And They Were Roommates (oh my god)
KarmaHope
Soul Evans is everything her mother conditioned her to hate in a person.
He's lazy, she thinks when he brags about how he skips half his classes. He's unkempt, she muses whenever his clothes are wrinkly and his hair looks like he hasn't brushed it. He's rude, she's reminded every time he throws out insults like they're candy at a parade. He's disrespectful, she realizes when he never has a good word to say about authority figures. He's a stoner, she tells herself when she smells weed on him for the umpteenth time.
And she hates it.
She hates the fact she doesn't hate him.
"Are you sure about this, honey?" her dad asks, startling her out of her thoughts. "It's not too late to change your mind."
Maka rolls her eyes. "I signed the lease two months ago, Papa. I'm doing this."
"I'm just saying–"
She fixes him with a death glare, and he stops mid-sentence. They've had this conversation so many times she can't muster the patience to deal with his bullshit any longer. "Can you please just help me move these boxes into the apartment?"
"Okay, fine," Spirit grumbles. "Here, let Papa take the heavy box."
It's easier to just let her dad take it, even though she knows she can lift more than him. She ignores him as he struggles. Grabbing one of the lighter boxes, her heart pounds with every step she takes up the flight of stairs. Is it nervousness? Anxiety? Anticipation?
She doesn't know. She hates that too.
If someone tried to tell her freshman year that she'd be living with Soul Evans a few short years from then, she would have laughed in their face.
Maka met Soul through her roommate Tsubaki freshman year. Tsubaki had a Tinder date and didn't want to meet him on her own. At least, Maka wasn't about to let her meet him on her own. That Tinder date was Blake, and he brought his roommate along, who was Soul. The four of them got dinner together and went bowling afterwards, but unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on how one looked at it – Blake and Tsubaki hit it off, abandoning Maka and Soul to make awkward small talk with each other over ten-pound bowling balls.
And it was awkward. Maka didn't know what to make of Soul, who looked like he just rolled out of bed, clothes and all. She ended up lecturing him about one thing or another, and they argued for the rest of the night. She can't even remember what it was at this point, but it set the tone for the rest of their relationship.
Ironically, it was the intended buffers who needed a buffer themselves, but Tsubaki and Blake of course hit it off immediately and weren't any sort of help.
Maka remembers it getting to the point where she hit Soul for some comment he made about her body, though she can't remember exactly what the comment was. It was probably about her chest. Or her ankles. Or her height. If she's being completely honest, she doesn't really want to remember. She'd just get upset again.
Perhaps that would have been the end of that, although probably not because Tsubaki and Blake became one of those couples that was practically inseparable. In any case, she didn't get Soul's number, he didn't get hers, and neither of them were particularly interested in doing so.
Or so she thought.
"Yo, Maks!"
She was crossing the quad, coming back to her dorm after a long afternoon studying her ass off in the library. Her brain was frazzled and, confused, she looked over to the source of the noise.
There he sat, playing his guitar out on the quad like an ass, a cigarette trapped between his lips. Although she had only met him once at that point, he wasn't hard to recognize with his platinum white-blond hair.
"What did you just call me?"
He took a drag of the cigarette and pulled it from his lips, blowing the smoke away from her. "Maks," he said with a shrug. "Like, Maka, but with one syllable. It's cooler."
She raised her eyebrows at him, annoyed, but also mildly touched that he remembered her name and thought to give her a nickname. No one in high school had ever gone that far for her. "Sure, I guess that works." She nodded toward his cigarette. "You know those things are gonna kill you."
Soul considered her, considered the cigarette, and then dropped it on the ground, stubbing it out with his toe. "You're right. I prefer weed anyway."
That … wasn't much better, but she wasn't about to fight him on it. "Sure, Soul. Whatever floats your boat. Goodnight, I'll see you around."
Okay, so maybe she had never truly hated Soul.
But she should have.
And, as the door opens and her eyes meet his carmine red ones for the first time since she left for Japan, she realizes for the billionth time that there's no turning back now.
Maka Albarn is everything his parents tried to condition him to want in a person.
She's driven, he thinks every time she stresses about not keeping her 4.0 in her law courses. She's clean, he muses whenever he sees her in ironed clothes, her seams sharp and not a hair out of place. She's polite, he's reminded every time she drops "sir" and "ma'am" like it's second nature to her. She's a sycophant, he realizes whenever he's confronted with her reverence for authority that makes him stick. She has a stick up her ass, he tells himself when he's subjected to her lectures and her holier-than-thou attitude.
And he hates it.
He hates the fact she's everything he wants in a person.
When Blake announced last year that he was moving in with Tsubaki, his girlfriend of two years, Soul panicked. Where was he supposed to find another roommate? He didn't have any other close friends, save for Liz, who already lived with her sister and their friend Kidd.
Maka was in Japan that semester, studying abroad on scholarship. They still texted occasionally – though not as often as he would have liked – but her proposition was the last thing he expected.
Tsu told me about her and Blake. Why don't we just swap roommates? Then we're not screwed.
Soul is still screwed, just not screwed in quite the same way he was before.
He hates the way his heart threatens to beat out of his chest when he hears the key turn in the lock. It's all he can do to stop himself from racing to the door like a dog whose master just returned home. Maka steps inside a moment later, the hallway light behind her bathing her in its glow.
He's so screwed.
If someone tried to tell him freshman year that he'd be living with Maka Albarn a few short years from then, he would have laughed in their face.
It's not that he didn't like her. He did, unfortunately, even though she reminded him far too much of his parents for his liking. It was just that they could never seem to get along. Granted, the fact that he pretended to hate her for the first year or so he knew her probably had something to do with that.
No, even that's not right. He was just … distant. Hot and cold. An asshole who sent mixed signals galore when he took advantage of her goodwill one day and then – not wanting to get too close – froze her out the next.
Hey, how could he help it? Blake was his first-ever real friend and he was his roommate! Besides, one couldn't freeze Blake out if they tried.
He knows. He tried.
It didn't take Maka long to catch on to what he was doing. At first, she fought him on it when he distanced himself. As the months passed, though, she backed off until finally she gave up entirely. They didn't speak for an entire month before Soul realized they weren't speaking and they weren't going to speak unless he got his shit together. He was relying all too much on her tenacity and determination to bring him back into the fold.
He realized just how much more he valued their friendship over his self-determined 'act of rebellion' against his parents that literally had no effect on anyone but him.
An adverse effect, at that.
Maka chewed his ears off when he came to her with his apology which – if you asked him – he well and truly deserved. It took them a while to settle into a routine that resembled true friendship, but they got there in the end.
And, once he no longer pushed her away every time she got close, he started to realize exactly why he was so worried about letting her in in the first place.
He fell fast and he fell hard and he's pretty sure she knew. Knows. But she's never said anything to him about it, and so he's long since let it fall by the wayside. She's a woman who knows what she wants and goes after what she wants, and he's not about to push his luck if it's not him.
Which it's … probably not.
"Hey," he says, finally finding his tongue. "Uh, welcome. Shit, did you text me? You did. I'm so sorry. I had my phone on silent."
Maka drops the box and waves him off. "It's fine," she says. "We stopped by the office and got the keys, so it's not like I needed you to let me in. Where should we put everything?"
Soul's gaze flicks over to Maka's dad, who has seemingly decided to try to bore a hole through his skull with his eyes. He gulps.
"There is fine, for now. Can I help with anything?"
This is … not exactly the reunion he hoped for after not having seen her in months, but he supposes it was always destined to be awkward with her dad there. In all honesty, it'll probably be even more awkward once he leaves.
"Yeah, we've got some more boxes in the car if you want to help us grab them," Maka says.
With Maka? Soul would want to watch paint dry. He's that far gone.
Maka loves her major.
No, really, she does. She's wanted to be a lawyer for as long as she's known what her mother does for a living. She loves the intricacy, the detail, the careful art that goes into constructing an argument. She's realizing a dream here at Shibusen University, and she won't let anything stand in the way of her being the best lawyer to come out of Death City.
Her mother didn't come out of Death City – she got stuck there when she married Maka's father and freed herself in the divorce.
Maka grabs her phone, turning it over to check the time. She barely suppresses a groan at the sight of the numbers 02:13 shining up at her. She carelessly tosses her phone aside onto the desk and turns back to the textbooks laid out before her, but the words begin to swim before her eyes. She blinks hard against the blurriness. She's only about three quarters of the way done with reviewing! She has to get through this!
The final is tomorrow – well, today, at this point – and this class is notorious for its horrendous exams. The midterm alone was a nightmare, and that only covered half the material in the class! She barely scraped by and now she's sitting dangerously at an even 90 in the class. She has absolutely zero wiggle room and needs to ace this final.
So here she is, pulling an all-nighter in the on-campus library. She's been studying since this morning with breaks only for a quick lunch and an insubstantial dinner. Her stomach chooses this moment to remind her of that, grumbling loudly in the silence of the library.
She can't take it anymore!
Her vision swims once more, and a dark spot splats down onto the page in front of her. Dammit, is she crying? Why is she crying? What does she have to cry about? Goddammit, she needs to pull her shit together so she can finish studying and maybe get an hour of sleep in before her test!
Instead, she grabs her phone back and dashes off a message to the one person she knows with absolute certainty will still be awake at this hour.
This is the worst.
Her phone buzzes before she even puts it down. You're still studying? Idiot.
She's not surprised at the fast response and she can't help but smile through her tears. She's fully aware of the little flip her heart makes at the realization that he's right there for her, but she ignores it anyway. This is Soul. He's always been there for her. It doesn't mean anything. He's a notorious insomniac, so it's convenient.
Not right now, she responds. Ended up taking a quick break to cry. Gonna get back to it in a minute.
She sees Soul's typing bubble, then watches as it disappears. She waits for a response, but all she gets is silence. Sniffling and wiping her eyes, her heart stings as she turns back to her textbook. As much as she loves Soul, he's just a typical boy. Of course he turns tail and runs when a girl starts crying. Well, whatever. She doesn't need him anyway.
Idiot.
She doesn't know when she first realized she loved Soul. It was hardly love at first sight. No, Soul was an absolute dick for the first year or so of their acquaintance. Still, she supposes there was something about him that kept her around. It was probably after then, once he stopped being a dick, that she started falling for him. She didn't want to. Soul was - and still is - everything her mother disapproves of.
Somehow, though, that stopped mattering as much when she was in Japan. Seventeen hours and nine thousand kilometers gave her both distance and perspective. When she needed someone, stressed and alone, Soul was there for her no matter the hour. He might not be what her mother wants, but he's everything Maka wants and for once in her life she doesn't care what her mother thinks.
How's that for some early-twenties rebellion?
Her phone buzzes angrily against the wooden tabletop. Maka startles awake, the textbook page ripping from her forehead as she jolts upright. She fumbles blearily for her phone – 02:45 and a text.
Where are you?
She blinks as the gears in her head start turning once again. At the library? Where I've been all day?
WHERE in the library, dumbass.
She doesn't understand. Why is he asking? Unless… Is he here? At the library? Her brain can't quite compute it, but she replies anyway. Fifth floor, back corner.
With a yawn, she restarts her study playlist, which long since reached its end. What… was she doing? She squints down at the text. Oh, right. That's where she was. Turning the page, she begins copying information into her notebook once again.
A few minutes later, one of earbuds is yanked violently. It falls from its place. Her heart leaps into her throat. She whirls around, pen in hand, ready to stab a bitch.
She's met with white hair and lazy red eyes she knows better than her own green ones. The fight leaves her body, but her heart remains firmly lodged in her throat. Soul is … here? At three o'clock in the morning?
What a bitch.
"I can't believe you're still studying," he says as he takes the seat across from her. "Well, actually, I can. Because you're a nerd." He carelessly slings his feet up onto the table, and she's just about to protest when he cuts her off. "Here."
Maka cautiously takes the brown paper bag he thrusts toward her. It's warm, and when she opens it to peer inside, her heart melts.
"You brought me Death Cookies?" she asks quietly, almost reverently.
He refuses to meet her eyes. "You needed something," he says. "They were open."
Upon further inspection, she finds that he got her oatmeal raisin. They're her favorites, but he despises them. She can't count the number of times he's made fun of her for liking the 'chocolate chip imposters.'
"Thank you," she says, taking one. It's just as warm and gooey as she feels inside and she basks in it.
"Yeah, whatever. Ace your test tomorrow."
She expects him to leave, but he only leans back further in the chair and moves his feet from the table to the chair next to him. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and settles in.
"You're staying?"
He shrugs. "Someone's gotta keep you from falling asleep," he says. "Might as well be me."
Maka opens her mouth to thank him again, but closes it without saying anything. There's something unspoken hanging between them, and she doesn't want to disturb it.
Whatever 'it' might be.
Time seems to pass more quickly with Soul there beside her, but maybe that's just her imagination. He stays silent and doesn't bother her, working on some thing or another on his phone with his headphones in. She thinks he's probably mucking about on his music composition app, but doesn't ask.
She announces every time she finishes a chapter or a case study, and he's there to high-five her enthusiastically. She complains about feeling tired, and he takes it upon himself to get her the most caffeinated beverage the vending machine has to offer. When that still isn't enough to keep her from nodding off, he engages her about the material even though she knows he understands none of it.
She finishes reviewing her last case study around five-thirty that morning. Together, they watch the sun rise from the top floor of the library.
It would be the perfect moment if she didn't have to take that goddamned test in a couple hours.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
Soul enters the kitchen only to watch on in horror as Maka uncaps the milk jug over a freshly-poured glass of Pepsi.
She stares him back dead in the eyes as she lifts the jug. "Pouring milk in Pepsi."
"I can see that," Soul says, the shame dishes he had come to the kitchen to wash still in his hands. "Why?"
She shrugs. "It's like a float, but it's not frozen."
"I guess?" It takes Soul another moment to find more words as she re-caps the jug, the milk swirling through the Pepsi to create an unsettlingly pale brown mixture. It calls to mind … Well, he doesn't actually know what it calls to mind. "That is- the weirdest thing I've ever seen anyone do."
"Really? Even though we're friends with Blake?" Maka asks, taking a casual sip from her liquid monstrosity.
"Okay," Soul concedes. "Maybe not the weirdest thing I've ever seen anyone do, but the weirdest thing I've seen you do."
Maka shrugs. "That's fair. Do you want to try it?"
"Uh … sure, I guess."
Dropping his dishes in the sink, Soul tentatively takes a sip, and … it's not the worst thing that he's ever tried, but it's unsettling, to say the least. He's not entirely sure how to feel about it, so he just hands it back to Maka without another word.
She laughs.
Maka groans at the sound of her alarm rousing her from sleep. She blinks heavily, clearing sleep gunk from her eyes, only to find that her room is still pitch-black. What? But her alarm was set for seven-thirty. Has the power gone out? Wait, that still doesn't make any sense ...
Oh. That's not the sound of her alarm. That's her ringtone. Her phone … is ringing? Grabbing it off the nightstand, she checks the caller ID through her eyelashes. Soul Evans, it reads, and she picks up without thinking.
"Soul?" she asks blearily, rolling over onto her back. "Whassup? You 'k? What time's it?"
"Yeah, it's me. My car broke down. I'm fine. It's almost … four o'clock," he says, answering each of her questions in order and slowly. She's grateful for it. She has a harder time processing things when she's tired.
Soul has great fun with that sometimes. This is not one of those times.
"Your car broke down? Where're you?"
"I'm about five minutes out," he says. "I was on my way back from Blake's. The engine started doing something funky, and now it won't start."
"Ugh," Maka says intelligently, rubbing a hand down her face. "Uhhh … check your battery light?"
"My … battery light?"
"The lightning bolt symbol on the dash."
"Oh. Uh, I, um, don't really want to get back in the car to check," Soul hems.
"And … why is that?"
"There's steam or smoke or something coming out from under the hood."
Maka sits bolt upright, suddenly wide awake. "Death's doorknob, Soul! Why didn't you say that first?" She swings her legs over the side of the bed. "Stay right there, I'm coming to get you."
She pulls her hair up into a messy ponytail and shoves her feet into the slippers lying by the side of her bed. She fumbles with the keys on her desk, but she's still out the door in under five minutes. Soul stays on the line the entire time.
It's silent for a good while. It's a comfortable silence, the kind of silence that can only exist in the early hours of the morning. There's a chill in the desert air, and Maka is glad she left her university sweatshirt in the passenger seat of her old pickup the day before.
The rev of her engine breaks the silence, and the spell is broken.
"What were you two even doing until four o'clock?" she asks as she pulls out of the parking lot. "Do I even want to ask?"
She can't see Soul, but she can imagine his shrug. "Video games," he says simply. "Honestly we probably would have gone for longer, but he got loud and woke Tsubaki up, so she kicked me out."
Knowing Tsubaki, Maka doubts their friend really 'kicked him out' so much as very apologetically asked him to leave so that she could sleep. After all, it sounds like Blake was the problem – as usual. She says as much, and Soul laughs.
She loves his laugh.
"Oh there you are, I see you," she says a couple minutes later. Soul's car is parked on the shoulder of the road facing toward her and Soul is sitting on the ground nearby. She pulls off the road into the desert on that same side, then hangs up.
"My salvation has arrived." Soul greets her with a wry grin, wiping desert dust off the seat of his pants. "Sorry for calling you this late, Maks. I didn't know who else to call."
Her heart jumps at his words, and she revels in it for a moment before pushing it aside.
"Well, I am your roommate," she says, shrugging on her sweatshirt. "But what about Blake? He's probably still up, since you just left."
"He doesn't have his license, remember? Besides," Soul says with a small smile, "he probably would've just make things worse. I do want to actually keep this car. I'd rather not have to ask my folks for another replacement."
Maka purses her lips and raises her eyebrows, remembering the demise of Soul's trusty motorbike. "Yeah, you're right about that," she concedes, surveying the car before her.
"It stopped smoking a little bit ago," Soul says, coming to stand beside her. "I haven't dared get back in to try to start it again though."
"Smart move," Maka says absently. She knows a fair amount about cars – her mother taught her some of the basics when she was sixteen, so that she'd "never have to rely on a man if something goes wrong," sneer and all, and Maka took to it like a duck to water. Would the fact that Soul knows absolutely nothing about cars be a point in his favor? Probably not.
She grabs a flashlight and gestures toward the hood. "May I?"
Soul scoffs, but it's more of an "it's beyond me" scoff than an "it's beyond you" one. Maka knows Soul knows she'd dropkick him in an instant if she thought it was the second. "Be my guest."
Soul watches as Maka pops the hood of his brother's old BMW. It's chilly out – even though it's almost summer, the early-morning desert is cold and unforgiving. The stars twinkle bright overhead in the cloudless sky, the crescent moon watching over all in its domain.
He shivers at the thought, but that may just be the cold.
"Soul," Maka says, breaking his train of thought, "can you hold the flashlight for me for a sec?"
"Yeah, sure," he replies, walking over and taking the torch without a second thought. He stares down, completely lost, into the mess that is the car's innards. Holding the flashlight is about all he can do in this situation, and he curses his parents for neglecting to teach him skills that would be useful in the real world.
Maka pulls her hair out of its messy ponytail. Soul watches, entranced, as she shakes it loose around her shoulders for a moment before pulling it up a little tighter. She doesn't pull it all the way through the elastic the last time, and it makes a little loopy bun on the back of her head. She's missed a bit, though, and it trails down the back of her neck. Soul forces himself to look away.
She shoves the sleeves of her Shibusen University sweatshirt up to her elbows and starts poking around in his car. Soul tries to follow what she's doing, but once she gets past checking the oil – the one thing he knows how to do because she taught him in their freshman year – he's lost. He doesn't even try to help. He just stands there holding the torch so that she can do her thing.
"Ah."
Well, that doesn't sound good.
"Ah?" he asks tentatively.
She turns to him with that Look on her face, the "Soul, I Cannot Believe You" look that he finds so irritating, but so hot at the same time, which only serves to irritate him even further. The oil smears on her forehead and cheek and the oversized sweatshirt soften the blow considerably more than when she wears those crisp pantsuits of hers, but it's endearing and he's in trouble.
"You don't pay attention to any of your dashboard lights, do you?"
"Uh…"
In his defense, it's very hard to think when she's looking at him like that, especially now that there's more hair falling out of her loopy ponytail-bun and there's oil and dirt on her hands and face and it's four-thirty in the morning and she just seems more human than she usually does. Like there's more to her than the stonehearted law student in crisp suits with an obsession for multi-tab binders.
Which he's known for years, but still manages to surprise him on occasion.
"You ran out of coolant, idiot. Your engine overheated. If you'd kept driving much longer, you would've been in a lot of trouble."
"Oh. Whoops?"
She rolls her eyes. "I'll call Triple A, and then I'll take you home once they come get the car."
"What would I do without you?" Soul asks, entirely serious. She's saved his ass more times than he cares to count over the years.
She pauses for a moment to consider. "You'd manage," she says with a shrug and steps away to make the call.
Soul smiles after her, inhaling deeply. The chilled desert-dry Nevada air is so antonymous to the dewy-dampness of Connecticut, and he loves it. He loves the open space; he loves the crunchiness of desert life. Connecticut was claustrophobic and constricting. Out here, under the open sky, he feels free.
And she's here with him.
Maka yawns as she turns back to him. "They said they'll be here in thirty minutes or less, but we'll see." Her hands are stuffed in the pocket of her oversized sweatshirt, and Soul is grateful. It keeps him from doing something stupid like reaching for one of them.
"Are they usually on time?" he asks.
Maka makes a face. "Death if I know," she says. "This is the first time I've ever had to call."
"Glad I could be your first," he jokes, and regrets the words as they fall from his lips. Thankfully, she laughs.
"I guess you're right."
They fall into an easy silence. Soul takes a seat in the bed of Maka's dust-beaten pickup truck. Maka hesitates a moment. Is she concerned about getting dirt on her pajama pants? If so, she's being ridiculous, because she already has oil stains on her face and sweatshirt. He doesn't wonder for too long, though, because she leaps up next to him. Their legs dangle off the end of the tailgate; she's warm against his side and there's nowhere he'd rather be in this moment.
"You know, it always amazes me how bright the stars are out here," he says after a while. "Connecticut was always too bright, or too cloudy, or there were too many trees in the way. Out here, there's just nothing. It almost feels like you could just … fall upward into the sky."
Maka hums absently. "Papa used to take me out stargazing some nights," she says, her eyes fixed on the heavens. "I knew all the constellations, of course – Mama bought me a book after the first time we went out. If I was going to do something frivolous with my time, I was at least going to learn from it."
"How old were you?" Soul asks.
"I can't remember. I couldn't have been more than eight, though. So there's eight-year-old me, looking out for the proper constellations, and Papa, he" – she giggles – "he would just point to groups of stars and make up brand new constellations and stories! Mama never wanted to hear them, though. She thought we were being ridiculous."
Soul feels her sag next to him, and he scrambles to think of something to say. "Do you remember any of the stories?" he asks.
She sighs contentedly. "There was an astronaut who loved the stars so much she joined them," she says, "and a cat, whose nine stars were the reason cats had nine lives."
Maka complains about her dad a lot, Soul knows, but he also knows that she loves him, and it's never been more obvious than it is right now. It's a side of her he hasn't seen before, and he loves it.
He loves her.
"Well," he says, "do you know what the largest constellation in the night sky is?"
"It's Hydra," she replies, leaning into his side, "but I doubt that's what you're going to say."
His breath catches. "Nope! It's The Bees."
"The Bees?"
"The Bees!"
Maka laughs. "Okay, I'll bite. Where does one find The Bees?"
"Do you see the stars up there? All of them? Every single little speck of light?" he asks, gesturing with a hand.
"Yeah…"
"Those are all The Bees."
He can't see her face, but he knows she's rolling her eyes when she pushes against him playfully. "You're ridiculous," she says.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he insists. "Oh and there!" He points to a small cluster of stars up to their left. "There's the idiot whose car broke down in the middle of the desert. The stars took pity on him when no one came to help and welcomed him among them before he died of thirst."
"But someone did come to help," she says, smiling.
"Yeah, this time. Imagine how many other idiots there have been."
"Yeah, but … those idiots don't matter."
Soul doesn't have a comeback to that. She's rendered him effectively speechless, except that he's sure he squeaks a little bit when she leans into him and rests her head on his shoulder. His entire side is burning, a stark contrast to the desert chill.
He can't believe that, despite everything, they've ended up here. He knows in moments like these that Maka feels the same way he does, and allows himself to hope that maybe – just maybe – it's something she wants to go through with.
But he knows Maka. He knows Maka, and he knows how much she admires her mother and yearns for the woman's approval. He knows Maka wants to impress her, and … he knows he's not impressive. His parents had tried, in his younger years. It didn't take, not the way it took with Wes.
Maka's mother would be impressed by Wes. Wes is like, textbook 'most eligible bachelor.' Professional musician, charismatic, clean-cut and often described as 'classically handsome.' Not to mention wealthy.
The few times Maka's mother met Soul, she didn't even give him the time of day.
And yet he still allows himself to hope.
Soul nearly falls asleep there in the bed of Maka's pickup truck. Maka is asleep, curled up against his side. Her even breathing lulls him into that easy state between wakefulness and unconsciousness. He drifts, unaware of everything except the fact that Maka is there with him.
The bright headlights of the Triple A car sweep across them like a searchlight across a pair of fugitives, and Soul squints against the glare. Maka groans and shifts, raising a hand to shade her eyes.
"We're saved?" she croaks.
"Yeah," Soul says, looking down at her. "I guess we are."
Maka wakes one morning to the sound of smooth jazz blaring through the apartment. Confused, she looks over at her alarm clock. It's … seven-thirty in the morning. Soul is never up this early. What's happening?
She shuffles out of her bedroom to investigate. The music is even louder out in the common area. Smooth jazz is not the type of music one typically blares. Big band? Sure. Soul has blasted Glenn Dorsey or Count Hampton or whatever many a time. He usually attempts to get her to dance with him, which never really works out well, but it's fun.
But smooth jazz?
Weird.
"Soul?" she calls out, her arms crossed against the chill of the morning, "What are you … doing."
She scans the scene before her, her eyes taking in Soul on the couch, Wii remote in hand. His speaker, the source of the noise, rests on the coffee table. And on the TV–
"Is that Animal Crossing?"
It's a rhetorical question, for it is indeed Animal Crossing. Maka watches as the cartoon avatar of Soul, down to white hair and red eyes, bangs a rock with a shovel.
"Yeah," Soul says, not taking his eyes off the screen in front of him as his avatar wobbles, dazed. "It was on sale at Gamestop yesterday, so I figured why the hell not?"
"It's seven-thirty in the morning."
Soul shrugs. "I woke up and decided not to go back to sleep for once."
Maka raises her eyebrows. This is just too weird. "Oo-kay," she says, "I'm gonna get ready for class."
Soul gives her a thumbs up.
Soul waves her goodbye on her way out the door.
Soul is still playing when she gets back from class that afternoon.
"Have you been playing this entire time?" she asks over the music still blaring from the speaker. "It's been hours, Soul."
He shrugs. "I ate lunch," he says, "but other than that, yeah. It's a game I can hundred-percent. I need to hundred-percent it."
"You're impossible," she says, ruffling his hair and sitting down next to him. She watches him play for the next couple hours, and he's right – it is addicting. Part of that might just be the way she ends up with her legs slung across his lap, though.
And that's how things go for the next few weeks. It gets to the point that Maka wonders if Soul is even going to class anymore, but she remembers that would only mean something if he went to class in the first place.
She does eventually ask him to turn the music down. At least it's smooth jazz and not like, hard rock or death metal, but there's still only so much loud smooth jazz that normal people can listen to.
One day, she comes back from class and he's not playing Animal Crossing. He's playing Super Mario Galaxy instead.
"It was on sale at Gamestop," he says.
"I can hundred-percent it," he says.
"I need to hundred-percent it," he says.
What he needs is an intervention, but Maka will let him have his fun. Perhaps she'll say something next week if he hasn't gotten it out of his system by then.
They end up at a party.
Now, neither Soul nor Maka are party people. Maka doesn't like parties and Soul doesn't like people, so instead of dragging each other out they usually just agree to stay in and watch a movie in the comfort of their own apartment instead. It's like, the opposite of peer pressure.
Unfortunately, when it's Blake throwing the party, neither of them have much of a choice in the matter. He pesters them about it for a week straight and even then only lets up because he drags a reluctant "yes" out of both of them. At least they're both going, Soul figures. He doesn't know what he'd do at a college party without Maka there to talk to.
He's … actually never had to find out. He can count the number of college parties he's been to on one hand, and coincidentally, Maka's always been there.
To be fair, even when he was being a little shit, the only two words that ever got him to agree to go to a party were "Maka's going," so coincidence really has nothing to do with it. Yes, he knows he's pathetic.
Anyway.
They were supposed to just drop in for a couple hours and then leave. They were supposed to have one, maybe two drinks to make Blake happy and then go home and make fun of the English dub of some old anime that Netflix had added.
But Maka bombs a test that day – and by 'bombs' she means she got like an 82 – and she's so ready and raring to get shitfaced for once that it actually kind of concerns him. But once Maka has her mind set on something, she has her mind set on something, and it's all Soul can do to go along with it.
And 'going along with it' means he ends up matching her shot for shot. And then does one or two with Blake, because Blake isn't one to be left out.
Which … is how they end up here.
"I hate you, you know," Maka drawls, four shots of vodka in. "I hate your face, and I hate your hair, and I hate how nothing bothers you, and I hate your pretentious music degree and I just hate …" She runs out of words and gestures wildly with the hand not holding the glass of water he forced upon her.
That is not to say he's any more sober than she is. He just becomes more responsible when drunk, which is an odd change in the usual status quo.
"You just …" he says, blinking heavily, "gestured to all of me."
"Yeah, well!"
Apparently, there is no 'well.' Instead, she shifts beside him and sinks deeper into his side. Her head lolls back on his shoulder, and he wouldn't move even if the room were on fire.
They sit in silence for a few long minutes, watching Blake make a fool of himself in the middle of the living room-cum-dancefloor. Tsubaki has long since given up trying to reign him in and talks with Liz and Patty over in the kitchen.
Kidd is … somewhere. Maybe out on the balcony.
"I hate you too," Soul says casually, and Maka looks up at him. "I hate your pin-neat hair and your crisp suits and that stick that's always rammed up your ass. I hate how you give me that look like I'm stupid because it just … does something to me and it's so goddamn embarrassing."
She blinks, emerald green eyes hazy with alcohol and dilated to all hell in the dim party light. He hates–
"–I hate how much I always want to kiss you."
Her lips part in a gasp, and it's … too distracting. It barely registers that he said what he said, but he knows he's going to regret it in the morning. He rips his gaze away from her face.
"I hate," Maka says. "I hate … how much I wish you hadn't said that."
His stomach drops. Forget about regretting it in the morning. He regrets it now.
"I hate how insecure I am about relationships, and I hate how much my parents' divorce fucked me up. I hate how scared I am, and I hate how easy you just made it for me."
"Maka …"
"I hate how I don't actually hate you," she says, her voice small as she cups her glass of water in both hands. "I hate how much I want you to kiss me."
"Uh." It takes Soul's alcohol-drenched brain a moment to register her words. As soon as it does, his stomach hits rock bottom. He almost feels like he wants to throw up. "I'm sorry?"
He's frozen in place, staring down at Maka's face as if he's never seen it before. They're on the precipice of … something. They've been on the precipice of somethingfor a very long time, but they stood away from the edge, enjoying the view. Now they're too close, and they need to step back or else they're going to fall.
"Yeah," Maka murmurs. Her voice cuts through the din of the party. Her green, green gaze flits down to his mouth, then back up to his eyes. "You should be."
Setting the glass on the floor next to her feet, she grabs his t-shirt and tugs him closer, a want in her eyes that Soul realizes too late he's seen before. In the past, she looked away. She tried to hide it. She's not doing so now.
Soul lifts the hand that isn't trapped between them to cup her cheek, holding her in place for a moment as he searches her eyes. "Are you sure about this?"
She pouts. "Really, Soul?" she whispers, her lips just inches away from his own. "Yes. Please."
He shouldn't. She's drunk and he really, really shouldn't, but he's drunk too and she's looking at him with those eyes of hers, and this … He's wanted this for years now. It's okay to be selfish sometimes, right?
He pulls her forward, and then her lips are on his and his are on hers and everything else around them fades out to nothingness.
They fall.
It starts out chaste, nothing more than the press of skin on skin, and Soul would have been happy if it stayed that way. Maka has different ideas. She surges against him, opening her mouth against his, and he responds in kind. It's hot and it's wet and he sinks into the sensation with a sigh.
She lets go of his shirt and snakes her arm up around his neck instead. Suddenly she's no longer next to him but rather on top of him. His hands settle around her waist as hers thread through his hair. He groans, her tongue slips in next to his, and he forgets everything that isn't this.
That's a mistake.
"WHOOOOO! GET IT, MAKA!"
Oh yeah. Blake.
Soul tenses up. He feels the blood rush to his cheeks, and he knows he must be blushing something horrible. Maka pulls back with a final tug of his lower lip, but she doesn't go far. Resting her forehead against his, she locks eyes with him and – without breaking eye contact – reaches back and flips Blake the bird.
"OOHHHHHH! DAMN, GIRL!"
"You fuckers all owe me money," Liz announces from the kitchen. "Pay up!"
Soul offers Maka a sheepish smile. "Whoops?"
"Forget 'em," Maka says. Then she's cupping his face in her hands and they're kissing again.
Forgetting everyone else is pretty damn easy after that.
Maka wakes in the middle of the night, disoriented as all hell. Her head hurts. This isn't her room. Where is she?
It all starts to come back to her, and she blushes furiously there in the dark.
Oh yeah.
Soul.
Death, she basically jumped his bones, hadn't she? It's just that she … Well actually, she doesn't really have an excuse other than the fact she was drunk and unable to keep herself in check any longer. He seemed into it at the time, even once they'd sobered up enough to get home, but … now she's in his room and he's not.
Does he regret it?
The thought settles in her stomach like a lead brick. Trying not to panic, she throws off the blankets and grabs the first piece of clothing she stumbles across. It's a t-shirt that comes down mid-thigh, so it must be Soul's. Good enough. Running a hand through her hair, she steps out of the comforting darkness of the bedroom.
A muted banging in the kitchen grabs her attention. She cautiously makes her way over, crossing her arms against her chest and silently berating herself. Where had her confidence gone?
The light is on in the kitchen, illuminating the scene before her. Soul stands at the counter, a box of cereal and the half-gallon of milk before him. He's entirely unaware of her presence, and as she watches, he crams a handful of cereal in his mouth before taking a sip of milk straight from the jug.
And this was the man she finally stopped fighting her feelings for?
"What the fuck, Soul."
Soul jumps, milk dribbling past his lips as he whirls around to face her. He stares back at her like a deer in the headlights, and while it's really kind of gross, it's also kind of funny.
"I have a massive headache," he says, wiping his chin. "And you know I can't take ibuprofen on an empty stomach." He pauses. "Also I was hungry."
Maka struggles to find words. Her head also hurts; it's … four o'clock in the morning, according to the stove; and she might still be a little bit drunk. "You could have … not …?"
It's the best she can do, but Soul gets what she means. He always gets what she means.
He shrugs. "I didn't want to have to do any dishes. Or clank around and wake you."
"So you just–" She mimes stuffing her face and pouring something into her mouth.
"Both milk and cereal belong in the body."
"Where they belong is in a bowl!"
"Are we really arguing about this right now?"
Maka blinks, taken aback. Then she realizes where they are. In the kitchen, at four o'clock in the morning, after punting their friendship clear out of the water. Soul is wearing only his pajama pants, and she's wearing only his t-shirt, so together they almost have one full outfit between them, and they're arguing about milk and cereal.
A chuckle escapes her. Soon enough they're both laughing maniacally. Soul gets his shit together sooner – probably because he's sober at this point and she's still, likely, not – and pours two glasses of water before grabbing the ibuprofen out of the overhead cabinet.
"Do you–" he asks, wiggling the bottle. "I mean, I just assumed …"
"Yes, please," she says, just as eloquently.
He drops two pills in her hand. She swallows them down with the water. He does the same beside her, and then they're back to the awkward silence.
Soul breaks first. "So uh. Uhm. You – I – we? This?"
Maka blinks back at him with a level gaze. She doesn't even try to speak. She knows she'd do just about as well as Soul is right now, and they don't both need to be stammering idiots.
"I'm sorry," Soul sighs. "You were drunk, and I shouldn't have."
Oh.
"You were drunk too," she whispers past the lump that lodges itself in her throat. Does he regret it? Please no. She doesn't.
"Yeah, but that's … that's no excuse," he says, reaching up and tugging at a handful of hair. "So I'm sorry."
Standing in the kitchen barefoot at four o'clock in the morning, dressed only in Soul's t-shirt, she knows it's time to make the decision she's been putting off for almost four years at this point. She's standing between the past and the future, the liminality of the dark desert night illuminated only by the neon glow of the microwave clock.
"Don't," she snaps, and Soul looks up at her like he's going to cry. Shit. "Sorry, I meant … don't apologize. I mean, I appreciate it, and it's not an excuse, but–" She shrugs and takes a deep breath. "It was the excuse that I needed."
"I – what?"
Maka snorts. "Pathetic, isn't it? I keep a secret for almost four years and then bust it wide open the moment I've had one drink too many."
"Four years?" Soul chokes.
"I'm really good at keeping secrets."
Soul studies her for a long minute. "So this is … okay?" he asks, stepping forward.
Maka reaches out and laces her fingers with his. "This is perfect," she says.
"Oh."
"Well, actually," she amends, "put your cereal in a bowl, and then it'll be perfect."
Soul laughs and pulls her into a hug, pressing a kiss to the top of her hair. She breathes his warmth and melts into his chest. Maybe in the morning things will be scarier, but right now, there's no place she'd rather be.
Except maybe in bed, so she can sleep off this headache.
Soul can't believe his luck.
When they left for Blake's party the night before, he thought it would be another night of pleasantries, biding their time until it was socially acceptable to leave. He was prepared to watch Maka from across the dimly-lit room and bear the brunt of Blake's teasing for it.
He wasn't prepared to watch her curled up under the sheets beside him, the bright morning sunlight streaming across her face. But here she is, and last night wasn't the dream he feared it might have been.
She loves him.
Well, he thinks she does. She hasn't actually said the words, but this is Maka. Drunk or not, she never would have gone along with something she wasn't one hundred percent sure about.
He doesn't want to wake her up, but nature is calling. Stronger than his desire to let her sleep is his refusal to let her wake up alone for the second time that morning. He saw her face when she walked into the kitchen. As incredulous as she might have been, she was still far more insecure than he ever wants to see her again.
"Hey Maks," he says softly. She groans and rolls over to face him. He smiles. "I gotta pee. I'll be right back, kay?"
Maka nods against the pillow and pulls the rest of the blankets around her in his absence. He's going to make this quick. He doesn't want to be away any longer than he has to.
He's in the middle of his business when he hears a distant knocking at the front door.
"I've got it," Maka calls, and he relaxes. A few moments later, the soft murmur of voices reaches his ears. Drying his hands, he goes to investigate.
He meets Maka in the little stub hallway. She's thrown on a pair of pants since he last saw her – his favorite piano print lounge pants, to be exact. He can't help the smile that creeps across his face at the sight.
"It's the brute squad," Maka says drily. It wipes the smile from his face. "Wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, so they're sitting in the living room now."
"Wes too?"
Maka nods.
"What are they doing here?" Soul hisses, laying a hand on her arm. "They're supposed to be in Connecticut!"
Maka stares back at him with wide eyes, her hands spread in a universal 'I don't know' gesture. "I asked. They wouldn't tell me. Wes said 'congratulations,' though."
"Con … gratulations?"
Maka's eyebrows shoot skywards and she flicks her hands toward what she's wearing. His shirt. His pants. She finger-combed her hair, but it's still much more out of place than any of his family has seen it before.
"Ah. Right. Okay. Do you … want to stay here, or–?"
She shakes her head. "I'll go back to my room to actually shower and get dressed. You gonna be okay?"
Soul drops her arm and steps back. "Yeah, I'll be fine. I just want to know what the fuck they want."
Maka bounces to her tiptoes and presses a kiss to his cheek. "I'm here for you," she says. "Let me know if there's anything I can do to help."
She makes to walk past him, but Soul catches her for a proper kiss. That's a thing he can do now! He plays it cool, though. "You already have," he says and lets her go.
She blushes and pushes past him to dart across the living area to get back to her own room. Soul rolls his eyes at the wolf whistle that's no doubt courtesy of his brother. He looks down at himself. He's still only wearing pajama pants, but fuck it. He's not gonna bother changing.
"So. To what do I owe this pleasure?" he asks, walking into the living area. His parents are seated on the long couch, backs straight, prim and proper as always, and glaring holes into his brother for once. The reason is quickly apparent – Wes has flung himself across the loveseat, one leg tossed over the back. Soul might have laughed if the exact same thing wouldn't have gotten him punished instead of simply glared at disapprovingly.
But Wes is the darling – always has been.
"What? Can't a family fly a couple thousand miles to take the youngest child out to an early birthday brunch?" Wes drawls. "I'm hurt you're so suspicious."
Oh yeah, his birthday is coming up … Still, that doesn't assuage his suspicions at all. It's not supposed to – Wes is trying to tell him something's up. The worst thing about Wes? He's actually a very decent human being who's always been on Soul's side as much as possible.
"It's good to see you, dear. It's been so long; we thought we'd drop by," his mother says, as if it had only been a five minute drive as opposed to a five hour flight. "We thought it'd be a nice surprise."
Well, he's certainly surprised.
"Why don't you get dressed, and we'll all go out to brunch like your brother said?"
Soul eyes them warily, meeting Wes's gaze. There's something going on here. He doesn't like it. "Sure," he says hesitantly. "I'll let Maka know."
"Oh, honey," his mother says, "we were thinking of doing just a – just a family thing, you know?"
They've never had a problem with Maka coming along before. They love Maka. Sometimes he thinks they love her more than they love him. He stares at them a little longer. Wes gives him a look, and it all clicks into place.
"You're trying to fucking drug test me again! What the fuck, guys!"
"Soul," his father snaps. "You will respect your mother and watch your language."
Soul opens his mouth to protest, but there's a pounding of feet and someone else beats him to it.
"Respect you? I think not!"
Maka's right there, still clad in his t-shirt with the cuffs of his piano pants pooling around her ankles, and she's pissed. Soul watches in awe as she brushes strands of loose hair out of her face.
Wes cackles.
His mother gasps. "Young lady!"
"Why the hell should Soul respect you when you clearly don't respect him at all? You flew all the way down here from Connecticut just to drug test him? And no – don't give me that bullshit about his birthday, either. That's not actually the reason you're here. It was just a convenient excuse."
How could Soul have ever thought Maka was exactly what his parents wanted for him? She has too much spunk, too much spine. They wanted a prim and proper lawyer, yes, but a prim and proper lawyer they could have control over.
They can't control the force of nature that is one Maka Albarn.
"What reason has he given you not to trust him?" she demands. "His grades are excellent – not that you should know if they weren't because FERPA is a thing. He hasn't gotten arrested. He's never done anything stronger than pot – which is legal in Nevada now, I might add. He's set to graduate with honors in a music degree, which, I think, is what you wanted him to do, yes? So where do you get off?"
"Well, I never–"
"Mom, Dad," Wes says, standing, "I think we've overstayed our welcome, exactly like I thought we would. Let's go. We can get brunch on our own."
Soul shoots Wes a grateful look as his older brother shuffles their shell-shocked parents out of the apartment. He's never seen them so defeated and hopes they've learned a lesson or two from this.
They probably haven't.
He feels bad for Wes, who's going to have to deal with them for the next few days they're in Death City. He says as much when Wes hangs behind after they've gotten into the rental car, but Wes just shrugs.
"It's the least I can do," he says. "We should get dinner or something while I'm in town – you, me, and Maka. I'll have to sneak away from the folks, but I have my ways."
Soul laughs. "Sure," he says. "I'll text you."
"Sounds good," Wes says. "And bro?"
"Yeah?"
Wes squeezes his shoulder. "You found a good one. Don't screw it up. It's about time we have someone in this family who can stand up to them."
"Yeah, yeah," Soul says, and ducks away from the hand that goes to ruffle his hair. "I'm gonna do my best."
"Good," Wes says. "Welp, the folks are gettin' crankier. I gotta go. See you around!" He looks past Soul to where Maka stands farther back. "Bye, Maka!"
And then he's gone.
"Well," Soul remarks to Maka as the car drives away. "That's certainly not what I expected this morning."
"I can't say it was on the top of my list of things to do, either," she says absently. "I'm sorry. I was eavesdropping from my room since I know how they can be, and then they said that, and I just couldn't not say anything."
Soul pulls her into his side as they walk back into the apartment building. "You were amazing," he says. "That might actually get them off my ass for, oh … a month or two."
Maka laughs, and his heart leaps at the sound. He'll never grow tired of it.
"So," she says once they're back in the apartment, "what did you expect from this morning?"
"Well." Soul mirrors her with a grin on his face. "I could think of a few things."
Maka taps her cheek as she thinks. "The old anime we didn't get to watch last night because we went out?"
"That or Animal Crossing. And cuddles?"
Maka mulls it over before nodding perfunctorily. "Breakfast first. Cereal at four o'clock in the morning doesn't count."
"It kinda counts," Soul insists as he follows her to the kitchen. "Right?"
"No."
"Come on!"
And thus begins the rest of their lives, both as roommates and as … something more.
Oh my god.
A/N:
Happy Resbang 2018! Many, many thanks to infantblue and lannerz/ohmytheon for reading through this mess and cleaning it up for me! And, of course, the lovely Konoha/Kay for being such a lovely artist.
Writing this fic was like pulling teeth, I hope you enjoyed it!
Fun facts: My current roommate drinks Pepsi & milk, for the exact reason Maka states. My freshman year roommate played Animal Crossing obsessively, with hard rock/death metal music playing in the background. She then switched to Super Mario Galaxy with the intent of hundred-percenting it. My other freshman year roommate had her parents come visit to drug test her. No, really.