, especially during then."
Those words seem to have earned her a menacing glare from the dark mage.
"Uru…" Meldy paused, shock forming on her features at such harsh words to fall upon her mother's lips. "Maybe it would be best if we all—"
"Once we catch the evil being roaming Crocus, we'll get our chance to simmer down. Let Jellal have some peace for a change—he has been on quite a few missions lately." The woman put special emphasis on the duties he presumably carried out. And then she sharply turned to her tent, as well her pinkette who followed after. The two had gone on with their normal activities, leaving the dark mage with his lone thoughts to surround himself with in the dimming light.
This was how it was between the three; it was highly stressful yet the fights rarely erupted into the core of their words. It was always do this, find what we need, take care of this man, and capture these criminals. Yeah, maybe he did receive pleasure from capturing weak so-called dark mages who tried to run away from the vigilante system, those that could never get away. As a matter of fact, he loved doing it. He loved seeing the weaker bend the knee and adhere to the dominant force. And even with such a blunder to occur, Ultear and Meldy will always respect his enthusiasm and hard work—at least in his eyes, he certainly proved to be the efficient operative he was.
But that's how it always was. He did only as he was told to further his own greater agenda, and all for something more—something better and worth wasting his life for. He had grown tired of being chained to their hands like their personal lap dog. But that would all change soon enough.
He smiled.
They know nothing.