Update! Finally, God. I hate school so friggin much. Anyway, here you go. This is rather sad (as all of my stuff seems to be lol) but it gets happy(ish) towards the end. SPOILER: MAKA IS NOT DEAD I SAID THAT ALREADY. Anyway, the action really picks up from here (at least, that's what I have planned) and more of the mystery of what's going on and stuff is revealed as well as some of Soul's feelings for Maka . . . . *waggles eyebrows* Kay. Anyway, carry on. Oh, this was kind of modeled after that seen in Supernatural (season 2, All Hell Breaks Loose pt 2). Remember the beginning where Dean is talking to Sam's body? Anyway,that's kind of what was playing in my head while I wrote this. Enjoy and, as always, tell me what you think!
Reunited
Soul
"I wish you could hear me play, Maka . . ."
Soul spoke softly, white head lowered, fingers laced between his open knees. His breath frosted around his face in cold white clouds. He watched them foam up around his lips and disappear as his next breath passed through them. His red eyes focused on the cold tile floors instead of the pale white shape in front of him. The proverbial elephant in the room.
Maka's body.
He laughed quietly, rubbing his jawline with a slim hand. "I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I, uh . . . I really wish you could hear me play. Not for my music, exactly. But just so . . ." He took a deep breath and let it out in a quick rush. "So you could know me. You've only heard me play once and, it wasn't even good. I suppose I was trying to freak you out a little, make you not want me as your weapon. But it didn't work did it? Stupid."
Soul's wavering hand found his jawline again. There was still no stubble – despite the fact that Soul was rapidly approaching 16 years of life on the Earth and had expected to see something on his jaw by now, even if it was just a little peach fuzz. Nonetheless, Soul found the act rather sounding and continued to rub it despite its lack of stubble.
"I've always hated the piano, you know," he continued. "Never let myself get anywhere near it. I was forced into taking lessons by my parents and, uh, well if you'd met them, I doubt you'd like them. So though I was forced to play, I was never really in love with the music like my brother was.
"Oh. Guess you never met him either. Let's see . . . Wes is . . ." Soul laughed quietly and his white breath foamed around his mouth. "He's kind of a dick."
Soul's fingers found each other in the open space between his knees and he sat back some more, eyes still focused on the floor beneath him. "He's polite, I guess. Too polite, if you ask me. And rather creepy. His eyes . . . they're just pale grey and they follow you too closely like he knows something you don't. Or maybe they just do that to me. Anyway, our parents encouraged a little healthy competition between us from the start. 'Course, Wes had five years of musical experience under his belt by the time I was even eligible to compete, but no. That didn't stop our parents." Soul ground his teeth. "I guess I love him. He's my brother, of course. But I also kind of hate him. And he hates me, so it's not that bad."
His eyes flickered once to the cold corpse in front of him.
"Lord Death, Maka." Soul quickly looked away, afraid he would break down if he looked at her for long. "Why am I telling you this now? When you're . . ."
He couldn't say it. Saying it aloud would make it real. Official. And Soul wasn't ready for that.
"I wish I'd told you earlier," he said, raking his fingers through his unkempt white hair. "There's a lot I wish I'd told you . . ." his voice trailed off into a weary sigh that peaked into a sad smile. "Like what I felt after our first fight. Remember that? Remember Los Angeles and Hawaii? And Boston and London and Dublin and Yong Kong? Remember all those fights? All those souls we collected?"
Soul's face softened with memory. "But nothing scared me as bad as that first fight," he said, slowly shaking his head. "It was in Minnesota I think. Or maybe it was South Dakota? I have no idea. I just remember that Kishin soul was a bitch to collect and you got torn up really bad in the process." Soul's eyebrows dipped low over his ruby eyes. "Your arm was a mess. And your side was just as bad. But you pushed forward and nabbed that guy in the gut, sliced him right in half.
"I remember being so thrilled we'd got a soul that I didn't realize you were bleeding until after you collapsed. And then when I shifted . . . your blood was all over me. It had run down your arm and onto me while we fought, and I hadn't even noticed. You were smiling at me from down on the ground, gasping and bleeding all over the friggin place, and yet you were smiling. Goddamn that smile," Soul said viciously, ducking his head low on his shoulders. "I mean, you must have been in so much pain, and yet . . . you smiled! I didn't get it. I thought you were crazy, crazier than I was – and that is quite a feat, let me tell you. I thought you were some kinda masochist with blood running down your side and that big grin plastered on your face. But . . ." Soul trailed off and his eyes found her cold body once more.
"That's just you," he said after a moment, once more ducking his head. "My strong, strong meister. Who, even when she's hurt, is happy because it means she won. Pain equals strength, in your twisted mind, right, Maka? Isn't that right?"
Soul shook his head. "The rest of the story, well . . ." He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "I'm not so proud of that part. You ended up in some mom and pop hospital and then we both got shipped back to the DWMA." Soul's fingers shook as he laced them together, rolling the fingers over his tightly pressed lips. "You were in pretty bad shape for a few days, and I well . . ." he trailed off and shook his head. "I guess I didn't really help things."
Soul shook his head and closed his eyes. "I ignored you," he said lowly, voice tinged with regret. "For day's afterword. Two weeks, I think. It was easier to ignore you back then. We didn't see each other every day, and you weren't living with me, so . . . I just ignored you at school. Lord Death, you were mad." He dipped his head to its lowest point beneath his shoulder blades. "I visited you of course, at the infirmary. But then when you got out . . . I didn't even talk to you. Ignored your whole existence. I know, I was an asshole." He shook his head, mashing his lips into a thin white line.
"But I wasn't really mad at you. No, how could I be? How could I be mad at you when you, injured as you were, smiled when you realized we'd caught that soul. You were smiling at me, while you were hurt, and I was just so . . ." His voice trailed off into a weary sigh. "No, I was mad at myself. I was mad that I'd let that happen to you. That I'd let you get hurt so badly."
Soul's eyes watered and so he closed them, squinting them tightly like it would keep the tears at bay. "I was so incredibly pissed at myself, so angry and hurt that I had even allowed myself to care for someone like you. To care for someone I thought was weak. Because, I'll be honest, Maka, I did think you were weak. At the start anyway."
One tear slipped out and Soul ground his lip between his teeth, trying to scare the rest of them away. "Not that you're weak, Maka. Lord Death, if you could hear me . . ." His voice faltered then resumed, twice as strong. "No, you're not weak, but you are human, Maka, and I just couldn't believe I'd let you in. 'Cause I've never done that before. I like to pride myself on my distance, my aloofness, and my indifference to people. I like to think I'm better than others because I can lock my emotions away . . ."
"But I'm not." Soul shook his head. "I'm really not."
He looked to the body – to her cold, still face – and the tears he'd fought for the past three days began to spill one by one out of his ruby eyes. "You are so full of life, of emotion, of everything!" Soul's hands balled into fists. The air around him turned white with his shouts, his heavy gasping breaths. "And you are much stronger than I am. Maybe not physically, but emotionally, mentally you . . ." Soul stood and collapsed, falling to his knees at her side.
Her face looked up at him without emotion. He'd closed her eyes after he and Emelia had found her, but now he wanted them open. He wanted to stare at the deep green color that had given him comfort for so long. He wanted to see her blush one more time, to see her smile, to see her again. Not the dead mask that witch had left on her.
"You're a goddess, Maka." Soul's head fell onto her chest, onto the stiff purple dress Soul's mother had forced onto his meister's corpse. "And I'm sorry I never told you. I'm sorry I left, I'm sorry!" His hands fisted around the purple material. "Do you hear me!?" His voice rose in pitch and ferocity as the cold of Maka's skin crept into his fingers.
"DO YOU HEAR ME, MAKA!" He was screaming now. "YOU'RE A GODDESS! AND I-I'M SORRY! COME BACK, PLEASE! PLEASE! WAKE UP, MAKA! WAKE UP!"
At the door to his parent's large walk-in freezer – the place they'd stashed Maka's body for the time being – he could faintly hear the sound of fists walloping into the metal. Somebody was trying to get in. But Soul had locked the door from the inside, wanting to spend some alone time with his meister.
Outside the manor, the storm that had washed Emelia in was raging again. It had let up briefly to allow Soul and Emelia to get to Maka, but the minute they stepped foot on the property it was like a curtain of rain had descended. The bridge to the small town outside of the Evan's family property had washed away, forcing the family to store Maka's body in the freezer. Personally, Soul didn't mind. While he found it creepy and rather disturbing that the body of his meister was being kept in the same place meat and frozen vegetables were kept, he wasn't ready to let her go yet; dead or not.
Soul didn't want some creep in a lab coat opening her up and pouring a bunch of creepy chemicals into her and then burying her. No, he really didn't want that. He didn't want her in the ground, down there where she would be forgotten. Where she couldn't help people.
Where she couldn't be with him.
"DAMMIT, MAKA I'M SORRY!" His hands were balled into tight fists around the material of her dress.
He was sobbing. Soul Evans was sobbing. Soul Eater Evans, one of the most popular weapons at the DWMA was crying. Over a girl. But not just any girl. No. This was Maka Albarn.
Maka fucking Albarn.
His roommate.
His best friend.
His meister.
His . . .
The door to the freezer shuddered open with a great clash. Footsteps stormed in and suddenly Soul was moving, being dragged farther and farther away from his meister.
"LET ME GO!" he howled, fighting against the arms that held him. "LET ME GO! I HAVE TO HELP MAKA!"
"Pull yourself together, man." Wes's low tones ground against Soul's nerves and sparked a fire of anger within him. "You're making a huge fuss."
By that time Soul was out of the freezer and into the large dining room, the same room Emelia had eaten in and the room he'd gotten the call that changed his life. Gathered around the room, with various expressions of dismay, were the members of Soul's family. They looked at him with wide eyes, wide frightened eyes. They'd been walking on eggshells around him ever since he'd come back with Maka's body. After what he'd done – what he'd almost done – the night he went to try to save Maka, they were all kind of afraid of him.
But apparently his brother had had enough. He was attempting, in vain, to impose order onto the will of his unruly younger brother.
"Let go!" Soul shouted, digging his heels into the carpet and wrenching his arms free of Wes's grasp. "And stay the fuck away from me."
"This isn't good, Soul." Wes looked at his brother with disgust and just a dash of . . . something else in his cold grey eyes. "This isn't healthy."
"I do what I want." Soul narrowed his ruby eyes sharply at his older brother. "So don't get in my way."
"Soul!" His mother called out to him from the side of the wall. He turned to her and she flattened against the rich red wall, nervous palms pressed together in a white sheet against her heart. "There's a boy here for you, says he can h–"
"I don't care!" Soul cried, flinging his arm out.
His blade arm ripped through his clothing and flashed into being, shimmering with blue light. It settled darkly against the ground as Soul bent, pointing it down to the floor. His head dipped down with his blade and he held it there, breathing heavily.
Everyone peeled away from him, slowly backing up until they were as far from him as the room would allow. Wes didn't move, but his face shifted and grew dark.
"You are behaving terribly," he hissed, cold grey eyes snapping to attention. "Father would be–"
"Father isn't here right now." Soul hissed, shifting his head in his brother's direction. His eyes were cloaked in shadow, his face dark as night. "He's upstairs playing sick."
"Playing?" Wes's eyes narrowed.
"You heard me." Soul backed up a step, swinging his blade up to his brother's shoulder. "And I can't be bothered with his stupid manipulative tricks." He looked up.
The room collectively let out a gasp of horror. His face was so dark and despairing it made even Wes pause. Wes, who professed to have no love for the little brother that had abandoned his family and all his musical talent. They all watched Soul closely, like they were waiting for him to collapse or self-destruct, or worse.
"I'm done with this," he hissed, lowering his blade just a fraction of an inch. "All of it." The blade slipped down from his brother's shoulder down to his heart. "Maka's dead and I don't give a fuck about what happens now."
The room waited in silence.
This was it. This was the moment they'd all been afraid of.
And yet.
Not one person raised a hand to stop him.
"I'm done." Soul lowered the blade completely, holding it under his own chin. "I'm done."
Soul closed his eyes.
And suddenly he was on the floor. A heavy weight held his blade arm to the ground while another one sat on his chest, pounding light fists into his chest.
"YOU IDIOT!" A hoarse voice screamed above him, shivering with emotion. "YOU FREAKING MORON!"
"Wha –?" Soul opened his eyes.
And his heart stopped.
A slim pale girl in a deep purple dress sat on top of him, pounding her little fists into his chest. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, except for two small pigtails that he'd fixed around her face with his own hands. As he watched, the hair ties he'd secured into her thin hair slipped off and left the whole light mass flowing freely around her shoulders.
Soul's gaze slid slowly up her face.
Her mouth was open in a hoarse cry while her green eyes burned with ferocious anger. Her cheeks – deathly pale only moments before – were flushed with blood, with life.
Maka Albarn sat on top of him, screaming into his ear with all the force her lungs could muster – which wasn't much considering they'd been still and silent for the past three days. Her fists were clenched and her green eyes were thick with tears.
And anger. Death, she was angry with him. He could read it in her expression, could see it in her eyes and in her face and all the way up to the roots of her hair. Her body was shivering with an anger so intense, Soul wouldn't have been surprised if her very blood was boiling. Smoke seemed to be churning out her ears and thick hot tears were spilling down her cheeks, born of anger and frustration rather than sadness.
"YOU MORON!" Her voice was gaining volume as the dust that had gathered in her still lungs began to filter out. Her mouth worked ferociously to churn the angry words out of her lips. "WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING!?"
"Maka?" Soul's blade arm was still pinned beneath him, pressed down by Maka's very weight as she bore down upon him.
"IDIOT!" She was breathing fire she was so angry. And yet.
She.
Was.
Alive.
"WHAT THE HELL, SOUL!?" she screamed. "DO YOU HAVE SOME KIND OF DEATH WISH?"
"Maka?" Soul's human arm reached up to grab both of hers. He wrapped his fingers around her fists and held them down, sitting up with wide ruby eyes. "Maka?"
"Yes, dumbass." She glared at him, staring down at where he held her hands tightly in his own. "Now let go! You are in HUGE trouble, idiot!" she growled, eyes narrowing dangerously.
Soul's mouth opened. White shark teeth flashed between his lips, folded in a deep O of surprise.
A jagged gasp reached his ears and he turned his head, spotting a lanky familiar figure stumbling into the room behind Maka. His crisp, black suit was rumpled as he tore it from his shoulders and let it drop to the floor. It shimmered as the light reflected off fabric thick with frost.
"It's done," came a low voice after the gasp had faded. Soul's eyes rose from the suit to the familiar face glaring down at him. Kid rolled his shoulders and closed his eyes, bringing two ringed fingers up to massage his temples. "It's over," he mumbled again, stumbling into an open seat around Soul's large dining room table, opening two heavy yellow eyes to glare at Soul again. "I did it."
"Kid?" The word sat unspoken on the tip of Soul's tongue as Maka reclaimed his attention by bringing her hand down sharply on his head.
"OW!" he cried, wrenching his blade arm from her grasp and swinging it up to the crown of his head. It flashed with blue light and became a human hand again, just in time to repel another bookless Maka-chop to the head. "What the hell, Maka!"
"DON'T YOU TALK TO ME!" she screamed, balling her hands into fists. Soul still held one of her wrists, but she had somehow managed to wriggle the other one free and was using it to bash Soul upside the head. "YOU IDIOT!"
"Stop it, Maka!" Soul grabbed her other wrist and pulled it towards him, frowning at his meister. "Quit it, alright!"
She pulled her wrists free from his grasp and stood up sharply, stumbling away from him and onto her feet.
"No!" Soul's eyes opened wide and he rocketed to his feet, taking off after his meister as she stumbled away. "No, Maka, stop." His hand found her wrist again and he turned her around slowly, curling his fingers around the soft warm skin of her inner wrist. "Stop, please," he breathed, blinking rapidly as her face came around to meet his.
"What were you thinking?" she gasped and Soul could see that her eyes were red now too – red with tears, real tears, like the ones he'd shed over her body a few minutes earlier. "You weren't really going to . . .?" Her upper lip quivered and she looked away from Soul, shivering slightly.
"Maka." Soul breathed, tracing his eyes all over her face, her arms, her legs, back up to her face. Was he dreaming? No, Wes was here. Soul would never dream of his rotten older brother, he saw enough of him around the house. If Wes had invaded his brother's consciousness then something was terribly, terribly wrong – well, more wrong than it already was. "Maka."
"You idiot!" she sniffed and suddenly she was gone.
No. She wasn't gone. Only her face was gone, hidden from his view. She'd dropped to her knees, biting her palms to keep her sobs in check.
"Maka." Soul couldn't seem to say anything other than her name. His throat burned with the sound of it, his lips tingled when the syllables left his lips. "Maka."
He dropped to his knees too, dropped lower than her and wrapped his arms around her waist. He knelt and buried his face in her stomach, holding her tightly around the waist. Her body was so small Soul could grab the wrist of his other hand behind Maka's back and still have room to draw her closer. And he did. He strained her closer to him until there was no space separating them, separating their tears and their sadness and their love for one another.
Kid's head dipped onto the table as he watched their reunion. He passed out without a sound, hands shaking where he'd folded them in his lap. The white lines of his bangs were burning, shimmering and stretching out around the length of his head. They almost touched, but not quite, falling back to their place around his head slowly as the reaper's strength left him.
Around the room, Soul's family exchanged fearful wide-eyed glances. Soul's mother, especially, looked on the reunion of the weapon and meister with great fear in her eyes. Her son, who'd been threatening to kill himself only moments before, was now at the feet of a mysterious dead girl that she had never met. There was also a strange young man passed out on her dining room table, shaking in his sleep.
But beneath it all her fear was the greatest for her young son and the girl he held. She looked up, past the walls of the dining room, towards where her husband slept on the third floor.
If only he knew, she thought, looking back to where Wes was blinking at the pair as they embraced. If only he knew.
