If anyone is interested, the idea for Soul's singing voice is from my sweetheart (no not his, he sounds like fourteen cats in a blender) who left a Breaking Benjamin CD in my car. I love the acoustic version of The Diary of Jane and that's the inspiration behind my description of Soul's voice. So if you want to check it out, go for it and make sure it's the ACOUSTIC version!

Bed Knobs and Llamas- Sorry about the wisdom teeth! I've been there and it totally sucked. But you're pretty sharp for being under the influence! Usually I aim for 3,000 words in a chapter and the last one fell a little short of that. This one will too but I make up for it in fluffiness!

Enjoy everybody!

XOXO

Az.

Maka quietly turned the key to her and Soul's apartment, waving to Kid who had waited at the end of the hall to make sure she got in safely. He waved back and turned, leaving her.

It had been a fun night, lots of art and silliness from the Thompson sisters and Kid. They kept her amused and Kid had only collapsed once when the curator told them they couldn't fix the abstract bronze sculpture in the middle of the courtyard.

Maka slipped off her shoes and crept into the apartment in her stockinged feet, blinking in surprise when she saw the apartment was dark and Soul wasn't in any of the shared spaces. She was about to call his name when she realized there was music playing, a sultry guitar tune that made her want to sway. She took a few steps closer to Soul's room but stopped when she realized he was singing.

He never sang, at least, not that she'd heard. And though the words were strangely familiar, his voice was so hypnotic she couldn't place them. It was nice, smooth and thrummed some chord in her that made her start swaying in earnest to his bourbon-flavored voice.

"… everything you love, is caught up in the light. Every time I look inside your eyes… you make me wanna die…"

She stopped swaying abruptly, recognizing her poem, the one she'd started earlier that day. She was torn between being angry with him for reading it and being stunned that he'd taken the time to give it a melody and turn it into a song, a beautiful song.

"I would lie for you my love, my love… I would steal for you my love, my love… and I would die for you my love, my love…"

She hugged herself, rubbing away goosebumps that marched up her arms. He hadn't only turned it into a song, he'd finished it. She had tried to finish it herself but just couldn't find the words. She realized why now. The poem had been an embodiment of her feelings and conflicted emotions regarding Soul, it would never have been completed without his response to those feelings.

She stood in the hallway, caught between her desire to run towards and away from her partner. The weight of the moment felt suffocating to her, she recognized that it was crucial and whatever she decided to do would define their relationship.

Do I keep things the way they are or do I change them? She asked herself, unconsciously shaking in terror at the magnitude of the decision she was about to make.

She forced herself to take a step forward, then another, the confident meister warring with the insecure girl; one part of her telling her to ease the longing she was sure both she and her weapon felt and the other part telling her to run back to her room and keep things the way they were.

Soul is not Papa. Soul is Soul. She chanted to herself over and over. Soul is awesome and exotic and… And you're a plain, normal girl. She stopped a step away from the door. Why would a guy like Soul, a music prodigy and powerful weapon, be interested in an ordinary boring girl like her?

All of the insecurities Maka had been fighting found the hesitation in her and surged, drowning her courage.

"You make me want to die. I'll never be good enough…" Soul sang, and for a moment she felt that he was mocking her with her own words but the feeling he put into her poem and his song was genuine. It was a true reflection of how he felt.

Soul doesn't think he's good enough? She stared through the half-open door to see her weapon bowed over his guitar.

His room was dark except for the silvered light that slanted through the windows from the street lamp. He didn't need any sheet music, he knew the lyrics and melody by heart and she stepped silently into the room.

Wordlessly she crossed to him and put her hand gently on his shoulder, making his shoulders slump as he looked over at his meister, unsurprised to see her. He sighed and put his guitar down, eyes shuttering before she could identify the emotions behind them.

"How was your date?" He asked blandly, turning on a lamp and standing to face her.

She blinked, momentarily taken off-guard. "Oh… Silly. It wasn't a real date anyway, Kid's not my type."

"No?" Soul frowned. "Why not?"

Because I'm in love with you dumbass. Her eyes widened at her own thoughts and she bit her lip. "I-I dunno…"

Soul gave her a long, level look, eyes unreadable. "Jeez Maka. If Kid's not your type then who the hell is?" His voice was harsh in the silence and Maka stiffened.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She shot back.

"Kid's like, perfectly symmetrical and crap AND he's a reaper! You're not gonna find a better guy out there."

"Maybe I don't want a perfectly symmetrical guy! And he's not symmetrical he's got the stripes that make him unsymmetrical!"

(Unbeknownst to either teen, Kid's symmetry senses kicked in and he fainted just when Maka said this.)

She was babbling, she knew it, but this wasn't going the way she'd expected at all. Angry tears were welling up in her eyes and she couldn't do anything about them, making her even more frustrated.

"Don't cry." Soul's voice wasn't quite concerned, but he'd lost most of the angry edge. "Seriously, it's super annoying when girl's cry during a fight. It's totally cheating."

"W-Why the hell shouldn't I cry?" She rubbed at her eyes, then growled in frustration when she saw black streaks on her hands from her makeup. "Damnit!"

Soul sighed and rolled his eyes but grabbed her a tissue from his desk and handed it to her. She wiped under her eyes and blew her nose, clearing most of the tears and she threw away the tissue.

"Anyway." Soul continued when she was done. "It doesn't matter."

"Yes it does." Maka whispered, still-misty eyes meeting his. "It matters to me."

They stood in awkward silence and Maka looked down at his guitar, fingers tracing the strings. She unconsciously touched some of the chords he'd written for her poem. "I liked the song." She murmured.

"Oh. You heard that?" Soul swallowed hard, not sure how to respond, and pushed a hand through his thick hair. "It just… needed to be finished I guess."

"Thank you." She turned to look at him. "You finished it beautifully."

"Do you… want to hear the whole thing?" He asked hesitantly, smirking when she nodded exuberantly. He sat back on chair and caressed the neck of the guitar, lovingly running his fingers along the strings.

Maka was suddenly jealous of the instrument and had to look away, a blush rising as thoughts of his calloused fingers dominated her mind.

"Here." He flipped a sheet of music around so she could see the finished lyrics. "Sing with me."

Her jaw dropped and he smirked again, playing the first few chords so she could get a sense of the music. She carefully set down her shoes and hesitantly they began to sing. At first Maka blushed, remembering what she'd been thinking about when she wrote the first line; "Taste me, drink my soul." Then she became lost in the music, her sweeter voice twining with Soul's rich baritone as naturally as if they'd rehearsed the song daily.

As they sang Maka's eyes closed, opening only when the part that she'd written finished and she had to read what Soul had written. She found that his eyes were on her, hungry eyes with a longing that made her falter. Soul stopped when she stumbled on the words and put down the guitar, standing so they were nearly touching and tentatively brushed her cheek with his fingers. The last words he'd sung hanging heavily in the air between them.

"I would die for you my love."

Maka's mind went blank as she looked up at him, terrified by the desperate need she felt to be near him. She said the first thing that popped into her mind, the first words of her poem that had made her blush because they were what she wanted more than anything.

"Taste me…" She whispered, heart racing.

Soul's eyes widened in shock and she thought for a second that she'd misread the situation and said the wrong thing before his expression relaxed into an easy smile that seemed to ease years of tension out of his face.

Drink my soul. She thought hazily, eyes drifting half-way closed and lips parting as he cupped her jaw and leaned over her.

"HEY SOUL AND MAKA GET DOWN HERE!" A voice tore through the open window and into the room.

Neither teen moved for a moment until Soul's hand on her jaw moved back an inch and clenched in a fist so tight his knuckles were white.

"No…" Maka's eyes opened and she stared at her partner, her incapacitating longing rendering her paralyzed.

His expression opened in surprise at her pleading face before he let a slow smile curve his lips and she saw her aching desire mirrored in his eyes. Soul brushed her hair back and curved his body around hers so his lips touched her ear and her forehead cradled in the curve of his shoulder.

"I'm finishing this later Maka." He murmured and she shivered. "I'll finally taste you before the night's over." He added so quietly she almost didn't catch it as he pulled away and turned to the window.

Maka stayed frozen where she was as Soul leaned out the window and started yelling at Black Star who'd wrapped himself around the nearest streetlamp like some kind of blue-haired monkey. They kept at it for a few minutes before Soul turned back around, to find Maka in exactly the same position he'd left her in.

"Maka?" He tipped her face back. "We gotta go, Stein's had some kind of break-through or something and it's time for us to chop."

"But…" For the first time ever, Maka wanted to skip out on her duties as a weapon's meister. "I… Don't…" She frowned at her frustratingly clouded thinking. She couldn't tell Soul that she didn't want to go, that wasn't the kind of person she was. "… Have the right outfit on." She finished lamely.

Soul rolled his eyes. "Go change then you idiot."

She glared at him and stormed out of the room, scooping up her shoes on the way. She dropped her heels again in the doorway to her room and shoved the door carelessly behind her, not noticing when the shoes kept it from closing all the way.

She unzipped her dress and let it fall to the floor, kicking it away and stripping off the pantyhose with equal disregard. She was just buttoning up her usual shirt when a soft knock at the door made her turn.

A blush stained her cheeks when she saw the door partially opened and her partner leaning outside, one crimson eye betraying his casual stance by sneaking glances at her long bare legs.

"J-just a minute." She ducked into her walk-in closet and yanked on a skirt, zipping up the side as she emerged and opened the door the rest of the way. "What's up?"

He snuck another look at her legs and swallowed hard. "Yeah I'm going to be happy to see those things covered up."

"Huh?"

"Nothing."

Maka frowned and focused for a moment on Soul's soul, initiating the barest trace of soul resonance with him, just enough to catch the one word that his soul was projecting and consuming her with.

MINE.

She broke contact, still feeling wisps of contact with his soul all around her. The possessiveness surrounded her skin like fog, leaving no part of her unclaimed and she had to focus hard to get her mind back to the present.

Soul looked away and pulled a familiarly-shaped box from behind his back, it hadn't been very well disguised since it was twice as long as he was wide but she'd been so distracted by his soul's wavelength she didn't notice.

"I had Black Star and Tsubaki pick these up, I know it's a few days until your birthday but I thought you should have your present early." He placed the box on her bed.

It wasn't wrapped, but she would have known what it was even if it had been. The box was distinctive and could only have one thing in it.

"Soul… how did you…" Maka flipped the top of the box to reveal the high black boots she'd ordered.

"They had your size at another location. The only reason it was going to take so long to get to you was the stupid mail service so I called and got those. I don't want you fighting in sneakers." He shrugged nonchalantly. "Happy birthday Maka."

Maka walked to her dresser as if in a daze and pulled out a pair of over-the-knee socks, putting them on and sitting on her bed so she could lovingly remove and pull on the new boots. They had already been laced in the back—she suspected Tsubaki had something to do with that—so she only had to tie them and adjust the clasps.

When they were on she stood and looked at her reflection in the mirror, unused to seeing the long smooth expanse of leather encasing her legs to nearly mid-thigh.

"Soul they're perfect." She breathed, twisting in a half-circle to see the laces running from her heel to under the top clasps. She froze suddenly, remembering the price tag that had been originally attached to them. She'd been prepared to spend the amount because she knew the quality of the brand and that they'd last for years. "But they're too expensi-!"

He shrugged again, holding up a hand to cut her off. "You deserve to be spoiled on your birthday."

Without warning, Maka threw her arms around Soul's neck. "I don't know what to say!"

"You could start with-" Soul started, his token smirk falling as he saw his meister's blushing face suddenly in front of his, eyes half-lidded and intentions clear from her lips close enough that he could feel the warmth of her breath against his mouth. "… that."

He closed his eyes and slid one arm around her, the other hand tracing fingers around her slender neck.

"WHAT THE HECK IS TAKING YOU TWO SO FREAKING LONG?" Black Star's voice echoed in from the hallway.

For a moment Soul's grip on Maka tightened before he let her go with a growl and her head drooped with a similarly frustrated sound.

"I'm going to kill him." Soul pressed a kiss to the top of Maka's bowed head.

"Yes. Kill and dismember. Then Maka-chop all the little tiny pieces." She looked up and felt her own battle aura pouring off her in waves.

"You can be hella scary you know that?" Soul grinned.

"Good. Let's go." Maka threw open her door and stormed into the hall where Black Star was strutting in their direction.

When he saw them he reversed, heading back to the open window. "FINALLY! WHAT THE HECK TOOK YOU GUYS SO LONG? THE MIGHTY BLA-!"

He was cut off as Maka Spartan-kicked him out the open window.

I hope you enjoyed the fluffy mcfluffikins! Next chapter has fightin action! Woo! Send me your love and convince me to update faster ^.~