Ugh.
Christ, Tsubaki and Black Star were sickening. Sipping eggnog from the same cup— with two straws, like a fucking 1950's malt shop poster or something— both of them positively dripping with holiday cheer and barely repressed hormones. Nauseating.
"Amazing they managed to drag themselves out of the bedroom long enough to come to the party, huh?" Liz said, looming over him even more than usual in her heels and clutching a hot pink flask, darting glances back and forth between the canoodling couple, a very watchful Kid, and the punch bowl.
"Yeah," Soul said darkly. "I'm pretty sure they're about to go looking for a closet, though." As if to emphasize that theory, Black Star's hand slid slowly from the small of Tsubaki's back down to her sparkly silk-swathed ass; she didn't seem to mind at all.
"Ew," Liz mumbled, flicking flat-ironed bangs out of her eyes. The scent of dollar-store hairspray wafted over Soul.
"Disgusting," he put in, with feeling.
"I wouldn't go that far," Liz said, apparently giving up on her mission for the moment and tucking her flask back inside her purse with a disappointed expression. "I mean, they're happy or whatever."
"That's why it's so disgusting," Soul grunted, wishing she'd go away so he could stare daggers at the happy couple in peace.
Liz only grinned and flicked her fingers at him. "Aw. You're jealous, aren't you?"
"No! What? No. No! I am so not—"
"I always thought you had a thing for Black Star," she said pensively, then dissolved into raucous laughter at what he could only presume was a drastic deepening of his horror-struck expression. "Kidding. You're jealous because—"
"Who's jealous of what?" Oh, shit, that was Maka, and Soul's heart nearly stopped as he pinched Liz repressively on the arm before wheeling towards his meister with possibly the fakest imitation of a smile he'd ever worn.
"Nothing," he managed. "Nobody's jealous." He would have explained more about how absolutely nobody was jealous of anybody else's stupid relationship, but Maka had literally blinded him.
Liz, apparently sharing his opinion of Maka's outfit, threw up a hand to shield her eyes and choked out, "Eater, you let her leave the house like that?"
Maka crossed her fuzzy arms with an audible scritch-scratch and regarded them both grimly. Soul, his eyes temporarily traumatized by the sheer undiluted ugliness, had to blink twice before she came back into focus. "Black Star said it was an ugly sweater party," she snapped, pigtails practically bristling. "I believed him, okay?"
"Oh, good lord, you poor thing!" Liz seemed to be hypnotized by the blinking red light on the sweater, which was either the nose or the cancerous tumor of the hideous reindeer-platypus-dog hybrid adorning the front.
"Well, you win," Soul snickered, adjusting the knot of his own snazzy red silk tie and feeling superior. Maka's scowl got darker even as her face got pinker.
"Bastard," she snapped, before flouncing away.
"Good going, idiot," Liz said, aptly vocalizing Soul's internal monologue.
"Whatever." He slumped away to get his own eggnog with one pitiful straw, hoping to dull the agonizing crush on his meister that was currently eating a hole through most of his chest.
He'd survived Halloween and Maka's skimpy costume by dint of long, long showers and an excruciating amount of denial. Thanksgiving had been just as bad, because she'd decided to cook them dinner and then flounced around the apartment all day in a ruffled apron with flour on her nose, being generally too cute to be allowed. Living through that without doing something mortifying like blurting out his feelings for her had taken six pumpkin-flavored beers, a deliberate overdose of turkey, and willpower he hadn't even known he possessed.
And then Christmas came, with mistletoe traps everywhere, and twinkly lights that reflected in her big green eyes like stars, and she'd filled the stupid apartment with gingerbread-scented candles and she'd hummed while she put up the tree. It was unfair, especially since his suffering was entirely one-sided.
Anyway, he was in a pissy mood, because— astoundingly and improbably— even that crime of a sweater hadn't dulled his passion, and now he'd managed to make her mad on top of everything.
Just then Tsubaki let out a poorly muffled giggle and pulled Black Star out of the room by one hand, both of them wearing eager grins.
Soul groaned, thwacked himself on the forehead a few times, considered and discarded the idea of trying to steal Liz's flask, and then plodded out the doors of the ballroom, down the hall, around the corner, and onto on of the smaller balconies.
It was cold as fuck, and he balanced his eggnog on the railing before shoving his hands into his pockets. The weather was miserable, windy and slushy and freezing, and it fit his sullen mood perfectly. He'd thought about it on Halloween, yes, about just grabbing her by the bandages of her mummy costume and yanking her in for a passionate kiss— but she'd probably strangle him with said bandages. In the end, he simply hadn't had the courage to risk changing everything, to put their partnership on the line, and it had been the same on Thanksgiving and would apparently be the same now on Christmas.
He knew for a fact he lacked the nerve to go in for a New Year's eve kiss, too, so obviously he was doomed to die alone. Maybe she'd remember to invite him to the wedding when some other guy, one with a backbone, snapped her up— and that would happen any day now, because she was beautiful and kind and brave and—
"Why are you moping out here?" Maka said irritably, appearing from nowhere on the wind-blasted balcony and looking quite warm in the scratchy depths of the ugly sweater.
"Um," he said, hunching further into his jacket. "Parties—"
"Aren't your thing, I know, I know," she mumbled, giving him a little smile. "You look nice."
Oh, jesus, was he blushing? He fixed his eyes somewhere over her head and muttered an abashed thank-you.
She was giving him the oddest look. "Well?" she said at last.
"I— well what?"
"Aren't you going to tell me I look nice?" she said peevishly.
Damn. He risked another glance into the abyss of the rein-dog's merciless eyes and ventured, "I thought you didn't like liars."
She laughed. "Fine, it's awful, I know."
It was, but she wasn't. He settled for a little hum of agreement and offered her his eggnog; she took it happily and started slurping away, leaning on the balcony next to him with the sleeves of her sweater pulled almost to the tips of her fingers. As he watched, the wind tore a sparkly green pom-pom off the thing and hurled it into the void, where it belonged. "That sweater'sreally bad, Maka."
"I know!"
"Like, really. Really, really, really bad. Where'd you even find it?"
"Goodwill."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
That avenue of conversation finished, they settled back into silence for a while, until she said contemplatively, "So Tsubaki and Black Star finally started dating."
"I noticed," he said blackly.
"I think they're cute."
"You would."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I—" Soul's yellow belly went from pastel to pee-colored, and he wilted. "Nothing."
She slit one green eye at him, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear; the wind grabbed it away again immediately. In fact, she stared at him for so long that he started to feel really weird, and then she said, "So I thought I'd dropped enough hints, you know, I thought I'd been obvious enough but I guess not, so tell me, how bad is this sweater, really?"
He blinked. "Huh?"
She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "I mean, is this sweater too ugly for you to be able to kiss me while I wear it, or what?"
His jaw fell open. A long, long moment passed, and then the wind sent another pom-pom flying straight into his mouth. Maka sprang into action and walloped him on the back, and once he'd swallowed the thing down safely he collapsed against the railing, hacking and gasping. "I'm going to die now. The ugly in that sweater is in me."
Maka actually growled at him, clearly frustrated, and her cheeks were red from more than the wind. "Dammit, Soul, I straight up tell you to kiss me and you still won't? What the hell!"
He spat up something sparkly— sadly, not the entire pom-pom— and hunted desperately for something to say.
He didn't get there fast enough, couldn't force the words out of his stupid mouth, even though all his dreams were coming true and he knew what he wanted to say. Finally Maka rolled her eyes, grabbed the hem of her sweater with both hands, and said determinedly, "Fine. So I'm choosing to believe the sweater's ugly confused you or something." Then she peeled the thing right up and over her head and dropped it on the ground.
Her bra was white, plain, and amazing, and even though Soul had washed the thing a hundred times it was totally different with boobs in it, especially very cold boobs being lit by the soft romantic light of the reindog's blinking nose. "Well?" she said, shifting her weight and looking entirely ready to bolt.
Finally Soul found his voice. "It's too cold out here for you to be running around half-naked," he told her. "Wanna go inside and find a closet or something?"
"Oh, thank Death, yes," she said, still wonderfully topless, and she barely even bothered to check for other guests before dragging him back inside by the hand.
They saved the sweater, and for a while Soul had serious issues with blinking red lights and improbably timed, inconvenient traffic-related boners. He didn't mind.