Jerza Love Fest Prompt #3: Lace

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Chantilly

By AbsentAngel

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Underneath her armor there is lace.

It is fragile looking, caressing the generous swells of her breasts and curve of her hips with graceful silk spun fibers. The floral pattern is so very soft, so feminine, that it makes part of him smile because despite her hard exterior, Erza has always loved girly things. The intricacies of the fabric are seductively beautiful and sweet all at once, but it is the color that holds Jellal's attention the most.

It is white, pure and crisp against her satin skin.

He wasn't expecting white – she has always seemed to have an affinity for red and black – but he realizes that it suits her in ways that make his heart feel heavy. Tracing the delicate lace at her hip with trembling fingers, he wonders how he could have ever imagined her in anything else. Of course it is white, it has to be, because even after all those years of battle after battle and blood, of pain and tears, she remains untainted. She has not succumbed to darkness, has not let sin dirty her hands or stain her soul.

Instead she has forged armor from blood and sweat, molded molten metal into resilient steel. Her defenses are shaped from her pain, her weapons from her tears. Erza Scarlet has the strength of a warrior born from suffering, while still retaining her innocent light. It is no wonder to him why she bears the name Titania.

Sometimes he remembers the girl she was. Her trusting, gap toothed smile haunts him often enough that the image may as well be imprinted on the backs of his eyelids. The way she is smiling up at him now is older, softer, but it still retains that same faithful curl. It makes him grieve for the girl that was lost even as he stands in awe of the woman that was born from her ashes. A woman whose armor, he knows with a guilt heavy heart, that he (more than anyone) is responsible for.

He doesn't deserve her trust or her smiles. Maybe he did back then (before she was a warrior, before she was a woman) but he certainly doesn't now. The amount of lives he has ruined is horrifying and inexcusable. He can only try to atone for the damage he has caused, even though he knows that he will never be able to balance the scale. Sins, he has found, are heavier than virtues.

He knows that if Erza belongs in white, then he should be draped in black.

He has caused her so much pain. Sometimes he wishes that the blood and tears that he has caused her can be measured. Other times he sits, self loathing burning in his chest like acid, and admits that he is relieved that he can not. If he could take her pain from her though, take all of her hurt and all of her heartache, he would. He would forfeit every little happiness, would lay down his life, if it meant his fairy queen could live without the scars.

Scars that he knows are there, even though she tries to hide them behind her soft smiles and protects them behind tempered steel. How could he not know, when he is the one who put them there?

Magic makes it easy to hide the physical proof – a simple potion is all it takes to fade blemishes into nothing – but as his hand glides up the soft expanse of skin along her taut stomach, he imagines that he can feel the ridges burning beneath his palm. He knows that the ones he is responsible for are the ones that run the deepest. Too often, he finds himself wondering if they still ache with phantom pain, but he can never bring himself to ask her. He is too afraid of her answer.

He doesn't deserve her. Loving her – letting her love him – can only bring her more pain. His soul is too stained, too blackened, and she is so, so clean. She is lying back, her scarlet hair bleeding across the pillows and her white lace glowing in the moonlight from the open window. A shy blush is painting her cheeks, but her gaze is steady and unflinching. Just touching her makes him feel as if he has dirtied her somehow, stained her.

"You deserve better." The words leave him without his permission, but he can't take them back. Even if he could, he wouldn't. They ring too true, and even though he desperately wants her (loves her) he can't help but feel the need to give her the opportunity to turn him away. "You deserve someone so much better."

Her fingers, rough and callused from her various weapons, trace the line of his tattoo just above his brow. Her eyes are too soft, too forgiving, as she peers passed his irises and into dirtied soul beneath. "Maybe," she says, so soft that it is like a sigh – a murmuring of the heart. "But I want you."

She kisses him.

It is sweet and soft, the mere pressing of flesh, but it makes him sigh all the same. For a sliver of a second he tells himself that he should pull away, but as her hands thread through his hair he finds himself pressing into her instead. He doesn't have the strength or the willpower to deny her. Not anymore (perhaps not ever). He ignores the burning behind his eyes as his hand reaches up to caress her smooth jaw. She tastes like redemption. Undeserved and unfounded, but it is there all the same. It is like the darkest of chocolate melting on his tongue, the sweetest of addictions with the bitterness that comes with knowing it is undeserved.

As his hands separate the Chantilly lace from her satin skin, he vows to kiss every last invisible scar and drown every hurt with his affection. She will always deserve better, but as long as it is him that she wants, he will give her his very best.

AN: What's this? Something other than NaLu?! Shocking, I know. Wanted to expand my horizons a bit, and the Jerza Love Fest was the perfect opportunity to do it. This will probably be my only contribution, because I really need to get to work on all these chapter stories…

As always, if you like it enough to fav/follow then I hope you'll take the extra minute or two to review!