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pencilofawesomeness · 11 hours ago

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htryds: Tower Trio Shenanigans

because I'm using @ft-platonicweek as an excuse to post htryds stuff, here's another microshot~ (nevermind that it's 2k. it's just a random scene promise)

For Day 5's Prompt: Poison

Early X784

Jellal sat at the bar and tried not to noticeably grimace every time he became aware of the layer of sticky grime on the surface. Not everywhere, but there was a spot near his arm that he kept hitting by accident. He vaguely wondered if it would help or hinder his goal to ask the barkeep for a wet cloth to clean it.

He decided against it. Instead, he nasally sighed into his drink and nearly finished the last of it, much to his chagrin. One glass and not much progress to show for his presence here—and Jellal really didn’t want to have a second. He didn’t care for the taste but he didn’t mind it either; the potential effects, however… Well. Jellal had, as his therapist would put it, “an understandable discomfort with activities that lower his mental awareness,” so he made it a point never to drink to the point of getting drunk.

If only the Black Rose guild wasn’t so entrenched in this town and equally difficult to find. They scared off easily, as they discovered, and not even Erik had much success in rooting them out. The best lead they got was that travelers who stopped at this tavern had a chance of going missing, and concerned locals blamed the dark guild. But, since they were an awfully careful lot, they decided to be as subtle as possible. Which meant partially splitting up.

Partially. Jellal could rest assured that both Erik and Erza were nearby. Erik initially offered to take point at the bar and be more exposed, since he could drink literally anything, but they all agreed he would catch more if he lurked on the outskirts of the establishment, in order to hear a wider scope. That left him and Erza to act normal inside the tavern, like normal patrons. Either to lure out any of the members or to get any information at all without scaring these poor townsfolk away. They were jumpy enough, and for good reason. The rumors of this guild’s victims were… unpleasant, to understate it.

Erza didn’t mind drinking but she, somehow, was a lightweight. And not a quiet drunk. So she reluctantly agreed to hang out around the billiards table instead, among the more social locals and travelers. Jellal, then, would haunt the bar and glean information from the barkeep himself. At least Jellal’s magic and constitution, for some reason, burned through alcohol like it did caffeine and calories. Theoretically. Acnologia surmised that it was because of the high energy cost, and the way it interacted with his body not entirely unlike a dragon slayer’s. Too bad it didn’t literally give him magic lungs or a magic stomach like them. That might be convenient.

He finished the last of the ale. He didn’t feel too different, which was nice, but he asked for a lighter brew on purpose. If Jellal thought it wouldn’t be suspicious, he would have gone pure seltzer, but the barkeep already lightly scoffed when he specified blond ale over the standard stuff. The most Jellal got out of him was that he made no effort to be friendly and he never used anyone’s name, but some people came up to the bar and he handed them an order without a word. There were regulars here and Jellal kept note of their faces—and who stayed, who left quickly and quietly, who came alone, and who only came in groups. The groups of people were not the ones with memorized orders, and they didn’t hang close to the bar.

Jellal watched a woman with long, dark green hair and pale skin slink into a seat near him, with one empty in-between. She looked down the whole time, and when the barkeep ambled over, he slid her something clear—gin?—and she slid money across the countertop. A local who planned on staying, but only long enough for one drink. She had that general air of nervousness about her that many of the locals had, but she wasn’t altogether unwilling to exist in public. Maybe Jellal should try asking something casual, just to gently check the overall atmosphere.

“Refill?” came the vaguely impatient voice of the barkeep. Jellal looked up to see him gesturing to Jellal’s empty mug with his chin.

Jellal pushed it forward with a nod, and the barkeep took it without another word. It was the easiest way to stay here unbothered long enough to ask what he wanted.

He couldn’t parse much of anything through the generic din of the tavern, not like Erik could, but a burst of Erza’s triumphant laugh cut through the noise. He glanced to the side to see she was playing some guy with a decorative shoulder tattoo at pool and clearly not holding back. She had that group’s attention, and Jellal fought down a fond chuckle. That could either be a good thing or a bad thing, but Jellal settled for good, because nobody looked close to a fight.

The barkeep brought his glass back from the tap. As expected, it was the same thing Jellal had ordered before. Not that it should be surprising. If Mirajane and Chico had taught him anything, it was that all barkeeps and baristas had impeccable memories.

“Thank you,” Jellal offered.

The barkeep rolled his eyes with a huff as he moved on to the next customer.

To his fortune (how pleasantly rare), the lady next to him spoke first. “Traveler?” she guessed.

Jellal nodded. “Yeah, passing through to get back home,” he lied vaguely. “How’d you figure?”

“Aside having never seen you before—and you’re quite the standout—no local ever thanks that grump. I think it gives him hives.”

“Ah, my mistake, then,” Jellal chuckled good-naturedly, but he took careful note of it. “You come here often?”

“Sure. It’s the only damn place to get some decent booze ‘round here.” She knocked back the rest of her drink. “Though I’m sure a traveler such as yourself has seen better.”

He didn’t need to be Erik to hear the unspoken warning. Like most people, she was careful not to say anything blatantly. The walls surely had ears, or at least the locals believed it so. Another thing to take note of. “Probably,” he replied, to answer the question at face value, “although I can’t say I’m a connoisseur in the slightest.”

“Yeah? Well I suppose you look too young to be, unless you’re some fancy capital brat.”

Jellal chuckled with some real amusement. “Oh, definitely not.” He did, however, add this to the mental tally of how many times someone wondered if he had noble blood in him, despite Jellal very emphatically not. He and Mystogan kept score. (Mystogan, a born prince, delighted in losing, although Jellal thought that was a foregone conclusion when Mystogan rarely engaged with the greater public except to be stand-offish, usually on purpose; not many people would ever know that he knew what all twenty variations of silverware was for.)

“Is that so? Shame,” she said without heat, but maybe, arguably, disappointment. Before he could parse what they might mean, the woman knocked back the rest of her drink and pushed it away. The noise caused the barkeep to glance over at the both of them, but he didn’t move yet.

It reminded him that he should probably touch his refill. A few sips in and it shouldn’t be strange for him to ask for water to go with it, right? With everyone so on edge, he didn’t want to do anything to look out of place or suspicious. His identity as an outsider was already obvious, apparently. However, no sooner than he picked up his glass again, a presence over his shoulder interrupted him.

Erik appeared out of nowhere, with that careful flat look on his face that betrayed how pissed he was to anybody who knew him well enough.

“Uh, can I help you?” Jellal asked to keep up the facade of being strangers, while loudly thinking, ‘What happened? What do you need me to do?’ in case Erik had a way to indicate what was going on.

He made no move to answer either question. Instead, Erik reached over and plucked Jellal’s glass straight out of his hand and took a large drink of it, pausing only to swish it around his mouth with a scowl.

He slammed it back on the counter. “Don’t drink that.”

Ah. Well, shit. Okay then. That was… very disconcerting. Of all the ways people have tried to kill him before, nobody had ever attempted to poison him. That he was aware of, at least. “Thanks.”

Erza must have spotted Erik emerging from his hiding and she abandoned her game immediately to stalk over to them, frowning and with her cue stick still in tow. “What happened?” she asked, a little too loudly and obviously for his taste. They still had a narrow window to be subtle with.

“Rohypnol,” Erik growled, dragon-style, deep in his chest.

…That was worse than Jellal imagined. Fantastic. He’ll unpack that later.

Erza looked positively murderous. “Who?” she demanded lowly, almost dragon-like herself. He hoped Erik knew how to de-escalate her, because Jellal knew he didn’t have a chance when he had been in the line of fire. Erza was much too protective.

And Erik was too, so maybe Jellal should have seen this coming.

“The pair in the back left corner,” Erik started, likely knowing full well what was bound to happen next.

No sooner after he responded, Erza hefted the cue stick like a javelin and threw it straight at the aforementioned pair, who looked no different from the other patrons. The cue stick jammed into the wall by one guy’s head, who predictably jerked away with wide eyes. The tavern jolted along with the pair, but there was still a (small) chance at stopping an all out brawl and dismissing the crazy show of prowess as drunken behavior. Maybe. (Jellal was kidding himself, he knew this.)

“Guys,” he pleaded.

“Barkeep actually did it,” Erik continued, ignoring Jellal’s attempt at not making a big deal out of it. “Switch.”

Erza didn’t need to be told twice. In a flash of light, she wrapped herself in armor and leaped over the countertop to swiftly grab the barkeep by the back of the shirt. He cussed loudly as she slammed him face first into the counter.

Now, the brawl was inevitable. At breaking the unspoken rule of not aiming for the barkeep, they gained all of the patrons attention. Some looked ready to come to the barkeep’s aid and some—like the green-haired woman—started to run. Jellal sighed; there had been an attempt.

“This was your idea,” he said, somewhat petulantly, even if Jellal wasn’t really that upset over it. Erik would know what he meant.

“I’m flexible,” Erik quipped back. “The asshole in the purple shirt is mine, by the way.”

Erik jumped into the fray, catching the two Erza had aimed at before they left and slamming his promised quarry against the wall with a flash of dark red magic Jellal knew meant to hurt. Jellal, in turn, did not (for the sake of his sanity) consider what Erik heard to make him this upset. Instead, Jellal simply took comfort in the fact that nothing would come to fruition with both Erik and Erza like this. The only thing Jellal had to worry about now was making sure nobody got caught in the crossfire, and maybe ensuring they had someone to question that wouldn’t be concussed, but he would take what he could get. Regardless, Jellal had no doubt that Erik and Erza would accomplish what they set out to do. Which… he would be lying if he said he didn’t appreciate it. A lot.

A glass flew by Jellal’s head. He dodged it easily and shot a star arrow at a man trying to bludgeon a fleeing younger man with a broken bottle, and then swung it back around to blast a woman trying to approach Erik from behind. In turn, Jellal heard the schling of flying metal and a shout of pain from Jellal’s blindspot.

The chaos of jobs was always made safer by having friends by your side, after all.

#fairy tail #htryds #htryds microshot #ft platonic week 2025 #jellal fernandes #erza scarlet #erik #ft erik #mild tw for nonconsensual drug use #or the attempt thereof #and alcohol and general #jellal: we're totally going to get through this without a bar fight #inevitably: *a bar fight happens*#it's okay i didn't actually bully jellal this time because he has the power of FRIENDSHIP on his side #aka very protective friends #speaking of friends shout out to mine who helped me figure out what jellal would drink #that would not really get him drunk any time soon #jellal is drinking responsibly #that said erik and erza trying to vie for that position of the plan was a lot stronger than jellal's pov allowed for lol #they know he is fine with a little at home but he has those hangups so it's not a super fun time #i had to stop myself from making this a fullblown character study it was so tempting #but the nice part is that when jellal gets stuck in his head he's got friends to watch his back whoo

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beebeeswee · 5 months ago

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✨just dragon slayer things✨

they're all hoarders. we've seen natsu's house, which is just a giant scrapbook. but i can see gajeel picking up loose screws off the pavement, wendy's pockets being full of shiny rocks and seaglass, or sting's house being filled with sun/light catchers.

they're always putting things in their mouths. wendy was a thumbsucker, laxus is a gum chewer, cobra is a biter, rouge chews the end of pencils when he's thinking and if natsu doesn’t have enough hands to carry something, he’ll just hold it in his mouth.

lizards are cold blooded, and while the dragon slayers DO generate internal heat (since they have human bodies) they're still drawn to the sun. lying in patches of sunlight like cats and sunbathing in the summer.

this carries over into winter, they get cold SO easily. they eat more in winter too, and laxus the diva won't ever take jobs in cold climates (that fur coat is fashion/function).

subtle or extreme emotions are almost always communicated through animalistic sounds. natsu and gajeel growl and roar, erik hisses, and while carla has mostly trained it out of wendy, if she's really surprised or scared the sound she makes is less like a human shout and more like a bark/yelp, or a whimper when she's sad or fearful.

they are very sensory seeking. hands in running water, standing in the breeze, stepping on the pavement a certain way, fidgeting, weighted blankets, jumping and hanging off stuff, listening to music way too loud.

this also means that have strong sensory avoidances. gajeel HATES getting his hair cut, natsu hates the feeling of heavy clothes, erik hates loud noises, rouge doesn't like bright lights (apart from sting's, since he's so accustomed to it), wendy is sensitive to sudden temperature changes

They're very protective of each other. they're like a pack. this also means that they're protective of each other's partners. rouge might not know levy, but he walks her home after late night trips to the library, completely silently. it unnerved her the first time, but now she enjoys the company and he lets her talk in any language she wants. laxus will watch dozens of people struggle to reach things only his giant self can without helping, but will pass things down for Lucy without her asking. wendy and freed's underrated friendship! he thinks he's taking care of wendy because she's his boyfriend's little sister, and she thinks she's protecting her brother's boyfriend - which results in them being drawn to each other in anxious situations, sitting next to each other in unfamiliar or loud places.

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