A/N: Attempting romance once again. Also trying to go at hurt/comfort a different way than I normally do. This is probably really dumb and cheesy... Sorry 'bout that.
Also, despite the fact that I despise the anime with all my heart, this takes place near the end when aracnophobia is spreading the kishin's madness all over the place.
Oh, and did you know that Liz likes Jazz? She says she does because she lived in New York and has gone to lots of jazz clubs. I'm sure she's also had a lot of fun going to see talkies and hanging out in speak-easies...
Oh and, what's this? I don't own SoulEater? Huh. I wonder when that happened.
This author's note has been quite snarky. I hope you enjoyed it.
The world had fallen ill, it seemed, as the sky had blossomed into an inverted field of poppies. Storm clouds soaked with ruby red madness blocked the light of the sun and had done so for days and days now. They swirled and grew invasively, stretching parasitically across the globe, diluting any of the sun's rays to mere mists of dim luminescence and poisoning them with head-splitting insanity.
His mind was reeling in circles. How did this happen? How could anyone allow for this to happen? How did he let this happen? How did he manage to fail this horrendously? How in the world had their attempts to prevent the kishin's awakening gone so horribly, horribly, wrong?
Mangled and disconnected bones twisted inside of elastic skin and murdered flesh, just creaking sickly and stretching hellishly. How did this happen? How did this happen? It had screamed and screamed, and his head had been throbbing frenetically, unable to process the hallucinatory confusion radiating from the deformed being.
Now, though, now, that had just been increased beyond what he could truly handle. As the desert grew colder and colder without the sun to warm it, he found himself able to think less and less. It was though there was a constant ringing in his ears. Even relinquishing his soul perception to the depths of his mind did little to ease the madness.
How in the world had this happened?
And what was his father thinking? Why was he trusting a witch? No less, the very one responsible for unleashing this ungodly amount of insanity onto the world.
The world was cracking, splitting, dying. How could he be doing such a thing at a time like this? Was he trying to make it worse? Was he really? He was breaking it more. He was making it worse. And he was being so flippant about all of it, barely allowing him the smallest shard of information.
All sense of order was breaking in two, being slowly pulled apart by childish hands that had no right to be toying with such things. They were breaking it, breaking it, breaking it.
The whole of existence was not built of plasticine. It was not to be messed with like this. It wasn't. But the sky was soaked with red, now, that sometimes bled into the corners of his vision when he wasn't careful.
How had this happened? How had this happened?
The grayish, elastic, flesh of the kishin was so phantasmic, so impossible. How in the world had they failed to detain such a horrific thing? How could something like that even exist? It twisted and writhed, emblazoned permanently into his memory.
And now the world was falling apart, because he'd failed to do his job as a reaper and keep order.
Maybe he should go fix the paintings again, or perhaps he should get off this mattress and restraighten the bed sheets. They were crumpled around his feet now anyway, ruined. Liz may have banished him to his bedroom, but he still had to keep this house in proper condition.
He'd only been cleaning the kitchen. It had been important, absolutely important. He was doing nothing wrong. He'd just been cleaning the kitchen. It was still dirty, too, still filthy, filthy, and crawling with invasive dust and illness.
How had this happened? How had the world fallen so far? How would this ever be fixed? For the love of God, the sky had been dyed red! How had this ever happened?
Fix the rest of his room. He should fix the rest of his room. Things were off, most certainly. Things were askew, slanted, off, wrong. Things needed to be fixed, to be straightened. He could do that. He could fix them. He should. He really should.
How had this happened? How had this happened? How had things become so hellish, so deformed? How? How?
The world was not a toy for the childish hands of witches. It was not. It was not! It was not a toy for witches. It was not to be played with like this. It'll break. It'll break! The sky was not a canvas for bloody finger-paints!
How could his father be acting this way? How could he have made a deal with her? What was he doing? What was he doing? Why couldn't he tell him what he was doing?
He should just fix his room up, make it better, fix it, fix it, keep it from breaking. It was askew. It was slanted. It was going to break.
He bolted from his bed quickly, bare feet landing on the freezing wood floor. Pale and shaking hands smoothed out the bedspread with loving franticness, banishing and wrinkles that dared to exist in the black cotton quilt.
Fix it, had to fix, had to fix it fix it, had to, had to, had to fix it, fix it had to...
Why was this happening? Why was the world falling apart like this? How had this happened? How had this happened?
Had to fix it had to had to...
The kishin's flesh, so demonically contorting.
Everything was red. Everything was bathed in liquid rubies. Everything was breaking, breaking. The world was not made of plasticine. The world was not a toy. The world was not for witches.
How had this happened? How had this happened?
The clouds were blooming with the red, red, poppy petals, soft and delicate and absolutely sick and slanted and wrong. They scattered their seeds, their pollen, their scent, their very essence to everything that existed. They were pulling his skull in two. They were breaking it, breaking it. How had this happened?
The wrinkles in the sheets would not flatten, they would not. Why wouldn't they flatten? Why were they still there? Why couldn't he fix this?
The kishin's skin rippled and contorted over previously shattered bones and muscles ripped into shreds of meat. Why hadn't he been able to stop it? Why?
Fix it, fix it, had to fix it...
The world was slanted and his father was doing nothing about it. His father was making deals with witches. What was going on? Why was this happening?
His head was cracking, splitting, screaming and crimson red clouds smeared the edges of his sight. Red clouds everywhere, dripping wit madness.
How had this happened?
Why couldn't he get the bedsheets to be neat?
Everything was red and his head, his head, was going to split in two. He could feel it. He could feel it. It was going to break.
There was knocking, banging, smashing, coming from somewhere.
The world was slanted, askew, twisted, contorted bones writhing beneath long unused flesh. Poppy petals were burning holes. His head was cracking, reeling.
Knocking, banging, smashing.
Poppy blossoms and cherry red clouds.
Pulling, twisting, morphing skin.
There was still knocking, smashing in his head. His skull was breaking. How had this happened?
Apples and cherries and poppy seeds.
Red. Red. Red.
There weren't any other colors. Everything was red. Everything.
His father was working with witches. His father didn't care that the world had been dyed red. The world was breaking. The world was not plasticine, not a toy. Flippancy, witches, red, red, red. Ruby ooze and cherry juice.
Splitting, knocking, banging, smashing.
Fix it fix it fix it...
There were footsteps everywhere, pattering and flitting. Arms were grabbing him, holding him, restraining him. Everything was stained with melted rubies. They were holding him tightly, grabbing him. They moved him and he let them. They pulled him down, and he did not fight.
They sat him down on the bed. The covers were ruined, needed to be fixed again. They were wrinkled. The kishin's skin...
Whispering, maybe yelling. There were voices. Or maybe it was one voice. Something, something. Everything was red.
There was breathing, warm breath on his face that had been frozen with mint. The arms were so warm, so soft. Something sweet smelling and familiar touched his senses, a mix of flowers, candles, and antiseptic. Soap.
The red was thinning, disappearing into evanesce. The voices melded into one, soft and feminine. He breathed.
"Calm down," she whispered. "You're only making it worse. Calm down."
She moved again, nudging and pulling him with her. He realized his eyes were closed as the soft, smooth, fabric of his quilt moved beneath him and the mattress dipped and creaked under both of their weight.
He laid down, his head sinking softly into the pillow. Arms encircled him again, soft, clean skin. He felt wet hair trail across his face at some point, thick and sopping and dripping, and she smelled so strongly of soap.
The world was still red...
"You're not supposed to get stressed over anything," she said. She'd told him so many times already, though. "You told us that yourself."
He pulled himself closer to her, adjusting and readjusting their position, the old mattress protesting avidly, until his face was pressed into her shoulder and his hands were on back. His feet touched hers softly as he pressed closer to her.
"The madness only get's worse when you're panicking."
His fingers trailed delicately over her skin, soft and perfectly, wonderfully, clean. "I know," he murmured into her shoulder. But the world was so red and his head was splitting in two...
Her arms unwound themselves abruptly, forcing him to let go and leaving him oddly cold. He rolled over onto his back and folded his hands neatly atop his chest like a corpse as the mattress continued to sink and groan as she moved frantically.
Then there was a click and a searing white light bled through his eyelids. To his misfortune, his eyes could close no tighter, no matter how hard he tried. It was just breaking his skull more.
"I'd turned that off for a reason," he sighed.
"I... I thought I..." she said dazedly. He cracked and eyelid to look at her, but was only met with boiling hot light that forced him to snap them shut again. He could tell she wasn't looking at him though. "I thought I saw something..." she said quietly.
"There's nothing there," he said surely. He slowly pulled his eyes open again, enduring the blaring intensity of the light the best he could. It still pushed an ache into his eyes, though, that left him squinting.
The mattress moved again and he soon felt her weight leave the bed all together. He heard her footsteps and vaguely saw her hury around the bed to the wall where she flicked on yet another light switch. More scalding light poured into the room from the ceiling lamp.
She practically jumped back into the bed and sat with her back perfectly against the headboard, her legs curled into her chest. He was clearly not the only one on edge.
"This has to be fixed..." he said shakily, closing his eyes again in a pathetic attempt to ward off the toxic light. How could this have happened?
There was silence and more shifting and creaking as she laid back down next to him. Her arm pressed up against his. Her arm was against his arm... only one of his arms... only one... one... one...
Unbalanced. Everything was unbalanced. Everything was red. Sick poppy blossoms...
It was only momentary, though, before she moved again. He was only able to be thankful for a moment, however, as she began pulling up the sheets, uprooting carefully planted flowers, ruining his work, wrinkling his bedspread.
The kishin's skin writhing, twisting, squirming. She was stretching the kishin's skin. How had this happened? What was she doing?
His eyes flickered open and he stared at her while blocking out the painful, aching, protests of his nerves as best he could. She was getting into his bed, under his sheets, something he hadn't even permitted himself to do. What the hell did she think she was doing?
He pushed himself up quickly. "Don't." She stopped her motions immediately.
"Please..." she said. "I feel really weird without a blanket. Seriously."
"But you're messing it up," he pleaded. What did she think she was doing? Honestly. "You're... Please just don't."
"Kid, please," she pleaded. "Come on, I feel like... just..."
"I know, I know," he said, pushing himself up into a sitting position. "Just, get up a sec..."
His eyes were slowly becoming tolerant of the light and were able to be opened a bit more. His lids were still stiff, however, as he slipped off the edge of the bed. She quite begrudgingly removed herself as well, doing her best to put the blanket back where it had been.
She twisted oddly where she stood as he came around the bed and smoothed out the covers. They still wouldn't smoothen out, however. They were still wrinkled, still crooked, still wrong wrong wrong. Why couldn't he get it right? Why couldn't he fix this? How had this happened?
She quickly trotted away from the bed underneath the blinding light and came back a second later, her steps jittery and rushed on the hard wood. She stood next to him, her presence obvious and unevenly distributed, now holding the knit blanket from the love seat bunched up in her slender fingers.
His own hands were still running over the bedspread over and over and over again. Why wouldn't the wrinkles go away? Why? Why? Why?
His veins were thick with ice and his head was surly splitting, surly cracking. He could feel it. He could feel it breaking.
He heard her groan and felt her hands curl around his shoulders. He felt her push him again, guide him, and he let her. He rolled over onto the bed and she went with him. His throbbing head fell back into the pillow as she pulled the blanket over both of them as well as she could. It wasn't a particularly large blanket. It was really only good for one person.
Kid pulled it off himself and more properly fixed it over her. "Since you were the one who wanted it anyway," he said. She curled her hand into it and pulled her legs in further to better cover her toes. Her eyes, cool and blue, looked a bit unsure still.
"It's fine," he reassured her tiredly, threading his fingers in between hers.
She closed her eyes softly for a moment, twisting nervously and uncomfortably. She squeezed his hand tightly and edged herself a bit closer to him, still laying on her side.
She sighed, words obviously trapped on the tip of her tongue. He eyed her patiently, staring at nothing at all besides the crystalline blue of her eyes. Cool, calm, blue, the only oasis in all of this red, red, sand.
"I feel like I've been on a horrible acid trip for a day and a half now," she said quietly. "I can't sleep like this..."
"I can't either," he said. He paused. "Is Patty okay?"
She looked away for a moment. "I dunno. She wont talk to me, or... or anything."
Kid nodded. Patty was most likely not coping well. She hadn't spoken a word or looked away from the floor all night.
"This has to be fixed," he said again. He could hear the panic in his own voice. "I have to fix this, Liz."
"We will," Liz said. "Somehow." She only half believed herself. He could tell.
He passed his thumb over the soft, smooth, skin of her hand. It was not like the kishin's. It was not writhing. It was not twisting. It was not hellish. It was not. It was not tinting everything, red, red, red. It wasn't. But the sky was still red as poppy petals and as maddening as phantasmic radio static.
Everything was still red, no matter what. Everything was splitting his head wide open, leaving his brain and his emotions and his flaws to spill out covered in red for everyone to see.
"Try and keep calm," she said. "Try not to think about it."
That was far easier said than done. "So," she began, pushing herself up onto her arm. She rolled over onto him, clutching his hand the whole time, until she was looking straight down on him with those cool, blue, eyes. "I'm going down to St James Infirmary," she started crooning suddenly, singing softly and off key, practically just talking. "To see..." she paused, for the shortest of seconds.
"...my baby there, she's stretched out on a long, white, table," he continued with her just as softly and just as off key. "She looks so sweet, so cold, so fair." He reached up and tangled his fingers in her thick, damp hair that smelled so strongly of soap.
"Let 'er go, let 'er go, God bless her." Their voices both were wispy and tired, many of the notes not making it wholly out of their throats. "Where ever she may be."
"She can search this wide world over, but she'll never find another sweet man like me."
Her mouth was beginning to stretch into a bit of a smile as she looked at him with lovely cerulean eyes.
"Now, when I die, bury me in my straight-leg britches," they sang together.
"Put on a box-back coat and a stetson hat," Kid sang, while Liz just mumbled the line, her lips vaguely mimicking the words.
"Put a twenty dollar gold piece on my watch chain, so you can let all the boys know I died standing pat."
Then she stopped all together and smiled lightly, a small laugh in her throat. She leaned forward further, threading her hands through his hair. Her fingers rubbed sweetly over his scalp, mellow touches slightly easing the pain.
"What?" he asked at her amusement.
"Just your face," she laughed faintly, closing her eyes. Then she kissed him softly, delicately, first on the forehead and then on the lips.
"Wha's wrong with my face?" he murmured when she pulled away for a moment.
"Nothing," she said and then she kissed him again, holding him much longer this time.
His fingers twisted further through her hair and ran amorously over her shoulders. Everything would be fixed. It would. It would. They'd take care of this. They'd end this. The world would be fixed, eventually.
Eventually.
A/N: oh god, I hope that wasn't ridiculous. I really really do. Especially between the angst and the song. I know singing is cheesy, but... ehhh...
The song they sang was "St James Infirmary", specifically, the version by Cab Calloway. I was originally going to use "Civilization" because then I could make a pun out of Danny Kaye and the Andrew Sisters and Death the Kid and the Thompson sisters, but then I realized I can barely see Kid singing anything to begin with, let alone something that ridiculous. This was also shorter, so... Yeah...
I'm sorry I suck at kissing scenes, also.
Anyway, the purpose was for Liz to try and sort of cheer Kid up rather than like, the whole... hold them and tell this it's okay sorta thing. Something a bit more hopeful and practical.
Reviews are appreciated.