Hello, everyone! It has been a very long time! Thanks for stopping by, though. Following are a bunch of drabbles I've done since last summer. You can also find them on my tumblr (chaoticlivi).
Merpeople AU feat. sharkman!Soul (for peregr1ne)
Maka doesn't trust land-dwellers. Nobody trusts land-dwellers.
They're swimming a little bit close to a settlement for comfort, because while she doesn't trust land-dwellers, she is curious about them.
Her best friend - she supposes he deserves that title, right? - is hanging around with her as usual. It's taken her some time to realize that in Soul-language, drifting about in the shadows nearby even when he doesn't have to translates vaguely into "I want to be your friend." And she loves having him around, so really, they both win.
They float near the end of a long rock jetty. It's too early in the spring for anyone to be swimming (land-dwellers are notoriously sensitive to cool water), but occasionally a family will appear on the beach. Often they do obnoxious things; they make a lot of noise, splash in the water, throw some of their garbage away.
But Maka likes watching them because sometimes, in their more relatable moments, they act like aquatic people. It's funny to watch lovers making out and parents trying to wrangle children and the dogs dashing back and forth on the beach, who always sense her presence but whose barks the land-dwellers don't heed.
Soul pokes fun at her for land-watching, but he insists on coming with her anyway.
As they watch, a pink-haired land-dwelling child starts climbing the rocks on the jetty. Their parents appear both preoccupied and unconcerned, and the child is fascinated by the deep, dark water that they can't see through anywhere near as well as aquatic people like Maka and Soul.
"Idiots," Soul mumbles of the parents, who seem to have their backs turned.
It takes less time than one would predict for the short child to make their way to the end of the jetty, and Maka has a feeling of foreboding when they start to set their oddly-shaped foot down close to the edge of the water on the algae-covered last rock.
Her instinct is completely correct. As the child slips and falls without even time to shriek, Maka has already begun to move forward.
"Maka!" Soul shouts behind her, and she can feel him following her; but she's too afraid to watch a child drown to stop now. Maka doesn't trust land-dwellers, but she doesn't want to see a little one die.
The child is far underwater already by the time she arrives, bubbling and scrambling frantically, bleeding from where their head hit the rock they'd slipped on, but she lifts them the several feet to the surface quickly and easily.
Maka does her best to deliver them gently to the surface of the rock. Though she intends to dash away immediately, she catches the child's eye, and there is so much fear in it that she has to stop and take a moment to smile and wave reassuringly.
The child's face changes from terror to wonder, and they start saying something unintelligible in a land-dweller language when Soul pops out of the water behind her with a menacing growl.
The child screams, and Maka realizes they are afraid of Soul's intimidating visage, all sharp teeth and gray skin and pointy edges. She doesn't know how to explain that he's nice, too, and before she can try, he pulls her back under the water.
"Soul, what the hell?!" she snarls. "You scared them! They were just a little kid!"
"Maka," he says urgently, putting his hands on her shoulders - but gently, to keep her attention rather than to restrain her. "I'd have saved the kid, too. I don't think it was wrong. But you scare mesometimes, you know? You get so close to these people, and it's dangerous. If you're going to help them, you need to do it and get out. Please don't hang around."
She has to admit, she is a bit attracted to danger. She's attracted to him because he looks so tough. But what really melts her heart, what draws her to him much more strongly than the moon pulls at the water of the ocean, is the warm concern in his eyes. She puts her hands on top of his, holding them in place, and gives him an open gaze.
"I'll be alright, Soul," she says. "I promise. You don't have to follow me, and you don't have to worry about me."
"I don't wanna try to control you," he answers. "But I do want to, uh…" He's flushing prettily. "I do want to hang out with you, even when you're land-watching. And, well - I kinda lost my cool when I thought the adults might see you." He glances to the side. "You know what? Never mind. Sorry."
Maka smiles widely and taps him on the head to get him to look at her again. As soon as his curious eyes are on her own, she leans forward and presses her lips gently but firmly against his. Her eyes slide shut and she can only assume he's done the same as they kiss for a minute, hands intertwining now. It's about time.
He gives her the toothiest grin she's seen yet.
They distance themselves from the shore and look back. The child's parents have retrieved them, and they're hugging in relief on the shoreline. The child is probably trying to explain what they saw, and the parents probably don't believe them.
Tsugumi + SoMa shenanigans for sassysimoneevans
It figured that the tension between them would finally break after an outdoor practice session in the woods, of all times - when they were overheated, grimy, sweaty, even a little scraped; totally not at their most charming.
But it was fitting, in a way, since that was how they'd first gotten to know each other.
They hadn't dropped the resonance yet when he transformed out of his Death Scythe form, and he noticed how little she was (heh, concentrated passion) as he walked over to join her where she stood. Maka's gaze was bright and open. Soul felt comfortable enough not to break eye contact, so he grinned instead. As he got closer, her eyebrows rose and her smile began to seem expectant.
And that was all he needed to lean down and give her a peck on the lips.
After he did it, he second-guessed himself, worried that he'd screwed up after all. But she didn't even look surprised and her smile didn't falter. Instead, she took a deep breath and tugged on his upper sleeve to pull him in for another kiss.
They had been at this for a good few minutes, getting used to the heady spark of touching lips, figuring out where their hands should be and how to breathe in a situation like this, when they heard a voice from the nearby line of trees.
"Miss Maka, I– oh!" Tsugumi squeaked. He felt himself flush as brightly and as quickly as the underclassman did. His partner's face brightened, too.
"Hi, Tsugumi!" Maka called in an unnaturally high voice. She shifted her stance in embarrassment, stepping in front of Soul and putting her hands on her hips as if she could conceal what they'd been doing. "What's up?"
"Miss Maka, I uh… Professor Stein sent me for you!" Tsugumi said to the ground, still as bright as a tomato.
"Well, then, we'll go right to see him," Maka said, falsely confident. Tsugumi nodded and absolutely bolted away, leaving the meister and weapon to look back at each other sheepishly.
"Guess we'd better head back," Soul said, scratching the side of his still-warm face.
"Yeah, let's go," Maka answered, leading the way, just as she would if nothing interesting had happened.
But they threaded their fingers together on the walk back and couldn't help some occasional giggling.
Maka's Soul Perception is definitely great for secret makeouts
Maybe he's selfish for this, but he doesn't care - his favorite use of Maka's Soul Perception is ensuring that nobody walks in on one of their hot makeout sessions.
Soul had started by saying she doesn't have to do that, doesn't have to be on alert all the time. She says she doesn't mind, it's second nature now to keep track of people who are nearby. And she adds that she kind of enjoys using soul perception because she can see his soul, too, and it's sexy to observe while they're fooling around.
He wishes he could see hers, but he also has a feeling it would be a lot like looking into her luminous eyes just after a well-placed hip thrust has made her gasp, or listening to the timbre of her voice when she's hummed after tasting his tongue.
When they're home, Maka always knows where Blair is. The cat has walked in on them snuggling on the couch, reading together on the ground, sleeping in bed, and leaning casually against the kitchen counter.
The cat hasn't walked in on Soul nibbling Maka's neck until she moans as they spoon on the couch, or Maka groping Soul's arousal as she playfully straddles him on the ground, or him massaging her breasts as they suck face in bed, or her running her hands through his hair as they grind their hips together, braced against the kitchen counter.
When they're out, Maka always knows whether anyone else is approaching. They've been asked, "Hey, what are you guys doing there?" a few times - especially in quiet alleyways and deserted corridors - but Soul has gotten great at shrugging and saying, "Just talking about some mission stuff", while Maka has gotten great at smiling and saying, "Just wondering what was back here."
Of course, they usually have excellent self-control. They're both naturally private about their intimate lives and mostly choose to wait until they're in the relative solitude of their own apartment, behind closed doors.
But sometimes life has been busy and it's been hard to get a moment alone.
Or sometimes something happens. They're reminded how dangerous their job is, that every day is a gift. One does something the other particularly appreciates.
In any case, it is nice to disregard how far they are from home if he really wants to wrap her up in his arms, kiss her soft lips and smell her sweetness, nibble her ears while she runs her hands through his hair and pulls him close, drown in her entirely.
They haven't told anyone yet. Sometime soon, someone will find out, and then so will everyone else, but it will be on their terms.
"Can you just hold me?" anonymous prompt
There are still anxious, sleepless nights. Even nightmares, sometimes. It's not madness in the same urgent way as before - just the subtle struggle of everyday life, common to all humans.
It's not as drastic as when he had the Black Blood. Things have certainly improved for both of them since then. But their underlying fears, those little things that the madness would exploit to infiltrate their souls - those fears never exactly go away. It's funny, because on the outside, they're opposites, and you would think they would simply have opposite fears, but deep down they approach the same anxiety from different directions.
They feel inferior.
Soul is still a mystery to her at times, and this seems like a failure on her part. Maybe it's the music. She knows she can't doubt his loyalty as a weapon, and she's finally confident that he cares about her as a human being, but sometimes that obnoxious little voice in the back of her head still reminds her that strictly speaking, he doesn't need her. She has to just trust that people don't always leave, has to give up control in the matter, and that is absolutely terrifying.
She also can't banish the thought that she did a woefully incomplete job of rescuing Crona. Sometimes, she is able to find contentment, knowing that her friendship made the difference in the fate of the world, knowing that her friend finally knew peace and love and human kindness before deciding to stay on the moon. But still, sometimes, late at night when the sky is alarmingly black, she'll wonder if she could do better, if there would have been a way around the fate Crona met if Maka had just been stronger.
Maybe someone who was stronger could have had them living alongside humanity again.
As for Soul, people are starting to figure out who he is and it makes him nervous. He likes himself enough now that, well, it's usually fine, but how can he be really sure that he's any good? Or that he doesn't look like a fucking jackass in front of everyone? That they aren't just being polite, or that he won't fuck up spectacularly at the last moment?
He also has to wonder about his continued relevance to Maka. He doesn't have doubts about his ability to be a good partner in battle, but really, she's achieved her goal by making him a Death Scythe (arguably) more powerful than her father. And he's lost the Black Blood, so while that's great for both of their peace of mind, he can't help with accessing Crona on the moon or anything like that. She's such a goal-oriented person he finds it hard to believe that she isn't just bored by him at this point.
So on occasional nights, twice a month perhaps, one or the other ends up pacing quietly around the apartment. Neither ever wakes the other - they just sit in the living room, with the TV on very low, sometimes with a cup of tea. The malaise will balance on their shoulders and slip into their stomachs until they've let their now-cold drink spill in their lap or woken up with a cramped neck, ten minutes before the alarm is due to go off anyway.
It is a year before they end up awake on the same night. In fact, it happens to be the anniversary of the battle on the moon.
Maka is on the couch first, sipping tea. She's allowed herself a few tears, not because life is so horrible, but because it's a way to take the pressure off once in a while.
She is surprised when Soul comes out of his room looking alert, ignoring both the refrigerator and the bathroom. He's staring at his feet and doesn't notice her until he's almost plopped down on the couch.
"Why are you sitting here in the dark?" he asks, eyebrows furrowed to oppose her still-raised ones. "And…why are you crying?!"
"I'm not crying," she insists impotently. "I'm just thinking. Can't sleep."
"Yeah, well, you're not the only one."
He doesn't press the issue. Instead, he sits beside her, closer than necessary. He has no idea where to take this conversation next, but having Maka here is a nice distraction from his restlessness, despite the fact that she's the source of that restlessness.
They're going to graduate soon, and something deep down has been telling him, listen, you're gonna have to make a move, but not yet. It's not quite the right time. Don't screw up the timing.
They sit for what must be ten minutes straight. It occurs to both that this would usually be awkward, but they're Soul and Maka, so it's not. He catches her sniffling.
"Uh. Anything I can do?"
She shakes her head, eyes fixated on the shut-off TV, before sniffling again. "Actually, can you just hold me?"
He should get an award for not looking surprised by this. "Hey, you're the meister - aren't you supposed to be holding me?"
Her gaze snaps over to his eyes and he offers a cheesy grin before she scoots the already-miniscule distance between them and wraps her arms around his torso. He's warm, having been hunched into himself after climbing out of a toasty bed, and while fears are just a fact of life, the welcoming way he pulls her close does banish quite a few of them.
She's so little. It's funny, because he's started to notice this lately, and yet it does nothing at all to diminish the power of her presence. He wonders if she notices how he changes when she holds him, how his embrace becomes slightly reminiscent of the way one curls around their only source of heat on a cold night.
"Someday I'll pick up the courage to ask you on a real date." Prompt fill for ilarual.
Dammit. He knew he was gonna forget something. It would look really bad if he showed up to the Important Diplomatic Thing without wearing a tie.
This, to him, was evidence that it was not as important as they all said…but whatever.
On his way back to his bedroom in the apartment, he could hear Maka yammering away on the phone in her own room. She was talking to her mother. He walked quietly, knowing she cherished these conversations and that she wouldn't want to be disturbed during a call this important. He tuned out everything she said for the sake of politeness, letting her voice hum comfortably in the background.
Still, while putting on the infernal tie, he couldn't help but register it when she said something about him.
It had started with something about the Death City carnival, which was last weekend, blah blah blah.
"Soul had a lot of fun, too," Maka was saying. There was a long pause, followed by a nervous laugh and "Ahhhhh, not officially. He told me he had a good time, which is unusual for him, you know? He's not very straightforward. I almost went and said 'okay, someday I'll pick up the courage to ask you on a real date!', but I decided not to—"
Soul didn't hear much after that. He did cough loudly to alert her of his presence, full of guilt about the mostly-accidental eavesdropping, but it was also impossible to wipe the massive grin off his face as he left the apartment. She wouldn't feel good about having him either barge in on her conversation or miss the meeting, but he had just accidentally discovered the answer to a question he'd been asking himself for years.
And it was the answer he wanted, too.
Before leaving, Maka's room had fallen silent, so Soul thought it would be fine to knock on the door. When he did, he heard an unnaturally high-pitched "Come in?"
He peeked around the door. Maka was sitting in bed reading a book - but wait, it was upside-down.
"What is it?" she demanded, looking flustered.
"I would like to go on a real date with you sometime, Maka," he said, pronouncing her name with great care and intention. If her cheeks were red before, it was nothing to how they turned.
"You did hear," she gaped.
"Sorry," he added. "It wasn't really on purpose."
"It's - all's well that ends well, right?" she smiled. "After the meeting?"
"After the meeting," he agreed.
The meeting - why they sometimes asked both Soul and his meister to come and why they would sometimes only ask for one of them was beyond him, but it had certainly worked to his advantage this time - dragged on for a full two hours. When he got out, he took a quick trip by the florist.
"How am I supposed to concentrate when you're kissing me?" prompt for two anons.
This is so stupid. He's tied a million ties and yet he keeps screwing this one up. But, well, it's the morning after their first time…
She's embracing him from behind, has her face in his back. For once, he's taking longer than she did to get ready, but only because he fell back asleep and woke up an hour too late. She musses a hand, finely-gloved in sexy black, through his hair.
"My weapon's such a lazy bedhead," she murmurs.
"You're not making it any better," he grouches. He can feel her lips, soft but so insistent, kissing the back of his jacket. It's not made of thin material, but he keeps imagining her lips on his bare flesh as they were last night.
"What, Soul? Did the rich boy forget how to tie a tie?"
Even as she says it, he finally succeeds. He turns around, giving the tie its final adjustments and her the most disarming smirk he can manage. "How am I supposed to concentrate when you're kissing me?"
"You're not." She tugs on his tie, pulling them closer together so she can pepper his chin with little kisses. He caresses her back, lets his hands follow their own will down to her perfect ass (it's warm through her dress, hot damn) and pull her closer into his hips.
"Ah, wait…if we– we're gonna be late," she mumbles through a searing French kiss.
"You're not acting like you care," he says slyly.
"I should, though…this is important. Let's go." She takes his hand and pulls him toward the door with a resigned sigh.
"We could be fashionably late," he suggests, his voice lascivious.
Maka pauses, looks him up and down with reddened cheeks, thinks about it. "We'll ruin our nice clothes," she says. "That would be a no-no here."
"Fiiiine."
As she locks the door, Maka gives him a wink. "It'll be better if we hold off until this is over, right?"
And when they get back in the afternoon, they barely even make it through the door before they're all over each other again.
Pop Song Criticism
Every time that you get undressed
I hear symphonies in my head.
I wrote this song just
Lookin' at you, oohh-oh
As he dusts, Soul thinks idly that at least he can sort of relate to the lyrics of this horrible song, in some way.
Maka really likes to put popular music on in the apartment during cleaning days, which happen like clockwork on the first weekend of every month. She also likes to dance around to it and sing the lyrics in a breathy, quiet, slightly off-key voice while she does chores.
When he was younger he would just tease her mercilessly (she would stick her tongue out and sing louder). Now he just laughs mysteriously every now and again, enjoying the suspicious looks he earns from her.
She's pretty cute.
Anyway, the horrible song. Soul has mixed feelings about pop music. Very frequently, it is technical garbage, although occasionally a musician with genuine talent or a legitimately well-composed song will make an appearance. However, he stands by his opinion that it's important to understand all kinds of music, so he suffers through whatever the lowest common denominator deems appealing.
Admittedly, he even enjoys the stupidest songs at times. They're usually catchy.
But judging from the very beginning, this song might actually be relatable, which is both rare and dangerous. He has, after all, been comparing his meister to music lately. And he can only imagine what her music would sound like in more intimate moments…
Yeah, the drums they swing low
And the trumpets they go
'Doot-doot-doo-doo-doo-doo-doot-doot"
Soul grimaces as the lyrics take a turn for the absurd. Okay, you lost me on that, he thinks. And then–
Is it weird that your ass
Reminds me of a Kanye West song?
Is it weird that I hear
Trumpets when you're turnin' me on?
Is it weird that your bra
Reminds me of a Katy Perry song?
By the end of the song, Soul cannot hold himself back from blurting, "Yeah, but Kanye West, Katy Perry, and Coldplay are absolutely not symphonies. How can you try to compare a girl to a symphony and then wind up with - that?"
Maka is currently cleaning the table, and she chimes from the kitchen, "You're so uptight, Soul. It's just for fun! He's not being literal, he's just talking about music in general."
"Like you'd know," he grouses, because it wouldn't hurt anyone to use specific musical words correctly, but still he drifts into the kitchen to help. She hums her appreciation when he starts on cleaning the counter. They should get a prize for being the cleanest tenants.
The radio has long since moved on to the next song.
Boys only want love if it's torture
Don't say I didn't, say I didn't warn ya
Boys only want love if it's torture
Don't say I didn't, say I didn't warn ya
And in a moment of indignation, Soul mutters, "Bullshit."
"Hmm? What's wrong now?" Maka asks. He can tell she's trying to keep the irritation out of her otherwise-playful voice. Maybe he was a bit too vehement.
"Ah, I dunno, nothing. I just don't like the lyrics. Catchy song, though," he says, hoping to divert the conversation.
But Maka's not distractible enough for that. "Hmm? Why?" She's quit her task now and looks at him, head cocked to the side, while he does his best to keep cleaning as if nothing has happened even though the counter is probably already surgically sterile. "They're not serious. It's just for fun."
"Eh, I know." Soul shrugs.
"Are you mad because it stereotypes men?" she asks, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
He sighs, resigned to explaining himself. "That's - not exactly it. It just makes me think of myself, I guess. And how if I ever had a girlfriend, I wouldn't want us to have that kind of relationship. It wasn't really a criticism of the song."
Maka's reached a whole new level of curiosity as she stares at him. In one innocuous statement, he may have said too much.
"If?" she asks.
"Well–"
"I mean, that would be fine!" Maka said in a hurry. "You don't have to only date women, I just assumed–"
"Maka, no, it's not that–"
"Oh, I mean, you don't have to date anyone, not everyone wants to date," she revises, now scrambling for words and turning a flustered shade of red.
In spite of his nerves, Soul lets out a little chuff of laughter. "You're overthinkin' it, nerdbrain. I just didn't want to say 'when' because you never know if - if you're gonna meet someone you want to be with. Who also wants to be with you."
"Ohhhh," Maka murmurs. "Ah. I get it." And she's wearing a tight, inscrutable smile. "Haven't met that 'someone' yet, huh?"
Shit. There is no correct answer and his face is heating up so fast it might melt off. "I, uh. That's…hard to tell. You know that, right?" He tries to swallow the nervousness. It doesn't work. He offers a cocky grin. It's probably not convincing.
Maka snaps her attention back to chores, grabbing the broom from where it rests against the counter. "It's alright. I was just curious. But you're a - a good guy. I'm sure when you do meet someone, they'll also want to be with you."
She can't disguise the sadness in her voice and it tugs at his heart. But now he has an idea.
Maybe this means it's time.
Soul clears his throat to get her attention. She seems to realize he's staring right at her, so she returns his gaze.
"Would you want to go to dinner tonight?" he asks.
Her lips curve upward into a timid grin. "You don't mean like we usually do, do you?"
"No. A little different." He licks his lips.
"A date?"
"Yeah." Why was it so hard for him to spit that word out?
"Sounds good," Maka answers, and she's beaming.
A few minutes later, they haven't said anything more; Soul is in the other room folding laundry, still flushed, still beaming. He'll probably be blushing until tonight. But he hears Maka laughing from the kitchen.
"What's going on?" he shouts.
"Soul! This is that song that reminds me of Marie."
He turns his attention back to the radio.
If you could take my pulse right now,
it would feel just like a sledgehammer.
If you could feel my heart beat now,
it would hit you like a sledgehammer.
Well, his heart is certainly pounding, and he has a feeling Marie would approve of tonight's plans if she knew about them.