A/N: I do not own Soul Eater or the song 'From Afar' by the beautiful man known as Vance Joy.

SPOILERS for end of manga, as in all these chapters. This is set after the manga, where Kid is now Lord Death.

I'm so late, but I have a good excuse this time! I was kicked by my horse. Like, a full proper donkey-kick style hit with both hooves from about a metre away. Copped it in the leg, and the bruising is just hideous. As such, with end of year exams and the fact that I'm hobbling upstairs more than should be humanly necessary, I've been flat out. But here we go, I'm back.

I was going to try to do a Thanksgiving fic, but we don't celebrate it here and I know nothing about it besides what my Friends re-runs tell me, and the 'Slapsgiving' specials on How I Met Your Mother. I didn't want to write something I know nothing about; I don't even know why it's celebrated or what it's for. Sorry!

Soma1234, you asked for Kid-romance. It's filled with angst, but this chapter focusses on Kid's emotions, so here you go! Hope it satisfies, I know it's unconventional, but given his position, I thought it was appropriate.

This chapter is dedicated to Tenbris. Congratulations on 100 REVIEWS, you deserved it! Go check out her story Staccato if you haven't yet, it's amazing.

Enjoy.

TWENTY-FIVE – TWO FALLING SPARKS, ONE WILLING FOOL

That's just not the way that,
Friends behave.

And I always knew,
That I would love you from afar.
- 'From Afar', Vance Joy.

When he was called out of Stein's class over the intercom to the Death Room on behalf of an 'urgent business', Soul could honestly say that he would never have predicted what that business was.

He sat with his arms crossed and mouth slightly open as he regarded the figure in the seat before him, still trying to unscramble his brain and comprehend the situation. There, positioned straight-backed in his chair with his cloak on and mask covering his face, sat Shinigami-sama. His hands were raised imploringly and the aura of frustrated confusion was practically emanating from those holes in the white porcelain. All of this would have made sense, if it weren't for the subject that the Shinigami and albino Death Scythe were discussing.

"– So tell me, does it mean what I think it means, or am I imagining it? And what do I do if it means what I think it means? Do I really mean to think what I think it means, or am I getting it all backwards? You understand, yes? Tell me!"

" . . . I know I'm probably not meant to say this to you, man, but hold the fuck up," Soul said finally, putting up both hands in the universal sign for 'wait.' He was glad that Death Scythe, Maka's pervy-ass father, had been sent from the room before this chat started. Because right now, he didn't give two shits whether he was technically mouthing off to a God of Death. Hell, even the fact that this was his headmaster, boss, and superior didn't matter. All that really mattered was this:

He had been called out of class to give a Shinigami advice on girls.

It sounded laughable when the thought was actually put into a sentence, but yet, here he was. His companion gave a great sigh, dropping his hands and shaking his head wearily underneath the cloak. Soul rolled his eyes.

"I guess I spoke that a little bit fast, didn't I?" Shinigami-sama muttered. "Such an appalling lack of decorum on my part."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Now, before you start again, can you lose the mask? It's freaking me out trying to talk to you about your . . . feelings and shit while all I can see is black holes in your face."

"If I must." A pale hand protruded once ore from the black billowing fabric of the coat and reached up to touch the mask. After a moment's hesitation, it was pulled away to reveal an equally pale face. Parts of the boy's fringe fell over his forehead, the solid white line running through the black bands highlighted under the Death Room's bright lights. Golden eyes were narrowed slightly at the brightness of the room as he regarded Soul, who was grinning at his discomfort. "There, are you satisfied?"

"You know, Kid, sometimes I forget it's really you underneath that thing."

Kid crossed his arms in front of his cloak, but as soon as he settled once more in his chair, his expression changed to one of panic again. Soul shook his head at the antics of the Shinigami as he started to blink rapidly, staving off an oncoming nervous attack. He had been like this since the weapon had arrived - fretful, erratic, trying to make sense of something.

"Okay, so why don't you just start at the beginning again and actually breathe this time?"

"Yes," Kid agreed, nodding once before launching into his tale once more. "It began at the Gallows Mansion last night. I was rearranging a rose vase, as three petals had wilted and therefore the balance of the rest of the plants was off. I have calmed myself in respect to symmetry due to my taking on the responsibilities of Honourable Father, but I strive to maintain perfect balance in my own home when I can. So I was removing petals to once more achieve perfect alignment, when I heard a loud noise from upstairs. Concerned, I went to investigate the sound. As I ascended the staircase, the din increased, but I could sense no intruding soul to the Mansion. It was easy to assess the situation, therefore, and deduce that either Liz or Patti may be in trouble. I hurried up there, stopping only to adjust one picture frame that was slightly askew, only by about fourteen millimetres. . ."

Soul interrupted, blowing all of his breath out through his nose in an attempt to keep calm. "Kid, I know I said you needed to explain this better, but you don't have to include every single detail. Just cut to the important part, will you?"

"I was almost there when you interrupted me!"

"Well then, carry on, but skip the symmetry crap, okay?"

He bristled indignantly. "Symmetry is not something to refer to with the slang used for faeces!"

"Okay," the weapon said, trying to diffuse the tension. He was growing increasingly frustrated with his friend, but being up here dealing with girly shit was better than watching Stein's latest dissection and being choked by the wafting scent of formaldehyde, so he bit his tongue. He might even get some good jokes out of this to tell Maka, if he was lucky. As far as he'd gathered, something bad had happened in Kid's giant house the previous night involving one of his weapons, and it had turned him into an emotional wreck, but once the exclamations of 'useless' and 'bumbling' had started, and the hands had started waving, he'd been left behind on the Shinigami's rapid train of thought. "Go on. What happened when you got to the source of the noise?"

"I unwittingly opened the door to the upstairs bathroom," the black-haired boy replied, looking down with the faintest of traceable blushes, "while my mind was preoccupied with the notion of the wilting roses making my hallway asymmetrical. This was the place where the noise was coming from. Upon entering the room, two things were made clear to me." At this, he trailed off, and Soul felt his jaw clench in irritation.

After a tangible pause, in which the Reaper seemed to be fighting some sort of internal confliction, he spoke up, his voice coming out like a growl as his patience reached its last straw. "Yes?" Maka was always saying he needed to control his temper, but when people acted like this, all suspenseful, he tended to snap easily. It was a habit he hated.

Kid shot him a look but continued. "The first was that the noise had been caused by the left-hand shower curtain becoming dislodged and falling into the bathtub. Pieces of plaster had crumbled away, ruining the room's aesthetics. The second was that . . . Liz had been in the shower, and was in a state of undress while attempting to rectify the situation."

This last part had been said very quickly, and Soul blinked twice before the words sunk in properly. "So . . . you walked in on Liz in the shower, and now you're having a freak out because you saw her without her clothes on?"

"She was wearing her underwear!" he replied indignantly. "It was not as if I walked in while she was still under the water."

"Then, what's the problem?" He was confused now as he leaned back in his chair. "You've seen Liz and Patti walking around in just a towel before, right? Sure, you got awkward, but it isn't like you to give a shit when you see girls naked."

"She was not naked! And – and that's exactly the problem."

"Huh?"

"The problem was that this time . . . I did take notice."

A second's pause, and then, "You pervert!"

Kid put his face into his hands, slumping down. "And here I thought you would be the right person to talk to about this, because you would be mature."

Soul was wearing a shit-eating grin and he knew it. Just wait until Maka hears about this! He laughed as he thought. The Lord of Death, their friend Kid, who had no scruples with bursting in on showers when he thought it would hurry people up, who grabbed at Liz and Patti without any further thoughts than symmetry or scientific reasoning, who lived with two girls and thought absolutely nothing of their lack of coverage most times, had totally checked Liz out after she'd gotten out of the shower. It was almost too ridiculous to believe! While he could not feel sympathetic towards his friend's problem – he lived with Blair, nobody else even had a right to complain – he could make fun of him. Apparently, Death God or not, he was as weak when it came to an attractive figure as Black*Star. What next? Would he admit to intentionally busting into the Thompsons' shower time . . . ?

"I don't think you're seeing the problem here!" Kid hissed angrily, his cheeks red, as Soul laughed loudly. "This is a serious matter!"

"What, is she pissy with you because you took notice of the fact that she wasn't wearing a shirt? Kid, it's Liz. I don't think she's really gonna' be that mad for long."

"No, that's not it!" He stopped laughing abruptly when he heard Kid's tone. The other boy really did look truly agitated. His hands were balled into fists and his bangs were covering his eyes. He was biting his lip in an obvious effort to keep calm. "Soul – I felt something strange when I saw her, and I can't shake the feeling even now."

"What're you talking about?" he inquired, trying to keep his voice neutral, but he was perplexed. While he'd never walked in on Maka in the shower – obviously, because his skull was still intact rather than reduced to dust marring the spine of a book – Black*Star did it intentionally all the time, and yet he seemed all right. Why would it matter if Kid got awkward seeing Liz in her bra?

The other boy sighed once, and when he looked up again, his eyes made him look so much older than his physical appearance made him seem. "I . . . I found Liz attractive, but not in the way that I would commonly acknowledge a girl to be. And I realised in that moment that I may feel a type of care for her that far surpasses that of an acquaintance, or a sister. It's . . . more."

"How much more?"

"Let me put it this way – I left the room without even fixing the asymmetrical plaster from the shower curtain rod."

Soul sat up straight, his eyes wide. "Shit. Wait. You don't . . . you don't think you're in love with her, do you?

Once more, the Reaper put his face in his hands. "I don't know. That's why I needed to see you about it – if anyone knows how to deal with this sort of thing, it's you."

"What do you mean by that?" he asked sharply.

"Well," Kid said slowly, not looking up, "seeing the way you act around Maka, I just assumed that you'd be good at detecting the symptoms of – of affections, because you know what it's like to feel them. If I truly . . . hold them towards Liz, then . . . maybe you could also teach me how to repress them."

Soul clenched his jaw, doing his best not to make a face. Shit, this guy was good. Had someone really seen through him this easily? Apparently. Then again, he might have been alluding to something different, something concerning his meister that he might not be aware of. He had to make sure. "And by 'the way you act around Maka', you mean . . . ?" he hedged.

"Obviously, I was referring to the fact that you're in love with her, but you've concealed it from her pretty well so far."

Fuck. "What the – who the Hell told you that?"

The Shinigami snorted and shook his head, making his hair dance along his palms as he said, "Nobody had to tell me directly. I can see it, even if she can't. Strange that I'm so knowledgeable when it comes to others."

"Get fucked."

"I'm not trying to insult you here!" he quickly said, reaching out as Soul made to get up and leave, glaring. "I just don't know what else to do! If I really do have these sorts of feelings for my partner – which I'm not even sure I do – how am I meant to keep it from her?"

Soul had his arms crossed and his gaze was narrow as he regarded his friend, but he reluctantly took his seat again. "Why're you so desperate to figure all of this shit out straight away? You only felt weird about her yesterday, yeah?"

"Maybe so, but these kinds of feelings don't just spring up immediately, do they? What if it's been there all along and I was just too busy to notice?"

"That answers one part of the question," the weapon replied slowly, "but like I said, why're you trying to sort everything out now? Why not work out whether you really care about Liz like that, and then see where that takes you?"

The words were meant to console Kid, but they seemed to only make his confliction worse. He closed his eyes and rubbed at his lids tiredly, the black spirals of his cloak following the movements. After a moment, he said in a strained voice, "I guess it would be hard for you to understand it, wouldn't it?"

So there was something wrong, something on a deeper level than discovering he had feelings for his partner. Soul would be able to tell anybody first-hand that the realisation of such a fact was absolutely devastating. It affected resonance, reactions to wavelengths, and made it harder to fight with one's partner, if the feelings weren't acknowledged out loud. He couldn't count the amount of times he'd had to hold back in resonance in the fear of Maka finding out that he was kindasortamaybe completely head over heels for her. That would be uncool as fuck, if she discovered all of those little sappy thoughts in his head. As well as that, Maka probably didn't have the same feelings for him that he did for her – although sometimes there were just moments when he thought maybe, just maybe he had a shot. If he confessed to her that he thought of her that way and she rejected him, they'd never be able to match wavelengths again. So maybe there was a reason why Kid was freaking out so much. Then again, Soul only held back so much because of the way Maka viewed romance, particularly between weapons and meisters. Liz exhibited signs a lot of the time that could indicate a liking for Kid that exceeded that of a partner. What was stopping him from taking a shot?

"Is it . . . because you're worried about what Patti would think?" he asked.

The Shinigami groaned. "Not entirely, but that's another factor. I couldn't do that to Patti – try to court Liz while being the partner to both of them, resonating with both of them. Could you imagine it?"

"Ugh, Death no. It's hard enough with Maka in my head, let alone having two of her there," he replied sympathetically. "Then what is it? The symmetry would be off if you only dated Liz?"

Kid shot him a dark look. "Don't be vulgar."

"Hey, I don't understand your mind all that well," he said defensively, palms-up. "It was just a suggestion. What is it, then, if it's not about symmetry or the fact that you're worried about hurting Patti?"

"I'm . . . a Shinigami."

"Obviously? But so what, she isn't gonna' make a big deal about that. I'm sure Liz would be perfectly fine with dating you even if you're not exactly human."

"Not the point!" Kid said agitatedly. "I'm Shinigami-sama now, Soul. I hold the power that Honourable Father did before me. Now, tell me, how long do you think he lived?"

"Uh . . ."

"How long do you estimate the average human lifespan to be?"

"I don't . . ."

"So, if I were to enter into a relationship with a human at this time of life, where would the both of us be in, say, twenty years? Fifty years? A century?"

Soul was silent.

"No matter what I feel for someone, whether it is love, or merely a slight inclination, where can it ever lead? Yes, I may have good years with a person, I may devote my entire heart to them, but what will come out of it?"

"Kid . . ."

"They'll die, Soul! That's what!" He was yelling now, and Soul flinched, staring at him with growing horror. His words ran true, all of them. Without Kid, who knew how long Lord Death might have lived? If Kid never split his soul, then he might live forever. "No matter what I do, they will die, and I will be left in a young body, behind a mask, watching! There is no 'grow old together'! If you and Maka were to be together, then you would have a chance at being happy! If I was to give myself to somebody, then I would be living with the constant fear, the madness of worrying when it would all come to end! What kind of a life would that be?"

At this, he seized up, and with a roar of frustration, slammed his hands down on the arms of his chair, his eyes screwed shut. The Death Scythe just looked on in complete and utter shock. He'd never even thought about it that way. No wonder Kid was freaking out so much. Being their friend, it was easy to forget that he truly was Shinigami-sama. At least if he were to ever one day somehow be with Maka, he would know that they would age together, experience the same points of life together. Kid had no hope of that. He would keep his youth, his extreme lifespan leaving him to watch as everyone he cared about died. He would watch them die, he realised. Black*Star, Tsubaki, him, Maka, even Liz and Patti. The Shinigami couldn't do anything but sit back and watch them grow up without him, grow old without him, fade away while he remained to keep their memories. It was not a comforting thought. But then, if there was nothing he could do about it . . .

"That's the reason you have to try now, while you still can."

"What?" Kid asked, raising his head to stare at him incredulously.

Soul's tone was firmer than he expected it to be, and he didn't know where the words came from. It was like something Maka would say; maybe their resonance was rubbing off on him. "How are you going to feel one hundred years from now, if you really do love Liz, when you think back to the choice you're making now? What'll you say when you realise that there was a chance to be happy, and you didn't take it? You'll outlive her, yeah – but what about her life? What if it's in your power to be her Prince Charming, to make her the happiest she could be, and you let the chance slip because you're too busy thinking about what's gonna' happen, rather than what's happening? If you do this, Kid, if you decide to stop caring about people forever, you'll never forgive yourself. If you don't take the chance, you'll regret it. You're going to grow distant, not know how to be the God your people will need, and you're going to lose everything quicker than if it all died naturally."

"So, what, I should just let myself enjoy the time I have now?"

"It ain't coming back, no matter what you do. If you waste these days, you're not going to be able to just try again later, not with us. You might fall in love with someone else," he added, "later, but if this is the first time you've ever really cared about someone, then it's going to define your idea of love for the rest of your life. Don't tell me you're just going to preserve the idea of all of us and keep it. Your father didn't. Maka's father was his partner while we knew him, but he would have had others before then. And yet he moved on – he and Death Scythe were friends, truly. You'll meet new people too. You'll forget some. In three hundred years or so, you might not even remember my name, or Maka's. But that's the way it has to be, Kid. You can't change it. So take the shot. Don't try and shape your outlook on life into something you'll only regret later."

The Shinigami stared at that, and Soul could have sworn that in the right light, his eyes would have almost looked watery. But then a smile stretched over his face and the Death Scythe decided he must have just been imagining things.

"I was right. You were the right person to ask about this."

"Yeah, well," he said with a snort, breaking the tense atmosphere, "can you really imagine Black*Star saying any of that? I'm fairly sure he would have gotten to the part about Liz in a bra and drowned in a puddle of his own Godly nosebleed."

"Did I really need that mental image?"

"Oh, you so did."

Maka turned to him that night as he sat watching the television, clutching the house phone with her hand over the receiver, her voice excited. "You'll never guess what!"

"Hmm?" he replied, not taking his eyes away from the screen.

"It's Liz on the phone," she said, "and she said that Kid made her favourite dinner for them himself tonight, and that he complemented her on her outfit without mentioning symmetry! He totally likes her!"

He couldn't help but let out a low chuckle, thinking back to his earlier conversation with the Death God.

'What if it's in your power to be her Prince Charming?'

Soul smiled up at her, not noticing the pretty blush that adorned her cheeks at the look, and pretended to be surprised about the information. Maka smugly informed him that she'd suspected it all along, and that she was going to have a good time rubbing it in Liz's face, saying it would be 'payback.'

"Payback for what?"

The blush deepened dramatically and she turned away. "Uh, nothing! I meant . . ." A faint crackle was heard from the speaker. "Liz, shut up!" she hissed into the phone. "We talked about this already, stop bringing it up!"

He regarded her back with a raised eyebrow as she muttered curses at the older Thompson, her face red, before going into her room with the excuse of studying. He was right earlier. This time wouldn't come again.

" . . . Take the shot, huh?"

Wow, that was emotional. Sorry, I saw Catching Fire today, and it followed the book so well in most places that I had a little bit of an emotional breakdown with my book-reading friends, who shared that little nerdy moment of film perfection and feels. Haven't read it? DO IT, before seeing the movie, or then read it and re-watch the movie. It'll give you a whole new appreciation of it.