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Prompt #22: Family - A meister, a weapon, and a magical cat. Dysfunctional, yes, but they were all each other had.

Words: 1,180

It was a dark October night when the front door banged open and a scream cut through the apartment. "Blair! Get the first aid kit and fill up the tub!"

In the midst of picking her wardrobe for the night, Blair dropped everything and sprinted for the bathroom. One twist of a finger turned the tap on, sending hot water cascading into the tub. She grabbed the first aid kit and bolted for the living room.

She quickly noted the state of her two roommates. Soul was nursing a black eye and a bad limp, but Maka was half-conscious and bleeding all over the couch, her face paler than an ivory statue. The cat quickly snapped her fingers to make Soul's and Maka's shredded jackets disappear. "Tell me what hurts."

"Everything," Soul quipped dryly.

Maka scowled at him. "He's been clotheslined in the gut and manually choked, at least two cracked ribs probably. Stupid bastard stepped in front of the kishin trying to protect me."

"Because you got shot through the shoulder and broke your leg when we got pushed off that roof," Soul snapped back.

"Both of you, shut it!" Blair easily lifted Maka in her arms, jerking her head towards the bathroom as she glanced back at Soul. "Move it, Scythe-boy."

Something in the purple-haired woman's eye warned Soul not to make a mama cat comment. So instead he meekly said, "Yes, ma'am."

The three slowly made their way into the bathroom, the first aid kit floating behind them amid orange sparks. The tub was now full of steaming water, so Blair kicked off the tap and lowered Maka into the water. A finger-snap divested the meister of her clothes, which sparked a stream of curses (from Maka) and a sputtering blush (from Soul). "Stay and soak," Blair commanded over the racket. She turned to Soul and leveled a finger at the toilet. "Sit. I need to examine your injuries."

Soul let her take off his shredded shirt and check the nasty purple, blue, and black bruises covering his back and torso. There were finger-shaped black bruises around his neck, evidence of the attempt to strangle the life out of the white-haired weapon. He tried to breathe easy, but she could feel how tense his body was under her fingertips.

"Definitely at least two cracked ribs. Luckily they didn't puncture anything." Snapping her fingers, Blair let the magicked antiseptic and roll of bandages attend to Soul as she returned her attention to Maka. The water was now a disturbingly opaque shade of bloodred, which only confirmed the bakeneko's suspicions. "Maka-chan, stand up."

Both teens blushed as red as the bathwater. Blair rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers again, conjuring a pumpkin-patterned paper folding screen between them. Once it was there, Maka gingerly stood up in the bathtub. Her body was covered in what looked like claw marks, ranging from thin slices to a nasty gash that curved down her back from right shoulder to left hip. Blair grabbed another roll of bandages and began wrapping. "This will probably scar," she informed Maka softly. "Magic can only do so much."

"It's okay." Maka hissed when the gauze tightened around her torso. "I've got so many scars as it is. As long as I survive, I'll be fine."

"Blair, is she okay?" Soul called out, his silhouette growing against the screen. "What's wrong? Why are you whispering?"

She sighed and shook her head fondly. "She's fine, Soul. Nothing a little TLC and fish won't fix, nya~"

Maka gagged. "I hate fish, you know that!"

The little relieved laugh from Soul was enough to crack a smile on Blair's lips again. She wrapped a towel around Maka's body and snapped her fingers to dispel the screen. "Nothing's wrong Scythe-Boy, see?" she chirruped sweetly. "Maka-chan is A-Okay, nya~! Is Soul-kun okay now too?"

The Deathscythe gave his signature jagged slash of a grin and rubbed the back of his neck. The motion made him wince, as he'd rubbed right over the bandages hiding his bruises. "I'll be better after some sleep," he honestly replied. "I'm ready to crash."

Blair unleashed her full sunny smile and snapped both fingers. Meister and weapon shouted in alarm as their feet were swept out from underneath them, courtesy of the two pumpkins levitating beneath their bottoms like flying carpets. "Then it's off to bed, nya~. No arguing!"

They made a strange procession back to the master bedroom - Blair sashaying as she led the way, her finger twirling around to direct the twin pumpkins carrying her roommates. Once there, she pointed to the bed and had both gourds dump their charges on the soft mattress. "Both of you stay," she ordered. "That way you stay warm and Blair doesn't need to work so hard. Got it, nya~?"

Neither teen seemed very comfortable with the arrangement, but the fact that Blair was, at the moment, the most powerful person in the room, silenced whatever arguments they would have started. Soul and Maka gingerly crawled under the covers of Maka's bed (cleanest sheets, and the warmest room in the whole apartment) and turned their backs to each other. "G'night, Blair," mumbled Maka, red-faced.

"And thanks," Soul added.

The purple-haired magical cat beamed happily. "Good night, nya! Sweet dreams!" She pranced out the doorway and snapped her fingers to switch the lights off and shut the bedroom door.

When the sound of footsteps faded away, Soul carefully turned around to see Maka had done the same. A small smile tugged at his lips. "You know, Blair might be flighty and irresponsible and somewhat ditzy, but she sure knows when to get serious when it matters."

"I think we scared her," Maka confessed. One hand reached out to brush against his bandaged torso. "Does it hurt?"

"Not really."

The lie was thin, but he knew she was in no position to talk. So she just edged closer and rubbed her cheek against his collarbone. Soul wrapped his arms around her and buried his nose in her hair. "You really scared me," he confessed in a whisper. "When he cut you across the back...I thought he'd - "

Maka wound her arms around his waist in response. "Sorry," she mumbled against his skin. "But you scared me too. When we fell off that roof and you moved so I'd fall on top of you..."

"Shhh." He kissed her forehead. "Shh, we're fine. We're both okay, Maka. Let's just get some sleep, okay?"

"...Okay."

Standing outside the closed bedroom door, Blair smiled as she listened to her beloved roommates slip away into slumber. A relieved smile stretched across her lips, and with a fresh skip in her step, she headed back to the bathroom to clean up the red-splotched towels, discarded gauze pads, and bloody bathwater.

Her family was safe.

Sort of Blair-centric, but she doesn't really get much screentime anyway. Enjoy this chapter!

Review please!