Hahaha hi guys I think this one's actually decent but it's half past one in the morning so who knows (forgive me, I'm tired). Enjoy
"Okay… easy now… here we go," Soul murmured, leading his battered and tired meister to the living room couch. With a soft groan, she lowered herself gingerly onto the couch cushions, cradling her broken arm.
Soul sighed and sat down next to Maka, resting a hand lightly on her shoulder. "It's not often you get banged up worse than me," he observed. She made a face.
They had just arrived home after spending a day with Dr. Stein. In their last Spartoi assignment, the two of them had been separated, and while Soul had merely gotten knocked out, Maka had suffered some significant injuries. It was only thanks to Kilik and the Pots siblings that she wasn't in even worse condition. Nonetheless, Stein had decided there was no reason for them to take up beds in his infirmary. He had given Maka some pain medication and some salve and sent the two of them on their way.
"This is terrible," Maka moaned. "There's no way I can effectively wield you like this."
Soul did his best to offering an encouraging smile, but mostly he looked worried. "At least it wasn't your writing hand. You can still do your homework and Maka Chop me."
She made a face at him, seeming unmoved by his attempted optimism. "Ugh."
The smile slid from Soul's face, and he moved closer to her on the sofa. "Maka…" he started quietly, and she turned to look at him, still unhappy. He looked concerned – almost upset. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to protect you."
Her cheeks reddened. "It's not like it was your fault," she grumbled. "I lost my grip, and you went flying, and there wasn't a chance to get close to you again until you were already unconscious."
"I'm still sorry," he insisted. "A weapon should always be able to protect his tech, no matter what. I failed that the other day. If something had happened to you…"
She turned away, refusing to listen or respond to him. Finally he sighed and stood up. "I'll go put your medicine away."
X
Soul had been growing fonder of his partner by the day, and sometimes he didn't even bother to hide it. Sometimes his usual cool, gruff attitude simply slipped away and left behind only the part of him that wanted to take care of her. She was sore and bruised all over, with a broken arm and a cracked rib. But she refused to succumb to his tenderness for even a moment. She tried too hard to remain independent, sometimes even directly defying Dr. Stein's advice to take it easy.
It was perfectly clear to Soul why Maka was ignoring and rebuffing his affections. It would have been even if she hadn't taken to loudly discussing the fact that her parents were a prime example of the fact that weapon-tech relationships never worked. No, the partnership between weapon and meister ought to stay professional, focussed. Their ability to fight together as a powerful team should remain the number one priority in all cases.
It was plain to Soul that Maka behaved out of fear. He didn't quite know the extent of her feelings for him, and he had reached the point where he no longer cared – at least, not as much as he cared about proving her wrong. He understood that she was afraid of being betrayed like her mother was. It made perfect sense. And Soul suspected that she would have come up with a parallel excuse had anyone else shown serious interest in her.
He did wonder, though, if she knew what she was doing. If she was doing it intentionally.
X
"I'm just trying to help you," Soul grouched, growing frustrated with Maka's childlike bullheadedness.
"I don't need your help!" she shouted back, lifting her eyebrows.
"Maka! Your arm is broken! You are allowed to need help with some things!" he cried, throwing his hands in the air.
She'd been trying to put in her customary pigtails, but it was difficult with only one hand. They tended to come out messy or uneven. She had taken to simply wearing her hair down at school lately, but she still tried to practice when she was at home.
"But I don't need it!" she insisted.
Soul stomped up behind her and snatched the hair elastics out of her good hand. She yelped, but he held them out of reach until she had to admit defeat. Crankily, she dropped her arm to her side and stood waiting.
Nodding, Soul held the hair ties between his teeth as he ran his fingers through her mousy hair a few times, neatening it out. He liked the feeling, but took no time to savour it, knowing that the longer he took the more likely she was to try and fight him again. He quickly separated her hair into two halves and tugged them into neat pigtails at either side of her head.
When he finished, she turned around and huffed at him.
"'Thank you' would be appropriate," he grumbled loudly, staring down his nose and straight into her green eyes.
"I didn't need your help," she repeated, and then stalked around him and towards the living room.
He turned to follow her. "Why do you have to be like this?" he demanded.
She cast a glare over her shoulder at him. "Why do you?"
Soul's shoulders sagged, and he sighed, some of the anger seeming to leech out of his body. "I care about you, Maka. I just care about you."
She looked away from him. "Y-yeah, well, relax. I'm fine."
"You're not," he responded, stepping closer to her. He reached out to touch her shoulder, and felt her tense beneath his fingers. "You're injured. I just…"
"Just what?" Maka questioned, almost bitterly.
He flinched away from her, red eyes registering hurt. "I think you know," he said quietly.
X
Maka had barely spoken to him in more than grunts and one-word answers in days, and it was beginning to grate on Soul's nerves. He sat on the living room floor, venting his frustration by way of video games, Maka curled up awkwardly in the armchair reading a book. Every so often she glanced up and glared at him or at the TV screen, but she never said a word.
Finally he saved his game and threw down the controller, turning everything off with an air of annoyance. "If you wanted me to turn it down, you should have just said something," he snapped at her.
She met his gaze, but said nothing, simply shrugging instead.
"Oh come on!" he roared at her. "You've all but stopped talking to me since I said I cared about you! Why is this so hard?"
She swallowed drily. "I've had nothing to say."
Soul leapt up and began to pace back and forth. "Maka, seriously?" he asked, running one hand through his snow-white hair. "You're being so ridiculous about this! Why can't you just accept that maybe I want to take care of you just so I know you're okay, maybe I want you to be happy, maybe I just love you a little?" Glowering at her, he hunched over her chair, leaning on the arm rests. One of his hands landed on the fingers she'd laid there, and she snatched her good hand back into her lap.
Finally Maka seemed to lose her cool a little. "S-Soul, don't be silly."
He dropped his chin to his chest, and then sank to his knees on the floor in front of her, still gripping the sides of her chair. Not looking up, he said more softly, "Maka, I know you're afraid of getting hurt, but you don't have to be."
"S-Soul!" Maka squawked, face reddening. "You know better than this! Weapon-tech relationships are doomed to fail. They should never go beyond partnership in work."
"We're friends, aren't we?" he interrupted.
"Well yeah," she stammered, "but that kind of goes hand-in-hand with working together. Look, I mean, my father-"
Suddenly Soul looked up. "Your father," he stated slowly, "has, at times, been an irresponsible dick."
Looking both angry and flustered, Maka turned her gaze elsewhere, but couldn't escape Soul's eyes on her. Finally she looked back to him, annoyed.
"Your parents are not the be all and end all of relationships between weapons and their technicians. There are other examples," Soul sighed.
Maka scowled at him, but remained silent, unable to come up with a good response.
"I mean, look at Black*Star and Tsubaki. They've been together for over a year now, and they're going strong." Soul almost laughed.
"Wait, what?!" Maka questioned him, wide-eyed.
Soul gave her an odd look. "Are you telling me you didn't know? Tsubaki never said anything?"
"Tsubaki talks about Black*Star all the time, but not like… I never…" Maka faltered, stunned. "…but how?"
Soul started to chuckle. "Well, think about it," he said. "It's not hard to work out, especially not for a brilliant mind like yours. Tsubaki's already on the quiet side, sort of private. It might not even occur to her to say outright that they were together. And as for Star," he said, an amused smile on his lips, "he likes to make a big deal of keeping it secret. Acts as though Tsubaki might get attacked if people knew. Either by his rabid fangirls – the ones he thinks he has, anyway – or by his enemies. But he keeps it no secret from me and Kid. The other Spartoi guys too, actually. Ox. Harvar. Kilik."
"You've got to be kidding me," Maka squeaked.
Soul shook his head. "But have you ever heard either of them complain? Think about the two of them over the last year or so, every time you've seen them together. They've never been happier."
Suddenly remembering the matter at hand, Maka flushed again and put a frown back on. "Y-yeah, well, that doesn't mean anything. They're young, things might still change. O-or they could be a rare exception."
Soul sighed. "Dr. Stein and Marie-sensei. Sid-sensei and Nygus-sensei. You want me to go down the list?" he asked.
Screwing her eyes shut, Maka shook her head. "It d-doesn't…" she trailed off.
"Maka," Soul said again, beginning to sound almost desperate. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm nothing like your father. He was an idiot to let anything happen to his relationship with your mother, and I'd have to be ten times stupider to do something like that to you. At least."
Maka opened her eyes again, hesitantly, and looked into Soul's face. He seemed hurt, frustrated, tired even. She bit her lip, undecided.
Soul reached toward her face, stopping himself just before his fingers brushed her cheek. They stared at each other for a moment, and then, ever so gently, he let his fingertips graze her skin.
"Soul," she began, in a voice so tiny he could barely hear it, but she didn't continue. She didn't seem to know what to say.
"Maka, I love you," Soul sighed, a little sadly. He wasn't worried about being cool, or tough, or strong. All he wanted was for her to understand how much he cared. In that moment, he just wanted her acceptance.
The fingers on her good hand drifted up to meet his own, pressing his hand into her cheek. Her warm skin was soft against his palm. Soul lifted himself up closer to her, and for a moment he hesitated only centimetres from her face, searching her expression for any sign of rejection. Finally he closed the gap between them and kissed her softly.
Nervously Maka tried to return his gesture. The gentle kiss lasted only a second before Soul pulled away and hovered in front of her once again. He looked her in the eye and repeated sincerely, "I am not going to hurt you."
Maka bit her lip, still looking a little bit frightened. "Yeah, well… prove it," she answered quietly.
"I can manage that," Soul replied, leaning in to kiss her again.
He lingered only slightly longer this time, and when he pulled back, Maka murmured, "Soul?"
"Mm?" he answered, eyes closed as he leaned his forehead against hers.
"I… I love you, too," she said. A sharp-toothed grin spread across his face.