Part Two
There is ink boiling in his veins, slowly killing Soul from the inside out.
He would thrash and fight if it wasn't for the giant snake coiling around his body. Next to him, a tiny demon with ebony eyes croons in his ear as he suffocates. Together forever, forever together, isn't it wonderful, Soul boy?
When he opens his mouth to answer, ink flows from his lips until it is running over his body and then it swiftly begins to write his flaws on his skin. The snake and demon have disappeared somehow but he's still paralyzed, feeling the curve of every word as they etch themselves into his skin like he's engraved them in his mind.
He waits to die but the words continue to write themselves until half of his body is dripping in ink and still he feels the itch of the words against his skin and he would scream but there is only silence, silence, SILEN-
Soul's alarm goes off, unceremoniously ripping him from his nightmare and plunging him into hell.
Eyes flying open, Soul looks around wildly before slumping back into the mattress, resting his arm on his forehead and breathing heavily. Hell looks like his brother's summer apartment but he refuses to let the pleasant teal walls and cream curtains fool him. He watches the shadows on the ceiling, waits for them to come alive and pulls his blanket over his face when they don't, a hollow feeling gradually replacing the rush of adrenaline pounding through his body.
Soul stares at the semi-darkness, alarm still blaring in his ears, until he's sure he won't throw up like last time and then he sits up carefully. There's still a tremor in his hands as he reaches for his phone and knocks over his anxiety medication, which promptly rolls under his nightstand.
He leaves it there-it will do more good keeping the dust bunnies company than it does him anyways.
With a poke that is probably harder than it should be, he turns off his alarm and with a fluid swipe, he ignores the two missed calls from Wes and the assorted array of text messages. It's been three days since he summoned the energy to send out hasty, stilted messages to his last batch of missed calls and texts so he figures he has at least one more day till Wes threatens set the cavalry on him in the form of Black Star, who has no qualms about breaking and entering.
Dimly, he registers that he has less than ten minutes to get to work; a part of him is alarmed but a larger part of him is not and he nearly flops back in bed. Being a failed musical prodigy whose cocktail of mental illnesses sent him into a flaming burn-out in his third year of college doesn't have perks but he supposes the part-time job his godfather offered him a week after his mental collapse would be the closest to one.
Admittedly, accepting such a job was something his pride would never let Soul do but pride is not something he has in spades these days. The mortification over hitting rock-bottom so spectacularly is gone too, swallowed by the emptiness in his chest. Feeling anything is a rarity these days and he's not sure if he should be grateful or not.
He blows out a breath. His thoughts are hitting a downward spiral and if he lets that happen, then he'll end up calling in sick so he can stare at the ceiling until someone calls to make sure he hasn't died.
Taking a deep breath, Soul hauls himself to the bathroom with the air of a condemned prisoner, touching everything to make sure that everything is real and that one of his nightmares hasn't followed him into reality again.
He saves himself for last, eyeing his reflection in the mirror before raising a hand to his face.
He frowns.
Real.
Every time Maka finds him, Soul looks worse.
It's a truth she stops denying herself when she reaches his seventh life and just misses him again.
In the well, it was easy to find Soul with her soul perception, even if it took ages. But he became lost in the world with every life Maka followed him into and the world was a large place to search through to find a single person.
She'd caught more than a glimpse of Soul in that life, however, seen his face before the curse consumed him in ball of black blood, though he hadn't seen her. His soul was already beginning to erode underneath the weight of the curse, ink black starting to drip over the natural shadow of his soul. Medusa's specialties laid in illusion and poison and her curse combined the two in a way Maka had never seen before.
Magic keeps her age frozen to what it was when Maka leapt into the well but it drains her necklace in tiny increments, along with the magic it takes to pass back into the world again. The life she'd watched him die again had been the closest she has ever made it to Soul, name halfway out of her mouth before Maka was suddenly and abruptly alone again. Every other life she was too late, sometimes by seconds, sometimes by years. The times when she was just barely too late and she's able to feel as his soul returns to the soft darkness of the well are the worst kind of agony.
Still, she returns to the well again and again. Blair wasn't lying when she'd said falling through the well would feel like eternity stretched out on her skin; there had been a long while between Soul's fifth and sixth lives that Maka had nearly forgotten everything and she was only been a name chasing a name. Her saving grace was in the moment she'd briefly caught up to Soul. Like the first time she'd caught up with Soul, Maka saw him again and her memories had come flooding back as Soul had reached for her.
Though the last time she saw Soul in the well, he'd looked at her like she was a stranger. It's something Maka puts out of her mind as she re-enters the world for the thirteenth time.
Maka opens her eyes and looks around herself after she feels her feet touch solid ground, blinking in the sudden daylight and standing in an alley of a shopping district. The buzz of the city is similar to the last time she'd come back, which was New York City in the 1940's, but the items flashing from the window displays are foreign, shiny and bright, while the cars whizzing by on the street are less boxy, sleeker and streamlined.
She glances down at herself and then at the people passing by. Her double buttoned tweed coat, with its shoulder padding and her nylon stockings, will make her stick out like a sore thumb. She eyes the clothes sitting in the window displays and the passing crowd for a minute before backing further into the alley.
It takes longer than usual before Maka's clothes transform to the vision she has in her head. She's breathing harder when the transformation finishes and she walks out of the alley, studying her reflection in a store window. A bright pink dress that falls just above her knees and a light blue jacket with yellow stars on the shoulders replaces her coat while socks matching her jacket take the place of her stockings. Instead of the leather purse that she carried, a blue and pink backpack with angel wings sewn on the top rests in her hands.
As she catches her breath, Maka's gaze moves to her necklace, lifting up the glass soul to her face. After so many lives, her magic is nearing empty-it takes all of her power to cast anything more than simple magic, her soul perception the only part of her magic that's stayed strong. It's unlikely she'll have enough magic for more than one more life after this and she frowns, shoving away the thought before it can grow bigger.
Closing her eyes, she focuses on her perception and feels the world fade away. It's still overwhelming to be in an area where the number of souls is heavy and concentrated-there's easily over two million souls in this city alone-but practice has tempered the instinct to withdraw and she breathes in and out slowly, reaching out into the soulspace.
Something heavy bumps into her back and she jolts forward, catching herself. A voice grunts, "Watch it," but Maka hardly registers anything but what she'd sensed.
Swinging her backpack onto her shoulder, Maka begins to walk quickly. Close, her mind chimes at her over and over again.
Soul was close.
"You're lucky you're my favorite godson," Stein says without looking up as Soul walks nearly an hour after his shift started.
The customer Stein is ringing up looks at him in confusion as Soul ducks underneath the partition that separates the customers from the kitchen. "I'm your only godson," he says as he grabs his delivery hat from the hook on the wall.
"That does nothing to change my last statement," he replies, handing the customer his pizza and receipt.
"I'm honored." The bell attached to the shop door gives a little ring as the customer leaves the shop. He pokes his head into the kitchen. "Any deliveries?"
"Black Star has you covered on deliveries." Stein takes off his apron. "Kid is coming in for the afternoon shift but I need you here for the rest of the morning."
A shadow unfurls itself from the wall just as Soul opens his mouth to answer and he snaps it shut quickly, nails digging into his hat as he pulls it off.
Stein's eyebrow raises a centimeter. "What, no objections? I thought you hated working the store."
"No, no," Soul mutters, turning away and fixating on a spot just above Stein's head. A knot forms in his stomach as the shadows drags itself sideways across the wall and back into his view. "I know you and Marie are busy with baby stuff," he adds, grinding his heel into the floor to keep his calm. "Another appointment?"
"Every two weeks till Marie hits the nine month mark." There is suspicion in Stein's eyes, never a good sign. He says nothing else, however, and pulls out a cigarette from his pocket and puts it in his mouth without lighting it.
Soul nods toward the cigarette. "Breaking the habit is going well, I take it."
"About as well as a dissecting a pig with a fork."
"You've done that before."
"Yes, but I never said it was easy." He leaves the cigarette in his mouth for another moment before he pulls it out and tosses it into the trashcan next to the register.
"At least you're trying," Soul says. He swallows as the shadow drapes itself on Stein's shoulders; it has a mouth now.
"That's what Marie tells me." Stein takes no notice as the shadow's mouth envelopes his head. "And you?"
Soul works to simultaneously unglue his tongue and bite back his scream, hands pressed tightly to his sides. "Me what?"
"Are you trying?" Soul can still see Stein through the shadow but his teeth are fangs now.
He drops his gaze to the ground-he's going to lose his head if he has to stare at Stein for one more second. "I'm here."
"You are," Stein agrees and Soul feels a distant twist of his stomach in lieu of guilt. Stein had had his own share of screw-ups running up till five years ago when his medical license was revoked, which was probably why he had been the quickest after Wes to scoop Soul up from the ashes of his self-destruction. His tiny pizza shop was something he'd built from scratch and the fact that Stein hired Soul instead of someone actually competent was not lost on him, even in the middle of the constant fog that clouds his brain.
"I also ate breakfast."
"That is the most important meal of the day." Stein holds out the shop keys and when Soul raises his head to accept them, the shadow is gone. "Should we still count you as a yes for the baby shower?"
"I always said I was a tentative maybe." Hallucinations tend to present themselves more often when he's around a lot of people and he'd prefer not to make an idiot of himself in front of one of the few people who looks at him with something other than pity.
"Call me an optimist," Stein drawls, heading to the door. "Your brother already said he'd be there."
He represses a scowl and jabs his key into the register. "Then you know Wes will strongarm me into coming."
"I thought it good etiquette to give you the illusion of a choice." Stein tosses a wave over his shoulder. "Don't forget to leave the keys with Kid."
Soul lifts his hand and watches as Stein moves out of sight. He stares only at the counter once he's gone, letting his hand drop onto it with a faint thump. None of the other shadows had shown signs of life but he takes no chances, touching everything before he looks at it directly.
Even in the midst of his precautions, his fear is muffled, nearly nonexistent. Soul acts only how he thinks he should feel these days, nightmares and unexpected hallucinations being two of the few exceptions. When Stein had announced Marie's pregnancy nearly eight months ago, it had taken him too long and too much effort to smile and offer his congratulations. And he can never talk to Wes for more than a few minutes when he calls-he is much more adept in detecting Soul's facades than Soul is at making them.
It would be nice not to only feel only in reaction and even then only in faded echoes but Soul can't even bring himself to force frustration-that ability had died shortly after the rest of emotions.
In a quiet corner in his mind, he knows the reason for everything that's happened is because he has been fighting his whole life something much stronger than he is or ever could be. The closest he has come to identifying it is the little demon and the snake that plague his dreams but they're not quite it, though he doesn't know why he's so sure of that.
What Soul does know is he is tired.
That's how he should feel, anyways.
"One game," wheedles Black Star as he blocks Soul's exit from the shop. The tips of his bright blue hair, crafted into spikes that gives his hair a starlike appearance, quiver. "You owe me."
Soul tucks his helmet under his arm. "Friends don't owe each other anything. That's why it's called friendship."
"Then you're not my friend."
"Even more reason to not listen to you." Soul attempts to duck around Black Star but he's too fast for him.
"Black Star, let him go," murmurs Kid from behind the counter without looking up from his research notebook. "If he doesn't want to play basketball today, he doesn't have to."
As the son of the wealthiest entrepreneur in Death City, Kid has no reason to be working at the shop like Black Star and Soul but his business seminar required him study a business model of his own choosing and present a project Soul had not paid much attention to when Kid had explained it. Why he had chosen Stein's shop when Kid had his father's assortment of businesses at his disposal was still a mystery to Soul.
"You promised." Black Star ignores Kid, frowning at Soul. "We can't play two on two unless there are actually four people."
"I'm sure you'll make an excellent one-man team."
Black Star's frown deepens. "You're getting weirder, you know?"
"So I've been told."
Kid looks up this time. "Black Star, do you have no tact at all?"
"I don't raise horses," he answers, not taking his eyes off of Soul. Anyone would be intimidated by DCU's wrestling star but Soul had grown up with Black Star-the look he wears when he wants to intimidate someone is the same one he makes before he sneezes.
Eventually, Black Star moves to one side. "You're not getting out of it next time," he warns like he always does.
"I'll keep that in mind," Soul says as he always does.
As the door swings shut, he hears Kid say, "I'll convince Liz to play with us."
Vaguely, Soul supposes he feels guilty as he gets on his motorcycle, the one thing his parents hadn't reclaimed from him when he dropped out of college though he thoroughly suspects Wes had something to do with it. He and Black Star had a tradition of playing basketball every Friday since they were kids, a habit Kid had surprisingly fit in with easily when he began working at Stein's shop, sometimes pulling in Liz and Patti, a pair of two sisters he'd known since high school, to play with them.
He's stopped going with them for the last month, though.
There is no direction that Soul takes as he roams through the city. It's too early to go home and be alone with his thoughts; when Wes comes back next month from his tour with his orchestra in Europe, it might be different but for now he wanders Death City.
He stays on his bike mostly but Death City is well over three hundred years old and occasionally he stops to study a particularly interesting building. Soul's not sure how looking at old architecture became a hobby of his but the hunt for a new structure to gaze at and sometimes sketch on whatever paper he carries is the only thing that fills him halfway with peace nowadays.
It's only when it touches twilight that Soul realizes how long it's been since he last ate and he stops at a hot dog stand nestled to a walking bridge that runs over the highway leading out of the city. However, he doesn't return to the bike after he finishes eating, going to the bridge instead.
The bridge is empty, the darkness creeping across the city making the bridge a prime place for mugging. Soul stops nearly midway through and gazes down at the cars whizzing past.
There's a tingling sensation in his hands that is as much a warning as a temptation as he presses them against the glass barrier. He's not going to do anything though a voice whispers that he could just call his parents if he really wanted to change his mind. The barrier stretches up all around him, but still he can't keep himself from wondering what it would feel like to fall through the air before the world goes permanently dark in a flurry of red brake lights and screeching tires.
Logic stops him from dwelling on other measures, like it always does when his mind edges too close to the extreme. Wes would be heartbroken, Stein would be out of a delivery boy, Black Star would have to find a new basketball partner and no one would know how to take care of his bike, which was possibly the most unacceptable thing of all.
His fingers drift to the chain around his neck, hand wrapping around the tiny green soul that stays on him always. He doesn't know how he knows that the oddly shaped glass circle is a soul but it's what comes to mind every time he looks at it. In the rare times that logic fails Soul, it's the necklace that grounds him. It is his anchor in recovering from nightmares and hallucinations too, though he uses it sparingly these days.
He winds the chain with a couple quick twists and watches as the spinning glass catches the dying light, twisting the chain in the opposite direction when the soul stops. Soul's not sure how he got the necklace-his mother claimed he found it on the sidewalk one day while his father said he'd bought it at an old antique shop. Regardless of where the necklace came from, there has never been a time he can remember that he's been without it as far and never a time when the necklace failed to comfort him.
"Soul!"
His name rips him from his thoughts and he catches a pair of green eyes the exact shade of his necklace before a body slams into him.
Arms wrap around him, squeezing him too tightly. "I found you!"