It was a cold winter day in DeathCity. Such weather was unusual there, and had been for the past week. There had actually been some snow recently, and many students had skipped class to frolic in the white-coated streets. Soul Eater was one of these, and, having all the sense of your average teenager, he failed to wear any sort of winter clothing as snow soaked him to the bone.
In completely unrelated news, Soul now had a very bad cold.
He spent a day or so wrapped in a blanket on the couch, having refused to be confined to his room. He watched TV a lot, listened to some music, and generally waited for Maka to get home from school so he could complain and receive attention and large amounts of antibiotics.
He was half asleep when he heard her finally come in. From the hall, she called, "I'm home, Soul! You still alive?"
"Yup," he called back (well, more like croaked).
"Check your temperature again."
He rolled his eyes and snagged the thermometer from the coffee table. After a few seconds in his mouth, it beeped. "99.8."
"Well, your fever's gone down some." Her head peeked over the side of the sofa. "You know, you wouldn't be this miserable if you hadn't skipped class on Monday to roll around in the snow."
"But it was a Monday, Maka," he replied. "And there was snow."
"You're an idiot." She came around with a medicine cupful of some red substance. "Drink this."
Soul eyed it hesitantly. "What is it?"
"Medicine. It's cherry flavored. Drink it."
He took the cup. "Whatever you say, medic." As she left to do something in another room, he downed it all in one gulp, which was immediately followed by a grimace. "That is definitely not cherry. Whoever flavored this stuff needs to be fired. And shot. Then maybe stabbed a few times."
"Don't be such a drama queen, Soul."
Around an hour later, the effects of the not-cherry drink had kicked in. Soul was pretty out of it and on the verge of sleep. Ah, medicated bliss.
"You want me to make some soup?" Maka called. "I picked some up on the way home. I thought you might want some."
Soul blinked blearily. "Uh, sure. Why not? Sounds good."
After another while of her bustling around in the kitchen, she brought over a tray with a steaming bowl of soup. "Sit up," she told him. "If you eat this laying down you'll just get it everywhere."
He complied. "Whoo," he commented dizzily. "Head rush."
She sat the tray on his lap. "You eat that, and I'm going to go work on all the school stuff you're missing out on." She headed off to get her things.
"You and I have very different definitions of 'missing out'," he responded.
"You should also remember that anything you don't do now you'll have to do later, along with all the normal work then."
"And you had to remind me." He yawned and started in on the soup before him.
After a minute or two, he added, "This soup is actually pretty decent."
Maka poked her head out of her room. "Well, I do excel at heating canned items." She giggled. "It's funny- the advertisements said 'Warm your body and soul,' and since that's your name and all-"
"Am I officially 'your Soul' now?"
Maka was glad the couch faced away from the hallway, because her face turned as red as her signature skirt. "What? I-I didn't mean that… I mean, you're not-"
"I can deal with that," he said sleepily.
She paused for a further response. After a couple of seconds, however, she heard snoring. Coming out to look, she found him sawing logs right where he'd been, with a half-eaten bowl of soup on his lap.
She took the tray back to the kitchen and replaced the blanket around Soul's shoulders. As she did so, she had to wonder: Was that him or the cold medicine talking? In any case, she couldn't get her panties in a twist. They were just partners, meister and weapon.
And he's your Soul, a voice said in the back of her mind. She smiled to herself. "Yeah. I can deal with that."
