It had been going so well.
He'd put it off for so long, trying not to give in to the need to call them. Call her. But he'd started hearing the glass pieces of his soul cracking and squeaking against each other in an unbearable high pitched wail that hurt his ears and he couldn't bear it anymore.
It was stupid. He wasn't supposed to be this weak. He was an Evans - what did his mother say about weaklings?
An Evans is never weak. Weaklings don't belong in this family.
That's what he was, though. A weakling. Couldn't play piano for shit, couldn't play any other instruments for shit, and couldn't compose for shit.
He couldn't take it. Couldn't handle his parents' disapproving glares and his brother's pitying gaze. They all patted him on the back and said it was okay in their placating voices, patronising and mocking.
Lies.
His life was no movie. He wasn't going to get applause for his monstrous composition, the madness infused in his musical variations. It was a plastic world, and people were always coming around trailing some new kill. Tonight it had been him.
His breaths come in gasps. He can't breathe. He tries to remember what Maka said when he'd called the hotline - breathe slow.
When he's calmed down a little, against his better judgement, he climbs shakily onto his motorcycle - the first thing he'd bought with the money he earned on his own and not leeched off his family - and puts on his helmet. He puts the bike into gear and tests the brakes with shuddering breaths and trembling hands.
He speeds off into the night.
- My hero, she's the last real dreamer I know. -
3AM.
Maka paces amongst the telephone tables. She's wearing a path into the threadbare carpeting and the office is humming with anticipation. Even though they're operational around the clock, it's been a while since something like this happened. (With the exception of Black*Star, who's been a regular hanging around here because Tsubaki.)
Soul, her regular caller - a regular caller at this time of night, just phoned in a half hour ago and gasped out in a halting, rough voice that he couldn't stay at his house anymore, could they give him a place to stay until he's calmed down enough to sort himself out?
Of course Maka had said yes because that was the point of the hotline - refuge in times of adversity - and told him to be careful on his way, too frazzled by the disconcerting panicked tone in his usually warm, gravelly voice to realise the bus stations should be closed by now. She'd just given him the address and asked if he knew how to get here and he'd replied yes, then he was gone.
She'd tried calling him back when Tsubaki pointed out her fatal mistake, but he didn't answer. Now here she was, pacing. Helplessly pacing.
Her mind was overrun with morbid possibilities at this point. She had no idea how he looked like. She knew how he sounded like, but you simply couldn't identify a dead person by their voice.
She knew he had a motorbike - they'd talked about it, seeing as it was his hobby and his pride and joy - but she wasn't sure he could ride safely in that state. His voice had shaken so terribly, if not for the underlying timbre of his voice she might not have recognised him from the get go.
The sound of an engine carried over from the distance, and Maka's head shot up from where she'd been staring at the ugly patterns in the carpet as she paced. She rushed to the window and peeked out as the sound grew louder and louder, until finally it passed right by the office and beyond into the night. She took a step away from the window and the others looked at her sympathetically.
3.10AM.
Maka held in a sob.
- Even if it's dark, at least we'll be together. -
3.30AM.
He had to stop whenever the lights started swirling before his eyes.
Admittedly it had been a bad idea to drink cough syrup before he called Maka, but he hadn't had the choice; if he hadn't felt threatened enough (or self soothed enough, Maka's voice reminded firmly in his mind), he wouldn't have been able to focus enough to call her or even to get as far as he had. But now the medicine was starting to take effect - the drowsiness was pulling him slowly but surely into haphazard lines on the road.
He blinked furiously, eyes squeezing shut then opening wide over and over as he tried to park his bike and keep it from falling over. But the lights were too bright and the ground was starting to wobble.
He couldn't hold onto anything because everything slipped out of his hands the moment he grasped it.
Fumbling with his helmet and trying to get it to stay on the bike, he didn't register the footsteps that drew closer to him until some guy was right up in his personal space.
"Hey, you okay there, man?"
Too loud. Soul tried to turn in the direction of the voice, his pupils blown wide and black in the middle of his red irises, but the motion threw him off and he was pretty sure he was going to be sick on the guy's shoes. But he hadn't eaten, and a dry heave was all he had in him. A heavy hand on his shoulder steadied him and leaned him against the nearby wall. He only caught the barest glimpse of blue hair and a lean, muscled build before he couldn't hold himself up anymore and curled around his stomach, hands fisting in his jacket.
"Okay buddy, I'm gonna get you inside. Let's go-"
"No," he refused sluggishly, backing away and nearly falling over. The stranger caught him and kept him from face planting. "Maka," he breathed. The loud stranger propped him up against the wall.
"Whoa, okay. I'm getting the cavalry. Hang tight, bruh. Your God is going to save your ass."
Footsteps pounded away from him and he tried not to focus on how the sound reverberated in his ears. "H-hey," he choked out. He needed to know if this was the place. "Is this the DWMA?"
But the guy was already gone.
All he could think was Maka.
- You made yourself a bed at the bottom of the blackest hole, and convinced yourself it's not the reason you don't see the sun anymore. -
She had just about decided to call the police when Black*Star came rushing back in from his smoke break.
"Hey, there's this strange looking guy outside, and he looks like shit, man..."
Maka froze, the receiver poised in her hand, finger just grazing the buttons.
"Maka," Black*Star said softly. "He said your name."
The phone clattered to the ground, forgotten and she was out the door in seconds.
- Leaning now into the breeze, remembering Sunday, he falls to his knees. -
The guy had slid down the wall to a slump on the floor by the time they got there. Maka had no idea if this person was Soul or not, and his appearance confused her. He looked like he might sound like Soul, with his sharp nose and strong chin, but his white hair and half-lidded unfocused red eyes were completely out of place with anything she might have imagined. When they'd been talking, he did mention that he didn't quite look like everyone else, although no one knew why. It was genetic. He was breathing shallowly and shaking, but was visibly trying to stay as still as possible.
"Soul?" Maka whispered tentatively.
His eyes flickered open.
- Now this place seems familiar to him. -
Was he dead? He didn't know. He didn't know who he was anymore either.
Everything felt surreal. Though he wasn't really floating, it didn't feel like the sensations in his fingers and toes, on his skin, were real.
He wasn't quite sure if being dead included being so... responsive.
He kept dry heaving, nothing to puke out in his stomach, as someone hauled him somewhere in a fireman's carry. The movement was too rough on his haphazard vision and his convulsing gut, and everything was just a blur of faces and shapes and colours he couldn't understand.
Somewhere, he thought he heard Maka's voice. The same, but different from the usual voice he heard on the phone.
Warmer, brighter, softer.
The manhandling was getting just about unbearable enough for him to pass out when he felt himself being lowered gently into something relatively soft and nice smelling - like soap and flowers or something.
While his vision was going haywire, he was starting to hear better and better, past the echoing nature every sound had at this point, and could make out a name.
"...re you Soul?"
It was Maka's voice.
Soul. He was Soul.
He scrambled for the words, lips ghosting around the things he wanted to say. He scrunched his eyes tight.
"Maka," he managed.
"Soul...?" The voice was hopeful and devastated at the same time. A familiar pitch. He would know. He's an Evans. He has perfect pitch.
He felt someone grasp his hand, and held on for dear life, tethering himself to the unknown anchor.
Her hands were as warm and real as he'd imagined.
"Soul, what happened? What's wrong?"
He took a deep breath, trying to focus on her face. He wanted to see more than swirling blonde blobs and dashes of green on pinked skin.
"Cough syrup," he mumbled, only half remembering her question. "Mother hangover."
"How much did you take?" She asked, understanding immediately. There was an edge of panic in her voice.
"A bottle," he muttered, finding coherency in the mush that was his brain at last. "About the length of my palm."
He heard a sharp intake of breath, and felt Maka squeeze his hand.
He took it back. She was warmer, more real than he could have ever imagined. It was so good to be able to match a face to her sweet voice.
He wondered what it would be like to hear her laugh in real life. To see her laugh.
"Tsubaki, get Stein," she whispered urgently off to the side.
She scooted nearer to the bed as sleep began to crawl into his eyes and weigh on his tongue. It was a welcome relief from the spinning, but he didn't want to sleep at that exact moment. Maka was real. She wasn't just a voice on the phone. She was warm and real and right there with him.
"You're real," he whispered, thoughts bleeding into slurred speech on the edge of sleep.
Then she started massaging his head, one hand in his hair, the other gripping his tight, and he just couldn't refuse sleep anymore with her by his side.
- Forgive me I'm trying to find my calling, I'm calling at night. I don't mean to be a bother, but have you seen this girl? -
When he wakes up, he finds Maka staring down at him with concerned eyes and a worried frown creasing the space between her brows.
The blobs didn't do her justice.
She's beautiful. The colours around her are too bright in the morning light, but he focuses on her silhouette. He recognises her in the greens of her eyes and the dull gold of her hair from last night, but her face is new and familiar at the same time. She looks like she could sound like Maka, but smaller, like that frame couldn't possibly contain all that courage, compassion, resolve.
Naturally the first thing he says when she smiles at him is "tiny tits".
He is promptly clocked over the head (was that a book?) and passes out a second time.
- She's been running through my dreams, it's been driving me crazy it seems. -
He wakes up slowly a few hours later and is thankful that the Mother hangover he'd been having has downsized into an irritating, persistent headache.
He feels the warm sensation of someone clutching his hand - just like yesterday.
Hopeful, he blinks his eyes open, black giving way to a the dimly lit room and Maka again. She's sitting by the side of whatever he's lying on - a bed, presumably - and clutching his hand with that worried expression on her face again.
He takes a moment to breathe and blink at her until her face is in full focus, untouched by the cough-medicine induced haze. He registers her calling his name, and squeezes her hand back.
"M'okay," he croaks out. He attempts to sit up, but being vertical sends the room around him spinning and he sways, shutting his eyes and flopping helplessly back down into the pillows.
Coherent thought catches up to him like a landslide. He freezes as he remembers where they are - what he looks like. What she looks like. She's all light ash blonde and soft edges, pastel greens and pinks and smooth skin. He's razor sharp teeth and bloodred eyes, unhealthy pallor and dark circles.
He looks like a monster. It reminds him too much of the stupid story of Beauty and the Beast.
He tries to quiet the shallow breaths that threaten to overwhelm him, his mouth parting slightly to breathe in and out carefully.
"It's nice to finally meet you, Soul. "
- Who could deny, these butterflies that fill his gut? -
A/N: Hello~ thank you for reading up to this point. This was just a little oneshot I wrote a while back. The sections are separated with song lyrics, a mixture of Paramore, Mayday Parade and Remembering Sunday by All Time Low. Heh, I guess it's fairly easy to guess which generation I belong to hahaha. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the story (: please leave a review to let me know what you think~