yaaaaaaaay, gift exchange time! this year i got amberlehcar - hope you like it, bb!
The first time she meets him, he's rude.
He lingers in his elder brother's shadow, hands stuffed into his pockets, expression empty but eyes full of stories. And as Wes turns to introduce him, clapping a hand on his shoulder, the boy glances over her with bored indifference and huffs- and he might as well have just pushed her down into the mud and stained her pristine tights, because the effect is all the same.
"Soul," Wes says again, and his brother shoves his arm away moodily. Hm. "This is Maka. She's enrolled in the ballet program at my school."
And then, for a brief, heated moment, he looks at her, finally, with those curious, red eyes of his and it's like being under a microscope. Maka hugs her jacket closer to her, coiling up under the pressure of his stare. This Soul may not be as impressively tall and lean as his brother, but he's still larger than her, even as he slouches and cracks his neck.
"Right," he says, then.
Maka cannot swallow her boiling temper. "Right?"
"Makes sense," he adds. "You're-"
"I'm what?"
He doesn't know her, and she doesn't know him, but there are few things one can do to sully one's first impression, and rudeness - looking down at her, as if he is more mighty - is number one.
As if she doesn't know his last name. As if she doesn't know about his family's money, and the way girls in her program have fought tooth and nail to stand next to Wes Evans. And yet, somehow, there is another Evans boy. Only this one isn't nearly as charming, and he's got a lip ring, right there, and every time he runs his tongue over it Maka feels her mouth go dry.
He swallows thickly and she absolutely does not focus in on the bobbing of his Adam's apple like a hawk because she's angry at him, dammit. "... Small."
.
Maka was very young when it was decided she'd be a dancer.
It had never been a choice, exactly, but more of a plan. A legacy to uphold, perhaps, and she'd pranced around on her tiptoes while Papa spun her around, ribbons loose around her ears. Over time, she'd fallen into step behind her mother, a beautiful, slender thing, with eyes hardened over years of practice and cutthroat competition.
And young Maka would have done anything to earn her mama's praise. Lessons, tutoring sessions, soaking her soft, pretty feet in saltwater. She'd watched what she ate, practiced until the sun set, lived and breathed and slept dance until tonedeaf little Maka Albarn had finally learned how to count out a beat, learned to separate the theory from the numbers and felt the rhythm in her very bones.
Tired bones. Sore bones.
.
"I don't think he likes me very much," she says once, as Wes' brother scowls at her from across the parking lot.
At that, Wes laughs - actually laughs, fully belly and all - and throws an arm around her. His fingers are rougher than she expects on her bare shoulder, but it makes sense, she supposes, in the end; performers are pretty things, meant to dazzle and entertain, but the craft is difficult and grueling and even Evans skin can blister and callus after years and years of violin playing.
Her feet certainly are no longer something to be admired, if one is looking for beauty. Years of ballet does things to the body, and with as hard as Maka dances - as hard as Maka tries - the body is not nearly as strong as her iron-clad will.
"Of course he likes you," Wes says, squeezing her shoulder. She shivers, and he tugs her closer, helping swaddle her in his peacoat. "He's just bad at talking to pretty girls."
She scoffs. "I am not that pretty."
"You're a ballerina, aren't you? You have a reputation."
Perhaps, if one is speaking of her body type. Fourteen year old Maka had prided herself on her slim form, hips that did not swoop out and distract from the art of her dance, the way she could cut through the air with delicate, deliberate purpose. The lack of a bra, and distracting little straps for immature boys to snap and pull and laugh about.
Yes, she supposes she does fit the reputation of a ballerina.
Small.
Maka huffs and pushes away from him, shrugging her way into her fleece hoodie. Standing there in a leotard, tights and sneakers must make her look absurd, because Soul scowls even further, somehow, those strange features of his darkening as he kicks off from his bike and begins dragging his feet over to the two of them.
"He just doesn't know how to talk to you," Wes says again, gently. "Soul acts like he doesn't like anyone but he's really just shy."
She thinks back to the way he'd read her the first time they'd met, eyes calculating and judgemental, and feels her nails dig into her palms. "I know the difference between shy and asshole, Wes."
He smiles at that. "Do you want him to like you?"
"I didn't say that." She never said that. But if he doesn't like her, and she doesn't like him- well, this strange friendship she has going on with Wes Evans will be strange, to say the least, considering how much time big bro Evans spends with his baby brother. "I don't care what he thinks of me," she lies.
Wes tries to pat her head but instead gropes her hairbun. "Try talking to him."
.
He catches her dancing, once.
She's spinning, neck high, arms held out in front of her as the room blurs in color around her, and he- Soul's there in the doorway, hands jammed into his pockets, a mishmash of white and red and so much black. And Maka falters, slowing to a stop, feet flat on the floor as her heart does an annoying thumpthump in her chest, as if she's actually embarrassed, caught doing what she's spent her whole life training to do.
His shoulder leans on the doorframe and his fingers tap out the beat to her music. Somewhere, at the other end of the room is her phone, and Fifth Harmony blasts from her shitty Family Dollar speakers.
Maka smoothes back her sweaty bangs and he hooks a brow at her. "Never seen a ballerina get down to anything but the classics."
"I'm warming up," she says, folding her arms over her chest defensively, so that her heart will quit trying to drum its way out and explode into a mess of confetti. Pulse still racing, she teeters back and forth on her feet, feeling silly and self conscious and weirdly righteous. "Why are you here?"
He scratches his neck idly. Stares at the mirrors lining the walls. "Your boyfriend sent me. I'm here to fetch you for Prince Charming."
"He-" Maka splutters for a moment, face pink. "Wes isn't my boyfriend."
"Sure fooled me."
"I don't date boys."
That sobers him up quickly. It's almost absurdly satisfying watching the embarrassed shades of rose crawl up his neck, stain those high cheeks of his, color his pretty, rich-kid nose. "Uh," he blurts tactlessly, and Maka smirks, dropping her hands to plant them on her hips, instead, one side cocked out farther than the other, leaning her weight on her right leg. "Oh. Sorry. Just, thought, uh, 'cuz he's been spending so much time with you-"
"We're friends," Maka says, very seriously, and Soul does not challenge her. "Is that a problem?"
"... er- no."
For a moment, she considers remaining cruel, if just because she is a little bit competitive and moody and technically he'd started this whole weird thing between them anyway, but misleading him feels like a bit much. "I don't date."
"... At all?"
"At all." She picks at her tights and shrugs. "I don't have time for it. My schedule's really full, and my mama would have my head if I spent any extra time canoodling instead of rehearsing."
Something else washes over him, for a moment. In his eyes, especially, there's a flash of something he can't squash quick enough, a sort of pitying understanding that leaves her mouth dry and her stomach tight, and then just as quickly as it happens, it passes, and, "Cool."
Cool.
Perhaps her own feelings are written across her face, too, because he shrugs and kicks off from the doorframe. "Me too."
.
Soul Evans runs a tattoo shop.
She feels out of place in her pink jacket, face bare, sans for a healthy layer of undereye concealer and mascara, as he leads her in, door bell jingling above. The decor is almost macabre, lots of demons and fangs and claws blended together with music motifs - pianos, mostly. The contrast between white and black keys, the jumble of a key signature, a little demon waiting in the attic, plucking away at a grand.
It makes sense, she thinks, staring at the back of his neck, where ink crawls up like skeletal hands. He's swaddled in worn leather and smells faintly of cigarettes and expensive cologne and something else, something musky, and Maka wonders why she'd hadn't put the pieces together sooner. Wonders, then, why anyone of his status would choose to paint art on another human without much credit instead of standing center stage, like the rest of his family thrives on.
"Forgot my wallet," Soul says, then disappears into the back room, and she's left alone.
She feels small, standing there amongst such impressive art, just a tiny thing still in tights and a pink coat. Hair tied up neatly, tight bun and straight-cut bangs. It fills her with such overwhelming anger, and she storms to the counter, quick to flip through his catalogue and distract herself.
And he's good. Those paintings, the decorations- it's clear they're his, and his inkwork is just as impressive, if not a little scary, a little hard to understand. Harsh black lines and hard edges, stylistic and dark, like the haunting harmonies chasing tail after the melody. She thinks of Wes' hands, then, soft skin hardened over years of practice, surely, and then jumps as she hears the door click shut and Soul's standing before her.
His brows are creased. He glances down at the piece she'd been last trying to decipher - a little red demon with horns, chewing on his long fingers, face split into a mad grin - and then back to her, chewing his lip. The light catches his lip ring just right and Maka sucks in a breath.
She shakes her head slowly. "I don't… get it?"
"Art's funny like that," he says quietly, then shuts the binder. "Means different things to different people."
"Do people get that one often?"
His fingers drum along the cover. "When they're daring."
"Would you?"
"I made it, didn't I?"
It's such a big piece, too. It could span all the way across his back, from lanky shoulder blade to shoulder blade, and Maka swallows back the urge to speak such aimless wonder. "... You did," she says instead, palms flat on the counter. "You're really good, Soul."
"Eh."
"No, like- you're really, really good."
He shoots her a crooked, withdrawn smile and shrugs, shuffling his way around the counter. "What's a girl like you know about tattoos?"
"You said it yourself, didn't you?" And at the look he gives her, she feels twenty feet tall, the biggest, brightest thing in the room, no longer small and insignificant and like she's competing with anyone or anything at all. "Art means different things to different people."
.
She is not dating either Evans brother.
Dating is something she's never put much thought into. Attraction, love - sex, especially - has always just been an afterthought, things that've never mattered much to her. Academics, dance, pleasing her mother - Maka has always had something to prove, but it's never been in the form of romance. She likes to think she's not strange, that she's not broken, but it's hard, sometimes, when boyfriends wait to meet their significant others after practice and she's left to pack up alone. When she's left to eat dinner by herself, thousands of miles away from home, in New York without any family or special someone to spend the night with.
She is independant. Mama's bright little star, destined to follow in her footsteps and be something spectacular. Born and bred to twirl her way across the stage, beneath the spotlight's scalding-hot judgement.
There is no time for her to be dating. And she can't see herself doing it, anyway- she is busy, and she doesn't feel the same theatrical attraction to boys or girls the way the movies have lead her to believe she will. There is just her art, her dance, and sore toes, muscles and abs and a body most men would not find sexually appealing.
Suits her just fine. She doesn't find them appealing either.
Which is why, when asked, she tells the honest truth: she's not dating either Evans brother. Not Wes, violin prodigy, and not Soul, younger rebel, with piercings and tattoos and bedhead- and sleepy eyes, sad eyes that watch her as she dips her feet into epsom salt baths, watches as she spreads out on the couch in his back room, headphones propped up so that she may dream her way through her routine.
She's not dating either of them, but sometimes she thinks she might be okay with kissing Soul. You know. Just to see what it would be like.
.
"Would you ink me?"
Soul looks up from his sketchpad. The pencil's rubbed off on the side of his hand, and when he reaches up to scratch his face it spreads to his chin, too. Unrestrained, she wets her thumb and reaches out to wipe it away, with what she hopes is motherly intent, but he watches her tongue swipe over her finger with distracted precision and he might as well of doused her in gasoline and set her aflame.
Maka drops her hand. He blinks. "... Huh?"
"... Would you ink me?" she asks again, shifting, pressing her hands back into her lap. Stupid girl, why'd she have to go and touch him? They've been friends - or something like it, anyway - for a few months now, but he's never closed the distance between them and actually touched her before.
But now- now she's gone and wrecked it, surely. Or at least made a fool of herself, or offended him, or… or something, surely, because he keeps gawking at her as if he can't believe she'd actually touched him and hey, neither can she. And secondhand licked him, at that! She's had thoughts here and there about holding his hand, sure, during held gazes that lasted just a beat too long, but licking him isn't a thought she's ever entertained.
Gross. Gross? Should be gross.
Ugh. She's a little drunk, and the wine glass that sits between them is empty. Mix goody-two-slippers Maka and alcohol and bask in the mess she makes, apparently. Going around touching boys and thinking about licking them and-
"No," Soul says suddenly.
Maka wilts for half a moment before the sluggish pride surges back through her. "Why not? Am I not good enough of a canvas for you?"
He scoffs. "Didn't say that."
"Then why won't you do it?"
Soul looks at her, long and hard, the same calculating, observant stare he'd first given her, only she's not intimidated or afraid- she knows him now, knows how he works, knows he likes to collect his thoughts before spilling his beans. Knows that the way he's looking at her isn't nearly as harsh as she'd first thought. Knows, especially, that the way his hand creeping up to carefully brush hers isn't standoffish at all.
"Your body is your art, right?"
She blinks twice. "What?"
"You dance. You use your body as part of your performance. And if I inked you-" he blinks, too, before continuing, speaking slowly, "... I'd change that performance. It wouldn't just be yours anymore. I'd be part of it, too. And my art's too damaged to be mingling with yours."
"Soul," she breathes. He gives her that same half-smile again, the nervous quirk of his lips that makes something deep in her gut clench and twist, tight tight tight. "I own makeup, you know. I can cover up tattoos for performances. The other dancers do it all the time. Stage makeup is a thing. And maybe-" she cuts herself off abruptly.
His stare has changed now, though. There's a smudge of wonder, a brushstroke of curiosity that makes her heart swell with something silly.
Her tongue is swollen, too. Chock-full of sentimentality and compassion and affection for the boy that paints his walls with demons and music alike, intermingles the two in order to create his own version of himself. An expression of himself that he chooses, a grasp at control. Something she's never had; her life's been written out before her since the day she learned to point her toes.
"... Maybe I want to share that with you," she admits, hushed beneath the flickering fluorescent light and his laser-bright eyes. Eyes the color of the wine that stains his lips. "If you- if you did, what would you?"
He doesn't even stop to think about it. "Wings. White ink. Like a scar."
.
Wes catches her blushing, once.
Maka slides her phone into her lap and swipes left; and then Soul's face is just there, a goofy candid she'd caught while the two of them were out late, he chowing down on a burger and fries and she sipping jealousy on her lemonade. He's just there, in any matter or form, and her resulting smile is automatic- only she doesn't realize the warm haze looming from cheek to cheek until big brother Wes is nudging her and grinning up a storm.
She stuffs her phone back into her bag and scowls at him. "What?"
Wes cannot keep himself from smiling, it seems. "Looks like you learned that from him, too."
"Learned what?"
He points at her face, finger wagging, and gently boops her nose. "Pouting and huffing when you're caught red handed. You're cute, but he's been barking up that tree for years and I know that trick. Nice try, missy."
"I didn't-!"
"I see you talked to him," Wes says cheekily. Maka's face may never return to normal hues; she might as well be sunburned, goodness, and no amount of stage makeup will ever dull the heat of her cheeks. "I don't mean to say I told you so, but, well… I told you so."
"We're friends."
"I never said you weren't."
It's like looking into a freaky funhouse mirror, because she's definitely had this conversation before with Soul, only it'd been the other way around - Soul, assuming she was dating his brother purely because she'd been spending time with him - but it's harder to lash out now, to shut down the idea of her liking Soul more than she lets on. Because really, he is her friend, and he's the best friend she's ever had for sure, but it feels different than her friendship with Wes. Feels different than the partnership and solidarity she's felt with fellow dancers, even, ones she shares classes with and sees on nearly a daily basis.
I don't date boys, she thinks, but Soul doesn't feel like just another boy. Maybe that's why when she tries to spit it out, she stutters over her words instead, and she blurts, "I don't- boys-"
It's funny, but Wes has begun smiling at her much in the same big-brotherly way he does Soul, and it leaves her feeling inexplicably warm and fuzzy. It's happening now, and he reaches out to ruffle her hair, too, only it's tied up in high pigtails and all he does it tousle her bangs down into her eyes. "-! Wes!"
He laughs again and jumps up from his seat. "Be gentle with my little brother. That boy's a sensitive soul."
.
When she dances, Maka still counts.
A habit she's never been able to shake. For some dancers - most dancers - counting is a way to keep in time, keep beat and focus, but for Maka, music has never been easy. Her brain is hardwired to understand patterns, logic and methods and black-and-white theory, and music- well, music is about expression. It is hard to predict music because it feels, because it moves and yearns like the tide and crashes on the shore with a pulse. And for Maka, who, despite everything else, has worked her absolute ass off to understand it, theory and comprehension are two separate things.
At ten, she finally grasps rhythm. At thirteen, she masters it, learning to hold herself high, moving with the heartbeat of the composition, one two three, one two three.
But at twenty-one, she still struggles to feel the heart. Feeling the pulse is only half of the battle, and no number of rehearsals and one more time, from the top, to the same routine piano piece seems to heal her of her emotional deafness. Exhaustion sits heavy in her bones, but even as Maka's legs ache from practice and her toes shriek she still stands, en pointe, chest full, head held high.
"You have to feel the music," her professor tells her, combing back a handful of his dreads. "You'll move more fluidly once you understand it. Technically, you're flawless."
Technically, she's been studying under her Mama and working tirelessly for years. So if there's a flaw in her step, Maka will personally throw herself out a window. "I'll try harder."
"No," Professor Barrett says, shaking his head. "If I let you, you'll stay here all night trying to overthink it. I know you, and that's not the kind of teacher I am. Head home, Albarn. Listen to the piece a few times. What you want can't be forced through muscle memory."
She's still counting her steps as she shuffles out of the practice room. One, two, three, four, Maka Albarn is such a bore. Five, six, seven, eight, too bad she moves like a freight.
… Train. Freight train.
.
Soul's hands are far too pretty.
Smooth, too, and so steady. Maka finds herself staring at them often, mindlessly, when he pulls his wallet out of his pocket, as he jingles his keys, as he holds a pen and sketches brutally, with long, purposeful brushstrokes. Dark ink lines stain in his wake, permanent, and his hands never once waver from their intent.
He has such long fingers. Delicate knuckles, clean nails. Freckles, too, dotting the back of his palm, over the curve of his thumb, the middle of his pinky. She wonders, often, if his skin is as soft as it looks, and if his hands could ever steady the shake in her chest every time he brushes across her bare knee.
There's a empty space between her fingers and Maka finds she can't stop thinking about it. Focusing, especially, on the way her own fingers brush against each other, the way her gaze always drop to him as he fiddles, taps his pen on the edge of the table; he's miles away in thought, so caught up in his own creative storm that it's hard to see him through the clouds. But even when his eyes are miles away, hazy and overcast, she can still find him in his hands, in a thumbnail scratching idly at paper.
Frustrated, she rips her headphones out and tosses them at him. "Ugh!"
He creaks beneath the weight of her stare and raises a brow. "Tell me more, princess."
"Don't call me that," she huffs, then clasps her hands over her face. "I can't do this. It's impossible. I've listened to this damn song twenty times now and I still don't feel whatever it is Professor Barrett is talking about. I know all the steps. I know the song."
The tapping of the butt end of Soul's pen on the pad of his sketchbook is muted and still distracting. "Trouble in paradise?"
"Ugh."
"Do you even like dancing?"
It is the only life she's ever known, so she says, "Yes."
Only Soul doesn't look convinced. He gives her a look and he proceeds to drop his pen and fold his arms across his chest, leaning back. And from the angle, he looks broad, almost, like he isn't lanky and gangly and made of noodly arms and an arcing spine. "Doesn't ever really seem like it."
"Would I do it if I hated it?"
He rolls his neck. Cracks it. Slouches back over the tiny table he's got and leans his forearms across it. "Sometimes we do things we don't like because it's all we've ever known."
Maka presses her lips together and twists the cord of her headphones between her fingers. If she's not careful, she'll damage the wires, but with the heavy, intuitive way he's staring at her, she needs something to keep herself grounded. "I don't know what you mean," she lies narrowly, as if she hadn't been spun around her bedroom at the age of three, as if she hadn't grown up wandering amongst her mother's bouquets, wandering through her mama's closet of costumes.
Soul shrugs, then, still not looking entirely convinced. "We fall into things sometimes. Cuz people expect them of us. D'ya know my parents wanted me to be a concert pianist?"
Her song loops on repeat but she pays it no attention. She hadn't, and somehow it makes sense. The second Evans boy, born and bred a musician Makes perfect sense, actually; she doesn't know how she didn't see it sooner. He always seems to be tapping his feet or drumming his fingers to an unheard beat, something that resonates deep within him.
She blinks at him. He doesn't budge, just gazing at her thoughtfully. "I didn't."
"Yeah." And for a moment, she swears he might say more, might elaborate on such a confession- but it passes, the storm clearing in his eyes, and Soul leans back again without preamble. "Folks know best. 'Cept they don't, and being on stage makes me wanna barf, so when Wes got his own apartment I moved out and in with him, instead."
"And now-?"
"Now we're here," he says, gesturing to the table between them, the smudged pencil on the side of his palms, the ink lining his arms. On the inside of his wrist she spies a tiny keyboard, sketched delicately in thin strokes, tiny lines, poking out from the hem of his navy sleeve.
Now he's here, in the city, in this tiny hole-in-the-wall shop, with a creaky door and a bell that doesn't always jingle and faded tiled flooring. But it's his, a choice he's made, and Maka feels somehow honored, sitting in a mismatched folding chair, feet tucked beneath her, her headphones discarded on the tabletop. It's not even a bit glamorous, but Soul still smiles at her all the same, a crooked little grin with a pinched dimple. Still reaches across the table and links his fingers with hers, cheeks glowing a fade pink.
His hands are far too pretty. Soft, too, for a boy who looks the way he does, tattooes stretching as far as her eye can see. A demon's claws creep up the v-neck of his shirt, talons peering out. There's a blade arching along the curve of his neck.
So Maka smiles, too, and tightens her grip. Together, their fingers lace, and Maka brushes her thumb along that tiny wrist tattoo and watches his brow wobble.
.
It's all she's ever known.
Learned behavior, learned lifestyle.
When Mama danced, it was with such reverent purpose- it brought people to tears, brought men to their knees, brought Papa's wandering eyes back to his talented, impossible wife. When Mama danced, she was beautiful, threading through the air with grace, moving with the give and take of the music. She always had something to prove, always had something to say, and when words failed her, ballet was there. When she'd gotten pregnant at seventeen, and had been forced to choose between her passion and her daughter, well, that just meant the time to pass the gauntlet had come early.
And young Maka had fought hard to uphold such a standard. Had practiced until her toes ached and her legs shook and nothing helped but propping up her feet and watching her Mama's old dance recitals until her brain had melted and sleep overtook her. Even then, she'd dreamed of it, so conditioned to know nothing but pliets and adagio and exercises at the barre, for goodness sake.
After all, she'd do anything to please Mama. Anything to make Mama smile and proud.
.
"I don't know what else I'd do," she confesses to him one night, weeks later, when they're both a little drunk and still buzzing over their newfound penchant for holding hands. "It's all I know how to do."
Soul snorts and flicks his cigarette. The ashes flicker red in the night, and drift and speckle into the breeze. It's late, and he's surely still a little too tipsy to drive them both back, so laying in the grass side-by-side had seemed like the best course of action.
But holding his hand and watching the stars twinkle does things to her. Things she doesn't care to give names to, lest she allow them control over her careful facade, but still - they're here, despite it all, and the grass is dewy and her jeans are wet but his skin is the warmest thing she's ever felt. It's like she's fourteen, holding a partner's hand for the first time, standing outside the movies while waiting for her parents to pick her up from her date.
Only her head feels a thousand feet off the ground and she might fly away, if he wasn't there to ground her.
"You're smart."
"If I really work at it," she says, sighing.
He flicks his cigarette again before smushing it out in the damp grass. "Nah, you're bright. Kicked my ass at Trivial Pursuit."
"It was Disney Trivial Pursuit."
"Handed Wes' ass to him, you did." He exhales, his breath foggy. "Made me proud."
"Soul."
He squeezes her hand and it does funny things to her heart. Wine's a bout of liquid courage, though, and it encourages her to roll over, tuck herself against him, press her cheek to his shoulder. "I believe in you," he mutters, and she believes him, almost, so caught up in the twinkle of the stars and the heat of his hand that anything feels possible.
.
Soul kisses for her the first time a week later.
It's warm, and soft, and it's over nearly as quickly as it's begun. When he retreats there's a hesitancy in him, a nervous fear that washes over like the tide, and wine red has never looked more muted.
"Sorry," he mutters, chewing his lip, and that fucking lip ring - it's right there and it had been so cold against her lip and his tongue swipes over it. "Sorry, that wasn't what I meant to do. I know you don't-"
Maka grabs him by his jacket and pulls him back down to her. His tongue has better things to do than trip over his words.
.
She doesn't date, but Soul's an exception.
They never discuss it, but Maka starts spending all of her time at Soul's place, and Wes starts spending more time in his room and the wide berth leaves them with plenty of room to snuggle up on the couch and watch bad movies. They never discuss it, but these movie nights often lead to Soul on top of her, or Maka on top of him, in varying states of undress, with tongues in mouths and hands straying to places they've never been.
It'd be scary, talking about it. Putting what she's feeling into words is scary, a big New Thing that makes her tongue feel heavy and stupid and scared, for the first time in her life. Standing center stage with a white-hot spotlight cooking her alive hadn't even made her feel quite as silly as trying to vocalize her feelings for the boy with his tongue down her throat.
But what a nice tongue it is. She gasps, and he sinks lower, turning to suck on her pulse point, and it's like wildfire. Her hand slaps down and grasps his shoulders and she feels him tuck a smile into her neck.
"Baby," he sighs. "Baby."
Maka squints at his ceiling, heat shattering in her gut. "Did you just-"
"Y-Yeah. Uh," he shifts, then leans his forehead against the arm of the couch. "'Supposed to be sexier than it was. Forget it happened."
Silence. The ceiling fan wobbles. The television flickers as the commercial shifts back to the late-night movie.
"Soul?"
His eyelashes flutter against her earlobe. "Mmm?"
He's hotter beneath her. He can sigh baby like a lovesick fool all her wants if he's grinding under her, hips rolling, hands heavy on her waist, and she won't even care at all. There are more important things to focus on than Soul's inability to talk dirty - like the heat in his jeans, and that exciting, lip-biting stiffness that sets her blood ablaze.
.
She dances to his music, once.
"Please," Maka begs, hands cupped together. "Just once?"
His footsteps are heavy, and when he drops to sit and pushes back the fall board, she twirls around to the opposite end of the room and fixes him with an even stare. His posture is atrocious, and even though she knows jack-shit about playing instruments she still knows, instinctively, that his slouching shoulders and arched spine are not part of his expensive education, but still- he moves with purpose, fingers almost heavy on the keys, and it's nothing like she's ever heard before.
But it's him. It's him in every flat he plays, in every elongated note and saddened melody. And she has no choice but to move, because she's Maka, and Soul's art has always done funny things to her.
His stare is molten lava. Burning, burning, and- and she very nearly stumbles, nearly crumbles beneath the sheer weight of his stare, the unblinking way he watches her move across the room like a pen across paper. Through his piano, she's part of his art, too, part of his music, part of his song.
It's intimate. She feels naked, stripped down. Like her tights are nothing and she's putty in his willing hands. Move me, Soul. Make me move. I'm yours.
.
And she feels the song, too.
.
He fucks her slowly, hands clenched around the headboard of his bed, plowing deeply, deliberately. Maka feels it all, every heavy breath he takes and the way he pounds into her, swallowing thickly, and she can't keep her hands off of him. His hips, his shoulders, his throat - her fingers graze his bobbing Adam's Apple and he groans her name, low and gravelly, as he shifts to touch her, too.
"Maka," he says, and it's more than any pet name. He sees her. Looks right at her, sweaty, knotted hair and slim hips and small breasts and glides a prettypretty thumb over her clit and reduces her bones to aroused, melted gold. "Maka."
He sees her, past the pretty smiles and headstrong determination and hours of relentless practice and hits such a spot within her that she's seeing stars. It's so much, too much, and when she comes, crooning his name, it seems he's helpless to do anything but follow.
Soul's panting above her, arms caging her in, pressing kisses to her jaw, her cheek, anywhere he can, and Maka's never felt less small.
.
"Ink me," she says, dropping her cash on his counter. There's a hickey blooming on the curve of her throat and he's staring at it much too distractedly. So she repeats herself. "Soul, ink me."
He quirks a brow at her and picks at the zipper, politely ignoring the puppy-printed designs dotting her wallet. "Uh."
"I want a part of you with me." Maka plants her hands on the counter, too, face down, leaning taller on her toes. When she pushes herself higher, he smirks gradually and leans closer, too, until their noses are nearly touching and his breath is warm on her lips. She wants to bite him, wants to suck his lower lip between her teeth and mark him the way he's marked her. Wants him to mark her permanently, too. "Give me wings, Soul."
"Everyone will see them," he says quietly. "You gotta be sure, Maka."
She leans back. Sets her hands on her hips. "Do I look unsure?"
He zips her wallet back up and tosses it back to her. "Not gonna let you pay. You know that, right?"
"Soul!"
"This one's on the house," he mutters, reaching for a plastic glove. It snaps into place and Maka presses her thighs together instinctively. There's a promise there, somewhere between the lines - you've gotta be sure, Maka, everyone will see - and she intends to hold him to it.
Everyone better see it. An angel deserves her wings, and there's no one better suited to crown her.
.
When she dances now, she feels free.
It's like flying.
Maka is weightless, boundless, held down by nothing. When she dances, she moves like the wind, twirls and floats and spins and laughs so hard she cries when she missteps and Soul's right there, making a snarky comment, rolling his eyes at something his brother has said. And when Papa comes to visit for the holidays, she doesn't even think twice about introducing Soul as her boyfriend, and even as he blushes through it, he holds strong, doesn't back down in the face of her parent.
When she dances, she feels young. It's like being ten again, careless, just learning how to point her feet and hold pose, tie ribbons into her hair and proudly wear her bunhead like a badge. When she dances, and she wears a low-back leotard, she eagerly tells classmates about the markings on her back, about the white-gold wings that line her skin like a scar. Wings that glow and move with her. Wings no boy had given her, no- they're merely a part of her a pretty-eyed friend had been thoughtful enough to paint on her person, free of charge.
And when Mama calls, she lets Soul answer. Lets him kiss her knuckles and inform her that yes, her daughter is doing fine, but no, she can't come to the phone right now. She's busy.
It's like flying. And Maka's never felt quite so free.