A/N: Emotional fallout. Women aren't the only emotional creatures on the planet after all.

"What do you think when you see me naked?"

The question was completely out of the blue. One Maka was not prepared to answer.

The two of them were laying together on the couch. Maka was settled between Soul's legs, her back pressed against chest and his fingers splayed out over the bare skin of her belly. Her shirt had ridden up and he'd taken advantage of that. Soul took any chance he could to touch her as long as she allowed it.

"I don't know how to answer that, Soul," she replied honestly, making an attempt to sit up. She was held fast in his arms and slumped back in defeat. It was clear they were about to have a serious conversation. One she did not want to engage in.

"I feel afraid when I see you naked."

This made Maka stiffen. Soul was…going to talk about his feelings? Soul didn't talk about his feelings. Not without a ton of prodding and poking. And even then his emotions were yelled out because he just got so irritated with her incessant badgering that he couldn't take it anymore.

"I want to touch you. All the time. Everywhere. I feel hot, and cold. Desperate. Like I'm dying. And I don't understand it. I wonder what it would feel like to be…to be…"

Maka craned her head up to view his face as he stopped speaking. His gaze was fixed straight ahead, heated and hard. She squeezed his hand gently, rubbed her cheek against his chest and allowed herself a deep breath. Waiting to see if he would continue.

His voice came as a whisper. "Please tell me you're scared, too. I can't be the only one. I don't know…I don't know how to deal with any of this. I can't…"

This made her sit up. She turned to face him, pulling her legs into a pretzel to offer him some distance. She wasn't entirely sure he needed it, but this felt like a more serious discussion than could be solved by cuddling.

"I don't understand what you mean, Soul."

She really didn't. Not yet.

His head turned sharply, staring at the door in their entry way.

"I feel like an animal. I'm supposed to…I should be able to think. To think about more than sex. I shouldn't want to constantly know what it would feel like if I was…" he trailed off again. "Men are supposed to think this way. I've been told we are. But I feel disgusting, and stupid, and I don't know what I'm supposed to do or how I'm supposed to do it! I'm just...I'm just supposed to know! I'm supposed to just lead, to teach you how to enjoy…nobody's ever told me how to deal with…UGH!"

And then it clicked. Green eyes widened for a brief moment before she leaned forward to take his hand again, softly stroking long digits.

"Soul," came the plaintive whisper. "You don't have to know everything. I don't know everything."

He snorted at her, refusing to meet her gaze.

"Do you think that this is easy for me? I know we treat it as a game. I know we call what we do "lessons" and that we use each other to learn."

This time he cringed, though it was all true.

"I'm terrified. I understand theory and study. How do you study for this?"

Soul opened his mouth to respond and she cut him off with a glare. "If you say "watch porn" I swear to death I will end you."

He said nothing.

"The first time I saw…you," she coughed, "I wondered how the hell something like that was ever supposed to fit…"

"Please don't say it," Soul whimpered, covering his eyes with his hands.

Maka rolled her eyes, though she was slightly amused that he was being the prude for a change.

"I think about it just as much as you do. I am just as clueless as you are. I am just as afraid. It scares me that I dream about you. That I constantly want to shove my hand down your pants. That I like it when you grind against me on your bed. I'm told that I'm supposed to let you do it, but nobody tells me that I'm supposed to enjoy it...or how to handle how I feel when I do. But I trust you. More than anybody else in the world. So, you know what I think when I see you naked?"

He shook his head, brave enough to look at her now.

"I think that if I'm ever going to let anybody in like that, be with anybody, there's nobody else I'd want to have as my first."

Soul ran a shaky hand through his hair, nodding weakly. He shifted uncomfortably before he slid forward towards his partner. She automatically unfolded herself to lay back, head against the armrest of the couch, hands reaching up to cup his face as he gazed down at her.

"I want to know," he paused to kiss her nose, "what it feels like inside of you."

He shuddered at his own admission, closing his eyes as small fingers combed through his hair and rubbed his nape. She had no words for him.

"I want to know what it feels like when you say my name and I'm moving in you."

That made Maka shiver, and without thinking, she said, "I want to know, too."

Soul pulled away from her then, just enough to view her face and press a soft kiss to her lips. Her fingers continued to pull through his hair and she flicked her eyes from his throat to his collarbone until they finally met red orbs again.

"You're not disgusting, you know. There's nothing wrong with you."

He nodded idly.

She pulled his head down so they could rest forehead to forehead, breath intermingling, almost no space between them.

"I mean it. I don't trust anybody else the way I trust you, Soul. I wouldn't let somebody disgusting touch me the way I let you touch me."

Soul allowed himself a nervous chuckle before moving away to pull her into his lap and settle down for an evening of snuggling together. For all their sexual forays, if there was one thing Soul appreciated more than anything, it was the fact that he could still just sit with his meister in companionable silence and just be with her.

And the only thing that either of them truly needed or wanted was to be with each other.