Hands
His mother tightens her grip on his hand, digging the metal band of her wedding ring into his fingers and tugs him along after her.
There are nerves screaming under his skin where her fingers crush his, trying to stop the instant tugging of his little fingers in her grip. He wants her to let him go he doesn't want to go backstage.
He doesn't want to be touched. Never be touched.
He hears the term 'touch sensitive' for the first time when his mother drags him to therapy. Tired of him throwing tantrums anytime someone put their hands on him.
He hears it again a lot through the years, in scoffs and exasperated sighs. It's always been such a driving force separating him from everyone else.
There wasn't a time in his life he can remember feeling less than repulsed by the sensation.
Not until he's standing in front of all five feet four inches of this rough enigmatic meister offering him her hand. Tilted slightly in his direction, bare but for the bandage wrapped around one delicate pointer finger, a little ring of blackened adhesive outlining the inner curve of her knuckle. He stares for a moment unsure how he's supposed to tell her about the NOT stamp in his file, right under the diagnosis that explains it.
So he doesn't. Instead, he reaches out tentatively, his hand sliding against hers feeling the texture of skin; warm and a little rough. He doesn't realize until much later when he's filing for a change in classes, that it's the first time he's actually touched another human being since he left home two months ago.
He does have to tell her though because the thought of transforming into a weapon, an immobile object without its own agency, and letting her touch him sends off all kinds of alarms in his head. It's not like he can't phrase it, he's been spending his whole life telling people he's basically repelled by physical contact, but it feels like a betrayal this time.
Maka didn't sign up for such a difficult weapon. She told him right away what she wanted. She has goals and aspirations. She wants more than he can give her.
He resists the urge to lean casually against the cement ledge behind him. Partly because he thinks detached asshole probably isn't the best air to project for this conversation and partly because he's kinda worried she might push him over it. The thought makes him wish he'd chosen any place to talk to her that wasn't the third-floor courtyard. Tucked away in a corner behind one of the scrawny trees with no one to witness his murder.
He's blank and stony-faced when he tells her she should start looking for a new partner because he's defective, he apologizes for stringing her along, wasting her time.
Her head tilts to the one side, a pensive curious look settling into the space between her brows. He feels a bit like a spectacle under her gaze but he doesn't let the nonchalance slip from his face. He's had worse responses to his flighty habits than pensive curiosity.
"What bothers you, about touch I mean, what makes it uncomfortable"
He stares for a moment unsure where that burning anger of hers has gone. He's seen it a few times since they partnered up. Mostly directed at Blackstar or her father but it has reared its ugly head in his direction once or twice. He waits a heartbeat too long to answer her. Still sort of expecting her to screech at him and turn away.
Instead, her face falls from curious to disappointed. There's a wet sort of rejection in her eyes that draws her shoulders high and crosses her arms across her chest. "You don't have to come up with a fake disorder if you want to leave then just go."
Soul throws his hands up in panic trying to stop her from hurrying away from the awkward confrontation like she so obviously wants to. "I'm not lying" he blurts quickly. It doesn't sound convincing so much as defensive but it's enough to make her turn back to him, still tense in her posture.
"I'm not lying it's just no one's ever asked me that. I guess I'd never had to think about it before, so I didn't really know what to say."
He grasps for words trying to describe the feeling in a way that doesn't involve a lot of backstory.
"It's like, my nerves get overwhelmed. My skin gets itchy and hot. I just…don't like skin. I guess. The feel of it is...too much."
He hasn't broken eye contact with her despite his awkward fumbling for words. He hopes that as long as he doesn't look away she'll be forced to see some kind of honesty in his eyes.
She gives it half a beat, just long enough for him to panic, before she sits down on the planter box beside him letting the meager shadow cast by the tree shade her face.
"Is it just skin that's the problem?"
There's a sigh of relief somewhere in his brain but the rest of it is too busy scrambling for words that don't sound stupid to get excited that she hasn't stormed away yet.
"No, I guess it's just the main problem? The heat and pressure get to me just not as much."
She nods along like it all makes sense even though his tone keeps dropping into a question.
"It isn't bad all the time. I guess it's like I have a tolerance and once I've passed it someone can't touch me without it giving me anxiety."
There's a heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach like he knows he's already given too much away but some part of him wants to keep talking about it. Trying to figure out where exactly his boundaries are because he was never given the chance before.
Maka interrupts him before he can embarrass himself further. "Well, we have another two weeks before the professors recommend we separate a partnership. They want us to give it the old college try. At the very least you get a higher allowance as an EAT class student and I still need help moving into my apartment. We can try boundaries or trust-building exercises or… I don't know, something about the whole skin thing."
Maka stands and dusts the dirt of the back of her skirt but never one to be shy about eye contact she doesn't look away as she continues on.
"If it doesn't work out I won't hold it against you but you'll never get a room in the dorm on such short notice and there's still a room for you at my apartment courtesy of my papa. I guess what I'm saying is I'm still willing to try if you are."
He's almost irritated at how easily she's talked him into it. She's dangerous with those wide green eyes and solid logic. She talks him into the two-week deal just as easily as she talked him into their partnership in the first place despite his very solid reasons for being against it.
Somehow she also talks him into carrying her thrift store couch and coffee table up four flights of stairs with Blackstar on the other end shoving him up the stairs like an old lady chasing a cat out with a broom.
He can't complain too much though, outside of books maka doesn't own much.
She keeps her distance assembling a bookcase in the living room and avoiding her father while he tries to show off dragging her furniture in.
The man has bought her a queen sized bed complete with a frame, box spring, and sunshine yellow bedding in some attempt to gain her affection. She tells him to set it all up in the bedroom at the end of the hall despite it being Soul's room.
He keeps his head down and doesn't comment. After all, he gets the bigger bed and bigger room out of this deal.
But it's only for two weeks so he really shouldn't get attached. He'll be out and in a dorm room soon enough.
He swears it was supposed to be but the two-week mark passed two days ago and Maka is sitting crossed legged on the floor in front of him wiggling gloved fingers his way.
He gives her a hesitant look trying to find an excuse to back out of this.
But she's already gotten him on the floor leaning back against the bottom cushions of the couch. The itchy beige carpet pressing patterns in the sides of his feet.
He holds his hand up palm facing her; already tense at the joints. Her gloved hand lays flat against him warm underneath the stiff unbroken cotton.
It isn't entirely unpleasant. I mean it's still touching but Maka has been so mindful of his boundaries that he's hardly had any physical contact over the past couple weeks. It isn't overwhelming just odd. Actually, it's kinda intense in a good way. Like he's never been able to just think and process what human touch was like outside of his head screaming 'too much!'. But Maka's hands are a bit smaller than his, her fingertips just brushing the bottom pads of his fingers.
There's a weirdly calming presence coming from her that almost makes him nervous for the sake of irony. But he gives into the atmosphere she projects and just lets himself feel the intricate little muscles in her hands flex against his. He presses back against them watching the subtle backward bend they give before she presses back. Their hands pushing against each other with increasing pressure.
He doesn't realize he's hyper-focused on the isolated image of her hand against his until she giggles at their little game and his gaze flicks up to her face. Watches the way her eyes crease up with her smile the green sparkling slightly in the dim yellow overhead light.
He releases the pressure, probably quicker than he should have considering it lets her hand shove both of them back against his chest.
She continues to laugh like watching him get smacked with the back of his own hand was the highlight if her day.
Then she blindsides him completely her fingers slide between his curling delicately over his hand and tugging gently forward until they're pulled back where they started.
It's the red across his cheeks that makes him pull away, not any kind of overstimulation. But it's a good excuse to get himself out of the situation so he takes it when she asks.
She nods along like it was expected from the beginning.
Taking it as her cue Maka backs off leaving him sitting alone on their living room floor until he gets up the courage to slink away to his bedroom.
They continue on this way for a while. Slowly building a touch tolerance through controlled hand-holding sessions. It almost makes him laugh at how absurd it all sounds from the outside.
Maka keeps her gloves on through the day ready whenever he might get the urge to touch her. Though there isn't a lot of contact outside the sanctity of their living room occasionally he'll lay his hand down flat on his desk during class and let the backs of her knuckles brush against him while she braces her paper for writing.
The first time she touches him in his weapon form it's overwhelming. She's pushed all the furniture against the walls for this session. He's laying on the ground where the couch usually sits but he's all steel this time. No flesh to bend and move and retreat.
She starts slow just letting the tips if her fingers press against the broad side of his blade. Eventually, she works her way up to her whole hand, before starting to move along his form. Her hands feel so weird against his steely imitation of nerves.
The impression is somehow both numbed and intensified. He supposes it's because you're supposed to feel souls better when in weapon form. It's her soul he can feel pressed up against him more so than her physical touch. But her hand still acts as a conduit finishing the connection that allows the feeling to run through him.
It's all so intense the feeling of her...curiosity. He can feel her emotions the way you're supposed to feel the brush of fingers. And her hand is slowly stroking up his shaft. And despite the innuendo there the heat he feels under his not skin isn't a pleasant one.
There's a flash and suddenly it's boy under Maka's fingers instead of metal. More specifically boy thigh. Because he's sat up in a panic and knocked her hand down from his chest. There isn't a lot of time to be embarrassed by it though because he stands up quickly feet pointed towards his bedroom.
"Don't go," she shouts, unsure why it's so important that he doesn't run away. "I'm not gonna touch you, see?" she tucks her hands quickly behind her back.
Soul wavers on his feet for a moment. His breath is coming quick but he tries to get it under control while fighting the urge to run for his room.
He settles hesitantly back on the floor a bit farther from her than he was laying before. His hands are shaking so he stuffs them under his legs.
He hasn't looked up since he attempted an escape but as soon as his breathing resembles something calmer Maka apologizes.
"You have to tell me next time. If it's getting to be too much for you then say something. We're never gonna make progress if I send you into anxiety attacks every time we try this. Just communicate with me ok?"
He doesn't verbally respond but there's a tilt to his head that says he's acknowledged her request. She sighs heavily but doesn't move. Just sits silently across from him, letting him gather his faculties.
It takes work on both their parts. Maka has to keep herself from getting frustrated with his often evasive habits of trying to get out of their bonding time. It isn't like the handholding anymore. This is intense and scary for him. They have to take each and every step slowly.
Slowly to the point that Maka wonders sometimes if she's wasting her time with him. They're partnered for more than two months before he lets her pick him up off the ground.
But there are moments sometimes like when he settles down on the couch beside her all stiff shoulders and intense eyes. He'll stare at her legs or arm or whatever limb is closest for a long moment before he leans against it. He seeks her out for contact in a way that just weeks ago would have been impossible and she knows it's worth it.
There's an awkward stage somewhere after they've already moved past living room exercise and start going on real missions where he spends a lot of time staring at her hands.
Maka's gotten pretty good at reading him by this point. It really isn't that hard. He tends to stare hard at things with those intense red eyes until he makes up his mind and goes through with whatever he's been thinking about. But she isn't sure exactly what about her hands has warranted such a long and wavering contemplation from him.
Whether she's writing notes in class or letting her hands sway idly by her side as she walks he always seems to be watching them. Watching and thinking really hard on something.
She lets it go on for a while. It isn't ever good to rush him on an issue. He has a tendency to pull away when threatened. But it's been weeks and she's so conscious of her hands too by this point that it might just drive her crazy if she doesn't get him to stop.
She's thinking of a way to bring it up when he walks up beside her in the hall appearing from the crowd in that way he does and then he finally slides his hand against hers. His fingers winding down and interlocking with hers.
Her eyes flash up to his though she has to turn nearly around to do so since he's still walking a half step behind her like normal. His eyes are fixed securely past her and down the hall but his grip never falters even while she's staring at him.
She doesn't address it. Only turns forward and continues to walk on like she isn't hauling a five-foot-nine human disaster behind her. But there is a quirk to her lips that she just can't smooth away. A warm accomplished joy that settles in her joints much in the way fatigue does not.
Soul builds himself a habit out of this milestone. Often holding her hand anytime they walk together. Or helping her down from his bike or the last step in a flight of stairs. Never one for words Soul takes to greeting her simply with a raised palm, an open invitation to make contact with him.
And through this, he discovers something about himself too. Well him and his academy issued therapist. There's less of a tolerance and more of a quota to his whole touch thing. In small increments and gentle handling human touch isn't just pleasant it's necessary. The trust and companionship it represents for the brain encourages release of the anti-depression hormones in the brain.
In all reality, human touch in and of itself is an antidepressant but that only works if he isn't already anxious and the touch is a pleasant one.
He loves Maka, truly, and it makes him feel incredibly guilty but he can't physically comfort her when she's upset. The feel of her anguish and the way that their soul bond translates it much stronger when they're touching is overwhelming.
He isn't aware of how useless he actually is to her emotionally until he's laid up in a hospital bed, thick stitches holding his abdomen together. She's crying, for real crying in a way he's never seen anybody cry before.
His mom was always a stoic woman, choosing to put her image above her emotions and God forbid his father show any emotion other than disappointment.
Tears are so far outside of Soul's comfort zone that he almost wants to cry right along with her.
Maka stands the standard three feet away she usually does when he's feeling overwhelmed; sniffling and crying quietly behind her bangs. He throws a hand out unsure how he'll actually handle feeling her soul once they touch but he can't sit and watch her cry like it isn't happening in front of him. So he offers her his hand palm up like always.
There's an exceptional loud sniffle that sounds like she's trying to pull a whole nostrils worth of snot back into her face. Her hand clutches his in a desperate way, wet tears and hopefully not any aforementioned snot rub off of him but he tries not to think about it too much.
Maka has been experimenting with an idea the past few weeks before this mission. The idea that you can focus your wavelength on an emotion so strongly that it can be used to soothe a partner. Maka thought it might be able to stop his panic attacks rather than make them worse if she could do it while holding his hand.
He tries it for her now. Tapping down the unease in his stomach and focusing on the usual feeling holding Maka's hand gives him. A sense of belonging and peace. A calmness that she radiates despite her loud spunky personality.
He pushes his soul against hers trying to shove his affection at her. There's a startled giggle from beside him but maka doesn't meet his concerned gaze. She's too self-conscious of her tears to look him in the eye.
But he can see the flow of tears down her cheeks slowly start to ebb. She takes a minute to wipe her face with the hand not currently wrapped in his. She mostly just succeeds in smearing snot across her face but she feels good enough to hold her head up now. Giving Soul a good glimpse of the puffy red rimming around her eyes.
He can't find the words to reassure her. Not that it's something new for him but he wishes desperately that he had the skill with words that she seems to. That he could just explain himself and tell her everything he's feeling. There simply aren't words in his brain now.
There's pain, a startlingly dark presence he has yet to identify, and the feeling if Maka's soul shuddering against his.
They don't let go again until Maka is asked to leave. And he offers her his hand again as soon as he sees her. From this point on they are utterly inseparable.
With the exception of their short banter turned arguments they are never not touching when together.
It urkes Spirit to no end. The sudden closeness they've developed. The way they lean into each other. Knees brushing, heads on shoulders, hands always clasped between them. It promotes some fairly concerning threats from the man but somehow he is less overbearing than before. Like a certain part of him has finally deemed Soul as 'not a threat to his daughter'.
It's a good thing Spirit doesn't see it necessary to hover under her window on the nights he isn't hitting the streets because more often than not she isn't in her bed. She's crawled her way into his, finally putting her father's gift to use. Not because they're doing any of the things Spirits accused him of. The nightmares just seem lighter when she's curled up beside him. Her chin resting on the top of his head, his face nestled into against her collarbones. His hands rest appropriately in the middle of her back, his body angled slightly away at the waist and lower.
The touches are friendly. Friendly and soft and sweet. And as it's always been Maka is the one to change that. To take his 'therapy' to the next step. She's the one that brushes her lips across his forehead early in the mornings before she can wriggle out of his grasp to begin her morning. She's the one that throws her leg over his hip and pulls them closer. She's the one to slip her hands into his pockets and pull him around by the belt loops.
They've been together so long now. There's a blur on any memories made pre maka. They've left their childhood behind somewhere amidst the war. Maka blows out the candles on her eighteenth birthday cake and pops the icing covered end of one into his mouth. Their friends are laughing and drinking, someone's hanging off the balcony but Maka pulls him away from the crowd and into the empty kitchen. She lifts herself up on the counter effectively stealing the higher ground. He was gonna make a sarcastic comment about it but now all that Soul can process is the feel of her lips against his. The way she drags him closer so she can tilt his head back and lean over him.
She's running her hands up his arms and into his hair. It sets his nerves on fire, a deep burning that leaves him overstimulated and warm to the touch. But it's not bad. Maka's touch can't be negative for him now. She brings him to life the way no one ever took the time to before. She kisses him and breathes life into the touch starved edges of his soul. He can't get enough.
She doesn't wonder if it's worth it anymore. Doesn't have to because it's late and they've finally shooed everyone out of their apartment. His eyes are locked on her mouth the way they were on her hands all those years ago. They follow every delicate twitch and quirk as she asks him bluntly if he wants to leave the mess for tomorrow and just get to bed already.
She doesn't have to wonder because he bends where she nudges him and pushes back against her all night until their laying naked and breathless in bed every inch of their skin pressed together, his fingers tracing feather light patterns down her back. He's taken his fill of her but it will never be enough. The hum of his soul is eager and reverent in the aftermath of their slow sex. He knows intimately that he can never get enough of her touch.