Happy (belated) birthday to Amanda/sojustifiable/justifably! I hope you like this waaaaay long piece of angst and ship, bb girl! I'll definitely write you something NOT so glum too.
Thanks to lunar-resonance for listening to me babble about this way too many times! There are mentions of needles, as are some of the other triggers in the game Life is Strange - if you haven't played/watched the game yet and don't want spoilers, please be warned! I have changed parts of the plot to better suit SoMa but it is what it is.
It feels like she's lived a thousand lives.
She dreams of a storm.
Wind and rain and danger whips through her hair and hooks against her knees, dragging her into the mangled leaves and mud of the path. It's hard to tell where she is or if she's been here before, but she knows with a prophetic sort of clarity that the storm is real. It's too loud not to be, too rigid, too blinding and suffocating not to mean something, to be something.
What can it mean?
It approaches and her legs are locked, frozen in place, as she's swallowed into the cyclone. A scream rips through her but is muted amidst the chaos of the storm, and Maka is nothing. She raises her hand to the sky, heat pounding through her veins, and then everything is dark.
Maka wakes with a jerk in class, fragments of chaotic melodies tinkling in her ear. There are haunting echos, plinkplinkplinks of piano keys, and her vision swims to catch up with the thundering of her heart.
"... Maka?" Ms. Gorgon questions. Maka sits taller in her seat and struggles to collect herself. "Is everything alright?"
All eyes are on her.
She rolls a pencil between her fingers and focuses on the sensation to ground her. The wood is smooth and delicate, chipped from where she'd nibbled two nights prior while studying.
"Yeah!" she chirps. "Everything's fine. I was just distracted by a bird."
Clouds roll by innocently. No anarchic winds, no rain, only peeks of sunshine and the chirping of baby birds, nestled safely in their nests. It should be comforting, by all needs, but unease curls in her stomach and Maka drags her pencil down the center of her notebook roughly, the jagged, uneven edge of the lead leaving a dark, dusty trail in its wake. It's not like her to just fall asleep in class.
And the storm had felt so real. The nightmare had felt so real, so much more than just a distracted, horrific daydream.
Maka gazes out the window and wills her hands to remember the way the wind poured. The lined paper becomes a diagram of disaster, blurred, smudged lines and murky catastrophe.
The gunshot rings out in the girl's bathroom.
Then the sound of a body hitting the floor, followed quickly by shuddering, gasping sobs of her classmate. Green eyes peek out from behind the stall and she spies red, more red than any school bathroom should have spilled on its musty, pale-blue tiles. The trembling, quaking figure hovering over the body turns and meets her eye, and Maka recognizes the culprit immediately - Crona, from her history class - and feels her back hit the wall as their dark eyes flash and raise the gun at her, instead.
Maka screams, throws her hands up and everything freezes. For one heartbreaking, horrifying moment, she catches the terror on Crona's face, the anguished pain, almost catches the tremble in their hands, the way they clutch the bleak, black pistol like a lifeline.
And then everything rewinds.
She doesn't know where the power came from, but it has to have something to do with the storm. It's too much of a coincidence for the two not to be connected. The same sort of blustering turbulence races through her when she raises her hand and controls the direction of time, chipping away at reality at her will, dialing it back, back, back, until she's pulling the fire alarm seconds before Crona has a chance to brandish their weapon and their victim has a chance to suffer the same fate twice.
They tear through the door, a flurry of panicked words and "oh no, oh no," and "I can't deal with this," while Maka jumps from her hiding place. Crona is out the door in seconds flat, too quick for her to catch, and the slamming of the door shocks the other person involved - a boy, Maka now has the time to gather - into jerking his hips against the sink, shouting, cursing.
Something deep within her stirs. The voice is so familiar that she could place it anywhere, even if it's pitches lower than she remembers, even if there are no voice cracks and taunting jeers about the size of her ankles.
Soul Evans stares at her, red eyes wide and wild.
She hasn't seen him since she was thirteen, not since she moved away to attend the academy, not since she got her scholarship. She feels like she hasn't aged a day since she's met him, still skinny and pigtail-clad, but he's changed so much since the days of mustard-yellow track jackets and dorky headbands. He stands a head taller than her, clad in a graphic tee and leather jacket, slouching more passionately than before and molding his expression to hide his fear.
Had he known Crona would pull a gun? How could he?
She saved Soul's life.
"Maka?" he squawks. "What're you-"
"I go here. To this school," she admits, stumbling over her words. He allows the tiniest of smiles, one side of his lips tugging up enough to allow her to remember the way he grins when he's nervous. "... What are you doing here?"
"Long story," he grunts. "But I- I should go. Shouldn't really be in here," he laughs humorlessly, gesturing toward distinct lack of urinals.
Her fingers itch. There's power in her veins and she can't shake the notion that there's something bigger coming, that this moment in time was meant to happen. Why else would she be gifted with this ability? Why not, if she wasn't meant to stop the gunshot and save him? And what of the storm?
She has questions and no answers, only a ghost from her past smiling anxiously at her. The only red that stains him are the shade of his eyes, so dark and yet not unkind. He doesn't know what could have befallen him, what had befallen him until Maka's whole world turned upside down and stumbled upon a karmic reverse button.
Maka knows very well what she should be doing - chasing after Crona, because they're armed and dangerous, questionably unhinged, or questioning Soul as to why he was heckling them, why she found him in the bathroom in the first place, interrogating her classmate, why her classmate had pulled a gun on him and pinned it to his gut.
The sound of her swallowing thickly can't drown out the phantom gunshots she hears echoing through the halls.
She calls his name and moves forward, falling into step after him, letting him lead her out into the parking lot and onto the back of his motorcycle. Her arms feel right coiling around him, like coming home, and Maka presses her face into the back of his leather jacket and breathes him in. He inhales through his nose, real and alive, very much not bleeding out on the bathroom floor. Maka spreads her palm over his chest and feels the beating of his heart.
They're linked.
There's no other explanation.
The two of them have a connection, an invisible thread tied between them that bonds them to one another. It has to mean something.
It's why she feels comfortable confiding him about her power.
Who else is there to tell? He deserves to know what really went down in that bathroom, why she had been so surprised to see him, of all people, why she'd been teary eyed and jittery as he took her hand in his and squeezed tight. It's incredible how even after all of these years and how much the both of them have changed they can still fall back into step, how holding his hand still makes her feel brave and sturdy despite everything else. It's not her parent's divorce this time that has her uncoiling and bursting at the seams. It's worse. Much worse.
But still, it's nerve wracking. What if he thinks she's lost her mind? If he doesn't believe her?
Soul munches on cold fries. His eyes follow her with laser precision, every gulp of air and tremble of her knuckles, as she fiddles with her napkin and struggles to put what she feels into words. The old diner reminds her of birthday parties and flat soda, reminds her of Soul's braces catching popcorn kernels because of his own stubbornness.
His teeth are still so jagged.
"... You're still a dentist's worst nightmare," she blurts instead.
He grins and dabs ketchup onto her nose. "Careful," he warns, "all the better to eat you with, my dear."
She can't fight the smile, despite her nerves. Maka gasps and swats at his hand, scrubbing at her nose with the palm of her hand. "Soul, come on!"
"Out with whatever it is, Maka," he drawls. "I can keep a secret."
"It's a big secret."
"Who the fuck am I going to tell?"
"I don't know! Wes?"
He darkens. He's always had a bit of a complex when it came to his brother, but this feels different, and Maka scoots back in her seat, stomach dropping. She wants to ask what happened, what caused the shift, but he moves on so quickly that she doesn't have a chance to pry.
"Not gonna happen," he says bluntly. "Now tell me. C'mon."
Maka swallows thickly and pushes his tray of fries away. He watches her evenly, expression never budging, lips set into an even line. She focuses on the line of freckles over his nose and sucks in a breath, hopes for the best, and secures his place in this chapter of her life. "I had a dream," she begins, and Soul's eyes never waver for a moment. "And there was a storm."
Soul dubs them partners in time.
Maka tucks her hand in his and for a moment, everything is right in the world. He grins, slouching next to her, muttering about how he's the coolest sidekick ever and Maka wants to laugh at the novelty of it all. Instead, she locks their hands together and leans her head on his shoulder.
If he stands a little taller, she doesn't mention it, just closes her eyes and ignores the snowflakes melting on her skin.
He takes her to his secret spot.
A junkyard, apparently. It's a little strange and a lot funny, but Maka doesn't voice her thoughts and instead lets him lead her through aisles of discarded treasures and piles of used car parts and broken televisions to the back bumper of a red truck. They climb in, hefting themselves into the bed of the truck and sit, cross legged, as Soul untucks a set of cards from his jacket pocket and lays them in a stack before her.
Maka raises her brows.
He flips over the top one and grins lazily at her. Ace of spades. "Show me what you can do with those powers of yours, hipster."
She rewinds and tells him the suit before he has the chance to take out his cards. The metal of the truck is cold beneath her bare legs, and when Soul catches her shivering, he shrugs out of his jacket and sets it down like a blanket for her to rest on.
They end up playing Go Fish. Maka only cheats a little.
Wes is missing.
Soul doesn't come outright and tell her, but she catches him printing out posters of his brother's face and "MISSING" plastered across the top. She doesn't ask, doesn't push, just sits next to him, sketching as Soul describes what he saw him wearing last - dark wash, pressed jeans, a blue button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, white undershirt, impeccably dressed as always. He watches each stroke of her pencil with lazy obedience, dark eyes tracing every line and smudge with somber precision.
"His nose is sharper than that," he notes softly. "And his jaw."
"Sorry."
He takes a drag from his cigarette and sticks his head back out the window. Part of her wants to reach out and pinch him for smoking, but he's seated out on the desk and at least has the decency to not smoke inside while she's there. He looks to the sky distantly, smoke leaking from his lips in a legarthic tendril. The drawing begins to look more and more like Soul, drooping, sad eyes and pronounced cheekbones. A chill runs down her spine.
He flickers his gaze back down onto the paper and nods, flicking the cig distantly. "Yeah," he mumbles. His voice resembles crackling embers, the base of a fire. "Kind of like that. Only he's got a stronger chin."
Her hands move, erasing carefully, as Soul finishes his smoke and tucks himself back inside. He hovers over her shoulder in that way she's always hated, watching her diligent movements, silently observing. The way he curls over her is distracting, as is the way his body heat seems to soak into her very being. She burns, pinker than ever, and tries to calm the tremble in her wrist.
"You're good," he says quietly. "You've improved a lot."
"I was thirteen the last time you saw my art."
"School was good to you, nerd. It looks a lot like him."
She nibbles her lip and traces the hollow of Wes' cheek on paper. "Thanks."
"I like your style," he pauses. Maka stops her pencil. "Hipster."
"Speak for yourself, punk," Maka accuses, spinning in her chair to face him. He's much closer than she anticipated, noses bumping, and she apologizes quickly and kicks back to scoot the wheeled chair inches away from him and his face. He smells like stale tobacco and warm, earthy undertones. Without his jacket on, she can see all the tattoos he's gathered, inked across his skin and down his arms. Soul has one hand planted on the edge of the table and the other cupped over her shoulder.
His touch burns down into her stomach. It's hard to focus on sketching when he's looking at her like that, through pale lashes, shadowy eyes aimed at her and only her. It's like he can see past her physical presence, like he can see deeper than just Maka, short skirt wearing time bender. Like he can see her heart.
She fidgets. "I don't remember what his eyebrows looked like."
Soul's gaze sweeps over her. "... Thick and angled. He gets them done all the time."
Used to get them done, Maka thinks. Hopefully still does.
"He's so pretentious," Soul chuckles. The hand on her shoulder tightens. Maka doesn't say anything, only keeps drawing, shaping his brows meticulously, bringing Wes' image back to life. Soul sucks in a breath and she feels the tremble of it in her very being.
It's bittersweet. Melancholy. She can practically hear Soul's bones creaking into place as he shifts, tense as stone.
"He loves you," Maka breathes.
Soul tugs on a pigtail. It lacks his normal zest. "Whatever," he grunts. "Go ahead, ask me. I know you want to."
She can still taste the smoke in the air. Maka wonders if his lips are more poignant than the musty way the tobacco lingers in his curtains. If his mouth is just as condemned as his lungs must be. Her fingers curl and clench her drawing pencil tightly and she wills herself to work up the nerve to look him in the eye and not drown in waves of bitter red.
"Ask you what?"
"Don't play dumb. You're too smart for that, bookworm."
She takes a cleansing breath. "I have a lot of questions, Soul. What do you want me to say?"
Her chair spins and Soul sets his hands down on the arm rests. Caged between him, she's forced to watch him as he drags his gaze up her, from boring pleated skirt to pigtails. "Ask me why I was at your school," he says lowly. She stares at his mouth, both fascinated and terrified at the sinking in her stomach. "With Crona."
"... Fine," she manages. "Why?"
"Wes tutored them. The kid's had a hard life, misguided, struggles with identity and shit, and Wes wants to help everyone around him. Not unlike someone else I know," he grunts, regarding slowly. Maka glows with a blush, guilty as charged. "Last time anybody saw my brother, he was heading to Crona's. They called him, said they needed advice asap, so Wes left to go help."
Her mouth droops. "And now-"
"And now my brother is gone," Soul growls. "Get it?"
She thinks of the storm. She thinks of Soul, bleeding out on the bathroom tile.
"... I can help," Maka assures, sitting taller and sliding her hands over his. They're shaking beneath her palms, fingers clenched so tightly around the padding on the arm rest. "My powers, I can… I'll do whatever I can to help."
Because she knows Wes, too. It's easier to convince herself that it's not just for Soul when she thinks about her past with the eldest Evans child, too. There were summers where she would sit on Wes' lap and read books with him, while Soul cried and whined and pulled her hair. It's not just for Soul, she tells herself feverently, as he stares at her with wide eyes and moves to flip his hands beneath hers. Wrists arching, palms sliding, clammy hands slide into place.
His fingers lace into the spaces between hers. "Thanks," he murmurs. "I owe you."
"No," she shakes her head. "It's for Wes."
The investigation begins. Rewind becomes their trump card. School cameras can't catch them sneaking onto campus after hours, slipping into Crona's room to search for clues, the library for traces of Wes. A dull headache blossoms in the back of her head, a low glow of disturbance that Maka has no problem ignoring. She writes it off as exhaustion, because it's midnight and well past her bedtime.
The headaches worsen as the night goes on.
"Here," Soul mutters, dipping his hand into the pool to wash the blood away from his hand. He touches her face again, damp fingers brushing gently under her nose to swipe away the blood. Her head pounds as Soul leans closer, inspecting the damage. Everything else is a blur but him, a haze of color and sensation; he's the only thing clear and tangible, brows taut and eyes solemn. Maka can make out the bags under his eyes, the creases around his eyes as he focuses.
She opens her mouth dryly. It's like she has cotton stuffed to the brim, tongue swollen and useless. She grunts.
He cleans his hand again and leads her to sit, steadying her with one hand on her arm and the other pressed against the small of her back. "Take it easy, you were pretty wobbly on your feet. The nosebleed can't be good."
"'s never happened before," she slurs, squinting at him, trying to make out the expression on his face as he moves away to fiddle with his phone. "The headache…"
"Headache?" he croaks.
"Nothing."
"No." He sits closer. "No, it's not nothing. Is rewinding hurting you?"
Maka shakes her head. It doesn't hurt. She's not weak.
It's just an ache, a daze, nothing she can't overcome. Especially not when there are more important things that require their concern - things like Wes, like Crona, like making sure Soul never gets hurt like that ever again. If she's a vessel for preserving the peace, so be it. It doesn't matter if her head hurts or if her nose bleeds. As long as she can control it, as long as she has the ability, she will use it to fight, to correct what time and destiny have gotten wrong.
The floor is damp. Her hands plop noisily down onto the wet tile as she breathes shallowly. ".. It's nothing I can't handle," she manages.
"Maka."
"We have to find Wes," she hisses, willing her gaze to steady. "I feel fine. I'm not a baby, Soul. I know my own limits. I just got a little lightheaded, okay? But I'm fine, I'm not dead. We can keep searching."
He purses his lips. More colors become shapes. Oh, he's frowning at her. She makes the executive decision to frown back at him. He's not her mother, not her father - he's allowed to worry but he can't control her. Her fingers move to dig into the hem of her skirt, effectively soaking her lap, and she gasps nosily and shoves her hands into the air at once.
Soul snorts. "You're a child, I swear to fuck."
"I didn't mean to- I forgot!"
"You're sitting next to a pool."
She whines and drops her hands at her sides. "I'm wet."
His brow twitches. Grin quirks.
"... Don't."
"You set yourself up for it," he teases, grinning boyishly. Something flutters in her chest and she swallows it down, balking instead and pouting at him as he stands, offering a hand out to her.
Soul is cute when he blushes.
In fact, he's adorable when he openly gawks as she strips out of her damp skirt. She doesn't miss the way he scans the length of her legs, painstakingly slow, from chipped-painted toenails to her pale hips. His adam's apple bobs when his eyes meet hers and he jerks, guiltily looking anywhere but her bare skin. His face burns violently, pink marring him all the way to the tips of his ears. He spins, busying himself with grabbing extra blankets, and Maka spies the blush down the back of his neck, too.
Power surges through her that has nothing to do with her ability to rewind. For once, she doesn't feel like Maka the nerd or Maka the flatchested. When he fidgets and straightens the pillowcases, she wiggles out of her shirt, too, and tosses it aside.
"I'm ready for bed," she says innocently.
He looks over his shoulder and swears beneath his breath. She's still not wearing pants. "Jesus- just grab a pair of my sweats, would you?"
"But they're too big for me."
Soul burrows deeper into the blankets. "Then grab a shirt. I don't care. Take anything you want. Just put some clothes on!"
Where is this confidence coming from? "Can I have the one you're wearing?"
He gawks at her, eyes wide, before ripping his shirt off and practically shoving it at her. There are no thoughts of nosebleeds or headaches, of investigations and missing brothers - just the way Soul blushes and how the color looks sprawling and etching along the back of his neck, how his back moves as his shoulders stretch and he tucks himself into bed. She presses the shirt to her face and breathes in thickly. The temptation to bask in his scent and the warmth of the garment is sweltering, and Maka squeezes the fabric between her fingers in order to keep herself at bay.
In their youth, they had slumber parties all of the time. She'd borrowed his clothes before, be it a sweatshirt or a pair of basketball shorts, and it never felt quite as personal and intimate as this.
Then again, Soul never looked at her like this when he was thirteen.
His shirt hangs over her lithe frame. It's like a dress, falling mid thigh, and Soul watches her move across his room with hawk-like attention. When her knees dip into the mattress and the bed squeaks, he rolls over and hugs a pillow to his chest.
Maka crawls into bed and presses her face into his back. His skin is warm, and she barely bites back the urge to kiss his spine before leaning her forehead against him and breathing in deep, arms circling around his bare chest and holding him close. There's a stitched, jagged scar bisecting his torso. She ignores it and places her palm over his heart again instead, letting the steady thumpthumpthump soothe her to sleep.
"It's weird," she mumbles drowsily, laying nose-to-nose with him. "I feel like I've been here before."
Soul snorts. "You have."
"No, like… like I've lived this moment in time before."
"Deja vu?"
"... Yeah," she sighs. "Something like that."
Soul is so close that she can practically count each fair eyelash. She can feel every breath he takes, each exhale through his nose on her lips. With the sun peeking in through his curtains, it's almost like he glows, beams of sunlight framing him as he leans up and watches her yawn.
"Maybe you have."
Maka blinks back the sunlight as her partner sits and stretches. Maybe she has.
"Are you dating him?"
Coffee doesn't feel nearly as nice through the nose. It burns, actually, and Maka splutters and hunches over desperately, trying to aim her mess anywhere besides her white shirt.
"Wh- who, Soul?" she squeaks.
Her best friend, Kid, nods mutely and reaims his gaze at Maka's other best friend. Soul leans against his motorcycle, arms crossed, arms bare and tattooes vibrant under the midday sun. For October, it's strangely warm - stranger, even, considering it had snowed only three days ago and now it was comfortable enough weather to go without a jacket and for Maka to forgo her leggings.
"... He looks dangerous," he says quietly. "Isn't he a dropout?"
Maka snorts. Soul and dangerous shouldn't be used in conjunction. Maybe only if one is taking into account the circumstances in which she met up with him again, then sure, maybe danger is Soul's middle name. But not because he means any harm. Not on purpose, never on purpose.
The sharp teeth and perpetual snarl are only for show. There's no way she can look at him and not think beautiful. Misguided, even. There's something about his sad red eyes and mess of white that he calls hair that settles her pulse ablaze. He reminds her of early mornings and the crisp fall air, of warm, low tones and smatterings of piano keys.
"You're one to talk. You're dating Blake," she retorts smartly, tucking a pencil into her pigtail.
Kid pinks. "That's different. He's gifted in other means. He doesn't drive around on a deathtrap and smoke cigarettes, Maka."
"No," she huffs, "he just gets into fist fights and in trouble with the cops from time to time because he doesn't know when to quit it at a party. You're right, you're doing much better than I am."
"So you're dating him."
Soul waves lazily and quirks a brow at her company.
The easy answer is no, which is what she tells Kid as she's stuffing her books into her bag and scurrying across the lawn toward Soul's bike. The real answer is more complicated; they dwell somewhere in between, not quite lovers but definitely more than just friends, the gray area of something more, something unconfirmed. She saved his life. He has her back and wipes away her blood, carries her home when she studies the evidence too thoroughly and exhausts herself. They hold hands, walk on train tracks, sleep in the same bed when push comes to shove and Maka can't safely make it back to her dorm without getting caught.
They're linked, she thinks passionately, hopping onto the back of his bike and tugging his spare helmet over her head. And it's not just her acting out in a fit of late teenage rebellion, it's a taste of destiny, of fate, and her blood hums pleasantly when he grins at her over his shoulder and revs up the engine of his motorcycle.
"I still can't believe you actually took Crona's phone. Crouching tiger, hidden badass," he shouts and she can almost hear his grin. It's impossible not to feel satisfied with herself.
"Less talky, more drivey!" she answers, hoping to god that she's not lost in the whipping of the wind. "We have a small window of opportunity. That means no pitstops for burgers, Soul!"
He snorts. "I can't believe you just said 'drivey'."
It takes them half an hour to finally uncover the bunker hidden under the old, decrepit farmhouse. It smells of stale blood and antiseptics, with creaky floorboards leading to an ominous looking trapdoor. It doesn't take magical powers or an ability to alter time to sense the evil emanating from beneath the secret passage.
Soul groans. "Nose goes?"
Maka hefts the door open and holds her hand out to him. He scoffs, as if he's offended, and insists on making his way down himself.
She rewinds twice to save him the embarrassment of falling on his ass.
The bunker is unsettling.
Perhaps the most disturbing part, though, are the beakers of black, bubbling liquid that sit stacked on the shelves. It reeks of blood and leaves a stale, metallic taste in the air. It's like something out of a science lab - the creepy, mad-scientist variety, and Maka's half expecting to find jars of eyeballs and assorted organs hanging around when Soul catches her attention.
He runs his hand over a tall, locked cabinet. His lips curl down, exhaustion setting into his features, and then he mutters low, "I've been here."
"What?"
"I know I have." Soul narrows his eyes at the ceiling, the rickety, fluorescent light that sways back and forth, back and forth. "... The party?"
"A party? What party?" Maka pushes, moving from the shelves of black beakers to stand by him. Touching him might be a mistake and getting in his personal space could be the worst of ideas, but there's an angry, hesitant look in his eyes and her stomach is burning with dread. "Soul, you hate parties. You always have."
"No, yeah, I do, I know. No shit." He sucks in a breath and clenches his fist, pressing his knuckles to the cool metal of the cabinet. "But it was late, and I was high, and…"
She stares at him imploringly, pulse thundering in her ears. "And what?!"
Soul licks his lips and looks at her. His eyes are dark, pupils blown wide and there's fear, so much fear; it's unlike him to be so open, so easy to read, and his hand trembles as he lets it fall to his side. "I don't know! It was months ago. When Wes was still around, alright? I was angry at him for nagging me so I left, and then I went out and got fucked up, woke up outside in a puddle of my own drool, and-!"
"Slow down!" Maka breathes, shuddering, as she takes his hands into hers. He's shaking more than he is, quivering like a leaf, and all she can think to do is to hold his hands to her chest and press him close to her heart.
The rhythm seems to soothe him. He looks back at the ceiling, expression somber, running his teeth over his bottom lip. The crease between his brows only deepens. She stifles the urge to smooth her thumb over the it and instead presses his hands tighter to her heartbeat. His fingers are warm through the thin, cotton fabric of her t-shirt.
Soul exhales slowly. "... I don't remember much. But… I remember this room. The ceiling, mostly."
"Was Crona at the party?"
"Maka, c'mon," Soul laughs tonelessly. "Crona in a social setting? Less likely than me, don't you think?"
The fluorescent lighting makes his hair look gray and his skin look yellow. He looks sickly, aged, like his tattoos are engraved on rotten, pukish skin. Her throat tightens.
She runs her thumb over the back of his palm. "Can you pick the lock and get the cabinet open?"
"Not sure I want to," he groans.
"Please? For Wes?"
He looks at her with the same raw, dark eyes as before. Something burns in her blood, and when his face isn't tipped up toward the harsh, yellow light, he's not so frightening. He doesn't look like a melting man at all; he looks tired, worn, and there's a softness to him that thaws his jagged edges. The purple shadows under his eyes are hauntingly beautiful.
"... Yeah, alright," he says. "For Wes."
There are binders in the cabinet.
Each binder is marked with a name. Some of the names aren't familiar to them - Asura, Arachne, Eruka - but Crona and Wes certainly are.
The most worrisome, however, is the one titled Soul.
She pulls it from the cabinet and collapses onto the floor, tearing it open. Pictures spill out over her lap, frames of Soul, her Soul, in varying states of consciousness. In some he's awake and clearly pissed off, his wine-colored eyes scalding. In others, he's dazed, lips parted and drooling on the white, white floor. There's no fear in his expression, not even a lick of coherency - but there's blood, and a lot of it.
In the last picture, there's a gloved hand rolling up his sleeve, holding a needle, and-
Soul rips the binder from her, face pale. "What the fuck?!" he thunders, voice booming. For her part, Maka thinks the room is spinning around her and she can't find her footing, can't find much of anything, and grips the table beside her to steady herself as Soul throws the binder down onto the floor and grasps for the one titled Crona.
"How could you not know?" she gasps, shaking her head. Soul looks at her, eyes just as wide. "They did something to you! How could you not tell me?"
"I was drinking," he says quickly. "They must've slipped something in my drink."
They. Who is they? Crona? How could Crona take on someone so much bigger than them?
A dam bursts and Maka bawls, hands shaking as she wipes her damp face. There are so many tears and they're blinding, suffocating, because the thought of Soul in any sort of danger is one that she's made a habit of vehemently rejecting. She feels useless, crumpled on the floor and rocking forward, hands cupped over her wet face. No instant-rewind button is going to change this. There's no way she can travel that far back. There's nothing she can do and her head is pounding, every bone in her body screaming out in regret.
They shouldn't of dug. Soul could have gone on forever not knowing where his brother was. Soul could have kept thinking that he was missing somewhere, eloped with three kids and a cat, instead of this. Anything but this.
Soul's jaw is set and he shakes his head, flipping through pictures as Maka heaves herself to her feet. The same thing, only Crona's much less lucid.
"It's someone else," Maka mutters, pressing her cheek into his arm. He stiffens. "Someone else has been taking people and-"
Before she can stop him, Soul's grabbing Wes's binder.
It all happens in a daze. By the time he's seen the pictures of his brother, bleary eyed and hair tangled, Maka's grabbing his sleeve and he's unnervingly rigid. There are no charming smiles, no knowing glint in his eye; there's just lanky, drooping limbs and Wes being lowered into the ground.
Soul throws up from screaming and crying. His face is filthy from his muddy hands, ripped jeans stained on the knees and god, the smell is rancid. Rotting flesh and bile don't mesh well together. Maka rather feels like getting sick, too.
Helplessly, she rubs his back and apologizes, apologizes, apologizes until he's throwing up in the bushes again and rewind is tingling in her fingers, useless.
There's something sadly poetic about finding his brother buried in the junkyard.
It's the very place Soul first brought her after they reconnected, after all. It's where she proved her powers. Where Soul lent her his jacket. Where she'd looked at him and admire the way the sun turned his skin pink, the way his hair looked almost blonde in the daytime light. He was almost pretty them, so serene, even when he was still agonizing over the mystery of his lost brother. There was almost a sort of hopeful glow to him that kept him going.
Soul drops Crona's phone into the pile of vomit and spits on the ground. His expression is sour, lips pinched in a frown. He stares very pointedly at his shoes and not at her and all she wants to do is hold him again.
She still remembers the way his shoulders quivered, the way his voice broke and cracked as he sobbed. Please, not him, he had said. Take me instead.
With shaking hands, he lights up a cigarette and takes a drag. The sun is setting and Maka can barely make out the foggy ring of smoke that puffs from his lips. It disappears in the dark, fading into grayness and finally black, curling in lazy coils as Soul sucks in a low breath.
Maka dusts the grass off of her knees and reaches for his hand. He squeezes her fingers between his and flicks his cigarette with the other, amber ashes dwindling in the black.
"We'll catch them," she says quietly. "For Wes."
Soul stares into the dark. Drops the cig and presses it out in the dirt, then shakes his head and mumbles hoarsely, "Let's go."
Silence, and then, "I wish you would quit."
"Maka," he exhales, exhausted.
"It's not good for you," she says, thumb brushing over the back of his palm. His skin is cold beneath hers, clammy and damp, dusty with dried dirt. They walk in tandem, his heavy footsteps finding harmony with her shorter, quicker steps. "And it smells."
"It's good for stress relief."
"There are other outlets," she lectures.
It's easier to fall back into their rhythms than to dwell on Soul's brother, buried with rusted mufflers and cigarette butts. She bumps her shoulder against his and he sways broodishly. "Not your body."
Her nails find his skin and leave marks.
"Soul, wait. Look."
There are two hauntingly pale moons hanging in the sky, twin mirror images.
"Yeah, whatever, the world is ending. Great," Soul grunts, pulling open the door to the dorms. "Don't care. Happy apocalypse, let's go kill that bastard."
Maka doesn't budge. Snow in October had been weird, but this isn't normal. There's no way to write this one off. Maka hears frantic piano in the back of her mind, plunking of chaotic piano keys and the whirling of the wind; the storm, she realizes with blinding clarity. Her dream. The weird weather. Her powers.
"Maka!" Soul shouts over his shoulder. "Get a move on!"
She tears her eyes from the sky to look at him. His expression is hard, features set, eyes stained red with the flesh beneath bruised a worn, tired purple.
"But - two moons!" She gasps. "Soul, this can't be good."
The harshness in his stare sends icy jolts through her stomach. "Don't care."
"Soul!"
"My brother is dead, Maka," he snaps, thundering down the steps and looming over her. He's bloodthirsty, all wolf with those teeth of his, dark eyes boiling over finally, finally - he grabs her shoulders and towers over her, more imposing than he's ever been. "The world could end for all I care, I don't give a shit."
He breathes roughly, body quaking. His fingers dig in too tightly and she winces.
Soul loosens his grasp and stuffs his hands into his pockets. He draws back, shoulders bunching and mutters, "Sorry."
She tastes the salt on her lips before she realizes she's crying again.
But not because she's afraid. He could never truly scare her. He hadn't hurt her. Would never hurt her, not if he could help it - Maka touches her face and wipes away the wetness creasing between her eyelids and over her cheeks, her nose, the corners of her lips with resolve and blurts, "I don't want the world to end if you're in it."
His gaze is like a furnace. She's on fire.
But she continues, because there are two moons hanging over her and the weight of the world is on her shoulders and the storm, what about the storm? "You're still here," she says, gurgling when he flinches back and runs a hand through his tangled hair. "I couldn't - the world is going to keep turning even through Wes is gone, Soul! You don't get to throw away your life just because he's not here anymore! There are other people who care about you."
"That's not your choice to make!" he blurts, though even under the dim light of the outside lamp, she can see the color spreading over him like a blanket. Pink is a better look on him than blood. "If you found your mother buried in-"
"I haven't seen my mother in three years!"
"You don't get to chose who lives and who dies, Maka!"
She shakes her head. He's wrong. She's already made that choice once and the result is staring at her with wild, tormented eyes and shaking hands.
He's close again, so close that she can feel his breath on her lips and his forehead against hers. Soul touches her shoulders again but without the fire and temper from before, a reverent cupping of her skin, the body in which she walks.
"And you do?" she asks. "What are you going to do when you find Crona, Soul? Kill them? It's not going to bring Wes back."
"I know that," he growls.
"We have evidence. We could call the police and get this all settled without you getting your hands dirty."
Pleading with him isn't helping; he chuffs and bumps her forehead. The ache is minor and welcomed and for a moment she closes her eyes and lets herself be blurred by the warm heat of his breath on her mouth, his nose bumping with hers.
He opens his mouth to speak and Maka swears she can feel the brush of his lips against hers. She trembles. "They did something to me, too."
She opens her eyes and meets blinding, swarming red. It reminds her of torrential rain and dangerous winds, of twigs and branches and cyclones. Her hand twitches, wrist budging in phantom rewind; she could turn back time and erase this whole blow out. She could follow after him and let him throw away everything for a bit of bloody revenge, but now they're getting to the meat of the issue.
Soul is rapidly unfolding in front of her and she'll be damned if she lets the chance escape her.
"I have nightmares," he admits. "I've always had them, but lately they've been… darker. More twisted."
She shakes her head. "The needle?"
"They put something in me. In Wes. But it didn't - they killed him. They let me go," he continues, the manic, frenzied look in his eye as attractive as it is horrifying. "And I let it happen! It happened to me and I didn't fucking tell anyone about it - what sort of moron wakes up after a party with no memories and just lets it go?"
"Soul-"
"It's not just for Wes. It's for me, too," he says lowly. The hair on the back of her neck stands up in alarm - no, no no, please no. "And you don't get to make that choice for me."
"But I already have before!" she bursts, trailing behind him as he turns and begins to storm up the steps again. She's hot on his tail, taking rapid, heated steps to keep up with his longer strides as she practically jumps to the top step and wedges herself between the dormitory doors and Soul. "I've already saved you once! Don't - don't put me in that position again!"
"Move out of the way, Maka."
"No! I'm not going to lose you again, you idiot!" Rewind burns her fingertips and she knows he's right, she knows it, but if he takes three steps through those doors she's rewinding him right back outside to smack some sense into him. "Just because you think you don't matter doesn't mean you're expendable!"
"So what, you want to call the cops? And then what?" He storms up the final step and pushes forward; her back hits the cool metal of the door and she balks, fists clenching. "Try to stop the fucking apocalypse?"
"I don't know!" She's crying again. Soul looks remorseful for a moment before she pushes her hands into his chest and shoves him back and then he's furious, legs shaking and jaw locked. "I'm not letting you die again! We can stop this, I know we can - I have powers for a reason, Soul! I dreamed about that storm and then I saved you, that has to mean something! I just know this weird weather has something to do with that dream."
"A dream," he says tonelessly.
"A dream that gave me the power to rewind time," she shoots right back, feeling tiny and helpless and livid at him for thinking so little of himself.
Doesn't he know what she's been through to save him? He has no idea what it's like to watch someone die and bleed out on the bathroom tile, what it's like to watch the light leave someone's eyes; she toys with a dangerous power and doesn't feel as blessed as she did days before, when touching Soul's hand sent excited jitters up and down her spine.
She is not helpless, though. She reminds herself of the fact at once; she has stopped him from dying once already, and she'll do it again if she must.
He shakes his head slowly. There's a brightness in his eye that wasn't there before. It's not endearing, though - it's clarity and it's fear, and it leaves a sour taste in her mouth. "... Fucking with time travel is never a good idea."
"What?"
"... Shit," he groans, turning and dropping to sit on the steps. Maka shivers. "I - you - we fucked up the timeline."
"... What?"
"Don't you watch movies?" he laughs humorlessly. "I died and then you changed time. I'm supposed to be dead, Maka."
The gears turns slowly. He cocks his head at her and she really gets a look at him, the mess of a boy who had been puking his guts out and screaming and swearing only hours prior. Dirt marrs his face and darkness burns under his eyes - haunted, blistering eyes that know too much.
The tinkling of the piano has become a hectic melody, booming in her ears.
It's him. Soul's the storm.
Maka takes it all back. She doesn't want to chose who lives and who dies.
It might not even work.
She's never pushed her powers to such a limit before. Whether or not she can actually rewind that far back is beyond her - and the resulting headache will be grueling, she's sure, because using her power as of late has been more painful than usual. The nosebleeds have multiplied, as have the fainting spells, and lately even visual distortions have become common. Rifts in time, colors that don't belong, monochrome shades on people that don't belong.
But what other choice does she have? Let the storm take them? Take everyone?
The downpour is torrential. It's hard to see much of anything through all the rain, but she can still make out Soul in the damp blurs and smudges, staring at her solemnly. He looks like a shaggy dog, hair too long and drenched, hanging in his eyes.
"Maka," he mutters. "It's the only way."
Her knees feel like they're going to give out. "I don't want to make this choice."
"You don't have to," he reassures. "I am. Let me make the choice. It's my life."
"Soul."
Thunder and lightning crack and the wind nearly takes her away. Soul huddles by her and grounds her, hands on her shoulders, slouched. There's no fear etched into his features, only a firm resolve that makes her feel sick to her stomach. She thinks she might take her turn to puke in the bushes next and can only hope that he'll return the favor and rub her back while she tries to find her breath.
She shakes her head. "I can't."
"There are so many more people in this town that deserve to live more than me," he reasons and chips of her heart breakaway, like he's taking a chisel to her very soul and ripping her, piece by broken piece.
"Don't say that."
"One person for all of those lives? Come on, you're a smart girl." He stares at her for a long moment and there's the softness again, the same look he'd given her when they'd woken up in his bed together, when she let him play with her hair. "You're the smartest person I know. You can do this. I know you can."
She's not meant to play god. She hates the tingling under her skin, the warm flush of control she feels whenever she's toying with time, like it's a fucking plaything - how stupid and naive she'd been, thinking it was a blessing.
Because it brought Soul to her again. Because she'd saved him, despite everything else.
"I won't trade you," she sniffles. The tears won't seem to stop today, and Soul stops himself from wiping her face clean only when another round of thunder claps and she bunches up her shoulders in submission.
"You're not trading me," he whispers; her face burns and she stares at him, her sad-eyed, soft hearted catalyst. "You've just been delaying my real destiny."
It's not fair; she's known him since preteens, since braces and training bras and Wes' teasing stares. How is she going to ever give him up? He's so close and they're right on the cusp of something else, of finally coming clean and laying down all their cards and of course it's being ripped away from them. Fate and destiny are cruel, but she knows that even in the end, she'd do it all over if it meant spending these last few days with him again.
"I thought we could be together this time," she says quietly, scrubbing at her eyes. "I thought… I finally found you again, and we… you're special to me. You've always been special to me."
Soul lets out a long, low breath. His face tints pink, bittersweetly, and there are raindrops caught in his faint eyelashes. With no time left, she acts upon sheer instinct; they've spent too long dancing around attraction and heated stares, the chemistry that bursts whenever the other smiles or catches the other looking for too long.
They're out of time.
Her lips find his with resounding clarity. His hair is damp and matted between her fingers but she doesn't care; his mouth is warm and soft and gentle and she's crying, gasping, even as his arms tighten around her and hold her close. He tastes like the rain and like cigarettes, stale smoke and the mint he'd popped into his mouth after getting sick and it's perfect and terrible at once. It's the first and last time she'll ever kiss him.
The kiss is slow and chaste. Maybe if they had more time they could've explored further, touched and felt and tasted.
Soul presses his lips gingerly to her knuckles and steps back. "Make those fuckers pay for what they did to Wes."
Her heart shudders in her throat. "I will."
It's empty without him already. He takes a deep breath and at last, there's a freckle of fear, a chip in his armor as his voice wavers. "And Maka Albarn?" His gaze burns her down, leaves her ashes on the ground, raw and vulnerable. "Don't you forget about me."
"Never."
And then time rewinds for the last time.
Maka holds her head in her hands and slides to the bathroom floor. The door slams and Soul's footsteps thunder through. Crona mutters nervously, rambling, shaking by the porcelain of the sink as Soul pushes, and pushes, where is he, I know you know, dammit.
She hides her face in her knees and presses her hands over her ears.
Guns are so loud. The piano comes to a crashing hault.
Soul Evans is buried four days later, next to his brother, in the nicest part of the town cemetery.
With Crona - and Medusa Gorgon, Maka's teacher - caught red handed with black blood, of all things, in beakers and binders full of photos of their victims and experiments, it felt only fitting to give Wes a proper resting place. Next to his brother seemed the most logical, according to Mr. and Mrs. Evans, and Maka couldn't help but silently agree.
She wonders if Soul's mother was disappointed to meet her only after her son's passing. She wonders if she had any idea how she felt about her son. But most of all, she wonders if she knew how worthless Soul had felt right up until his demise.
Because Soul Evans did not die in the storm with her, kissing her gently, holding her as if she were precious and something to be treasured. Soul didn't die knowing Maka loved him. Soul didn't even die knowing where his brother had gone, didn't know that his brother was already dead and waiting for his little bro to catch up. No, Soul died feeling alone and unwanted, lost and angry, on the girl's restroom tile at the hands of an anxious, frantic teen who was in way over their head.
She can't just forget the horror of it all. Maka doesn't want to pretend that it never happened. It's not all in her head.
It was real. He was real, as was the time they spent together. She remembers it all in such vivid clarity - the junkyard, his bedroom, the poolside, the storm...
Kissing him certainly hadn't helped push her to move on. Her lips buzz.
Sketching him wasn't helping her move on either, and yet here she is.
The memory of him is burning and she leads the pencil across the sheet of paper in trained drifts and lines. The slope of his nose, the thickness of his brows, the way his eyes drooped - she remember it all in such vivid detail, remembers the shape (and softness) of his lips, the way his dimples made her chest fill up with light and a fanfare, the way freckles dotted his pale eyelids.
But she wants to preserve him somehow, in someplace, other than her memory. Every laugh, every smile, every roll of his eyes - he was real and alive, with real thoughts and dreams and fears and anxieties, and he deserved better to die thinking that nobody loved him.
The face of a dear old friend stares back at her, emblazoned on paper.
Maka sits back in the bed of the truck and stares at the clear sky, leather jacket slung over her shoulders.