Title: skies fall down
Rating/Warnings: M
Word Count: 1,412
Character(s): Maka Albarn, Soul 'Eater' Evans
Pairing(s): Soul/Maka
Summary: Soul is stone, hard and weathered and unbreakable.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Author's Notes: I just like makin' things tough on Soul.
When he was little Soul would cry and plead and whine because he hated those piano recitals and practices and the empty applauds and good jobs. He cries and Wes tells him it's okay, because he loves Soul's chaotic playing and his crazed grin and Soul hates him the most. And soon Soul stops crying and his parents stop trying and he becomes the other Evans boy.
He doesn't cry over empty halls or disappointed sighs or big brothers who care much more than they should.
Soul is stone, hard and weathered and unbreakable.
His chest hurts. Like maybe there are a thousand Maka's stomping on it, and maybe there are because he can hear her watery gasps and sobs, Soul don't die, don't leave, I'm sorry, you're fine, okay? Just be fine and we'll get you home and I'll make you whatever you want.
Maka cries when she gets hurt. Her eyes water when she stubs her fucking toe on the edge of the door, or when Black Star elbows her too hard in the ribs. Soul has his chest torn open and his blood is too warm on his skin, but he doesn't cry. He doesn't even move. Wants to say, get the fuck out of here, stupid, but the words don't bubble from his throat and he doesn't try and make them.
He thinks there is laughing, somewhere too, but maybe it's just him.
Maka cries, why does he do this? Why does he lie? And Soul doesn't have an answer, doesn't know how to handle these tears he sees so much, and it unnerves him, pisses him off, so he flips the channel to something action-filled and Maka's tears stain the pillow and her toes brush his thighs.
"No use cryin' over spilled milk." He's not a good partner. Not a good person, if he's thinking long and hard about it, which he tries to avoid. Maka grumbles something and slams a book down over his head and Soul's eyes might have watered, but he doesn't say anything about it just leaps over and tickles Maka until she tells him she's got to pee.
She's hot, Soul notices first. And Maka is never hot.
Her eyes open slowly, staring up at him from her place on his lap, and Soul watches them trace his face lazily, drool dribbling down her chin. "M'not feelin' good," she breathes, voice crackling, like she has phlegm at the back of her throat. She probably does, Soul thinks vaguely, lifting her head so he can move to the front of the couch and pull her into his arms.
His stupid meister is nearly as tall as him and she isn't easy to carry around. Her long limbs get in the way of doors and more than once he knocks her feet off the wall. She coughs into her elbow and knocks him in the chin, but Soul ignores it, hoping to get away from his sick girl—this sick girl, he corrects—before she gets him sick, too.
"Nng, Soooull~" She whines, coughing again. He shouldn't have ignored her when she complained about a headache earlier. He shouldn't have let her lay down on his lap.
"If you get me sick," he growls, stepping into her too-girly room that is so un-Maka that it makes him sick. She says her papa offered to buy the duvet and oh, the curtains too, and while they're at it, why not paint? And Soul prefers his grey room and heavy curtains.
"Shaddup," she knocks her fist into his chest, and he scowls down at her.
Mistake, his mind supplies, seconds after her face spasms and she sneezes.
And suddenly he's dropping her on her bed, grabbing the loose fabric of her—his!—shirt, wiping Maka spit and snot from his face with an aggravated sigh, catching a glimpse of the tits she's not supposed to have.
"Soul!" She shrieks, but the effect is lost when he spots her watery eyes and she coughs, seconds after he pulls away.
Then she's coughing and coughing and Soul's frowning and scowling, and she's still fucking coughing by the time Soul manages to do something useful and yell at her for coughing.
She grumbles and flops onto the bed, holding her head in her hands after she does so because ugh, and Soul laughs at this dumb girl and tugs the blankets up over her, because she has to sweat it out and he'll check on her in a bit and she better be fucking sleeping.
"Gotcha," she snuggles into her pillow, eyes watching him as he walks away.
I hate you, he snaps, fingers itching to shut the door in her face. He means the words and he doesn't at the same time and how does that make sense? He really is going crazy. Her eyebrows twitch and her mouth falls into a frown but he doesn't take the words back because he means them and he hates himself for it.
But he raises his chin and straightens his back and narrows crimson eyes at her, growling, "Stop thinking I'm something you own." And he loves this girl as much as he hates her. He'll probably go down in history for the flakiest, biggest jerk-off ever, but if he does then Maka will be remembered as the girl who cries too much and shows her emotions too plainly.
She clenches and unclenches her tiny fists at her sides and she leans forward and Soul doesn't move or breathe or think because she's too close and her eyes are too bright and she says, "You're more than that, you know," and she turns from him with taught shoulders and not-shaking hands.
Stone wears down eventually.
The next morning she offers him flapjacks and shapes his blueberries into a bi and Soul smirks, squirting syrup on her shirt and she laughs and looks relieved and they don't apologize or hug but they do hold hands that day and she squeezes tighter than usual.
Don't cry, she rasps, or Soul thinks she does, because he can't tell with the blood slipping from her lips, and they're barely moving. Fuck, she's barely moving, and there is too much blood and something else and what is leaking from her ears? What—what kind of witch could do this? Death wouldn't send them on something they couldn't win and they're—they're the best!
"I'm not," he wishes he could say but they don't lie to each other anymore and he can't hide the water slipping down his cheeks, or the snarl on his lips as he commands, "Don't fucking die, Maka."
She laughs, gurgling and empty and so Maka that Soul can't help but laugh too.
"I'd never seen you cry before," she murmurs as he changes the bandages on her chest, smelling like polysporin and gauze. They're stained brown with her old blood and Soul tries not to stare at the scars marring the skin. They're still healing, still sore.
"I wasn't crying. You must'a been more gone than you thought."
Maka scowls at him, snatching the polysporin from his hand and applying it herself, turning her back to him, despite already showing him her tits. She hisses when the cool cream touches the wounds, but it doesn't keep her from saying, "I don't mind, you know," in a smaller, calmer voice.
He doesn't answer. He wants to leave the room and block out her stupid words with his music and he wants to kiss her and punch her and god, he wants to cry, too.
Instead, he turns her around and meets her eyes, ignoring the way her face turns the colour of a tomato, and the way his fingers brush over soft flesh when he wraps the bandages.
When he kisses her later, fingers curled into her hair and touching her cheek, her jaw, her lips, eyes, waist, Soul can't get enough. Whispers, "I thought I lost you, you stupid, stubborn—"
Maka kisses him with inexperience and shaking hands and says, "Don't, okay? I'm here and you're here and we're Maka and Soul."
"Then stop crying," he laughs and she doesn't mention that she's not crying and it's not her tears and he doesn't either. Just kisses and kisses and kisses her and can't hate this girl, not even a little bit.
Stone cracks, breaks.