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19 ; when i ruined it

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"Let go," she wants to hiss, "leave me alone, leave me be," but the words come out of her mouth slurred and slow. The night is a jumble and Erza squints at it through blurry eyes. Her head pounds, loud and aching to the beat of the music, and she whines deep in her throat at the dull throb of it all in her skull. It's scary because she's falling all over the place, and some distant part of her mind knows that she's going to regret this in the morning, so badly.

And the floor, it swoops and tilts and dances from under her feet, and the only thing steady in the world right now is his arm around her waist and his hip against her back.

She wants to tell him this isn't like her, this isn't normal, she would never usually do this, this isn't the Erza she wants him to know, but her mouth is sewn shut with alcohol and her screaming headache is talking over all her good intentions.

She's suddenly hit with a blast of cold air, freezing air, God, it's freezing, and then he's slowly, carefully, forcefully maybe but who knows, the world's spinning, he's carrying her — dragging her? — walking her to a car. It's a taxi.

His warmth doesn't leave her body, not when she's trying to clamber in and stumbling so hard she bruises her shin, not when she's slumped over her knees and throwing up in the back, not when the taxi driver shouts and Jellal shuts him up with a ferocious glare and a muttered "I'll pay the fine, just get us home already."

It's Jellal, Erza understands, trying her best to sober up, trying her best to stay conscious truth be told. This is Jellal.

This is fucking alcohol poisoning, another part of brain supplies.

Getting out of the taxi — disgusting and hot and reeking, she's humiliated, college students are an absolute mess, she's a mess, a giant fucking mess— and the cold air hits her again, but this time it clears her head to the point where she can lean against the car without needing his support. And he — it's Jellal, she thinks uselessly (hopelessly, God, she's completely lost control, hasn't she? And no, no, Erza, don't cry, don't cry, you've put him through enough tonight) — he goes round and pays the taxi driver, and she hears him, she hears him say it when he catches her staring and understands the widened eyes.

"No, no," and his chuckle is dark and worried, "it's my treat."

And in with the shards of shame and stabbing pain slips an inevitable fondness.