this is a reupload of a fic that used to stand alone on my profile. Late-spring cleaning, hehe.
Broken Telephone
[Soma (Soul Eater), "ever wonder if the world would be a better place without you?"]
She had seen the signs.
When that started she kind of knew, even if her mind tried to avoid it – change the subject, readjust her tune, whatever – she knew. Yet a small part of her believed that he wasn't, that hecouldn't, because he was Soul for fuck's sake – happy, suave, cool Soul who had been her partner longer than she cared to remember and who she thought she knew better than herself. Yeah, she was probably in denial, but part of her didn't know what to do. How could she be a crutch to him? He was hercrutch, damn it, and she'd have an admittedly childish argument with herself over roles and she had somehow managed to ingrain it into her mind that he was there for her, and she couldnever be close to returning the favor.
Then she felt his wavelength.
She could no longer deny it. Even if he didn't acknowledge it, even if he wasn't even aware of the possibility, she knew. Maka speculated that even hewasn't completely aware of it himself. The façade was almost completely normal, like how they were when they were kids – carefree, almost too much, even.
The arguments started then.
He'd return way too late from whatever the hell said it was, work, party, Black Star's, and she'd reprimand him but he'd snap back so fast she could hardly blink. She knew, she fucking knew, it was him crying out for help. Begging for her to be his support. But shecouldn't. She didn't know how. She wanted to scream at him that he had to get help himself because she couldn't do it for him. And she wanted to – she damn wanted to – but she didn't know what to do. What could she say? What could she change? What could she do to take his pain away, to take away the way the black blood still circulated his veins, staining his mind black with its whispers of despair and loneliness? Nothing. Damn nothing.
His depression was like a constant bumpy ride – sometimes they would be fine and he would function almost as normal but then there were days where he'd come home and stare at the TV, sometimes not even on, and she didn't know what to do. She usually just left him a wide berth, carefully asking questions and trying to dodge the potential bullet.
She knew she wasn't helping.
But God, she didn't know what she could do.
It was an afternoon that proceeded quite normally, in fact. He had returned from going out (she wasn't sure what the story was, she didn't know what to say to him) and she ignored the faint aroma of cigarette smoke, tried to quash the feeling of dizzying unease and somehow numbing helplessness when he tossed himself on their couch in silence.
The cycle began again as Maka fought to try to say something to him, to try to get him to speak, to at least let her in – because even as their soul resonated, she knewhe could sense what she was feeling just as she was sensing him – the want to talk, but at the same time, the attempt to maintain whatever fragile bond they still had left.
She didn't want to let that go.
She could tell that he didn't, either.
They dissolved into a terse conversation, and whilst it was the same as normal there was a heavy foreboding in the atmosphere, not unnoticed by neither of them. It was their equivalent to small talk, and yet as every tick from their mounted clock augmented their conversation did she feel his heavy burden; the unbearable mass of guilt, anxiety, depression, all of it, threatening to spill out of him at once.
The silence they had lapsed into didn't last long. "Do… do you ever wonder if the world would be a better place without you?" he said quietly, so quiet that she almost missed it.
She paused, looking up from where she was sitting. His mass of white hair was unmoving. She could feel his soul tremble, in the silent moments that stretched before them, she could feel his very being quiver.
All of the emotions she had felt turmoiling inside her; all of the anxiety, the worry, the apprehension, the fucking cowardicethat she somehow stupidly let brew inside her bubbled up. Before she knew it, angry tears splashed against her clenched palms. How could he, how could he so nonchalantlystate something when he meant theworld to her?
"Are you fucking joking?" she whispered, trying to hold back the sobs that had threatened to well up inside her. She could hear the vague rustling of the couch, perhaps him sitting up to try to see her better, but her vision was blurred by the stupid fucking tears that shouldn't even be hers to cry. "Are you kiddingme?!"
She looked up and it was then when their eyes met – both blurred with angry, miserable, frustrated, desperate tears – they both knew. She didn't know who cracked first; who descended into sobs as the walls they had both built up crumbled, falling before them as they couldn't even muster the strength to hold each other. Neither could even move, him on the couch and her on the kitchen table. They both merely cried away the pain, flushing the frustration, the anxiety and the helplessness away, muttering apologies between sniffles and sobs as they tried to pick up their own pieces.
What felt like hours was only a few minutes and soon they were both too exhausted to keep trying. She could have sworn she had nothing left inside her as she hiccupped lightly. She dragged her vision up to capture his, only to see that he had buried his head in his legs, which he had drawn in with his arms. His shoulders were still shaking violently, and she could vaguely hear his muffled hiccups as well.
Somehow, after all that, she finally found the courage she needed to say the words she realized she should have said right at the beginning. Perhaps if she had said these before, it wouldn't have escalated to this breaking point.
"Soul, you are my world. It wouldn't be a place I could live in." She felt her voice threatening to break. She swallowed thickly and pushed her way past the tears, the way her brain wanted to rest and how she just wanted to be hollow, trying to reignite the passion in her to express what she desperately needed to. "You are everything to me. Don't… don't say something like that. It doesn't matter who needs you – I need you.
Damn it Soul, I need you. Don't ever fucking say that again, do you hear me?!" She didn't realize when her voice had grown stronger, when she was almost close to yelling, she didn't even notice when she was close enough to touch him – something she hadn't done indays.
So she did.
She placed one hand on his shoulder, before pulling him into a hug. His shirt was wet with his tears and he was still shaking slightly, but she planted soft kisses on his head, repeating the same three words that were the only words that could occupy her mind.
I love you.