Because I started playing Ascension in an attempt to unwind from Resbang, and then a frustrating almost-kiss scene made me write this. What am I doing with my life.
Enjoy!
"You seriously don't know what you do to me, do you?" he whispers dangerously, trapping her against the wall. "Stop teasing me like this, it's fucking cruel."
She doesn't try to hide how breathless he makes her. Her hands curl on the fabric of his shirt; the material is loose, light, just like nearly every garment he owns. He says that it's because heavy clothing doesn't allow the aether to flow into him properly, rejuvenating his body when the clouds shield the sun and the moon from him.
Soul Eater Evans isn't what one would call a normal human, by far, but Maka finds herself drawn to him. He has warned her. She knows his speech by heart now: how heightened his emotions are when compared to humans, how easily he can lose control of his powers if he allows his feelings to run rampant for the smallest of seconds.
She needs to stay away, and he has told her exactly that - once, twice, thrice, too many times for her to even try and keep count - but Maka finds herself drifting back to him like he's her sun and she's a tiny planet, unable to stay away. He burns her insides, turns her brain into mush, makes her limbs weak; it's perdition and salvation all at once, and she yearns for a taste of him.
She is going to die soon, after all.
"It's not just teasing," she breathes into the tiny space between them, watching as his pupils dilate enough to cover nearly all the crimson in his eyes. "I want this. I want you."
His hair is white and soft against her fingers when she extends a hand to caress his cheek, his jawline, his forehead. Her fingers trail a path across his face, engraving every detail into her memory.
He sounds desperate, out of breath. "You don't understand," he chokes out, and his forehead is a millimeter away from hers. His calloused fingers trace her lips; she shudders at the feeling. "Stop me, Maka," he murmurs. She can taste the freshness of his breath, lips parting the slightest bit just to be able to sample a bit more. "Stop me now, before I do something we'll both regret."
Maka thinks she couldn't stop even if Lord Death himself ordered her to. "I won't regret anything," she mutters, and she can feel the electrical brush of his lips against hers, barely touching, yet making her blood rush in all directions. Her fingertips tingle. "Will you?"
"Yes," he says, and he leans in and kisses her.
It's a bomb exploding; it's a dam overflowing. Suddenly everything is so much more enhanced, from the warmth of his hand curling around her waist to the swirling colours of the room she can discern with half-lidded eyes. Her skin prickles, oversensitive at his touch, and she wants him, she wants him so bad.
The world has become nearly silent around them, muffled as if underwater, and the pillow is floating in the air when she peels off the clothing irritating her skin - but it all goes unnoticed, because this is Soul, and he is kissing her, and this isn't going to end well but she can't seem to care. There are metallic, screeching, crashing sounds from the outside; the walls are bending and creaking and cracking and splintering; he kisses her with fervor as she gets rid of his shirt as well because they need this.
He's touching her all over, hands trembling and a bit clammy but almost unbearably warm. She wants him there, there, there, and also everywhere else at once, and she clutches at his hair and pulls him closer, noses smushing as their kiss deepens, just as one of the ceiling's beams comes crashing down near them. Maka has yearned for this for so fucking long, and her hands are swift and nimble as they unbutton his pants even though she has never done this before and probably will never get to do it again. He's heavy in her hand, over her body; she finds it comforting, a physical reminder that this is actually happening and not just a dream, one of the few she actually gets between visions of her own death and the end of the world.
Maka doesn't want to think of the moment when his lips - firm and demanding and yet so gentle - leave hers. There is a roaring sound in her ears, much like the sound of big ocean waves when they break, and she has always been ready for this. It's fast and desperate and her left leg is hanging over the side of the bed as he grinds and slides into her, but it's satiating. It's home, it's happiness, it's a glimpse into the future that can never be.
There are no birds chirping happily as they lay together, stroking each other's skin as they will themselves to find the courage to leave this tiny sliver of a perfect world they created together. There are no sounds at all, in fact - the world is empty outside of their bed, dead and broken and remade. The pillows and their socks and the nondescript alarm clock of the motel room are still in the air, regulated by a whole new set of rules that don't include gravity at all.
They dress slowly, lingering kisses interrupting the process between buttoning and zipping up, and they take a long time at the door before opening it.
There are no people in the streets as Maka departs to meet her own fate. Laws of physics don't seem to be at work here, either, and all that appears in the televisions of the nearest tech store window is that black and white pattern that never ceases to create that sensation of pins-and-needles on her skin. She suppresses a shiver.
Maybe Soul had been right on not going along with her advances, after all. Maka wonders at the kind of power that has been so carelessly shoved in such a body, so unprepared for the sheer magnitude of it.
It wasn't meant to be, she knows. It was only hope that allowed them to get to this point, and now the world is coming to its end and they both have their parts to play.
Maybe in another universe.