In all the time they had lived together, Maka really hadn't taken special notice of Soul's teeth.
Sure, she knew he was self-conscious about them - he was self-conscious when it came to a lot of things about his appearance - but she really didn't think they were that bad, if anything they were actually an asset. When he smiled, genuinely smiled, his grin and sharp teeth did things to her that she would never admit out-loud.
Still, she could understand why he would be somewhat less-enthusiastic than her. She wasn't the one who went through numerous toothbrushes in a few weeks or got the occasional unfriendly expression from passers-by. Where she saw them, him, as special and unique he saw them and himself as unwelcome and strange.
But she would have never been able to guess how he got his fear of dentists.
"Come on, Soul! Seriously -"
"No."
Maka's eyes narrowed at her weapon. He was poking at his cereal with a spoon, moving Cheerios around with as much enthusiasm as a sad celery stick.
He thinks he can be pig-headed with me? He should know better. Maka took a deep breath through her nose. "Soul, could you please be reasonable -"
"No."
"Sou-"
His jaw clicked. "No, Maka."
Maka huffed. "We need to talk about this, Soul -"
Soul's spoon clattered down into his bowl. "Goddammit, Maka, no! I'm not going to the dentist, okay? Get that through your fuckin' head!" He shoved his chair back and stood, red eyes flashing. "Would you just screw off about it already?"
Maka was frozen as he stomped down the hallway; she heard his door close with a resounding bang! and she blinked in surprise. She robotically moved to grab his cereal bowl, dumping the contents down the disposal and rinsing the silverware clean.
She had seen Soul angry before, plenty of times. But never like this…
Maka picked through his reactions, trying to determine something that would make sense. Obviously he didn't like the dentist - that was easy to pick up on. She guessed it had something to do with his sharp teeth...insecurities, maybe? That would make sense. But if she really wanted to know what was going on, she'd need to sit down with him and get to the bottom of this.
That was where she was stuck.
Maka knew what an angry Soul looked like. His jaw and neck would tighten; his shoulders would be unnaturally stiff. His eyes would get cool and indifferent with no spark of interest, a loud "fuck you" to the rest of the world.
What she had seen had been more akin to fear. He had yelled. He had jumped. He had avoided her gaze, and when she eventually met it he jerked it away - but not before she had seen what was there. And what she had seen was not anger.
She sighed and put the bowl in the draining tray, wiping her hands on a dishcloth. She didn't want to see him like that again...but she needed to know what was going on. She had to at least try to talk to him.
She walked down the hallway, steeling her resolve with each step. Her fist rapped on the wood with a confidence she didn't feel. "Soul? Can I come in?"
There was a muffled grunt on the other side she took as a 'yes', but she cracked the door and peeked her head in, just to be sure.
She spotted her partner on his bed, eyes closed. "Soul?"
He sighed, cracking one red eye open to observe his meister. "You gonna just stand there?" When she didn't answer, he sighed again and sat up. "Yes, you can come in."
She stepped over the threshold and perched next to him on the mattress, the muffled sound of springs squeaking loud to her ears.
There were a lot of things Soul didn't want to tell Maka. He didn't want to mention that her ass was killer, discuss how his heart raced whenever they'd watch TV and she'd fall asleep on him, talk about anything relating to his past. He really, really didn't want to talk about his past.
But here she was, sitting on his bed on a Sunday morning, green pools staring out of her small face, watching him in expectation. She was so tiny and fragile-looking, but he knew better: she was anything but breakable.
Soul forced a sharky grimace in her face, wishing she'd flinch away, wishing she'd leave him - like any other normal person - for the first time since they had become partners. "You want the truth?"
Maka nodded somberly. Her hand twined with his.
Soul sighed, fake smile dropping, eyes drifting to their joined hands. Partners. "Let's start at the beginning."
For as long as Soul could remember, his parents hadn't loved him. Not even in the vaguest sense of the word. From the first day out of his mother's womb he had been a disappointment, and to them that was all he would ever be - a tiny baby who, as he grew, lost blue eyes to horrible red ones, hair growing in spurts and tufts like demonic grass. He hadn't been cute or precious like Wes had been, oh no. There was something off about him from his first breath. And "off" was never a word that had been synonymous with "Evans."
Wes had been kind throughout all of Soul's childhood: he had played with him, and Soul remembered their tickle fights when he'd been a toddler and Wes had been older, a blurry face with white hair like his. He remembered getting ahold of Wes's finger and biting it. Wes had shouted in pain and shock.
Soul had been confused. Why's big brother mad? He had felt a little scared.
Soul remembered waiting in the Emergency Room for the verdict.
I heard it was bit clean off! Sawed through the tendons!
Imagine if Wes couldn't play violin anymore...imagine how the parents feel…
He remembered swinging his feet above the spotless linoleum and beaming when Wes came out of the examination room, walking over to ruffle Soul's hair with his non-bandaged hand. Wes bought him ice cream that day: chocolate.
A year passed. Baby teeth were moving more and more, some were falling out, all were sharp. His parents were angry with him and Soul didn't understand why.
He'd stand in front of the mirror after brushing his teeth, tying floss onto them and tugging as hard as he could, even though his gums bled, even though tears sprang to his eyes, because he remembered now: he had hurt Wes and his parents were angry at him and he could hear them talk sometimes about how he was dangerous, how he was violent, how there was something wrong with him.
School started. Soul kind of liked his teeth now. They were cool. The other kids didn't bother him when he bared his gleaming incisors with a smile...but they didn't talk to him, either. I'm too cool for them anyways. I'm too cool for anyone.
Now, when he stood in front of a mirror he practiced his smile and pricked his fingers on the ends of his teeth to test if they were really as sharp as he said they were.
He avoided smiling around his parents.
The dentist had seemed like a nice man, but something had been wrong with his eyes. They looked sick somehow and when he smiled he almost looked like Soul - baring fangs. Aggressive.
It was just supposed to be a teeth cleaning, but as Soul sat in the waiting room, his feet no longer swinging above the linoleum but flat on it, he heard his parents and the dentist murmuring in low voices. The sound of a check ripping. Then Soul was whisked away, off to the dentist chair - the nurse that led him there was sweating a lot and jumped when he answered her questions.
Everything went fine. The toothpaste was minty. He didn't like the flossing.
This whole thing is dumb! I wanna go home!
Then the nurse left.
"We're going to play a game, Mr. Evans. Would you mind putting this on?" The dentist handed him a nose mask with a funny smell coming out of it.
Soul didn't like being called Mr. Evans, it made him think of his dad, and he told the dentist so. The dentist shrugged and smiled his strange smile, slipping the mask over Soul's nose.
Soul was nearly unconscious from the anesthesia when the immense, horrible pains began.
He didn't care about being cool or looking tough. In that moment, he wailed. He screamed like the world was collapsing around his ears - to him, it was.
He tried to fight through the drug-induced haze on his mind but he could barely force his eyes open. The screams gurgled out of his throat, mixing with the buzzing of the tool the dentist was using.
The torture went on for hours. Soul's throat felt raw, like ground hamburger meat. He couldn't move.
Then it was over. He was dragged out of the room, shell-shocked, by his parents.
He'd never seen them care less.
When he got home, he'd never seen Wes care more.
It was the first time Soul had ever seen Wes get angry at their parents, angry enough to slam his fist through a wall, the scar on his finger obscured by sheetrock dust.
Soul stayed in his room for days, ignoring everyone who tried to talk to him. His face was swollen and purple. Worst of all, his teeth were atrocious, more horrifying than he'd ever seen them - they were normal.
He cried when he saw his reflection in the mirror, wondering if his parents would be happy with him now, if they'd be happy with him ever.
His teeth refused to stay blunted. They whittled themselves back into points, ignoring the money and time and pain invested in them. They fought for their genetic coding, either repairing the damage done to them or forcing a new tooth into the spot the old one had been, blood and gore in their wake. Wes tried to help in some way, but Soul wouldn't open his door to him, to any of them. Even when he physically did, grabbing the offered plate of mashed potatoes, blank to Wes's hopeful expression, he closed a door in his heart and destroyed the key.
He refused to try to impress his parents. He gave up on their posturing instruction, their piano lessons. He gave up on them as much as they had given up on him.
Wes made sure to defend him. If they ever went to the dentist, the doctor, any sort of medical appointment, they went together - Soul was silently grateful, even if he would never say as much. And Wes would never mention how much it hurt to have his younger brother - one who had used to view him as an idol - watch him with guarded eyes...because if it hadn't been for Wes, none of Soul's suffering would have happened in the first place.
If Wes hadn't been the favorite son, maybe Soul wouldn't have been seen as dangerous. Maybe if Soul's parents hadn't loved Wes so much they would have loved Soul too, just a little bit.
But, because of Wes and all his perfection, Soul would always be a shadow with sharp teeth, waiting to rip out the throat of the family's success with his mistakes.
To his parents, Soul was a monster, and that was all he would ever be.
Soul gave Maka a brief outline of his past, a tiny glimpse of his suffering, but it was not enough - it never was. She ground the information out of him like the drill that had filed down his teeth, and when he gritted out the truth, from beginning to end, she had nothing more she could do but hold him and say "I'm sorry."
This is the way we are, Soul thought as he focused on her breathing, the strength of her arms around his waist, the feeling of her head tucked under his chin, the warmth of her tears because she hadn't been there for him even though there was no feasible way she could have been. This is the way we are. We help each other when no one else can.
As they sat on his comforter on that quiet Sunday morning, one face blank and the other wet with physical heartbreak, all Soul could think was I'm sorry too.