Hello! So I know I'm an asshole and it's probably almost been like two years...but whoo! chapter 8! Which means yes, this story isn't over, I've actually got like...a ton more. Enjoy!

Chapter 8: You Gotta Know When Hold 'Em

Angel was short enough that he should have expected that she was full of righteous anger.

Soul watched her under his bangs as she sauntered along the shore near the river. She had been as excited as he'd hoped when he'd shown her the huge space under the bridge that was just begging to be tagged, and Maka had agreed with him completely. They'd already spent two nights under the bridge, just trying to decide what they would put on the wall. However, they only focused on that for maybe an hour before they settled for just skipping rocks on the river and introducing themselves to each other for real.

Maka knelt down to dig a rock out of the sand, pulled back and let it fly. He counted four skips before sinking, and she threw her hands up in the air. "Yes!" She turned back to look at him with a shit eating grin. "Gonna beat your record of six before you know it."

"Yeah sure, like you could."

"I totally will. I'm getting close." She returned back to her search for stones, while Soul reclined against the wall a little more. This was easy for her, Soul noticed that right off the bat. Maka wasn't scared of him, or this. She had no trouble meeting him around midnight at the site of their old collab, and following him down to the bridge. Sure, she had kept her distance the first night, but she walked at night with the confidence that she was safe in these roads, in those shadows. She didn't have any trouble talking either. She let small facts and details about her life slip past her lips like they were nothing. She was comfortable with him.

Soul didn't share her confidence; neither with feeling safe in those streets, or being able to hold a conversation with one other person for six to seven hours. He wasn't a loner, he had friends. He had Star, Tsu...hell he even had Marie, Sid and Mira, but Soul didn't actually instigate those relationships, they were pushed onto him. Star wasn't exactly good with not taking a hint, and Soul had just given up trying to push him off. With Star came Tsu. And with Marie, and the Baretts? That was more of an impromptu adopting on their part, and Soul had just allowed them to paternally watch over him. He hadn't sought them out, not really.

But he had gone out of his way to find Angel.

He didn't know why, though. The artist hadn't been able to figure out why he wanted to get to know her. She was cute, don't get him wrong, she was fucking adorable. But he wasn't out there with her at three am because he wanted to jump her bones, (that being said if she decided she wanted to jump his bones, he certainly wouldn't stop her), but that wasn't why he was here.

And she didn't bring food, so that ruled out both sex and food, his two big motivators.

Maka found another rock, and let it go flying. They both counted the skips against the water, and she had progressed to five before her rock sunk to the bottom of the river. Her cheer echoed out across the water, and had him grinning before she could even turn to catch his eyes. It was hard to make out her expression, their only source of light came from their phone flashlights, but he could see the way her progress made her eyes glitter, and he could only smile back.

"I'm getting closer!"

"I'm getting hungry. What about you?"

"Oh, you wanna leave?! When I'm getting so close?! Are you even hungry?!"

"Oi, one thing you'll learn Angel? I'm always hungry."

There weren't a lot of options open to two starving artists at 2 am, which is how Maka found herself being dragged to one hell of a run down diner.

Inside, the checkered white and black tile was dull, and the shiny red vinyl across the seats was cracked and peeling. She sat down across from Soul, and looked around. The diner was empty except for them, some cook swearing in the background, and an old woman in one of the oldest most stereotypical looking waitress uniform she had ever seen. The old woman looked up, noticed them, and went to the back to apparently stop the stream of swears from the cook in the back.

Maka bit on the inside of her cheek, and rolled her eyes to meet Eater's. "What is this."

"I know, I know, on the outside-"

"-and inside-"

"-It looks like a shithole, but God, let me tell you, this place has the best food in the whole city."

"Really? Because I've lived in this city my whole life, and I've never even heard of it." The challenge in her voice was palpable, but Soul didn't take the bait. He wasn't like her, she'd noticed that quickly. He didn't really talk. At all. If she asked him direct questions, he would answer, if she made a comment, he would nod, or maybe comment back. He gave her a thousand signs so there would be no confusion that she had been heard, but...he hardly ever lent her his voice.

She wasn't sure what that meant yet, he could be shy. Actually she knew he was shy, it was the way he would meet her eyes, but he couldn't hold it, he was always the one who looked away first. That's fine, she knew plenty of shy people, but that wasn't what bothered her.

Soul was actively holding himself back, and she couldn't figure out why. It was a weird niggling sense at the back of her brain, that he was chomping at the bit to talk to her, actually talk to her, but he was holding himself back.

Of course, there wasn't a wall and a pseudonym for him to hide behind.

The waitress bustled up to them, setting water in front of them both. "Can I get you something to drink?"

"Water is fine, thanks." Maka smiled up at her and Soul gave her a bored look.

"If I order coffee do you promise not to burn the shit out of it?"

The old woman glared at him, but she couldn't keep the malice in her face. "No. I can't."

"Water's good then. Thanks." She nodded, and handed them both menus before dashing back to the kitchen. Maka gave Soul a look and he shrugged.

"Her name is Nancy. She's worked here longer than I've been alive, I think. She always works the early bird shift, and she always gives me extra bacon."

"You come here a lot, huh?"

"Yeah, I'm usually out late, and I get hungry about halfway through a piece sometimes." He gave her a grin, stirring the ice in his drink with his index finger.

"It's amazing you ever got anything done."

"Oi, noob, I've got at least twice as many pieces across this city than you do!"

"Quality over quantity, Eater." He looked at her, and scoffed, but she saw a light blush dusted across his cheeks. Maka drank from her water, setting it down immediately after. "Oh, I'm sorry, by the way."

"Eh? For?"

"For buffing your city. It had been there for, like, forever. I didn't think it would matter. But it was still a dick move."

"Oh, yeah no w-worries. It's cool. I'm sorry our shit got covered...I...I really liked the uh, the r-red flowers."

"Poppies. They were poppies."

"They...looked really c-cool." His face was still slightly red, and Maka honestly couldn't believe that this blushy giant nerd was the same brat who had written all those sticky notes for her. But at the same time, she absolutely could. His eyes were complex, they didn't give away much, but she still felt like she was reading him rather well. Or maybe because his nerves were settling, she noticed his hands weren't clenched anymore, and his shoulders were relaxed.

"Thanks! I tried to make them as cool as your demon…"

"Heh, he's not that cool, it's okay."

"Yes he was! I thought he was awesome! I was surprised that you haven't tagged him more! And you have to show me how you did your shading! Oh man, he looked so cool-"

"He wasn't scary?" His voice was steady but the way he looked at her through his bangs made her think he needed reassurance.

"Of course he was scary, I wanted to close my eyes the first time I saw him cuz I was worried he might come after me! But that's what good art does, you know? It made me feel something." Her smile grew soft and she ran a hand through her hair. "He made me feel sort of sad, like I wanted to go hide under my bed...but at the same time he made me feel brave. Like if I could stand in front of him, even for just a minute, something as scary as him couldn't get me, couldn't even stop me! That demon inspired me, I guess."

If the red on his face hadn't been noticeable before, she was absolutely sure of it now. All thousand feet of that giant across from her seemed to be blushing. His mouth opened a few times, but no words came out. She didn't know for sure what was going on in his brain, but it seemed to be short circuiting on him.

Lucky for him, Nancy decided to return to their table then, her little notebook flipped open. "What can I get you two?"

"French toast."

"Old Man Special." Soul told her and she nodded, scurrying back to the kitchen to fill their orders. Maka watched him pick at the skin near his fingernails a couple times before she flipped over her placemat, so the blank side was facing up, and she dug around her bag for a couple of pens. She rolled one over to Soul, and he looked up at her.

"Let's play a game. You draw something, and I'll add to it, then you, then me, until it's done."

"Yeah, okay." Soul grinned at her, uncapping his pen. He turned his focus onto the placemat for a second, and Maka watched the faces he made as he drew, getting more and more engulfed in the picture until he was even pulling off his beanie so he could run his hand through his hair. When he finally slid it back over to her, she raised an eyebrow.

He had drawn a repeating mandala of spiderwebs across the page. She was impressed by his accuracy, most of his patterns looked damn near identical. Eater had a flair for jagged twists and turns, unexpected angles and sharp corners. Maka uncapped her pen, purple ink over his black, repeating bigger and bigger lines, reducing to smaller, until she had the abstract shape of a butterfly in the center. Soul leaned forward to watch her draw, and he scoffed. "Why'd you trap the damn thing."

"Who say's it's trapped? Maybe it lives there." Maka answered him plainly, giving depth and shadows to the butterfly, definition against the web. "Maybe it killed the spider and took her throne."

"You're more avenger than angel, aren't you?"

"Bet you can't wait to find out."

Eater was a genius.

Besides the fact that the gentle giant could apparently pick out a hell of a diner, he had a great idea for their next project. He didn't explain it well, but when he took a pen from the waitress and sketched it out on a napkin, Maka was hooked.

It wasn't going to be easy, at all. In fact, this might be the hardest project Maka had ever done. She didn't want to make him doubt her or anything, but large scale pictures weren't her usual medium. The intricacies that he was wanting to add to the pieces scared her. Especially with how much of her linework he wanted to incorporate.

The river lapped against the shore, a companion to the shaking of Eater's can. He was only putting on a base for the background, she wasn't required to help right now. She hadn't said much since he started, she knew he had trouble talking when it was his only focus, and he probably wanted to focus more on the wall now. He was into this, that much was obvious. He moved with confidence he didn't have when he spoke. Soul knew he was good at this, dropping a can at a moment's notice to grab another one.

None of his cans had lids, she had no idea how he knew which one it was, but he didn't make a mistake. She pulled her surgical mask over her face to hide the smile she got when he got a streak of blacked Royal Red across his face. Soul was kind of cute.

In a strictly appreciative, aesthetic, Greek God carved from high end marble kind of way.

Soul swore, tossing an empty can to the side and reaching back down for a different one, eyes never leaving the wall. It was amazing, his focus was completely on his piece. That gave her an idea.

Maka reached into her bag, pulling out one of her silver markers. It was her favorite, the paint itself very metallic, it shone in even the dimmest light. She stood while Soul shook his can again, using the rattling to mute her own movements. Behind him, she carefully drew on his black hoodie. He did finally notice her behind him, but he didn't turn around. He glanced at her, eyebrow threatening to disappear into his black beanie. "What was that?"

"Bug. Sorry, thought I would just brush it off."

"Oh, okay. Thanks." He turned back to the wall, and Maka giggled, skipping back to her spot. She settled in against the dirty bricks behind her, and watched him paint that wall, the cutest little silver wings shining on his hoodie.

He kept working, and she started overlying the leading lines on the corners, so that the edge of the piece wouldn't be fuzzy, the way spray painted tended to look. (In her opinion at least, she refused to let Soul weigh in on that one). Spreading from the edges were lines of varying size and width, leading out into the space behind them. Every now and then, he'd trip over her, and he'd spit some complaint down towards her way, but she was pretty sure she could seen a grin on his face too. "You should really cover your mouth so you don't end up poisoned before your time."

"That sounded like a thinly veiled threat."

"I like the term thinly veiled promise, softens the blow."

"For you or me, damn." He shook his head at her, tossing another empty can towards the pile he was creating at the base of the now tinted red wall. "I'm gonna need to stock up again."

"Me too actually. I swear I just did too. God this is an expensive hobby."

"Don't forget dangerous." Soul grinned. "Gotta watch out for beat cops, cuz they really don't like me too much"

"Noooooooo really?" Maka asked, stretching out her shoulders. "You just seem like such a people pleaser."

"Oh, but I am. You have no idea." He yawned finally, dropping his arm and easing his neck side to side. "But I am about ready to call it a night. Sun should be up in a couple hours. You need me to walk you home?"

"Think I can't walk across a bridge?"

"Think there's a lot of reasons to be careful walking across a bridge?"

"Nah, I'll be fine. I live pretty out of the way. Like across town out of the way." Maka helped him shove the rest of his empty cans back into his backpack. "It's fine, really."

"...Alright. But you should like...let me know you got home then, okay?"

"You want me to smoke signal that to you?" She snickered at him, holding out her palm for his phone. He gave it to her, and she plugged in her number, and sent herself a text from his phone. "There, now you can text me when you get home, and I don't have to worry about anyone stealing your lunch money or anything."

"Your concern is touching, Angel. Really."

"You know, you can call me Maka."

"Yeah, I doubt it. I'll see you Angel."

"Text me when you get home, Soul Eater!" Maka waved, and started back towards her house, the opposite way her friend took off. She hummed to herself as she walked home, hopping over cracks and taking a few moments to watch the sun break over the city before she continued. She wondered what this whole thing with Soul was, or meant. She didn't want to think he was just doing all of this to get into her pants or anything...but if he was, then he had zero game. He didn't even try to get into her pants, which had to mean that he was in this for the same reason as her. The art, and also the socially awkward friend behind it.

How absolutely weird. She could get used to that.

She was just getting to her door when she felt her phone buzz, and she pulled up the message.

Your name is not staying "Supreme Goddess of all that is Lined"

What? You not a fan? Yours is Space Cowboy. That's cool.

I changed yours. It's good now. Sweet dreams.

Wait! What did you change it too.

All she got in response was a picture of Ein, and her spine bristled. "Oh it is on you albino fucker. It is so on."

Hope you liked it! Review? :)