"Maka?"
No response. Soul pushed the door aside and entered his partner's room, stopping at the side of her bed. Amidst the blankets, all he could see was her ash-blonde hair, looking so untidy at this hour of the morning, and a fraction of her face, much of which was covered in blankets.
This was a switch. Normally she was the one waking him up.
"Maka?" He enquired once more, reaching towards her hesitantly with his hand.
When she didn't respond, he grabbed her shoulder and shook it lightly, repeating her name. After another shake or two he managed to get a response out of the sleeping form; namely, an unenthusiastic moan.
"You feeling alright?"
"No." She muttered, shifting her position in the bed a little. "'ll have to stay home."
Soul placed a hand on her forehead. Her skin was definitely warmer than normal, than it should be. He could feel the heat before he even made skin contact, as if her face could almost be a heater to be used during cold weather. "Damn, you're burning up." The hand was withdrawn. "Have you checked your temperature at all?"
"Woke up a while ago and checked, and took some Tylenol."
"How long ago?"
"Don't know. It was still dark." She rapidly placed her palm in front of her mouth and coughed roughly into it several times, moaning as she sank back into her pillow.
Soul stepped out of the room and came back a couple of minutes later with a glass and a couple of small bottles.
"Here's more Tylenol, some cough medicine, and a glass of water."
"Thanks." Maka propped herself up on her elbow and took one of the pills, downing it with a glass of water. She was a bit more awake now. Being sick always feels so much worse when you first wake up. Not that she was feeling much better, but it was a tiny bit more bearable, anyway.
"You should take the cough syrup. You sounded pretty bad."
She groaned, lying back into her bed. "Taking cough syrup is worse than having a cough itself."
"Your throat is just going to feel worse and worse if you don't."
Maka groaned again, hoping against hope that he wouldn't insist on this one. Since when did Soul become the logical one? A memory surfaced of the time she had been temporarily paralyzed with a witch's spell and Soul had to feed her, much to her chagrin and embarrassment.
The Soul of here and now sighed, pulling her back into the present."Whatever. It's your throat." He placed his hands in his pockets. "Need anything else?"
"Maybe bring that waste basket over here in case I get nauseous?"
Her partner complied.
Maka's eyes were closed now as she prepared to go back to sleep. "I'd ask you to take notes during class for me, but you probably won't even pay attention."
Soul snickered. "Typical. You're this sick and that's all you care about. You really are a bookworm."
"I knew you wouldn't do it." She grumbled.
"Nah, I'll do it. But only because you're sick." And I know it means a lot to you. came the unvoiced thought.
Her eyes shot open. "Really?"
Soul smirked at her. "Sure, why not? Cool guys don't mind helping out now and then."
Still trying to keep up that cool guy image, huh? She sent a small smile in his direction. "Thank you."
"See you after school." Soul ambled out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Soul shut the door behind him as he entered the apartment. Deciding he should probably check on his partner first, he headed toward her room, on the way there glancing at the couch in the living room to see if she was there. She wasn't. He stopped at her room and knocked before opening the door.
The form lying on the bed was motionless and didn't make a sound, except for the steady rise and fall of it's chest and the sound of breathing through partially clogged nostrils.
Soul looked down at the paper in his hand. He had wound up having to copy the notes off of Tsubaki since he didn't concentrate on the lesson very well. Old habits die hard. At least Tsubaki didn't mind. She had been quite eager to comply once he told her why he was doing this in the first place.
He placed the notes on the nightstand. He glanced down into the waste basket sitting at her bedside. Ew. So she did have an upset stomach. Seeing her this sick was pretty rare. Normally it was just little colds that did little more than confine her to their apartment and kept her sneezing into tissues all day as she curled up on the couch with a book.
After cleaning out the waste basket briefly before placing it once again next to his meister, Soul left the room. Definitely didn't want to catch this bug.
About an hour later, as Soul sat on the couch flipping through channels-didn't they have anything good on TV these days?-Maka wandered into the room a bit on slightly unsteady feet. She leaned against the wall.
"Sleep good?" Soul asked.
"I kept waking up nauseous...so, not really..."
"Well, don't get too close to me."
"Eh?"
"I don't want to catch what you've got." He explained, and got up. "You can have the couch if you like, though."
She flopped down and grabbed the remote.
"Hungry?" he asked.
"Yeah...I haven't eaten all day. I'll fix myself some chicken soup or something..."
"I'll fix you some chicken soup then." Soul headed into the kitchen.
"Huh? But it's my turn to cook..."
But her words went ignored. "Spent the entire day in bed?"
"When I wasn't throwing up, yeah."
"Hm." A clang was heard as he grabbed a pot. "Feeling any better?"
"Yeah. It's a definite improvement over earlier, anyway."
"Stomach bugs don't usually last too long, right?"
"Depends."
"Maybe catching this bug from you wouldn't be so bad...I could miss out on school for at least a couple of days."
"Don't you dare!"
Soul smirked as his partner launched into a lecture on how important education is and how he would have to be crazy if he thought that feeling as sick as she felt would be a nice alternative to classes. He knew how to set her off. She actually took what he said seriously?
"Did you see the notes I left in your room?" Soul asked, interrupting her tirade.
"Oh...yeah. Surprised you didn't forget about it."
Soul snickered. "Well, in the end I got them for you like the cool guy I am."
"You probably had to copy them off of somebody." She said pointedly.
Soul blinked at the pot of soup now sitting in front of him. Damn, she was sharp. "Maybe. Or maybe not. But either way I still kept my promise, didn't I? You got what you wanted."
"That's true, I guess." She conceded, still wishing her partner would pay attention in class. She was at the top of her class, but she felt as Soul's meister that his grades reflected on her in some way.
Minutes passed and Maka began to lightly doze off.
"Maka, soup's ready."
As she jerked back to alertness Soul was right next to her handing her a large mug full of steaming soup. She tried to grab the handle without touching the hot sides. He adjusted his grip to make it easier and she took the mug in her hands.
"Thank you..."
"S'cool."
Andddd, that's the end of this one.
So, here's the dealio...
When I get into a new fandom I tend to come up with little scenarios in my head. This is where my oneshots come from. The oneshots tend to be mostly centered around my top favorite characters. (And of course from this fic, you can probably also guess what my favorite pairing is as well. Although this particular oneshot isn't really pairing-centered. Soul and Maka are undeniably close friends, whether or not they are in a relationship.) I have two others currently that I'll probably upload here sooner or later. I may or may not come up with more. No promises.
Let me know what you think, please! I tried to keep them in character here, and I think that if nothing else I did a more decent job than most...seriously, many fanfics I come across have the characters way OOC and that annoys me. Although "crack fics" can be funny.
My main concern with this is that I made Soul a bit too "nice" here. But he does have a softer side and Maka is usually the one to see this softer side, so there ya go.
Oh, and those who know me well know that I don't swear...so why did I include a couple minor swears here? Because that's how Soul talks. I'd censor them out, but, y'know, if you're on this site you know what the word is anyway, so...what's the point?
P.S. Story is rated T because in one of the future uploads a subject will be mentioned briefly that warrants that rating. Nothing explicit.
