Tumblr word prompt by fabulousanima.
Mamihlapinatapei: The look between two people in which each loves the other but is too afraid to make the first move.
She can always feel him watching her, and normally she takes an odd sort of comfort in knowing that he's wandering around nearby, but right now, all she wants is to snap his scrawny little fingers and kick him onto the train tracks.
The prickling at her back continues, and finally she throws down the pitchfork she'd been using to clean out the stalls and wheels around, pointing unerringly at him, practically shrieking, "Soul! You!"
He skulks out from around the corner he'd been lurking behind and lifts his brows, regarding her as if she were the crazy one, thumbs stuck nonchalantly in his suspenders. "You squalled, bearcat?"
"Stop staring at me," she implores furiously. "Just stop it!"
Those otherwordly eyes narrow a little as he thinks, but then his mouth gives that quavering twitch that he pretends is a smile. "Oh. You're still angry with me, then?"
She stands very straight and says carefully, "No, of course not. Why would I be angry?"
His lips quirk again, almost imperceptibly, and she wants to murder him all over again. "I already told you, I'll finish the chapter if you ask nice."
"Self-righteous dog," she spits, stomping both her feet in some sort of rage-driven Rumpelstilstkin dance. She throws both hands up and adds spitefully, "I am not going to beg!"
He rolls his eyes. "You already know Jane and Rochester end up together. It's a book, it's gonna have a happy ending, why do you have to finish reading it?"
She falls still and stares at him, breathing deep, alfalfa sweet and heavy in her nostrils. Behind her, the horses shift gently. He sounds so bitter. Before she can stop herself, she says, "Do you have such a problem with happy endings, then?"
Soul reaches over and snags a piece of hay, twirling it absently between two fingers, not looking at her. "Kind of silly, aren't they?" he mutters after a while. She strokes Aka's velvet nose, presses her own against it, and waits for Soul to finish. Eventually he adds, "There's a reason they happen in books and fairy tales."
Maka gives Aka's white blaze a good, final scratching and edges over to Soul. She takes the other end of the hay he's holding and tugs gently, surprising him into looking up at her. "That's not true. People write about things they want, don't they? So people want their happy endings, and if you really want something, it can happen."
He tilts his head and for a heartbeat she can see a fang glinting from behind his lips. It makes her feel uncomfortably warm all over. "People want the villain to die," he says, still sourly.
Maka hates it when he looks so sad, so beaten down and afraid, when he tries so hard to haul his tattered shreds of viciousness over it all and pretend he doesn't care. "People want the fairy to sweep in and save the village," she corrects, watching the cruel twist of his lips soften just a little.
He tugs on the hay, then drops it and settles his fingers around her wrist, light as air. "They want her to lift the curse," he muses.
When she says hoarsely, "People want the prince and the princess to save each other," his eyes lift to her own. She's still hot, but now she's cold too, impossibly, shivering and breathless as the rising sun haloes his white head.
He moves his hand from her wrist and strokes up the underside of her forearm, up her shoulder, and then presses his fingertips against her collarbone, just beside the scars she got for him. Maka is terribly afraid she's about to faint, to simply fall over in the hay, swooning like the classic damsel in distress.
The thought irritates her. "You know I can fight monsters," she whispers, unable to move.
"I know," he whispers back, leaning forward just a fraction. Her toes curl invisibly inside her battered boots.
"I'm not weak or helpless," she says dimly.
"I know, bearcat." He taps a single finger against the dip where her collarbones meet. She licks her lips and now he's not smiling at all, not even in his secret way. Instead he's standing very close, burning up all her oxygen, and looking down at her with eyes that are the sweetest, clearest shade of red she could ever imagine.
Then there's a great crash off in the distance, a feminine scream of outrage, and the telltale sounds of Black Star fleeing can be heard, closely followed by Tsubaki on the warpath. Soul and Maka step apart, and she mumbles something unintelligible before snatching her pitchfork back up.
Soul coughs, sticks his hands in his pockets, and heads off, but he stops for just a moment and says softly, "I'll finish Jane Eyre tonight, if you want. I've got nothing better to do."
She smiles.