HUGE update! I also don't know what more there really is to write, so this fic may be done? Let me know what you all want since I enjoy pleasing my audience.
I was technically hiding in the bathroom, having finished getting ready minutes ago even though it felt like hours. Soul was on the other side of that door, shuffling around the room in his own preparations which gave way to one or two curses filtering through the doorway. Courageous Maka was who I was waiting for, my back against the door as if it needed more than the lock to keep him out. It was less about how I looked, because as I had come to rationalize with Regina I did look good, and more the expectation, the fear of how he would look at me. I knew the clock was ticking, so with a shaky breath, I tried to make a steady exit from the bathroom.
Soul's back was to me, staring at himself in the mirror in intense concentration. As soon as he caught my face in the reflection he turned and I couldn't do anything more than freeze, a tentative smile on my face that was ready to crumble as soon as his face changed. "Wow," fell out of his mouth with his breath and pink instantly flushed his cheeks as he stuttered through the next part, "I mean, it looks nice. You look nice. You're… you got that with Mom?"
I was almost too struck by the moment to realize there was a question at the end. He had blushed. Blushed. And while nice wasn't exactly the most descriptive word he'd meant it because he was never someone to say something just to please another person. I had expected some cool, casual glance accompanied by a turn back to the mirror but he was still standing there staring, his eyes trying not to waver but dipping occasionally to see the entirety of me. I finally snapped out of the trance and managed to chirp, "Yup, Regina approved. Not that I, well, this isn't exactly my normal so I wasn't sure…"
"No, it's, I don't know, perfect for you." He crammed the words together as he turned back to the mirror, not hiding very well since I could still see the reflection of his face, his mouth gulping for air as his cheeks lit up again.
"Thank you," I murmured and meant it more than he could probably ever realize.
Soul grunted in reply, going back to fiddling with the tie around his neck.
"Do you need help?" I took a step towards him but he waved me off. I moved to the bed, sitting still in the line of sight of the mirror. "I thought you said no ties."
"Yeah, well," he grumbled. "Wes said since Mom was taking you out that we should go out and he kind of tricked me into clothes shopping, too. Said I couldn't get away without a tie since it's the club."
"Tricked you?" I prodded playfully.
He shot me a half-hearted glare before scowling back in the mirror to finish with the tie. "Wes and my Mom both manage to talk you into things without you knowing them."
"Well, I'm glad he did." I moved slowly with just enough nerve to come up behind him, putting a soft hand on his arm and turning him towards me, both of us now framed in the mirror. "You look handsome, partner," it was supposed to be playful but it sounded idiotic.
"Thanks, partner," he muttered back. His eyes seemed too focused on me as if taking in every little detail. Slowly, his hand came up, touching at the cap of my sleeve as if to just feel the fabric between his fingers. His lips gaped for a moment before he cleared his throat while his eyes examined the two of us in the mirror. "We should get moving."
"Alright." I grabbed the hand that fell from my sleeve and he easily tangled his fingers with mine. "Are we taking Spirit's car?"
Soul managed a chuckle before shaking his head. "You don't know Mom very well." The answer left me blinking and he began to pull me out of the door and down the hallway without further explanation.
With Regina waiting at the bottom of the stairs it was like deja vu of the teenage prom experience. Of course, I hadn't actually had one of those experiences, but this is what the movies made me imagine: nervous boy and girl paraded in front of parent(s) before being whisked off to a magical evening, or at least what I could hope and dream was a magical evening. And just as expected Regina held her phone in her hand, motioning to Soul to stop. "Let me take a picture."
"Mom," Soul started the complaint but I yanked at his hand until it trailed off into a mutter.
"Come on, get close," Regina chimed.
Soul's eyes met mine for a moment, a silent pleading there that I couldn't quite translate until I felt his arm circle me, his hand resting on my hip. Why did it feel like I could his skin was burning right through my dress? That his touch was lighting up all the nerves on the delicate dip in my side? I tried to turn my trembling breath into a smile as I moved to face Regina. She snapped a few through my daze before finally sending us on our way, shooing the two of us out the door to a town car waiting outside.
Like the true gentleman he can be when his mother is watching from the doorway, Soul opened the car door for me. I could barely make out the driver through the partition since it was mostly blacked out, his face only slightly visible because he had lowered the middle window halfway. "The Quiet Springs Club, please," Soul spoke as soon as he had his head in the car, barely settled before the words came out.
"A driver?" I raised an eyebrow at him.
He shrugged and the car seemed to set into motion the instant he was completely in the seat, the partition slowly rising to leave us to each other. "You've seen the house, right?" He nodded back at what I would call a mansion, not a house. "My family doesn't exactly do ordinary."
"Except for you," I smiled.
"Hey," he frowned, "I'm not ordinary. Hello, Death's Last Weapon? I'm cool, totally not ordinary."
I rolled my eyes as dramatically as possible. "So cool you can barely tie a tie."
"Ties aren't cool," he grumbled back.
Even throughout our joking, I wished he'd latch on to me again, pull me in with an arm or grab me with a hand, but as our words died down his eyes drifted out the window, watching the world pass us. We were on the highway and I absently watched the buildings and businesses fly by the window. It was only a few turn-offs before we were no longer zooming down populated streets but drifting down a long, wooded lane. There weren't any actual springs to see and I wondered at the purpose of the name, but I supposed that the beauty of the building excused it all.
It was a classical rambling farmhouse that had been extended to what I assumed it needed to be considered a club, but thankfully they'd kept in the theme of the original architecture. The car stopped just at the stone walkway that led to a matching staircase to the large oak front doors. A young man opened the door as soon as the car came to a stop and I found myself waiting for Soul to take the lead for once. He did, getting out of the car before turning quickly back to cut off the doorman and take my hand, pulling me out of the car.
All etiquette here was lost on me so I clung to Soul's elbow and let him move me into the oversized house. Moving into the house was almost effortless, with doormen and what I could only guess were hosts showing us through every turn. When we got to the large entryway, one of those hosts who so ceremoniously stood at a podium waved us over. "Name, please."
"Soul Evans." Soul annoyedly touched at his tie, probably calculating how much more time he'd have to spend in the thing.
"Oh, the younger Mr. Evans. We were sure it'd be Regina and Arthur this evening, but what a pleasant surprise." And while I was sure he was trained to say something in that regard, the host was fairly convincing in his joy over our arrival. "You and your guest can come this way."
Soul glanced back at me in time to see my raised my eyebrows which got me a ghost of a smile in return. We followed the host through the main dining room, the average clientele at least twenty years older than us which bought us a few turned heads. I was expecting us to stop soon but the host simply continued, turning into a narrow corridor at the end of the hall. This hallway was enclosed by windows on one side, giving a clear view of the grounds behind the house, rolling hills dotted with flowering trees to break up the spans of green. The yard was one thing, but the room that the corridor gave way to was another.
Actually, it wasn't really a room but more of a greenhouse, the entirety of the walls made up of glass. The lights were dimmer, just a few antique looking chandeliers giving a soft glow to the room while the green of the hanging ivy and delicate blossoming flowers brightened what the light didn't. "It's beautiful," I whispered to Soul, tugging at his arm.
"Mom's favorite." Soul's smile looked conflicted, unsure if it wanted to falter or widen.
The host pulled out my seat and I took it, looking expectantly at Soul. "Wine this evening?"
"Ah, no, but I'll have a bourbon neat and she'll have a bee's knees." He could never say that without laughing and this time was no different.
"I'll be right back with those." The host seemed just as amused before he turned and made his way back to the corridor, leaving us alone in the greenhouse.
"Ordering for me?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Am I wrong?" he smirked.
I shrugged with a sigh, our predictability almost laughable at this point. "Your Mom comes here a lot?"
"This is their date spot, has been for my whole life at least." He paused to take a look around the room as if to see the ghost of them at the tables in the room. "I was here for parties, celebratory stuff."
"Not on date night, I'm guessing," I tried to be playful and was strangely rewarded with his face growing red.
"Actually, my first date was here." Soul looked like he regretted saying it as soon as it was out of his mouth and I could have been nice, let him get away with it, but it was too enticing to actually have him talking and giving up secrets.
"With a girl?" I smirked.
"Yes, with a girl," he spat back. "I've dated girls."
"Right now it sounds like a girl," I pointed out much to his chagrin.
He tapped on the table impatiently before grimacing. "OK, a girl. But once I got to DWMA, got you," he seemed to rethink that line, editing after clearing his throat, "I've just been too busy, I guess."
"We both have," I answered back quickly. "This would kind of be my first date."
Soul's let out a warbling sigh, hesitating to touch that statement and only just being saved by a waiter returning with our drinks and menus. Even I was partially glad for his intervention, not sure I wanted a reply to that loaded sentence. It felt desperate, lame, and would probably shrivel and die if he tried to shower me with any kind of pity. I tried to kill that feeling with a sip of my drink, focusing on the tang of the lemon, a touch of honey, that mellowing sensation of the gin.
He dived into the menu, mostly obscuring his face either to hide or recover. It took time but he finally muttered, "You should get whatever you want."
I gazed over the listings, many peppered with French terms that I was too plebeian to know and all of them distinctly missing prices. I still managed to find something I would want and then watched and waited for Soul to snap his menu shut. We were achingly silent, half watching each other and the room until the waiter came and jotted down our orders only to disappear again.
For better or for worse a few other couples had finally been sat with us and eventually a small trio of musicians started to set up in the far corner closest to the entryway. I should have joked with Soul about the acoustics, something that probably would have gotten him going for a good five minutes, but I couldn't figure out how to make my voice work through the anxiety that had started to build. I was stuck in a quagmire of what my brain was telling me were already the night's mistakes.
"Hey," his voice was soft and I realized he'd reached a hand across the table. "Talk to me. Ask me something or… just talk, Maka."
I grabbed up his hand like a lifeline and felt all those thoughts banished away. "So, tell me about your first date."
He groaned, "I never should have mentioned it."
My smile came back a little stronger than before, "But you did, so…"
"So…" He sighed before taking a long swig of his drink, making his eyes water in the process. I used the time to sip at mine, noticing I had been a little too aggressive and was reaching the bottom, taking my last gulp just as he was starting again. "Let's go dance."
"Changing the subject?" But I let him stand up and pull me by the arm, moving me towards the band and where they had cleared a few tables to make a small dancefloor. He surprised me by slipping his arm around me rather than just resting on my hip, his hand burning in the small of my back. I took his hand, fingers intertwined with mine and let him take the lead for once. This was an easy activity for us, tempo and interpreting each other's moves never being much of a stretch. "So, your date."
His sway was a little disjointed as if the memory swung him off balance. "It was embarrassing. Mom and Dad were in the main room so she could spy all she wanted. She set it up, anyway, her friend Angela's daughter, not like I had the guts to ask a girl out."
"I met Angela," I chimed.
"Of course you did," he muttered. "Her daughter, Phoebe, nice, cute enough but…" He paused for a gulp of air, eyeing me carefully. He seemed to wince a little before sucking in a deep breath. "How come you never went out with anyone?"
"You've met my dad, right?" It was the only statement I could think to make and the only one that allowed me to laugh. The real answer struggled against the beat of my heart.
"Yeah, Spirit's heavy," Soul narrowed his eyes a little. "But you give him hell most times, anyway. And I know that guy from meister class asked you out."
"How do you know that?" I was fairly sure the only person who had received that confidence was Tsubaki and Liz, but if either of them had talked to their meisters it wouldn't be a surprise that it spread further than that. The idea that he knew somehow mortified me as if it was some kind of infidelity.
His best answer was a shrug as his eyes searched the room.
"No, you can't get away with that," I squeezed his hand to emphasize and bring his eyes to the frown on my face. "I didn't tell you that."
Soul rolled his eyes before using them to closely examine our table behind me. "I may have found out from Liz."
I wanted to shake the information from him. "She told you or you asked?"
I knew he was stalling, his fingers tentatively tapping mine before murmuring, "I asked."
"You're jealous…" I snapped my mouth shut after the words exited, regretting the gut reaction.
"I… Maka, I was just…" I could see him calculating, running dialogue in his head as his palm turned sweaty in mine. "Look, he just wouldn't have been good enough for you, OK?"
"Then who, in your opinion, is, Soul?" I blinked up at him, watching him gape at me.
"Nobody," he grumbled.
I laughed, letting myself lean in a little closer. "You're being overprotective again."
He huffed in reply as his arm tightened slightly around me. We moved for a while in silence, his thumb starting to rub soft lines in my back. After getting too comfortable through three or four songs, he murmured, "Dinner's here." Then came the detaching, leading me back to the table by hand before depositing me in my seat. Eating became a silent activity, but I caught him once or twice looking my way as his fork absently hung in the air.
Somewhere along the way I had gotten through my second drink, feeling the tingle that once again reminded me that I was a lightweight. I couldn't tell if that was his second or third, especially since Soul rarely seemed to actually exhibit drunken behavior, only groaning the next morning about the hangover. Even with the alcohol, Soul didn't seem inclined to talk again and as the waiter cleared our plates and offered dessert, we both waved him off as if the dinner needed to be cut short.
I found myself looking past him and out to the lawn, my eyes falling on a walking path strung with lights. "Can we go outside?"
"What?" I had broken the spell of his own stare, eyes finely focused on my face.
"Outside, it looks like there's a path." I nodded behind him and he followed my motion, head scanning over his shoulder.
"Oh, sure," his voice sounded anything but. He stood slowly, tossing back the last of his drink in the process. "This way."
"Don't we have to pay?"
"It's on Mom's tab," he shrugged before turning to start the walk to the end of the greenhouse where the lights seemed to start.
"Slow down," I muttered, grasping at his elbow that jutted out as he jammed his hands in his pocket.
He did as he was told, letting me make up space between us. "Sorry."
The night air was the perfect temperature, not cool enough that I was wishing for a sweater, but just enough that I could pull close to him without overheating. I wasn't actually sure he appreciated the closeness, a tight grimace on his face as we started down the path. "Have you ever come out here?"
"Once or twice." He created some space between us as his hand came out of his pocket and forced my fingers to intertwine with his.
It was the first time in a long time I struggled to find conversation with him, letting the panic of the approaching end of the night tug at me. "The trees are nice," I croaked, the emotion started to choke me.
He slowed almost to a stop, eyes looking over my face as I offered him an unsure smile. He sighed shakily and began pulling me off the path and into the dew-covered grass. "This way."
"Where?" We were moving more towards the front of the building, away from the winding trail that would take us to the back and I was beginning to see part of the driveway. That tightening continued as I thought he was just leading me back towards the car but I found him veering off towards the side, half stumbling down a little hill to bring us to a small pond which must have been obscured by trees from the road.
"The path's pretty lame but this spot…" He let go of my hand, taking a few quick steps towards the treeline before busying his hands amongst the branches.
"What are you doing?" I barely got the question out before he was turning back to me, a stem of clustered purple flowers pinched between his fingers.
The luxurious smell hit me before he handed it to me. "Lilacs," he murmured. I cupped the flowers in my hand, bringing it to my nose to really enjoy it. As I was falling in love with the scent he was slowly taking off his suit jacket, laying it down on the grass before motioning me towards it. "Take a seat."
"But your jacket-"
"No big deal." And this time he grabbed my arm for emphasis, guiding me towards the spot. I did as directed and waited for him to plop down next to me, pressing his shoulder to mine. He leaned himself back slightly, hands clenched into the dewy grass to keep himself upright. "When I got tired of the party, this is where I'd go."
"You've never been big on those, huh?" I flipped the flowers over in my fingers, still letting the scent linger under my nose.
"Depends on the people. Black Star parties, those I can dig, especially since he can't hold his liquor for shit," Soul let himself laugh again, one of the real ones that made my heart flutter. "Easier when you're around, too. I know you joked about getting close to having the Marie vibe, but you do, Maka, at least for me." Any joy he had in that sentence tapered off with a sigh, "I never thanked you, right? For all of this? For dealing with my shit when you shouldn't have to."
"I guess tonight can be your thank you," I shrugged.
He sucked his teeth, "I didn't do anything tonight. Mom did or you did. Again, I'm just here, tripping over my words and strangling in my tie."
I turned towards him, reaching out my fingers and grasping at the fabric around his neck. I loosened it, watching as his throat bobbed comically through a swallow. "There, not strangling now at least."
"Still feels like I can't breathe." When I looked at his face there was fresh pink highlighting his cheeks.
With the tie clutched in my fingers, I used it to pull him closer, making the gap between us disappear. I had imagined this moment in ten thousand different ways, from an accidental peck on the couch to a bloody kiss-me-before-you-die occasion, but none of them had prepared me for this. His lips were so warm and it felt as if I suddenly needed that heat to survive. It all felt too short and before I knew it, our lips had parted and he was barely breathing across mine. "Soul…"
His hand closed over mine, pressing it in his chest as the heat of his lips came back to me, making me dizzy at the return. Soul was more tentative, testing my nerve endings with the featheriness of his kiss. It was the light this time that broke us, a hurtful beam that cut through the darkness and made us both squint away. "Shouldn't wander off the path," a wannabe authoritarian voice tried to boom from the darkness. "Maybe you two should go back inside."
When my eyes could finally focus I saw the security markings on his shirt. "Sorry, we just…"
"We're going home," Soul saved me from any other explanation. He stood slowly and waited for me, reaching down to grab his jacket as I left it. We walked past the mostly amused guard, the embarrassment written on both of our faces. Neither of us grabbed for one another, just walked side by side to the car that was waiting just a little further up the walk. Soul opened the door for me and I sunk in, making room for him.
I couldn't tell if being alone made Soul stiffer, his back straight against the seat instead of his usual lean. I tried my mantra again in my head, I'm going to do what I want, and grabbed his hand. Now I could see the tightening, especially in his jaw, and the intense focus towards the window. I squeezed his fingers, trying to send a message and he managed to cough out the words, "You kissed me."
Replying to that seemed unnecessary because what do you say to a fact? And if he wanted something else from this where were his questions? His demands? The frustration was enough that my tongue couldn't be contained. "I told myself I was going to do what I wanted tonight and that's…" Even with my annoyance, my bravery wasn't there, letting the words drift off, but I knew I had said enough for him to piece it together.
"I kissed you back," he murmured.
My stomach turned into that good kind of knot as the memory flashed through my mind, the tentative, anxiety-filled softness of his lips. "You should try to do what you want, too, Soul. Be a little selfish for once."
I watched that last sentence hit him, his lips pressing together tightly before he turned and looked at me, his mouth opening to speak but nothing coming out. I knew I should replace his silence with my own words but there was nothing good enough that I had the ability to say to fill the space. In the pause, his other hand came up, fingers hesitantly hovering next to my cheek before finally meeting my skin with a long exhale.
The car jostled us and I thought for sure he'd use it as an excuse to break away but he used the momentum to move forward, his lips clumsily locking against mine again. He had almost missed, latching more to the side of my mouth, but I tilted towards him, bringing him home to just the perfect spot that made my breath feel useless in calming my heart. Even in the ecstasy, I could feel him starting to pull back, to keep it as just another chaste, quick connection but my mind screamed against it. I grasped my hand into his shirt and almost yanked him forward, keeping him in place.
There was a piece of me dying of embarrassment, the forcefulness of it all, and as I broke through his lips with my tongue and tasted the inside of his mouth I still felt the urge to run. That seemed to break his doubt, his hand slipping from my cheek into my hair to now keep me from getting away as his tongue searched along with mine. Even without trying, I could read the want, the need sizzling off of him in waves crashing into me as his lips did. My mind kept screaming over and over again, Don't stop, and I swore he could hear me, his kiss constant in maintaining its fervor.
It wasn't until there was a knock on the glass that I realized the car had stopped. Soul's grip slowly released from my hair as our lips parted, his breathing almost a pant. He wordlessly stared at me for a moment, his face just as flushed as I felt my own was, red patches high on his cheeks. "Maka…" was all he could manage, his hand squeezing in mine.
"Let's go inside." I opened the door, welcoming the cool night air against my skin. I had to let go of his hand to help myself out of the car but stopped only a step out of the doorway to wait for him. He looked past me at the house as he exited, eyes trailing its entirety before letting me take his hand again, urging him inside the house. He felt neither resistant or demanding, letting me guide him into a house he obviously knew better. I had almost half expected Regina to be waiting up, expectant for details on our evening but the whole house was dark and quiet, our footsteps the only thing echoing in the halls.
The bedroom was miles away and each step undulated me back and forth between giving in to the want and staying Maka Albarn, scythe meister who would never dare. My step through the doorway of the room was the want and I refused to take another step, feeling him stop short behind me as the door creaked shut. I cleared my hair to the side, "Will you unzip me?"
His hand pressed my back and paused, a shaky breath leaving his lips. I expected him to say something but instead I felt his hand drift up, grasping the zipper and bringing it all the way down. As if he hadn't, his hand returned to the top, slipping just inside the fabric to press against the bare skin of the middle of my shoulder blades. "Tell me to stop," his whisper was as unsteady as his fingers that continued to move across my shoulder, making the fabric start to slip.
With a slow breath I turned my head slightly, still not able to see him in my periphery. "Why?"
"Because…" His other hand started to move in the opposite direction, pushing the shoulder of my dress as it moved along.
"I don't want you to stop." I punctuated that with a shrug of my shoulders, giving the cloth the last permission it needed to slide the rest of the way off my shoulders and down my arms to puddle at my feet.
"Maka," my name came out as an order, as if I was still supposed to be derailing this instead of helping it along. Those uncertain hands moved back in towards my spine, fanning out to glide down my sides.
I couldn't think of a more perfect feeling in the world than his hands resting against my bare hips, hesitating at the swell and all I could produce was a contented sigh. Even though I didn't want the touch to leave I turned around, feeling his hands floating tentatively between the two of us. His eyes hit the ceiling as he blew a deep breath through his lips. I started the slow process of unbuttoning his shirt as his hands hovered upwards to grab at my elbows. "You can look," I murmured.
"No," he groaned as his fingers slipped forward and tightened on my forearms, stopping the motion of my hands. "Maka, stop."
"Why?" My voice was strained as I could feel the tears threatening, the idea that I was wrong and all of tonight had been just some kind of trick in my head hitting me like a punch to the gut.
The way his fingers clamped on my arms bordered on painful but the look on his face told me he was the one hurting far below the skin. "What reason do you want? My mom's sleeping the next room over. We're drunk." His voice cracked before it came back with a force I wasn't expecting, "And it's going to kill me to touch you knowing I love you and you don't feel the same way."
Even the whisper of the thought of tears was gone, an elation growing in me that made his final part of that statement almost laughable. "What?"
"I told you, I know you care, I know you want to take care of me, but it's… you have to." His hands were shaking, forcing my arms from his grip as they fell useless to his side. "I'm your weapon, but me, as just me, you can't love me."
I took my fingers from the buttons, lifting them to cup at his face, to force his eyes at least to mine. "Soul, listen to me."
"Maka-" he started the protest but as I pressed myself a little closer he instantly quieted, his fingers grazing my thighs.
"At first I told myself that my feelings were because you were convenient, you were the person I was with the most, that in a way it kept both of us safer if we meant more to each other." I swallowed, begging silently for those hands to come back, to anchor me to him. "We fought together, could die together, so all those feelings just must be that." I shrugged, letting one of my hands fall to his chest, fingers pressing into the spot where I knew his scar was hiding. "Then, I clung to the excuse for a year that there's a different kind of love for meisters and their weapons."
His eyes watered as his breath hitched and he threw his eyes up again seemingly embarrassed at the emotion. "I know."
"But you don't." I caressed his cheek, bringing his eyes back to me as they brimmed with tears. "I know we don't get a lot of it, but the downtime… the moments in my life when I have nothing else to do, every one of those moments I've wanted to be with you. When you have an arm around me on the couch. When you pick movies I know you hate but know I want to watch. When you wake up early on Sundays to play piano just because once, just once I said that it was the best way to wake up." I cleared away some of the tears from his face, watching as his eyes widened as his thoughts progressed with my words. "It's not convenience, not self-preservation, it's adoration. I love you because of who you are, not what."
Every bit of me relaxed as his hands slowly planted back at my hips and I used it as an excuse to step forward, closing the space between our bodies. "You love me," the words fell somewhere between a sigh of relief and a question, his face pressing to the crick of my neck.
"In every way," I laughed as my fingers ran through his hair. "But I know… I know that getting undressed may have pushed a little too hard."
He exhaled a laugh across my skin, sending a chill down my spine. "It's not that I don't want…" His face reappeared as he laughed again, moving so he could look into my eyes. "Maka, you better not hit me."
"What?" I laughed back.
"Because I do want to look." He lifted one of his hands from my hip to the base of my neck, stretching out his fingers as he trailed them and his eyes across my collarbone. "And touch…" His fingers stopped but his eyes continued lower, drifting down as a slow smile spread across his face. "But it's hard to believe, you know? And shit's so weird right now, being in this house, and…" His eyes came back to my face, "I don't want to go too fast and mess this all up. It's what I want but…"
I breathed slowly, bringing my hand to his face and brushing back the white tangles of hair from his forehead. "I guess it felt like we were running out of time. When we go back…"
"It'll be different," he murmured. "We won't get a lot of nights like this but I'll keep giving you those moments you want. Promise." Soul let out a long, lingering sigh as his hand drifted back to my neck, cupping beneath my chin. "And when we're home, alone, stone sober and ready, I guess, that's when I want to, well," a grin finally broke on his face and to my surprise he rested his forehead against mine, "You definitely don't love me for my way with words."
"It's alright," it was easy to laugh, the elation of being pressed so close to him without need for excuses setting my whole mind free.
He cleared his throat and I could feel his grip tightening under my chin, "You're OK with waiting?"
"I've waited a few years for this to happen," I giggled again. "So waiting for another week or so won't kill me."
"Fuck," he muttered with a sharp laugh of his own. "Years, Maka? Seriously?"
"Yeah," I murmured through my painfully stretched smile. I patted his chest, taking a step back from him. His hands begrudgingly let me go, drifting back down to his side. I made my way to my bag, rustling through for my nightshirt. At this point my modesty was useless, so I unclasped my bra but still made sure my back was to him before sliding on my shirt. I could hear him shuffle behind me and found him getting undressed as well, stripping down to the usual nightwear of his boxers and t-shirt.
I heard the bed creak as he threw himself back on it, his eyes focused on the ceiling. "When?" It was a nervous, quiet question.
"Love at first sight," I cooed as I knelt onto the bed, sitting so that I could lean over him, a hand planted above his shoulder to help me move into his line of sight.
"Maka," he groaned.
I rolled my eyes and ended it with a sigh. "There wasn't an exact moment. I guess I knew it for sure when I realized you were the only person I never expected to leave me." I leaned in hesitantly, my eyes searching his as if I needed to gauge his receptiveness to me being so close. At this point I should have known hesitation was stupid because his hand slid to the back of my neck, bringing me firmly and without doubt back to his lips. I half-sighed into his mouth, the contentedness brought by his kiss overwhelming me. He let our mouths part for air and I whispered, "What about you?"
"Love at first sight," he murmured.
"Soul," I mimicked his exasperation from before.
"No, really." His fingers slid up my neck, tangling in my hair and giving me chills. "Or maybe love at first touch. When you shook my hand to be partners. I knew I was done for." A smirk started to pull at his lips and he exhaled a laugh hotly over mine. "The want came a little later though."
"Want?" I sat up to see the almost drunken glaze over his eyes, the content smile on his lips. His fingers slid through my hair as his arm fell to the bed.
"Love was wanting to keep anyone and anything from hurting you." He pushed up on his elbows, lessening the space again as his smirk grew. "Wanting you was when I couldn't stop thinking about you, when would be the next time I could find an excuse to hold your hand or touch your skin." He blushed with a protracted sigh, "What it would be like to kiss you."
"You thought about that?" I couldn't keep the disbelief from my voice because until this trip I hadn't felt like I'd even seen glimpses of moments where I was on his mind, where his eyes might linger or he might blush.
"We both know I'm good at hiding things," his laugh bordered on rueful and I felt his hand close over mine. "But when you started coming to my room at night, it was more difficult to keep it tucked away. I still don't know how you didn't catch me, especially looking at you, Maka. It's embarrassing how much I'd stare and just think…"
I could feel my cheeks flaring with color at the insinuation, with the possible daydreams that he could have had with me as the star. "When did that start?"
Soul laughed again but this time it was one I hadn't heard in a while, the one that he reserved for the deeply funny, really only ever making an appearance when we were alone and it would only be me catching him letting it loose. "You'll kill me, Maka."
"I won't," I objected strongly but could understand his hesitation, having been Maka-chopped one too many times in his life for lesser offenses.
"You have to swear," he held up a pinky, "No chopping, no yelling, no strangling."
I rolled my eyes as if I was never guilty of any of those things before latching my pinky to his. "Swear."
He half sighed, half laughed and took back his hand from the pinky swear to rub across his face, leaving a giant smirk behind. "Right after the stuff on the moon, after we celebrated and things started to get back to whatever is normal for us, you accidentally flashed me."
"What?" Accident or no, which I was really eager to find out how that accidentally happened, I was itching to shake him.
He put up his hands in surrender. "You must have thought I wasn't home but I was laying on the couch, headphones on, staring into space, when you walked right past the doorway between the living room and the hallway. You also kind of chose that moment to take off your bra and since you'd already ditched your shirt probably as soon as you came through the door I, well, got to see a lot more than I ever thought I would."
My stomach flipped as I searched for any recollection of that exact moment. I had, on occasion, done that, stripped as soon as I got home but I always yelled for him first, listened for his existence before doing so but he had his headphones on. He must not have heard and I, fifteen-year-old me, had apparently given him a show. "Was that all you saw?"
"Well…" I had to hide my face against his chest, the delayed embarrassment of it all. "Look, I know I shouldn't have but you kept going and by the time I turned into the hallway you were just about to the doorway of the bathroom, clothes in hand with nothing on."
I let out a little deflated squeal thinking about the body he must have seen, the fifteen-year-old stick-figure girl with barely anything up top and not much to talk about on the bottom. "That? That's what made you… start thinking about me?"
"Maka, you were beautiful." He grasped my shoulders in an attempt to get me to look up. "Fuck, you are beautiful."
I groaned one last breath into his chest before lifting my head to let my eyes trail back up to his. "Maybe now, but then, Soul, come on."
"I'm not lying," Soul laughed back. "I'm telling you, I saw you and it was the last time I cared to look at anybody else. No crushes, no flirting, no comparing. Just you."
I couldn't tell if it was the embarrassment or the new joy that was starting to take hold in my head but it was dizzying. "That's completely impossible."
"About as impossible as you being in love with me." His hand cleared the hair from the side of my face, drifting the rest of the way through in the sweetest caress. It seemed effortless, the way he pushed me to the side, rolling me over so he could pin me against the bed. Something resembling a gasp but trailing into a laugh escaped my throat but was caught by his lips pressing against mine. He toyed with my tongue as I started to get used to the feeling of his weight on me. It took some time for the kissing to finally subside, the need for sleep to overcome the need for each other, but Soul left me without breath and without a doubt that I was the entirety of his wants and his love.