AN: I do not own Soul Eater, or any of it's characters. Those rights belong to Astushi Okubo. This is only Part I of this story, as it has a long way to go. I was participating in an event on tumblr called Resonance Bang( Resbang for short, everyone should check it out because people created seriously incredible things). I myself dropped out because I knew I could not finish this monster in time. I hope you guys enjoy it!
Eight dollars.
Eight fucking dollars for a loaf of bread.
Maka stares at the peeling price tag and sneers as discreetly as possible. Stealing it wasn't an option, as cameras litter every corner of every street and every nook and cranny of every building. In her periphery she can see a cheery employee approaching her, bound to recite the patented 'Is there any way I can assist you on this fine day, good citizen?' . She doesn't think she would be able to handle that without grimacing, so she stuffs her small loaf of over processed white bread into her plastic yellow hand basket as gently as possible, and makes her way to the preserves aisle. Star and Soul both demanded peanut butter, no matter the cost. She smirks to herself at the thought of robbing them both of their entire stash of jollyranchers , vodka, and their dignity in one fell swoop. If they wanted the finer things in life, they would have to pay for them.
She walks to the checkout counter at a brisk pace, fast enough to get her errand done quickly, slow enough not to be noted as an abnormality. The faces around her are all nauseatingly similar, too wide smiles and dull, glazed eyes, their conversations never straying from topics like the current weather or the programs to be running on the television this evening. Maka quickly rights herself, turns her lips up in a wide smile that causes her pain in unexplainable ways. She steps up to the counter and deposits her items. One pack of Luckys for Frank, twenty three dollars. One loaf of white bread, eight dollars. One large jar of peanut butter, fifteen dollars.
Her cheeks are sore and her pride is wounded as she reaches into her worn wallet for a fifty dollar bill she had only procured a few hours ago. She briefly considers the idea of sleeping until the world isn't like this anymore, but she knows it just isn't an option. She takes her four dollars in change and tucks it deeply into her pocket, pulls her empty hand back out and re-adjusts her thumbs into the holes in the sleeves of her ratty black sweatshirt, making sure the black plastic handle of her metal nail file in her sleeve is discreetly hidden. No one attempts to acknowledge her, and she's eternally grateful for this.
As she walks home to the slums of Death City, she watches the cracks in the sidewalk, face turned down and out of range of the cameras along each lamp post. There's a certain crack in the cement that marks where the surveillance stops; it's shaped like a wicked lightning bolt and stretches across the ground beneath her feet, filled with cigarette butts and the dried blood of well, whomever, it didn't really matter. It marked the entry to a 'safe' place, and that's all that matters to her.
She counts her steps. Exactly forty two til the crack in the ground. Her pace increases slightly, soles of her feet uncomfortably aware of the chill of the sidewalk.
Thirty six paces.
She hears a cry in the distance and speeds her steps more.
Twenty five, almost at the home stretch.
A wail of "No, Giriko, stop!"
Her mind screams to run, but she's close, she's almost there.
Ten paces.
An amused growl. "What are you gonna do about it, whore? Call the police?"
Maka feels the bile rise in her throat.
Fucking do something you coward!
Three paces.
And all she can hear is crying now. The sound is coming from behind her. She does not look back.
The lightning bolt in the sidewalk comes into view, and the moment she passes it, she pulls her hood up and sprints as fast as her legs will allow, fingers tight on her file. The exchange behind her grows fainter and fainter with every stride, her conscious obnoxiously loud inside her head. Her lungs ache with gasping breaths and her ears ring.
She can't hear the crying anymore. She hates herself.
Her weapon bites into her skin from her angry grip. A physical reminder of her cowardice. In the distance she hears the sirens of the city, and the air vibrates with the hushed voices of the least restrained. The stench of death and fear surrounds her, but there's an undertone of hope and vitality that possesses her and shoves her to go faster. She can see the abandoned Victorian house on the corner, another marking point that helps her distinguish where home is.
Home for her is beyond this one, in the far corner of town, close to the outskirts but far enough from it to avoid attention. Her house is a slowly deteriorating pale grey, one story from the outside but equipped with a full on bunker. She tries not to think of how ridiculous it is.
This isn't that kind of war.
It's a war for people's souls. Their entire being claimed as public property.
A bunker doesn't change shit if your soul has already been claimed by the devil.
That suffocating feeling she gets whenever she has a moment to think is back, almost blinding in it's force. There's a lump of cotton in her throat and fire in her veins, there's a voice in her head that chants "coward, coward, useless fucking coward!", and her eyes burn in frustration. She knows that maybe she wouldn't have been able to do much good... and that knowledge is agonizing. She wants her death to mean something, but at this rate she's going to die a rotting piece of flesh in that goddamn bomb cellar with a barcode on her neck and half her brain spattered on the wall.
Just as her thoughts wander down progressively darker paths, she's temporarily distracted by her doorstep. She looks up to see a head of white peeking out from behind a curtain, and listens as Soul begins the long process of unlocking the door. She closes her eyes, and with all the metallic sliding and clicking, she can almost imagine perfectly the bars of a prison cell around her.
"Get in here, quick." His voice snaps her out of her reverie once more and she rushes in the door, sliding the deadbolt back in place as soon as she's over the threshold. She faces the ivory haired boy, blinks, and shoves the grocery bag into his arms.
"There you go. You owe me, you know." She tries to sound as irritated as possible to cover the turmoil within her.
"What happened?" Shit. Apparently she failed.
"Nothing out of the ordinary." Her face is schooled into indifference, but just as he opens his mouth to call bullshit, Star comes up behind him and reaches around him to snatch away the peanut butter from Soul's grasp.
"Hey asshole, you better share or I'll castrate you myself. Would a 'thank you' kill you?"
"Wow Maka, what's the deal, you on the rag or something?" Star knows how much she hates ignorant statements like that, and waggles his eyebrows antagonistically as her hands curl into fists, and Soul has to catch her hand in his own before she can crush Black Star's nose, stroking the back of her hand soothingly. She wants to hit Soul too for defending Dr. Dickweed, but at the same time she's thankful. She really ought to save up all that fire for an actual enemy, rather than her irritating as shit brother-figure.
"Fuck off Star, not in the mood," she snarls, pulling her hand out of Soul's grip and heading to her eight by eight cell. Maybe being away from people for a while will help?
Her plan backfires, and the voice in her head gets louder.
You let another person suffer because you were afraid to. You're the epitome of useless. You're a fucking coward. What good are you to the world with your shit resolve? What good will you ever do if you can't even rescue a woman from a dark alley?
She shoves her face into her threadbare sheets and screams silently. What a pathetic existence.. even by today's standards..
"What the fuck happened out there Maka?"
"Look Soul, I know the world is shit now and everything, but you should still have the common courtesy to knock," she grumbles, not bothering to hide how irked she is. He smirks slightly from his place leaned against the doorjamb, raps his knuckles on the crumbling drywall before making his way to the edge of her bed and taking a seat.
"That wasn't an answer, but I'll remember next time if you tell me what happened." Her stomach lurches.
"Giriko. Had some fun with some girl.. I don't know what happened really but.. It's Giriko." She picks at her blunt fingernails,cheek pressed into the bed, trying desperately to assimilate herself with her stiff mattress.
"Are you alright?"
"I'm fine. The girl I left to die in an alley with the scum of the earth hovering over her? I dunno how she's doing." It's meant to sound angry, but it comes out as a tired mumble, muffled in her sheets.
"'What were you supposed to do, Maka? It's not your job to protect everyone. Just focus on taking care of yourself, please. I've already lost enough people to this.."
"You talk about courage like it's a disease."
"It'll kill you far faster than any disease will." She knows that he's being logical. She knows that statistically, yes, he's correct. It does not change how irritated she is with his bone deep complacency though.
It's not that she can exactly blame him. He watched as his brother was practically lobotomized. Soul was seven, Wes was thirteen. Wes had had the gall to question his school teacher. The lesson had been about Death City history. Miss Eruka had told the class that Death City had been a wasteland before Madeline Gorgon, she was a hero.
Wes had said he didn't believe that.
And after school that day, as he lay on the living room floor, drawing on old cardboard with Soul, they came for him and took him away in a straight jacket. Soul's parents let the uniformed men take their eldest son away without a fight. Soul.. Soul tried to stop them. He screamed like the child he was, punching at their legs and crying for them to give his brother back. The tallest man had squatted down to Soul's level smiling cruelly, and taken a knife to Souls tiny chest.
A permanent reminder of why not to question Madeline Gorgon.
His Mother cried. She cried until the tears were gone, sewed him up as dry sobs wracked her thin frame. She watched his shallow, unconscious breaths stuttering for two days, cleaning his wound compulsively, watching his eyebrows twitch and furrow as his soul battled with his body. She did not sleep until he woke. When he finally opened a bleary, tearful eye, she wept tears of relief and held him in her arms as tight as his chest would allow. She apologized for hours, crying into his uninjured shoulder, petting his matted silvery hair, begging for him to forgive her...
It's been fifteen years, and he still wakes up with tears in his eyes and a feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach.
The first time he and Maka had been together, he told her the story of how he got that scar. She wept for the first time in years, drenching old scar tissue in her empathy for him, arms wrapped tightly around him. All he had done was try to protect someone he loved, and all he got in return was grief, fear, and pain.
So no. Maka can't blame him for his cowardice. He's smart. He's logical. And it would make her a hypocrite to do so.
She pulls herself upright and scoots toward him, leans her forehead against his shoulder and takes his left hand in both of hers with a heavy sigh. The tips of his fingers trace along her palm, seeking out the four tiny crescent shaped scars there. He grazes them lightly, as if trying to remove them with gentle touch. Her fingers twitch but she makes no move to remove her hand from his grip, just lets him silently fuss over her. She'd like to be able to talk with him more, maybe be a little honest, maybe just sit in silence, but as it's been said, all good things must come to an end.
Star busts into the room(sans knocking) with a bottle of vodka in one hand, and an open jar of peanut butter with three spoons in it in the other.
"C'mon losers, lets get a little not so damned bitter, how's that sound?." A temporary fix for a permanent problem, she knows, but Star's offer is far too tempting.
"Alright asshole. Thanks for sharing.."
"What, you actually thought I wasn't going to share? I'm hungry, not fucking barbaric." He offers her a little grin and hands her the bottle first. She gives him a tiny nod of thanks and tilts the bottle to her lips, pulling down a shot in each gulp.
Though the consumption process is unpleasant, the vodka leaves a warm feeling in her belly and a fog inside her mind, both of which she she appreciates. She attempts to hand the bottle back to Black Star, but he only shakes his head and gestures over to Soul, who accepts the bottle gratefully, taking a few large slugs, grimacing while he swallows and scrubbing the taste from his lips with a tattered black sleeve. The bottle makes its rounds a few time until it's about half drained.
Soul and Star sit on the end of Maka's bed, playing war with a deck of cards that is so beaten up that those who play with them have been able to memorize which card is what just from the pattern of creases and nicked edges that riddle each one. Their rhythm is hypnotic, and Maka takes solace in the way watching them play can engulf the majority of her thoughts for the time being. Once in awhile she catches echos of a terrified plea inside her head, but they are almost harmonized with the rhythm of the cards of war. A little monotonous song played special, just for her.
She's startled out of her hazy trance when Star wins this seemingly never ending game of war, whooping as quietly as he can and sticking his tongue out at Soul is an almost amusing display of childish behaviour. Soul scoffs, nudging Star not-so-gently with his foot, and Star ends up in an undignified heap on the floor.
"Fine, whatever dick, next time I won't share," the blue haired boyish man snarks arrogantly, sticking his nose up in the air, one hand filled with what is left of his goodies, the other hand gesturing at Soul with hostility, one appendage protruding angrily from his hand while all others curl in.
A fuck you, to be clear.
Soul only laughs, and leans back on the bed, stretched out about a foot away from Maka, his linked hands resting idly on his stomach. Black Star closes the door behind him with an indignant huff as he scuffs his way into the hall. Maka vaguely registers this information as Soul curls toward her side, one hand seeking hers. Maka accepts without hesitation, though she squeezes a bit harder than she would normally. She feels the bones of his fingers grind together and quickly loosens her grip. Why had she done that?
Right, she's mad. He's a coward. Or something.
Not that she isn't just as terrible or worse..
She sighs sullenly, turning toward her companion and pressing her face into the collar of his shirt, fingers more gentle this time as they curl around his.
"Soul?"
"Mm?"
"What if the world was different? And we.. we were free?"
"We aren't though. Why do you torture yourself like this Maka? It would be easier for you if you just accepted it.. I know it's really fucked up, but maybe.. maybe you could be happy. Or at least not miserable."
"I just don't understand how you can accept it. There's so many atrocities.. so much injustice. If we wanted to change things.. I mean, if enough of us wanted to change things, we could. I know we could. Power in numbers, right?"
"Don't ever, ever, try to be a hero in this world Maka. Look out for yourself, that's your only concern. You'll get killed with radical ideas like that, so keep them to yourself, okay? I really don't know what I would do if you got taken.."
"You'd come through for me, I know you would."
"You really shouldn't have so much blind faith Maka-"
"It's not blind faith Soul, I can see things you don't. You'll pull through when you have to."
"How can you say that so confidently?"
"I already told you. I see things you don't." They lay together a while, studying each other's expressions. Though he's excellent at picking up on the little details of her face and the quirk of her lips, she's far better at interpreting said details. He can't read her properly, but she reads him perfectly. Frightened, and worried.
But most of all, she sees devotion.
So yes, she trusts him to come through for her if ever she needs him. If things continue on as they are much longer, she may need his help much sooner than either of them are comfortable with.
She pulls her hand away from his, removes her file from the elastic around her wrist and tucks it beneath her pillow. When she lays back down, she's nose to nose with him, eyes shut to avoid headache.
"You smell like booze and grade school. It's really confusing and a little gross," he mutters against her mouth, lips quirked in a cocky little smirk that makes her feel a little less hopeless for whatever reason.
"Shut up, dork. Go back to your worrying or something," she gripes, lower lip pushed out beyond upper, brushing against his. He presses their mouths together a bit more firmly, a chaste kiss, and tucks her close to his chest.
"As if I ever stop," he murmurs into her hair, words heavy in his heart and on his tongue. Caring for another in the world today is incredibly unwise…
But if ever there were a person worth being unwise for, it would be Maka.
He breathes slowly with a deliberate sort of calm, because he knows she will automatically harmonize with him, and she falls asleep much faster when calming them both is a task left to him. It's only a few minutes of their quiet song of breath before he feels the rigidity leave her body as she slips into slumber. He lets his heavy lids fall closed, absorbing her warmth and radiating it back to her.
The air is thick and coppery, the way it smells after a disappearance and before a storm, electrically charged and heavy in her lungs. She is trudging down an alley that ought to lead to her street, but it just leads into another alley identical to the last, faded rust coloured brick leading into faded rust coloured brick, the asphalt beneath her feet repeating over and over, and each time she trips over the same crack, stumbling and skinning her knees and palms raw. She can hear high pitched, feminine sobs coming from behind her, and turns around to run to the source, maybe help whoever it is.
But the cries are always coming from behind her, no matter what way she turns, and every time she rounds another corner, it's just more brick, the wails reverberating off the walls and inside her head.
She trips over that same crack once more, knees a bloody mess of torn up flesh mottled with tiny pebbles and gritty filth. She screams in frustration, tumbling back onto her rear and examining her wounds. They seep an inky black, smell of rot, death, and foreboding. She feels like expelling the contents of her stomach onto the pavement, but her heaves produce nothing but more of the inky liquid onyx.
When she pulls herself to her feet to attempt to find the voice once again, the walls curl in around her, and when she claws at the brick, her fingernails pull back, obsidian blood dripping down to her elbows. The bricks turn to thick glass windows, and she sees Madeline Gorgon, smile saccharine sweet, completely surrounded by men and women in lab coats who sport identical expressions of muted curiosity. She sees Frank's blank face at the forefront of the crowd, studying her in a fashion so detached it terrifies her.
Maka opens her mouth to scream, and it comes out a choked whisper. Her hands fly to her throat, eyes wide in horror. When she looks back to Madeline, she sees a twittering grayscale bird in the pale woman's grasp, and Maka feels the tears start to well.
Madeline clenches her taloned fist, and Maka falls to the ground in a twitching heap, her chest aching and her vocal cords cut. Her sobs rasp silently, and Maddy watches on from outside the box, looking thoroughly amused.
"Funny how fragile these things are, isn't it darling?" Madeline sneers, her voice hollow and metallic as it pours out through the speakers that litter every corner of the box Maka is trapped within. Her head spins and her stomach rolls violently, her lungs constricting and body shaking with tremors. Her vision tunnels, and the last thing she can see before the darkness swallows her whole, is Madeline's spidery fingers going slack, ashes slithering through the cracks between them and piling on the ground in an ever-growing heap. Every choking breath Maka takes is saturated in ash and crushed hope.
And the then the black suffocates her.
She wakes up shivering, burrowed into Soul's chest and feeling terribly claustrophobic with his arms wrapped around her shoulders. She tries to slow her heartbeat, stop panicking so she doesn't wake him, but everything within her screams to get out, get away, get free.
She squirms out of his embrace and onto the floor, gasping for air to replace the ink in her lungs, coughing on nothing and eyes tearing up. The light shines angrily in her eyes and she covers them with her scarred palms, nearly attacking Soul like a cornered animal when he places a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"Shit, sorry I just.. shit.. I uh, bad dream. Hah, d-didn't mean to wake you.."
"Jesus christ Maka, don't apologize for that.. you okay?"
"Hah. Yeah.. I'm fine. Don't even remember what I dreamt of.. go back to sleep. Sorry about that..." His brows pull close together in concern as he studies her, pupils pinned in reaction to the light they had fallen asleep without extinguishing. He kneels beside her, pulling her hair away from the back of her neck gently, feeling the dampness from her terrified cold-sweat still clinging to her locks. He expects her to recoil from him, but she doesn't. She falls into his chest in exhaustion, panting against the skin of his neck as she shivers uncomfortably.[13] He sighs quietly, presses his lips to her forehead, stroking her back to calm her tremors. He can feel her words whispering into him, almost silent but not quite.. "I'm fine..was nothing.. just a stupid dream…" and a knot ties itself in his innards. This world isn't good enough for a person like Maka.
"Come on. Come back to bed. If you can't sleep, I'll stay awake with you until you get tired."
"Don't.. It's fine. I'm fine, promise.. C'mon, you need to be up in two hours. Let's go back to sleep." Her hands still tremble slightly as she grasps at his, but she's steady on her feet when they stand from their place on the ragged old carpet. He has her crawl in first, and follows soon after, placing a warm palm on her hip but respecting her space as well. She won't ever admit to him how much she appreciates it.
She hears him shuffling around the kitchen an hour and a half later, most likely brewing them some coffee that's far past it's prime and scrounging for some bread ends(apparently Star ran out of generosity in the sharing department.) She doesn't have to be up for another hour at least, but after about eight minutes of counting termite holes in the ceiling, she resigns herself to the fact that she won't be getting any more rest before work, and rolls out of bed, stiff joints creaking and popping, ears ringing from the blood rushing to her toes as she stands. She stumbles when a wave of nausea hits her along with visions of dark wounds, but she forgets as soon as she remembers, shaking the images from her head as she searches for her tattered army green coveralls amongst the miscellaneous laundry.
Her skin aches and protests to the rough fabric of her factory uniform, and she winces as it scrapes over her shoulders. She can hear the floorboards creak outside the door, buttons the last button on her uniform and turns to face it as it opens to reveal Soul in his own work uniform, an old beaten up orange jumpsuit with thick black gloves, the kind that are fire-proof, glass-proof, blood, guts, and everything-proof really. He's got a chipped mug filled with bland coffee in each hand, and offers her the stronger cup, she assumes. She thanks him quietly and sits down on their bed to sip at her motivation for the day, and he sits beside her silently to do the same. He doesn't ask her again about her dreams, but she can feel him thinking of it, unsettled and concerned. She offers him a small smile that she's sure doesn't reach her eyes, and he gives her one that most likely mimics hers perfectly, eyes unfocused as if he's trying very hard to remember something hopeful enough to dredge up this pathetic excuse for a smile.
It makes her heart hurt.
Though that's nothing new.
The mechanical rhythm that surrounds her is almost enough to drown out her thoughts, but watching that sickeningly familiar onyx drink being siphoned into thick glass bottles, capping them as they pass her on the conveyor belt, it's all too deja vu, so ingrained into her mind that it makes her ill. She passes time by stealing glances at the other workers around her, trying to pick out who is actually numb and who is just pretending to be. Most faces are blank, though the girl just to her left, Tsubaki she thinks is her name(or worker 5963 as her uniform suggests), this girl's eyebrow twitches every once in awhile, as if she's irritated or in pain. Certainly anything but numb. Maka feels for her.
Her focus is pulled away from the ebony haired girl beside her when she hears a familiar voice faintly behind her.
"I can't condone distribution until the kinks are worked out Maddy..Yes..yes, I understand that it needs to be done quickly, but it also needs to be done properly and there are too many side effects. Our human trial is testament to that, is it not? Right, just a bit more ti-"
Frank's voice is swallowed up by the shuddering, hacking machines all around her.
Human trials.
Side effects.
Just a bit more time..
What the hell could Frank possibly be working on? God knows that if Madeline Gorgon has her name stamped on it next to her seal of approval, it can't be anything good.. The woman is an abomination, a stain on the face of humanity, though thoughts like that are sure to get Maka disappeared, so she fixes her face into a blank slate of indifference as her mind races in worried circles. This is how she spends her day, surrounded by mindless chatter and machinery, worrying for reasons she's entirely unsure of.
Her trek home is lengthy and tiring, though void of any screaming girls and filthy wretched cops, for which she's eternally grateful..
She keeps her head angled toward the ground even after she passes the lightening bolt fissure in the cement, hood pulled tight around her ears, fists clenched and ready at her sides. Star greets her at the door with a tight lipped smile. Unusual for a man of his disposition. Soul is propped up against the living room wall, staring straight ahead into nothing, and he doesn't acknowledge her until she's right beside him, shaking his shoulder gently and kissing him on the cheek softly. It's a little offensive when he almost cringes away from her touch. He smiles at her, small and apologetic, returning her kiss to show it was indeed received. His eyes look tinged pink around the rims, his face unnaturally pallid. She looks at him questioningly, but he just shakes his head, so she instead turns to Black Star. Even he looks ill.
"You guys look kinda.. pale. You alright?"
"Don't mind Soul. He's just a little freaked. Found some chick all slashed up at work today.. It was pretty gnarly for sure, but Soul's just being a little bitch about it."
"Fuck off Star."
Maka gets it though. It hits her like a train when she figures it out.
The girl they found today was the one she lost yesterday.
She's getting sick of the feeling of her innards flip flopping awfully fast, and the last place she imagined she'd end up today was with her cheek on a toilet seat as she expels what little lunch she ate. But the enamel is cool on her feverish skin, an unexpected and slightly revolting comfort, an oxymoron if ever she knew one.
Soul knocks on the door, asks softly if she's okay, if she needs anything, and of course the answer is yes, no, don't worry about it. She can imagine him on the other side of this flimsy barrier, mouth open to say words he doesn't possess, hand twitching toward the doorknob and halting with the sound of another dry retch. She curls herself around the basin, eyes squeezed tightly shut as she listens to his retreating footsteps.
Somewhere along the line she dozes off, awakening to a metallic clicking, and she's got her file clenched in an anxious fist tucked behind her back before she's even fully conscious. She's relieved momentarily when she realizes it's only Frank.
Then seriously irritated, because she realizes it's Frank, and he picked the lock to get to her, the bastard.
"Get out," she croaks, fingers loosening their grip on her weapon slightly. Her tongue sticks to the roof of her grimy mouth with every clumsy consonant. Frank just closes the door behind him, sitting on the rim of the bathtub and studying her.
"Feeling a little under the weather?"
"Please leave me alone, please?"
"I'm afraid I can't really do that until I know what the problem is. So. What's wrong?"
Her stomach clenches, but she hasn't got anything to give anymore, instead steeling herself to ask him.
"What were you talking about on the phone today?" The indication that it's a question lie only in the words, her voice cool and steady. It's more like a demand than anything. His lip curls downward slightly. She never was big on subtlety or tact. Just like her dad..
"A new experiment of sorts. It's only in it's early stages but she's pushing to get it into mass production by tomorrow. I advised against it, but in the end she can ignore any advice i give entirely. Which is what I am assuming she will do." His glasses, perched upon the crown of his head, reflect an image of her back to her when he turns to face her directly. She looks like shit, she notices bitterly, but what's worse is that Frank looks just as tired. Never a good sign.
"What's the experiment on Frank?"
"I'm not free to dis-"
"Frank."
He sighs heavily, pulling his glasses down from their perch to rub them clean with a pocket handkerchief. He pauses for a long moment, silence loaded and ringing in it's hollowness.
"She's having me create a drug that induces sterility in weak hosts. Only the strongest embryo would have a chance to survive. Superior genetics means survival. All others are weeded out before they can grow." His tone is clinical, cool and composed, but his brow twitches and his fingers curl into tight fists. She knows he doesn't want to do this, but still...
"...That's fucking sick! Why?! This isn't Sparta, you can't do that! Why would you go along with something like that? What the fuck is wrong with-"
"Oh as if I actually had a choice. I'm just as disposable to her as anyone else. Not to mention the catastrophe that would occur were she to get curious about my after work activities. You do understand what would happen if Madeline followed me home, don't you?"
She does understand. They'd all be as good as dead. She doesn't even want to contemplate the kind of torture that would be concocted for Marie.
She wishes things were simple as right and wrong, black and white, but it all muddles together into this conglomeration of gray, and grey, and all that lie between. Stein is that conglomeration, and as hard as she tries to damn him, she can't. His reasoning is valid. They would be doomed without his moral flexibility, and she fucking despises this fact, almost as much as she loves her twisted, surprisingly sentimental godfather.
Almost, but not quite.
"Yes. I understand."
What she doesn't understand is why Madeline would even want to do such a thing. It scrambles the whole pecking order. The strong are meant to prey on the weak, and without the weak the whole cycle is fucked. Beyond that, more people means more workers, more workers receive less pay, and food prices skyrocket because of availability. Economically, Madeline would be committing a huge folly. Why would a woman possessing such intelligence, a woman of such stature and such greed, make that kind of mistake?
Maka's missing something, she knows she is…
Apparently she did have something left in her stomach to expel. Incredible really, what are the odds?
She cringes when clammy hands pull her hair out of her face, but says nothing, internally marveling at how a man who could cause so much havoc for so many can still be so kind to some. Frank tucks her hair into the back of her jumper, standing to leave her be when she ceases her heaves, stopping in his tracks when she spits out a plea of 'Wait!'.
He pauses in the door frame, looking over a shoulder at her hunched over frame.
"What is it Maka?" She doesn't know. She's not really ever sure of anything nowadays, but sometimes she gets these awful moments of clarity.[14] In these moments, she realizes that she's not the only one who struggles in this world. Not by a long shot.
"I'm sorry Frank." Her words come out brittle and raspy, but powerful in meaning. He allows a small, sad smile to slip onto his face briefly, closing the door behind him with a quiet, solemn click. She's left there confused, and lightheaded, body aching and brain far too scrambled to sort this shit out.
She heaves herself up to lean against the sink, turns the hot water on and lets it run. When she leans down to take a drink directly from it, the water scalds her lips, but it clears the fog from her head momentarily, while it washes the grit and bile from her tongue and between her teeth. She spits it down the drain disdainfully, then looks up to study her reflection in the warped polished steel they use as a poor substitute for a mirror. It's like examining herself in silverware, her features all distorted, forehead massive, circles under her bottom lashes deep and wide like pools of smudged ink. She does not try to look into her own eyes. She already knows she can't.
She needs sleep desperately.
When she's found some stability, she clumsily makes her way to her bed, not at all surprised to find Soul already there mostly undressed, flat on his back and staring intently at the ceiling.
"Hey." Even this sticks to every crevice in her mouth before tumbling forth from her cracked lips, staticy and quiet. She's hesitant to join him, even though the space is just as much hers as it is his. It's like suddenly being aware that she's only a soul, wrapped up in a clumsy, blundering meat suit, with bones that are prone to breaking, and skin that blisters with the changing weather.
Hideously uncomfortable is a massive understatement.
"Hey. C'mere." And just like magic, her feet shuffle forth, relocating her to her place beside the bed after she closes the door behind her and flicks the outlawed lock into place. She shimmys out of her work uniform, kicks it off to the side before slipping into bed beside him. The wall between the bathroom and their room is paperthin unfortunately. She already knows the answer to the question she wants to ask.
"Did you hear what Frank sai-"
"Stop. Please? Just.. Let's just sleep for a while, okay?" She wants to so badly. She wants to sleep, and sleep, and wake up in a different era, where the concrete is cracked by hearty tree roots, and overgrown with flowers, and nobody is hungry, and everyone is free.
But she is here, and she is now, and there are things that need to be addressed
"How, Soul? How am I supposed to just sleep this off? Aren't you freaked out? For all we know, that snake could put this shit in our water source and no one would be the wiser. She has taken away every right we possess as human beings. I don't know what the answer is, but I know what it isn't. A nap isn't going to fix this Soul.. Something needs to change.."
"Don't. Please Maka… for me, don't even talk like that. The wrong person hears you? You're as good as dead." The tips of his right fingertips trace the delicate, fragile skin of her throat reverently. His eyebrows knit together, and she can tell what he's thinking, imagining her fluttering pulse sputtering to a stop, her eyes wide and glossed over, soul evacuated body.
She pulls his ear to her chest, right against her left breast, above her strong heart. It's still thumping hard beneath her ribs, slightly faster than usual from exertion, but it's beating nontheless, a fact which he places all his comfort within.
"Soul… I don't know what I should be doing… I don't know what anyone should be doing.. I'm fucking lost. But what I do know, is that if i let this go… if I don't do something about this, no one ever will. I can't.. I don't want this to be the way things are until I die. I wanna be around when people can love each other and not have to hide it. I'm so sick of this shit.. She can't take this.. she's taken our rights to speak freely. She's taken our right to think freely, our right to love freely, she's taken it all. But she can't have this. It's my body, not hers. It's… I..."
"Maka…" He wonders why she's the one speaking of sorrow yet it's his eyes brimming with it.
"My body is the only thing that belongs to me anymore.. She can't take that away from me.."
He'd have to be a fool to not notice how her heart has sped up, humming against his ear, cacophonous and melodic all at once, so real, so her, that it makes him ache. Her fingers card through his hair slowly, deliberate in their movements. He lets out a breathy sigh that tickles her collarbone, and allows himself a tiny smile when she shivers. This hurts.
He wants to stop Madeline. He wants to start a family. He wants a safe home, and clean water, and food in their cabinets. He wants healthy children who never go hungry, never battle for their lives.
He wants this beautiful woman beside him to have everything she deserves and then some. But like she said, all that they have of their own now is their bodies, and even those won't be entirely theirs for long, apparently..
Even after all their years of being together, touching each other, loving each other, it still feels so new every time. She grasps his face between her hands so gently, like his jaw is glass wrapped in rose petal, kissing his mouth so lightly, lips slightly open, breathing him in. He's dazed by her softness, brow furrowing in confusion until he decides that this is exactly what should be happening now, she's always right, always beautiful in her truth. His hands wind into her ashy hair, tugging her face closer. He breaks their kiss only to trail more up her jaw, to her cheekbone. He presses his own cheek to hers, his arms looped around her middle tightly, and murmurs,
"The only person I belong to, is you, Maka.." He pulls her earlobe between his teeth and sucks, and she gasps into the thick air that surrounds these bodies they inhabit. Their limbs tangle, breaths mingling, hands roaming each other's bodies reverently. The few bits of cloth that separate them itch their skin terribly, and somehow they both know without needing to speak that their clothes need to be shed immediately.
He pulls out of her embrace to hover over her shimmering body, untucking the end of her bindings. He slips a hand beneath the middle of her back as he straddles her hips, pulling her up toward him and undoing the loops of her bindings torturously slowly, leaning down to kiss each inch of skin that is freed as he discovers it, sucking at the slight swell of her breasts. His teeth scrape her delicate skin and make her squirm and moan as her sex moistens in excitement. She can feel him, hard and hot, pressed against her belly as she writhes beneath him, trying to get some sort of friction between her thighs, and crying out in frustration when she can't.
She feels a little tug against the skin of her torso, and then a lot of relief, her bindings falling away, and she realizes they're both almost entirely naked, all that lie between them is their underwear now.
The scar on his chest reflects the light like the polished metal of a shield, so vivid and stark in contrast to the rest of him. This is what happened when he decided to be brave. This is what he knows may await her if she gets careless.
This is what keeps him awake at night.
She likes to think that she can heal old wounds with courage and kisses, she's always been a realist with a romantic twist. And so she crawls atop him, kissing up the length of his scar slowly, trying to convey how much she wishes she could have protected him all those years ago, and how much she hopes she can make up for it in the years to come, if she is lucky enough to be granted a future.
She sheds her bottoms, rids him of his, and when she kisses his mouth, she swallows his gasp as she sinks down onto him, their fingers interlocked above his head. The air in the room is cool against their slick, flushed skin, and Maka's nipples stiffen, pretty pink and taunting, just beyond his reach. She unlaces their fingers to press her chest against his as she rocks, shuddering and sighing his name into the sweet skin of his throat. This is the one place where she feels like she has power, where she has a say in what happens to her and what does not.
This is freedom. Being completely one with Soul is freedom.
But freedom like this is only temporary, a point further proved by the clenching of her muscles, the tension that winds inside her, tight, tight, tight, and let's go with a breathy sob muffled into Soul's shoulder. She can feel him lose his freedom within her hardly a moment later, but they still cling to each other long after, keeping each other warm, offering protection from the frigid chill of the world.
He's still inside of her when she pulls back to look into his burgundy eyes, her's resembling grass covered with dew, lashes darkened with moisture and sticking together in thick clumps. He brushes the salt water from beneath her eyes with gentle thumbs, palms cradling her cheeks. He knows. He already knows what she feels she must do.
He also knows that there isn't anything he could possibly do to stop her.
"Be safe," he whispers, kissing her forehead once she's settled down beside him.
She doesn't say anything back, just burrows into the crook of his shoulder and tries to find sleep.
At work, she notices far more people fidgeting than she ever had before. Maybe she's just hypersensitive now, or maybe these others also heard Frank on the phone earlier, but either way, they are very much awake, and aware, and uncomfortable to say the least.
She tries to think in a rhythm, matching up with the machinery around her so that no one thought could be loud enough to get her into trouble. Lunch is in forty two minutes, lasting fifty six minutes. She sees seven possible allies, five girls and two boys. That leaves her seven minutes to get each person's attention and invite them to her home to tell them about this infertility drug, which leaves her a few minutes to compose herself. If she's mistaken and these people aren't receptive, she's dead. If she's careless, and gets caught, she and all these people are dead. The odds aren't really in her favor..
Then again, when have they ever been?
The minutes tick by sluggishly, and she steals glances at all her would-be allies every thirty seconds. The one with the short, strawberry blonde haircut, worker 777, Kimial Deihl, looks at nearly everything with thinly veiled disdain, and though Maka is sure this Kim is most likely a pain in the ass, she's also different than most others in the masses. In this case, different is good.
Beside her is a darkhaired beauty, whose name escapes Maka, but her number is 451. She fidgets and flushes frequently, usually at something worker 777 spits from between gritted teeth. But beneath that girlish demeanor, Maka sees something fierce and restrained within her her inky black eyes. There is a passion within her, Maka's sure of it. Passion could be useful if directed properly…
Worker 8 seems eternally irked by nearly everything, but surprisingly composed the majority of the time. A few times she thinks she can see his lips curling around the words "hideously uneven" while he attempts to label a bottle of the ebony poison the citizens of Death City affectionately refer to as Noir.
But really, she can't be certain.
Eventually he gives in and tosses the bottle back onto the conveyor belt, muttering and tugging his ski cap snug around his ears, and Maka is surprised to feel the beginnings of laughter get caught in her throat. She coughs into her elbow to disguise it, glad to see no one pays her any mind.
Maka notices that worker number 8 has a girl on either side of him. To his right, there is a young blonde woman with a short haircut, worker 11, snapping the caps onto the Noir bottles with such enthusiasm it's a wonder she doesn't crush the bottles beneath her excited fist. Maka isn't exactly sure how this girl has been left unchecked, she fits the profile for those quick to be disappeared, but then again, she seems a bit airheaded. No real threat to anyone, but maybe in need of friends…
With a cringe worthy smash, one of those bottles shatter beneath worker 11's might, and Maka isn't quite certain, but she thinks she may have seen a manic grin dance across that childlike face, if only for a split second.
Maybe Maka didn't give worker 11 enough credit.
But what really catches Maka's interest is the long haired blonde woman cleaning up the shattered glass at lightening speed and disposing of it before anyone can even blink. She is the one who reigns in the other woman's suspicious delight.
Worker 88.
She stands tall and proud, but not too proud. She is beautiful enough to hold attention, but not draw it. She is the glue of their three person unit it seems.
Maka envies her that.
There's another, a boy with dark skin and neat braids in his hair, and she cannot see his eyes at all, kept hidden behind the shine on the lenses he wears. His brow is slightly furrowed though, frustration showing, not confusion or anything of the sort. Worker 212. Beside him, a dark haired man with impenetrable lenses over his eyes, worker 15004, nudges 212's ribs, and his brow relaxes immediately.
She doesn't know how she didn't notice them all before now. All the workers… no. All the people who show distain for this construct they dwell within. It's almost frightening that even she, who holds so much resentment toward this situation, could still be so blind to the reality of things..
She is pulled from her thoughts by a quiet murmuring coming from the boy beside her. She glances at him from her periphery, and recognizes him immediately.
Justin Law, worker 614, employee of the month four years running. An odd duck if ever she knew one, but maybe that could work in her favor. After all, normalcy in a world such as this only indicates idiocy.
The bell rings for lunchtime and all workers face the television screen in the upper righthand corner of the factory room. Today's special is meatloaf, and she's briefly grateful for the fact that eating is not on her agenda for today.
She decides to approach worker 777 first, to get the biggest challenge out of the way, or something like that. She knows that worker 777 stands to get a drink from the water fountain at exactly 12:32 every day, and when she does, just as Maka knew she would, Maka stands as well, pacing herself so she will cross paths with 777 about three feet before the water fountain. Maka tries to think of something to say to her that won't sound crazy, but will also interest 777, and she comes up short. What comes out instead is,
"Don't drink the water."
To say that 777 looks confused would be a massive understatement. She looks absolutely stupefied.
But.. she does not drink the water.
And Maka marks this as the first victory in a long line of battles within the war to come. 777 Strikes her as the curious type. She need not approach her again, 777 will approach her, with 451 in towe.
The others are a bit more difficult. Most people move in packs, surrounded by blank faces and venomous intentions. She decides that worker 8 will be her next target, and she is ready to approach his table when worker 11, with the childish face and frightening strength, stands directly in her path. Maka is ready to just walk around her, until worker 11 speaks.
"Waddaya want with our Kiddo, huh lady? You've been eyein' him up all day. You got a problem? Do ya?" 11's round face is alight with fury and protectiveness, and Maka is bewildered. How in god's name has this girl survived this long without being silenced?
Her answer comes in the form of a steely cool glare that comes from 88, setting 11 in her place quickly and efficiently. 11's lips snap into a firm, thin line, eyes wide and agitated, but she merely nods almost imperceptibly to 88, and they turn to leave, but Maka feels the desperation clutch like a vice about her heart, squeezing so hard she spits out an almost cough of a quiet, frantic, 'Wait!'.
She checks all those she can see in her periphery, and luckily, the only attention she's caught is that of 11 and 88, who glare icily at her once more, 88's toe tapping impatiently, and Maka can't help but think of how terrible this all must look objectively. Lord help them, if a Lord does indeed exist, because she's tempting death, bound to drag these ladies down with her if she doesn't handle the situation delicately.
88 looks ready to wring Maka's pretty little throat, so she checks once more for uninvited listeners, checks the positions of the security cameras for the thousandth time this week, finds the blind spot and heads there after mouthing 'Please' to 88.
Maka sits at her invisible table, as she affectionately refers to it when no one is around to hear, and waits. After three minutes with her head down as she picks at her nails under the table, she risks a glance upward. 88 is nowhere to be found, but 8 makes his way over to her, nonchalant and reserved looking, hair tucked up into his hat. He sits opposite her at the table, hands folded neatly on it's surface. He doesn't look at her directly, rather he studies the pattern of lines in his hands, waiting for her to address him. She's not really certain how to go about this.
Really she's fucking lost and terrified of all the possible outcomes of her putting her trust in anyone other than her home.
But she's the one who wanted to change things, and this is the first step.
"I'm Maka."
"Kid."
"Pardon?"
"You may call me Kid. My associates noticed you noticing us. Well, me in particular. Was there something we could help you with?"
And it's so easy, it almost seems like a trap.
Walking across a bed of hot coals seems less daunting than thinking up a safe response to this boy's inquiry, but her goals require allies, real people to stand beside her and rise up with her, and she's sure of this being the only way of acquiring such.
She shakes her head, the movement so slight that even others in the room beyond Kid himself could not possibly notice. Beneath the table, she nudges one of his feet slightly, and he looks quite taken aback, agitated by her actions even, but she just shakes her head once more, and he adopts a stony expression. From her sleeve, she tugs a note with directions on it. It's not directly to her home, just leads him to beyond the lightening bolt fissure, but close enough for a cold feeling of dread to well up in her stomach.
This moment can destroy her. And after this moment, there will be several more with the potential to destroy not only her, but her family. She has to keep reminding herself, this is for the greater good, this needs to be done. There is no other option.
She crumples the note in her first as small as she can, poking around beneath the table blindly until she finds a knee. Kid, as he calls himself, looks quite uncomfortable with this new development, but accepts the note with grace the moment she finds his hand. She gives a tiny nod, which he reciprocates, lips pulled into a tight, solemn line. She watches as he adjusts his hat, tucking the note beneath it.
He's smart. If someone were to search him, the pockets would be first, never his cap. She feels slightly better knowing she's entrusted such sensitive information with someone meticulous and intelligent.
Slightly better. Not much.
But he smiles at her, warmly, just the smallest curve of his lips, then he's gone, off to confer with his 'associates' as he so affectionately refers to them. 88 and 11, just numbers to this company, hopefully potential help in the orchestration of it's downfall.
She feels sick again, her innards knotting themselves up and untying themselves just as quickly, but she's still got shit to do before her day is done. At the other end of the mess hall, she can see those harsh lenses shining, worker 212 intent on his sickening meal, and she briefly considers not even approaching him.
But there's a slight flash from beside 212, the dark haired man focusing his attention on her and her alone. Ice shoots through her veins as she reels with all the awful things that would happen if he reported her for what she is, an abnormality, a traitor, a failure of a citizen for the grand Death City.
He nods at her, and returns to his meal. Beside him, she sees 212 flinch with another prod in the ribs, composing himself quickly before also glancing at her. She catches a quick smirk.
That must be her cue.
The distance between these tables is like an ocean of dark, angry waters, filled with the unknown and waiting to swallow her whole, god forbid she make a false move. If only simple tip toeing could solve this dilemma…
The restroom is beyond their table, over 212's left shoulder, tucked into a corner and exceedingly uninviting.
But this communication must look casual, almost accidental. No striding up to their table with her head held high, no one can afford pride here. She thinks back to the days of being a child, hiding behind her Papa's pant leg when the people in black came for a visit. She must be a shadow now, like she had been then. It's the only way to exist in this reality: to be able to disappear at will.
She keeps to the wall, shoulders drawn and face parallel with the scuffed up grey tile of the floor. She briefly thinks of how depressing it is that she knows her path to everywhere just by the details in the flooring, then arrives at the door of the bathroom. It smells of unwashed crevices and mold, but she finds that her stomach is starting to grow more resilient, and does not gag.
She pushes the door of the stall nearest the exit open with the tip of her finger and slips inside. She's never been inside this stall before. With good reason. It's filthy.
She can see layers and layers of paint chipping, a monochrome rainbow of lies. She knows that beneath every layer, there are words. Words of anguish and hate, there must be, because why else concern oneself with the paintjob in the bathroom stall of an old decrepit factory?
She can still make out the faint indentation of a few letters here and there, where someone had the gall to carve their words into these walls. Most are meaningless to her. She just wants to go home now, away from this rancid stall, forget all the things that are so very wrong.
Fly Free, the wall tells her.
The coward in her tells the wall to fuck off. The rest of her propels her from her precarious perch on the edge of the toilet seat. She dusts off the back of her pants primly, pushes the stall door open, and makes her way to her true destination. A few people give her lingering glances as she passes their tables. She feels the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, fighting the urge to look over her shoulder, to watch her own back, knowing no one else here would.
She slips into the seat across from 212 and his friend (though no one dared to address each other as such in public), and simply waits. It's a full fifty six seconds before the dark haired man, 212, acknowledges her presence. If not for their company, she most likely would have snapped at him. Maybe it's just the years of repressing every angry thought or urge that's ever graced her telling her what to do.
It's more than likely.
But as always she bites her tongue, averts her eyes, waits for him to speak because she knows he will.
"You need something?"
"Not sure. You willing to give something?"
"For what?"
She shifts over so she is sitting across from him instead, looks at him directly now, unflinching even at the darkness in his angry eyes. He wants exactly what she does.
"Freedom."
His face draws into a scowl for only a moment, then resumes it's look of dull indifference. He's still staring directly at her, through her, trying to figure her out. Apparently, he decides she's of no threat to him, or his companion, (who has yet to look at her which is almost infuriating).
"We're in. I'll follow Kim. She'll follow Kid and the Thompsons."
Maka looks at him, stricken, an expression of utter shock frozen on her face. She feels a hand pat her knee and flinches. The hand pulls away as if burned, but the expression remains the same.
"I'm Harvar, this is Kilik, and you're not as careful as you think. If someone is looking for people like us, they'll be sure to find them if you keep it up. Quit while you're ahead….?-"
"M-maka."
"Maka... Be careful on your way home Maka." His warning sends a chill down her spine. Something flickers in the depths of his eyes, but she's lost it before she could grasp it, his eyes hidden behind the reflection of herself in his lenses. He's no longer paying her any mind, eye's lost again beneath the glare of the sickly lights. She's not sure where to go from here.
There's another left on that mental list of hers..Justin Law, the odd duck, but Harvar has told her to quit as if he already knew the outcome of her actions…
And maybe.. maybe he does.
She decides to heed that warning. She decides she's done enough for today. As much as she hates it, not much will be different tomorrow anyway. She can think through her next move before making it. It's the smart thing to do. Now just to figure out what is the right thing to do…