The moon cackled in the sky, it's light filtering through a certain meister's window. Squares of light decorated the sleeping form under the mass of blankets laid out on this cold night.
The night was not a peaceful one.
The air was awash with the sounds of her fitful sleep, the crinkling of her sheets as she tossed and turned tirelessly combined with her silent whimpers and moans of pain. It was quiet at first, but gradually, as the night progressed; it got worse and worse and louder and louder-
It's no wonder that the girls roommate had wandered into her room to make sure she wasn't having an aneurysm.
Actually, not so much wandered as crashed into her room with his arm already partially transformed, swinging it around like a madman out of fear that there was a murderer - or worse, a rapist - in his meister's bedroom and he was ready to mutilate with his own scythe whatever dare cause his meister this kind of distress-
Well, it's obvious the former scenario sounded a hell of a lot cooler than the latter (Read: truth).
Even with his uncool (and overly dramatic) entrance, his meister remained asleep, trapped in what looked like a nightmare. That was both a relief and worry to the young scythe - quickly becoming more of a worry since every whimper of pain that rolled from her lips was like a dagger to his heart because he couldn't do anything about it.
He transformed his arm back into solid flesh and tried to assess a proper way to approach the situation at hand. Should he wake the troubled girl from her nightmare? He could already imagine the lump forming on his head from the 10 thousand page novel she always had on her arsenal, and for just waking her up. Okay, so no, that's not an option unless he wanted a very uncool headache in the morning. Would it be alright to just leave her wallowing in her lucid hell? Maka's next outburst confirmed that to be a hell no, it consisting of a very blood-curdling and blunt scream of terror that made his blood turn to ice.
Without thinking about it, he had rushed to her bed side, and frantically shook the girls shoulder. He didn't care if he got a book to the head, Maka was not okay right then, and he just wanted her screams and shouts of pain to stop.
"Maka, wake up, you're having a nightmare, wake up." He ignored how desperate his voice sounded, trying to get the stubbornly sleeping girl to awake, to stop her shrieks of pain, and to quell her violent actions as she tried to fight off whatever was in her nightmare. If he weren't sick with worry and dread over what had Maka in such a mess, he would've been thankful that her violent throws were not ending up on him.
"OUCH, hey, damn it Maka!"
He takes that back.
After unsuccessfully attempting to wake his meister for what felt like forever, he's surprised when Maka's violent fits abruptly change to her suddenly flipping onto her side, grasping onto his arm and pulling it close to her unconsciously. Its' worse that her sudden change caught him off guard, and now he's awkwardly leaning over his meister to avoid squishing her from suddenly yanking his arm down into her freaking iron grasp.
Only two things are running through Souls mind. 1: not good not good not good not good because if she wakes up and finds him there, his punishment will not be a merciful one and 2: god, when did she smell so good?
He immediately squashes that uncool thought before it can go any further because shit! How was he supposed to get out of this? He attempts to pull his arm from her grasp, but her hold only tightens. It doesn't help that she's fucking nuzzling him now, and making those pitiful noises in the back of her throat that are admittedly kind of cute-
Okay, wait, backtrack, he didn't think that. Now, how was he supposed to get out of this mess? At least she wasn't freaking out and screaming like a banshee anymore. He notices that each time he manages to budge his arm from her grasp even the tiniest bit, she makes a ruckus in the back of her throat as if she's about to freak out again and he freezes. And every time he stops, she just pulls his arm tighter to her and oh god, that last tug made her pulls his arm to her chest, which makes it press against her sort-of-kind-of nicely sized and shaped breast and it's warm and soft against his skin and oh god he's not letting his mind go there-
Breath, Soul, Breath.
Maybe it was best if he just waited until she completely calmed down. He could do that. Just sit and watch over her and make sure she didn't have another conniption. There shouldn't be any harm in that.
"Sooul."
Shiiiit.
He's tensed up in fear and preparation for the Maka-chop of a life time. However, the imminent shot of pain doesn't come. He blinks, and looks down to see that Maka's still asleep - thank lord death. She must've just been sleep-talking. But that raises a question in his head - what was she dreaming about that made her call out to him? He attempts to ignore the connotations of that sentence and the tingling it instigates in his spine because now is not the time for such thoughts and -
Oooooowwwch. She's digging her nails into the meat of his arm, and it takes everything in him not to yelp out uncooly. He focuses on his meisters face to distract himself from the pain, but it hurts him all the more because her face is scrunching up into one of agony, and he's not sure what he can do to help her while she's like this. It's already proved impossible to wake her up, because she's twice the heavy sleeper that he is and it would take a fucking kishin in the room to rouse her from her state of unconsciousness. So he's stuck watching as Maka begins to fuss about once again, whimpering and moaning.
"Nooo."She's all but whining in her sleep. "n-no. don't go. please..." She curls up into a ball, cuddling closer to him, and he tries not to fall onto her as her legs movement nearly causes him to lose balance. He can feel her breath with the close proximity of their faces, and he's not sure if he can take being this close to his meister and just staying like that. However, his own thoughts are enough to distract his body from the current predicament.
Maka must be dreaming about when her mother left her. Although she doesn't say it out loud, he knows that she was far more affected by her mother's leaving than she'll admit. He knows that she misses her and wishes that she didn't leave her with her moronic whore of a father. And then there was her father who left her alone all those times to be with some floozy with big boobs and no brain. It was that idiots fault that Soul had to do so much to gain Maka's trust. Soul's known that Maka has abandonment issues. It worries him that their coming back so strong to haunt her in her sleep, the only safe haven that anyone has.
"Noo, don't leave me." Maka's voice is a lot louder this close. He can hear the hurt laced through her words. He wants to punch both of her parents for making his meister - his Maka - like this. "Please..."
"Please don't leave me, Soul!"
His heart stopped in his chest.
She's dreaming about him leaving her.
The moonlight glints off the tears beginning to stream out of her eyes. "don't leave me alone. p-please." Her body shudders with her sobs, and for the first time since he's met her, Maka actually appears...fragile. She looks so delicate, like if he made the slightest movement, she'd completely crumble.
That's when the strangest thing hits him.
Maka's human.
It's not that he's ever thought that she was anything else, it's just he never really thought about how easily Maka could be broken like any other human being. She'd always been a stubborn rock to him, one that wouldn't bend to anyone or anything. So, finding out that Maka would be so heavily affected if he ever - god forbid- left her, is shocking.
He doesn't even realize what he's doing until he finds his hand - that isn't digging into the bed for support and being held in a certain girls death grip - brushing the tears from under Maka's eyes, and he's cooing "I'm right here, Maka, shhhh."
Apparently, she heard him even in her sleep, because she responds in a voice weighted with exhaustion - both emotionally and physically. "Please stay with me, soul."
She's vulnerable and defenseless before him, and he can't deny her while she's like this.
"Always." He whispers, leaning forward and laying a light kiss on her forehead.
Finally, Maka seems to relax, her grip on his arm loosening enough that he could easily slip it from her grasp. He's just about to do just that so that she can sleep peacefully and he can escape before his will wavers when she whispers in her broken voice. "Stay here with me, please"
His resolve completely crumbles into bits and pieces that he's unable to grasp at. He doesn't even care anymore as he crawls onto the bed beside her, wrapping his arms around her small form and pulling her close to him. Her body moves automatically, cuddling into him, fingers grasping onto his sleep shirt and face nuzzling into his chest. He buries his own face into her hair - he was right before, she does smell good - and doesn't even give a fuck that the next morning he was probably going to be put into a coma from the punishment Maka would deliver him with her thickest novel. All he cared right then was that Maka was sleeping soundly, and that she was safe in his arms.
The heat radiating off of her body and her heartbeat he can feel against his own chest is enough to begin lulling him to sleep. Before sleep can drag him under its warm, tempting blanket, he lays a light kiss on Maka's cheek. A grin spreads on his lips as he hears her mutter unintelligible gibberish and cuddle closer to him.
Yeah, this is absolutely worth the million paged punishment she would deliver him.
