A.N: Finally, i have won over tha battle of Resbang challenge. And this is the result. I hope you will enjoy!
Anyway, check out the beautiful art by MsSketch, on tumblr. You can find it on my profile page. It was a pleasure wotking with you Cherri!
Disclaimer: I own pretty much nothing. Especially not Soul Eater.
It's annoying, really.
Just her, her dad, and their rusty old van.
Well, if she doesn't count the old skipping record of 'Old MacDonald had a farm'–the cheesiest of car songs. Okay, she used to love that stuff, but she was like five at that time, so that doesn't count– and the bouncing of their Mercedes van. She still remembers the day her papa has shown up at their doorstep, the van, its orange paint still vibrant and oh-so-eye-hurting at the time, behind his back; her mama yelled at him that evening and he had to sleep a week on the couch before she warmed up to the idea that yes, indeed, they were going to spend a month riding over America, God help them.
And, of course, she tried to ignore the ever present yipping of 'Maka, pumpkin, don't read in the car.'
Yeah. She knows. She is not seven and sick from reading 'Where the Wild Things are' anymore–she has overcome her motion sickness by the course of the following years with hard training: many more sickness ridden car rides, scolding from her dad but also many cups of hot tea and back-rubbing from her mama. All for better good. May the car-reading rule the world.
Her sock-clad feet slip a few centimeters down the dashboard and she props them up higher this time, careful not to touch the front glass. Her father always threw a fit whenever there was something smudged on it. Better avoid it when possible.
She softly caresses the pages, its small black letters and the soft old paper they are imprinted on. This book makes her think of her mother. She has sent it to her three years ago on her birthday, with a small note attached: 'I hope you like it.'
The front seat–her mama's seat–has been occupied by her for the better part of the last decade. The old blanket, which her granny put together from various pieces of older fabric is still hanging over her back rest, where her mama left it on their last trip together. It was their eight trip. She still remembers how it used to smell; of black tea and home and safety.
She looks at her dad. His hair is blowing in the wind from his open window–really they should have gotten the air-conditioning repaired before the Grand Journey XII–his red hair gleaming in the morning sun, his elbow out and his humming still as out of rhythm as ever. Guess she inherited his musical deafness.
Guess some things never change.
She presses down the few naughty pages that flutter in the breeze and try to overtake her current page, and then gives up and looks at the passing country and the road (there is nothing to see, really. Just dry soil, small grass, and a bush from time to time. Occasionally a hitcher with smoking car behind).
Their annual summer rides–reaching the count of twelve this year– have been sort of a melancholy reminder of what she has lost some years back–a family, mother, and a father for few months, as an example. She used to sulk and blame her dad, but she had figured out who stayed and who really left left her. Six years ago, she couldn't even look at the person beside her without gritting her teeth and balling her fists. What a long way she has come.
But she still liked the road trip fair enough to go. Because there was life, she tells herself as a sort of an excuse, life and university and duties she needed to uphold, and this was the distraction from all of it, from all of the things she would need to face when this summer passed.
She buries her nose deeper in her book and tries to squash her urge to sing along with the overly cheery 'Quack quack here.'
"And quack, quack there!" Her father yells out, surprisingly in tune–the melody is simple after all–but his voice still as atrocious as ever. Which is just hilarious, really. She chuckles in the pages and tries to hide her face behind the hardcover as she looks elsewhere. But the damage is already done.
Her papa looks at her, mischievous look intact and his expression persuasive. His eyebrows reach his hairline and then drop down several times, and she knows what's to come; he hollers the next verse for the world to hear and for her to laugh.
"Here a quack, there a quack! Everywhere a quack quack! Old Mac Donald…"His horrifying singing prompts her to come up and add her own, blasphemed version of this poor little song. She knows she has lost, even before she opens her mouth and dog-ears her page; it's only a matter of time before the car is filled with laughter and even more horrendous singing.
She is going to milk this, for next school year, before she regresses back to everyday life, books and university.
"It's a pee-break!"
"Come on papa, you went, like, an hour ago."
"I know. I just… I can't wait any longer! I know I should have listened to you about that last soda, but come on pumpkin." He whines.
She grimly shakes her head. He averts his teary eyes and stays quiet for exactly forty-two seconds.
And then his whimpering resumes. She tries to ignore it. Which is really hard.
…Very hard, indeed. Her eyes find her book in the front mirror.
He suddenly stops after a particularly needy 'pleeeeeease'. It worries her a little–what if The God has gotten finally fed up with her papa and reaped his soul sooner? –but when she looks at him she has to hold back a groan; his eyes grow possibly to the size of saucers when he spots something by the side of the road. "Look! There is a gas station in two and half mile!"
She looks at the passing yellow road sign. Next gas 2.5 miles.
She white-knuckles the steering wheel, holds her breath and then sighs. It was of no use, really. If she rode over this gas, he would just pester her further, until she stopped on the road, and let herself be cooked in the car, while he attended to his matters. She sighs again.
It's kind of funny how he always manages to twist things his way (like with her mamma, or just afew hours ago, when he put in Enya record and she had to listen repetitively to the same ten songs).
'Just say it.' She thinks.
"…Kay–But, only for ten minutes."
Her papa fist bumps and hisses out 'Yessssss' of victory and makes an imaginary air guitar solo. She rolls her eyes. It was only two days into their trip and he was getting out of hand–and as the matter of fact, on her nerves–with his childish exuberance. Like when he stopped to see the worlds largest Tea cup.
Or the five legged cow.
Which she had to claim the driver-seat after.
No more stupid attractions that were, either, already seen, fake or, yet better, completely horrendous. She shudders at the long lost memory of the two faced goose and tries to avoid any more chill-evoking recalls of things her parents made her see as a kid, deeming it as 'interesting' and 'educational'.
They stop at the gas station after five minutes of silence between them and radio and her dad being super-excited at the prospect of the toilets. Really, he had the buoyancy of a five year old who recently went to Disney Land.
She opens the door–even if she doesn't need to go, why not now? Pee when you have a chance. That's the real military training–and runs for the bathrooms. The pavement, heated up by the sun, burns her feet through her pink flip-flops until she is shadowed by the gas station roof. Her dad is nowhere to be seen, probably hightailing for the toilets the second the tires rolled to a stop. It takes her precisely two minutes in the bathroom–brushing her teeth and all that jazz–before she is running back to the car and reclaiming her possession of The Wheel. Her dad is still not present.
She slowly crawls out, on the look out for any oncoming redheads, and starts to tank the gas. The tank is still halfway full, and they have a few five gallon cans in the back, but it's still safer to tank it full now. Who knew when and where would be the next gas station. Nevada desert was like that. One small mistake of forgetting about the gas and you could wait hours to no end until some benign passing soul stopped to help you.
Needless to say, they made that mistake once and she swore to herself to never let it happen again.
Numbers on the panel continue to turn as the minutes pass by.
She begins to wonder where he could be; the ten minutes pass has already been spent five minutes ago, when she spots him through the glass panels of the gas station, attempting to talk with a busty, twenty something gas-girl with short, choppy pink hair. She thinks her name was Kim, if she remembers correctly her name-tag–she yelled something about 'how can I help you' and 'nice flip-flops' in between her noisy chews on her bubblegum, when Maka flew around her in her hasty scramble for the WC and then for the car–the girl eyes her father, but then shrugs him off and slides the first item towards her to cash it in. Her father continues to talk on, ignoring the girl's obvious indifference.
Probably as obnoxious and trying to play it cool as ever.
Maka gags.
Her eyes snap back to the panel. The tank is full. She takes the fuel nozzle out and hangs it in its proper place, drops of gas splattering on the pavement. She swears she hears them sizzle and evaporate after four seconds leaving her looking at the boring gray of the concrete.
She can't help the turning of her head back to her dad's pitiful attempts.
It's like an soap-opera-ish ship-wreck. Kind of. You can't look away.
Her dad leans on the counter, mountain of sweets and Doritos next to him. The pink haired cashier pops her pink bubblegum and checks in all the Mountain Dew cans, all the while ignoring her papa's musings. She flicks her hair and opens her mouth, and suddenly, this other girl, the one who has been stocking in the freezer with popsicles and other dairy products, her ponytail almost brushing the ground in her crouching position is by her side in an instant, looming dangerously over her father. She must be higher than him by a solid seven inches.
Maka chuckles.
Her father shrinks back at the sight of this super-woman –she cracks her knuckles, a dangerous one, indeed–and quickly takes a plastic bag offered to him by the first girl, stuffing in the sweets.
Maka face-palms and for the lack of any further entertainment climbs back in the car and fiddles around with it. She rearranges her rearview, cleans off the side mirrors and then basically lays down on the dashboard–for better view–to spy on her father further.
He is taking out his wallet, grinning nervously at the tall girl who is holding the shorter maybe-Kim girl around her shoulders protectively, if not a bit possessively. The wallet falls from his hands and he shakily bends down for it. The super-woman's shoulders shake with her repressed laughter.
She considers getting her butt out of her car and helping him out, and maybe apologize to that nice couple for whatever her father has sprouted but, meh. That should teach him a lesson.
He opens the wallet and takes out some cash handing it over to the pink one. She takes the bills, counts through them and says something else outstretching her hand. Spirit looks at her incredulously.
Okay, that will take a few minutes.
Maka looks around, trying to find anything else to entertain herself with, her fingers drumming impatiently on the wheel. Her eyes slowly fall upon the radio, her nervous finger motions falling to death slowly.
Nightmares of 'sail away, sail away, sail away' and 'who can say where the road goes' flood her mind. She grits her teeth. Enya was horrible to listen to for three hours straight.
She looks at her father–he is still arguing about something. Ponytail-girl bares her teeth.
She eyes the radio again.
The eject button is pressed down slowly but forcefully, as if she wanted to crush the radio to bits with a nice portion of hate for each piece; the Enya tape rolls out with a silent rustle. She takes it out.
Her father has stubbornly put it in after nearly too many rounds of good ol'Mac Donald. The music made him all teary, but he still insisted on listening to the whole tape three times in a row–it was some emotional stuff for him and it started to get emotional for her too, just on the other side of the spectrum.
One does not simply stop a father during his 'Enya moment'.
She carefully sticks it in its proper plastic holder, and then tosses it, disgusted, in the back to the general direction of the small dinning table.
She can be stubborn too.
Next five minutes are spent with her counting the tiny spots on the front glass. She loses count after eighty-five and has to start over.
The door opens next to her and a very flustered and sweaty Spirit climbs in. He drops the plastic bag full of goodies on the dash board, two or three popsicles sliding out and landing on the floor. He swears mutely.
"Ready capt'n?" She itches for information of what the hell was going on there, but says nothing. Everything has its time. And, this particular questions will be asked much much time from now on, seeing as her father is still sweating bullets and looking at the store every three seconds.
"Yeah, just . . . take me out of here," he says and then climbs over the gap between the seats."I'm just gonna put these away." He snatches the bag before she can steal anything from it. Damn.
She starts the engine–the raw and content purr of the motor assures her everything is okay with the 'Mercie', as her father refers to it affectionately and she shifts to drive. Spirit shuffles in the background, opening the fridge and the cupboards. She rides them out slowly from the driveway.
"Cherry or lime?"
"Lime, and thanks."
A green popsicle is thrust into her outstretched and waiting hand. Her dad eats the same flavour when he sits next to her. There are no words between them just this sort of anxious silence she wants to break. She eyes her father from the corner of her eye. He appears to be settling down, his scowl slowly turning to a content smile one achieves when eating something good, precisely a lime flavoured overdose of chemistry in the form of a popsicle.
Okay. She is dropping the bomb right now because she can't wait any more.
"Soooooo, uhh, what happened over there?" She looks at him, her bottom lip sucked in between her teeth and chewed on roughly.
"Maka. No." Spirit deadpans with a serious expression and a lethargic shake of head. "Just. No."
"Oookay." She drawls out and lets the matter be. Even if her brain will probably scratch itself raw with all the scenarios popping out. She wants to pry further, but her papa is reaching for the power button of the radio and she has to stop him quick else–
Only hum greets them.
Her father is silent for a second, pressing the power button repeatedly, whilst her face drains of color. This shouldn't have happened. Spirit taps the button one last time, before coming to terms with a fact that, no, the radio isn't going to start to play, for it doesn't, unbeknownst to Spirit, but beknownst to her, possess the tape anymore.
"Where is the tape? I mean, I'm pretty sure I left it…here…"It's kind of funny seeing his face light up with comprehension as he puts two and two, or maybe the concept of Maka and an empty car together, and he addresses her with a sudden suspicion. "What did you do to it?" His eyes are wide, his sudden fear for the well-being of his prized possession transparent.
"Oh, that old thing?" She laughs humorlessly. "I tossed it out." She flat out informs him all the while watching him for any sudden motions that would threaten the safety of their ride. Mainly things like attempting to wrench the wheel out of her hands, or jumping out of the window. Her father's expression falls, slowly but surely, as well as his mouth eases open, till it, basically, hangs of its hinges.
"You did what?! Pumpkin." He whines and clanks his teeth shut. "That was the best of Enya. Like all the hits. The best songs, ever. How could you–"
She drones out the rest of his whiny speech, as he continues on, and on, and on, only informing him about the whereabouts of the tape when he tries to steal the wheel and throw her out of her seat in a desperate attempt at going back and finding 'the best of the best!' record of all the time.
Needless to say, he ends buckled up, his hands secured for extra measure with her scarf, his expression guilty like one of a first-time hooligan in the police-car, the Enya tape mockingly sitting on the dashboard just out of his reach.
She is attempting to read when it happens.
First it's only an occasional rumble for about five minutes, and then there is a small 'boom' and suddenly, it's dark, the thick smoke cloaking the front window and obscuring Spirit's view of the road.
Of course, she only gets startled out of her reading reverie when her father shouts a very ugly set of words, and carries out a sharp yank of the wheel to the left. All goes to hell quickly then. The van slides off the road, its inhabitants shouting all the way, some of its contents–books, toiletries, fruits–elevating slowly up and then crashing down. It takes five heart-attack evoking seconds until the vehicle comes to a steering stop, when Spirit, panicked beyond belief, finally manages to stomp on the brakes and stop this death trap. Thank God she has fastened her seatbelt.
Even if the same couldn't go for the rest and the overwhelming majority of their belongings.
There is a belated apple loudly smacking the front window and landing on her knees, and everything becomes eerily silent, safe for the hiss of the motor vomiting the smoke and their combined post-death-threatened panting.
She relaxes her arms, with which she has propped herself up against both, the dashboard and the window. A hand shaped smear appears on the window.
She cringes.
Well, there goes the car.
It was a miracle, really, it has held up for this long. When she thinks about it, this was bound to happen someday. With the amount of times Spirit took it to his work and then did God knows what on the deserted streets of Death city? Yeah. A miracle. A miracle from the heavens.
Spirit robotically turns to his left to give her a blank look, his eyes bulged out and mouth open, and then it all comes crashing onto him.
His van, the vehicle he has used for twelve years, the car with so many memories soaked up inside, the car that had seen the good times with her mamma and the bad times with her car-sicknesses, his baby, his Mercie, has finally gotten fed up with his antics and decided to leave then hanging in the middle of nowhere. And, apparently, for the good.
Of course the car had been repaired four or five times. She used to be a kid, and as a brat, it was given she would break something from time to time. Once she broke the lock on the door in the middle of the van, and they had to climb into the car by the front door the whole summer. And once they even had to replace something on the crankshaft–she is not sure what though, these things are not her strong point–but it has never appeared to be damaged to this extent. Never with a smoke and an emergency stop.
She looks at her dad. Spirit is taking it, surprisingly, better than she would ever think he would. She has always pictured him running rampant and causing a racket if something like this happened.
He is softly murmuring and cooing something she can't quite make out besides sighs of 'otherwise known as Arisa' and 'why would you leave me?', caressing the wheel with his palm. She quickly averts her eyes from this 'car bonding', opens her door and slides out of her seat.
The soil crunches under her feet, small rocks shifting under her weight, the harsh nevada sun beating on her skin the instant she sets a foot outside the shade the dead car provided. They have stopped six or seven feet from the road, thick tire prints indicating precisely where the incident has taken place.
She shades her eyes against the sun with her palm and proceeds to open the front of the car, the thick smoke surging out. She coughs a few times and waves her hand in vain attempt to clear the smog, giving up when it doesn't seem to thin even a little after two minutes.
She backs away a few steps, her eyes watery and her throat raw, deciding to let the motor be and breathe, for a change, the hot but clean air.
Surely they must have alerted someone with their wild, off-road crash. Someone will surely go by and help them.
No?
She sits down on the hard ground and turns her face towards the sun.
What now? There is no way she can fix this. There was only a limited course of capabilities she could perform. Rescuing a person from the thugs and beating his ass while she was at it? Of course, she can manage that. Giving a CPR? Certainly. Reading through the whole Edgar Alan Poe collection in two days? As you please. But ... This? She was so technically inept she couldn't sometimes even get her computer to start. Well it usually managed to start up after few good and menacing punches, but this was an entirely different matter. No way in hell she could fix this. She hangs her head in defeat.
…But what about her papa? Her eyes widen with a sudden hope. Yeah, her papa! He always talks about cars and motors and all that stupid little things surrounding them! She completely forgot about him!
She jumps up, giddiness coursing through system, her renewed vigor pushing her to skip all the way to their van.
She throws the door on her father's side open and is left staring at an empty seat. What the-?
She climbs in with some effort–the platform is high–huffing impatiently when she peeps at the inside of the car from behind the back rest. Enya and her songs are back with full power. That can only mean one thing.
Her father has his moment and is A) mourning the car in the solitude of the bedroom, moping or crying, or B) already drinking a toast to the imaginary funeral of the good old Mercie van. The second option is confirmed when she shoulders through the front seats and dives into the van, spotting him crouching by the tiny fridge, bottle of Pinot Noir already open and on its way to his mouth.
"Papa…Papa!" She shouts at him when he doesn't seem to acknowledge her, and she strides two long steps to wrest the bottle out of his hands.
"Papa. Don't give up on her. I mean, she is not dead, yet. You know much about the cars don't you? You can fix her!"
Spirit glares at her from the bottom, outstretching his hand and snagging the bottle from him again. He takes a generous gulp before he stands up, setting the wine on the fridge.
"It's not the same knowing how things work, and actually knowing how to repair them, pumpkin." She can see in the set of his brows he is serious; apparently, this situation was clear to him from the start.
"Then, we have to get her fixed!"
"And how would we do that?" His voice is silent, troubled. "We are in Nevada, in a friggin' dessert, pumpkin. How will we get to the nearest car service?"
That gets her to the ground. She feels the last shred of hope she was clinging onto so desperately dissipate in a puff of smoke.
"I-I don't know yet, we just need to think a little…There must be something–"
Her papa leans on the small counter, folding his arms on his chest. He sighs loudly.
"We have to face the reality: we can't get out of here till someone passes us and will be kind enough to stop and pull us to the nearest service." He makes a small pause, sighing again. "Uhh, can you be the first one to watch the road? Papa-Papa has some matters to attend to, okay honey?"
She nods mutely.
"Great." He kisses her forehead and turns his back to her. "I will be in the back if you need me." He takes the bottle with himself, and goes to the bedroom, silently clicking the door sliders shut.
She waits a few seconds after she hears the bed creak under his weight, and mutters 'amazing. Now what?' under her breath. She drags her palms across her face; better go and hitch hike them a saviour.
She takes her cap on her way out, her phone, her book and a bottle of water. Clock above the middle door assures her it's two pm, and that she should, probably, find a nice sitting spot somewhere in the shadow lest she gets cooked. She jumps down, once again meeting the heat, and plops down on the side of the vehicle that's facing the road. She outstretches her legs, the car shadow coming only to her knees, and starts to observe the roads carefully.
It's barely an hour into her watch when she takes her mobile phone to her hands–the boredom has been too much, three cars have barely passed by and no one seemed to be bothered by a big van off the road with traces of smoke still visible–and scrolls leisurely through her texts. Her phones vibrates indicating it's low on the battery and–
...Her phone. Wait.
Suddenly, she is greeted by an idea. A sudden enlightenment from the God above them. Why didn't she get this idea sooner? Of course her phone has maps, and she can look where exactly they were, and if she remembers correctly, they used to camp alongside Tahoe, and that shouldn't be too far from their position-
"Papa! PAPA!" She shouts, quickly disentangling her limbs and running for the doors. She is in the middle of hoisting herself up into the van, when her father reappears from the bedroom, horror evident in his face.
"Maka!? What? What's happening?"
"Dad! Get the map! I think I've got it!" She shouts over her shoulder, already jumping out of the car and whipping her phone out of her pocket. She unlocks it, turns on her mobile data and opens the maps, seeing her current location.
Her father stops beside her, panting roughly, thrusting the paper map in her arms. She plops down on the ground once again, spreading the map in front of her. Spirit sits down next to her. She quickly angles the map right and gazes a few seconds at her phone.
Her father follows her actions speechlessly. "Maka, what is this about–"
"Do you remember," She rudely interrupts him, "when you told me about two hours ago that we used to go camp near the Tahoe lake for a few days some years ago, until that new highway was built and then we never went there again? Do you?"
"Yes, I do, but–"
"Well, look at this." She shoves her phone in his face, but takes it back before he can really make out anything else than an indifferent yellow-green smudge.
"I've looked up our location and we are about thirty miles from the first camp." She jabs a finger on the map spread in front of her, pointing at a point on a Road 55, that's neither far away, nor too close to the lake itself. She traces the faint outline of the road they are on in the direction of the lake.
"And then I've remembered how you would always talk to that grey-haired camp manager, you know, Stein, and I thought, why the hell not? Do you still have his number? I think we can call him. And you can just ask for favor from a long-term friend, and he can come and pick us up and–"
"Stop!" Spirit shouts. "You are talking too quickly. Just breathe in," he takesa deep breath, motioning with his hands too, "and slow down." He gives her a meaningful look and she nods in agreement. Her excitement sometimes got too much of her.
She starts slowly this time, putting effort into properly articulating her words. "Okay, well, we are about half an hour from our ex-destination, and I think you should call the owner, if you still have his number, to come pick us up, and tow Arisa in the camp, where we can get her fixed, and–"
She watches the grin on his face spread form ear to ear as he reaches out to ruffle her hair. "Smart girl. I knew you would get us out of here." Okay, she's pretty sure an hour ago he was on altogether different page. "Let me get my phone. I think I have his number. Well, if it hasn't changed. . ."
He runs to the vehicle, stroking its orange paint fondly before disappearing into the depths of the car.
She leans back on her arms, throwing her head back in laughter, when she hears his muffled shout of victory, and then he clambers from the car to stop beside her.
"I've got it!" He shakes the phone in his hands and then quickly presses down few buttons–her papa still has one of those shitty indestructible phones, refusing to buy a new one when his old one was still working–and dials presumably Stein's number. It beeps a few times, she and her father exchanging numerous nervous glances–
"Hello. How can I help you?" A deep, rough voice greets them. She exhales happily, whilst Spirit shouts his greeting, not at all aware of the level of the noise he is making.
"Hello?" The voice is uncertain. "Is this some joke because I swear to Death I will find you and–"
"No! No. Hey Stein it's me..." Her father quickly clears up things with him, and then their conversation goes to the direction they needed it to go.
Spirit ends the call with a triumphant sigh and grins at her.
"We just got our ride out of hell."
And thus, the ride of her summer began.