(see end of chapter for notes.)
High Hopes
She'd always wanted to get married on a day like this.
It's cloudy, but not gloomy. The sunlight is soft as it's filtered through the clouds, and everything is shadowed by a gentle shade of grey. He rubs his hands together against the cold as he retrieves his sock from the passenger seat. It's just the one sock. A lonely sock, he thinks. How sad. Meanwhile, the birds around him chirp, carefree and concerned neither about his life nor his sock. The grass is too green, he decides, too lush. Everything about this setting is perfect except for him and his crappy car.
He's parked on the grass, just down the hill from the church where the wedding is - originally he'd wanted the wedding to be at the town centre, so that everyone could witness the grand affair, could see who she belonged to now, but it was just her luck that it had been booked for a different wedding on the same day at the same time; she'd always wanted to get married in the church on this hill. There are the trees she loves here - he can't remember their names, only what they look like - and the space is wide and open. He remembers; she used to say it gave her illusions of freedom. He didn't understand then, even if he'd had his suspicions, and now he never will. He grasps the hose in his hand - an old tube from the garage that he'd managed to find earlier. His resolve tightens almost painfully in his chest. He'd almost promised her that he'd make it happen, even though it wasn't his promise to make, when she said wanted to get married on this hill.
And now she will. Even though he never made her that promise.
They've been friends for years. The best of friends, partners in crime. Over those years he's come to learn that unconditional, unrequited love is beautiful and painful, rewarding and destructive to oneself. Maybe it's just him, or maybe it's because it's impossible not to fall in love with her. It's in every fibre of her being, of her soul - her courage, her kindness, her determination, and her free spirit.
He bets she looks beautiful in that dress. She'd always wanted chiffon and lace, she'd said, something simple and white. He wishes he could see it.
He shakes his head at the image of her light ash blonde locks, soft and wispy. He doesn't have the right to think of how it frames her face, makes her eyes burn vivid pools of green, or how it turns gold in the sunlight. It's an image he isn't entitled to anymore.
Beautiful and painful.
He closes the trunk, wraps the lonely sock around one end of the tube, and gently eases it into the exhaust pipe. His hands are shaking. Funny - he'd sold his bike to buy this crappy car at her request. (They'd Christened the car Crapperella together.) Ironic that he would be sitting in this very car as he dissolved with the last of his memories of her. He grits his teeth and gives it a tug to make sure it's secure before making his way around the car.
All these years wasted.
He secures the bare end of the tube between a window and the frame of the car door, so that the tube is directed inwards, and then pulls the driver side door open, getting in to turn on the engine. There is an alarming kind of calm in his movements, but everything inside him is shaking.
She'd looked right at him the moment he'd asked her to marry him, and something unreadable had crossed her gaze. Something he couldn't for the life of him understand - even after years together. Years spent klearning each other inside out, years spent keeping each other alive. The years he spent making sure she was still breathing, and the years she spent making sure he didn't collapse.
Faintly he remembers the sensation of skin on skin - a rare occurrence, an exclusive one-time event. He shivers, phantom touches trailing goose bumps all the his skin of his neck and jaw.
He couldn't read the look in her eyes then, either.
The memory of her smile when she'd said yes in front of everyone they knew, the upturning of her mouth as she'd looked away from him and he'd swept her up into his arms, jerks him roughly back to the present.
He'd held her in his arms once - he should never have let her go.
The smoke starts to stream in and he shuts the heater off. The pleasant hot air ceases, and his nose starts to get cold and uncomfortable. He slumps in his seat and runs a hand over his face. Everything reminds him of her - the seats of the car where she'd curled up before, the tilt of the charms she'd hung around the rear-view mirror. Even his scruff, rough and a little longer than he's ever let it get, reminds him of how she'd touch his face and laugh at the scratchy-ness of his five o'clock, or coo at the smoothness of his skin after a shave.
His eyes slide shut and he breathes in the smoke and everything else that is gloriously fatal in the exhaust, revering the reprieve it is. He tries to breathe slowly, tries to stop the shaking in his bones.
Rewarding and destructive.
It's quiet for a few beats, but before he can convince himself to slip into unconsciousness, he hears yelling. He's pretty sure that he's gone just about mad, because his brain knows only her name, her face, her voice at this point - her voice, calling his name; he's probably imagining it because he wants to see her again so much.
But he has no claim over her. Never had, and never will.
He tries not to think. The clouds part a little, just enough to cast a delicate golden glow - the sunlight she likes so much - and he hates how perfectly he's chosen where and how to die.
And then there are more people yelling and they're calling her name.
His eyes flutter open - he's convinced he's dreaming - and he sees something white hurtling down the hill in the rear view mirror. His eyes narrow in confusion. It's not been that long; his brain can't be playing tricks like this on him already.
He twists in his seat to look out Crapperella's back window.
She's streaking down the hill towards him - a vision in white chiffon and lace, just like she'd said. She's barefoot, but she looks like a wild thing - like she belongs out in the open field, heels to the fresh earth, the grass brushing her ankles. Her hair lights up in the tender sunlight, and his breath catches. It's definitely fallen out of some kind of delicate updo, and he sees it whip around behind her haphazardly as she nears him. He cannot believe his eyes.
He gets out of the car as she stops in front of the passenger side door across from him.
That same unreadable look in her eyes takes his breath away. She's panting, she's a mess and she's everything.
They just gaze at each other. He doesn't know what to say. He can barely even believe that she's standing in front of him here. Her green eyes aren't burning and sparkling like they always do as she looks at him. He knows that look. It confirms his suspicions. Apprehension clouds her expression. She turns to look behind them, up the hill, where some of their friends have come to a stop alongside the groom, seeing her standing across from him.
Her delicate elfin features stiffen into a hard expression of determination. It's an expression she hasn't worn since her engagement. One of the things he's missed most about her is her unwavering determination.
He slides his gaze away from her beautiful face for a moment to look at the crowd approaching them from just over the crest of the hill.
His face is twisted in anger and frustration, and he's still yelling her name. Soul wants to punch him in the face, but his chest is still aching from the shock of her appearance, and the vividness of this dream. He doubts she'd like that anyway, kind as she is. She's a spitfire, but he knows she'd never let him hurt anyone she loves.
He has to remind himself that she loves him.
Doesn't she?
She looks back at him, and finally he notices the smudged mascara on her cheeks, smudges of black against the pallor of her skin. Usually she's an ugly crier - he knows, although she'll never be anything but beautiful to him - but today there is nothing that can detract from her appearance.
Their eyes meet, and he sees the world in the green of her irises.
Against his better judgement, he wants to convince her to go back, get married to the other guy - have a life with him, be happy, live the apple pie, white picket fence life. But the thought stabs him like a knife in his gut, the air leaving his lungs like it's been knocked out of him, and her stance is firm.
He sidesteps away from the car door in a daze, his gaze weary and unfocused as he moves to remove the tube and the lonely sock from the exhaust pipe. His hands are shaking again. The pain in his chest is stinging and it only intensifies.
Hope, terrible hope, is blooming uncertainly in his heart.
Maka's brow furrows with concern as she spots the old hose tube feeding smoke into the car. She pulls the tube out of the window, throws it to the ground and gets in. He tries to feel ashamed that he just tried to kill himself on her wedding day and leave himself to be found here, at the bottom of their hill, but he can't. He focuses on her as she pulls the passenger side door closed, tries to figure out what she's thinking.
But she's wearing that unreadable expression again, and worry stirs in his gut.
He gets into the car, trying to decide if she's angry at him or not. She watches as he places the lonely sock gingerly in the back seat. Even if he'd just tried to kill himself with the sock, he still feels kind of sad for it - it's as alone as he was.
He tries not to look directly at the pain and disappointment on her face, like she can't believe it. She knows what he's tried to do. She brushes wispy hair away from her face, and he realises she's wearing small white flowers in her soft ash blonde locks.
He can't breathe; he'd never dared to hope that they'd be sitting in Crapperella together ever again, but here they are.
Outside, Hiro stands just below the top of the hill, howling in frustration and stamping his knees. His face is scrunched up in pure rage.
Soul can't bring himself to care.
They drive away.
She tries to smooth out the mess of her usually straight hair, and he realises she's still wearing her engagement ring. She looks like she doesn't know if she's just made the biggest mistake of her life or not. She stares forward, out of the car as they streak past hedges and trees, the wheels quiet on the grass, the engine sputtering ever so often. Her green eyes are wet with emotion.
She looks like she's going to break.
The air is a little stale in the car, so he rolls down the back windows. He offers her his flask, half full of her favourite drink, one hand on the wheel, and she accepts it wordlessly, chugging it down. He watches her from the corner of his eye, eyeing the gentle curve of her throat as she throws her head back to drink every last drop. He thinks of the time she'd allowed him to love her openly as he pressed kisses to her shoulder and neck. It's a little awkward in the car, but it's not unpleasant. Familiarity keeps the stiffness of their movements away in spite of the situation. He's not sure if she's left Hiro at the altar for him, and she's not sure if he loves her, but like all things, they'll work it out.
She reaches around to put the flask in the back seat and picks up the lonely sock. It's got a bit of soot on it from the exhaust pipe, but it doesn't bother her. She puts it on her hand and turns it into a sock puppet. He glances at her.
He doesn't know how she's managed to make something so sad look just a little better, and his heart twangs wistfully. The lonely sock isn't lonely anymore.
She plays with it a little, and he feels the same childlike innocence of their earlier days that vanished with Hiro's arrival return. She smiles a little, and he can't help that one corner of his mouth curves upwards in response. She's always been contagious like this. He's missed the feeling of her beside him like this. She smiles a little more as she stretches her socked hand out to him and says hi to him in a puppet voice. The gentle curve of his lips stretches into a small grin.
She laughs a little and he chuckles.
- Broken bottles in the hotel lobby.
- Seems to me like I'm just scared of never feeling it again. -
- I know it's crazy to believe in silly things. -
- But it's not that easy. -
A/N: Hello reader! Thank you if you got this far into the chapter~ if you'd like to know where this is going, or want to listen to the song to get a feel of how it's going, please look for High Hopes by Kodaline on YouTube~ I'll update every day from today (: Please leave a review and let me know what you think~ it's been a long time since I was on ffn, and this is my first SoMa fic here (: See you next chapter~!