Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Soul Eater.
EDIT 4/13/2015: Fixed minor errors, reformatted text, and resolved inconsistencies with Death the Kid's character.
One: Shatter Me
Liz was shaking. The hospital room was dry, the wallpaper bright with happy colors. Balloons, cards and flowers littered the night table near the bed. But even with the flowers, the air smelt clean, too clean, like bleach used to wipe away blood. Or maybe it was the disinfectant? Still, she could taste death on the back of her tongue.
It didn't help that she could hear the beep of her sister's life coming from the monitor, or see the machine pushing air through plastic tubes into her sister's lungs. She stood in the doorway, ignoring the hospital's morning rush behind her, clutching a large paper bag filled with her belongings and staring vacantly into the room.
She herself had just been released, on strict orders by the doctors to get home and rest. But she had to see her sister, so she moved forward, blindly reaching out for the arm of a nearby chair. She dragged it slowly towards the bed, the wooden legs screeching against the linoleum until she got it into position.
Liz sat down stiffly, the bandages around her chest and middle tight enough to make her breath catch. She gazed down at her little sister, hands flexing around the bag on her lap. It crinkled and she took a moment to place it by her seat so she wouldn't end up ripping holes in it. The seat was uncomfortable, its hard wooden surface unforgiving, and she shifted, already feeling her wounds begin to throb. She really should be lying down, but she ignored the thought, reaching for the still hand resting by the equally still body.
"Oh, Patti." Liz breathed, a sound similar to a sob escaping her mouth.
Time hardly existed for the traumatized blond, the only spark of light in her darkening world: the bleep of her sister's heart beat. Nurses came and went, asking with concerned and motherly tones if she was alright, if she needed anything and did she know visiting hours where almost up? She'd wave them all away, glaring at the more persistent ones, until eventually, they left her alone.
Then she felt it.
The tell-tale sign of rotating energy, circling in a manner only meant to make something levitate. It was a feeling she was intimately familiar with, one that should have brought her relief. However, the only feeling she could scrape up was impatience. And the more it lingered in the hallway, the more irate she grew.
"Unacceptable! This frame is off center! And that one there! You have some gall, calling yourselves professionals!"
Liz's first movement in hours was to cringe away from Death the Kid's voice, muscles stiffening painfully.
Had he always sounded so strange? So… unbalanced?
She couldn't remember and it was a struggle to sit still and listen to his inane ramblings. She fingered her blue button-down shirt instead, tracing the loose knot she'd made when she'd tied the ends together. It didn't cover up her bandaged torso, but it was enough to hide her chest and was far less irritating against her sensitive skin than if she had worn it properly.
The door burst open and Liz started at the noise, gasping when her ribs twinged. Catching her breath, the young woman rose, spinning on heel to face the boy she knew was standing in the door way.
They stared at each other, speechless, but for different reasons. Liz felt her eyes begin to warm with the first traces of liquid, annoyance forgotten and relief filling her because he was finally here. She gasped in a shuttering breath, watching the way his eyes traveled down her form and widened at her bandages, the fabric spotted with blood. Her pale lips opened to speak-
"What is this?" He demanded, cutting her off. He was suddenly too close, his fast movement making her dizzy.
"What do you-" Liz started, blond brows scrunched in confusion. Kid's long fingers were suddenly tugging at her shirt, pulling it open as he gestured underneath. She brought her own fingers up automatically, holding up the material.
"These lines! These asymmetrical lines! We'll have to do them all over again. They must be perfect!"
She couldn't believe what she was hearing.
Her hands clung limply to the edges of her open blouse, his despairing remarks about her uneven bandages rolling over her in waves.
She could feel the warm liquid of her blood seeping through them and was sure that it was visible even to his eyes now; and yet, he still went on and on about their obvious lack of symmetry. Even as her open wounds left their mark on the clean linins, even as her sister lay in the bed beside them, motionless.
Liz could feel herself falling into the abyss of her consciousness, the dreaded word echoing in her head, ping ponging off the confines of her mind. Distantly, she could hear him repeating it, over and over, and every time it seemed to pound harder against the wall of her emotions.
Liz felt something within her give, crack and then shatter; something hot and ugly reared its head in its stead.
Something not unlike hate.
It charged through her body, raging in her soul until it left her empty and cold, giving her a calculated clarity that she had only experienced once in her life.
Liz slowly lifted her hand, the burning red emotion needing an outlet, and brought it down with all the force she could muster.
She slapped him.
Hard.
Kid's head whipped to the side, his whole body thrown off balance from the blow as he lurched, barely managing to catch himself before he went careening into the wall. The atmosphere in the room suddenly changed, becoming tense, the air silent and still.
His own hand had lifted at some point to cover his face, hiding it from view. She could barely hear his breathing in the silence and inwardly reveled in the quiet; darkly pleased that she had finally, finally, shut him up.
Liz let her arm fall, resisting the urge to clutch it to her chest.
Her hand smarted; she must have broken it.
He rose and turned to face her, pulling his hand away to reveal a bloody nose, split lip, and a purple bruise that was already forming on the sensitive white skin of his left cheek.
Liz waited until his indignant yellow eyes met hers, until his mouth opened to speak, before she harshly cut him off, stabbing him with words as sharp as splintered glass.
"You disgust me."
His eyes widened momentarily and a tremor visibly went down the length of his body. Liz's blue gaze was hard as she regarded him.
"You don't even see us do you?" Her vision was blurring, angry tears threatening to fall, but she held them back, gritting her teeth stubbornly.
She ripped her shirt the rest of the way off, exposing her near nakedness to him in an action that showed she couldn't care less.
"Patti is in a coma," Gesturing to the still figure on the hospital bed and then to herself, "And I am so fucking messed up I can't move without pain." She let the fabric drop to her sides, wincing as she shifted her weight.
"And all you can think about…" Liz took a deep breath, ribs aching, and then let it out slowly.
"All you can think about is whether the pictures in the hallway are hanging straight."
Kid seemed to have gotten a hold of himself, his form back to its perfect posture, eyes closed off as he looked coolly down his nose at her.
"They weren't. You know very well that the issue needed to be addressed and that I was the only one capable enough to fix it. That's why it took me so long to get here-"
"Stop, Kid. Just stop." Her voice was dead, even to her ears. Liz sat back down on the uncomfortable hospital chair, turning away from him tiredly and taking Patti's hand in her own unbroken one. She stared, refusing to glance behind her.
"I don't care about your stupid symmetry. You're a hypocrite and a liar; all your words about balance and perfection mean nothing when you can't even live up to your own standards."
She heard a sharp inhale of breath, but ignored it, carefully laying her hurt hand on her lap and releasing the other to lovingly tuck a short blond lock of hair away from her sleeping sister's face.
"My baby sister is in a coma because of you." She whispered.
Then louder, "She almost died."
Liz pulled away bitterly, angling her head to look Kid directly in the eye.
"You left us." Her glare intensified to an enraged smolder, lashing out at him the only way she knew how.
"We needed you and you weren't there!"
The statement echoed in the space between them, the not so distant sound of people moving in the hallway going unnoticed by the rooms' occupants. Kid swallowed, pale hand lifting to fumble with his tie, eyes fixed on a point somewhere over Liz's right shoulder. He didn't look at Patti. In fact, Liz noticed with a sneer, he hadn't even glanced at her sister since he'd entered the room.
Kid's face twisted into a frown, wrinkles forming between is brows. "You know it wasn't like that…" He started slowly, patronizingly, like she was the one being illogical, like he could convince her that this was some sort of big misunderstanding. But Liz wouldn't fall for it. Never again.
"Get out."
He paused, dumfounded. "Excuse me?"
"You are never coming near me or my sister ever again. Find yourself some new Weapons, Kid. We're through."
"But… Liz, what-"
She turned from him then, bending over the hospital bed to fix her sister's blanket, studiously ignoring her former meister's existence. Silence reigned for an infinite amount of time while she sat there, rigid, and stared into Patti's face. It was only after she heard his retreating footsteps, after the door clicked shut with finality, that Liz finally bent her head and let the tears slide down her face.
AN: The idea was that Kid's 'problem' finally got the best of him and the girls got hurt because of it. And like any caring, protective older sister, Elizabeth decides that enough is enough. What do you think so far?
~Delgodess