Alright, for those of you who are interested in 'Deprived', you'll be getting around monthly updates on this, for now. School is coming to a close now, and I need to focus on grades a little more, and, these are pretty massive chapters, if you haven't noticed, so they take a little longer to write/beta/post.

But, I plan on keeping this going, it's the first massive story idea I've had in months. So, don't lose faith in me, even if one chapter blows?

~O-O-O-O~

The smell of metal and papyrus makes his head spin.

Maka hadn't let them take the bike here. She made them walk the terrible two and a half miles to Stein's lab, at a whooping seven-thirty in the morning. She didn't even let him scarf down some breakfast, only telling him that "Stein could want to do some blood tests, Soul." and left it at that, making her scythe tired, irritable, and go hungry.

And now, Soul growls inaudible cusses at his meister as he sits in the middle of a patchwork-covered lab room, on top of a cold-as-shit metal lab-type table. It's uncomfortable and freezing in the room, and Soul believes that if he's here any longer, he'll begin to suffer the same type of madness and mental instability as Stein does. He shivers, a very uncool action of him, seeing as Maka mistakes it as an action of fear, and she comes to stand beside the table, patting his forearm comfortingly.

"He said he'd be right back, Soul." She tells him, frowning as he pretty much ignores her and her reassuring words. That's not earning him any brownie points, and she makes him aware of that by pinching the sensitive skin in the bend of his elbow, making him kick the bottom of the table with a snarl.

"What the hell?" The scythe spits, ripping his arm out of her gloved hands. If he wanted to be in pain, he'd just go back to bed! "Don't pinch!"

Maka's about to rip him a new one, her face furrowed in a sharp frown, but she doesn't get the chance to scream her share of curse words and insults at him, because when the door behind them opens with a loud 'creeeeaaaak~' she's scrambling to turn around and see their professor in the doorway, holding a clipboard in his hand.

"Well?" Maka asks, hasty for an answer. Worry makes her voice light and shaky.

The elder meister sets his items down on a small, what looks like a freaking dissection table, and glances at the clipboard as he strolls closer to Soul, looking the weapon over quickly before he even begins to speak.

"How long has it been since we patched that scar up again?" Stein asks, rather monotone, as he gives Soul a stern gaze. The scythe thinks a moment, before responding in question.

"Ah, a month or so…? Something like tha-"

His meister answers for him; she's had no problem remembering the moment she ruined his chest, and quite possibly his life.

"Three weeks."

The professor nods, turning back to his clipboard for more information as he rubs his jaw, almost like a physical tick, before he nods again with a small grunt, deciding on what to tell him, and how to tell him, a trait all doctors in the profession must carry.

"I think it's just a case of the 'creepy-crawlies'." He tells the weapon-meister pair. Maka seems thrilled with the answer, while Soul is debating on whether to transform and slaughter himself, or the professor that quite literally just diagnosed him with something a goddammed five year-old wouldn't be caught speaking out loud in public to anyone.

"In that case, you two can go. Just try to relax, Soul, drink tea or listen to music before you try to sleep." Stein tacks on. Soul only mumbles something despicable under his breath about 'insane-as-fuck professors' and 'made-up illnesses' as he leaps off the exam table, slips his coat back on, and tugs Maka's arms demandingly.

"Actually, Soul, you go ahead home, I've got to ask Professor Stein another question." She tells him, and Soul only looks bored. He shrugs, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he takes off, but not before telling her: "Don't take too long," and he disappears from the lab looking much too happy to be doing so.

Stein is already set on cleaning up the area, putting things back into cabinets and papers into their manila folders. Maka bites her lip as she steps closer to him, fingers playing nervously with the hem of her blue skirt as she speaks up.

"Professor Stein… This has been going on for a long time, a-and I didn't, I just wanted—"

She is interrupted when he turns his back to her for a moment, before handing her a small, orange pill bottle, filled with little periwinkle blue, diamond-shaped pills. The female meister blinks, making a fraction of a noise as he places the bottle in her hand, then sets his clipboard on the table Soul had been sitting on, rubbing the bridge of his nose a bit after the action.

"They're sedatives," he tells her plainly as he takes off his glasses in order to clean them on his white lab coat. "He only needs to take one to be out for a good six to eight hours."

"Soul won't take these." She answers with a frown, holding them back out to Stein regretfully. "He doesn't think there's anything wrong. Or, if he does, he doesn't want help with it. He thinks he can handle it on his own..."

He doesn't accept her offering, and instead pushes her hand back towards her.

"Maka, this isn't just nightmares and stress-disorders. This is serious. If the sleepless nights continue, his life could be in danger." He pauses, sighing heavily before adding, "If Soul refuses to take them, force him. Or, slip them into his food. He needs them, or he's going to end up back here for much longer than a few hours next time."

This news makes Maka's heart race in her chest. He needs them? What could be so horribly wrong with her partner that she might have to lie to his face, and sneak pills into his food? These questions and many more make her head go a mile a minute, and before she knows it, she's already asked out loud:

"Does it have something to do with the Black Blood?"

A solemn nod and placement of glasses back on the professor's face, and the female realizes how serious just a simple case of insomnia has gotten. She curses herself, for not taking Soul to Stein earlier, for letting him ever get hurt in the first place, for not thinking of this before!

"I'll tell you what. Stay home with him today, seeing as you've already missed your first two classes. Bring him back next week, and I'll make sure to get you more of the sedatives and we'll do a full blood work-up on him." He tells her, already sensing the fact Maka might even begin to cry, due to the tenseness of her posture and the death grip she has on that pill bottle between her bony fingers.

"…Okay." She answers, almost coldly to him. Too robotic to carry real emotion. "Thank you, Professor Stein."

The man pats her right shoulder as she begins to turn away, smiling calmly at her worried-stricken facial expression. "Don't worry about him too much, Maka. Soul's dealt with plenty already, he'll be fine. Go get some rest."

She realizes she, too, probably has bags under her eyes, not as severe as Soul's, but still noticeable. She nods at him with a tiny, tiny smile, before taking off out of the lab. Once she meets the face of the cool, outside air, she takes a huge breath and begins her lonely walk back home.

~O-O-O-O~

When Maka comes home, several things become apparent the second she steps through the door.

One being that Soul's jacket and shoes are stuffed in the corner behind the door. She growls to herself, but, she dully notes that he'll probably try to sneak out and away from her later, and left them there for that specific reason. Maka doesn't put too much thought into that, though, because the next thing has suddenly occurred to her.

Second thing being, she is not greeted by her weapon, a very unusual thing that only occurs when he's locked himself in his room, occupying the bathroom, or simply listening to his music too loud to hear her. Today, though, as she begins to walk towards the sofa to plop down, she nearly screams she sees a mess of white fur on the arm of the couch, and a deep groan to accommodate a shifting, sleeping body that can only be known as Soul. His left leg drops to the floor, and he grunts as she makes her way over to him after hanging up her coat, and nudges his shoulder.

"There's this really revolutionary thing, Soul. It's called a "bed" and normal people use it to sleep on, so they don't have to sleep out on the couch. It's pretty neat, actually."

Her sarcasm is what keeps him from clinging helplessly to sleep, and he cracks a ruby eye open to shoot his meister a sleepy glare. A smile only returns his gaze as she wills him to sit up with a magical touch of her hands to his back.

"I won't bother you again if you move for me," she promises, helping him up off the sofa and tugging his hand gently as she leads his drunken-like staggering legs to his room. Soul stares at their connected hands, confused at the affection she shows him; even though she thinks he's stupid enough not to notice. This thought, however, makes his free hand touch up at his cheekbone, wondering if the ghost of her lips on his skin was simply a hallucination from sleep withdrawals. He knows it'd be stupid to ask her, anyway, so he keeps his mouth shut, and sighs happily when she lets him fall freely onto the soft-as-fuck mattress and pillows that is his bed. He doesn't even bother getting under the covers, only smothering his face into the mess of AXE-scented heaven.

Maka, however, finds her feet stuck, and unable to turn the hell around to leave him alone. A smile sits on her lips as she notices how tired he is, but it quickly fades once she remembers his situation, and why willing-ness isn't a very good thing, in his case. She watches him snuggle deeper into his bed, before turning towards her, crimson eyes peering over a mess of white pillows and sheets.

"Take a picture, it'll last much longer."

She frowns at him, but thinks it'd be rude to Maka Chop someone so exhausted, so she only rolls her eyes at her weapon. Her feet shift towards the door, deciding his tone of voice is rather obnoxious, and she should let him be for the rest of the morning…afternoon… whatever. But it's when she's turning towards the ajar door, her wrist is seized tightly, which pulls out a gasp from her throat as she snaps her gaze back at Soul, whose face is currently smashed deep into his pillows in embarrassment. It occurs to Maka that this isn't normal "Mr. Cool" behavior, and that scares her, until her brain finally figures out what this is.

He's asking her to stay with him.

Even though he's too cool to admit it with words, she feels a pang of guilt in her heartstrings, and soon finds herself sitting beside, and bringing herself to lie beside his warm form, strong piano-playing fingers releasing her from their grasp before finding the actual part of her actual hand, and lacing their fingers together gently and silently.

He's scared. He might not admit the fact, but Soul is, as a matter of fact, scared shitless. Her warmth and soothing actions are the only thing—he fears—that keep the black blood at bay from consuming the whole of his sanity in only messy gulp. This thought, as well as trying to push sleep away, makes the scythe tighten his grip on Maka's smooth, ungloved hand. It's a treat, he won't lie, he likes to indulge in, especially at times like this, when he knows she won't refuse what he asks of her.

Like, lying in his bed, and holding her fingers in an affectionate death grip.

It's until he peeks his head out from the blackness of being shoved into a pillow, Soul looks at his meister, only to see she's fallen asleep. Her face looks at perfect peace, pink lips drawn into a relaxed line, her eyebrows set in a neutral position on her face. He feels alone without her conscious, which is probably why he allows himself to nudge closer to her on his bed, his nose buried in the hollow of her neck, against her jugular, and wait for sleep to finally possess him for the rest of the morning.

~O-O-O-O~

His nap is short-lived.

A clawing sensation in his shoulders and side, a fit of growling, and a dull pain in the back of his head makes crimson eyes peek open to search his surroundings. Sure enough, he's on the floor instead of his bed, and Blair is standing beside said piece of furniture. Maka curls up in his covers, whining about it "being too early for stupid cats to ruin her sleep." She seems to tune the cat out, though, and drifts back off.

The cat places her nimble hands on her strongly defined hips as she glowers down at Soul, her cat-like, fiery irises demanding answers from the weapon.

"What were you two doing?" She snaps, her pink lipstick-painted lips drawing into a thin, displeased line. Soul arches a brow at her as he sits up, his hand moving to rub the throbbing spot on the back of his head.

"What did it look like, cat?" He asked her, his voice raspy from his actually-pleasant sleep.

Her eyes narrow, a knowing gleam in them. It takes Soul a moment of staring at those… enormous breasts, then moving up to her face to notice that look, and he instantly finds himself spluttering and shaking his head furiously at her silent accusation.

"Not that!" He fires back, but it comes out as more of a whining noise. When he pleads over and over that he "would never be caught doing that with her" and "she's my meister, nothing else" enough for the feline to believe, her angry lips curve into a smile, and she nods in approval.

"Good! You two don't need to be practicing the horizontal mambo while you have more important things to be focused on!" She chimes, her voice holding a certain softness to it, as if a sister praising a brother.

"You don't need a litter of little scythe-y boys and Maka-Chan's to be cooping here, either~" she adds, a giggle bubbling in her throat when she notices the shade of violet Soul's face has turned. She wiggles her fingers in a little wave, before being consumed in a poof of lavender smoke, a small black cat escaping the room with a fit of mews that sounded eerily like giggles.

Soul, however, sits on the floor, unamused with the morning—no, it's actually past one in the afternoon, he notes—nap interruption. Such a stupid cat… He thinks with a scowl towards the wall, before placing his elbows up on the side of the bed to get a glimpse at his meister. Sure enough, she's still asleep, her blonde pigtails undone and spilled angelically across the white pillow. Her perfect little hands are relaxed, held in front of her face, as if she's trying to cradle them to her chest. Her mile long legs, brought up at a slight bend.

The scythe smirks at her form, though, doesn't breathe a word as he soundlessly climbs back into his bed beside her. Her wavelength is welcoming, comforting, and he wants that feeling wrapped around him, against his chest, cradled securely in his arms.

And he does just that.

She mumbles in her sleep a few slurred words he doesn't quite catch, but that's alright. Soul pulls his meister close, until it is she who is snoozing against the hollow of his neck. His hand tangles gently in blonde locks, and he grins coyly when she nearly purrs in his arms, snuggling her way against him.

It is in this moment, Soul realizes that this, the bundle of smarts, warmth and strength, is his pure ideal of "beauty". And that if he had to be insomnia-stricken and insane, he'd want to be it with no one else but his meister.

"Thank you," he breathes against the crown of her scalp, closing his eyes in peace with a gentle smile curving his lips. She's here. She'll always be here.

She's all he'll ever need.