A/N- Ridiculous crack (sort of) at the request of Professor Maka. Enjoy your bit of fluffy cracky nonsense, ProMa!
Soul had his first and last experience with heavy drinking when he was sixteen and promptly decided that he liked hanging on to his self-control, thank you very much (the hangover hadn't been great, either). Maka, on the other hand, actually obeyed substance control laws... which meant that by the time she was of legal age, she had no tolerance built up. Given the fact that she was ridiculously petite, Maka's first experience with alcohol was inevitably going to be an experience to say the least. If you had asked Soul the day before Maka's twenty-first birthday, he would have said that he absolutely was looking forward to seeing her get tipsy. He figured she'd probably be one of those really cute giggly drunks.
As he watched his meister chatting up some blond sleazeball at the bar, however, Soul found himself wondering how in the hell he had ever thought Drunk Maka was going to be a fun and entertaining experience.
This was all Kim's fault. Liz and Kid had been making plans to throw a surprise party for Maka at the Gallows, but Kim had put the kibosh on that the second she heard about it and insisted that "cocktails in Symmetrytown was no way for a girl to celebrate the big 2-1." The end result of Kim taking over the party planning had been a massive detour to Vegas, to a bar/club the pink-haired meister informed them was often frequented by young witches who wanted to mingle with humans. That statement had had Soul jumping out of his skin, but Kim assured them repeatedly that it was almost exclusively witches in her generation, younger girls trying to escape from the hidebound ways of their older predecessors. It wasn't entirely reassuring, but it was enough to keep him from putting his foot down on the escapade.
In retrospect, he really wished he had.
There might not be witch-girls crawling all over the place as he had envisioned when Kim had first proposed the scheme, but there were an abundance of unnecessarily horny single dudes trying to get laid. Soul kind of thought he would prefer the witches. At least with them, Maka stood much less chance of becoming a virgin sacrifice.
To be fair, it actually was a nice place. The music was loud but not too loud once you got off the dance floor, and the bartenders were wickedly good at their job. Lots of slick chrome and stainless steel and frosted glass, a raised dance floor lit with a variety of shifting colored lights beneath a pane of plexiglass, it was all very shiny and futuristic, very cool. Soul could see why Kim had singled it out. Any other night he would probably have enjoyed coming here for a few hours to blow off some steam.
Unfortunately, on this particular night, he was stuck at a booth between Patti and Harvar, watching from a distance as Maka flirted with an absolute stranger. She had got up to go get another drink half an hour ago, and while she was waiting on the bartender to finish mixing her latest round of fruity frozen whatever-it-was, some slimy dudebro had approached her and started flirting, to which Maka had responded way too positively. By the time the bartender finally managed to get her drink to her, she had gotten absorbed in conversation with Blond Douche and by then it was too late because once Maka decided she wanted to talk to somebody, hauling her away was a chore.
Soul revised his earlier opinion. The bartenders here were actually shit at their job, no one should have to wait long enough for a cocktail to actually start a conversation.
Maka had since finished her drink and ordered another and showed no signs of being bored of the guy, even though he was clearly the kind of asshole who spent every Friday and Saturday night in dives like this (and probably the rest of the week, too). For god's sake, he knew his meister was something of a social butterfly, but this was just ridiculous! What was so interesting about that prick anyway? He wasn't even Maka's type! Granted, Soul wasn't sure exactly what Maka's type was, because they usually had more important things to talk about than gossiping about what she looked for in a man, but it was definitely not that guy.
He gave the guy and his stupid tight tank top with his stupid bulging biceps a calculating once-over. No, definitely not Maka's type. Maka probably liked someone quieter, someone who knew what to do with himself outside a club scene, someone who didn't need alcohol to be interesting. Probably someone who was in the same line of work, because civs just didn't get what it was like fighting evil for a living and wouldn't appreciate what she did. She'd probably like someone smart enough to keep up with her but not so smart that it became competitive. She would definitely want a sensitive guy, someone who took the time to understand her, someone looking for a relationship not just a hookup, someone with a little fashion sense good god...
Oh, who was he kidding? He was just trying to convince himself that she'd be interested in a guy like him. He'd waited six years for her, not counting the years of their partnership that had come before he woke up one day and realized that oh, he loved her, and in all that time he couldn't think of a single clue Maka had given that she might share the feeling. It was a very good thing Soul had realized that being cool wasn't all it was cracked up to be, because spending years pining for a girl who wasn't gonna reciprocate was the height of uncool.
Also uncool was the way he shattered the glass in his hand when Maka stumbled and ended up plastered across Blond Douche's chest to keep from falling to the floor. The sight of the rat bastard's hands on her- in places that definitely were not necessary to keep the tipsy meister upright, thank you very much!- had Soul seeing red.
"You okay, man?" Harvar asked.
"Just fine," Soul replied, although he supposed his bared teeth and ongoing attempts to light that motherfucker on fire with his eyes might belie the statement just a little bit. "Hey Patti, can you get up for a sec? I need to get out."
"Why?" the blonde asked innocently, looking up from the cocktail napkin she had been cheerfully shredding for uses yet-unknown.
He growled in exasperation. "I- Fucking- could you just-? Dammit, Patti, just lemme out!"
"Fine, geez, you don't have to be a meanie-pants about it," she grumbled, sliding out of the booth to free him.
Soul rocketed out of his seat and was across the club in ten seconds flat, planting himself squarely at Maka's side. He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her back sharply, dislodging Blond Douche's hands from where they had been inching steadily in the direction of her (rather fantastic) ass. "There you are!" he exclaimed, giving the bottom dweller who'd been quasi-fondling her a glare that told him in no uncertain terms that he was not here to play nice.
"What the hell, Soul?" Maka demanded.
"I got worried when you never came back," he said, wrapping an arm around her shoulder possessively. He was aware he was pushing his luck, but slinging an arm around her to let Douchey McDoucherton know it wasn't open season on meisters was platonic enough, right? And the fact that Maka smiled cheerfully up at him was a good sign- he hadn't crossed any boundaries.
Blondie apparently hadn't gotten the hint, however, because he said, "Uh, dude, we were having a conversation here."
"Yeah, I saw how friendly you were getting," Soul shot back.
The other guy snorted. "Whatever, buddy. Still got farther than you, since she ditched you. Can't take a hint that she's not into your ugly ass, huh?"
"You motherf-!"
"I got it, Soul," Maka said, slapping a hand sloppily over his mouth to silence him. She shrugged off his arm, which Soul thought was probably going to turn out to be a mistake, since she wasn't exactly steady on her feet, but he let her go. "You-" she declared, pointing an accusatory finger at Sir Douche-a-lot, "-are not a nice boy. I thought you were a nice boy but you are not, and I'm very disgurt- disgruntled that you have deceived me with regards to your character! Now let me tell you-"
Soul clamped his teeth down on his lips to keep from laughing out loud. Apparently Drunk Maka took monologing lessons from Excalibur, and it was very entertaining to watch. She wasn't slurring her words, exactly- in fact he would say that she was over-enunciating to compensate for her intoxication- but the time distortion effect that came with being drunk was having an obvious effect and she stretched her syllables in very unlikely ways. She had also apparently become uncommonly fond of flamboyant hand gestures to accompany her words, and nearly knocked her wannabe one-night-stand's drink out of his hand on more than one occasion.
"-and you see this handsome guy here? Yeah, this one?" She turned and poked Soul in the chest for emphasis. "His name is Soul Eater. You may have heard of him. You see, he's the Last Death Scythe. And I'm the meister who trained him. Yeah, that's right, I see you going pale! Well, you should be scared, because we're the team that slayed the witch Arachne. We defeated Asura. We're the reason the moon turned black. We kill scum for a living... and let me tell you, I for one consider womanizing jerks who try to pick up unsuspecting women in bars for a wham-bam-thank you ma'am kind of deal to be a very special kind of scum, so if you thought you were gonna flatter me and tell me about your sister and thought you'd get an easy screw out of the deal, then you have another think coming, you utter cocksucker!"
"Oh-kayyyy, aaaand I think we've made our point!" Soul said, clamping his hands down on Maka's shoulders and pointing her easily from Blond Douche, who currently looked like he might need a respirator or something. Soul smirked at him over his shoulder as he guided Maka away.
"Awwww, I wasn't done," Maka whined as he guided her back to the booth their group had claimed. "I wanted to see if I could make him cry!"
"You can try and make the next one cry," Soul said absently, steering her into the empty space left when Patti scooted over uncomfortably close to Harvar.
"I really thought he was very nice and friendly," Maka observed, sipping cheerfully on the straw stuck into what Soul assumed was a strawberry margarita. "Apparently I'm a very bad judge of character when I'm drunk." She looked up at Soul, green eyes wide and a little unfocused. "I'm sorry he called you an ugly ass," she said. "You're not an ugly ass. In fact, I think your ass is very nice. It looks really great in those tight jeans you w-"
"Oh my god Maka shut up!" Soul exclaimed as he slapped a hand over her babbling mouth, fully aware that his face had gone bright red.
She giggled and pushed his hand away (though her depth perception was off, so it took her a few tries). "Did I embarrass you, Soul?"
"No, I just don't think it's necessary to talk about my ass in public!"
"Awwww, I did embarrass you! I'm sorry," she said, and threw her arms around his neck in an enthusiastic hug.
Even though his face was still covered in a burning blush, Soul decided that maybe he had been right after all. Drunk Maka was pretty cute, and if it meant extra hugs for him, he had no complaints.
Patti tossed a large handful of cocktail napkin confetti over their heads and began humming Pachelbel's Canon in D.
A/N- As always, I welcome your feedback and constructive criticism!