Here's another one-shot I had just lying around, gathering dust. ('Get up off yer damn ass and MAKE something of yerself,' I shouted at it, and it only rolled over and flipped me the finger. Damn whipper-snapper.)
(Two-for-the-price-of-ONE! Whooo!)
Haven't read the past few chapters of the manga, so if I've missed anything pertinent pertaining to Soul's family, then...well.
Oh, well.
This fic is idle speculation about Soul's lineage (or, more specifically, his madre) and is based on nothing but his clear disdain for his family name.
Anywho. Read on, yes?
Excellent.
[still don't own it. damn it. one of these days...]
party digs
It's that time of year again, and he can't even taste the dinner Maka spent most of the afternoon making for him. He's not being mopey; outwardly, he's still the same slacker-slouch 'cool' guy Soul Eater, but on the inside he's seven years old and he's knocked over a priceless vase in his desperate, aggravated flight from piano practice, and his mother is going to be very cross about the matter when she finds out (and she will, she would even if his piano teacher hadn't been a preening flatterer, one of the many, many fawning denizens arrayed about his family name, ready to serve), and he is all nerves.
He ignores Maka's eyes as they follow him about the apartment, refuses to see whatever emotion she's hidden there just for him, but he is still trying –perhaps somewhat half-heartedly—to make it seem like it's not on purpose, that he's just lost in his thoughts and simply doesn't realize the (almost palpable) concern she's casting in his direction.
***
Later that evening, when Maka's cinching the tie at his neck (because she adjusted it once long ago and has insisted on doing it ever since, not because he can't do it himself; how uncool would that be?) and his abdomen feels so tight he's half-afraid it might collapse in on itself, they leave the apartment for Shibusen, and he pretends he isn't terrified while he wonders if anyone in this entire city has a normal relationship with their parents, or if severe, debilitating dysfunction is the norm.
He's walking completely upright by the time they're halfway there; his posture has been gradually improving with every step they take toward the academy, and it's that final, almost imperceptible adjustment that draws the green of her eyes, flicking left and forward again in the same movement, so that if he'd known her any less than he does, he wouldn't have known to expect it and he'd have missed it altogether. She doesn't say anything and underneath layers of anxiety and antipathy, he's grateful.
He has that falsely serene look on his face (the one that makes Maka's lip curl unpleasantly) when he follows his partner across the threshold separating their world from Hers, and they slip unseen into a party that by all outward appearances seems perfectly normal, perfectly harmless. He pauses to let Maka hang her coat on one of the many available racks, and also to breathe (he keeps forgetting to do that), his eyes dragging the length of her in rich purple (the same color as his tie) as he focuses very carefully on inhaling, exhaling, inhaling, exhaling…
He does not like parties. They are fraught occasions whereat people are less apt to be truthful and more likely to be totally false; they are forced to dress up and mingle and be abide by fastidious social rules, avoiding faux pas at all costs and aiming, ultimately, to impress, to outshine. People titter about useless things and laugh at stupid jokes, they mill about like so much cattle and pretend to each others' faces that they're someone they would hate to be everyday, and everybody smiles about it because they've accepted this behavior as okay, as normal. And even if at Shibusen, at parties with his peers, in the absence of adults who aren't their teachers, the atmosphere is slightly different, maybe even more enjoyable, they are at heart still parties, and Soul does not like parties because they are all reflections of functions such as these, when he will be put on display, when Maka will be put on display, when they will both be judged according to what they do and say instead of who they are and how hard they are trying.
Maka doesn't ask him if he's alright, doesn't glare at him for being so closed and stand-offish, but she's not smiling, either, and it makes him blink at the unbidden realization that his meister has never been anything but herself at these parties, has never needed to be. Even when she'd met his mother for the first time, even though she had no tits and a quick, foul temper and a slight build that suggested frailty, weakness, she hadn't simpered or bowed under the weight of his mother's blood-red gaze. Instead, Maka'd been all wry smiles and brows furrowed in challenge. (And that's when he had known that he was looking at his partner, the other half to his whole.)
He's taken five steps into the massive ballroom when he sees Her, dark eyes the same color of the wine in her glass, mouth turned up at the corner in elegant condescension, the platinum of her long, flowing hair framing the ivory of her face as she regards whatever unfortunate creature has come to be standing before her. He can't feel his feet, but they're carrying him toward her anyway, as if they know that the confrontation must happen and there's no sense in trying to avoid it, and suddenly he hates himself, hates the way she makes him feel three inches tall and inadequate and uncertain, hates the way he lets her.
And just as suddenly they're before her, and she's this malicious vision draped in expensive black-and-red (all the blades in his family are colored thusly) fabrics, and the smirk that scores across her face has a distinctively sinister quality to it that makes him feel uncomfortable and self-conscious.
"Soul Eater, darling." Her voice is a mellifluous knell, her eyes are piercing, sharp enough to cut glass as they slide over him and then flick disdainfully toward his meister, and this is all just too much; he doesn't want to be here, he wishes Maka could just be left out of this—
"Happy birthday, mother," is barely out of his mouth when Maka's tiny hand slips through his, and he has time only to register the way his mother's silver eyebrow climbs and (out of his periphery), the way Maka's mouth does, too, into a scheming sort of smile that is followed immediately by a hauntingly familiar howling sound somewhere near the stage—
"FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! IT IS I, BLACK STAR! I HAVE ARRIVED, LITTLE ONES, BUT HAVE NO FEAR. BEING EXPOSED TO MY BIGNESS IS HARD FOR EVERYONE THE FIRST TIME!"
Soul's mother is immediately, clearly unhappy with this turn of events, but Maka's hand is warm around his when, from the other side of the room, Death the Kid announces himself by way of a horrified wail, distressed from afar at the destruction Black Star is wreaking by the mere act of his introduction speech. Liz is already shaking her head, and Patty's bright laughter ricochets off of the people gathered around them, and they both follow automatically after their meister as he charges through the crowd to put an end to the natural disaster that is Black Star.
From there it's one disturbance after another: Ox and Kim and Jackie all show up, and Soul manages to catch a glimpse of Pot of Thunder (zapping mischievously at ankles and then scurrying away before she's discovered) and assumes her sister is there as well. Their classmates file in one after another, and even a befuddling white creature sporting a top hat and a cane arrives –rather noisily, to the raucous tune of "BWAKA!"—at some point in the evening, and creates swirling, inexplicable chaos wheresoever he goes.
When at long last he spares a glance at his mother, she is very nearly shaking with the force of her wrath, the vermillion of her eyes bleeding almost black, but Soul forgets to care when Maka leans against him unexpectedly and whispers,
"Your mother forgot to invite a few people to the party, so I thought I'd help out and do it for her."
He laughs because it's all suddenly very hilarious –all of it—and it's ironic, he thinks, that it's here of all places that he realizes he loves Maka.
*ahem*
FRITO PIE.