A/N: No, my Friends, I am not missing Jerza Week this year – I only have an entry for Bonus Day but better than nothing, right? (By the way, it's about three hours away from Bonus Day in my time zone but hey, I'm sure it's midnight already somewhere in the world…)

Now, as to where I have been. Well, I haven't really gone anywhere but my will to write hasn't really been here… Some of you may have read in my Tumblr that I had surgery in February to remove my thyroid. Stuff about it wasn't as cut and dry as I thought it would be… there have been tests involved and the possibility of needing further treatment involving radioactive crap that I'd rather not have in my body. We'll see. But hey, at least I got promoted at work.

Anyway, life has been stressing lately… but with Jerza week coming around, I had to at least get this fic out since I've been working on it on and off for over a year.

So, please, so read on for less heavy, more smutty (without the actual smut – you've been warned!) stuff.

The origin of the issue could be traced back to a 'girl's night' at Fairy Hills.

It had been a quiet autumn night when the bulk of the girls from the guild gathered at the girl's dormitory for the second time in the year of x793. The bi-annual event was open to both residents and non-residents and, for the first time, Erza Scarlet was attending it as a non-resident, having moved into her own house a few months prior. Despite that, not much had changed: they would all still camp down in their pajamas down at the common room, sharing stories, jokes and appetizers, braiding hair, painting nails, giggling about gossip and whatnot. Usually, the conversations started mild enough but once the youngest members, namely Wendy, Carla and Asuka, had fallen asleep, the propriety of the themes would go severely downhill. It wasn't hard to imagine who led the discussion.

"Alright," Cana announced, lounging sideways on her sleeping bag nursing a beer, "the kids are down, so let's get to the interesting part. Sex talk!"

"Cana! Don't be so loud," Lisanna scolded her, looking at Asuka's sleeping form. "You could wake them."

"Pfft… whatever," the drunk replied. "Who wants to start?"

The water mage in the room raised her hand excitedly. "Juvia! Juvia has…"

"… bumped uglies with Gray several times, yes, we all know that," Cana supplied, given that she hadn't shut up about it since it had happened. Not only that but the weather had been completely weird for days, endless raining against a sunny sky, as if it was endless tears of joy. "But, as much as it must have been a life-changing experience for you, Gray is really not that juicy a subject for us – I mean, there's not even room to ask questions about his dick since we've all seen it a hundred times."

Juvia pouted in disappointment and Meredy patted her hair in an attempt to comfort her.

"If it's any consolation, I'm happy for you, Juvia-chan," Meredy offered.

The water mage-sniffed. "Thank you Meredy-chan…"

Cana quickly moved on. "Well, anyway, Bisca, anything to say about married sex after celebrating your eighth anniversary?"

"Still going strong," was all the sharp-shooter had to offer.

"What? Just that?"

"Yes. If you want more, get married and find out."

Cana rolled her eyes. "Fine, be that way, Bisca. How about engaged sex?" she asked, turning to Mira, on whose finger glinted a lovely engagement ring. "Is it as hot as they say or have rumors been highly exaggerated?"

Mira shot her a devilish look. "Ooooh, would you let Bacchus make an honest woman out of you if I said 'yes'?"

Lisanna giggled. "You walked right into that one."

"Typical," she mumbled before turning to the others, knowing she would get nothing but 'you have got to settle down' hints from Mira, now that she was enveloped in the whole I'm-getting-married-so-everybody-else-should-do-the-same cloud. It was beyond her what had crossed Laxus' mind to give the woman that sort of ammunition – couldn't he have just taken the rest of them into account and just eloped on a whim or something? "Anyone have something to offer? Something to ask? Come on! Why so prudish? It's just us girls!" So, she looked around in search for a victim. "Evergreen, anything you'd like to discuss?" she asked, trying to bring the rather distant woman into the discussion.

"What could I possibly have to say? I'm single," she replied.

Everybody groaned. There was no couple more obvious and at the same time more stubborn than Elfman and Evergreen. Every single denial was just blatantly annoying.

"So, I suppose you don't know anything about all those nights when Big Brother Elf doesn't sleep at home," Lisanna pressed.

"No, I don't. Maybe he's on a mission to prove his 'manliness' by sleeping outdoors. Who knows what crosses that lunkhead's mind?" she said dismissively, even though everybody knew it was her bed he was warming.

"And that incident in the guild's pantry last week?" Mira brought up, referring to an instance in which she and Kinana had found the reluctant couple canoodling between the boxes of canned tuna and the crates of leafy greens. "I guess Kinana and I must have imagined it."

"Of course! No wonder the service is so slow at the bar if you two spend all your time daydreaming," Evergreen declared.

"Hey!" Kinana complained, a little wounded.

"Don't take it personally," Evergreen excused herself.

Cana shook her head. "You really are the worst. On to the next one… Lucy!"

"Me?!"

"Yes," she said, picking the unfortunate soul. "You and Natsu – tell us how things are going between you guys. Is he as clueless in bed as he is in everything else in his life?"

"What?! There's nothing going on between Natsu and I!" Lucy protested, blushing deeply.

"Really? That's not what a little bird has been telling me," Mira replied, a demonic glint in her eye. "The little bird in question has been chirping a lot about bed-sharing between you two…"

"Why do you even listen to that stupid winged cat?!"

"So, you haven't been sharing a bed with Natsu?" Meredy asked, raising an eyebrow.

Lucy blushed further. "Well… I… we… Look, it's not like I ask for it! He just keeps wandering into my bed for some reason! Nothing happens besides sleeping and I always kick him out as soon as I find him!" Well, sometimes she didn't. Sometimes he looked so peaceful she'd just let him sleep by pretending to be asleep herself.

"But isn't it sweet anyhow? The fact that he keeps crawling into your bed and not doing anything perverted? I think that implies a great deal of caring," Mira pointed out.

"Or a great deal of weirdness. We're friends! He's got weird boundaries when it comes to friends."

Lisanna cleared her throat. "Lucy, Natsu and I were friends long before he met you and he never crawled into my bed. Or Erza's bed, who is also his friend. I think you should consider that maybe he only has weird boundaries when it comes to you and what that may mean for your relationship…"

"But that doesn't mean anything! He was probably only scared that Mira and Elfman would kill him if they found him in your bed and that Erza would do the same if she found him in hers!"

"That might actually mean a thing if it wasn't Natsu we were talking about," Levy pointed out. "Wouldn't he be looking forward to a chance to fight Erza or Mira like that?"

Lucy went quiet for about half a minute. Nobody spoke, too expectant for a catharsis that never took place. Instead, feeling very petty, Lucy pointed her finger at the short bookworm who'd plunged the final dagger on her back. "She and Gajeel are doing it."

"Lu-chan!"

"Oh, everyone here in Fairy Hills knows that," Cana said, disinterested. "He's caught trying to sneak in here at least once every week and they're not exactly quiet. She's a total moaner and guess what: Solid-Script Insolation needs some work."

"Cana!"

"What? I'm just saying… the walls here are paper-thin. You might want to start thinking of moving out for the sake of our beauty-sleep."

"Says the woman who holds the record for the widest variety of different men caught in her dorm room," Bisca pointed out. "If Gildarts knew, he'd make it another ten-year mission to find and kill them all."

"Hey, don't bring the old man into this!" she protested. "He gets annoying as crap when my name even shows up in the same sentence as a guy's. You wouldn't believe the shit he gave Gray this one time."

Juvia gasted, grasping her heart. "Cana-san and Gray-sama?!" she shouted. Thunder raged ominously outside.

"Chill, woman! Not with a thousand condoms! He's like an annoying stripper brother to me," she pointed out. "Gildarts just got the idea that since I tease the crap out of him – mostly over you, by the way – that meant that we regularly rolled in the sack or whatever… he's one to talk. I probably have hundreds of half-siblings all over Fiore." She paused and cleared her throat. "Anyway, back to business, Lucy's not giving news to anybody, Levy. Also, the rub burns on your butt are pretty telling too. Give it a rest and just use the bed every once in a while."

"I don't want to hear that! Can we change the subject, please?!" Levy demanded.

"Oh, alright. I'll leave you be," Cana agreed in amusement. "But only because I've got a juicier target at the moment. A target who has been uncharacteristically silent ever since this conversation started," the lush pointed out, her face turning towards Erza who was, indeed, not only very quiet but also actively attempting to hide her face behind a Heart Kreuz catalogue. "Now, I've got to wonder what brought this change, since she is usually almost as eager as I am to get this part of the night rolling… I'm starting to think it may because this time she has juicy things of her own that she doesn't want to share with the class." Then, she reached forward and pulled the magazine off her hands, revealing a face that matched its owner's hair color almost exactly. "So, that's how it is, eh, Erza? You hear our stories, even take notes sometimes, but when it's you getting some you clam up? Not fair, Erza. Not fair."

The redhead blushed very hard, and backed down even further, up until she hit the wall. "What makes you think I have been… 'getting any', as you put it?"

"Oh, please," Cana said, rolling her eyes. "You've been living with the guy for months."

"Plus, you haven't been exactly subtle," Mira pointed out.

"Also, Erik has been looking particularly disgusted at Jellal since roughly the middle of September," Meredy informed them, looking torn between being sickened and reager about the teasing material. "He's been addressing him as 'pervert' a lot more since then too. I think that may be the cause."

Practically every girl in the room turned to Kinana for confirmation, knowing she would be the only person in the world that Cobra might discuss whatever his ears had picked up from Jellal's brain with. The fact that she was hiding her face behind the latest edition of Sorcerer's Weekly, same as Erza had done with the catalogue, was confirmation enough.

"Well, sounds like it's set in stone. You've been getting laid, Erza, and it is your duty to share details with us!"

"On whose authority?" the knight demanded.

"On mine, the official sexual mentor of this guild," Cana informed her. "You owe us from all the juicy details you have heard from us. Starting with how big it is!"

"Gah, no!" Meredy shouted, having definitely had enough. "I don't want to know that much detail! He's like family to me! Gross!"

"Well, cover your ears them, because you're the minority here!"

The pink-haired girl did just that and started chanting 'Lalalalala…', hoping to muffle the sounds.

"Spill it Erza!"

"Never!"

"Oh, we'll get it out of you," Cana said.

"You can try. Do keep in mind that I have made it through torture much worse than you could ever attempt to without saying a peep before," Erza replied

"Don't underestimate my skills, Erza…"

Before the situation could escalate any further, Mira inserted herself between the two and pushed them both away. "Now, now, there is no need to be hostile, Ladies. We are all friends here. And as friends, we should know better than to ask such intrusive questions," she added, sending the guild drunk a glare. "Erza is a lady and ladies don't kiss and tell… or at least they don't kiss and tell as much as you want them to."

Erza sighed in relief. "Thank you for the support, Mira…" In the background, Meredy was still desperately trying not to hear anything remotely related to Jellal's… well.

"You're welcome," Mira replied happily. Then, her face shifted into a more demonic glint. "So, how about we go with a scale-system instead?"

The redhead's eyes widened. "A scale?!" she asked, horrified.

"Why not? You will satisfy our curiosity while not revealing too much about what happens in your bedroom," the demon said. "It's a compromise, after all."

"C-compromise?!" Erza stammered.

"Fine, I guess I can live with a scale, as long as I make the rules," Cana mumbled.

"So long as they're reasonable, be my guest," Mira allowed it.

"Good. So, the way I see this, the scale goes from zero to ten, zero being him not even being able to figure out where to put it, ten being sex so good that it should be illegal. And keep the penalties in mind, Erza – for instance, being unable to unhook a bra without having to look in less than ten seconds is lame enough that it deducts five points at the very least."

"Oh, yeah, that's the worst!" Laki agreed.

"Took me ages to get Alzack to figure out how to work it," Bisca told them with a giggle.

Kinana was peaking over her magazine, looking at the girls as if she could relate.

"Are you still talking about his junk?!" Meredy questioned a little too loudly, her ears still covered. "'Cause if you are, I'm leaving!"

Juvia patted her arm and gestured to her it was safe to uncover her ears. "It's okay now, Meredy-chan. We're talking about bras now. Which, you ought to know, Grey-sama is perfectly capable of removing. He is talented in many, many things."

"Yeah well, he did have plenty of experience before you came around," Cana pointed out. "His stripping habit is embarrassing as hell, but it got him plenty of booty."

Juvia blanched. "What?!" The thundering outside resumed.

Erza blinked, ignoring Juvia's dispair. "Is it really such a widespread issue for a male to have issues with… what was it again?"

"Unhooking a bra in an effective manner," Mira provided. "And yes, it appears to be a common fault. Though, by the sound of it, Jellal doesn't seem to have issues in that area."

Erza shrugged. "I wouldn't know."

Cana groaned. "Ugh, still playing the blushing virgin, are you? Quit it, woman! We all know you've done the deed."

"I… I wasn't… implicating that I hadn't," she stuttered. "I am simply stating that I have never come across a situation in which he would have to… er, test his skills in that area."

"Eh? What? You always do it with your bra on? Seriously? What a waste!"

Erza blushed. "No!"

"Then what?! You can't not wear a bra! Not when your jugs are that huge! Don't tell me you strip for him every single time! I mean, it's fun every once in a while but come on!

The almighty Titania was, at that moment, very red. "Not that it is any of your business, but I hardly see why there is a need for me to waste time stripping when my magic can get my clothes out of the way just fine in less than a second."

For a moment, there was only silence.

"Erza… are you saying that you use requip for… that?" Mira asked, hesitating a little.

The redhead looked away, extremely mortified and already regretting having offered that information. "Can we change the subject?"

"No!" Cana nearly shouted.

"Why not?"

"Because you requip out of your damn clothes before doing the nasty! Are you serious, woman?! Of all the interesting uses you could give to your magic… what is wrong with you?!"

"I don't see what your issue is," Erza remarked.

"Well, it's very… practical," Levy offered.

"In a totally unromantic sort of way," Lucy added.

Mira sighed. "You see, Erza, there's a certain… magic to slowly taking your lover's clothes off, article by article. It's… sexy."

"And fun!" Cana added. Erza just stared at her, like she wasn't getting what she meant, so the drunkard just huffed, rolling her eyes. "Okay, let me put it like this. Imagine it's Christmas and that you're given a wrapped gift. Would you use requip to remove the wrapping paper and see what's inside?"

"Of course not! That is just wrong!"

"Because unwrapping the presents is part of the fun, right?"

Erza nodded.

"So, think of your body as the gift and your clothes as the wrapping paper. And, well, Jellal as the receiver of the gift." Silence. "Come on – don't you enjoy getting him naked?!"

And then, it clicked. "Oh," she said. She'd been giving Jellal presents but ripping the paper herself. How… inconsiderate of her! "I have been spoiling it for him."

"You as well," Mira pointed out. "Don't underestimate the fun that comes with dressing up in something pretty just so they can go all crazy peeling it off you."

"So, woman, do yourself a favor and let the man do his job. And once we have a sleepover like this again, you can bring all the sweets as a thank-you for our priceless advice. And of course, give us a detailed report on his performance… skill with bra hooks very much included."

"Hmm…" Erza mumbled, scratching her chin. Detailed reports aside and all, she might just take their advice.

What was the worst that could happen, really?

Jellal groaned as he limped his way back home after the job he had just finished hours before. Mavis, it had seemed endless – he couldn't wait to just crawl into bed and lie there doing nothing until his body stopped feeling like it had passed through a meat-grinder.

Why did he feel that exhausted after a mere job that wasn't even considered S-Class? Well, because he had been dumb enough to take said job with Natsu and Gajeel… Now, he had taken jobs with both Dragon Slayers in the past, albeit separately and accompanied by their respective partners, be it Team Natsu or assorted members of it, Levy with or without Shadow Gear or just Pantherlily. Never had he ever gone on a job without just the two of them… especially when S-Class trials in which both of them would likely be competing were just around the corner, which had them in an insufferable 'let's egg each other to death' mood that put their hostilities through the roof (to a point that not even Natsu and Gray, who would also be competing, were even close to reach – it was probably a Dragon Slayer thing)…

It had reached a point in which the Master just plainly told them that if they didn't knock it off, they would be off the trials until he retired, which he had tried and failed multiple times, and to teach them a lesson, sent them on a job on their own both as a test and in an attempt to make them get along – if they failed it because of their bickering, Makarov would do good on his threat immediately. Of course, they would need a chaperone to keep them from just plainly killing each other. Under normal circumstances said chaperone would be an S-Class member (few short of one would be able to stop two destructive Dragon Slayers, after all), however Laxus had been out of town as had Gildarts, and Erza and Mira had their slumber party plans, which they had been willing to cancel, although the Master had refused, unwilling to spoil it for them over a couple of 'bickering, overgrown toddlers'.

Jellal was yet to understand why he had been considered the next best thing. Sure, once upon a time he had been a Wizard Saint, but that didn't erase the fact that Natsu had already single-handedly defeated him once, not making him that much of an opponent to him. Perhaps the Master (ironically) thought he had some sort of special skill at keeping the peace. Perhaps it was that everybody else in the guild even remotely close to S-Class was also in line to the trials and might be tempted to just let the two obliterate each other to whittle down the competition… honestly, he just didn't know. The fact was that he ended up being their babysitter, which he wrote-off as well-deserved karma.

Only he had done a lot of bad stuff in his past, so obviously karma wouldn't just end there. No… Due to a delay in communication, the particular job they had taken – practically hand-crafted for Dragon Slayers – was taken by not one, but two teams from different guilds… the other one being Sabertooth with their Twin Dragons.

All hell had broken loose the moment they had just decided to, rather than have one team walk away back to their guild, compete to see who would finish the job first – even Rogue, who he had thought mildly reasonable, had descended to the level of a naughty preschooler when Gajeel pushed the right buttons.

It was only after that job that Jellal fully understood why Dragon Slayers were ideally raised by Dragons.

Suffice to say, the only reason why there wasn't a mile-wide crater with the center being the town where the job took place was Jellal being there, chasing Dragon Slayers around, up and down hills, across lakes and into caves like an overworked kindergarten teacher. At least competing against their Sabertooth counterparts got Natsu and Gajeel to sort of team up… just a tiny little bit… if one squinted. That and the modest amount of damages (more thanks to Jellal's efforts in leading them into unpopulated areas instead of town centers rather than the Dragon Slayer's collaboration) had been enough for the Master to consider the experiment successful, thus freeing Jellal of his mediation duties and since there was a limit even to his masochism, he wasn't about to point out just how wrong that decision was.

All he wanted was to get home, take a shower and go to bed… which was basically what he did, although for a brief moment there it seemed like he might not actually make it to the bed when, after nearly weeping with relief as soon as he stepped foot inside the house he shared with Erza and taking a very tortuous climb up the stairs, he actually nodded off against the tile wall of the shower. It was the water going cold that woke him, prompting him to head into the bedroom and drop like a stone onto the covers. He lay there, belly down and diagonally, water from his hair soaking the covers as he hasn't even mustered the strength to dry it with a towel rather than just reaching for a bathrobe, for about ten seconds before falling asleep.

Later, he would think he had very nearly taken a page out of his redheaded lover's book as she was often the one who came back home so tired he would find her passed out on the porch swing, sofa and various other horizontal surfaces located between the front steps and their bed (including the stairs themselves, where he had once found her sitting on her step and resting her head against the wall, likely too exhausted to finish the climb)… at least he had reached the finish line…

He didn't wake up until hours later to the feeling of a mattress dipping around him and something warm brushing against his back. He felt fingers brushing the hair off his neck and soft lips pressing against the side of it. Opening one eye, he saw only a curtain of hair that had him smiling.

"Erza," he mumbled.

"Welcome back," she responded softly.

Her weight shifted farther on the bed and he flipped onto his back, his body protesting a little, still not quite recovered of the tiredness, although not as heavy as before. In any case, he wasn't about to complain – the sight of her brought him enough joy to ignore everything else.

"Did Natsu and Gajeel give you trouble?" she asked.

He sighed. "Do you need to ask?" he simply replied.

"Well, I did hear that the Master's faith on them has been restored, so I assume that it was at least moderately successful…"

"Ah, well… the damages were kept at a minimum, at least," he admitted.

"I would say that is quite the achievement," Erza told him, moving closer to straddle his legs. "An achievement worthy of reward…"

"Oh?" he said, his attention captured.

She leaned forward, her lips brushing against his neck before traveling up a teasing path up his jaw. "Unless, of course, you are too tired," she added, hesitating for a moment.

He gulped. Well, he couldn't say that he wasn't still a little sore from the overwork he has been put through the past few days, but really, he wasn't anywhere tired enough to actually refuse her. Not that he thought he could – ever. Quite honestly, he was fairly certain that he wouldn't be able to resist her even if he was a couple of heartbeats away from cardiac arrest. He would likely console himself with the fact that it would be a glorious way to die…

She didn't wait for him to respond before capturing his lips hungrily, her position shifting in such a way that the friction of her body had most of his blood volume traveling southwards.

Even though they had been involved intimately for a few months already, it still felt unreal that she would want him like that every time she initiated it. Part of him always expected to wake up all of a sudden to the aftershocks of a particularly nice sort of dream and was pleasantly (and guiltily) surprised when it wasn't the case.

His hands roamed down along her sides, then slipping under her clothes – she seemed to be wearing some sort of wool-shirt and skirt combination, though he didn't pay much attention to it until the presence of her clothing started becoming a little restricting to his motions.

That was… odd. They had been lovers for several weeks, yet that was the first time that her clothing presented any problem to their lovemaking. Vaguely, it occurred to him that that would be because they would usually already be gone by the time their most heated ministrations begun, vanishing in a natural sequence as their passion progressed. It appeared that, that day however, that wasn't the case.

As such, the next time their lips came apart, he couldn't help but point that out. "Erza… I think you're a little overdressed at the moment."

She raised an eyebrow. "Am I? Then perhaps you ought to do something about it?"

His eyes widened to the size of saucers. "M-me?" There was surprise, nervousness and excitement as he said the word.

She nodded. "It has come to my attention that perhaps always taking off my own clothes is… diminishing your experience."

"Oh…" he mumbled. "So…"

"So, do get started," she urged him, nibbling on the side of his neck.

He felt like a starving man let loose in an all-you-can-eat buffet. Really, he had no idea where to start. Her shirt… yes, perhaps her shirt would be a good idea. But how was he to take it off if he couldn't even properly see it? In his haste, he hadn't even gotten a chance to take a good look at it. Were there buttons on it? Zippers? Was it the sort that he could simply pull over head? Mavis, what if it got caught on her face or something?

"Jellal?" she questioned, pulling back a little when she found him hesitating.

"Ah, yes, Sorry. I got distracted," he confessed sheepishly, before reaching for the hem of her shirt, quickly deciding that was a good place to start.

He was careful getting the shirt off her, even if his current position was anything but favorable to his attempt, and luckily managed to get it off without it catching on her nose or ears, although her hair ended up a little mussed up. In all, the outcome of not utterly embarrassing himself at the first item of clothing felt like a little victory.

And with victory, came a reward… shirt discarded to the side, he found himself taking in the sight of her like that: messy hair, lips swollen from kissing, rosy cheeks, taunt body bare from the waist up, aside from her bra, which made her look just… so amazing. He wasn't sure what it was about knowing that he had contributed to her current state of undress that made it so special, but there was just this indescribable thrill about it that made her even more alluring in his eyes. He couldn't help but need to shift his position, struggling underneath her to move into a sitting position, rather than lying back. She seemed to realize his intention and pulled herself up a little bit, allowing him to move more easily without her weight on him, only sitting back on his thighs when he was firmly sitting up.

He reached up with his hand to move away some of the hair that was partially covering her face and ended up just sitting there for a few seconds, looking at her with his hand against her cheek.

At some point, she started to blush, feeling self-conscious. "What is it?" she asked in a whisper.

He shook his head. "Nothing… you just looked very perfect right now."

Her blush intensified by the tenfold but she didn't pull away. Instead, she circled his neck with her arms and pulled him towards her into yet another intense kiss.

He melted into her warm lips, his hands moving down to rest on her hips as, for a few moments, he simply savored the sweet flavor of her kiss. Eventually, though, he had to resume his work of getting her clothes off her.

Her skirt was easy to figure out – there was a button at the front, which he quickly released and then a zipper that he pulled down before starting to tug it down her waist. Getting it off was the awkward part – although without ever breaking their kiss she shifted from her sitting position into a kneeling one, which allowed him to slip the skirt past her hips and down her thighs, getting it past her knees without pulling away from one another was next to impossible. And though they certainly tried, that only resulted in them losing their balance, him falling flat with his back against the mattress and her right on top of him… basically smothering him with her chest.

Really, he should be used to it by now – her breasts seemed to have a way of ending up all over his face at the most inconvenient of times… at least now it wasn't in public. That time.

"Ah, s-sorry," she mumbled, pulling back, just a tiny bit embarrassed.

"'t's okay," he replied sheepishly. "We might as well just…" he trailed off, gesturing at the skirt hanging midway down one of her calves.

"Ah," she said, suddenly reminded that it was still there. She reached back for a moment and through some shifting and pulling, manager to get the skirt fully off, throwing it across the room. "Done."

Her bra and her panties matched – an affair of black lace that looked almost sinful. The thought that he was going to be the one peeling them of her made his mouth water and his stomach twist. There was always this strange dichotomy in what came to doing anything sexual with Erza – while he positively hungered for her at times (that one included), she was often in such a high pedestal in his mind that the mere thought of lusting about her felt like breaching something sacred.

He didn't know which of them actually resumed the kissing and quite frankly he just plain didn't care. All of a sudden she was leaning astride him, her front pressed firmly against his and her lips firmly planted on his own as her hands fumbled with the front of his bathrobe, slipping it open.

All of a sudden, he was reminded that he was wearing absolutely nothing underneath and felt a sudden urgency to get her just as naked as he was soon to be. So, his hands started moving up from her hips, causing her to shiver a little as they brushed over her ribs and finally touched her back.

Tentatively, he reached for the back of the bra, expecting to find some sort of knot to undo there. There was none…

Odd.

He was sure he had seen knots on the back of some of her bikinis on the few times they had hung around together by the side of the guild pool together, her happily sunbathing and him hungrily watching her every curve. Though, now that he thought of it, there might be one or two of her bikinis with no knots in it… it had never really occurred to him to wonder how those were fastened together. He sort of regretted it now that her bra seemed to also be the case.

There was a bit of a lump in the place he thought the knot would be, with something hard underneath. A push-button? He gave it a tentative press but nothing happened. Not a push-button.

Not a clothing button either, he quickly concluded, feeling around it.

Maybe he was just supposed to pull it apart? So, he gave it a try. The fabric remained together. Mavis, what in the world was keeping that bra together?

Above him, he felt Erza tensing a little, but she didn't say a word – she just kept on kissing him while his hands fumbled with the back of her bra. He didn't notice she was pressing her fingers against his side, one by one, until the fifth finger pressed and she started doing the same with her other hand. It was like she was counting… seven… eight… nine…

And then, at ten, she was off him. "No!"

He nearly fell off the bed, started by her outburst. "What's wrong?!" he questioned immediately. Had he hurt her somehow? Caused a trigger of some kind? Crossed some sort of line he was not aware of?

"You!" was her response.

"M-me?" he asked, confused.

"You… you also have the… Bra Disorder!"

The what disorder?! His mind was too hazy to understand… or maybe not. Later, he would think that even if he was perfectly level-headed at the moment, he wouldn't have been able to immediately figure his way around such a silly… clinical term, if it would even be called that. "Erza… what in the world you are talking about?"

"I am talking about the apparently-common male inability to unhook a bra in an effective manner!"

He blinked. What? "Well… It's not like us guys have to put them on and take them off daily like girls do," he reasonably pointed out. "Well… not on ourselves, in any case."

Erza didn't fully disagree. "Understandable argument… and yet, it is unacceptable that you have gone this long without having mastered this technique. I take part of the responsibility, of course – I have been spoiling you with my requip and left you ignorant in what comes to this skill. We must correct it immediately, before your reputation takes a hit."

"My r-reputation?" he stuttered. "Erza… I'd rather not have a reputation at all when it comes to… intimate things like this!"

"Nonsense – these things have a way of reaching the grapevine. I will not have you known as clueless in bed over such a silly matter. We will start your training at this very moment."

Training? He really wouldn't call figuring his way around a bra such a thing. Still, he supposed that training would require practice and practice would mean returning to their previous activities that he was sort of desperate to resume because, boy, did he feel uncomfortable down there… "Whenever you're ready."

She gave him a narrow-eyed look but quickly made her way back onto the bad, crawling across it until she was once more straddling his lap, arms resting on his shoulders… well, this was a sort of training he supposed he could live with.

"Ah… can I…?" he asked, tentatively reaching behind her back.

"I need a moment," she declared.

He had no idea what for and frankly, it was the last thing in his mind. Her breasts her practically on his face… it was making things a little… distracting down south. But then, he heard a beeping sound coming from behind his head and turned to try and see whatever on Earth Erza was holding.

"Erza, is that a stopwatch?" he said, blinking.

"Of course. We are training, are we not? I have to time you. How else do you expect me to evaluate you?"

Evaluate him? "This is a test?"

"Tests serve for excellent learning tools," she pointed out. "We must not allow your ignorance in this matter to go on any longer, least it may taint your reputation."

Again with the reputation, he thought.

"You may begin on three," she finally said after a moment, settling a little closer to him and pressing right onto his crotch… Good God.

"Is this much physical closeness really necessary?" he had to ask in a pained tone. To think he had been happy about it not two minutes before… given the stopwatch, he could tell therw would be nothing leisurely about that training already.

"I am replicating the circumstances in which this skill would be necessary," she argued. "You will have to brave through it and reap the rewards at the end."

He wasn't one to think bitter thoughts, but he couldn't help but think that it had better be a damn amazing reward.

"Now, on three…"

If one asked him how exactly had manager to snap the bra open after one minute and two seconds, he wouldn't have been able to tell. He just fiddled with it a lot until one moment, all of a sudden, it was hanging loosely from Erza'a shoulders. He wasn't about to complain, though, as a victory was a victory and it was finally over, so they could once and for all get on with things and finally remove the massive weight on his crotch.

He was sorely mistaken.

"We must work on your speed. Again," Erza declared. And before he could even have a chance to look under that bra, she had a different one on, firmly fastened at the back. "I expect a fifty percent improvement, at least!"

For a moment, he just stared. "But… do we have to do thing now?"

"Yes. Ready yourself!"

The second attempt was even worse because, well, he really had no idea what he had done to open up the bra the first time around. She eventually stopped him when the clock reached two minutes.

"This is unbelievable! Two minutes and no success! You should have been able to remove at least one dozen bras in this amount of time!"

"That's not fair!" he found himself protesting with a pout. "You didn't even give me the chance to look into it. I need to see the mechanics to understand how it works!"

"Look… that is not sensual!" she replied.

"Well, maybe not. But you cannot expect me to learn how to remove a bra sensually without first learning how to remove it at all!" he stated.

She paused for a moment. He might be correct. Although… "You lived with two women for years," she said, referring to Meredy and Ultear. "Surely you must have stumbled into their underwear at some point and taken a good look at it."

He looked mildly horrified. "Do you realize just how much they made fun of me on a daily basis for the widest range of reasons ever imagined? I wouldn't touch their underwear with a ten-foot pole. God knows what sort of material they would get out of that. And as for yours… well, you always launder your underwear separately from everything else, so I never get to see it either. Not that I'm complaining! You're warranted the privacy to launder your underwear separately."

"Nonsense. It has nothing to do with privacy. It is simply dry-clean only."

"Dry-clean only? You buy dry-clean only underwear?" he asked in disbelief. "And actually dry-clean it?"

"It is what it says on the tag!" she pointed out and, just to make a point, made the bra that he had succeeded to remove, holding it by the tag in front of him. It did say dry-clean only… he felt like there was no sillier purchase than underwear whose wash had to be outsourced every time. Besides perhaps designer armor… which Erza bought by the truckload.

She dropped the bra on his lap, allowing him to pick it up and examine it, as he had requested. And once he looked at the back… "Oh, a hook!" he said, figuring it out. "I see now… If I do it like this…" He slipped the hooks into the little loops and then, a few seconds later, did the opposite, successfully opening the bra. "Aha!"

"I hope you realize that allowing you the chance to see the mechanist raises you up to far higher expectations. Anything more than thirty seconds to remove the next bra will be unacceptable."

He got it out in less than ten. (He wasn't one to look smug about his own achievements under usual circumstances but, Mavis help him, he couldn't help giving her a little smirk that time around.)

"Hmm… perhaps you were correct about the need to examine the mechanism in advance. This achievement seems more on par with your usual standard than the previous ones," she admitted.

"So, I passed the test, then?" he asked

"Not yet. There are still more types of fastenings that you need to master," she pointed out.

He groaned, though he was soon glad to find that Erza was not as strict about those as she had previously been. She even gave him a hand figuring out the most complicated fastenings while he was still busy studying them, so once she did have them on, taking them off was a quick affair.

After what had to be the seventh different type of fastening, he couldn't help but wonder just how many different types of bra fastenings there were in the market – he considered that there seemed to be no uniform standard for them and lamented the fact that he had no idea who he should write to in order to create one.

"So, what will it be next?" he asked, more or less resigned. By then, he had sort of gone numb in more ways than one… there was only so much torture one could take before altogether shutting down.

"Hmm… I think the only thing left would be corsets," she pointed out and because he had seen enough of her corsets in her armor exposition in the basement to have a bit of an idea of how much of a pain in the ass they were to remove, he just let out a long-suffering breath. "However, I believe corsets deserve their own, dedicated course."

He blinked. That sounded… either like a very good thing or a very bad one.

"You have been a rather dutiful pupil," she said, leaning down to nibble on the side of his neck. "A reward for your hard work would only be fair."

"Really?" he said, surprised.

Just like that, certain stirrings that had more or less shut down throughout his lessons started to re-awaken and the prospect of a reward sounded like music to his ears. There was actually an extra layer of excitement about it – the feeling that having earned the chance through his hard work would make it very, very worth it. It was probably silly and maybe a little bit unhealthy, but he didn't care. He was going to take his damn reward, even if it was the last thing he d…

The doorbell rang downstairs.

Maybe.

Possibly.

Erza didn't seem willing to acknowledge it, so he told himself that he might have imagined it.

Then, it rang again – along with familiar voices. "Erza!" they heard from somewhere outside. It sounded like Natsu.

She hesitated for a moment and he could tell that she'd heard it. Still, after what seemed like a moment of consideration, Erza appeared to choose to ignore it again.

"Oh Erza!" It sounded like pebbles were being aimed at their window in addition to the calling.

Practically growling, Erza pulled away from his neck and fumed. "Mavis, would he get a hint and go aw…?"

A rock smashed through their window before she could finish that sentence, landing about a food away from the bed. The look on Erza's face was murderous.

"Can you hear me now? C'mon!"

"Natsu, you moron, what do you think you're doing smashing people's windows!" Lucy could be heard shouting outside, through the broken window.

"She wasn't responding! I know she's home – hey, Erza!"

Above him, Erza was already clad in full armor, clutching a sword. "Excuse me. I will be right back."

He sighed as she made her retreat and just lay there waiting as he heard Natsu yelping and Lucy frantically apologizing while hurriedly explaining the rush. He couldn't hear it all very well from the bed, but once he caught the words 'emergency', 'escaped convict' and 'dangerous' in the same sentence, he knew that he sure as hell wasn't going to get his 'reward' anytime soon.

As expected, Erza looked extremely apologetic once she returned to the room.

He sighed, resigned. "Go on," he said. "Just come back in one piece."

She made her way to the side of the bed and just gave him a soft, thankful kiss. "I will make it up to you," she promised.

And so, as she left, he was left alone in bed, feeling extremely uncomfortable. He couldn't even find it in himself to be mad – mostly, there was quiet acceptance of his torture and impending cold shower. Deep down, he had a feeling that this was payback from the universe for every single one of his misdeed. May the sinner be blue-balled for all eternity of something equally cruel…

Oh well, at least now he did know how to remove every bra known to man with his eyes closed. He supposed that was probably worth something somewhere (likely nowhere he would care to go).

A day and a half later, when Erza returned, he discovered that he was wrong. There was at least one sort of bra he had not learned to remove yet. Or at least so she had said after she had all but dragged him home from the guild upon her arrival without as much as a word to her friends.

"No," had been his response, letting go of her hand and stopping midway to the house. "I'm sorry, Erza, but I think I've had enough of bra latches for a while."

She pouted. "But you will like this one."

He huffed. "Erza…"

"Please?" She gave him a pleading look and since she usually didn't ask rather than just do whatever the hell she wanted, it was very hard to resist her when she did.

And if it wasn't enough that he already knew he had little chance just due to her pleading, the fact that she reached under the cleavage of her own shirt and pulled out a teasing, red bra strap before making her way awfully close to him did not help.

He groaned. "Mavis, Erza… are toy trying to kill…?" He paused all of a sudden, sniffing as a slightly familiar smell assaulted his nose. Strawberry… but not the sort that he would usually smell in her shampoo or perfume. It was a distinctively edible smell, like strawberry candy or something. It took him about two seconds to realize where it was probably coming from…

He reached to brush his fingers against the bra strap. It felt rather… rubbery. Of one thing he was sure, though. "This isn't rubber, is it?"

Erza shook her head. "No, it is not."

He gulped. "Erza… are you wearing a bra made out of… gummy candy?!"

Her lips curled. "I promised I would make it up to you, did I not? I imagine taking this one of will be… an interesting activity."

He probably went very pale at that moment, mostly because he felt every drop of blood on his body travelling very much away from his face. "Ah… we should probably… hurry home," he stammered. "Fast."

Erza smiled. That was just the sort of reaction she had hoped for.

Several months later, at the next bi-annual Slumber Party

"… now, Erza, I believe you owed us a follow up from last time," Cana prompted. "Remember, a grade regarding Jellal's pro…"

"Ten."

Cana raised her eyebrows. "What? You can't just give out a ten like that!"

"I believe it is within the agreed scale," Erza stated.

"Yes, but when you give out the top grade, you need to go into a little more detail. I mean, a ten! That's juicy as hell! What the hell is the guy doing to you?"

"Things worthy of a ten."

"Such as…" Mira said. Even she was curious about that

Meredy got up in a flash, looking disturbed. "I'm out of here. Call me back when this part of the conversation is over." And so, she made a run for it.

The redhead frowned. "I believe the compromise we had reached was that I would simply give a grade from zero to ten. Ten is my grade – that will be all."

"Erza – ten is sex-god level! You need to share the details. What's his trick? Secret maneuvers? Crazy foreplay?" Cana asked.

"This matter is closed, as far as I am concerned – please move on."

"Goddamn it, woman! Spill!"

"No," was her calm response.

"Well, at least tell us something about the bra thing," Mira asked curiously. "How did he make it on that level?"

"He has mastered that skill with ease, as was the case with many other skills he had to tackle in his lifetime," Erza offered.

"Such as…" Cana prompted, hoping to get some juicy skills named.

"Cooking, Stealth, Metal Polishing… he has even read up on a number of new tricks to keep my armor sparkling like it never has before – all it took was some toothpaste and lemon juice…"

The lush was left fuming. "You suck. Hell, listen to yourself! You're probably just biased about the guy, anyway."

"Totally biased," Laki agreed.

"I mean, he's the only guy she's ever banged… can't get much of a notion of a scale out of that! No way Jellal has some kind of a wonder-dick…"

"Well, clearly he does to her," Mira said brightly. "All thanks to love…"

"Boring… bet he would be way lower on my scale."

Erza glared. "Which you will never have a chance to personally verify."

"Relax, woman, nobody's aiming to sink their nails into your man," Cana waved her off. "Hell, knowing him, he's so bananas over you that he probably wouldn't be physically able to get it on with anybody else. And even if we thought he was… well, we know better than to give you a reason to eviscerate us in a rage now that you're all…" she vaguely gestures towards Erza's middle "… about to be ruled by hormones and whatever."

Erza looked down at her still-flat stomach and blushed. The news of her very unplanned pregnancy were still recent enough that they made her a little self-conscious.

"Don't suppose you want to dish out the juicy details on pregnant sex, do you?"

The redhead just gave her a look, which the drunkard quickly interpreted as a 'no'. She then attempted a different source. "Mira?"

"Nope."

"Ugh… you guys are no fun…"

The End

A/N2: Happy Jerza Week! Feedback is welcome!