this is my entry for Reverb 2016 on Tumblr - a poet anderson au! please take a moment to look at the accompanying art by whos-that-foxi-lady. links where her art can be found are listed on my ffn profile. thanks so much for reading this fic, i hope you enjoy!

Warnings: depression, sleep terrors, body horror, minor character death, blood, Soul pinning for Maka, Soul suffering, language.

x

(One Day)

x

One day he hopes to fall asleep and never wake up.

He feels so alone that not even sleep serves as a refuge anymore - it makes sense that he will eventually cease to exist. A little demon dances behind his eyelids whenever he seeks slumber, its lanky limbs twitching to a jerky rhythm, teeth chattering like chainsaws as the world unfolds around him. This time, the ground disintegrates faster than usual. He tumbles deeper into black nothingness until the world appears again in a burst of color and brightness, and he lands gently on his expensive dress-shoe clad feet.

Every time this happens, he almost misses being lost. There is comfort in darkness. But lately, when she beckons him into this Dream World, he's sorry to wake up - for different reasons; she has a cheery laugh that fills his soul with goodness. He would choose to never wake up if he could be guaranteed unlimited time with Maka.

"Sorry you didn't get a spot in the orchestra," she immediately says when he learns to breathe again. He can't tell if he's wheezing because of the fall or because of her excitement at seeing him. Above them, the sky is a pure shade of aqua and the grass they stand on is green, but not as green as her eyes.

It's a glorious summer's day. Just him, Maka, serene stillness, and nothing but space. It's easy to believe he'll be okay when the sun warms his skin, the horizon stretching on forever.

Or maybe hope blossoms because of her radiant presence. There is something about her that is more divine than human.

His tongue feels like awkward, sunburnt leather. "What?"

"Oh," she says, a sympathetic look softening her bright face. "I guess you wouldn't know yet. You're asleep. Forget I mentioned it."

"Fuckin' figures," he sighs and slumps over once he registers what she's referring to, hands automatically retreating into his pockets. Digging the tip of his shoe into the earth doesn't ease the mounting sense of inadequacy, but at least it distracts him. The last thing he needs is to cry in front of Maka. "This is the second year in a row I haven't made the symphony."

"It's okay! You tried your best. And… you didn't really want a spot in the orchestra, did you?" Maka says this with a fretful frown. She knows him better than she can recite the sacred stanzas of her favorite poems. An ethereal glow colors her faintly freckled cheeks when she opens a book. Like she's at home. This is why a knee-melting shiver moves down his spine every time she reads him, slow like honey, warm as load of freshly dried laundry. She doesn't see through him, she sees into him, seemingly knows most of his veiled truths, his worst nightmares, and yet hasn't abandoned him.

Doubts don't discriminate, though, so they mutter to him that Maka's just a dream, a wish, a manifestation of his craving for attention and unconditional love. She's not real. The fact that they haven't touched at all only intensifies what could devastate him - that she's nothing more than a guardian angel he has imagined.

Loneliness does things to a person.

He shrugs lazily, blinking away such thoughts. Can she read his mind, too? Treading with caution seems like a more appropriate approach, so he hits the 'repress' button in his mind that's been pressed too many times. "I guess I don't care about being in the orchestra as much as my parents do," he allows, gnawing on his lower lip as she studies him. The blackness of her pupils is hypnotizing.

When she tilts her head, the sun catches her wheat colored hair and bathes it in gold. Even the sunlight has an otherworldly feel to it, like it's a memory, like he's thinking back to a sunny day when Wes pulled him around in the red wagon in their backyard, to a time when Soul was a little less messed up, not so constantly lost.

Maka's brows furrow together and she scrunches her chin, the way she does when she thinks too much. "Are you going to be okay when you wake up?"

He's not one to tell a lie. "I don't know."

She doesn't rush forward to envelope him in a bear hug. Doing so would not cause much awkwardness for him because he needs the comfort so badly, almost as desperately as he needs a haircut and to catch up on years of lost happiness. But she doesn't take a step forward. With a ghostly smile painted on her face, she stands there, shoulders back and chin held high, her hands clasped behind her back. She's waiting for him. She has never specifically told him what to do, which is what guardians are supposed to behave, he thinks - not bark out orders, but provide support.

He doesn't want a guardian angel; he wants her to be real. So he doesn't initiate touch. He can pretend she's made of flesh and bones and a steadily beating heart if he doesn't prove that she's a manifestation of his dreams. "Stay here with me?"

He always asks, and she has yet to decline. He doesn't think she'll ever say no. Guilt makes him cold with regret - is she trapped in his dream, fated to hear him complain?

Maybe it's because she's proving something to herself, too. Maybe it's because she saw the skepticism in his eyes, cloudy and mistrusting. She holds out a black gloved hand to him. "Want to dance with me?"

He gulps. "I hate dancing."

"You're good at it," is all she says. It's unclear how she knows, but it makes sense that she does. She knows things about him that even he doesn't.

He just stares at her, silently begging her not to keep insisting.

But she understands him too well. "It's okay, okay? I promise."

Belief is fear being flushed out of his body through a long, long sigh. His pulse slows to a content beat. There is no one around for miles - or anywhere? - and he thinks it would be fun to spin and twirl her around, maybe dip her. She's wearing that black ball gown, after all, and he's strapped into his best tuxedo.

Suddenly, though the idea just crept into their minds, it fits.

It's what they're supposed to be doing when they meet up in dreams like this. Sharing their souls as they sit in the grass with their shoes off and bask in the sunlight is special, of course, but this is what they were supposed to do: dance.

And that means touching.

Bottle green eyes beckon him. His legs are lighter than a feather as he inches forward. Electricity buzzes in the air. He isn't sure where to look - at her hand, her smile, or her bangs lifting when a gust of wind blows through?

His first thought is that it's never been anything but still. Not a blade of grass has ever moved while they've been in the Dream World. Time slows when they're here; it may be the sedative effects of having barely escaped the eerie demon that chases him through hellish landscapes until she rescues him, ripping the ground out from beneath him.

But today, as he reaches out shyly to test if he can feel the heat of her skin through her gloves' silky fabric, the world breaks.

It's not catastrophic - at first.

He's entranced by her hair blowing with the breeze, by the darkness in her eyes that seems to burn brighter the slower he moves. Has she been as hungry to make contact as he has? The wind intensifies to gusts as he reaches for her, fingertips tingling. It ruffles through his hair, and he imagines his wispy, dandelion-like strands could be mistaken for a white towel whipping through the air, his neat part undone. Maka only has eyes for him, though.

A train-like whistle screeches in the distance. From his periphery, he can easily tell that the darkening sky is an ominous sign, but he's nothing if not excellent at ignoring danger. It's not that he's a daredevil; it's that he simply can't be bothered to keep himself alive.

"It's time to say goodbye," she yells right before his eardrums burst and the grass is yanked out of the ground by tornadic winds. She shields her eyes and forehead with her arm, not looking away from him.

He reaches out for her, the small space between them a bittersweet gift. "We'll see each other again, right?" If he sounds desperate, he doesn't care. It's safe to wear his heart on his sleeve around Maka.

Her grin is the only source of light in the darkening winds tearing them apart. He can't hear her, but he's learned to read her, too. She mouths, "Of course!"

Before he can breathe, the world swallows him.

X

His name is Soul Evans and he was born into money, musical genius, and crippling social anxiety.

The first two are sheer luck, and the last a curse. He played three instruments before he could walk, he's been told - the piano, the triangle, and drums (pots and pans). It's not an impressive resume compared to Wes, who was born holding a violin. No matter how much effort Soul invests into practicing or avoiding his private lessons teacher, his skills remain stagnant. To have zero talent would have been much less agonizing than bordering between mediocre and genius.

He's average.

It's heartbreaking.

X

Sometimes Soul blacks out. He likes it. It's like taking a break from life.

X

"... Awake?"

Soul peeks out into the darkness of the room, squinting at the light that seeps underneath the door. He's struggling to catch his breath, sure that he's lived through a storm during his sleep despite his room being perfectly still. The dream felt that real.

His brother Wes comes to his rescue when Maka can't. "Soul, are you awake?"

Soul isn't one to tell a lie. "I think," he finds his voice to mutter, wiggling his toes in an effort to prove his existence. A hand to his hair confirms that it's messy, but that could be attributed to tossing and turning during his sleep. His thrashing has summoned a worried parent or both in the past, his mother frantically shaking his shoulder while his father orders Wes to phone the ambulance. Thank goodness Wes is level-headed in daunting situations. If it weren't for him, Soul would be a frequent visitor in the emergency room, a note in his medical chart warning about hypochondriac, overbearing parents.

While Soul is appreciative that Wes is by himself at the present moment, he can't help but wonder where his parents are - sometimes his moments of suffering are the only guaranteed way to spend time with them.

Wes knocks again. "Can I come in?"

Soul clears his throat. His cheek is stuck to his egyptian cotton pillowcase, drool pooled near his mouth. "I guess…"

His brother stands tall, as if he's being held up by an invisible string that's attached to the top of his head, and he never frowns or scoffs. Rolling his eyes isn't polite, and neither is muttering, "whatever" at constructive criticism. Wes Evans is a gentleman. Perfect. When the thought that Wes hogged all of the good genes infiltrates his mind, Soul takes a deep, deep breath and imagines releasing it out of his body. He doesn't need that kind of negativity in this life.

"I heard you screaming," Wes says, never one to beat around the bush. "You having those nightmares again?"

"Never stopped having them," Soul replies, giving up on propping himself on an elbow and instead sinking deeper into his bed. It might be gruesome, but his bed is more of a grave than a sanctuary because he wastes more time between the covers than actually resting. He's always suffering from exhaustion, the kind that settles in his muscles and inhibits them from working properly.

"Oh." Leaving the door ajar, Wes walks into the room, pocketing his hands. It must be an I'm-feeling-awkward Evans move, except when Wes does it, he doesn't tilt his chin down in shame, hiding his emotions. "Sorry… Really, I'm sorry I was so out of touch while I was in grad school. Guess that makes me a crappy brother."

"S'kay," Soul reassures and means it fully. No almost thirty-year-old should put his life on hold to babysit his younger brother. "You're not a bad brother."

By the way Wes shifts his weight between his feet, Soul can tell that Wes doesn't accept this. Soul readies himself to fight for his brother's honor, but all his gut and glory disperses when a swollen, red head peeks into the room from behind the door. Its lopsided eyes scan its surroundings before lingering on Soul, whose blood freezes over like the layer of ice over a lake.

It's the imp from his dreams.

A scream clogs Soul's throat.

Wes's eyebrows knit together the same way Maka's did earlier.

Maka.

How could she have slipped Soul's mind? They had never parted ways like that before, the same way he's never seen the demon slinking along on its bowed legs. Surely there is a correlation. As the imp bares its sharp, shark-like, yellow teeth at him, Soul can't bring himself to worry about anything but Maka. In the background, he worries that those teeth could easily sink into his flesh and probably through bone - it looks hungry, it looks hungry, it looks hungry - but he's never cared too much about himself in the first place.

Maybe he's learned some self love, because as the imp shuffles along toward him, right foot dragging on his mother's meticulously polished hardwood floors, Soul scans his surroundings for a weapon to use for protection. The imp's fingers wiggle excitedly, long nails glinting. Soul is vaguely aware that Wes has taken up a mantra that consists of, "Are you okay? Tell me what's wrong!" in a panicked cry.

Soul wants to cry, too, but his tear ducts dried up when he was eight, when he wasn't moved into the Gifted and Talented class. Wes had been in the Gifted and Talented class, and Soul had wanted to be just like his older brother.

"SOUL!"

He blinks. The imp is gone, gone, gone with a poof! "Huh?"

Wes is sitting beside him. Soul hates himself for making his brother worry. "What's wrong?"

Everything. "Nothing."

X

Wes, though Soul doesn't beg him to, camps out on Soul's floor that night. It would have made more sense for them to relocate to Wes's room, but Soul doesn't want to risk running into the demon in the hallway, so they stay. It's like Soul is five again and Wes is seventeen and they're sleeping in the same room because Soul was shaken up from a nightmare. Soul doesn't want to be a little kid again, doesn't want to feel as useless, talentless, and forgotten as he did when he was seven and his averageness really sunk in, but he's glad to have his brother back.

He missed Wes so much.

X

Soul doesn't dream about Maka for two weeks.

He misses her smile most of all.

Maka Albarn has a very pretty smile.

If Soul were to ever see her walk into his bedroom like the imp did, he would probably drop to his knees and worship her.

Well - not literally. But in his mind and stuff. There have been stranger things than meeting someone in his dreams. A burning in his bones convinces him that she's more than a pigtailed delusion. She talks about her mama the doctor and her papa the constable and her little garden of succulents. Soul isn't that creative - how could he have made these small details up?

When they first crossed paths, he had been running through a dark maze in his nightmares that seemed to be alive, and she had stuck her hand out to pull him into the brush. He had screamed, and she had gently covered his mouth, and he had been fascinated by green eyes that glowed like embers. It had seemed like he had been lost for years, so it wasn't fair that she managed to find an escape so effortlessly.

Has she abandoned him, too?

He wakes to sleep again, to see her.

X

Soul sleeps a lot. He was always a little too quiet and slept too much, even when he was six months old.

There is comfort in not existing.

Not like he's living while he's awake, anyway. The limelight favors him. He's a waste of life, just being average: getting average grades and not excelling in anything, not failing enough. What was that saying - 'a jack of all trades, a master of none'? Irony is a cruel mistress, though, because the dark nights in which he slumbers, the ones that seem like a pause, a relief, turn into hell. And it's impossible to run from the kind of damnation that exists trapped in his skull.

What's more worrying than dreams of his skin peeling off, his teeth morphing into lava and burning holes in his mouth, and a menacing imp trailing behind him like a second shadow, is that the lack of sleep endangers him. After Soul fell asleep at the wheel, his rightfully anxious mother revoked his privilege to a learner's permit, and then there existed no reason to stay awake. Learning to drive was his only motive to not sleep his life away.

And now that he has flunked calculus for the year, the urge to sleep and never wake up feels like the only solution.

Honestly, it's incredible how much shit he gets from his parents. Not making the snotty, prestigious city symphony had earned him a lecture about 'applying himself', 'networking,' and 'dedicating his soul to music, like Wes.' Some of it may have been warranted - practicing is out of the question when he's busy brooding, which is ninety-nine percent of the time. He can't apply himself when he's an emotional wreck. Although the talk had left Soul feeling dirtier than a soiled diaper, he swallowed the words "I'm not Wes," nodded as if he were keenly listening, and went to bed.

Now with this academic failure under his belt, he might as well walk the plank into a sea full of flesh-eating piranhas. Disappointing his parents shouldn't matter because he's technically always been a failure, but dread still conquers his senses and makes him feel like his time is limited.

Instead of waiting for his school counselor, teacher, whoever, to email his parents about his calculus grade and how it will delay his graduation for a year, Soul decides to drop the bomb during dinner.

Like most tragedies, it's not hauntingly loud. The quieter moments sear themselves into his memory with more vigor. The absence of sound is what defines a true catastrophe.

"So," Soul says, putting his spoon down. It clanks against the fancy china. Immediately, his mother frowns. He can't tell if it's because talking during meals isn't tolerated, or if she's worried about damage to the intricate blue design on the bowl. "I flunked calculus."

Eye contact with Wes would hurt too much right now, so he ignores his older brother's horrified gasp and subsequent attempts to get his attention. Somehow, even though Wes has never expressed disappointment in any of Soul's actions, something tells him there is a first time for everything. Not coming to his brother first with this information is most likely the reason for the frown Soul can see in his periphery.

"I'm disappointed in you," his mother says. Soul regrets being born. He doesn't fit into his mother's life. Flawless ringlets frame her face, and ever since he could remember, he's never seen her without a pearl necklace or with the slightest hint of wrinkles in her clothing. Soul figures that he embodies everything awful that could have happened to her - a huge, ugly stain of flesh.

"Sorry," he whispers, lips barely moving. His voice box doesn't seem to function anymore.

His mother sighs. "We can talk about it later when your father is home. No use wasting a good meal," is all she says, daintily picking up her spoon.

The succinct dismissal adds to the tremendous lump building up in his throat. "Can I be excused?"

"I suppose," his mother says, not looking at him.

X

He runs away after dinner.

It's not as dramatic as he had fantasized each time he had screwed up beyond belief. Soul isn't meticulous, but that hasn't stopped him from physically designating a duffel bag as his Emergency Escape Kit. In it, he had packed away his favorite jeans, two t-shirts, boxers, toothpaste, floss, soap - everything necessary except his black grand piano, which he loves second best only to dreaming about Maka.

Obviously, everything he loves turns to shit. He loved his piano and tried very hard to impress his family, but fear held him back, so his piano was never used for anything aside from missing sharps and banging his forehead against its ivory keys. And he loved Maka too, in the purest sense of the word, in the way he loves to nap in the middle of a sunny day, in the way he likes sunrises and ice cream. It's an unhurried variety of love, one that is part of him just as his bone marrow and kidneys are.

Things change, he supposes. Or maybe they don't. He's never been allowed to have nice things. It's like he's cursed. He can't take his piano with him and he can't take Maka with him.

Loneliness does things to a person.

Soul is Soul. Excuses like "I must have been switched at birth" used to comfort him. Now, not even that self-deprecating humor grants him peace.

He only stops by his second story room to scoop up his Emergency Escape Kit, pocket his wallet, discard his cell phone (his parents have a special tracking device on it), and to exchange his dress shoes for sneakers. The jump from his window to the floor isn't as frightening since he had practiced. As soon as he hits the ground, he's running, running - running to where, he's not sure.

X

"You look like such a snob," Blake snorts as soon as he spots Soul weaving through the crowd of fellow teenagers bent on spending their allowance on soft drinks and short-lived entertainment. Soul knows Blake is never purposefully cruel, but Soul is fragile, so fragile. "You gonna start wearing a tux everywhere you go?"

"Fuck you," Soul spits. It's safe to let his pent-up anger out on easy-going, not-a-care-in-the-world Blake Barrett. Nothing gets to him. He's mastered the art of remaining unfazed, whereas Soul holds on to everything - even the toxic things that kill - like a lifeline. It was a mistake to come here - now he's even more pissed.

Soul clenches his jaw, Blake laughs, and their friend Kilik glances away from the glowing screen of whatever arcade machine the pair picked to beat the previous high scorer's score.

"You okay?" Kilik asks, ever more perceptive than Blake.

"No," Soul growls. He's acting like a brat. Asking them to take him in until he feels calm and strong enough to face the silent wrath of his parents is out of the question. He tries to swallow the ire threatening to compel him to punch Blake, but can't. A few wandering eyes of other arcade goers are trained on him - as much as Soul hates to admit it, Blake is right. Wearing his tuxedo - his mother insists that they all dress up for dinner - makes him look grossly out of place.

It shouldn't be a new feeling. Soul has never fit in anywhere quite right.

"Never mind," he sighs, retreating. His head is spinning. Safety doesn't exist, not even among the friends he's had since the age of four. There are too many eerie lights in this place anyway.

X

He searches for a place to fall asleep and never wake up.

There isn't something tangibly wrong with him. He just is… wrong. Different. Soul isn't even in tune with himself - that's how much he dislikes himself. That's why he denies himself a soft, safe bed to sleep in tonight. The park where Wes took him on weekends when their parents were on tour with Whatever Symphony is not even two blocks from his house, which makes it a perfect candidate for shelter.

The slide that Soul chooses to sleep in for the night feels so lonely. It's cold, as if it hasn't seen a visitor in years. Maybe that's his body projecting his feelings onto inanimate objects. Loneliness drenches his soul - he's even more lonely than he felt at home, with the imp staring at him from behind the cracked door. He almost wishes it would come keep him company.

He's kind of broken like that.

X

Soul falls asleep under the starless sky.

In his dream, he's at the edge of a forest where something is waiting for him. He isn't sure if he should be scared. Somewhere, a wheezy pump blows air leisurely, like the forest is breathing through a raspy, failing ventilator. There is no wind; the crooked tree trunks expand and relax the same way a human's chest rises and falls as they breathe. The murky blue sky hemorrhages red against the blackness of the forest's leaves. Misty clouds scintillate above him, silvery and quiet, as if holding secrets and grim promises.

Sticks break beneath his feet as he enters the forest. Intuition tells him that someone beckons him from the other side. Curiosity may kill him, but not knowing might also undo him - his bones go numb every time he backtracks. They fizzle like soda erupting from a can. It's like Soul is being pulled by an invisible force, and he hopes his destination isn't lethal just yet.

Muffled cackles chorus along with the respirator the deeper he ventures, but everytime Soul twists and jerks around to catch the culprit, he sees nothing. The bark on the trees stares back at him, as black and grainy as coal. Tree branches seem to reach out and graze his cheek the further he travels. Swatting them away only encourages them to swing back more violently.

The sixth time he ducks to avoid a branch slicing his head off, he sees it - the imp, its huge, lopsided eyes nothing but black pupils - grinning madly from a tree branch. It sinks its long nails into the bark, sucking the tree's life out. The imp claws a good chunk of bark and stuffs it in its mouth, chewing noisily.

And then it looks right at Soul. Hungrily.

But he is faster for once. He runs through the darkness, dodging finger-like branches and keeping his heart in his chest by placing a hand across his sternum - to make sure it doesn't fall out, or something like that.

Behind him, the imp skips as it follows Soul's footsteps, the intermittent, unsynced blinking creepier than the hum it drones. Soon it starts clapping its wart spotted hands to the tune of Soul's frenzied heart beat. When ropes of drool rocket out of its mouth, Soul can't help but brood over their similarities - the striped tuxedo the imp wears is one Soul wore to his eighth grade graduation recital.

cLAP CLap cCLap. cLap!

"I know your naaaaame, and I want your soul," it giggles, gnawing on its knobby fingers. "You're not a lucky lucky lucky ducky, not a lucky ducky."

Soul runs, but the imp is right on his heels, a trail of slimy drool behind him. If Soul cared a little bit less about himself, he would have stopped running a long time ago. What's the worst the imp could do to him? Aside from snapping his spine into thirds, the worst trauma he will probably face is emotional scarring. Curiosity won't let him rest either - something is drawing him into the other side of the forest and he has to know what.

cLAP CLap cCLap. cLap!

claP cLaP clAp!

Obstacles appear in his path. What isn't clear is who puts them there. It could be the imp trying to slow Soul's pace, or it could be Soul sabotaging himself. Wes's violin rises up from the earth like a burgeoning flower. Soul almost pauses to pluck it up - surely his brother misses it, he loves it second best to Soul (sometimes more, sometimes more.)

As soon as the imp makes a dive for Soul's heels and his miserable life flashes before his eyes, everything disappears much like it did a few days earlier, with a pop! He falls out of the forest and onto a dirt road that leads up to a cathedral. It's out of place against the lightening blue sky and pink clouds that are the same shade of pink as Maka's cheeks.

It's an imagine that will be forever ingrained into his memory, not because they add to the lure of her smile, but because it's the first thing he sees when he climbs off the floor.

"Maka?" He hasn't said her name in so long. So long that he had worried his tongue wouldn't know how to articulate the two syllables of her name. In retrospect, he's never uttered it outside of his dreams. At the current moment, he can't tell if he's falling into another night terror or if the Earth has finally devoured him and sent him straight to Hell.

"That's my name," she says cheerily. "Glad you could make it. It's nice to see you again."

"You're always there for me when I need help," he gasps, wiping the dirt off his blazer's sleeves. His mother will be angry if stains set in, after all. "Who are you? Why are you always with me?"

He doesn't mean to sound rude. The way his voice cracks like it's made out of glass exposes his vulnerability, and he's okay with this for once, because it's Maka.

All she does is smile at him brightly. "I'm your Dream Walker."

X

Maka's hand is warm.

Skin must have its own memory, even in dreams, because as soon as she laces her fingers between his and they walk into the lonely cathedral, he's flooded with emotions. How had he thought they had never touched before? So easily he had forgotten their first meeting, when she pulled him into hiding and silenced him with her palm to his lips. It wasn't the action of this that stopped his panicking, but how real her skin felt.

Soul can't help but stare. She's more than a just a dream.

Maka drops his hand gently once the door locks behind them, twirling down the aisle, her dress hem flying. "I like to hang out here when you aren't dreaming," she says.

Soul's mouth flops open. "Uhh.. huh?"

"This is your dream," she says, shrugging, plopping down on a pew and beckoning him over. His feet are moving before he can blink. "I don't know, this is your dream, your cathedral. How did you think of it?"

"Uhh… I think I saw it somewhere during a vacation with my family. It looks like this cathedral in Italy that had kinda gothic-y architecture. I don't know, I guess..." It's too much to take in. Confusion drills holes into his brain. When his rear hits the uncomfortable pew, Maka scoots closer to him, and he doesn't mind, doesn't mind. "Look, I have no idea what's going on. Mind filling me in?"

She scrunches up her face, her button nose wrinkling. It's a giveaway sign that she's thinking. Some people stick their tongues out when they're deep in thought, and she's the type to scrunch her nose and furrow her brows and purse her lips. She portrays emotion in this adorable, innocuous way.

It's charming.

"I'm your Dream Walker," she repeats, as if it's clear as day. "I've been trying to get you to come here but we always get distracted." She blushes quickly, wiggling in her seat. "This world is real, Soul, it's called a Dream World. You built it. See, there are people who are Lucid Dreamers, who basically know they're asleep and can control their dreams. Those kind of dreamers don't need dreamwalkers-"

"-Who are like guardian angels for people like me, who have nightmares," he finishes dejectedly, frowning. Of fucking course he's been given this awful card. He can't get a break. It's somehow comforting that he now knows his childhood nightmares didn't have a rational, medical explanation. He's just unlucky. "My life sucks, but at least I have an angel."

"Oh…" She's as red as sin right now. "I mean, I'm no angel! I'm a girl."

Soul hikes up a skeptical eyebrow. "So I can't call you my angel?"

"No. I mean, I wouldn't mind it-"

"Good, because I'm not calling you that. That's lame." It wouldn't be so bad actually, but he has a front to uphold, and he doesn't know her in that way. They've only met in his dreams.

Maka scowls, bites back a laugh, and swats his shoulder. "Anyway, it's not like your night terrors are permanent or anything!"

Soul snaps his head to her too quickly. Stars hover around Maka, sparkling and fading. "I can be cured of these nightmares?"

"Night terrors," Maka corrects gently, nodding. "You're going to be okay, Soul, I promise." Her face is suddenly somber, very somber. "Do you like dreaming?"

"... If you're in it, yeah. Before you, not really. No…"

"I love dreaming," she says. "I love it, and I just want you to love it, too. I'm going to help you. Now that we're together on this side of the forest, we can start doing some serious work to get you free of these terrors."

"You're gonna be here with me, right?" If it sounds desperate, Soul doesn't care. He doesn't give one or two or four damns about it. He needs her.

She tilts her head toward him like she's about to tell him a secret. "Yeah, of course." And she holds out her fingers, wiggling them. Her voice is softer than a flower petal. "And you'll be by my side, too?"

Soul melts like wax. "Yeah," he whispers, meeting her fingertips.