Seven Deadly Sins
~Lust~
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"Maka not coming?"
Soul sighed as he strolled into the basketball court. It was hot and sunny today, but had a nice enough breeze so that staying out too long wasn't unbearable. He shook his head at Kid who had asked that and caught the ball tossed at him.
"She wanted to stay home, didn't feel good today." Soul told him.
Everyone spread out on the court into their teams; Soul pairing up with Black Star and Tsubaki and Kid with Liz and Patty. Black Star got the ball first with a wicked grin.
"You know, Maka's been acting weird lately. Something going on with her?" Liz asked, too busy talking to notice Patty's pass.
Soul scratched at his hair, readjusting his headband. "Yeah I know. She doesn't talk to me though, so I can't say much."
Black Star hollered as he dunked a shot, nearly tearing down the entire hoop from the cement ground. Kid sighed at this, and leaned on his knees to catch a breath.
"Her soul feels different."
Everyone looked to Kid as he said this so nonchalantly. Confusion littered all their expressions. "It's a Meister thing."
Black Star scoffed then, "Yeah right, then why haven't I felt anything when I'm with her, eh?"
Kid bore his eyes at the ball of energy and vanity. "You're something else."
While his tone droned that in a very rude way, Black Star laughed nonetheless, going off in another rant about how God-like he must be becoming.
"I tried sensing her soul once, and it just feels off. It's unstable." Kid explained, "You really should get her checked out or something."
Soul sucked on his teeth with a bitter annoyance. It was a good idea, but the thing was that he'd been trying to get Maka to see Stein for the past week. Every time she refused and slammed the door in his face. That girl was going to be the end of him.
"If I do then I'm gonna need backup to drag her out. She's being totally anti-social and a pain, but I can feel it too. Something's with her, she doesn't feel like herself." Soul sighed. He dribbled the ball back and forth between his hands.
With a snap of his wrist, he tossed the ball into the net. Tsubaki caught the ball as it fell to the ground. "I hope she's okay, but Maka's tough. I'm sure she'll be fine. It wouldn't hurt to have her looked at, though."
Soul nodded shortly and sniffed his nose. "Yeah."
"Maka?"
Soul looked around the apartment as he shut the door behind himself. He squinted in the dark, and his gaze was lead to a blue light in the living room. The TV flickered as if the satellite went out and was never bothered to be turned back on; yet Soul was more interested in the unusual movement on the couch before it.
Maka sat, her knees pulled to her chest and chin atop them. Soul glanced between her eyes and the TV she was mindlessly staring at. He flicked it off.
"Maka." he said sternly.
She didn't even blink. But, she did move. She stood up quietly and brushed past him towards the bedrooms. "I'm going to bed."
Soul caught her bicep, "Hold on a second. How are you feeling?"
Maka paused, but tugged her arm away. "Fine."
Soul hardly believed that. He instead snorted out his nose and brushed her pigtail back over her shoulder, revealing the bandaged wound from Loew village. "Is this 'fine' too?"
Maka smacked his hand away and turned back, "Leave me alone."
"Oi," Soul bared his teeth, "Just come with me to Stein, you know he can help."
Maka opened the door to the bedroom hallway and stormed out, raising her voice considerably as she seethed, "No."
"And why not?" Soul insisted, following her path. "Why are you being such a pain about this?"
His words went ignored as she opened her bedroom door, but Soul easily slammed it back shut and stuck his face in hers, "What is wrong with you?"
"Back off!" Maka yelled, "Why don't you stick your head in someone else's business instead of mine, alright? I'm not going anywhere and I'm not doing anything with you, so get over it and shut up about Stein!"
Soul glared at her, "Maka–"
A harsh slam cut off his words, whatever left of his sentence being swallowed with a pit of anger. He had to glare at the door now and huffed out, calming himself down.
Whatever. Soul turned and headed towards his own room, yet not without a final declaration of himself.
"I'm dragging your ass to Stein tomorrow! I don't care what you say!"
A part of him rather it be tonight, but it was already late. Stein was probably asleep, and Maka had already pissed him off enough for one day. It'd be better tomorrow, with some help.
Maka on the other hand bared her teeth at that shout. She stood in the middle of her room, panting heavily as she felt her skin literally crawl.
Why did she say that? Why did she snap at Soul like that? It wasn't what she wanted to say, not at all. She wanted to go to Stein, hell, she would be begging for it if she could.
Maka was out of control. Literally. She opened her mouth to ask for help and the exact opposite came out instead. Every time Soul asked about Stein she practically saw it as beacon of sunlight, but darkness always came right after when she ended up turning down the offer.
Maka hasn't felt fear like this in a long, long time. She could feel the insanity just squirming around inside her, beneath her skin and in her gut; it sickened her. She was going mad, but it wasn't like before.
It wasn't like this when she fought Crona. She felt mad, but it wasn't like how it was supposed to be. It felt like an entirely new insanity all on its own, and that simple thought sent shivers down the crevasses of her spine.
Something was inside her. Something was consuming her, she felt it, and she couldn't scream for help even when she wanted to.
The room tilted for Maka. She clenched onto her dresser, digging her nails into the hard wood and stumbled. She waited anxiously, impatiently for the spell to end, but they were getting longer, more intense. She felt completely disembodied during those moments, like her soul was some small speck of light in a world of darkness, unable to do or say anything.
A wave of heat fell over Maka, and a blur of her surroundings began to slowly fade back. She blinked rapidly and struggled to catch her breath, a drop of sweat sliding down her cheek. She was still so exhausted.
Though, in that moment, as she finally had the will to look up from her gripping hands, Maka experienced a whole new kind of fear as she stared in the mirror, and realized she didn't recognize who was staring back at her.
Soul dreamt of himself. He sat in a lone lounge, late at night, and heard soft jazz flowing throughout the nearly desolate room. He realized it was himself playing the piano on the corner, and for once, he remembered when he actually felt some sort of joy from doing so.
That joy was short lived though, as the lights began to dim around him. The people sitting at the bar either stilled like a statue or simply disappeared, and something filled the air that was similar to a thick fog. Though, nothing could be seen.
Soul felt it weighing on him though, harder and harder, until it was crushing on him like a boulder. The room swayed like tidal waves, everything was distorted and warped, but Soul kept playing. Even his music sounded different, darker.
It wasn't until his eyes connected a stubby pair of legs, that his fingers hesitated. Then he stopped. Soul lifted his eyes to a familiar ear to ear grin, and recognized this presence immediately as one he reluctantly knew very well.
The demon sat before him, swinging his legs and chuckling with a humorous tune. This usually wouldn't have concerned Soul to see the little guy prowling around in his subconscious, but similarly, like how the rest of the night had been as well, he was different.
His skin was blue. A dark, leathery blue.
He smirked, and clapped his hands.
Soul awoke with a sharp intake of breath. His sight blurred heavily in the dark of his bedroom, the tight grasps of sleep still hanging over him. His eyes nearly slid back closed again, but a movement caused them to spark open again. One that wasn't his.
His heart beat rapidly, his skin felt like molasses, like lifting a gooey chunk of muck from the ground. Before Soul could even clear his eyesight properly, he felt a thick presence hovering over him. It aired off gulps of insanity.
Soul nearly jerked upright in his bed, but he froze. His skin shivered. He felt something cold pressed sternly along his throat, his eyes caught in the green ones above him.
"Don't move." Maka uttered. Her voice was thick in malice.
Soul tried not to swallow, in fear the blade being pressed to his jugular might shift. He stared up at his partner, hunched over and warbled, and felt a sickening twist in his stomach. A grey scythe protruded from her forearm fully, the length of it practically enough to slice his bed in half, along with his head.
"Maka," Soul breathed out, holding his hands up. He attempted to reach for her.
"Don't," she gritted.
Her eyes were empty. Even now, in the near pitch black, Soul could see the dulling fade in her jade eyes. She was gone, completely.
"I can't let you go. I can't let you go. You know, you know too much." she muttered, her breath barely above a whisper. "You've seen it, you've seen it."
Soul switched his eyes between hers as she blubbered madness. Words spewed out of her mouth one after another in a slur of madness, speaking nonsense about things Soul could hardly even understand. She was so tense and rigid above him, the fingers that pushed his shoulder down into the bed, the fingers that clenched his bare skin, were so freezing. Her skin felt like ice.
"Hey…Maka? Can you hear me?" Soul asked, his voice a breath. He searched desperately for some kind of glimmer in her eyes.
And he found one. But, not the one he wanted, or expected.
Her green eyes gleamed as they became glassy. Water welled up around the edges, threatening from spilling right onto his nose. Her teeth bared at this, a furious fire now trying to replace those tears to cover it up. Soul flinched as she slid her scythe across his skin, blood dripping down into the dip of his collarbone.
"Stop it–stop it! Stop!" she yelled, "I'm not going!"
"Maka let me go," Soul said. He reached for the end of her blade, gently pressing his palm into it to lift but she snapped. He muffled a groan as she dug it deeper into his wound.
"I just…I just…" her voice broke as she sniffed, and Soul couldn't tell whether she was upset or outright livid.
He felt a drop of water on his nose. "Maka listen to me…I know you can hear me in there."
This wasn't her first run with experiencing this amount of madness. Soul knew just as well as her how intense and difficult it was to be under its effects, it was a suffocating weight on your chest that couldn't be lifted without an extra hand. He snapped her out of the madness once, he could do it again.
"Maka, you're scared–"
"I'm not scared! I should kill you, I should kill you." she seethed, sliding her scythe deeper into him, "No, I have to. I have to kill you."
"No you don't," Soul said quickly. He pressed his palm against her blade harder to keep it from his skin. "Snap out of this Maka! You're stronger than this, come on!"
He didn't want to hurt her. She wasn't okay, but he couldn't just sit here and let her cut his head clean off. Another word could snap her into doing so and Soul didn't like taking that kind of chance. He was well aware how much stronger she was than him.
"Get off me," he tested. She began blubbering again, words spilling out one after another about things Soul didn't particularly care for. She pressed harder and harder down on the slit on Soul's neck, and he could feel his arms weakening from holding her weight above him for so long.
He could feel himself slipping.
"I have to kill you!"
"Maka!"
A crashed thudded throughout the room. A pile of splinters and wood fragments laid beneath a hole in the wall. Soul gasped for a breath at his release, cradling the stream of blood dripping down his neck onto his chest. His arm, now currently a scythe, changed back into normal with a beam of light, and saw a similar one at the foot of his bed.
He immediately sat up and jumped to his feet, circling around to find his meister in the pile of wood across his bed. Her scythe was gone, and Soul felt a sick twist in his gut as she laid there, still and unmoving.
He cursed loudly, flinging debris off of her and checked her for injuries. He was surprised to have found none. Not even a scratch from the hit, yet she still blacked out. Shakily, he checked her for a pulse and a heartbeat. He felt relief like no other when he heard her heart beating through her chest. She was alright.
Hopefully.
In a way, he was glad she was unconscious. There was no way he could have survived a fight against Maka, especially under her type of affects which added a major power boost. He couldn't help but wonder though, why she acted like she did.
It wasn't like before. She was literally….insane when she fought Crona. She was all happy and giggly and crazy, but here she was just out of it. Completely gone. Soul didn't understand, and he didn't like that he did.
He knew who would understand though, and a part of him cursed himself for not taking this problem seriously enough. He should have brought her to Stein earlier.
Deciding this was no time to beat himself up for it, Soul refused to wait any longer. It was the middle of the night, but he would deal with Stein's grumpiness when the time came. Soul picked Maka up and went straight for his motorcycle outside. It took him a minute to figure out a position to hold her and drive at the same time, and with a few (unmentionable) try and fails, he figured placing her in the small space in front of his legs would work best.
Leaning her back against his arm, and her legs across his, Soul set off. He hated the anxiousness stirring in his gut. He felt nauseous, in a panic. He didn't know what in the hell was happening, but the faster he rode out of the city towards Stein's house, the better it made him feel.
He cursed the trip for taking so long though. It was dark and quiet, the flood lights of the houses he passed were basically the only thing to illuminate his path, as one of his lights were broken and he had forgotten to get it fixed. He had trouble maneuvering and turning so sharply with Maka practically in his lap like this, and the thought of 'the things I do for this girl' made a happy return in his mind.
The houses slowly got further and further apart as Soul made his way closer to his destination. He knew once he began to see the creepy, twisted and broken trees that he was getting close. A dim light barely showed Soul the paved road, wilderness flashing by him like a blur of black that shielded the chuckling moon from letting Soul receive any more light than he needed. He knew that once he heard a moan though, that the light would be the least of his problems.
Maka started to wake up. He glanced down to her, as he had been doing constantly throughout the ride, and felt her shift against him.
"Maka?" Soul called out.
Her eyes fluttered open, her green irises being the source of the smile that grew on Soul's face. She looked all around her, ignoring whatever Soul was saying to her, and gazed back up to him beside her. Her eyes dulled again.
"You're one psycho you know that?" Soul admonished, keeping his eyes on the road. "First you nearly cut my head off and now–"
The motorcycle swerved rapidly as Soul struggled to control his handles, watching with a wild eye as Maka swiveled in her seat and swung her leg around to the other side of the bike. She faced Soul now, a mere inch between the two and smirked at the curse that spilled out of her partners lips.
"What the hell are you doing Maka, I can't see!" Soul snapped, ducking to look at the road beside her. She stayed quiet though, tilting her head innocently as she let her gaze wash over him in a heated stare. A devious smirk grew on her lips.
"Mak—"
Soul felt his words get cut off sharply by his tongue, whatever was left of his sentence shattering apart into a breathless wind exiting his mouth. He felt a warmth spread across his neck, feeling Maka press her lips upon it, the soft glide of her tongue across his skin enough to make anything else left in head disappear forever. His stomach twisted unnaturally as this sensation, yet he could only stare bewildered out to the open road.
"I've always loved you on this bike," she whispered, huskily. Soul felt her hands press up against his chest, gripping the fabric of his shirt and kneading it.
"Maka…" Soul wanted to say so many things, most of them in the 'what the hell' category, yet he found that he nothing made it out of his mouth. He didn't know what to say, what he could say; he was speechless.
Her arms wrapped around him in an embrace as a giggle passed her lips, and he felt her tilt over to kiss the sore wound on the other side of his neck. He clutched the handles as the bike swerved, hissing out in pure annoyance. "Maka quit!"
Her smile only grew as he yelled at her, dipping a hand under his shirt to reach his skin. "Come on Soul, won't you play with me for a little while?"
He gritted his teeth as she continued to search under his shirt with her hands, drawing lines with her nails and exploring every inch of skin she could touch. She placed more open mouthed kisses along his neck, and with that felt a short push on her shoulder away from him. "What are you talking about? Maka quit messing around, I'm trying to drive here."
His hand had to go back to the handle before he could properly back her off of him, resulting in her reverting back to what she was doing a second before. She leaned over and Soul's stomach jumped as he felt the sole of his boot scrape along the gravel of the road. He shakily balanced himself out again, all the while trying to keep his insane meister from falling off as well, and felt her hands slowly drag themselves down his chest.
A hand hooked around his waistband, a soft tug of them causing Soul to nearly jump out of his skin. Maka laughed loudly though, her eyes lidded playfully with lust and bit her lip at the sight.
"Hey Soul~" she sang, barely a whisper under her breath. His eyes were forced to connect with hers, and he absolutely hated how his stomach churned at the devious gleam in her jade eyes.
"Why don't we pull over and take a little break, huh?" she smirked. Her fingers started to unbuckle his belt, and that's when Soul really did begin to lose his balance. He desperately tried to find the road behind her head and sacrificed a hand to swat hers away, but the feeble attempt was only met with another scare of them both flipping over.
"Maka! Knock it off!" Soul said loudly, glancing quickly between her and the road.
Maka merely sighed a breath and she unlatched the hook, raising her eyes back up to her partners with the devil in her eye. She forced her eyes to meet with Soul's, despite how much his eyes darted around her to avoid the look he knew she was giving him. His eyes whipped straight down as he felt her undo his button, his mind in a flurry of panic. '
He swallowed thickly, "Maka…"
His words went trapped against his lips, and flowed easily into hers. She kissed him fully and without any hesitation, bringing her hands up to tangle themselves in his messy hair.
Soul stared wide-eyed at the girl, her eyes fluttered close and nose pressed up against his; he felt frozen. Except for that skip in his heart. His eyes darted up again despite, realizing he was still unable to see the road.
The screech of tires against the pavement was the only thing Soul remembered after that.
He felt a raging stinge of fire against his skin, a pain he could see in his eyes as a multitude of colors swarmed above him like smears of a paintbrush. A shiver coursed down his spine that stabbed at him like a knife when he moved, his skin sensitive and vulnerable.
He crashed? No, they crashed. Maka…where was she? Was she alright?
Soul wondered everything with a tremendous speed, blinking rapidly to clear up the shapes and colors he was imagining. Soon enough his gaze cleared up, his chest heaving for a breath as he stared at the gruesome chuckling moon above him. Everything hurt. It hurt to move.
Someone blocked the moon from his sight though, and he recognized those pigtails anywhere. He felt the familiar feeling of her sitting atop of him again, and felt despite the relief flooding his senses, he knew he should feel fear too.
Soul sat up but was shoved down to the ground harshly, muffling a groan from escaping his lips.
"Now, where were we?" Maka's voice chimed out. Of course she wouldn't have a scratch on her. The moonlight illuminated her, from her pale skin to the dullness in her jade eyes above Soul. She began to reach her hands underneath her shirt, causing a churn in Soul's gut again. And not a good one.
"What are you doing?" Soul breathed out, the clasps of unconsciousness still grasping at him.
He watched with heavy eyes as she tugged her shirt up and over her head, flipping her pigtails behind her shoulder and tossing it away. Her head tilted as she was left in her bra, admiring how blatantly he was staring at her.
"I can tell you like what you see," Maka stated, with a breath of confidence. She smirked and glanced down to her chest, "I know I know, they're not that big, but boobs are boobs right? We can still have some fun."
Soul struggled with squirming out from under her, an ache in his back, and felt her press her giggle onto his cheek. He felt her maneuver their lips together as she hands grasped at his waistband again.
"Stop, Maka," Soul managed out, pulling away from her. It hurt to even do that, he wasn't well. "You're confused, just snap out of this alright?"
He didn't have the energy or patience to yell at her anymore. It was obvious she wasn't listening.
"Stop?" she nearly burst out laughing, "Oh come on Soul! It's totally not cool to leave a lonely girl like me all by herself."
He pressed his hand to her hip to try and push her off, "Yeah a lot of uncool things have been happening lately." he grimaced, "And you trying to bang me in the middle of the woods is definitely one of them."
Maka leaned over, placing her hands on either sides of his head and smirked at him. "Is it? C'mon, even you have to admit that kiss was good."
Soul's stomach twisted again, his eyes forced to meet with hers. He just didn't understand. First she was trying to kill him and now she was this sex-addict? Nothing made sense, none of it. Why was she acting this way, what's gotten into her to make her like this?
Stein. Soul needed to get her to Stein.
He sat up again, only to be pressed back down with another kiss to his lips, and willed himself away. He fought through the pain and shoved her off him, sprawling back on his bruises to put some distance between them.
She merely found this enticing and giggled, walking on all fours to him backing away. "Soul~c'mon…"
Soul breathed a sharp curse as he struggled to stand up. His hand found the spinning tire of his motorcycle, a little crushed and smoking, but still in good shape. He used that to help him stand, staggering around to pick up the bike and bit back a groan of pain. He wouldn't be surprised if every bone in his body was broken, it sure as hell felt like it.
Maka rose to her feet as well, and Soul could see clearly now in the moonlight that even she had a bad cut on her forehead. Blood soaked into hair; it looked painful as hell, but she was as giggly and flirty as ever. She didn't even feel the pain.
"We're going to Stein, now." Soul zipped up his pants with a glower. "Get up."
Maka laughed manically as Soul raised her to her feet by her arm, stumbling around like a drunk in a stupor. "Sir yes sir!" she wailed.
She stumbled and threw herself right in his arms, the fuzzy warmth coating her cheeks pink as she embraced her partner. "You should boss me around more, you're always such a pushover with me. I like it."
Soul dodged another kiss by her and she went for his jawline instead, but her lips barely grazed him before he was pulling her back again. "Maka, would you get a hold of yourself already? Get on the bike, we need to get to Stein's."
Soul felt her toss herself onto him again and he bit back a very annoyed groan, the pain in his side not reacting too kindly to her sudden weight on him. He opened his mouth to try and yell some more sense into her, but as he felt the unusual sensation of her lips not on him, he let the words die out.
"Maka?"
She didn't move. She slumped in his arms, her knees giving out and eyes rolling to the back of her head. Soul held her up and studied her face, finding her completely blacked out again. Panic bubbled within him despite this not being the first time, and lowered his head to check her heartbeat just in case. The churning subsided as he heard the steady thump of her heart sound through his ear.
He finally got a breath to himself. Soul took a second to clear his mind of everything utterly insane that had been happening, trying to relax himself and think clearly, though the fact that we was pretty much covered in Maka's saliva was pretty hard to shake. He forced out those images of her kissing all over him, and replaced it with the undoubted fit she would have later on about it once she got better.
Yeah, that cheered him up. She just needed to get better.
Soul tried once again getting Maka back on his bike, and hurried his way onto the road before she woke up again and either tried to kill or sexually harass him. He didn't know which one would be worse.
Constantly glancing to her state as he drove, Soul disliked the little prickles in his gut. She looked so peaceful when she slept, it was agonizing not knowing how or what she'll do when she wakes up. Soul hated being so clueless about this. Luckily, she stayed asleep the whole ride.
He picked up his partner from his bike and carried her to Stein's door, giving a harsh knock until he saw a light flick on in the window.
Stein slowly made his way over and opened the door, rubbing his eyes from sleep and placed his glasses on to see clearly in front of him. He stood there, quietly observing the two children covered in dirt and blood and disgruntled in their clothing, (one not even wearing a shirt) and heard Soul scowl with an exhausted look in his eye.
"You gonna let us in or what?"
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