The first girl he meets in Death City that isn't his roommate's girlfriend or his boss, breaks his fucking nose. Which, yeah, that would suck no matter the who or the why, but the fact that it was during a half-assed drunken moshpit to a shitty cover of American Idiot and by a cute girl who was probably the size of his arm...well, let's just say that he's gonna tell BlackStar to shove it next time he tries to take him out anywhere.

So, here he sits. Blood covering his face, the aforementioned cute girl apologizing profusely at his side, and totally unable to see a doctor despite the emergency room waiting area being totally deserted on this fine Friday night. Oh, and his phone is dead- the icing on this goddamn cake of an experience. Really, he just wants to go home. A broken nose is a whole lotta bullshit, sure, but he could be sitting at home and still have the same amount of medical attention provided to it. The girl next to him-Max, he thinks she said her name was? It was hard to hear her over the blood pounding in his head and the cover band's unnecessary screamo rendition of what was one of Soul's favorite Green Day jams. Anyway, Max(?) apologizes for the umpteenth time, and it takes a full count of three before he can fit a word in edgewise.

"Look," he says, albeit not without sounding like his head is so stuffed he might as well have buttons for eyes, "it's fine. Really. I know it was an accident."

Max sighs, slumping in the shitty plastic chair, and she runs a hand through her hair. "I just feel really, really bad." Her lips press together as she suddenly stands and strides toward the nurse's station, "And it's not making it any better that wE CAN'T GET ANY HELP OUT HERE!" She hollers, banging her fist on the counter as she leans over its edge far enough that her combat booted feet dangle an inch above the ground. Soul sighs, or maybe he just breathes; it's kinda hard to tell even for him. He's half tempted just to get up and book it on home, kick Blackstar's ass for forcing him out of the apartment, and lay up in bed until his nose fixes itself or he dies-whichever comes first-but before he can really commit one way or another, a nurse finally makes her way to the counter.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Frets the woman, barely tall enough to see over the counter and sporting some wicked looking eyepatch. She pats at her hair absently, attempting to smooth out with the absentmindedness of someone who definitely got laid when they shouldn't have. Jesus Christ, he is so fucked. The nurse shuffles some papers on her desk, making idle work of her hands so that when she discretely adjusts her scrubs, it's not that noticeable. At least, it shouldn't be. She looks up at Max, back down at her desk, then double-takes and looks at Max again. "Oh! Maka, what're you doing here?"

Shit, her name was Maka?

Maka, as he now knew her name was, jerks her thumb over her shoulder. "My, uh, friend's nose is broken." She winces when the nurse makes a noise not dissimilar to a squawk and flits around the counter and through the door, and when he hand grabs his chin and tilts his face up to look at her, Soul is surprised both by the gentleness of her touch and the calluses on her hands. The nurse-Marie, as her nametag reads-clicks her tongue, whether at all the blood on his face or at the actual damage done, he isn't sure, but he doesn't think he's mistaken in thinking that there's genuine worry in her one visible eye. "Awe, what happened to you?"

Soul's eyes flicker to Maka, sees her face flush a little bit in embarrassment, so he shrugs. "Dunno. Think I took an elbow to the face while I was at the bar." Marie's lips purse, very clearly not buying it, but she doesn't pry.

"Alright, well, the doctor be ready to see you in a minute. Until then, just go ahead and come with me and we'll see what we can do to clean you up." She puts her hand on his back as he rises and they wander off back through the pair of swinging double doors and, surprisingly, Maka follows obediently on his heels.

Well, okay. He kinda figured she would've went ahead and dipped out the second he finally got medical attention, but hey, the more the merrier.

Marie leads the two of them back to an examination room, gets him set up on the crinkling paper of the shitty little bed, and sets to work on cleaning his face with way too many antiseptic wipes. He winces the closer she gets to his nose, she apologizes with a wince of her own, but in the end he sucks it up and lets her do as she pleases. The sooner she this shit is over with, the sooner he can head home and sleep this entire clusterfuck of a night off. He might even shoot off a quick text to Wes to tell him that, yes, he was right in the fact that Soul was absolutely fucking insane to move all the way out here. Weird. He'd have thought it would take longer than two months for the moment to arise, but hey-Soul's always been something of an overachiever.

Once Marie has successfully cleaned all the blood off his face (but not his poor shirt; that shit's ruined) she can finally see the damage Maka inflicted in a half-drunk pop-rock induced mosh pit fiasco. Maka sucks in a breath through her teeth. He chances a glance to the mirror hung above the sink behind Marie; there are bruises blooming darkly beneath his eyes, and the crook in his nose is pretty damn impressive, if a little hidden beneath the swelling. Well, he certainly was a sight to behold, that was for sure. The nurse gives him a little rueful smile as she tosses away the pink-stained wipes and moves to the sink to wash her hands.

"Alright, well, Doctor Stein is going to be treating you tonight. I'm going to go grab him real quick and pick up some forms I'm going to need you to fill out before we discharge you, and then we'll go from there." She gives him another kind smile before disappearing out the door, and Maka's crowding him in an instant.

"God, I'm so fucking sorry." She says, squinting a little as she gets a little too close to his face for his liking. "This is actually worse than I thought it was. Jesus."

He attempts a laugh, backtracks when it makes pain blossom and bloom out from the center of his face, and instead settles for the most reassuring smile he can muster. "Listen, I told you it's alright; don't even worry about it."

She gives him a look like whatever it was he was trying to do wasn't going to work, and when she rocks back on her heels and tucks her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket, he knows he's in for some deep shit. "Look, let me make it up to you somehow. There's not really any good enough excuse or apology for what I did-accident or no."

Soul stares at her for a long minute, considers telling her to make it up to him by going and buying him a water from the vending machine out in the lobby or giving him forty-seven cents exactly-something small enough that she might let it drop, but he's pretty sure neither of those would fly in her book. "You're really not gonna let this go, are you?"

"Nope."

He huffs a breath, one much more deliberate than the others-just to make sure she knew he was, in fact, exasperated, and not simply having difficulty breathing. Which he was, but she didn't need to know that. "Fine. Fuck, I don't know. I don't want anything." A nose that wasn't broken, for starters, but saying that would just make her feel bad and it wouldn't really help anything, so he keeps his mouth shut. He's still technically on his parent's insurance, thank fuck, so it's not like she could pay for this little visit; not that he'd ask her to anyway, medical bills are ridiculous, but it's not exactly like he can think of anything she could do.

Maka impatiently taps her foot against the tile, her tongue stuck in her cheek as she stares off over his shoulder. She hums low in her throat as she thinks, and just as she opens her mouth to voice whatever it is on her mind, the doctor walks in. And...ho-ly fuck. There's no possible way that this man is actually his doctor. Easily six-foot-too-fucking-many, gray hair that doesn't seem to stem from age and his face a patchwork of scars-Soul has to be hallucinating. He has to be. Especially when Maka's face breaks into a sunny smile and he pulls her into a one-armed hug, a smile of his own plastered on his face as Marie trails in behind him.

What the absolute fuck. Soul knew this city was weird, of course he did, but this...this is going a bit beyond weird cultural-norms. Marie must notice his fish-out-of-water look, because she takes pity on him and ducks around the two as they begin conversing animatedly. She places his paperwork down on the bed beside him, "He's her godfather." She says, watching the two of them with a small smile. "Don't pay them any mind; he's going to wash up and then we'll get your nose set and you'll be on your way."

"Oh, uh, thanks." He says, watching the doctor wearily as he finishes washing his hands and pulls on a pair of gloves; still talking to Maka as he makes his way over and begins preparing whatever it is that he needs to fix Soul's nose.

"So," The doctor casts a glance to the papers on the bed, "Soul. How'd this happen?"

Before he can answer, Maka pipes up from behind him. "It was me." Well, shit. Okay then, he was going to let her off the hook, even more so since she knew everyone here, but when the doctor immediately takes a half-step away from him with the look of a man who knew full-well that nobody would think to check for the new guy in the morgue.

Goddammit.

Thankfully, Maka laughs. "No, no! Not like that. We were, ah, dancing too close and I accidentally elbowed him." Her face turns a pretty shade of red, but it's really got nothing on the deep bruising he's sporting. Well, they certainly make a colorful pair. Stein makes a thoughtful sort of hum, resuming his examination; gently prodding around Soul's nose, checking the dilation of his eyes, and feeling the angle in which his septum now sat thanks to a certain blonde someone. He feels her draw closer, her worry a physical thing that brushes down his back a raises goosebumps on his skin. "How bad is it?"

"Well, it's not great." Stein says casually, looking between the two of them. "It's definitely broken, but not so bad that it'll need any surgery." They both let out a breath. "However, I am going to have to manually reset it, so that it'll heal properly."

"Well, fuck." He doesn't really think before he says it, but Stein just nods solemnly, so he must be correct in his assumption that this wasn't gonna be fun. "Alright then, let's get this shit over with." Stein briefly quirks a brow at him, but at Soul's definitive nod, he shrugs.

"Alright then; on the count of three." Stein puts his fingers on either side of his nose, not yet putting any pressure. Soul closes his eyes; prepares himself for what was probably going to hurt more than getting his nose broken in the first place. "One." Soul sucks in a breath, holds it. "Two." He prepares for three, mentally steels himself, but three never comes-instead replaced by the sudden pressure and pain and pinching sort of crunch as Stein jerks his nose back into place.

"FUCK!" Soul jerks away on instinct, hand flying up to protect his face. "Motherfuck that hurt."

"Sorry. Thought it'd be better that way." Stein says with a shrug, seeming less than sorry. Soul grunts in response and uncovers his nose as the doctor reaches for him again, though this time, he's much gentler with his face's wellbeing. A few gentle prods and slightly odd caresses of his nose later, and Soul's cleared to get the fuck out and go the fuck home.

Okay, maybe it was said in slightly more professional terminology, but it doesn't really matter. Soul is a free man-wait, fuck...he has to sign a couple forms, confirm his insurance provider, update his cell number...okay, now he's a free man. A free man, who's going the fuck home maybe forever. Hopefully to forever forget this godawful night.

He thanks Doctor Stein and the nurse Marie for their time and help, Maka says her own goodbyes, and then the two leave as they came-albeit slightly less battered. There's a bit of an awkward silence as they walk back to her car, and they both move to break it at the same time.

"Hey, could you give me a ride home?"

"Let me take you out to dinner."

There's a pause, in which they both try to catch up to what the fuck just happened.

Wait...did she just ask him out?

He stops in his tracks and whips his head so fast he's pretty sure he just gave himself whiplash. "Did you just ask me out?" Maka's face burns, her cheeks puffing up a little bit as she buries her hands in the pockets of her jacket and rocks back on her heels.

"I mean, yeah. I dunno." She scuffs her foot against the ground. "It's the best way I could think to make it up to you. Food makes everything better."

His tongue feels floppy and totally useless as he flounders for an answer, and unfortunately for him, the most obvious one that pops into his head and also out of his mouth is: "Hell yes!"

"Huh?" She says, startled, of course, by his absolutely insane way of overzealously answering a casual question-because he's an idiot.

He coughs, clears his throat, as if that could possibly save face. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, no, that'd be cool." Maka's face breaks out into another of those sunny smiles, and Soul can't help but to feel like maybe getting his nose broken was kinda worth it if it meant he was going to get a second chance to see this girl, and hopefully pull a couple more of those smiles out of her.