Disclaimer: standard I own none of the things
Warnings: sexual innuendo/frustration and references, swearing, drinking
Everyone assumed that they were oblivious. Maybe at fourteen they sort of were, to be fair. By the time they were sixteen, Liz and Kim regularly plotted ways to try and push them together.
It had taken Liz and Kim about four tries before Soul and Maka caught on to the whole silly set-up while they were still in high school. They were 'accidentally' locked in a library study room, one of the private ones where other students made out or more, and the overhead lights flickered out.
"I think they're trying to tell us something," Soul said with a faint grin.
Maka sighed. "Well, I'm not interested in what they have to say," she answered tartly, planting her hands on her hips and scowling at the door.
He shrugged and looked at her, his red eyes glinting in what little light remained. "We could always try making out and see if they let us out," he suggested, still grinning. No, not grinning. He was full-on leering, the jackass.
She reflexively swung the nearest book in an overhead chop.
"Ow, damnit," he grumbled. "I was just kidding."
"It wasn't funny, Soul."
Now he sighed, still rubbing his head. "Yeah, yeah, I know," he muttered, looking away. She could sense the hurt on his wavelength and felt instantly guilty. He should've known better, really, but boys had such fragile egos.
Lacing her fingers through his, she squeezed his hand, even as he pretended not to notice and refused to meet her eyes. "Look, Soul, you know it's not you," she said, hoping to reassure him. "It's just..." She motioned at the room. "It's kind of gross, you know? This is the room where Ox supposedly got to second base with Kim the first time."
"Alright, yeah, that's gross. You win," he sighed again and tugged his hand away, disappointed.
Her hand felt cold where his had left it and she curled her fingers into a fist as if to cling to the heat that remained of him. "Soul, I know it's not fun waiting, but-"
"How long will it take, Maka?" he interrupted, whirling to face her. His eyes were red and angry and frustrated and so very, horribly hurt that her soul shuddered from their impact. He stared at her and she recognized it as that stare, the one that she couldn't react to. It had first appeared about a year after the battle of the moon, and had only gotten worse.
That stare was hungry and desperate and loving and it made her want to give in to her most hormonal and irrational impulses.
"I don't know," she answered quietly, honestly. "I just know we shouldn't jump ahead of ourselves."
And that was the heart of the matter, after all. He knew that she loved him and only him, and she knew he felt the same. They had spent too much time in one another's souls to avoid knowing. It was easy to accept, because somewhere deep down she had known, had always known since he first played for her and she first took his hand.
The thing was, she also knew her parents had met around the same age, had begun their relationship in their mid-teens, and had her by their late teens. And she would be damned if she repeated their mistakes.
Soul knew that, too, of course. Maka had never hidden it from him, had never hidden her feelings from him. Just because they hadn't figured out their feelings at thirteen didn't mean they hadn't been there. And just because they had those feelings didn't mean that they had to act on them, not right away, anyway.
"It sucks," he admitted, sinking into one of the chairs. "I know you're not ready yet, I know. I'm not asking you to rush it or anything. It just... sucks."
She hung her head. "I know. It's not easy and it's not always fun, but I don't want to risk us by rushing into things before we're ready," she answered. And she knew, even without touching his soul wavelength, that it wasn't sexual frustration alone, but the piece missing from their relationship that kept it from being whole and complete.
Of course, being sixteen and increasingly accustomed to her hormones, Maka wasn't a stranger to sexual frustration, either. Sometimes it seemed like he purposefully made it more difficult by wandering around without a shirt on, or pressing his face against her neck when they hugged, or wandering into her room in nothing but boxers. The temptation to vengefully return the favor was strong, but so far, she had resisted, because she knew he wasn't as strong-willed as she was and that he would give in to the impulses growing between them every day.
His hand closed around hers. "I know, Maka. Believe me, I know." He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze and offered her a weak but hopeful smile. "I've waited this long; what's a few more years, anyway?"
Everyone assumed they were so oblivious they had to be a bit thick. By the time they were eighteen, all of Spartoi was conspiring to give them a 'push in the right direction.'
They were used to it at this point. It was hardly a surprise when they found themselves alone yet again during the graduation party Kid threw them, the door of the plush bedroom 'mysteriously' locked when they went looking for towels on the way to the pool.
"Is that the fourth time this semester?" Soul grumbled, flopping back onto the massive bed. "Or is it the fifth?"
"Technically the semester's over," she countered. It was, after all, a graduation party.
Maka sat on the low leather bench-thing at the end of the bed. Aesthetics were definitely more her thing than his, so he had no idea what it was called, only that she was using it to sit nearby without actually being on the same bed. It wasn't as if they hadn't ever sat together on one of their beds before.
When they were younger, before they had figured out what their feelings actually were, they had sometimes even slept in the same bed after the worst missions to comfort each other from nightmares. Once they did figure it out, right after the battle of the moon, she insisted that it had to stop. The closeness would only get more tempting over the years, she had said, so it was best to quit early.
Soul wasn't any happier about it, any less hurt, than he had been at fourteen. He hated the new boundaries she kept adding. The bed one had been their longest fight, and he'd been angry and evasive with her for a month. When she had started sitting apart from him on the couch at sixteen, he had clocked in two solid weeks of avoiding her. In March, she'd turned eighteen and now she silently refused to even sit on the same bed as him, and tended to hover at the door of his room more often than she actually stepped inside.
He had noticed it, but had kept a sullen silence about the whole thing, much as it rankled, much as it hurt. Sometimes he wondered if she would ever decide she was ready, wondered if he was going to spend his whole life wanting her and waiting for her and never being able to have her. Or would she just keep on adding boundaries until they weren't even weapon and meister anymore, until they didn't even see each other?
"So which is it? Fourth or fifth?" he grunted, staring at the ceiling. Their asshole friends had managed to get them while they were in bathing suits, and Maka wasn't a gangly, scrawny little girl anymore.
Her tiny little bikini had those string-things and his fingers itched to slowly tug it undone, like unwrapping a particularly long-awaited present. Of course he hadn't missed the way she was filling it out more than she would have so long ago, or how girly skinniness turned to sleek lean muscle curving around her torso and down her long legs. He almost missed the pigtails, because they would make her look a bit younger, but if he thought about it too long, the ideas would get distinctly dirty.
"It's the sixth time, actually. You forgot about the birthday ditch," she said. He kept his eyes on the ceiling.
"Do you think they'll ever get it?" he grumbled. They got locked in so many damn rooms, found themselves abandoned in so many dark restaurants and clubs, booked in single rooms on so many missions, and dressed up for so many parties that he was feeling his resistance crumble.
"I'm as sick of it as you are, Soul," she sighed, sounding more exhausted than annoyed. "They even had Fire and Thunder in on it this time."
"Yeah. We got duped by fucking four-year-olds, Maka," he growled. "This shit really has to stop."
"Look, Soul, I'm with you there, but how are we supposed to explain it to them?" she responded wearily. He felt the covers sink by his foot and screwed his eyes shut so he wouldn't look down to see her head flopped back. Undoubtedly her back had to arch in order to do that, so if he did look down, he'd be able to see her tits, perfect and round and on display.
There was absolutely no way that she could be oblivious to how hot she looked. She tortured him on purpose by parading around their apartment in tiny shorts and skimpy tank tops, by pressing her chest to his when they hugged, and by not wearing bras at home so he could see the bounce of her not-so-tiny tits through her shirts. He considered getting vengeance, but he knew that it would just tip him over the scales and that he'd do something she would regret and hate him for, and that would make him regret it, too.
"I guess something like 'hey, Liz, we're both eighteen and in love and still haven't even kissed because we're too scared to try it,' would make us sound like dumbasses, huh?" he quipped.
She was probably glaring, but Soul resolutely refused to look her way.
"Stop it, Soul," she snapped. "You don't have to wait for me if you don't want to."
His lust-fogged mind jumped immediately at the hope that she was finally giving in, too, and giving him permission. He sat up, eyes popping open to see that she had sat up as well and trained her gaze on him in a mix of fury and hurt and hope.
"You can just go if you want," she continued. "Find another girl, find another thousand for all I care."
Fuck. His whole being deflated. She was sitting there in nothing but two flowered triangles and some string, ash blonde hair brightened from natural sun highlights, and Soul couldn't help looking, even as he felt guiltier and lonelier for doing so. Still, his traitorous mind memorized the curves, the skin, the scars and freckles and the stretch of the fabric against her tits. He wiped at his mouth to make sure he wasn't drooling.
"I don't want another girl," he snarled, glaring into her vivid green eyes. "I want to drag you into this bed and peel off that bathing suit with my fucking teeth, Maka, alright?"
Her flinch made him realize that he'd gotten too pissed and gone too far. He lowered his gaze for a second and tried not to notice the way her nipples strained against the flower petal print. His subconscious added that new detail to the ingrained image.
"I'm sorry," he muttered, shutting his eyes again. "I know you don't want that, and I know that you're not doing this to torture me or anything. I'm just... I fucking love you, you know?"
Maka nodded, her eyes closed, looking pained rather than angry, and Soul found himself regretting his words even more. "I love you, too, Soul," she said. "And it's not that I don't want you to... drag me into the bed," he got to watch, fascinated, as a flush crept over her cheeks and neck and ears and down between her breasts, which made him groan involuntarily. She glanced at him and finished hastily, "But once we do that, we can't ever go back to how things were."
"How things were doesn't matter anymore, Maka," he pointed out, somehow able to drag an argument out of his brain, which was having a lot of trouble working with her looking like that. "We're graduated. We're going on to new things anyway."
She stared at him for so long he didn't know what to think anymore. He couldn't get anything from her soul wavelength but they didn't resonate unless they had to for school or battle anymore. They were skilled enough not to need extra practice and as they got older, thoughts of love and thoughts of lust got mixed together more and more often. Suddenly he wanted to resonate with her very, very badly, even more urgently than he wanted to pull of her clothes and taste all of her skin.
"Will you at least- at least resonate with me, Maka?" he asked, strangely shy as he reached a hand toward her, palm up, hoping she would take it. It made him feel like he was a kid trying to ask a girl to dance for the first time.
Her green eyes blinked, startled. "Soul, are you sure that it's a good idea?" she asked doubtfully.
Heart sinking, desperate for any bit of closeness with her, he said, "I don't know, but I miss your soul so much. Please?"
After a long moment, he felt her hand grasp his, felt her soul reaching towards his, tentative and nervous. He tried to be still, to let her come to him, so he wouldn't frighten her off. But he was buzzing with anticipation, worried and excited and hopeful and terrified.
Their souls connected and he heard her sharp intake of breath, or maybe it was his. He glimpsed her feelings, her desire and frustration, and one thought fragment clamored out before she could tamp it down, thundering through his mind- want to run my tongue down his scar and- and then she jerked back, so suddenly it made both of them hiss in pain.
"And do what?" he murmured, staring at her flushed skin and hard nipples and damp, open mouth.
She stumbled away from where he sat on the bed. "I can't, Soul," she stammered. Her eyes darted frantically around the room and she grabbed a lamp off the bedside table, the cord snapping out of the socket with the snap of something breaking.
Afraid she was about to attack him, Soul moved back.
"Wait, Maka, please, I'm sorry-" he said.
The lamp crashed through the window. Maka leapt out after it.
Soul stared at the scene in shock and horror. His meister had literally jumped out of a window to avoid him.
Everyone assumed that they were never going to get it together. By the time they were twenty-one, their Spartoi friends had invented a drinking game making fun of it, but at least there were no more silly attempts to force them together. Maka's dramatic leap out a window had put an end to those.
It had also very nearly cost them their partnership. Soul's teenaged sulks had been fucking polite debates by comparison. He'd almost moved out of the apartment, almost. After crashing at Kid's most of the summer, he had finally returned, largely in part to the Shinigami's interference.
Kid had walked in, sat down, and stared at him seriously for a long moment. "A meister and weapon need to live together," he had said, and that was that. Soul had sighed and packed his shit up and thanked his friend for letting him stay rent-free in the mansion for two and a half months.
Things had never been quite the same since he came back, although she ultimately forgave him and him her. They had tried to forget it over the next three years, had spent their time on missions and had hung out at home. But every time he looked at her his heart wrenched because he knew that he would never be happy with anyone else, that he could never leave her, that he was not whole without her in his arms and he might never get to feel that.
They only resonated in battle, but Maka took on fewer and fewer fighting missions as she began teaching at the DWMA. Most of it was diplomatic shit and his only real role was to show up as a symbol. He wanted so badly to travel with her, and he knew she missed it, too. To go back to real fighting, rather than sit in limbo with their lives on hold until she was ready.
Tonight, they sat in what was fast becoming the Spartoi 'booth,' with Black*Star, Tsubaki, Kim, Ox, and Patti. With so many of them there, and others on the way, everyone had crammed together. Not to mention that Black*Star seemed to require the space of two people when he was drunk.
"Is Kilik coming?" Star asked.
Kim shook her head. "He texted like ten minutes ago that the twins were 'the worst age ever' and said he couldn't make it," she answered, waving her phone across Maka.
The movement pushed her against Soul and he felt her press against his side, her bare thigh warm against his jeans. He'd settled on her sundresses as more torture than gift since the window incident and tried not to think about her legs or what they would feel like wrapped around him, or how easy it would be to sneak a hand up that short skirt.
He clenched his fist and tried to move away from her, but that put him in the range of Black*Star's over-expressive hand gestures. His attempt to dodge an arm nearly put him in Maka's lap. Before she could scoot back, Liz and Kid arrived with Harvar and Jackie.
"Just sit on Soul's lap," Kim told Maka.
"Better keep her away from the windows," Harvar smirked as he and Jackie forced them deeper into Black*Star territory.
"Shut up," growled Soul, eyeing Black*Star's hands. "I'm concentrating."
"Oh, for- move your hand, Soul," Maka sighed, pushing his hands out of the way so she could scoot onto his lap. Her skirt draped over them and he felt her warm skin through his pants, and not just on his thighs, either.
"DRINK!" Patti yelled, and everyone laughed and took a gulp of their respective beverages.
"Not this game again," Soul sighed. He dutifully quaffed his beer, because it was dangerous not to drink when Patti yelled 'drink,' even if it was also dangerous to obey her. At least he wasn't guaranteed physical harm from being drunk, so he chose the lesser of two evils.
"Remember the book of Eibon?" Liz asked with a wicked grin. "Specifically the Lust chapter?"
Her sister yelled "DRINK" again, the signal that it would be a long night. Having Maka in his lap with The Game going was possibly the worst thing he'd ever faced, a test more dangerous and higher-stakes than any fight before, including fucking kishin.
Every time Maka shifted her weight, her warm rear rubbed against him. He tried leaning back and crossing his arms behind her, but that forced her back to arch and planted her ass flush against his crotch and he immediately uncrossed them. Lacing them behind his head and leaning back worked for about five seconds, until the next shout of "DRINK!" forced him to sit up for his beer.
How was he supposed to reach it without reaching around Maka, though? He hesitated, afraid that closing his arm would break one of her rules, even though she was breaking about ten of them by sitting on him like this.
"Evans, if you don't fucking drink I'm coming over there," Patti said.
"Go ahead," Maka said quietly, leaning back so he could reach his drink. Her bare shoulders touched his for a moment and then she settled her back against his chest.
The hell with it, he was going to enjoy this, in case he never got another chance.
His arm slid around her waist while the other hand held his beer. He kept his hand carefully on her dress rather than her skin, around her hip and well away from where he really wanted to reach. Even so, he felt the heat of her flesh through the thin fabric.
Patti held up her phone suddenly and snapped a photo across the table. The flash made Soul's eyes water and he hunched forward reflexively, his face bumping into her neck where it joined her shoulder. It was more the bridge of his nose than anything, but he could smell her hair and his lips were so close he could almost taste her skin.
"What the hell, Patti?" Maka grumbled, as Soul lifted his head. She shifted again and the motion brought her neck against his mouth. It was absolutely not his fault.
It was definitely his fault that his lips lingered there, slightly open.
Maka tensed as Soul's mouth brushed against her neck, hot and damp, her eyes going wide and her cheeks warming. She felt goosebumps rise over her skin, felt her nipples tighten, and felt the traitorous dampness between her thighs.
The months since she had finally turned twenty-one, the last of the group besides Thunder and Fire, had been grueling. She had avoided being drunk around him, except on her twenty-first birthday, but luckily the night ended with him holding her hair while she vomited, which understandably did not lead to anything sexy. Maka wasn't much of a drinker, and though she'd certainly had some before she was of age, being legal hadn't really changed that. She never got more than tipsy unless it was just the girls.
Now the reality of being tipsy and in his lap hit her full-force.
That hardness pressing against her was new, and welcome, and served to make her task of not reacting to his mouth that much harder. His hand, so near the hem of her dress, tightened slightly, rucking the skirt up just a fraction of an inch. A warm fingertip brushed her thigh and Maka knew that it was over. Surely he could feel her arousal through his jeans as clearly as she felt his. She was too soaked to believe that it hadn't seeped through their clothes.
All of those sensations were condensed into a single moment that felt like an hour. She needed to clear her head, to wash out the alcohol.
"I need some water," she said, wedging her way out of the booth and stumbling toward the bar.
Just as she managed to get the bartender's attention, Soul appeared at her elbow. He ordered water for both of them and paid their tab, sitting in silence with her as they drank their water.
"You ready to go?" he asked.
She nodded, not sure what would happen or how well she could control herself, letting him lead her into a cab. His hand on her arm slid down to her hand as they settled in the seats, and she let her fingers lace through his. They didn't move for the entire ride, but her heart was beating so hard she must have been shaking with each thud.
When they got home, Soul paid the driver and led her into the apartment, unlocking the door and letting her enter first.
Two steps into the living room she heard the door click shut and turned around to face him.
"It can't happen like this," she blurted out. "Not while we're drunk."
His face stayed in that calm, apathetic mask and he shrugged. "It wasn't gonna," he answered.
Maka didn't know if she was relieved or hurt to hear it. "It... wasn't?" she echoed quietly.
Soul took a step toward her, hands in his pockets. "Maka, I know you wouldn't want it to happen when we're drunk," he said. "I wouldn't, not even if you were ready."
Her heart felt like it was shrinking in her chest, the blood draining out to leave it shriveled. She had waited too long, made him wait too long, and now he didn't love her anymore. Tears stung her eyes and made him blur in front of her.
"Even if you're ready now, I've waited seven years. I can live with waiting one more night," he said.
The tears stung more, and the relief flooded in, and the love and the fear and the sorrow. Seven years. He was right. They had spent seven stupid years waiting, dancing around each other because she demanded it.
"And if I am ready?" she asked, her voice shaking. She felt the tears run down her cheeks, and felt his warm hands brushing them away, holding her face.
Blinking, she saw him leaning so close her breath caught. "If you're ready, then I'll see you tomorrow."
For a second she thought he might kiss her, and she hoped he would even as she dreaded ruining it. He looked like he was about to, like he wanted to, but then he seemed to think better of it and drew her into a hug instead.
"And even if you're not, I'll still see you tomorrow," he said into her hair.
