They had moved in as strangers. Weapon and Meister, sure, but the point remained. They didn't know anything about each other.
So, for a while, Maka only focused on what she could learn from the physical traits of her partner, since he really wasn't much of a talker anyways, but mixed in with the whole 'I just moved in with someone I talked to once' deal, he seemed to have his mouth glued shut. So, Maka looked at him, and decided that she was absolutely amazed with what genetics were capable of. She'd never seen snowy hair before. (However, two weeks in, she got more of it than she'd ever bargained for. Soul shed like a husky. It only took him two weeks to frost over their couch with his hair. Don't even bring up the shower.) His eyes, like the rest of him, were lazy, but the color entranced her. And his teeth, which didn't seem to bother him in the slightest, completely mystified her. His little habit of drooling painted an interesting picture of her partner.
Unfortunately, in the early days, his appearance brought back every scary story she'd ever heard about monsters under her bed, sharp teeth and red eyes, waiting to eat little children.
He caught her flinch once, after a good natured glare was sent her way. She didn't mean to, the color had just caught her off guard, it happened more than a few times the first few weeks. She'd flinched, and for a nanosecond, she saw the hurt flash across his face. He acted like he'd brushed it off, but for the next few days, he'd made a point of keeping his eyes downcast, mumbling his answers though a closed mouth, keeping his shark teeth hidden from her as well.
The guilt over that incident settled into her gut deeply, and she felt awful. From his reaction, it was obvious that people reacted to him like that a lot, no matter what, and she had just become another person in a long list of people who, even if it had been just a second, looked at Soul like he was a monster. She knew she had to fix this, had to already fill a hole she'd dug between her new Weapon and herself.
But, how was she supposed to apologize to Soul Eater?
Oh. Duh.
The next morning, when Soul had drug himself out of bed, scratching his head, loose hair snowing from his head as he rubbed his hands through a wicked case of bed head, he heard Maka in the kitchen. When she turns to greet him, she notices how he stifles his yawn, concealing his teeth before she could really get a look at them.
Feeling even worse, she turned back to breakfast, and put the finishing touches on it. She had stolen the idea from her mother, who used to do the exact same thing to cheer Maka up when she was sad. Wielding the whipped cream as deftly as she did a scythe, she slipped Soul his breakfast.
Eyes she hadn't seen for days widened when he took in the food. First off, it was a huge pancake, but it had bright red cherries as stand ins for the eyes, under a whipped cream fringe that lead up to a whipped cream model of the bed head he was currently sporting. Powdered sugar shark teeth made the meal grin up at him, and it was only a second before he was grinning back.
Shock crossed his face, then he threw his head back and laughed, something Maka hadn't actually heard him do before. "Fucking awesome." He managed between bouts of laughter. "You got one too?"
She led up her plate, so he could see the kiwi slices that made up her eyes, and pigtails made out of whipped cream lined her pancake. Her food set Soul off on another bout of laughter, and she had to join him, sitting down across from him. After he calmed down, he looked over at her, eye to eye, for the first time in days. She grinned at him, and he grinned back, shark teeth on full display. "Ya know? I think this partnership is gonna be worth it, Tiny Tits."
On that day, two important things happened.
One, Maka knew she had found the weapon that she would turn into a Death Scythe, because he deserved it.
And two, Soul inadvertently helped invent the Maka Chop.
The morning before they faced the Demon Swordsman Crona for the first time, they had fought.
Over his hair.
Again.
In Maka's barely attempted defense, she was sick to death of finding white, rabbit sized clumps of hair that had the uncanny ability of turning her shower into a bath in under thirty seconds.
So, when Crona's sword had sliced open her weapon, and his blood splattered against her face, all she could do was think about how she had spent a good twenty screaming at him that morning, and even slammed a book against his skull over the fucking hair in the drain.
She'd never honestly regretted something like that so much in her life.
Those two days, they were hell for her.
Her weapon, her friend, and the boy who had the uncanny ability to make her blush without even trying just lay in the bed in the dispensary, and he didn't move. What pissed her off the most about that, was it wasn't out of character for him. Most of the time, he looked exactly like he always did, passed out on their couch.
He looked so normal, but he wasn't, because she hadn't done anything to stop it. She hadn't been able to save him. She hadn't done her job.
She had fucked up, and Soul paid for it.
That first night, she hadn't left. Stein told her that she could leave, that Soul would still be there in the morning, but Maka refused. If on the off chance he woke up in the middle of the night, there would be someone there for him.
It was the least she could do, and she knew that he would have done the same.
Her premonition was correct, in anyways, Soul woke up that night, completely delirious, and so obviously medicated, that it took him a while to even identify where he was. Maka had grabbed his hand while he looked around, confusion in his eyes. "What happened?" He's asked her.
She explained everything. She explained how he'd jumped in front of the Demon Sword, in case he'd somehow forgotten that, she explained how they had rushed him back, how Stein had spent a very long time trying to put him back together, explained how there would probably be a scar.
Then she'd bowed her head and cried, in front of Soul, and explained how fucking sorry she was that he was hurt because she'd frozen up, and been too scared to face the monster.
She apologized.
And apologized.
Sobbed, then apologized.
Repeated.
Soul, for the most part, looked dazed. His bloody irises were hazy, and the medication was obviously dominating his mind at the moment. So when he reached up and grabbed her hand, lacing her fingers with his, Maka froze, and stared down at her weapon. He only gave her a lazy smile and shook his head. "Maka, you're my partner. It was worth every second."
The next morning, when he woke up, he didn't mention a word about what had happened that night. Maka wasn't sure if he had no memory of the encounter, or if he was just content to never bring it up again.
She probably wouldn't ever know for sure.
But, just knowing that it happened, made the curiosity worth it.
It had taken her a long time to realize that Soul mostly spoke in silence. But once she did, what he didn't say became clearer and clearer to her every day.
It started with the echo in his soul, when they would resonate. It was soft at first, and she wasn't actually sure she could hear it. Then, it got louder, but she still couldn't identify it. Then, during one particular battle when she got knocked around quite a bit, it had become clear as a bell.
He loved her.
He loved her.
And, when it was dark, and she could hear him snoring a room over, and his soul was completely stable, just as dormant as he was, Maka was able to face her own feelings as well.
She loved him. So, so much.
But at the same time, he terrified her.
It wasn't anything he had done, it was just their situation. She was his Meister, and he was her Scythe. Her mother had been a Meister, and her father had been her Scythe.
A Death Scythe.
That she had made, that she had created, and he'd turned on her faster than she could believe.
Maka didn't want to be her mother, didn't want to wake up one morning and find herself packing a bag to get away from the one person she'd trusted more than anyone else. She didn't want to wake up one morning and hate Soul.
Being with him terrified her.
But, not being with him, it hurt her. She'd sit on their couch, slightly annoyed about the white hairs that had instantly transferred from the couch to her oversized sweatshirt, and he'd only grin at her lazily, and she'd want nothing more than to reach over and take his hand, to pressed her lips against his, to have his hands on her hips, to hear his breath in her ear. She wanted him.
Yet, she avoided it, for another two years after that.
Soul, for his part, must have sensed her confliction during a resonance or just written on her face, because he never pushed her, but he never looked for anyone else either. He waited, patiently, because he loved her, and he wasn't going to miss out on the chance to at least try to prove to her that he wasn't her father, and that he wouldn't hurt her.
But he'd proved that on multiple occasions already.
Then, finally, one night, on the same couch, covered in hair, she looked over at him during whatever movie they were watching, and she realized that she was denying herself everything she needed to fix her skewed perception of love.
And that, she had realized almost immediately after, was fucking stupid.
She hadn't given any thought to her next move, there were no clever ideas running through her head. No deep rooted seduction techniques given to her by Liz, there was nothing special planned in her head.
But that didn't stop her from crawling on top of her partner, and pressing her mouth against his.
It had been worth it, she'd decided, when she'd felt his pulse skyrocket under her palm, and the noise of surprise he made, obviously wondering if this was real, before his arm wrapped around her side, and a hand threaded through her hair, and he kissed her back.
His teeth were rough, and sharp, and often, he left small cuts on her lip he didn't mean to bestow, but Maka called that even for the ridiculous amount of drool she couldn't seem to control. Soul seemed to be doing fine in that aspect, but he'd had a lot more training controlling that, his giant ass teeth and all.
The hand around her waist slid down her leg, and he trailed it up her thigh. She froze, and he immediately pulled away, worried he'd some something. "Fuck, sorry Maka, I didn't- I thought- I'm sorry-"
She only covered his mouth with her hand, her body pressed flush against him. She buried her face in his neck, and she asked him if he loved her.
"I always have."
Then she asked him if he would stay.
"Couldn't get rid of me if you tried."
She came out of hiding then, her eyes locked on the red eyes that had once scared her, now they just filled her with hope, and happiness, and an incredible surge of lust she wasn't quite ready to face at the moment. Tears filled up her eyes, and she smiled as they spilled over. She sobbed, and smiled and told him how much she loved him, and how sorry she was that she held him away for so long.
Soul had only grinned lazily, and flipped them so that he was on top of her, he body pressed to hers, and her hands holding onto his back. He licked a tear from her face and smiled at her.
"You're worth the wait."
One year after that, on the 7th anniversary of the day they moved in together, they found themselves in the hardest battle they had ever been in.
Kishin Eggs were few and far between, after the fall of Asura, but the ones that remained, they were wickedly strong, and they'd fight tooth and nail to make sure they survived.
This one was the strongest they'd faced yet.
He looked human, completely human. But he wasn't, because other humans couldn't just place their hand on someone's skin and pull out veins like they were string cheese.
He was a completely close range fighter, and someone like Kidd would have been more suited for fighting this particular ene. However, Kidd wasn't there, and Maka and Soul just couldn't let him walk away. They'd stumbled upon him on accident, and he was on the top of the Most Wanted list. That was enough to convince both of them that they needed to take him down, quickly.
She had been a match for him, as long as she focused on attacking with resonance attacks, making the Scythe as large as she possibly could, keeping her distance from the Pre-Kishin. However, what she hadn't expected was for him to actually take hold of Soul, the blade digging into his hands, and he pulled Soul away, out of her hands, and her scythe, and her weapon popped back into his human form, landing on his knees.
The Pre-Kishin charged Maka then, hand outstretched towards her. She crossed her arms across her chest, protecting her heart the best she could, and she waited for impact.
But it never came.
Fear coursing through her veins, she was trembling before she even opened her eyes. In front of her, Soul's blade was stabbed through the Kishin Egg, but the man's hand had already been wrapped around Soul's throat, blood poured from the vein that had been ripped open. Once the Kishin Egg's body had had disappeared in a swirl, and all that was left was his soul, Maka's weapon dropped to his knees, one hand pressed to his neck, and the other holding him up.
She immediately got down next to him, her hand pressed against his neck as well, the other one wrapped around him, pulling him close. He looked pale, and her stomach rioted against her. She reached for the tiny mirror she kept on her, quickly swiping in Death's number.
Before Lord Death could even get a greeting in, Maka was screaming for back up, for Stein, for blood, for help, for mercy, before she dropped the mirror, and turned back to Soul. Tears had started flooding out of her eyes at some point, but she wasn't exactly sure when. She forced a smile on her face, and ran her hand through his hair, promising him that it was going to be okay, that they'd laugh about it soon, that he'd be just fine, that Stein would be here any second, and everything would be okay.
Then Maka's smile cracked, and she sobbed, and she told him she was sorry, sorry that she had put him in this situation again, that she hadn't gotten any better, that she had destroyed him, that she was so sorry, that she loved him, that she couldn't lose him, that if he dared die, she would die too, it would only be a matter of time.
Soul only looked up at her through half closed eyes, and reached a hand up, twisted his hand into her hair, and pulled her mouth against his softly. He finally released her, and breathed against her lips.
"It's worth it. Maka, you have always been worth it."
"I can't sit here and stare at your grave. I'm mad, I'm so mad at you. You weren't supposed to leave, you promised you wouldn't leave. You promised you'd stay, you promised you'd always be here.
"It hurt Soul. Some days, it hurts too much I can't breathe. I hate being in our apartment, I hate being taken care of by our friends, and I hate, that it's been a month, and I still can't sit on the couch without being covered in your hair.
"I love you, and it hurts. It hurts so fucking much. But I think, the worst part is, if I could do it over again, I would. In a heartbeat. Because, you were right.
"It was worth it Soul, it was worth every second."
...I'm sorry.
I am so sorry.