So... I intended this to be a little sequel to Lonely Eyes. You know, a short after-fic or extended epilogue... And it somehow evolved into this monster. Don't ask me how, I have no clue. I SWEAR it didn't seem so long when I was writing it...

So, to those still waiting on my serials and wondering where the writing's gone... Lonely Eyes and this together push my writing tally for the week to over eighteen-thousand words, which is... pretty much every chapter I've missed since coming back from my haitus.

But I have some fantastic news, too: My Beta finally got some free time and helped with that major block I had. I now know exactly where DeathStar and Silver are going and those will be back on next week.

"Soul, have you seen Blair?"

Grinning to himself, Soul raised his voice, "Sorry, Maka, I haven't seen your p–"

"Don't even. I will Maka-Chop you."

He chuckled and put the box down on a stack of them, "Sorry. Can't blame a guy for trying, you left that door wide open. Just open the cupboard door. She comes running if there's even the slightest chance of tuna." A black blur ran by his feet and shot into the kitchen, "You see? All you have to do is say the word 'tuna'. Want me to lock her in the bathroom so she doesn't get out?"

"No, I've got it." Maka brought in one of the empty boxes, put it on the floor, and ran her nail down the side of it. Her –their– cat shot by and dove into the box. Maka picked it up and put it on one of the recliners, "You see?" She asked back teasingly.

Soul walked over and peeked inside to see the black feline purring up at him. He closed the flaps again and looked at the blonde, "Nope, wrong box. I think we should send this one back."

There was a very indignant meow that echoed through the cardboard and Blair wiggled around until he let go so she could jump out. She gave him one of those looks only cats and women could master, then sauntered over to his bookshelf, making a daring leap that strained even the laws of Cat Physics, and looked down at him haughtily from the top where she started licking a paw to clean her face and ignore him like the measly human peon he was.

Soul rolled his eyes and followed Maka downstairs so she wouldn't try to lift a box that she knew was too heavy for her but was too stubborn to admit. Besides, he knew Blair's secret well, and he'd get her back later, making her abandon all dignity in her eternal hunt for the elusive red laser dot.

Predictably, his blonde tried to lift the very box he'd mentally tagged as the heaviest, determined to haul it up to the penthouse suite all on her own. Soul grabbed the other side and saw her give him one of those wary, predatory, female looks in warning. Fortunately, he knew the secrets to this one, too, and smiled disarmingly, "Chivalry is not dead. I'll go up backwards, you navigate." It was a measure of his devotion that those words had left his lips, because, damn.

He and Maka fit together like matching puzzle pieces, like they were made for each other, even when they argued. But dear god, he didn't want to get lost with the woman. She ignored every mark on any given map, every direction on any piece of paper shown to her, and somehow still managed to get the exact result she wanted in the end– with all those following after her staring in confusion and astonishment. She'd just wound up grinning victoriously and saying: "Never question a woman's sense of direction."

Somehow or other, they managed to get all the way up without tripping and falling to their mutual deaths, and Blair decided to deny their very existence by taking a nap atop her perch on high. Soul stuck his tongue out at her as he focused on not falling and getting crushed by the box and his girlfriend.

Then the phone rang and Soul suddenly found himself hefting the heavy box all on his own as Maka dashed for the landline, "I've got it!" And Soul knew she only volunteered in the hopes of catching another of Kid and BlackStar's infamous telephone arguments. Bonus points if they started snarking innuendos at each other because he'd found out Maka shipped that. Hard. He wondered if she'd be far enough away to protect his hearing from her squees of glee...

Soul managed to set his burden on the near-by chest of draws before he could wind up dropping it on his foot. ...As he'd already done twice so far– thankfully with lighter boxes. He perched his elbow on the box and plopped his chin on his fist as he watched Maka's sock-clad feet disappear into the kitchen, then looked about at all the tan cubes scattered around the suite like his clothes had once been before he'd met a certain ash-blonde.

Over two dozen boxes –and another six still left in the truck down below– and he'd found a grand total of four that held actual belongings such as clothing– and one of those had been the cat's! The rest... Soul sighed, where the hell had all the books materialized from? Granted, Maka did work at a book store, but by the grace of Death, he could have sworn there hadn't been this many in her entire apartment! They'd have to go shopping tomorrow just to buy enough shelves to hold all these things! ...And Soul was very much not looking forward to trying to put those together.

His fault, all of it, he supposed. Not that there was actually a 'fault' exactly, and he was more than willing to take responsibility. Maka had been sitting at his desk in the bed room, at his computer, with her cat perched on her head like a new-age hat, lit in the dark only by the glow of the screen, and fretting like hell over her end-of-term thesis on... uh, Soul had been too distracted by her doing it in only his shirt and a pair of bike shorts to really listen to all the complaints, and the words had left his lips before he'd had a chance to think about them: "Move in with me."

Maka's head had whipped around so fast the feline had nearly gone flying, "What?"

"Move. In. With. Me. I mean, I'm not against moving in with you, but my place is bigger and I've no idea how we'd fit a grand piano in your place. Mine's got better acoustics, anyway..."

And like when she'd trusted him the night they met, she didn't hesitate, didn't stop to think it through, she just smiled at him that way she had that made her eyes glow, "Sure. What's life without–"

"A little risk." And what a little risk it was. It wasn't like they didn't already spend every moment they could together, wound up at each other's place each night, kept clothes at the other's apartment... Maka had redecorated his bathroom and he'd had more clothes in her dresser than she did. Others might have thought they were moving fast, but, hell, when you dealt with insanity on a daily basis and found a rock to which you could cling, four months was a lifetime. If ever there were a test of compatibility, it was standing one another's crazy friends.

That Maka could put up with BlackStar's ego and Kid's OCD –even letting him fix her ponytails– was an amazing thing. Her tolerating Giriko that night in the bar had not, it turned out, been a fluke. Which was also good for Soul since it meant she could handle his own moods. And once he'd met her best friend, he'd discovered exactly where she'd learned all that patience. Being tackled to the ground and his face shoved in someone's cleavage would, one might think, tic off their girlfriend. But it turned out Maka used the same tone saying "Blair, get off the fridge." scolding the cat, as saying: "Blair, get off my boyfriend." to the purple-haired woman that had assaulted him. And there wasn't even a mystery as to why she'd named the cat after said best friend, because the feline's tendency to wait on the bathroom counter and stare at him when he got out of the shower was very much like the look the woman gave him when assessing if he was good enough for Maka.

Soul could give as good as he got, though, asking just how far her opinion counted given Maka's (in)famous date that had led to them meeting in the first place. Woman-Blair had backed off a bit after that.

Maka came back in with the handset and a contemplative look on her face, putting the phone down beside the box, which suitably distracted him from his thoughts, "Don't put that down there, you'll just lose it."

"I won't lose it."

"Right..." Just like she hadn't developed a goddamned talent for losing the television controller that had prompted Soul to stock up on an entire drawer full of universal remotes– and the code for setting one of said remotes to his television was 4802 if anyone ever asked him about it. "You look frustrated, Star get on your nerves again?"

She shook her head, "...Did you know you have a concert this weekend?"

"Wait, what? I don't have anything like that."

"Apparently, according to the –very rude– director of the Eight Lords auditorium, you're scheduled to play the day after tomorrow. I just checked the mail when they told me to: you've got tickets and everything."

"What the he– wait, rude?" Soul massaged his forehead, "Was it a whiny voice, cut you off in the middle of your sentences, and called you a fool?"

"...Yes."

Soul snatched up the phone and speed-dialed, tapping his foot in aggravation until the idiot picked up, "YO!"

"...Would my manager kindly like to tell me why the fuck I'm scheduled for a gig at 8LA that should have been cancelled months ago?"

"Uh... I forgot?"

"You 'forgot'? I told you I never again wanted to play on the same night, in the same city as my brother, and you just let a job with him in the same goddamn building slip your mind?! What the fuck!"

"How do you know he's playing?"

Soul let the silence sit long enough to become uncomfortable, "I may be the family outcast, but I still get the tour leaflets for my brother, which you should also know since they go through you first! So, please, do tell, how did this little tidbit just... fade from your memory?" Tsubaki, the group's pseudo-therapist, had advised him to avoid situations he knew would only put him in a bad place mentally and emotionally. Keeping Maka away from his asshole parents and perfect sibling had only been bonus points.

"I was busy."

"With what?! I'm the only idiot in the country who employs you!"

"Man, I'm sorry, okay, but shit happened!"

Fuck, and now Soul felt like a dick. How could he have forgotten BlackStar's own family issues? He winced, "Shit, sorry, Star. That was during the whole court mess, wasn't it?"

"Yeah."

"...How many years did he get again?"

"Four-hundred and sixty-eight years consecutively before he's eligible for parole."

BlackStar's old man had always been off his rocker –Soul actually thought it was a hereditary thing– and they both thought it lucky Star had gone into the system to end up with his Guardian, Sid, and the psycho had finally been caught by the police a few months before, linked to something like four dozen murders. It was a good thing he'd had Kid there to support him.

He ran a hand over his face and let out a harsh breath, "Dammit. I can't back out of it this late. We've got freaking tickets."

Maka's arms snuck around him from behind and she leaned against his arm, "You'll do fine. They can't hurt you anymore. I'll be right there with you."

Just like that, the tension in his shoulders eased and he could breathe easier without feeling like a panic attack was imminent. He ran a hand through his hair, "Yeah, okay." he turned his attention back to the on-going phone call, "So, hope you didn't have any plans for your weekend."

"Shiiiit."

"Yes, poor you."

"Dammit, Soul, you don't get it. Kid had this big... thing, planned this weekend. We were gonna fly out to see his dad." As one of the few of their dysfunctional group of friends that didn't have parental issues, that was an important thing. Or it would have been, if Soul didn't know what Kid's father was like.

"You have all my sympathy." he said sarcastically.

"Dude, you're being an asshole." BlackStar informed him.

"And you're being an idiot." He returned. "You really think Kid's dad is going to have a problem with coming to you guys instead of you going to him? You and Kid are staff, just invite him along as your Plus-One."

"That's... actually really smart."

Soul felt his eyebrow twitch, "I find your surprise insulting..."

"I think Maka's smarts are rubbing off on you."

"Now who's being the asshole, asshole?"

"You still suck."

"No, that's entirely your department, Gay Man."

"I WAS DRUNK!"

"So you blame your gold-fish memory on the alcohol?"

"..."

"Victory to Eater, I'm marking this on the board." Maka smiled and shook her head, stepping back as he moved to the dry-erase board he kept on the living room wall and added a line to his side. The current score was forty-two to thirty-seven in his favor. If others found it juvenile that Soul and BlackStar still kept track of who won their arguments like they had since high school, neither of them cared, and Maka found it hilarious.

"Dammit, Soul!"

"What's the matter, Star? Kid distracting you?"

"Nah, I'm here alone and bored out of my mind."

"Then what's the iss– wait a minute."

"Fuck."

"You're there, home? Alone?! What the hell happened to 'Kid has this thing and I have to be there to support him'?"

"I'm supporting! Just, you know... from a distance. Moral support."

"You bastard! You lied to get out of helping with the move!"

"I'd just end up dropping and breaking things anyway!"

"BLACKSTAR!"

Maka held in her giggles and went downstairs for the next box.