A/N- Awhile ago, I received an anonymous prompt on Tumblr for Soul and Maka having a fight and Maka wanting to break up. This isn't quite to the tune of the prompt, but hopefully it will be enjoyable to someone besides myself.

when we collide

The fight had been brewing for months.

The occasional argument is an inevitability in any relationship, as both Maka and Soul would have enthusiastically attested to if asked, although as they had grown more comfortable with each other their arguments had significantly decreased in both frequency and intensity. All-out fights, however, had always been a rarity for them. Neither of them was prone to maliciousness, and although teasing was common between them, lashing out in a deliberate attempt to be hurtful was not an innate reaction to either. Still, avoiding a real fight forever- especially for two such headstrong people- would have taken nothing short of divine intervention, and although Soul and Maka were certainly acquainted with their fair share of deities, Kid was wise enough to stay out of his friends' personal affairs.

If they had been older, or had been dating longer, they would have recognized the warning signs and dealt with their problems sooner. However, with Maka just barely seventeen and Soul not much older, and neither of them especially experienced in navigating the treacherous waters of romance, they had no way of knowing how to head off a fight before it could get started.

It started with a snarky comment Maka made about Soul's predisposition towards laziness, some barbed remark involving the words "silver spoon" and heavy with implications about the detrimental effect growing up with wealth and privilege might or might not have had on her weapon's work ethic. A highly affronted Soul snapped back at her with something relating to not having room to talk and daddy issues, and things spiralled out of control from there.

They had snapped at each other the entire way back to where he had parked his motorcycle. The ride home was spent in tense and uncomfortable silence, both of them hoping the unpleasantness was over and both of them entirely unwilling to let go of their ire. When they got home, low-simmering anger exploded into a full boil heated by dozens of individually minor gripes that had been swept under the rug and neglected until they collectively became an inescapable morass of sore feelings.

They stood in the living room shouting at each other, until Soul decided he'd had enough of dealing with this and attempted to retreat to the kitchen to make himself something to eat. Maka, however, was having none of her boyfriend's attempts to suffocate his feelings with food and followed him to the kitchen, and actually had the audacity to knock the knife right out of his hands when he tried to ignore her in favor of his sandwich, which had only started off a new round of yelling.

They were currently standing fifteen feet apart from each other on opposite sides of the kitchen, hurling accusations at each other.

"And another thing!" Maka shouted, red in the face and overheated from what felt like hours of fighting. "If you're really not interested in any of your so-called "fangirls," then why are you always hanging out with them, huh?"

"See? What did I say? Fucking daddy issues everywhere!" Soul shot back. "I am not "hanging out" with those girls, idiot! They leave me all those stupid letters asking me to meet them, and I meet them so I can tell them to give the fuck up already!"

"Uh-huh, yeah, sure."

"Oh for the love of-! You're the one who told me I should be nicer to them in the first place!"

"Well maybe I didn't fucking mean it! Maybe I was just trying to be the bigger person, you asshole!" Maka said, in a profoundly surly tone.

Soul's hair, which he had lately taken to wearing in a far tamer and more conservative style, had reverted back to something strongly resembling the wild spikes he used to wear, due to the number of times he had run his hands through his hair in frustration. He did so again as he replied, "Jesus fucking Christ, Maka, don't pull that kind of crap! If you've got something to say, just say it, dammit!"

"I just did, but apparently I'm being a hysterical woman with daddy issues," she snapped.

He let out a long groan and had to struggle to resist the urge to slam his face down on the counter in frustration. "I never said that! Don't put words in my mouth! Besides, what the fuck else am I supposed to do while you're holed up in the damn library all the time?"

Maka flicked a lock of ash blonde hair over her shoulder in a jerky, irritated motion. "You could, oh, I dunno, go home? I never asked you to wait for me."

Soul rolled his eyes. "Yeah, sure, and leave you to walk all the way home in Death Valley in the middle of the afternoon in July? I don't think so. I'm not that much of a douche."

"Oh how noble of you," Maka snapped.

He snorted disbelievingly. "Whatever. Not like I get to spend any other time with you lately. I'm not your boyfriend, I'm your goddamn chauffeur!"

Maka's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Soul, you know how important the research I'm doing is! You need to get over it, because I'm not going to stop searching until I can-"

"-find a way to rescue Crona without freeing Asura in the process, yada yada yada I know," Soul growled. "You've only said it eight billion times. Did it ever once occur to you to ask me? I'm kind of a fucking expert on the black blood, in case you hadn't noticed!"

Her previously narrowed eyes blew wide open in an expression of furious suspicion. "Soul," she snarled, voice suddenly terrifyingly soft, "all this time… have you known something all this time that could have helped-?"

"No! Fuck, no!" He shook his head firmly, rejecting the very idea, but his expression melted quickly back into snide anger. "I just find it pretty rich that you're accusing me of pulling away from you when you're the one who can't even be bothered to ask for my help with shit like this. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not just your boyfriend, I'm your partner. But apparently I don't deserve to get treated like either these days."

"Well then maybe you shouldn't be!" Maka fired back.

The instant the words had left her mouth, her eyes widened in horror as the fury drained immediately out of her, but the hateful sentiment couldn't be unsaid.

Across the room, Soul was standing stock still, staring at her in wounded astonishment. His expression crumpled, and Maka could see his hands shaking. "Guess I'll just… see myself out then…" he mumbled, sounding shell-shocked and furious and so, so hurt.

Maka stood frozen in place, every muscle in her body as rigid as if she had been struck by lightning, as Soul turned on his heel and shambled out of the apartment. The door slammed behind him, and she flinched.

"Soul…" she whispered.

And then she was moving, scrambling, tripping over herself to get to the door and down the empty hallway as she cried out louder, "Soul… SOUL!" But before she could even reach the ground floor she heard the telltale roar of his motorcycle engine as he sped away.

Maka's shaking knees gave out under her and she sat down hard right there in the stairwell. She buried her head in her arms and gave in to the overwhelming urge to sob like a child.

When Soul returned many hours later, long after night had fallen, he felt much more emotionally stable, although he was pretty far from happy. The boiling black anger and near-hysteria had faded from his system, but he almost wished they'd stuck around longer, because the deep sense of hurt and the crushing fear that he might have lost the most important person in his life they'd been masking were basically fucking awful.

The words she'd shouted kept playing on repeat in his head, making him feel sick down to his very soul. He'd waited so long to be with her, years spent hopelessly wishing for something he'd thought would never happen, but then it finally, finally had. She said she loved him, wanted to be partners in another way, and it had been the greatest eight months of his entire goddamn life. So… was that it? Was that all they had in them? Eight blissful months and then a train wreck?

Not that he was all that surprised, really. Guys like him didn't get the girl. The fact that she'd consented to be with him all was a fluke, a freak accident, a fucking miracle. He supposed subconsciously he'd just been waiting around for this to happen, for her to wake up and realize what a dumb decision dating him was.

Well, looked like judgment day had finally rolled around.

The only light still on in the apartment when he walked in was the table lamp in the living room. Left on the lowest setting, it gave just enough illumination to make out Maka's hunched shoulders and bowed head as she sat on the loveseat. He took a moment just to study her profile, heart feeling painfully constricted. She'd obviously been crying- even in the dim light, he could see how bloodshot her eyes were.

Not much better than his own, really.

The sound of the door creaking shut alerted her to his presence and she turned to meet his eyes, expression unreadable. "Hey…" she mumbled.

"Hey."

He couldn't hold her gaze, too terrified of what he'd see there. Still, he couldn't avoid talking to her. The silent treatment wasn't cool, and while they both might have resorted to that in their younger days, he liked to think that they were slightly more mature now. He shoved his hands in his pockets and, head down, made his way over to her. He sat down next to her, leaving a couple feet of space between them.

"Uh… so…" he began, rather eloquently.

She heaved a tired sigh. "So."

"Where'd you go?"

"Drove out of the city. Ended up stabbing a bunch of cactuses."

"Cacti."

"Whatever."

A long silence ensued, during which Soul stewed much as he had for the last several hours and tried to come up with something to say. After a time, though, the quiet in the apartment just became too much for even him to handle. He chanced a peek at her out of the corner of his eye, and saw that she had her arms drawn over her chest, her hands clenched in tight fists. Her jaw was locked and- and… oh shit, her eyes were all misty, she was about to start crying again! The last thing he needed right now was a crying girlfriend.

Well, a crying Maka, anyway. Whether she was still his girlfriend… Soul honestly didn't know.

"Hey…" he spoke up at last, concerned.

"I'm so sorry," Maka burst out, sounding choked. "I'm so, so sorry, Soul. I didn't mean it, I swear I didn't mean any of it! You're nothing like my papa and you're not a lazy stuck-up rich kid and you're n-not emotionally constipated."

Despite himself, a small wry grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Well, I'm a little emotionally constipated," he joked weakly.

Maka gave a tiny, watery attempt at a giggle, but she was still too close to tears for it to really work out. "Maybe a little," she agreed reluctantly. "But you've been working on it. It was dumb of me to say that to you. I was a jerk."

"Not exactly my finest hour either," he mumbled. "Sorry I called you an uptight bitch. That was outta line."

"Yeah," she whispered. She looked up at him, studying him closely. "Your eyes are all red," she observed.

"Really, you're just now noticing?" he replied, not quite able to keep a lid on his sarcasm even now.

"Not what I meant," she mumbled. "Were you crying?"

Soul looked away from her, face heating up. "Well, so were you!" he snapped. After a moment, he sighed and added, less defensively but sounding a lot more pathetic than he'd been aiming for, "I'm pretty sure I just got dumped. I might be emotionally constipated, but I'm not made of stone, y'know?"

"No!" Maka cried. "No no no! I wasn't trying to- I didn't mean- we're still- I mean…" Her voice dropped, and her shoulders slumped sadly. "Unless you want… well, I could understand if you never even want to talk to me again after that."

Soul shook his head rapidly. "Maka, I'm pissed off, not crazy. That's not what I want. At all. That's… like... the opposite of what I want."

She let out the most relieved-sounding sigh he'd ever heard in his life. "Thank death," she murmured. "I was… I was so s-scared I'd broken us. I swear I didn't mean it, Soul. I was angry and lashing out and I crossed the line and I'm so, so sorry."

Her voice was quivering again with the effort of not bursting into tears, and Soul couldn't even begin to handle it. He held out his arms tentatively, and Maka immediately dove into them, wrapping her arms around his torso and burying her face against his chest. She was noticeably trembling, or maybe he was, he really couldn't tell, and even with residual anger still curling in his gut, it felt so damn good to hold her. At least half the tension drained from his body in sheer relief, as the fear he'd been feeling that he'd never have her in his arms again dissipated.

With a sniffle, she asked, "Do you really feel like I d-don't… don't treat you like my partner and m-my boyfriend?"

Soul brought one of his hands up to stroke mindlessly through her hair. "You're really independent," he hedged, finding himself unable to reply directly without mindless anger fueling his words. "You don't rely on other people very often."

She tilted her head slightly so that she could peer up at him with one watery eye. "Just say what you mean, Soul," she commanded, and oh, that was the meister voice, he couldn't say no to that.

He struggled for several seconds to work out how to articulate what he'd been feeling. "I don't really know how to say it," he admitted.

"Take your time," she said softly. Maka tightened her arms around him ever so slightly before letting go. She didn't go far, remaining tucked between his arms, but she turned so that she was leaning up against his upper arm and shoulder, both of them sagging back against the back of the couch.

After another moment's thought, and with a pensive frown on his face, Soul ventured, "Don't get me wrong, I like that you're independent and strong and… uh... low-maintenance, I guess? I love that about you. You wouldn't be Maka if that wasn't true. But, uh, I guess lately you've been so focused on trying to get Crona back that there doesn't seem to be much room for me in your life at all."

She tilted her head thoughtfully. "You don't... feel needed? Is that it?"

"I guess, yeah."

Her head came to rest on his shoulder. "I do need you," she said softly. "I haven't… after Mama left, I didn't really rely on anybody. I don't like to rely on anybody. But then you came along and… well… you were there, you know how everything happened with us. You're someone I can trust, and someone I know I can depend on. I don't always like to, but I know if I really need you, you'll be there. I'm really sorry if I haven't made that clear."

"No, I know that," Soul said. "Lately I just haven't been able to actually believe it. Even when you're with me, it's like your head is off somewhere else. I guess I haven't, uh, felt like a priority lately." The last was practically whispered as he tucked his chin down, staring at his lap and avoiding her eyes.

"I'm sorry," Maka said. "I didn't mean to make you feel neglected."

Soul sighed softly. "No, I get it. I do. The work you're doing really is important. I'm just being stupid and needy."

"No you're not. If you don't feel like you're getting what you need, then something's wrong and we have to fix it."

Soul was fully aware that the way he was gazing down at her was nothing short of sickeningly sappy, and in an attempt to counterbalance it, he scoffed, "You sound like a therapist."

Maka blushed bright red and tried to hide her face against his shoulder.

God, she was cute sometimes!

"I've been… um… since we got together, I've read a lot of self-help books about relationship counseling," she admitted into the fabric of his shirt.

Soul's eyebrows drew together in confusion. "Why?"

"Well, I don't have the best example of what a healthy relationship is supposed to look like," she explained, even her ears turning red now. "And this- you- mean so much to me. I don't want to screw it up."

Soul couldn't help it, he absolutely had to look at her, so with a gentle hand on her jaw he turned her to face him, and once he saw her cherry-red blush and flustered expression, well, it would've taken a stronger man than him not to kiss her. He kept it quick, just a short, sweet taste of her lips because they still had some talking to do, but he couldn't have resisted if he'd wanted to. Come to think of it, it was the first time he'd kissed her in days and that, well, that just wouldn't do.

He pulled her into his lap, needing to feel closer to her, and if the way she snuggled right up against his chest was any indication, she felt the same.

"Maka," he asked tentatively, "does it really bug you when I meet those girls after class?"

"It shouldn't, because I know you would never be unfaithful to me, but sometimes I can't help it. Guess I have a jealous streak," she admitted. "I definitely shouldn't let myself get that worked up over it, though."

Soul rubbed a hand absently up and down her shoulder. "It's kind of flattering," he remarked. "I mean… it's weird to think that I'd even be worth being jealous over. But honestly, I really was only meeting with them to try not to be such a gigantic dickhead all the time. If you want me to stop, then they can suck it up. They're annoying as shit anyway."

Maka giggled, and kissed his jaw lightly. "You're not a gigantic dickhead," she said teasingly.

"Really? Because I'm pretty sure you called me one earlier." The smirk he fixed in place was nearly perfect, but his voice must have given something away because Maka looked up at him with a pained expression on her face.

"I did, didn't I? Wow, I really was a jerk."

He shrugged. "Eh, so was I. We both said a lot of really stupid shit."

"Yeah, we did…" She looked profoundly regretful. "Can we officially call this fight over?" she asked hopefully.

Soul nodded. "Yeah. I don't like fighting with you."

"Me neither."

She relaxed against him, tucking her head into the crook of his shoulder and resting her hand on his chest. Soul tightened his arms around her, perfectly content to just sit here for awhile because for a few hours there he really had thought they were done for, and he needed to feel close to her right now.

Soul could feel her breath warm across his neck, and he shivered lightly. He wondered if she could feel his heart racing under her palm, wondered if she had any idea how much she affected him even now, when he was still trying to patch up the blows to his ego and heart alike.

"We've never really fought like that before, have we?" she pointed out suddenly.

Soul shook his head, then rested his cheek against her hair. "Nope. I guess everybody fights, but…"

"But we weren't that mean even when we'd just partnered up and didn't know how to deal with each other," she concluded, echoing his thoughts on the matter perfectly.

"Yeah…"

After another minute of silence, Maka spoke up, "I think I know why it happened."

"Mm?" he asked absently, caught up in her warmth and how nice her hair smelled and paying attention only out of courtesy.

"I was thinking about it the whole time you were gone," she said, sounding just regretful enough to make him focus on her words. "I can't speak for you, of course, but on my end… I've loved you for so long, and I never thought you'd love me the same way, but then you did, and Soul, I've never been so happy."

He smiled against her hair, irrationally pleased with how much her sentiment mirrored his own feelings.

"But I guess I've been scared," Maka continued. "We've only been together together for such a short time, and I don't really, um, know where the boundaries are yet. I've been letting a lot of little things that bother me slide, because I don't want to rock the boat and ruin things."

Well, when she put it that way, he knew exactly what she was getting at. "Funny you should say that," he said. "I've been doing the same thing."

Maka nodded, her fingers fiddling with the collar of his shirt. "I was afraid of that. We've both been ignoring things, and I guess the pressure just built up."

"We can't keep doing that," Soul said.

"Mm-mm," she agreed sleepily. "If something I'm doing- or not doing- is bothering you, talk to me about it, okay? Despite previous dumb statements to the contrary, I'm not gonna break up with you."

"Same here. I don't wanna fight with you like that again if we can help it."

"It sucks."

"Yeah. Makes my head hurt." Among other things, he thought.

"Mm, I'm sorry," she cooed, wriggling upright to press a kiss to his temple.

He grinned, finally feeling like things were back on an even keel. It wasn't totally fixed yet, but it was forgiven, and the heavy trepidation that he'd been struggling with, that paranoia that this wonderful thing was about to blow up in his face, finally felt like it was lifting.

"Soul?" Maka asked, "Would it be okay if I stay in your room tonight?" She looked away, blushing. "I-I mean, it would be good for us to be physically close after a fight. For our wavelengths to reconnect, and stuff."

Many years' experience in reading between the lines of Maka Albarn told him exactly what she wasn't quite brave enough to say. Just like him, she was feeling emotionally raw and vulnerable, and didn't want to sleep alone. "Yeah, it's fine," he agreed, biting back a smile.

In the morning, they would talk some more and begin learning to be more honest with each other, a process of unlearning old habits that would take them both a long time. This wouldn't be their last fight, nor was it their worst, but they were both committed to doing everything they could to avoid them as much as possible.

For the time being, though, they just held each other and allowed their closeness to ease the sting of the angry words they had said, reaffirming their bond and secure in the knowledge that even after they'd hurt each other, there was no one else who understood them better.