Author Notes: Written for day 2 of SoMa week 2016, for the prompt 'can't sleep.' Lots of fluff, a good amount of smut, and some angst with mentions of body horror, torture, violence, and scars typical of canon

In the wee hours of the morning, the late night Death City club scene dwindles to a dull hum. There's a street lamp straight outside their bedroom window, but Maka had invested in heavy curtains the second she started sharing a room with her weapon. Blackness wraps around her like a cloak and it feels secure there.

Soul's leg is thrown heavily over Maka's, his arm tucked tightly around her waist and his tongue laving nonsense on her neck.

He expresses his desires with ritualistic and reverent intent, whispering how he wants to nibble her hip bones and count every link of her spine with his lips.

"I wanna kiss all your freckles," he murmurs into her skin.

"There's a lot of them," Maka scoffs. Sarcasm is her blanket; it helps her ignore the tension that coils and coils when Soul kneads her hips through the thick green sweatshirt she's worn to bed. "I think it would take you a while."

She feels his smile slink across on her neck like a devious cat curls where he knows he's not allowed. Maka can tell he wants to sink his claws in.

"I still want to, though," he muses.

"I don't know how you're going to find them all." Maka doesn't think he probably knows about the one nestled on her thigh, just inside her pantyline, nor the one smack between her breasts, resting on her sternum. Despite their being together, Soul has yet to actually see her naked. He's only felt and felt until her legs were quaking around his hips and human language failed her.

The dark feels safe.

"I could turn the light on." He's hesitancy and want wrapped up in tender adoration.

Maka doesn't respond.

"Why?" He's never asked before, and never questioned the heavy curtains she pulls over the windows. For months, he's silently nodded and practiced mapping out her face in the blackness.

"I don't know." It's a lie - she knows very well, much as she tries to forget about it.

"You're not- you don't think I don't like how you look, do you?" Soul rolls her over to her back and climbs on top, straddling her hips and pinning her down much in the same way she does when she's riding him straight into the sun. Questing fingers seek her lips and fluttering eyelashes, feeling for dishonesty on her face where it can't be seen. The only thing Maka can see is his stark, silver hair that refuses to go unnoticed given even the barest brush of light.

"No…"

"Because I have felt every bit of you with my mouth, and every bit is perfect." It stuns her how candid Soul can be now that he's suddenly concerned that she's insecure about her body, of all things.

Is she? Probably a little. Not so much now as when they were younger and Soul knew no other way to communicate than their trademark banter. Maka holds that teasing dear, still, but then it makes her heart race when he openly confesses little truths to her.

"Why do you need to see me naked so bad, then?" Maka challenges, swallowing her doubts and doing what she does best: turning everything on its head.

What she doesn't expect is the heavy, wanton sigh that comes out of Soul as he shifts over her, rearranging himself until he has a leg wedged between hers and he's on top of her with her neck under his teeth again. "I wanna see your face when you come."

It's a simple request, sweet even, compared with some of the depraved things Maka has pulled in bed. Tying him up and having him beg her to fuck him while she slid around on his dick comes to mind. God, he'd been so willing, eager under her command. She swallows nervously - how can she begrudge this? Especially knowing if she says no, he won't push it, won't even be resentful. He'll still feel out her legs in the dark until he reached their apex and put his fingers to good use, whether he can see or not.

"Alright." Maka wiggles under Soul's wiry body until he gets the idea and sits up enough to let her reach over and turn her bedside lamp on. The sudden light leaves him squinting, making him look a little more like a concerned puppy than usual.

"Was that so bad?" he huffs and flops back down on the bed before tugging her alongside him so he can resume tracing her cheeks and her jaw with soft fingertips. How could she be afraid of how he looks at her when there's nothing but unadulterated devotion all over his face?

"No…" Maka starts, resenting the grin spreading on her weapon's face. "But I'm also still wearing all my clothes, unlike some people in this bed." Unashamed in any state of dress (including a complete lack of clothing) that falls under the arbitrary label of 'cool,' Soul lounges in his boxers constantly. Maka doesn't know how her poor little heart managed before she had implicit permission to put her hands down his pants at pretty much any hour of the day.

"Well, can I take them off?"

"Uhh…"

"Are you okay with this?"

"Maybe? Ah, I don't know." Maka buries her face in her arms. Sharing herself with him thrills and frightens her in an equal ratio. Intimacy has been a rocky road, and her weapon has been nothing but steady through it as she strives to extend her comfort zone into romantic territory.

"Maka." Soul's hand flexes protectively around her waist. He's squinting again, but this time with concern and skepticism. "Tell me what's wrong."

"Nothing!" she blurts. "I'm just nervous."

"Maka, you know I think you're very attractive, right?" Not this again.

She slides her palms down her face in exasperation until she's just covering her mouth and muffling her voice when she says, "I know."

Soul groans, shuffling closer to her for comfort until Maka's heart isn't just racing with anxiety but with holy shit mostly naked Soul is right there.

"Let's just go slow," she suggests lowly, "like it's the first time."

Soul sits bolt upright and Maka could almost laugh. She knows he has a special place in his heart for hand holding and slow sex, and with how intimate it feels in the dim yellow lamp light, the secret mushy romcom part of his brain must be in overdrive. Maybe if he's close enough, flush on top of her, he won't have anywhere to look.

He traces her hips carefully, skirting the tiny gap between her sweatshirt and her sleep shorts before settling on her top.

"Can I start here?" he asks, peppering kisses along her jaw.

Maka's heart balks so she stutters, "Y-You first."

Soul raises an eyebrow, though the effect is mostly lost behind shaggy white hair. "I'm not really wearing much, but-"

Maka keeps staring him down until he slides out of his boxers with an amused snort. He's naked, glorious, and settling between her legs with the intention of taking her shirt off.

"Not the shirt!" Maka blurts before amending with a quiet, "Yet."

She watches something click in Soul's head but she's not sure it's the right gear that's shifted into place. Nevertheless, he turns his attention to her hips and rear, groping gently and sliding hands down supple legs, almost imperceptibly slowly. All the while he watches her reactions, eyeing the hitch in her throat when he grips the sensitive backs of her thighs.

"Is this better?" he asks. Maka knows that tone of voice too - it's the one that usually results in him giving her head multiple times in a night because he's decided to make things about her. Soul's desire to please is unrivalled, except maybe by his special brand of snarky loyalty.

"Mm." Maka nods, quickly forgetting that she'd been worrying in the first place. He lifts one of her legs so he can press his mouth to her ankle, scraping the bone with his teeth just to remind her he'd like to eat her. The sensation is overwhelming, too delicate to comprehend. Soul's tongue might as well be a furnace with how effectively it boils her blood with each pass running closer to her knee.

She shouldn't be this wet just having her calf nipped at.

Maka's starting to regret telling Soul to go slow, and he knows it. All the scalding looks he's giving her, there's no way he isn't aware of the fact that she would really like him to tear her panties off and reacquaint his tongue with her pussy. Warm fingers explore up the back of her shorts then suddenly her ass is in Soul's palms and she's gasping for him to take them off.

He's somber, dragging her pajamas down her legs and leaving her underwear behind. Any trace of amusement at her impatience is hidden behind the heated looks he's giving her.

"I never knew what color these were," Soul murmurs, gliding back up her legs to flick over the twin bows above her legs that must only be familiar by touch.

"Pink," Maka says dumbly. No matter how obvious that fact may be now, it's a little hard to speak when he's dipping fingers into the lacey edges of the cotton fabric.

"I see that now." Soul crouches between her legs to get a better angle at molding his grip around her butt. Maka can see the hungry look in his eyes staring at the wetness spreading from between her legs, and what a novel thing it is to see that first hand. He stares unabashedly, and if it's possible, it gets her closer to melting. His tongue darts between his lips to soothe where he's been gnawing at himself in his absentminded reverie. She needs it. Whimpering Soul's name snaps his attention away from bows and modest lace edging, but she loses eye contact the moment she asks for that devious tongue and he immediately starts mouthing her through the damp cotton.

"Hah- hnn." The rough sensation of fabric on her clit makes her pant, especially with things getting exponentially hotter and wetter by the second with Soul's licking and nibbling and sucking.

She's going to combust with this much friction.

"Soul?! Ahn um." If he's not going to strip her properly, she'll have to take things into her own hands. Where are her hands anyway? Oh. Clenching the sheets for dear life. It takes a bit to regain any kind of command over her body to make it do anything besides buck into Soul's mouth. Maka tries to tug the edges of her underwear down to give him a hint, but he's apparently frustrated with her effort, groaning in annoyance before pulling away from her folds and promptly biting her thigh.

He looks up at her while sucking on her skin (one hundred percent definitely giving her a hickey) and hell she didn't realize how hot that would be.

"It's rough," she offers in explanation.

Soul decides the best course of action is to tug her panties to the side and dive back in, promptly making Maka lose her grasp on reality again. The hardest part is that she can't stop watching. Then she sees him reach down to his own arousal, not to stroke himself but just to hold it firmly and now she wants to see his face when he's coming too.

"God." She's wound to detonate; her whole body seems to snap like a rubber band when she unravels. Legs around Soul's shoulders tighten, and her torso curls up on itself before immediately arching back as tremors shake her from her center, up her back and through every bone in her body. Only when Maka starts taking deep calming breaths like Tsubaki taught her does she realize Soul is trying to manhandle her underwear down her very limp legs.

Maka belatedly realizes she'd been too busy orgasming to check if Soul had been as intent on seeing it happen, then she kicks herself mentally for worrying about it. He's occupied with getting her soaked panties off, which she couldn't be more thankful for.

"Look, I can aim now," Soul jokes, tossing her discarded clothes easily into her laundry basket.

Maka just squeals and throws an arm over her face until he quits joking around and stalks back over her so he can resume death by kissing.

"Hey! Found one!" he exclaims before diving back between her legs.

"Huh? haaAH?" First she's confused, and then terribly aroused and weak in the knees because Soul is fastening himself at the peak of her right thigh, just shy of starting in on another round of oral which she doesn't think she can handle right now.

He looks up at her with a grin before proudly announcing, "A freckle."

"Ah." Maka finds herself to be utterly defeated by and enamoured with this boy, man, person.

"So." Soul settles back between her legs like it's his proper place in life. His eyes scan up her body to scrutinize the depth of color on her face. "Do you want to keep going?"

As his fingertips trace the hem of her shirt, hesitant but eager, Maka can feel her heart climbing into her throat again. He looks so concerned, too, when she whispers, "I think so."

"Slowly?"

"Yeah, let me." It doesn't even feel like her own fingers ghosting down to pull up; an oddly familiar sense of disassociation overtakes her, no matter how soothingly Soul rubs circles into her abdomen.

"Maka," he grouses, clearly worried about how not there she is. "Wait."

The edge of her shirt rests just above her breasts, and Soul runs his hands along her rib cage to lay his fingers in the grooves of four, distinctly parallel scars. They run very intentionally between her ribs like a cat scratch, or the gills of a shark.

Soul frowns. "This is from…"

Maka swallows hard. "Last year."

"With that demon knife." He fills in the story quietly. "Why didn't you tell me that's why you didn't want the light on?"

"I've been trying really hard not to think about it."

With no trace of frustration, he nods and says, "Me too." Of course, trauma has a way of making itself known at the worst moment possible. It comes rushing back like it was yesterday. Not the violence that Maka had very definitely stuffed in a box and blocked from her memory, but the aftermath. A little more than a year ago, a demon weapon had gone rogue, dissatisfied with the truce between Shibusen and the witches. She wanted to be a Death Scythe and was going to do anything to get there, including endorsing insanity.

Maka had been sent on a mission for her soul perception abilities, with Harvar and Ox as her bodyguards; since Death Scythes were spread thin, she'd been left weaponless. Spirit was partnered with Stein, since Marie was in the late stages of pregnancy, and the Thompson sisters were already on assignment, leaving Soul as the next weapon candidate to be wielded by Shinigami, Death the Kid, during the crisis.

Everyone came rushing back when they heard the news.

Kid bursts in the door, guns literally blazing before Liz transforms back and uses Patty to bust through the handcuffs holding Maka to a chair.

"Maka! You alright?" Liz shakes her back into consciousness.

Maka shakes her head and spits out a mouthful of blood. "Where are Ox and Harvar? Are they alright?"

"They're fine," Kid answers, hoisting her up and supporting her weight between him and Liz. "Kim and Jacquie found them in a cell on the next floor down, totally unscathed, since you've apparently been taking the brunt of interrogation for the last 38 hours. Death, Maka."

It couldn't possibly have been that long, could it?

"Where's Soul?" Maka gets predictable when desperate. "I need my scythe."

"He's with Black Star and Tsubaki, looking for you, we just found you first."

"I need him," Maka says for more than one reason. "I'm ready to fight."

"You're kinda bleeding out." Liz nods down to where she holds the smaller girl's ribcage, dripping with blood. "You're ready for stitches. How are you even conscious? You were being tortured."

Maka winces. "Don't say that."

"What did she want to know anyway?" Kid asks.

"Hell if I know." Maka spits out another mouthful of blood. "I just tuned her out." And so she had, along with the pain that's just starting to creep up on her. "Where's Soul? I want to see him." She knows she's a little delirious but she just has to remind herself that he's okay, that as much as the demon knife tried to tell her that she had her weapon, and was hurting him, she had no proof.

"Probably thought we have a new technique for making Death Scythes," Liz hisses. "Soul's fine, we told you, he's upstairs. You might want to let Stein clean you up a bit before Soul sees your face and blows a gasket though."

Maka reaches a hand up to her face, finds her fingers to be broken, tries again with the other, and can't even take a catalogue of the small wounds. She whispers, "I guess not," and lets her friends half-lead half-carry her to a helicopter.

When Maka wakes up in a hospital bed, she feels like her face got run over by a lawnmower. Soul is there though, looking healthy if not for lack of sleep. He dozes, sitting on the floor with his arms leaned on her mattress.

"Hey," she murmurs, readying herself for a lecture on how dare she protect the ones who were supposed to be protecting her.

Soul just returns her greeting and rises from the floor to perch gingerly next to her. She can't quite translate the look on his face. He reaches to brush her bangs out of her face, but there's a bruise from who knows what on her forehead so the gesture makes her wince.

"Sorry." Soul hesitates. "What doesn't hurt?"

"Um." Maka raises her good hand for him to take, holding it tenderly before bringing to his lips. He kisses each of her knuckles slowly, her fingertips, her palm.

"Next time you're going to do something reckless, remind me to tell you I love you first."

His face is blank, but his eyes are still full of intangible passion. It's all Maka can do to respond to his casual confession with a meek, "okay."

"Do you want to stay here, or go home?" Soul asks, as if he didn't just tell her he loves her for the first time.

"I want to be home, but I don't know about getting there on the motorcycle."

"I'll call a cab, and carry you out the front door." He's being so matter of fact, while she's still shellshocked. "Wait here a sec."

"Soul, wait!" Maka calls before he can make it off the bed.

"What's up?"

"I-" Is she really going to request this? "I want a real kiss first."

Soul pinks and she knows it's real. "You have a split lip."

"Just on this side, though!" She points to the swollen right edge of her mouth. "The other side is fine."

It takes him longer to do it than Maka thought it would - she always thought showing was more Soul's strength than telling. He leans toward her, gravitates to holding her (good) hand, as usual. She's looking at his mouth, but he's looking at her eyes, and it messes up his aim. With a graze to the cheek and a slip down to the jaw, Soul feels his way to her mouth peppering kisses along the way.

It's a revelation.

One month later, when Maka's face doesn't look quite so much like it had a run in with any motorized gardening equipment, Kid wants to have a ceremony to give her a badge or something. It's stupid.

"I was just doing my job," she grumbles.

Soul grunts placatingly through the bobby pins perched between his teeth. Though her surface wounds have healed, and her hand is close to fully functional, her broken ribs are still knitting back together, and she can't stretch her arms above her head to do her hair.

Her loyal weapon, best friend, person who occasionally smothers her face with smooches, faithfully learns to fix it for her.

He fastens the last pin in place. "A little above and beyond, Maka. I'd probably title your award 'Reckless Bravery,' though."

Maka sighs. "I knew you were mad."

She's been waiting for a lecture for exactly thirty one days, figuring that once he got over feeling guilty, Soul would rip her a new one for being reckless minus the bravery.

"Why would I be mad?" It's an old trick, trying to get her to admit what she did wrong, but she knows it very well, and doesn't have the energy to be coy.

"Being reckless, or something," Maka mutters, adding, "trying to protect my friends."

"I would never be mad at you for protecting your friends." He turns her around gently, but avoids her eyes, checking for invisible stray hairs instead. "I'm mad at those two dolts for not doing a better body guard job, but I can't be mad at you for doing something I would've done, too."

"You would?"

"I mean, not for Ox and Harvar, but for you? In a heartbeat."

She'd like to deny it, but she knows it's true. Soul's loyalty runs dangerously deep.

"You're really amazing though. That bitch… probably thought you'd be the weak link - didn't know my girl is a freakin' tank. I mean, not that you're my… anything, I guess." His faith in her piles up with his pride, and stills her trembling core that wants to flee from all things in the realm of possessiveness. "I guess, you're my meister, and stuff… but not mine, mine, or something weird."

He knows, and oh does he know it well, where her fears lie.

"I could be," she murmurs. "Yours - still mine, but yours also."

"I'd like that."

"I like you."

When Soul sees the scars from The Incident, Maka expects him to withdraw, turn back over and pull himself into a pit of misplaced guilt. It has happened time and again, that no matter how little he could've done about something, he'd still blame himself. It's a surprise, then, when he props himself up higher so he can kiss her forehead.

"God, you're badass." Despite their nakedness, his admiration is shy and delicate.

Maka wraps her arms tightly around his waist, holding him there so he can't shy away or pull back to see how red her face is. Affection still dizzies her, but she thinks now it's in a good way. She's definitely learned to like the full body buzzing she gets when Soul nuzzles her neck and whispers to her how amazing she is, how brave, and God, he'll do anything he can to stay by her.

It's stifling.

It's stifling how much she wants to roll them over and kiss him thoroughly.

"Sorry," she breathes.

"For what?" Soul kisses her neck, clearly not sorry about anything.

"Not saying anything."

"I just don't know what you were worrying about." His hands slide along her sides, his fingers resting naturally between her ribs.

"Didn't want you to worry, I guess." It does seem a little silly now.

Soul scoffs. "I always worry - doesn't mean you shouldn't tell me things. We're partners, you can trust me."

"I do!" Maka says. "Of course I trust you-"

"Hey, shh." Soul rolls over to the side, reaching to brush her cheek. "It's fine."

Letting herself be tucked under his arms feels safe.

"I guess this is kind of a turn off," she mutters before burrowing into his chest.

"D'you think my scar is a turn off?"

"What? No, of course not!"

"We fight Kishin, Maka, we get beat up sometimes."

"I know." She wiggles, embarrassed. It seems so trivial when he puts it that way, but there's something that still nags at her.

"You have lots of scars," Soul points out, master of the obvious.

"I know!" Maka repeats. "It's just… most times I can fight back."

A low hum rumbles through her weapon's chest and vibrates against her skin.

"I don't like not being in control," she admits.

"Don't I know it." The little grunt of laughter that comes out of him makes her want to give him a good old fashioned Maka-chop, but it's hard to move much at all when she's pinned herself so willingly against him. Soul must be able to sense her intent though, and only tightens his grip around her when she starts to flail, chuckling all the while about how he should've known she'd always want to be on top.

"Quit joking!" she squeals; he's taken to tickling her now, and it's difficult to breathe let alone speak in a reasonable octave.

He drawls, heavy with affection, "It's not a joke if it's true."

"Leave me alone."

Soul drops his arms like she's burned him - she should really know better by now than to say things she doesn't mean. "Sorry!"

"I just mean stop tickling me - you don't have to stop anything else, come back."

Master of acting reluctant, Soul is slow to return to comforting contact, but he comes around, sneaking his arms around her waist. "You turned off now?"

Maka shimmies her shoulders, enjoying the contact with Soul's chest a little too much. "No."

"Hm." He sounds so curious about her answer, like it's a tidbit of gossip rather than an admission that she's still aroused. She's loath to admit that talking about fighting gets her going.

"I wanna…"

"Wanna what?"

Maka growls. She hates the way he acts like he doesn't know. "Will you…."

"Will I what?" he continues to tease.

She twists around in his arms, pulling away just far enough to be able to look him in the face. It's difficult to think how to properly phrase the fact that she'd sorta like him to pound her into the mattress - considering they've just been having an emotional conversation. She swallows her pride and settles on, "Love me?"

"God." Apparently fed up with not being pressed together, Soul crushes her to him. "I do, Maka."

"I mean…" Maka fiddles her fingers together behind his back. "Make love to me?"

It's cheesy as hell, and not something she would usually say, but somehow the situation calls for it. Soul pushes his hair off his face and rolls his eyes, though the effect is wholly ruined by his blush. "Oh yeah, that. Duh, nerd."

"Well, do you want to, still?" Now she's worried the mood really is ruined, maybe not by her scars themselves, but by everything else.

"Maka, I can't think of a time I don't want to have sex with you." She earns another eyeroll.

"You weren't very enthusiastic about the idea that time last week."

"That was at six in the morning - you gotta give me a chance to wake up first."

Soul might still be complaining about being woken up a week later, but now he's clearly thinking of other things, namely nudging her legs apart and taking notice of how wet she is with his fingers.

She pinks when he comments on it, muttering, "It doesn't just go away."

But he's smiling into her neck and testing the waters, playing her with a cacophonous lack of rhythm until she's panting.

"You… Soul… C'mere," she can only whimper fragments of phrases, and he doesn't understand what she means. Manhandling is required to wrestle him properly on top of her and hovering between her thighs.

Wrapping her legs around his waist and yanking him down might not be the most graceful way to reel him in, but it gets the job done. Soul's grunt of surprise when he jerks down that turns into a grunt of pleasure when she rubs herself on him is satisfying too. He's a little heavy, especially before he gets the chance to support himself with an arm cradled around her head, but God is the weight satisfying. He rocks his hips and smothers her face with tiny lip brushes, painting her red, so red, and happy.

With her ankles linked around his torso, and hands linked around the back of his neck, Soul isn't going anywhere, but then, he never was.

"You know I love you, right?" Maka tugs his head up from its home resting on her shoulder so she can press their foreheads together.

"Psh, duh, nerd." Soul answers her with a kiss to her nose.

The jerk. She bucks her hips up. He groans low in his chest.

"Gotta grab a condom, Maka." Practicality may be on his mind, but it sure doesn't stop him from gliding along her slick outer lips in the meantime. She's reluctant to let go, melting off slowly so he can lean over to rummage through the box under the bedside table.

Once Soul has put on a rubber and returned to grinding her into oblivion, Maka reaches to card her fingers through her hair, but he takes one of her hands for his own, taking a moment to kiss her palm subserviently before pinning it to the sheets.

She whines into his skin - why isn't he in her - before biting his neck when he gropes her hips.

Soul rasps and grips her tighter. "Fuck, Maka. Fuck."

A whimper of his name from her and he's quickly adjusting himself at her entrance and thrusting slowly, slowly, too slowly.

"Hah." Maka flings her free arm around his shoulders, trying not to claw up his back too badly when he moves in her. Her other arm is still secure on the bed, her fingers twined with his. He squeezes them more tightly. If she could function and live her whole life breathing in his moans, she gladly would.

Seeing the way his hair plasters to the sides of his face is new, too, as is seeing the shape of his mouth forming around untranslatable sounds - though her name is familiar there, and commonly found. Soul must've caught her staring at his mouth, because it slips into a cheshire grin before he crashes his lips to hers as their hips collide.

It's slow, steady, and hard. The muscles in his shoulders are solid and tense under Maka's nails as she scrapes her way down to where he holds her by the hipbone. Delicately, she peels him away and guides his hand between them to the point where they meet.

He touches her and her walls twitch and pulse around him; it distracts his purpose of sending her to the moon, but drives his pace to a new cadence that gets the job done anyway. Tenderness comes bubbling up from deep in her bones, and it's all she can do to tell him repeatedly that she loves him, so much, and she can't believe she never let him look at her.

Maka loves the way Soul looks at her, with unbridled pride and adoration, whispering, "I know" against her temple. This time when she comes, he's watching carefully, carmine peeking at her under eyes still hooded with pleasure. Then he's losing himself to her, and watching him coming undone is spectacular.

Soul's jaw goes slack and his body collapses, caging her in with that delicious heavy contact. It just takes a little shove to get him to roll off so she can climb on top of him and kiss his face a little bit. She'd kiss his mouth, but he's smiling too much to get a good angle.

"You're beautiful," he says, pushing sweaty hair off his forehead. The way he says it sounds like he thought so all along, but his eyes still roam over previously unexplored skin with determined hunger.

"Are you tired?" Maka asks.

"Maybe? I don't even know what time it is."

"Maybe you shouldn't have cut the alarm clock in half with your dumb scythe arm, then."

"It surprised me, and I told you I'd buy a new one," Soul grumbles.

Maka grudgingly swings her leg off his chest from where she sits straddling him so she can crawl off the bed. The curtains are thick, and the light is gray and soft streaming between them when she pulls one to the side.

"It's sunrise."

"Ugh," Soul groans in disappointment. "There's no bother going to sleep now, I guess."

"I'm sorry."

"Are you kidding? Don't be. I'm not sorry at all." He's beaming again, and giving her a rakish look from the bed that half makes Maka want to dive under the covers to hide and half to dive under and suck him off. "I'm gonna go shower then, I guess."

A parting smile later, and he's off to the bathroom, leaving her only a vision of his ass that has no business looking that good considering how little he works out. Maka climbs back in bed for only a moment before getting restless and throwing caution to the wind, deciding to subject herself to fluorescent lighting.

Soul doesn't look surprised at all to see her when she opens the shower curtain and clambers over the edge of the tub without a word; he only steadies her elbow when she nearly slips on the edge.

"Look who's out and about, naked in the light of day," he jokes before handing her the shampoo.

"It's not really morning yet, Soul. It doesn't count if you never go to bed."

"Oh, we went to bed, just didn't do much sleeping there."

She smacks a soapy hand against his chest with a glare. The amusement doesn't leave his eyes, but he falls silent in favor of kneading her shoulders while she massages the shampoo into her scalp.

"You know, I can feel them," Soul comments after a moment.

"What?"

"Your scars - not all of them, but, here." He gestures to her side, careful not to touch. Maka reaches behind her and presses his hand against her rib cage where those four nasty parallel lines lay. "I could feel them even without seeing."

"Why didn't you say anything?" She doesn't turn to face him, not yet.

"You clearly didn't want to talk about it - I just… don't totally get it. You've never been worried about getting scratched up fighting before."

"I know, I know." Maka sighs. "It's just that, when I look at these, it just reminds me of having to sit there - usually when something cuts me, I get to cut back, and beat the shit out of it, but with that demon knife..."

"You beat her though, you didn't say anything."

"I might've… if I had known anything. She started talking about you, and I just shut down. I-"

"Hey, that's never going to happen again. I know… much as I hate it, I can't always be with you, but I think Kid knows better than to send you out unarmed after that - he knows you're unstoppable with any weapon."

"I know!" Maka squawks again. "I know all of that, but, I still -" Actually talking about it breaks a dam in her, and she lets herself cry about it for the first time there in the shower while Soul swears about how she's going to get shampoo in her eyes. He takes on the task of rinsing her hair out while she sobs into his chest.

She hates it, hates the part of her that isn't iron clad, but Soul wipes her face off and acts like nothing is broken. He sounds so sure, maybe some day she'll even believe it herself.

It doesn't take long for her to calm down, swaddled in the steam from the shower and Soul's solid arms. He turns her around so her back is to him - it's easier to condition her hair this way, but as he sweeps her wet hair over her shoulder, he leans down to plant his lips on the back of her neck.

"Soul?" Maka cranes around to see what he's doing, kissing her upper spine so religiously.

"Freckle," he offers. "Right here, under your hair."

She didn't know that one was there.