Radar
by. Poisoned Scarlett
She awakened to the familiar sounds of an engine, the hiss of air through an open window. She shifted and stifled a groan when her neck gave a nasty jolt. The next time she moved, she did it slowly to avoid disturbing the kink. But by the time she managed to turn on her side and push herself up, Liz was leaning between the two front seats asking her if she wanted something to drink.
"What…where are we going?" Maka cleared her throat, squinting to look at the road ahead of them. The freeway was completely empty, she realized with astonishment, and when she looked to her right she realized it was because they were on the wrong side of it. They were driving up the incoming side, not the outgoing, which was littered with stalled cars and corpses. There was scarcely any vehicles on the side they were on and Maka knew it was because one would have to be mad to try to enter a city that was overrun with the undead.
"The border," Soul informed, glancing at her through the rear view mirror. She couldn't read anything in his gaze and she liked to think it was because mirrors distorted certain things, emotions, but it was a silly thought. She couldn't read anything because he was blocking her out again and Maka didn't like that one bit. "You've been out since yesterday."
She stilled, her lips parting. Yesterday? Did that mean—did she completely sleep through her—?
"Happy birthday!" Liz blurted out, pasting on a grin. Maka could see right through it and she was sure Soul could, too, if he had been looking. "We—we made a pit-stop earlier and I got you this!" Liz disappeared for a second, rummaging through a plastic bag that had been kept by her feet, but when she reappeared she was holding a green box. Upon further inspection, Maka realized it was apple pie. "I know it's not a cake," Liz began when she saw the doe-eyed look, "but it's a little hard to get a real birthday cake during a zombie apocalypse so—this is okay, right? You're not allergic or apples or anything, right? Because that would be really…really bad," she faltered when Maka just stared at the box. "Um…"
"…Thank you," Maka managed to say, her eyes stinging. She wanted to cry, but that was just childish. Why would she cry? Because she missed her birthday, she had turned the monumental age of eighteen, and the last 'normal' thing she did was cook a meal in a dilapidated, abandoned, house in the middle of somewhere? It was probably because, despite the total collapse of anything relatively sane, birthday's were fixed events. Although they landed on different days of the week, they were certain, and Maka was glad to say that she survived to be eighteen.
She survived this long.
She was still alive.
One bite later and she was still alive.
"You okay, Maka?" Liz asked, softly.
Maka snapped out of it and rubbed the back of her hand under her eyes to stop the coming torrent of tears. She made sure not to look at the rear view mirror. "Y-yeah, I'm okay. No, apple is fine. It's actually my favorite!"
Liz perked up, a smile brightening her eyes. "That's great! I'd give you some right now but—maybe later, you look really dehydrated. Here, we got this from a gas station a few miles back. It's actually cold, can you believe it? Well, colder than usual," Liz laughed and handed her a bottle.
Maka drank it all in a single chug, barley looking sated.
"Want another?" Liz offered.
Maka nodded feverishly.
Soul concentrated on his hands, the way they gripped the wheel to keep them steady. He let his eyes trace down paler skin and it made a knot jump up to his throat. He had been tan once, from days spent outside playing basketball or basking in the sun at a park. Now doing either was a call for death and he couldn't help but think that he'd give anything to have those days back. Maka, she liked to take strolls in parks. She told him once, when they had been at that abandoned house, that she liked to walk through parks and find good spots to read. Maybe she had passed by him once and hadn't even noticed. Then he thought, how? How could someone like her go right over his head? How could he overlook someone like her? Maybe it was her uniform—maybe his eyes just skipped right past her when they locked on the green-stripped tie that belonged to anyone who attended high school. Maybe that had been it, or maybe he had just been blind to most things all those months ago—practically a year ago.
Because Maka, Maka meant so much to him now.
He couldn't quite wrap his mind around the fact that if this catastrophe hadn't happened, he might not have met her at all. She was such an admirable person—she was everything he had looked for in girls and never found. He had always been sourly disappointed with girls, so cynical, yet she had been there all along, hidden in plain sight, there and he had never noticed her. So he was torn between two things—wanting his old life back but liking this new one better.
His friends might've been right: he might be a sadist, a masochist, if he was truly considering taking his words back and resigning himself to this violent new life. This new world offered a relief for mad, violent, urges he had never known he had and there were times when he found himself slipping, losing it, actually taking some sick joy in it, but then there was Maka, gripping his shoulder, leaning him away from the cadavers and smiling at him, asking him if he was okay and if she needed to step in because he looked a little strange. She anchored him. He had realized this when they were still in the group, after a raid of a local pharmacy. She kept him sane, god, she helped him without even knowing.
So when she got bit, his thought was she needed to live. That was it, it was nothing hard, she just needed to live. He would do anything to help her so he had.
His grip on the wheel tightened.
And he would keep her alive, no matter the odds. As Maka chugged down a third bottle of water, he accepted that he really would do whatever it took to keep her safe. This meant getting her across that border. Kid had told them that it was better over there, that they had full communities of people living together and getting through this world-wide catastrophe, but that was weeks ago. Situations, Soul knew only too well, changed. Things changed.
They were not set in stone.
Nothing was.
But for now they clung onto that hope. Soul, being ever the realist he was, would not squash it despite believing otherwise. He hadn't reached that level of cruelty yet and he hoped he never would. He counted on Maka for that just as she counted on him to watch her back.
"You still look sixteen!" Liz teased.
"I know," Maka mumbled, her cheeks heating up.
"Ugh, but that's so good! You age so well, Maka, seriously, I look like I'm twenty eight!"
"How old are you?"
"Twenty three," she mumbled, sulkily.
"You don't look twenty eight, you look your age," Maka honestly said.
"I don't know if that's better or worse," she groaned in reply. She glanced at Soul and asked, "Do I look twenty three? Or twenty eight?"
"You look fifty."
Liz's mouth dropped in outrage. "I look WHAT?"
"You heard me."
"Soul, quit being a jerk! She doesn't look fifty—you don't look fifty, Liz, he's just being a jerk," Maka pacified Liz, who bristled at being called fifty. Fifty, she didn't even want to think about being fifty! So old, so many wrinkles! She could only imagine how many more she had acquired since this zombie-catastrophe happened. Liz whimpered.
"Soul!" Maka hissed.
"Whatever, you look twenty eight."
"SOUL!"
"What?" He complained. "Isn't that how old she is?"
"I'm twenty three, asshole."
"Alright, then, you look twenty three."
"No, you're just saying that!"
Soul resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Why the hell am I even apart of this conversation? I'm driving!"
"Please, it's not like there's any cars for you to crash into," Liz scoffed. "And running over people is actually a good thing now!" She sank in her seat, arms crossed over her chest, clearly ignoring him. Soul could barely be bothered. He didn't apologize, Maka saw quietly, he did nothing but twisted his mouth in a sneer before his face blanked out again. She played with the cap of her bottle of water for a few minutes, watching the sun gradually lower on the horizon, and when it completely sunk behind the hills, Liz was open for conversation again.
"It's not like you're missing out on a lot, seriously, when I turned eighteen, it wasn't anything new," she rambled, stretching and cracking her back. Soul drove on silently. "I did everything I wasn't supposed to and it was the same thing when I turned twenty-one. Like, wow, twenty one, great, now I can drink alcohol without being arrested!"
Maka smiled as she spoke. She looked down at her lap, wishing she had been that adventurous when she was younger. "I grew up differently than you, so I've never done much…" She fidgeted, feeling her face heat up. "I…I didn't go out much when I was younger."
"You were practically sheltered," Soul cut in, finally speaking after hours of silence. His voice was rough. "Plus, you're a nerd, so it'd ruin your image of you did any of that!"
"I am not a nerd!"
"Yes, you are, you told me you asked for extra work sheets!"
"That was only when I didn't understand the material!"
"Yeah, so what if you don't? Move on with your life!"
"No, because then I wouldn't be able to pass the test! I needed the practice!"
"A C is a pass," he challenged and Liz watched Maka fire right up and regain the vitality she had lacked since the incident at the house. She smiled a bit, liking when Maka was the spit-fire she was known to be, and looked out the window to the forest that ran in blurs of dark greens before her eyes. There was nothing nearby, she was sure, so they'd probably just sleep in the car for the night…
"…and you're a lazy ass!"
"Never said I wasn't," Soul grinned when Maka bristled like a cat. If she had claws, they'd be out right now.
"I hate to interrupt," Liz spoke up, pointing out the window. "But the suns going down. Are we going to keep going or are we going to stop for the night?"
Maka peered out the window while Soul spoke, "I'll go on for another five miles and then I'll stop. From what I saw on the map, there's nothing around here for another fifty miles. Maps outdated, though, so I don't want to stop near a place where there were people," he said and Liz nodded, troubled.
People meant the undead; it didn't mean safety anymore.
"There's a car over there!" Maka pointed out. "Maybe we can find some supplies inside! It looks empty!"
"I can probably siphon some gas out of it, too," Soul eyed it as he slowed down, coming to a complete stop a few steps away from it. Liz was the first one to open the door. The instant she did, she took a breath of the air, inhaling nothing but the scent of pine and earth. The air was clean here, it did not hold that poignant scent of decay like the city did. Liz hadn't even realized just how fresh the air could smell until now.
"Hey, Liz, you think you can open the car without breaking a window?" Soul asked, rummaging in the trunk of their SUV. Maka had opened the door at this time but didn't step out: she just let her feet hang out and she kept a vigilant eye on their surroundings.
"Of course I can! I was made for this stuff," she smirked but it turned out she needn't do much else except open doors. They were all unlocked and, when Liz poked her head inside, full of hastily packed supplies. She dug through a few boxes, coming up with some clothing and toiletries. In another box there were some canned goods, something that Liz grabbed with both hands and pulled out because food was always necessary. There was another box that held keepsakes and Liz wisely kept her hands out of it, knowing nothing good came from looking through the belongings of people who were probably dead now—or undead, if you were optimistic.
As Liz scoured for things of use, Soul rounded the car to reach the passengers side. He leaned against the flank of the car as Maka let her feet bounce up and down idly. She shifted her eyes to him and he looked at her, offering a halfhearted smile.
"You alright, pigtails?"
"Mhm," she smiled up at him. "What about you?"
"Yeah, I'm good. You had us worried there, when you wouldn't wake up," he said wryly. Maka grinned apologetically and he ruffled her hair in reply. She didn't fight him this time. She just made a noise in the back of her throat but let him muss her hair as he had grown to do. "Sorry."
"What for?"
"What happened at the house," he said and she reached up to hold his hand, offering some comfort. "Usually me or Liz stay behind to watch out but this time, I dunno', I thought we were safe."
"Remember what Stein told us before we left?" Maka reminded. "To always assume the worst case scenario?"
Soul chuckled. "That wasn't the worst case scenario, Maka."
"What was the worst case scenario?" She asked, curiously. He turned to her and bent down, his hand falling from the top of her head to the curve of her cheek. He could feel it warm underneath his palm and he smiled rather forlornly. He knew she could read the answer in his eyes before he even said anything:
"You dead," he said, eyes downcast. "I don't know how many times I can save you from being dead before you actually die. I can't take any more risks like I did back there. You might be vaccinated and, to an extent, immune, but that's just a theory. Kid said not to knock it so I'm not going to," he promised softly, pressing his forehead against hers. "You're still a little weak from the treatment."
"Not that weak!" Maka argued. "I ran two miles from the house all by myself, I think that's an accomplishment!"
A grin quirked his lips. "Yeah, and then you slept the entire day!"
Her cheeks pinked. "S-so! That doesn't mean anything, it only means that I finally caught up with my sleep!"
His eyes softened. He wouldn't win even if he tried to argue. "Sure, but don't do that again. You might not wake up next time," and then he pressed a kiss to her lips. She was caught off-guard, as she always was when he kissed her. But it was when he slanted his mouth against hers and deepened the kiss that she realized just how long it had been since he last kissed her. Since they were at the CDC with Kid, actually, all those weeks ago. She didn't know how much she ached for this until now. She didn't waste time running her hands down his chest, sliding them beneath his jacket to grab the back of his shirt. She was the first to part his lips with her tongue, to invade his mouth and earn a groan from him, to let her hands reach the hem of his shirt and lift it up a little, letting her fingers trail up the strong expanse of his back. He was warm and her hands felt cold against his skin.
His hand gripped the top of the door tightly, his other one squeezing her shoulder before it ventured lower, until it reached the soft swell of her breasts. Maka was the one who pushed his hand towards her breast and bit back a moan when he groped one of her soft mounds, his thumb rubbing her nipple until it hardened. She pulled him down a little more, their mouths moving furiously, her fingers gripping the waistband of his jeans as he reached beneath her shirt to grab a handful of her perky breast, soft and warm and everything he had ever wanted.
"Hey, Soul, I found some ammunition!" Liz's far-away voice cut jolted him back from his lust-driven thoughts. Soul and Maka parted breathlessly, their eyes lidded and their gazes sultry. She immediately lowered her shirt and he hastily leaned back, licking his lips and trying to calm the painful erection that had made itself known during their heated kissing. Long time coming, he thought wearily, she was already eighteen, there was no other excuse he could use to hold back although he was still hesitant to take her, the fact that she was more than ready notwithstanding. The first problem came with contraception, which he didn't have, and the second problem was approaching him, actually, her long blonde hair catching in the wind in that melodramatic way it always did. He liked to think she did it on purpose; Liz was vain in that way.
"I'm going to—to take out the blankets," Maka mumbled. He coughed back a weak right, you do that, and left her to her own devices.
"They've got some rifles in the trunk," Liz said as she met him halfway, handing him one along with a box of bullets. "One of them is jammed and the other one is out of bullets, should I take them anyway?"
"I don't think taking the jammed one would do us much good," Soul said as he loaded up the rifle. "It'd be dead weight, just take what works. We've still got to prepare for the night."
"It seems pretty dead around here," Liz commented, looking around again.
"Yeah, it seemed pretty dead at the house, too, and look what happened," he grimly reminded. She gave him a halfhearted shrug and went back to pick up the box of things she had gathered. When Soul returned to Maka, finding her folding up some blankets in the back seat, he nudged her gently with the butt of the rifle. She took it with a hum of surprise, looking at him.
"Put this in the back—actually, just keep it close to you. Here," he handed her a box of bullets as well and this time her look was understanding and solemn. "It's kinda' like a bat, if you think about it," he humored and she smiled just a tiny bit. It was enough to soften her eyes and make her prettier than she already was. Maka had a very pretty smile. "Just don't go swinging it at me and we're cool."
"No promises," she answered.
"Is that how you play? Kinky," he smirked and she smiled back, her lips curling at the ends with naughty knowing.
"I don't see you complaining. In fact, I'd say you kind of like it, since you keep coming back for more, " she answered slyly and he had a good come back for that, he really did, and he would have said it if Liz hadn't elbowed the back of his head and grinned at them both.
"Cut the flirting, you two, we've got some anti-zombie reinforcements to install!" She laughed and rounded the car to reach the trunk.
Soul rubbed the back of his head and looked at Maka. "I'll get you back for that."
"Don't make me wait too long," she replied and crawled back into the backseat before her sly suggestion set in. But when it did, he whipped his head to her and then back to Liz's wise-ass grin. He scowled, feeling as if he were the butt of a joke, and grabbed the tank of gas so he could at the very least siphon some gasoline from the cars before they hit the hay.
"You're both out to get me," he mumbled before he left.
"You keep 'em tight, Maka," Liz grinned as she rummaged through the back of the car, looking for her favorite handgun. When she found it, she went to making sure the bars they had installed to protect the windows were sturdy. "It's always nice to wind them up a few times before letting 'em loose," she winked and shut the door, Maka's furiously flushed face making her chuckle more.
Maka placed a blanket over her lap, smiling to herself. This was it; this was what she missed. It was no use trying to stay away from the very thing that was keeping her alive. That rigidness was still there, lurking beneath his touches, but it wasn't so apparent anymore. She wanted him close to her, close enough that their fingers touched at every instant and she could feel his skin against hers. If she could not keep him alive for much longer, she wanted to be with him for as long as possible. If they were both going to die anyway, she wanted to make sure she died with as much of him in her heart as possible. Maka almost lost him, and he almost lost her twice. This was not a time to be picky. She needed to appreciate her time with him before he was gone, before Liz was gone, before everyone was gone.
Maka hoped they would last until she turned nineteen.