A/N: I do not own Soul Eater or Twenty One Pilots' 'Holding On To You.' SassySimoneEvans, this one's for you! Thanks for dedicating your recent story to me, I loved it, and here's the return!
WARNING – really bad language this time around. Sorry, it's pretty awful because I like to make the situations as realistic as possible.
This is an emotional chapter with dark concepts. Beware.
OVER 100 FAVOURITES AND FOLLOWS OHMYGOD GUYS. THANK YOU SO MUCH, MY FIRST STORY ON HERE AND IT'S GOT 170 REVIEWS AND OVER 100 FAVOURITES AND FOLLOWS, WOW. THANK YOU ALL. Special thanks to all my constant champs,
fireprooflawyer, Cafe Nina, Professor Maka, Robastar34, waytheballbounces, SassySimoneEvans, Hawkllama, Soma1234, scorpioneldar, Crazy Creator33, and of course, ilarual (Mercury) and Tenbris.
Your constant reviewing, Personal Messages, use of the squiggle line and bold font~ (Lookin' at you, Overlord Baby Fic) and ideas have helped me so much, you rock! In commemoration, this is a really long one-shot!
Here we go!
TWENTY-SIX – ALL MY SURROUNDINGS
And now that I write and think about it,
And the story unfolds,
You should take my life,
You should take my soul.
- 'Holding On To You', Twenty One Pilots.
There were some kinds of people who needed to be constantly thinking about something, entertained with something, in order to function. Maka Albarn was one of those people. She needed to be stimulated, whether it be from reading or her own daily life, her studies or her emotions, in order to keep herself sane.
She was fast running out of things to think about now.
What time was it? Judging by the little scratch marks she'd etched into the floor with her fingernail some time ago, and the way the sunlight fell against them, it had to be somewhere around three in the afternoon. Oh, wonderful. That meant that it would be her turn, soon. They'd no doubt come and get her at any moment, dragging her out of the tiny little dank room to try and shovel some drugs into her masked in food. She'd get a tiny sip of water, enough to keep her going for the next two hours, when they took her into the 'Fun Room.' He was no-doubt in there right now, seeing as she couldn't sense his soul wavelength through the concrete bricks making up the left hand side of her enclosure. In her malnourished state, as tired and dehydrated as she was, she couldn't use her Soul Perception very far past her own cell, but as it was him, she could always tell if he was in or not, and whether he was okay.
Not having him right there put her teeth on edge, even now. It was cold, a pipe was leaking out slowly just down the hall from the iron bars of her cage, and she wanted nothing more than to listen to the gentle melodies of his soul wavelength as she drifted off to sleep.
Maka was meditating on the idea of how relaxing it would be to just laze on a warm beach with Soul for a day instead of alone on the frigid hard ground when she heard the heavy thud of footsteps. Her head snapped up as quickly as it could in her completely exhausted state and sure enough, two men were walking briskly down the corridor towards the cells. She squinted at them, her vision slightly fuzzy, and distinguished the navy pants and shirts that comprised the Organisation's uniforms. The two workers were followed by another burlier figure, who was dragging a fourth person behind them as they stumbled along. The muscled man was known to Maka as simply 'Butch.' That was what the two of them called him, when they could manage to mutter to each other through the cell bars without risking being overheard on the microphones or detected on the cameras positioned all around them. The large man was particularly violent, and was always used as the escort whenever either of them were taken to the 'Fun Room.' This was because they liked to inflict as much damage as they could get away with whenever they were hauled out – there wouldn't be much chance to return the pain on the way back, anyway.
The small party advanced, and all of them became clearer in her clouded line of vision. She ignored the two workers and Butch, her eyes seeking out him as always to assure herself that it hadn't been taken too far this time. This was practically the only time she got to see him during the day. Hurriedly, Maka assessed the damage. His lip was split worse than it had been the previous beating, and there was a concerning amount of blood in his pale hair on the left-hand side. One of his eyes was a dark purple colour, although all of the swelling had faded by now, and a small trail of blood ran from the side of his mouth down to his chin. How cute – that matched the one on her face. So far, he looked okay. However, he was walking slower than normal and holding onto his chest, making her eyes narrow. By the looks of his face, he was all right; he always wore a mask of indifference whenever they took him to the 'Fun Room.' She could see the pain in his eyes, though. By his wavelength, she could tell that they'd broken at least one of his ribs and it hurt. Her fists clenched around the blisters on her palms.
The four of them passed her cell, with him shooting her a quick grin accompanied by a grimace of pain. She made a thumbs-up sign, and he nodded almost imperceptibly. Good. He hadn't said a single word, most likely. She'd have to keep up that same streak – there was no way he was going to beat her! She returned his smile, and his sharp teeth disappeared as he was shoved out of her line of sight back into his cell.
"Hurry it up now, scythe," Butch said in his deep aggressive voice. "You've had your turn today. Now it's hers."
"Tanoshii*," she spat acerbically.
The escort scowled. "Think you're so smart, don't ya'? Thinkin' I don't understand ya'?
"Do you understand me?"
" . . . Why d'ya think I wanna' understand some shit a little bitch like you has'ta say?" he growled back. "'Course I don't know that shit."
"Genki-desu*," Maka smiled up at the burly man and he spat at her, reaching for the keys to unlock her cell. "Are we off to the 'Fun Room', then?" Her words were meant to sound lazy, and she would have succeeded in seeming disinterested in her fate if her voice wasn't so raspy.
Butch cracked his knuckles as he thrust open the door to her confined space. "You betcha', whore. Hope you're ready."
"Whatever. See you later, Soul," she said as she was hefted up, shoving at the large melon-like arms of the man.
"Later, Maka," was the reply from the other side of brick wall. It was quickly followed by a loud thud and one worker's bark for him to hold his tongue, but the meister smiled anyway. They could beat the Hell out of her all they wanted, but it didn't matter. As long as Soul was here with her and she could hear his voice, feel his soul, then she'd just deal with all of the pain and wear a great big smile through it. They were Shibusen students. They could get through this. Whether someone was coming to save them or not was irrelevant. She had Soul here, and they could take comfort in being near each other.
They could kill her; they could kill him; whatever. They had each other in this dark Hellhole, and once they died – because both knew that they would soon, they just weren't getting fed properly and the water supply was too low combined with blood loss – they'd be together in the place that people went after they died. Both she and Soul would be able to face each other knowing that they did not slip up, they did not give their captors and interrogators a single shred of information, and they stayed strong. As Shibusen students. As partners, together. And they would smile and laugh their way through the rest of eternity, their souls side by side, no matter what happened.
As Butch half-pushed-half-carried her down the narrow corridor, muttering something about how he was going to 'take extra care an' make sure your face matches that o' your little fucker friend', she couldn't help but smile, knowing that in the other cell, Soul was too.
"A month. A Death-damned, motherfuckin' month, and this is all we have to show for it," Black*Star said angrily, scuffing his shoe on the clean floor of the Death Room and clenching his fists in an attempt to keep himself together. How could he be expected to, given the situation they were in? How the Hell could anyone be expected to keep calm? It was bullshit, it was all bullshit.
He felt the red-headed man beside him stir and turned his head away. The old dude was probably crying again. Crying wouldn't help anything – they needed to be out there, doing something! They knew where this place was, right? Why couldn't they just bust in?
"Black*Star, calm down," Kid said in a tired but firm voice, his own jaw clenched. "Yelling isn't going to help anything and you know it."
"Well, at least then I'd be doing something, instead of just sitting here like a useless piece of shit like we are now! What good is staring at a map and talking going to do? We need to be over there!"
Stein made an irritated noise from the Shinigami's left. "It's not that simple. We can't just charge into this place like we did on the Moon, fighting an army."
"Why the Hell not?"
"Because, you idiot, these aren't clowns or tainted souls we're dealing with. They're humans. And while some of them have started to lose their humanity, there are others who are merely employed by the Organisation. They haven't eaten any souls," the Professor said wearily, turning the screw in his left temple once. "Shibusen cannot mercilessly slaughter innocent humans for taking a job offer."
"But," the assassin meister said again, his temper rising, "why can't we just infiltrate the place like that group did at Baba Yaga's Castle? Why can't you send Spartoi in?"
Death Scythe put his head in his arms on the table once more – it was becoming a bit of a constant pose for the stupid pervert of a father. "They've got my little girl in there, and they've got Soul. Think about it. If you get found out, what's to stop them from killing Soul, or cutting Maka's soul out, and taking you lot as hostages instead? Given the lack of action, it's safe to say they haven't told them anything . . . Of course Maka wouldn't, she's too smart . . ." And with this the scythe slumped back down in his melancholy cloud. The dumb fuck had been doing nothing but moping around since the news had spread that Shibusen's top team, Maka Albarn and Soul 'Eater' Evans, had been taken.
Those two, his close friends, had been snatched up by this 'Organisation', whoever the Hell they were, and everyone that was supposed to give a damn about it was just sitting around this big-ass table and looking at the map of the building, rather than getting them out. They were all too pre-occupied with the fact that this place was run by humans, and therefore some innocents could get hurt.
The Organisation had popped up as a little protest-group of sorts initially, claiming that humans would be wiped out by meisters and sent into slavery if they continued to act like the lesser species. They were nothing to worry about, just some dumb human-rights hippies. However, a company with funding had taken up the initiative, and an underground movement of humans had been set up to try and remove the 'threat' of demon weapons existing. Never mind the fact that it was meisters like Black*Star and Maka, and weapons like Tsubaki or Soul, keeping these idiots safe – they just wanted to be the Death-damn apex predators again. They'd increased in numbers, while Shibusen could technically pose no harm against them in the fear of proving their insane message true, and began to spew propaganda out to the country. Of course, barely anyone had listened as they knew what the members of Shibusen did for them, but some, insane little freaks though they were, had listened, and the cause had swelled. Actions had been taken. Plots had been made by the more initiative members of the group, and then they'd done the unthinkable – they'd teamed up with scientists and developed a drug that suppressed the weapon gene and temporarily stopped weapons from being able to transform.
And then they'd applied this technology to the partners Maka Albarn and Soul 'Eater' Evans after tricking them into going on a fake mission to save a group of trapped children. They'd captured the two, and sent a note to Kid – as Shinigami-sama – saying that they would soon be finding out all of Shibusen's dirty little secrets regarding their plans to take over the human race. That was a month ago.
There were three problems with those idiots' plans: Shibusen and Kid didn't have any dirty little secrets of that kind; they kidnapped probably the worst possible people, as Soul and Maka would die before giving away any information, and they didn't know any; and they had fucked with the Almighty Black*Star's friends, so they were gonna' pay.
It was as simple as that, he thought, even as he stood up abruptly, flipped off Stein, and marched from the room with determined steps echoing down the guillotine archways. Screw planning. If they were just gonna' fret and plan and sit and rot, he'd get them out, himself. Whipping his blue cell phone from his pocket, he dialled in a number and waited impatiently for the call to go through.
It did so with a click. "Hello?"
"Yo, Kilik," Black*Star said, his voice harsh and low. "You busy?"
"Why – don't – you – just – flippin' – talk?" Butch growled as he laid his fists into her stomach in time with the words. He had been knocking her around for a good twenty minutes now, and Maka was pretty proud of how she was faring, all things considered. She might have been hacking blood every now and again, and one of her eyes was swelling shut, but so far all she'd said was a rough curse when she'd first been thrown at the wall. Then again, she didn't know how long she was going to stay conscious – everything was rolling slightly.
The man sitting across the room from them sighed and crossed his legs the other way, crimping the material of his suit pants. "They're so tight-lipped; a whole month has gotten us nowhere. Quite valiant, aren't you, little meister?"
She merely winced in reply when her face was slapped roughly.
"So, do tell," the man continued, his smooth voice betraying his practice as a businessman and head of the Organisation, "how long are you two planning to mess around here before you tell? I don't want my two best captives dying out on me, but if you're going to stay with locked-lips, then there's not much point letting you live."
This time she did speak to the leader of the group, her eyes narrowed. "Why don't you just kill us then – shit!" Butch had caught her around the waist.
"Enough!" the man in the suit barked suddenly, and the burly torturer gave one protesting grunt before he obediently dropped her unceremoniously on the ground, winding her. "Now, Miss Albarn, why are you so ready to let your own partner die?"
A part of Maka couldn't help but sigh. Although he'd tried to put emphasis on the word, this man just didn't understand the concept of partners. None of the Organisation members did – they couldn't work out that there was a bond there, not just a desire to wield a weapon and be superior to others. However, she still raised her head slowly, her blood-stained bangs shading her eyes, and murmured, "Because it's pointless trying to do anything else with us."
"Hmm?" He leaned back in his seat, his hands forming a steeple beneath his chin, eyes wide and interested. It was so rare for either of them to actually reply to anything that was said, threat or not, so when she talked, he gave her his full attention.
Damn it – Soul's going to gloat that he lasted longer than me without speaking.
"Well," she said, spitting some blood from her mouth in the general direction of Butch, but being too weak to propel it properly, "there's no information for us to tell you that'll keep us alive. I've . . . told you this." Her breath was weakening. That was bad. Was the blood loss and dehydration going to overpower her again? She sincerely hoped not – she hadn't taken any food and there was nothing in her stomach to throw up. It might be death this time if she let that happen.
"Don't play games, Miss Albarn. We know of Shibusen's plot to eradicate humans. We were tipped off by a reliable source."
"Bullshit – it's your conspiracies, and I . . . know . . . it . . ."
"You're looking rather weak there," he commented in mock concern, and Butch snickered from the side. "Maybe you'd like a drink?"
"No. May as well . . . die anyway . . . because there's no . . . plot – Augh!" More blood came tumbling from her chin. She winced. Somewhere in the cells, she'd felt Soul's wavelength give a tweak of alarm. Strange – normally she couldn't hear or feel him from this far away. This was bad. Her head felt kind of light now.
"So, you mean to tell me that Shinigami-sama doesn't want to end our rule as dominant race of the planet, even though they would have the means?"
" . . . Yes. We don't work . . . like that. We protect. You . . . fools . . ." There was a weird light at the edges of her vision.
Butch sneered. "She's gonna' be out in a sec, boss. You want me ta' chuck 'er back an' get scythe boy again?"
"No, leave her. She's being pliant, and we should listen to what she has to say." The suited man smiled, but it looked strained now. "It's impolite to interrupt a lady."
"Your soul is becoming – tainted," she muttered, looking up at him. He was becoming tainted, it was undeniable. His humanity was cracking. Soon he might try to devour her, who knew? The light was taking over more and she felt funny. Soul was going to be mad if she fainted, but right now it seemed inevitable.
"Shut it!" the suited man yelled suddenly, his composure cracking slightly. "I am merely a pioneer for humanity! Don't talk about me like you can see inside me, like you can read me. What gives you that power, girl?"
She did not reply. Her mouth was tingling.
After a pause, Butch shook her shoulder. Her head lolled uncomfortably to the side and her vision spiralled out into a tunnel. Great. She would be out soon. A long cough brought hot blood up her throat again and she winced. It would likely take a long time to wake up . . . if she even did . . . Soul, I'm tired . . .
How nice it would be if they were on that beach. Or better yet, at home. She would be on the couch, too lazy to get up and move. Her legs would be resting on his lap as she fought off the heavy sleep that weighed down her eyelids. He would look down at her, scoff, and tell her that it would be stupid to fall asleep on the couch, because she'd hurt her back.
"But I'm tired, Soul, I don't want to move . . ."
"What did she say?" The suited man's voice was very distant in her ears as she let her imagination override her conscious thoughts.
He would be complaining now that she'd fall asleep on him. She'd tell him that he was warm and comfortable, so she didn't care. He'd grumble, she'd whine, and a small bicker would end with him shrugging, saying 'Whatever. Do what you want,', and letting her fall asleep against the sofa cushions. She would rest there and he would look at her for a few moments before cursing, lifting her legs off of him, picking her up bridal-style and carrying her to her room. Like a child, falling asleep on the couch and waking up in bed. As he'd lower her down onto her mattress, she'd grab his shirt for a moment, and mutter a drowsy 'Thanks.' He'd smile that smile she only saw on the verge of unconsciousness, ruffle her hair and call her an idiot. And then, just as her eyes finally slid closed for the last time before sleep overtook her, she'd feel a light wet pressure on her cheek. Almost like he'd kissed it. She'd sigh, roll over, and he'd leave the room just as he entered the dreams in her head.
Through the fuzzy warmth in her mind, she heard a man's voice, a man in a suit, yelling at a big burly man with blood on his knuckles to, 'Get her some water, for God's sake, she's going to die if you don't get her fixed up right no-"
"Night, Soul."
The blood on her cheek was like a goodnight kiss, and she fell asleep in the warmth of her bedroom, a bloodstained room with two frantically shouting men a mere sound from the television in the living room, because he was here, and she was home.
At the same moment, he was slumped against a brick wall in his cell. He clutched at his ribcage, the internal bleeding making his breathing choked. All the while his head rested on the pillow beside hers in her bedroom, her back to him as she fought against sleep after a long day. He smiled sleepily into her hair as she muttered a few drowsy words.
"Night," he replied into the cold air of the tiny room, falling to the side as the two working guards outside his cell began to call out in surprise.
It must have been someone in the apartment downstairs, but it couldn't bother him, because he was warm and wrapped in thick blankets with Maka by his side, and he was home.
Both of them smiled in their sleep as they waited, ready to greet each other in the morning as they had always done, no matter where, in what life, in what place they had ended up. Because they would both be there, and they were home.
They were home.
They were home.
They were h –
It was a world of white. White ceilings, white floors, white bandages on pale arms. White lines from scars that weren't there before. White machines making white noise. She had imagined a place after death at one point in her life, but this certainly wasn't it. It still hurt. Everything was painful, her brain was sluggish, and she didn't feel light like she should. Instead her bones were like stones, weighing her down to the white sheets on the white bed.
There were voices there too, voices of people that she would never have expected to be there. Black*Star, for one – 'Godly' although he may have been, he was not something she pictured in her place of serenity. Kid was there too, and Stein, and Kim, and her father – what on Death's name?
"– Healing process will take a long time. I've never felt something as bad as this," Kim was saying, her voice low. Maka's eyes were only opened a tiny bit, not noticeable, but she could see redness around the green of the other girl's irises. How odd. Kim didn't cry.
Stein was beside her, looking weary as he wiped his hands on a cloth. "They'll survive. There'll be emotional and physical scarring, but they'll pull through. I'm sure of it. Their souls are sustaining each other, somehow." Who was he talking about?
"My little girl," her papa said, his hand reaching down to smooth back her hair. She was too exhausted and confused to pull away. Why was he in her room? Why was her room white?
Kid wasn't looking at her like the others, he was turned to Black*Star. "Although you did a very stupid thing, it's good that you did. Otherwise, they would have died. You saved their lives."
"Of course I did," Black*Star replied, his voice sounding quieter than what should have been possible for him due to her stuffy head. "Kilik and I busted in and got them without anyone noticing until we'd left. Didn't touch a single guard. I am an assassin." Who'd they get, and why were they discussing that here?
"Even still . . ."
This was just too weird. The sentences should have made sense to Maka, but they didn't. Last thing she knew, she'd been falling asleep in her room and watching Soul's back as he retreated . . . Soul.
All pain, white and oddities aside, she sat bolt upright, making the other occupants of the room flinch. It may have been an ostentatious way to let them know she was awake, but she didn't care. There was only one thing on her mind as the fog began to clear.
"Maka, you're awake . . ."
"Soul?" she called out, expecting him to be right there beside her. Why did she hurt? Had something happened? They'd just gone to sleep, ignoring the blood in the room –
Blood. Bloody knuckles. Butch. The suited man. The cells. The 'Fun Room.' The Organisation.
Her father's hand was half-way extending, the first tears halfway down his face, when she began to scream.
"Soul! Soul!"
Why couldn't she see him? Where was he? How had she got back to Shibusen? Was that where she was? Why was everyone in here with her? Why wasn't he in here with her?
"Calm down, it's all okay, Maka, you need to lie back down - !"
"Soul!" she screamed out again, ignoring her pain and struggling to sit on the side of the bed. "Soul, where are you? Soul!" Her voice was raw. She didn't care. This was not home.
A rough hand tried to push her back onto the bed. Dimly, she saw Black*Star's arm. It was only there for a second, though – it soon became the enormous palm of Butch, reaching to grip her and crush her bones as she was asked about what she knew, what they were hiding, where the secret plans were. With an animalistic cry, she shoved the thing away. She had to get away now. She had to find Soul. When she tried to jerk out of the bed, something pulled her other arm back. It was some sort of tube. It must have been drugging her. With a strength that only adrenalin could provide, she ripped it out and brought her elbow back to hit the nearest person in the nose. They needed to move, they were in the way of Soul . . .
"No, wait, Maka, stop!" Kid called out, but she was already out the door.
Left, right, left, right – stumble.
She fell, her left leg collapsing under her weight as all of her newfound energy burned out. No. She couldn't stop here. She'd said that they could take her soul before, but she'd been wrong. She'd been at home then. She was not at home now, not without him. She needed to get to him, needed to reach him . . .
"Maka!"
Her head whipped up and she felt her heart pick up from the ground at the sight of him. Soul was standing there in front of her, wearing only his black tracksuit pants, his chest heavily bandaged at least four times around and his eyes wild. Her own were tear-filled as she stared up at him, her breaths hitching, and there was a moment where they just looked, their wavelengths synching naturally, because they were in Shibusen and it was okay and –
Her hands tightened around his shoulders as he buried his face in her neck, both sitting on the floor in the middle of the corridor. Tears were landing on his neck, and she barely noticed that they were falling from her eyes, and he was saying something in her ear, but she couldn't hear it over her own breathing. He was there, holding her, and as the footsteps of the others approached them, their exclamations of worry dying in their throat as they saw the meister and weapon simply holding onto each other for dear life, their faces buried in each others' necks, neither of them took any notice. It was just sounds on the television, the downstairs neighbours, and it didn't matter, because they were together and awake and home.
*-Tanoshii = fun (Japanese). Genki desu = good (Japanese). Maka is half Japanese.
Thank you once again so much for all of your support; the long chapter and early update was in commemoration of that. Seriously. Thank you.