Stopgap
by. Poisoned Scarlet
4a
Blair Lanterne was gorgeous, even more so under the shadowy lights of the club.
She had slightly feline characteristics, with what her curling smile and brilliant golden eyes. She towered over her: all curves and porcelain skin and confidence; her lips plump and luscious with grand amounts of lip gloss. She could see the smokey eyeshadow covering her eyelids every time she blinked, the perfectly traced black line that accentuated her almond-shaped eyes.
Her jeans rode low on her hips; her shirt tight, a size small, and constraining the bulging assets that Maka had failed to acquire when she was in high school. Although, Maka decided, she would be better off without them just by the way Blair got eyed with such a visceral hunger that induced a shudder within Maka. How someone could stand being stared at in such an indecent way and not feel violated was beyond her.
Her heels were spikes, adding to her height, and they made Maka wonder how she could walk in them without wincing. But they suited her well, adding a fluid elegance to her stride that Maka could never, ever, get in a million years even if she tried...
"Oh, Soul, she's so adorable!" Blair squealed, clasping her hands together. Her nails were sharp, purple, and long and fake. Her hair was loose today, tumbling down her bare shoulders in natural curls. "You look so cute with those pigtails! How old are you – sixteen?"
"Twenty one." Maka deadpanned.
Blair blinked, cheery smile frozen. "Oh. Wow, you don't look twenty one – Maka, was it? You age well!"
Soul stifled laughter behind her, hiccups of it escaping him at times while Maka seethed. When a rather loud choke of laughter escaped him, Maka backhanded him and ignored his pained swears.
"You're, ah, also very pretty, Blair." Maka politely said, and Blair beamed.
"Why, thank you, Maka! Oh! Kilik!" Blair brightened visibly, most of her discomfort gone now that she had a distraction. "Hey! Over here – I want you to meet someone! She's this cute little thing Soul picked up a few weeks ago – come here!" Blair ran over to him after tossing her another one of her practiced smiles, clearly just wanting to get away from her after her massive screw up.
Maka released a quiet sigh, shoulders sagging. Did she honestly look so under-aged and under-developed? Her body wasn't that childish: she had reasonably sized breasts, given her thin but toned body, and Maka was sure her face had matured enough over the years...maybe the pigtails were too much?
"Pfft, sixteen?" Soul snickered. He stood beside her now, holding his throbbing cheek. "Blair's a fuckin' moron. You straight out look eighteen."
"Shut up, Soul." Maka snapped. "You're not helping!"
"What? You do." Soul rolled his eyes when she glowered. "Do you really think I would've gone after you if you looked sixteen?"
Maka pursed her lips stubbornly and Soul scowled.
"Do I look like some sick pervert to you?" Soul hissed. "No. So you don't look twenty one, big deal, you look eighteen and that's all that matters."
"I'd probably look older if I wore make-up..." Maka mumbled, gloomily. Her eyes darted to the women that walked past her with their date or friends. They all wore make up: eyeliner and mascara and blush and foundation and eyeshadow and – !
"No way, I hate girls who wear make up. They're so... uncool." Soul stated, breaking her concentration. She looked at him, at his grimace and his disgust. "It's like wearing a mask – and that shit gets all over you, too!" He yawned out, looking at her: "I like them natural – not hidden under layers of paint like some clown."
Her heart was pounding again.
Why was he looking at her like that?
She wanted him to stop.
"Maka! Soul!" Blair waved over, cheerfully. "Hurry up, the parties just begun! I wanna' get a drink before the bar gets full!"
Her heart was still pounding when they reached Blair.
4b
"So, how did you meet Soul?" Kilik Rung was friendly but chill. Dressed down in saggy black pants, a white muscle shirt with a light colored button-up thrown over him, he was the epitome of laid back.
"In this same club, actually." Maka replied, holding a glass in her hand. It was fruity, like strawberries mixed with mango, but it lacked the usual hit of alcohol she had admittedly grown used to drinking every weekend. Soul had said she wouldn't drink tonight and got her this instead. "We – just met over a few drinks, that's all."
Not because their eyes had both met across the dance floor, which in turn unleashed a flurry of motion that Maka only remembered in heated pants and impatient groans; hot touches and breathed names.
"Huh, weird." Kilik commented, taking a drink. "Soul doesn't usually just talk to random girls." He looked at her, curiously. "What'd you say to him?"
"Uh – nothing." Maka mumbled, fidgeting. And she hadn't – not really. She'd been drunk out of her mind, Maka humiliatingly admitted to herself, who knows what the hell she had said to get him in bed? Whatever she said, it must've worked, because she was still getting him in bed!
"Eh, I wouldn't be surprised if you just looked at him." Kilik laughed, finishing his drink and unknowingly hitting the nail on the head. "Soul's just weird like that sometimes. But he's a pretty genuine guy, once you get to know him. You're going out with him, right?"
"No!" Maka blurted, face warming. "No, we're not! We're just close friends, that's all!"
"You're not?" Kilik's brows shot up. "You two look like you are. Blair's been tellin' me he always talks about you and stuff. I just assumed."
"He... he does?"
Kilik shrugged. "I guess. He tones it down with me but Blair likes all this romance crap so she's always asking him about you. She's been meaning to meet you for a while now." Kilik smiled. "She likes you, by the looks of it."
"About Blair..." Maka hesitated, fingering the rim of her glass. She didn't want to push it but she needed to know. "Are you two going out?"
Kilik's friendly smile faltered somewhat and he looked away from her, down to his empty glass. "I, uh, dunno'."
"How can you not know?"
"I just don't." Kilik heaved a sigh. "Look, it's complicated between us, alright? Sometimes, I do wanna' date her, and other times, I don't, 'cause what we have... it ain't right." He shook his head. "It's just messed up."
"What do you two have together?" Maka questioned, curiously. "I-if you don't mind me asking!" She added, hastily.
Kilik smiled, halfheartedly. "Nah, s'okay. You heard what she works in, right?" At Maka's uncomfortable look, Kilik continued: "It started off as a fling. One night stand, y'know? Then she kept coming back... and I guess our feelings got in the way and it got complicated. She don't wanna' give up her job, I don't wanna' date a, well..."
"And now you don't know where you stand?" Maka finished for him, allowing him a slight breather. "If you should... take this to another level or not?"
"Yeah."
"Or if you should just forget it because no way...can a relationship based on sex go anywhere." Kilik nodded, soberly, and she said, more to herself than him: "And if that's the case, then...what can you do about it?"
"Could stop." Kilik suggested, with a helpless shrug. "Or just keep goin' – see where it leads."
"That's dangerous."
"Yeah, well, what's life without taking a few risks?" Kilik looked at her, grinning. "And if it ain't meant to be, there are always more fish in the sea!" He placed his glass on the bar table, happier than before. "You only live once, might as well make the most of it, right?"
Maka stared at him, astonished by his resiliency. "...How can you—?"
"Nya, Maka!" Blair draped an arm around her, clearly drunk. "C'mon, dance with me..." She purred, and her hands slid down the curves of her body; sensually, just as Maka's eyes widened and her body tensed at the woman's shameless advances – her fingers dancing around the hem of her skirt, a hand grazing the tops of her breasts, beginning to clutch them between her fingers – !
"Hey, get your hands off her!" Soul snarled, pulling her away from Blair. "What the hell, Blair?"
"Nya, Soul, if you want some, too, all you had to do was ask!" Blair coyly said, grinning lustfully. "Blair is open for a threesome – !"
"Blair, quit it!" Kilik snapped, taking her wrist. "You're drunk – c'mon, we're leaving, before you do something stupid again!"
"Noo!" Blair whined, but allowed herself to be dragged out by Kilik. "I don't wanna' leave! Kilik – ngggh! I don't wanna'!"
"Too bad, you're gonna'! Sorry Maka, Soul, see you two later!" Kilik shouted over the bass, Blair swaying to the beat and completely ignoring Kilik despite him dragging her through the dance floor.
"Jeez, how uncool. She's a total lesbo no matter what she says." Soul sighed, and glanced down at Maka. "And you – why didn't you push her off, genius?"
"I-I didn't know." Maka said, still shocked. She looked to where Kilik had dragged Blair through. "I just didn't... anticipate it, that's all.."
"Well, don't let your guard down like that." Soul sternly said, placing a hand over her head. Maka started again, looking up into wryly amused eyes. "I can't always be there to protect you, idiot."
She hadn't anticipated it – not her lewd advances, not her mistaking her for a sixteen year old, not her disgusting career option as a whore.
But she also hadn't anticipated Kilik being in the same situation as herself.
And she also hadn't expected herself to follow his words:
"You only live once, might as well make the most of it..."
"Hey... Soul?"
"What?"
"You know that favour you asked me a few days ago?"
He tensed. "Yeah, what of it?"
"I'll do it."
Soul stared at her, at the way she looked up at him with hard determination. He wondered, for a split second, what changed, what provoked her to accept his reluctant invitation all of a sudden. But, in that moment, it no longer mattered because now he had someone and he wouldn't face his mothers smug sneer nor his fathers disapproval that night.
He smirked. "Great. I'll pick you up at five tomorrow – don't be late."
"You only live once..."
"I should be telling you that!"
"I'm not the one who's gonna' take hours getting my hair done!"
"Who said I was?"
"You took a whole hour fixing your hair into a freakin' bun before we came here!" Soul exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at her hair.
"It wasn't an hour – it was twenty minutes, you jerk!"
"Sure felt like an hour – OW!"
"Soul, just shut up. Let's just go back to my apartment, okay? I'm tired and I have to wake Tsubaki up early tomorrow to get a dress." Maka rubbed her eyes out, sighing. She could already imagine how hellish the next day would be. Dress shopping - or shopping in general - had never been her forte.
"You wouldn't have to wake up so damn early if you'd just said yes when I asked you." Soul grumbled, massaging his sore shoulder. "C'mon, before it gets any later... I need Advil..." And she followed him out to his terrifying motorcycle, where she held onto him tightly and pretended she didn't notice the way his hand pressed over hers in silent comfort every time they stopped at a red light.
" ...might as well make the most of it, right?"
She didn't know anymore.