A/N: Warning: M/M. It's not explicit, but implied. It shouldn't really be surprising though. :D
The way Black Star got around mentioning the upcoming match was with word replacement. He came up with a lot of creative euphemisms, but by the end of the day, his teachers had lost patience with "I'm gonna do you-know-what to you-know-who at that time in the place!" and had given him enough detention to get every eraser in the DWMA sparkling clean.
Normally, when Black Star had detention, Tsubaki hung out to help, which usually meant doing the lion's share of the work. When Soul saw her outside the DWMA, walking alone, it was weird enough that he pointed it out.
"Hey, Tsubaki!" Maka waved, jogging over through the trees to catch up to her.
When Soul got up beside them again, Tsubaki was saying, "-and those take a while to cook. Black Star said it would be best if I went home and started early on them. He's got to build up his strength."
"For the thing in the place at that time?" muttered Soul.
Tsubaki laughed. "He's really excited about it. Having a concrete date is helping his focus a lot."
"Um-m," said Maka, tucking her hands behind her back. "So, uh. How's Mifune? Was he just hanging out with Mister Gambit this morning?"
Tsubaki looked over, then smiled. "Mhm. Since they're both training to teach here, they've started spending more time together lately."
Maka said, "Oh? Like they're getting to be friends."
From the extra little bounce in her step, it was obvious Tsubaki was pleased. "Mister Gambit has even come over to help out with Angela. He's really good with her. They're funny together." She hummed. "And when Professor Stein works late on Wednesdays, Mister Gambit comes over. That used to be my day to help babysit during the week, but we got used to the routine, so now I just bring dinner for four."
Soul stared, the implications going deeper than he realized, he was sure. He was partly dreading hearing them from Maka later. Maka, it seemed, was doing better than he was. "Yeah? That's really nice of you, Tsubaki. But, that kind of sounds like you're babysitting someone else now, too."
"Maybe that's an extreme way of putting it," said Tsubaki generously. She shrugged. "I. I just don't think anybody's ready to leave Mister Gambit on his own yet. Mister Gambit included."
"What? Why?"
Tsubaki's smile faltered a little, and she shook her head. "I don't know, really. But he's the first adult I've seen Mifune act protectively toward, even if it's not to the same degree. He understands something I don't about him." She sighed. "But he's really very kind, Mister Gambit. Angela likes him."
"Angela doesn't much like anybody but Mifune," murmured Soul, remembering her vicious kicks to Black Star's shins.
"She's a sweet girl," said Tsubaki, always defending. "And she's coming along very well in her magic."
Maka tilted her head. "Are you sure about her, Tsubaki? She's a witch."
"I'm sure," she said, which was rather worse than any kind of chiding, thought Soul. When had Tsubaki started to do that? Then, she laughed. "Apparently the only babysitters she'll stand are Mister Gambit and me, so I've got to be around a lot. I don't think she can become too much trouble if her big sister's a weapon."
"That's one way to adjust, er, values?" said Maka, her hand waving in a search for a better word.
Tsubaki laughed again, and shook her head. "I'll say. Though I don't think I'll get her to come around to Black Star's side any time soon."
"One miracle at a time," said Soul, starting to smile.
Tsubaki flushed, then rubbed gently at the side of her neck. Soul watched as, after, she tucked her hand behind her back. She smiled at the ground before her feet. "Did you guys want to come over for dinner?"
Soul wanted to agree, but Maka said, "Thanks, but we wouldn't want to butt in on Black Star bulking up. Soul and I have some training of our own to do."
Soul sighed, but Maka took him by the wrist, and waved to Tsubaki, and started to pull. He waved as well, and Tsubaki just smiled at him in return. It was warm, and a little knowing, and a little ...dreamy? No, she was probably just thinking about all of the stuff Black Star wanted her to cook. Tsubaki made that face over her cooking all the time. He was sure of it.
He let Maka pull him down the street to their apartment building, then shook himself out of her grip so he could fix his sleeve. She gave him a look, dripping with subtext, but he didn't return it, tipping his chin up and closing his eyes.
Soul never brought out the notebook when they were talking before the resonance, but waited to fill it out afterward, when he was tired and unable to sleep, and could get past all of the things Maka said and down into what he thought she meant. Never before was he so glad of that practice as when he had to sit through Maka's speculation on Tsubaki's new information. After a while, he just stopped trying to stem the flow and let her go on.
The problem was, she kept coming back to the same question he had.
"Leave him alone? What did she mean, leave Mister Gambit alone?"
"Maybe he's a berserker. He needs someone to watch him." Soul pulled at the frayed edge of his jeans.
"No, you and I have both talked to him on our own. I mean, Professor Stein was close by, but..." She shook her head. "He's never had to intervene. I've never felt afraid of Mister Gambit."
Soul blinked. "Afraid? You aren't afraid of-"
"That's it. Do you remember? Remember what Black Star said, when he broke into the laboratory? That Mister Gambit was curled up in a ball on the floor. Like he was afraid!"
Soul raised an eyebrow. Someone as cool as Gambit, rocking in the fetal position? After having spoken to the guy, it had seemed so out of place he'd dismissed it as Black Star's ego talking. But his mind returned to that place, to Stein's fury, to his own guilt.
"So they don't want to leave him alone because he's- scared?" It sounded so lame, even just to say it.
Maka put her head to the side and huffed. "Well, okay maybe he is. I mean, the next question is scared of what. Whatever it is, Black Star reminded him of it. Maybe it didn't even have to do with being attacked. But it's always harder to be alone when you're scared."
"That would imply he's scared all the time. No way."
"Yeah way. Who says he's not? Maybe he's anticipating something. Dread, or anxiety. If he doesn't want to be alone, maybe we should see if we can-"
"Nuh uh. No way." Soul held up his hands and crossed them. "Listen, if he's going to be a teacher, the last thing he wants is a bunch of students up in his personal business. It ruins his cred. So not cool. The only reason Tsubaki got in on it was because of Mifune."
Maka's smile was only pause enough to let him enjoy the taste of his own foot. "So there's the in. I'll just. Talk to her."
"Maka-"
"He's a friend of Professor Stein's. Anybody who's actually a friend of his should know us better."
Soul wanted to say 'Us?' but he knew the retort already. His meister had made a decision. He sighed and tipped his head back so it rested on the arm of the couch. "Right, hey. I'm feelin' kinda strung out. Do you want to resonate yet?"
She sank down on the couch next to him, one leg over his feet. He wiggled his toes, and she scooted away, making an indignant noise. "Whatever happened to 'Coolest Meister Ever', huh?"
Soul grinned. "She's being a nosy ass, so she's demoted to maybe just coolest this week."
"Am not." Maka flicked him expertly in the knee, so his leg jumped in reflex. He grunted, and pushed against her leg with both feet. "Friends worry about each other."
"Just don't look for a conspiracy where there isn't one. People'll think you're paranoid," said Soul, sitting up a little more to get his feet out of pinching range. "If something's really up, it'll come out eventually."
She shook her head a little, and laid a hand over his ankle. "So I want to be there when it comes. Not an afterthought. Not in the aftermath."
"Nosy," he said. She just leaned a little more, finding the skin above his sock with her thumb.
"You want to know too," she accused, closing her eyes. "You can't tell me you don't."
Soul snorted, and closed his as well. He listened for Maka's soul, felt her pulse in the heat of her fingertips. "You want it so bad you admitted you're a butt-in."
"Stop talking about my butt, Soul."
Laughing made resonance easier. He could never really figure out why.
Resonating, Soul reflected, was like meditation and having a fight at the same time. It required most of his concentration and skill, and he was always looking for weak spots, but instead of exploiting them, he patched them. He and Maka, working together, still exhausted themselves, but every time was a little easier.
He liked thinking of being in perfect unison with someone. Unison, but not a clone. He was matching her, she him, and they were separate and the same at once. Like puzzle pieces. Like peanut butter and jelly. Like-
He jumped as Maka ground her heel into his foot. He bit down a yelp but just barely, glaring over at her. He zoned out in lecture all the time, what was the difference now?
Maka wiggled her eyebrows at him, then nodded to Professor Stein. Who was lecturing. Soul looked over. The guy was in his usual turtleneck and lab coat, slumped backward in his old white and green office chair. He was saying something about gall bladders.
Soul glanced back to Maka, one eyebrow raised. She looked at him as though he were the biggest idiot in the world, and passed a slim strip of note paper across the desks to him.
It read: When did Prof. Stein go on a mission? He's hurt.
Soul frowned, then looked back up to the head of the class. He couldn't see any injuries, and the man wasn't bandaged, so what the hell did Maka mean?
Then Stein tilted his head to one side, turning to read off of the lectern beside him, and in the instant before his hair fell behind his ear, Soul saw the dark, red-violet bruise over the tendon in his neck. He must have gone still too quickly because Maka kicked him again, and only then did his breath restart.
Soul looked down, staring at the paper in front of him, though the words didn't register. That was - it was a fucking hickey. The deep-down parts of Soul that weren't dying of embarrassment were split between frustration at Stein's parading it out in public, and die-hard jealousy. He knew whose teeth had made that mark, and the thought of it made him feel a little sick and a little thrilled at the same time. What were they, teenagers? Did they go to a drive-in and neck? Then hit the malt shop after for a shake and some tunes?
Maka kicked him a third time, and he quickly scribbled, "no idea" on the paper before shoving it back toward her. Rather than look at her, he glanced over to his other side.
Liz had one hand over her mouth. Check one. Kid was looking upward, his line of sight level with the top of the chalkboard. Check two. Patty was sleeping. Zip one.
He glanced past Maka, zip two, and Black Star, zip three, to Tsubaki. Check three, oh hell, she was red from her collarbones to her bangs.
Before he could stop himself, his gaze drifted to Gambit, in his usual front-row seat. The guy didn't have any blood on his lips or anything ridiculous, and hadn't appeared to notice half of the Maka Albarn Resonance Team flipping the fuck out. But with a guy like that, who could tell?
He watched, knowing somehow, even through the sunglasses that Gambit was acknowledging him, as one eyebrow raised, then lowered again. Dared him to make a scene. Dared him to be uncool. Like he was going to anyway! He lifted his chin, crossed his arms, and sat back. He would be cool.
After a while, Tsubaki's color returned to normal. Kid resumed drawing down the perfect center of his paper, and Liz spent time waking Patty gently. They were all being cool. That calmed him a little, even while Maka frowned and scribbled and took notes with a vengeance.
When Stein dismissed them, he wasn't quick enough on the draw. Maka turned right to Tsubaki and asked, "Tsubaki, did you hear anything about Professor Stein going on a mission?"
Tsubaki blinked. "Oh, no? Has he taken one?"
Maka stared. "But if he didn't, where else would he have been fighting?"
"Professor Stein got in a fight?" cried Black Star, sitting up straighter. "No fair!"
"No, it wasn't a-" started Soul, then stopped when Kid, from behind him, said, "Shh."
He sagged in his seat, then noticed Gambit at the front of the room, pretending not to watch them.
Maka was pointing to the front of the classroom, now very nearly the center of Gambit's chest, where Professor Stein had been talking. "He was hurt! I saw the bruise. It must have been bad if he were hit. And I didn't think he was taking missions because-"
"I never said he didn't want to," said Tsubaki softly, "Or that he couldn't. Maybe Mister Gambit came over when I wasn't there."
"But you know it's not a-" said Soul again, and when Maka rounded on him, he saw the headlights coming for him, and the impending crash. "Why don't you ask Mister Gambit since he's still here?"
"Soul Eater," said Gambit, his hands tucked in his pockets. "I am ashamed of you. A gentleman doesn't leave a lady in the dark when she's got questions he can answer. You know the answer, don't you?"
He looked down, and the bastard was smiling. Worse, he'd said "Gentleman" like Mifune said "Warrior", and like Soul said "Badass" in his own head. Like it was worthy.
Soul groaned. "Um. Tell you when we resonate?" he managed lamely.
To his utter shock, Maka whipped off her glove, caught him by the wrist, and in a flash, they were- they were. She resonated with him perfectly, and he was at once together in their soul bond and sitting in the classroom surrounded by stunned members of his team. Distantly, he heard Gambit whistle.
"Tell me now, Soul," said Maka, her triumph only mitigated by her frustration.
He sagged, his soul settling into the resonance like a homecoming. And smiled wryly. "I think girls like to call it a love bite."
Her flush almost ended it. It was a seriously close thing. It got Soul thinking about the way it colored the back of her neck. Which got him thinking about her neck. And bruises. His teeth would cut right through her skin, he knew it. But Maka was looking just lower than his eyes, so he knew it had to be his mouth, and he wanted to smile and bite his own lips at the same time, and he didn't know which he did because she whipped her head away.
Stein, at the front of the classroom, was clapping. Slow, lazy, deliberate. He grinned around a cigarette.
"Good job on the extra credit, you two," he said. "I'll consider that assignment complete."
Why was it, Soul wondered, that whenever Stein told him he'd done a good job, he felt like knocking out a few of the guy's teeth? He glared down at the front of the room as Stein turned his back on him, but Gambit, still smiling, gave him a nod. A slow, shallow, cool-as-fuck nod that told him he'd done exactly what he was supposed to do.
He'd been a gentleman.
Soul watched Gambit hold the door for Stein on the way, heard Stein laughing in the hall. He felt before he heard Maka say, "Hell."
He looked up at her, their hands clasped between them, and thought about the freckle on the back of her leg only he ever saw. This was like that. Resonating while she was frustrated and pleased and proud and fierce all at once. Maybe in time she'd even grow up cute.
"Did you really have to say that in front of everybody?" she asked, looking exasperated.
"You wanted the answer," said Soul, and shrugged. He rose, nudging his chair out of the way with the side of his leg. He looked down into her eyes, grinned, and said, "Let go. Even a football field starts with one step, right?"
"What the hell are you talking about football fields for?" asked Black Star, and the both of them jerked. It had been like he and Maka had been the only people in the world. She turned on Black Star, and, in the process, let go.
Soul was catapulted out of the resonance so roughly he coughed. He rubbed his own wrist, even as Maka turned back to him, an apology already in her mouth. He held up his hand.
"You broke it. You do the dishes."
She stared at him, then sagged, and huffed. "Yeah, okay." Somehow, even without the resonance, her hand found his again, and tugged before releasing. When she started to move, he followed. He heard Patty start giggling behind him, and knew the others would follow too.
"So," he said, loud enough for it to carry. "I'm in the mood for a little four-on-three."
"Boys to girls?" asked Tsubaki dubiously.
"Hah! Meisters to weapons! Last one to the court plays to the first point one-handed!"
He was sprinting even before Black Star managed a yeah-hoo.
The four-on-three hadn't happened. Kid had been reduced to near tears, though Liz and Patty had taken pity on him and arrived last at the same time so they had to use two hands between them. Maka was too high on success to want to give up yet, so Tsubaki sat out.
That left Soul on a team made out of the Thompson sisters. In retrospect, it was entirely too much boob at eye level for a coherent team. And all the girls wanted to talk about was the in-class resonance, which meant it happened during play. Patty kept hugging him and telling him how cool he was, and Black Star kept asking, "Hey. Hey! What's a love bite anyway?"
Maka finally shut it down with, "Shut up, Black Star, it's not like anybody's giving you any so why's it important?"
The insult hadn't landed as Black Star's ego took over, so all Soul really had to contend with was point-guarding a guy chattering about how awesome he was. Situation normal. In the end, they hadn't been too badly thrashed either, owing to Patty's kamikaze dunking skills.
Walking home with Maka was different, then. She had her hands behind her back and he had his hands in his pockets, but his hands wanted her hands. He wanted to do it again, to resonate like it was right, not like it was hard.
They'd managed to make it long enough for Maka to wash the dishes after dinner. After that, they tried again and again, but at no time was it so easy, nor so shocking, as it had been in class.
Eventually, Maka sagged onto the floor, her head leaned back against the sofa, as she said, "This is brutal."
Soul grunted in response. "How the hell'd you do it in class?"
"I was mad, I dunno. I thought emotional stress made soul waves all haywire." She huffed, then fiddled with the hem of her skirt. "You told me to do it to get what I wanted, so I just did. What were you doing?"
"Hoping like hell you'd forget about it." He considered. "Then just being surprised at your balls."
She laughed without humor, wrinkling her nose. "How d'you know so much about, uh. Love bites anyway?"
Soul looked over, then ran one hand through his hair. "Nuh uh. No way. I identified it, that's as far as the obligation goes."
"Obligation?" asked Maka, indignant.
"To be a gentleman. You heard Mister Gambit." He drew one leg up under himself and grunted. "The rest is personal."
She paused, turning that one over. Then frowned, and looked away. For the first time, Soul wondered what Maka thought of Tsubaki and Mifune. How she'd feel if she were Black Star. He could almost hear the tremor in her voice.
All Maka said was, "It's cool."
Soul watched her for a long moment. Then reached out and tugged on one of her pigtails. "Stupid. It was in that movie Liz and Patty liked so much. The one with the flying car at the end."
She blinked, and in the pause before she started laughing, he saw the darkness in her expression melt away. He realized he'd done it again, been a gentleman for the lady's sake.
He was never going to get Mister Gambit's voice out of his head at this rate.