So here is my entry for Resonance Bang (Resbang) 2014, the fic I've been working on since August. I hope you like it!
I would like to thank odat for choosing to work with me as my artist. I would also like to thank wediecool, s-puff and amber-lechar for providing support and betaing this story. I would particularly like to thank all the Resbang mods for all the work they did in bringing this event together and organizing everything.
Full Summary: After a night of grief, Soul Evans awakens to discover that while intoxicated he managed to summon a powerful demon...to be his friend. Maka is friendly and compassionate, but there is something haunting her, something that scares and intrigues him. Amidst the trials of life, Soul can't help but be drawn to the demon woman. But when a figure from Maka's past comes back for revenge, his life is turned upside. Completely.
Warnings: Mentions of drug and alcohol use, mentioned minor and major character death, major character death, demons, mentions of sex, foul language, grief, violence. Read at your own discretion.
Soul woke with his head pounding and throat dry
He had only done it a handful of times in high school, and then once (well, twice now) since that April, but he still knew the hangovers caused by a weed-alcohol mix intimately. It had been a bad decision, especially so early into the new academic year, but last night had been bad. Worse than it had been for a while in all honesty.
He groaned and covered his eyes to block the light from his windows. Fucking shit, he should have closed the blinds the night before. His temples throbbed and he tried to rub out his eyes.
"Oh," a feminine voice suddenly said from his bedroom doorway. He stiffened and held his breath. "So you are finally awake."
Did he...!
He jerked upright, regretting it instantly as his vision darkened and his head swam. Once his sight returned and his head stopped spinning, he blinked and looked at the woman in his doorway.
She was blonde, ash-blonde, that was the first thing he noticed. Then he noticed the horns protruding from the crown of her head, the tail that flicked from side to side behind her, and finally, that she was wearing absolutely nothing.
"What the fuck!?" he yelped, jerking back so his back was pressed against the headboard. "Who are you?"
The woman blinked at him and slowly walked towards him. Frantically, he tried to back away even more, even though he was stuck against the headboard. Her face softened as she sat down on the edge of her bed, looking almost sad and almost in pain.
"Do you not remember?" she asked softly.
"I wouldn't have asked if I did," he snapped, focusing on her eyes (greengreengreen, glowing green) instead of on her naked chest.
The woman sighed but did not look away. "I suppose I should have expected this, given how intoxicated you were."
"L-look," Soul stammered, gritting his teeth at his lost cool and rolling his eyes to the ceiling. "I don't know what happened last night. So please just tell me what happened." He took a deep breath and scrunched his eyes closed. "And, ah, put some damn clothes on."
The woman sighed again. "As you wish." She snapped her fingers and there was a small 'puff' sound. "I am clothed. You may open your eyes."
Before he could really think it through, he opened his eyes and looked at her to find her...wearing a fancy black dress. The dress itself was strapless and looked like it went down past her knees, pooling on his bed sheets. She also wore a pair of black gloves that went up past her elbows and looked to be made of velvet. Her hair was suddenly done up in two pigtails, tied with black ribbons.
Soul gaped a little. Had he taken acid instead of weed last night?
The woman smiled a little as she caught his eyes and folded her hands in her lap. "Does this satisfy you?"
"I, ah, I mean, I guess?" he said, running a hand through his shaggy white hair. "'s a nice dress," he added in a murmur.
Her expression became a little sad again and she nodded. "Thank you."
They were silent for a moment and Soul shifted awkwardly, grimacing slightly at the grimy feel of his clothes, the same ones he had worn the day before.
"So...what happened?" he finally asked.
Her mouth tipped up in a dry smile. "You became intoxicated and summoned me."
He tried to speak for a moment but his mouth moved without sound. Then he took a deep breath, rubbed his temples, and said in a higher-than-should-be-possible squeak, "C-come again?"
"You. Summoned. Me," the woman-demon-whatever repeated slowly, smile fading. "To be your friend."
"Hold on, what? To be my friend? I have friends, I don't need a, uh-"
"Demon," she interrupted.
"I don't need a demon to be my friend, so you can just, uh, leave and get on with whatever it is demons usually do," he snapped.
"Well, while I am glad you do indeed have friends, I am afraid I cannot leave just yet," the demon lady said grimly, rising from the bed to stand over him. He had to admit, it was quite intimidating.
But he did not let on that she bothered him, or at least he tried to. "Why?"
"Because," she began, taking on the tone mothers used with children who asked stupid questions as she leaned over him. "The payment for my summoning was your soul. So unless you want me to take your soul right now and put it through all the tortures of hell for wasting my time, you will have to put with me until the deal has been completed."
Soul gulped and shrunk back a little. "And when will that be?"
The demon-woman took a deep breath and straightened. "Five years."
"What the fuck! Five years!"
She looked almost amused by his outrage. "Yes, that was what you asked for." Then her face scrunched up in concern. "Do you truly not remember?"
He spluttered a little and waved one of his hands around in desperation. "We-well, no." His hand fell over his eyes and he began to mumble to himself, "Shit, stuck with a demon for five years. Oh fuck, this is something else. You've done it Evans, finally fucking lost your mind, didn't take long." He suddenly laughed a little, high and hysterical, and clamped a hand over his mouth. "I've snapped, I'm crazy, ahaha, oh my god, Blake's gonna kill me."
"I assure you, Soul, you have not gone insane, it is actually physically impossible for you to lose your mind in my presence," the demon-lady said sternly.
"Oh, and how's that?" he asked incredulously. "I thought demons were all about corrupting innocent souls, making them go insane and do bad things or whatever? And how do you know my name?"
She scoffed and crossed her arms. "There are only some demons that do that, and that is because that is their designated job. Demons are actually responsible for collecting souls that have passed on to be judged and sent for whatever type of afterlife they need." She smirked a little and added, "You humans are so ridiculous, all your silly superstitions you will cause wars for and none of them are even right."
He glared at her, slightly personally offended even though he had never really liked church. "You didn't answer my other question."
She looked taken aback for a moment before she smoothed her expression into a tight smile. "You had to speak your name when you summoned me. That is how I know."
He regarded her suspiciously for a moment, then sighed in resignation. "So, what? Are we stuck with each other every day for the next five years?"
She huffed a little laugh through her nose and smiled. "Not quite, I cannot be with you every day for I am needed in Hell to run my realm, but most days, I think, I will be able to be with you."
Soul raised a pale eyebrow. "So, what, are you someone important in Hell?"
She puffed up a little and grinned. "I am Maka, Lady of Hell, the Right Hand of Lord Death, His Avenging Angel, Reaper of Warriors." She continued to speak but she no longer spoke English, instead some strange language full of sharp sounds, drawn out vowels and harsh clicks.
He blinked at her. "Sorry, I don't speak devil, repeat the last part?"
She bristled a little. "My apologies, I forgot myself, mortals are forbidden from hearing the last part."
"Right," he said, drawing the 'i' sound out. He then sighed and waved his hand at her. "Whatever, can you just, uh, go wait in the living room or something, I need to shower and get changed, I have work in—" he glanced at his bedside alarm clock "—two hours."
The demon-lady-called-Maka studied him for a moment and then shrugged, tilting her chin up afterwards proudly. "No need, I am needed in Hell presently. I shall return in a couple of days." She took a couple of steps back. "Until then, Soul."
Then she snapped her fingers and disappeared in burst of smoke and thunder, making Soul yelp and jump back again, nearly falling off his bed. Once the smoke had disappeared, he stared at the place she had stood and found no trace of her.
Rubbing his head he pulled back his bed covers and stumbled out of bed and into his bathroom. As much as he actually wanted to believe in demons appearing and disappearing with a snap of their fingers so that he was not actually insane, he still could not quite find it in himself to rule out the possibility of having finally gone crazy.
As he shuffled out of his gross-ass clothes and jumped in the shower, cranking the knob until it was nearly boiling hot, he decided that he was not going to do anything rash (like commit himself to an asylum) until anything else crazy happened.
An hour and a half later the bell above the store door tinkled as Soul pushed it open, gratefully inhaling the smell of dust and something he would always associate with vinyl records.
The dark skinned man from behind the counter waved at him. "Yo, Soul, you're early! What happened, bed-mate kick you out?" He waggled his eyes at Soul and grinned when the other man scoffed.
"Well hi to you too, Kilik," Soul said, waving as well. As he walked through the aisles of CDs and records towards the counter he continued, "And you know I'm into that one-night stand shit."
Kilik smirked and shook his head. "You don't know what you're missing out."
Soul scoffed as he lifted the part of the counter on a hinge. "You don't either, your brother and sister live with you."
"Not all the time," the other man said. At Soul's pointed look he added, "Like, ninety-five percent of the time, but not all the time. Mom gets them some time."
"I'm sure," the albino man said, voice heavy with sarcasm.
Kilik scanned the store and then followed him into the back once he had made sure the shop was empty.
"How was your night anyway? 'cuz, no offense, but you do kinda look like shit," Kilik said as he heaved himself on top of the break table, watching as Soul moved around the room, signing himself in and turning on the coffee machine.
Soul grimaced a little, picturing the bags under his eyes he had just about seen in the mirror before he left his apartment. His hair was probably also more a mess than usual but he could not find it in himself to care all that much. But then that was pretty usual for him.
"Ehh," he mumbled. "Not that great." It was the truth but vague enough not to make him sound crazy. Or depressed. Or both. Which he might have been.
"Like, how 'not great'?" Kilik pressed.
Soul turned to look at him with the intention of telling him to piss off, but the concern on his face threw him off. It reminded him so much of Wes which brought up so many painful memories that he did not even want to think of at any time of day, let alone at work, so he quickly looked away.
However, the memories were enough to force the truth out him.
"Like really not great," he said through gritted teeth. His eyes stung a little. "Like, really, really not great."
He could practically feel Kilik about to question him further, and he tensed up. To his ever-lasting relief, the bell at the front door jingled, signalling a customer. He turned back to the coffee machine, focusing on that and ignoring Kilik's burning stare into his back and subsequent sigh before he walked out.
Soul's shoulders slumped a little as he relaxed. As much as he liked Kilik, and as comfortable as he had become with the other man, he did not exactly want to talk to him about his deceased older brother. And then cry all over him because thinking about his deceased older brother was one sure fire way to get him to break down.
With this in mind, as soon as Kilik had dealt with the customer and come back into the break-room, Soul immediately turned the discussion towards the other man's travelling mother and the two jobs he had to take on to support his younger siblings.
This was sufficient distraction between customers until Kilik had to sign off.
He felt slightly bad that he was so relieved to keep things hidden. Maybe this was why he had summoned a demon. Sure, he had friends, but he did not have friends. At least friends that were still around.
As he rinsed out a coffee mug and puttered around the back, waiting for another customer, he made up his mind to call Blake when he got home. Sure, the guy was thirteen hours away by plane and apparently living it up in Tokyo, but he had sworn (almost in blood) to always answer a skype call.
At a rational time of course.
Soul smiled a little. Perhaps he just need the demon lady to remind that he had friends.