To my guest reviewer Le Potato, you're totally right. We need something a little less serious in the middle of all these rather dark drabbles. I'm going to write up your story idea later but for now, here's something a little more lighthearted. :)

seven years ticklish

At first, Ultear and Meredy thought Jellal had just been saving himself for Erza.

Meredy was the first to notice that the ex-convict was particularly sensitive about being touched.

While the three of them were off on another adventure, heading to the next city to spy on their next targeted Dark Guild, Meredy had accidentally tripped on a rock along the unpaved trail, and when she yelped and grabbed onto Jellal's arm to save herself from falling, the man had suddenly and almost instinctively snatched his arm back from her, leaving the poor pink-haired girl to fall into the cold canal of water just off the road.

"So much for teamwork," the girl had said, under her breath, fixing her earmuffs back over her head while Jellal repetitively apologized for not only not helping her out, but also actively making sure she fell off the road.

Ultear had only clucked her teeth at the time, but then the week after, she too suffered from Jellal's intolerance to touch. She had asked him to hold her Time of Arc glass ball while she took care of something, and their hands had briefly weaved into each other, resulting in Jellal withdrawing immediately and Ultear handing her precious magical artifact to nothing.

Fortunately, the glass hadn't broken.

"You just don't want anyone touching you, huh?" Ultear had hissed at a sheepish-looking Jellal.

And so the two women of Crime Sorciere concluded that Jellal was under the notion that he wouldn't allow anyone except for Erza to get close to him. Which was believable, given his strong love for her and given he was pretty awkward about everything to begin with.

But what didn't make sense was that over the months that they got to know Jellal better, the more they realized that he didn't seem to particularly care if they caught him lounging around with his shirt off, and that he didn't really mind co-ed bathing in onsens.

…

"Maybe it's just a look-but-don't-touch thing," Meredy remarked to Ultear that night as they were settling into a hostel room one hot summer.

They watched Jellal remove his armor and crack his back.

Ultear rolled her eyes, although admittedly she kept her eyes glued to the ripple of muscles on Jellal's back. "Wouldn't that just increase the chances that he does get touched?" she asked Meredy, under her breath. "It just doesn't make sense."

They watched him set aside his battle gear to the side of the room before he turned around, smiling and approaching them.

"Wanna go get some ice cream?" he asked them, his eyes sparkling uncharacteristically. "I saw a nice place as we were coming into town."

Meredy was caught once Jellal mentioned ice cream. "Yes!" she childishly squealed, taking Ultear's hand. "Let's go, Ultear!"

"Aren't you going to put on a shirt first?" Ultear deadpanned.

The blue-haired man looked at her, utterly confused. "Why?"

Ultear tossed a look to Meredy, who was too distracted by the idea of sweets to understand what the older woman was trying to get at.

It couldn't have been just a save-myself-for-Erza thing.

…

Even just being around Jellal was embarrassing.

Ultear and Meredy made sure to stand off to the side, waiting for Jellal to first get his ice cream before they would go after him. With the number of people ogling him, the two women preferred to stay back and away rather than be associated with the shirtless man.

"Who? Him? Oh no, we don't know who he is."

They watched him avoid conversation with a couple young girls and also slip past a picture from a random gazetteer that had somehow heard the news about new-hottie-on-the-block, all in the name of getting ice cream. It didn't take him too long to get his ice cream either, since he was able to just skip to the front of the line using his charm and attractiveness and before long, he was heading back their way, with a big smile on his face and three ice cream cones in his hand.

"Damn it," Ultear said, grabbing Meredy's hand and urging her to start walking away from the scene.

Jellal caught up with them easily. "I got you ice cream while I was ordering," he explained, handing them two large vanilla cones. "Why didn't you get in line with me?"

Meredy and Ultear looked at each other, deciding not to explain while they discretely looked behind them, seeing people point their way. They picked up their walking speed, hoping to get back to the hostel as soon as possible.

"Don't you have a thing against people touching you?" Ultear asked, pointedly, after taking a bite out of her ice cream. (Meredy had never been able to understand how the woman could just bite her ice cream without getting brain freeze—then again, she was Ur's daughter so maybe being cold wasn't in her genes.)

Jellal turned around to face them, in the middle of an ice cream lick. He hesitated a moment. "What do you mean?"

Ultear rolled her eyes, and Meredy decided to take the brunt of the conversation.

"What she means is: Aren't you trying to save yourself for Erza?" Meredy asked, bluntly.

The mage's face blushed, almost on cue. "Wha—where did this come from?"

Ultear didn't think that Meredy was doing a good job of getting the answer. "What I meant is: You don't like when people touch you, right?"

Jellal's eyebrows furrowed, and he slowly shook his head no.

"Right," Ultear confirmed. "So why are you walking around half-naked like you're trying to get touched?"

"I'm not going to let people touch me," he defended, and then decided to end the conversation, turning back around to refocus on his ice cream.

"I think he's just trying to make Erza jealous," Meredy whispered to Ultear, very loudly on purpose.

"No, no, it's n-nothing," he corrected, turning back around. He sputtered a bit. "It's just…a hot day!"

But then something occurred to Ultear. She had figured it out.

Quickly, she took Meredy's ice cream.

"H-Hey!" Meredy whined.

Ultear hushed her. "Use your Sensory Link on Jellal."

"Why?" Meredy asked, still frowning.

"Don't ask. Just do. I'll give you back your ice cream."

Jellal noticed immediately when a pink and glowing band pulsed on his skin. He immediately turned around, demanding what was going on.

Ultear grabbed Meredy, who wasn't sure what was going on, with both arms.

"You're ticklish, aren't you?" she accused, with narrowed eyes.

Jellal threw his hands up in defense and then wrapped his arms around his body. "Oh god, no, don't do it. No, no, no—"

"I knew it," Ultear cackled, and in her joy of figuring it out, she went ahead and tickled Meredy.

She watched her two comrades peel open in laughter, doing so uncontrollably. Jellal kicked his legs up in the air, rolled around in a ball on the ground, pounded on the ground laughing—he was pretty much ticklish everywhere, Ultear discovered—and so was Meredy.

This tickling stunt garnered the three of them a lot more attention than any of the ex-criminals wanted, and soon after the mages were forced to run away from the media and retreat safely in the privacy of their hostel room, albeit with reporters waiting at the entrance of their hostel to catch when any one of them exited again.

Jellal was very upset with Ultear causing the loss of his sweet treat. At least Ultear was holding Meredy's ice cream before she started tickling the shit out of both of them.

Still red in the face, he turned away from the other two, silently pouting at not being able to finish his ice cream.

"Well, at least now we've figured out that Jellal is ticklish," Ultear said, with a strange pride.

Jellal shrugged it off—so what if they found out he was ticklish? That couldn't have possibly been worth his ice cream.

He didn't realize that this would come back to bite him in the ass until a battle against a fellow Wizard Saint several years later.

Lol, this turned out a bit longer than I expected. Jellal is somewhat OOC, in my opinion, but I like to think there's a casual light and funny (not to mention somewhat awkwardly ignorant) side to him that we don't see in the canon. Anyway, much fun, albeit on the side of out-of-character, haha.

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