His hallucinations never touch Maka.
Soul realizes this about a week after he meets Maka but he only starts to trust it another two weeks after that. His nightmares, the shadows and their whispers still show up, still wind themselves in his brain, still feeds into what his therapist calls acute social anxiety combined with major depression, though he'd stopped seeing her when his hallucinations started a little more than a year ago.
He almost wonders if Maka is a hallucination herself but Black Star and Stein see her and whenever their hands touch, her skin is warm and strangely reassuring while the shadows swarm over everything, bleeding cold that sinks to his bones. It was a surprise that she knew so little about Wes or him and apparently had no interest in researching Soul in the time since she began staying with him (he might be able to disappear from the world but no one hides from Google.)
It is that coupled by the fact that Maka was so sure she knew him when they first met that makes her an odd contradiction; the way she examines everyday things like his iPod or the coffeemaker in the kitchen is like she had never seen them before but she has an extensive knowledge of literature and history that rivals a college professor. She asks Soul questions about himself often but says his name like she's said it a thousand times before.
Maka is an oddity but it's in the same way Soul is and he can't stop looking at her when she isn't looking at him.
Like now. From behind the kitchen counter, Soul watches Maka jam on her controller furiously, tongue sticking out in concentration, as the Princess Peach she chose to play on his Gamecube version of Super Smash Brothers is blasted off the edge of the arena by Black Star's Kirby while the Yoshi Kid plays as dances lazily around the computer's character.
Her necklace swings slightly as she leans forward, bent on revenge. Soul watches it dangle in the air; he is sure Maka is a stranger but sometimes she reminds him of a half-forgotten song-rhythm dancing in his fingertips but when it comes to the lyrics, he is lost.
"I win," Kid says calmly as the timer runs out.
Black Star, however, pays no attention, jabbing a finger at Maka. "I knocked you out more times this round."
"I took pity on you and that sorry pink blob," she shoots back from the couch.
"Kirby is a ninja and deserves your respect."
Kid knocks Black Star off the ledge. "The next round already started."
Maka looks over at the kitchen suddenly, too quickly for Soul to move his gaze away. "Aren't you going to come play?"
Soul doesn't glance to the living room ceiling fan, where a shadow has nested itself, but he hears its gentle rasping and he shakes his head. "Soon, I'm still getting drinks."
"You said that ten minutes ago," says Black Star without looking up from the screen.
"Well, I decided to be a good host and also get some snacks," he answers, going back to ignoring the shadow. Anyone coming over is rare while people coming over because he invited them is virtually nonexistent but it had been impossible to say no to Maka when Black Star and Kid offered to show her the finer points of gaming.
Snacks turn out to be a half-empty bag of salt and vinegar chips and a bag of just expired pretzels. Soul sniffs them carefully before bringing out setting them next to the lemonade he just made. It was a stroke of luck that he still had the lemonade mix to begin with-the refrigerator and pantry have been nothing but nearly barren shelves ever since cooking became too hard to manage. Even with Maka's arrival, he's been able to mostly deny the kitchen's existence thanks to the power of take-out.
Kid accepts the lemonade but eyes the overly rumpled bag of the chips and pretzels with a critical eye. "I'll pass."
"More for me," Black Star declares, claiming the bag of pretzels for himself.
Soul offers Maka the bag of chips as he takes a seat next to her. She fishes a chip out of the bag and examines it curiously.
"Another first?" he asks.
"I think so." She pops the chip in her mouth and nods, swallowing. "Definitely new."
"Good or bad new?"
She takes a handful of chips from the bag. "Good."
"I can't believe you've never had a potato chip," Black Star says through a mouthful of pretzels. "Aren't you from the twenty-first century?"
An oddly nervous look flashes across Maka's face. "Not quite."
"We have questions about Kid's age too," Soul tells her.
Kid looks up. "It is a genetic condition," he says indignantly.
Maka frowns. "What is?"
"The three white stripes running in his hair," Black Star answers over Kid's protests. "He looks like he's in Halloween mode all year long."
"That was before the dye Stein found me," hisses Kid. "Thank you for telling my darkest secret."
Black Star snorts. "If that's your darkest secret, is the runner-up that you wash non-washables?"
Kid sputters and as Soul opens his mouth to speak, the shadow from the ceiling drops onto the coffee table.
When it rises up, however, the sharp teeth of the demon gleam at him brightly. Hello, Soul boy.
The demon rights his head, which had been twisted upside down. Did you miss me?
Soul looks back to the TV, heart pounding. Distantly, he is aware of his name being called.
That's not very nice. The demon is on his shoulder, craning its head to meet Soul's eyes. Did you miss me?
The feeling of ink filling his throat keeps him from speaking. It's always been the snake that's followed him out of his nightmares, what does it mean that the demon is here, if he opens his mouth the ink will run out singing his flaws but if he doesn't then he'll drown, he'll drown, he's drown-
Souuuuuuuuul.
"GET OUT!"
A hand grabs his, the demon disappears and he breathes again.
Soul's fingers curl around the hand on instinct and he looks blankly at Maka and then Kid and Black Star, who gaze at him with concerned looks.
Black Star speaks first. "If you wanted to be first controller that badly, you just had to say so."
"I'm tired," Soul murmurs. The appearance of the demon makes it impossible to pretend that he cares about having witnesses to his increasingly pitiful mental state.
"It's getting late anyways," Kid says. He nudges Black Star when he says nothing.
He studies Soul for another second before shrugging. "It was getting boring crushing you two."
"I won ten of our matches," Kid points out as they rise. "You only won seven."
"I'll walk you out," Maka says, who squeezes Soul's hand once before gently pulling her hand out of his grip.
He stares at nothing as they file out of the living room, fingers automatically going to his necklace, but for once it does nothing to stop his heart from feeling like it's going to leap out of his chest.
Disappointment is a familiar taste on his tongue but it still has a rancid sting to it and when Maka enters the living room, he gets up without looking at her. "I'm going to bed."
She doesn't protest or make a comment on what happened, silent until he's halfway to his room. "Soul?"
He pauses before turning around. Maka is standing too far away to see her face but something about her voice and the way she holds herself rings too familiar
"Just remember-" Maka hesitates, taking a step forward. "The world hasn't ended yet."
Green, sunlight and the feeling of a body sitting close to him floods his vision before Soul's back hits the wall of the hallway.
Soul finds his voice. "Not yet at least."
Black Star gets pulled from deliveries the next day and pushed into the kitchen with Soul, the regular Sunday lull dragging take-out orders to a standstill.
The combination of Black Star and an oven is one that will eventually end in another call to the fire department so Soul sets him to kneading out the dough, which is a task that doesn't require nearly as much force as Black Star is using but it's better than catching sight of smoke issuing from the oven.
They work side by side though Black Star is unusually quiet, something Soul doesn't mind. Mortification had hit him in the face when he woke up, which was as much a surprise as any other feeling was these days and he supposes he should count himself lucky, but being unable to look Black Star or Kid in the eye isn't something he thinks he should congratulate himself on.
Soul's rolled out three pizzas when Black Star finally speaks. He plops another section of dough on Soul's side of the table. "How are you doing?"
He snorts. "Is that how Kid told you to talk to me?" It takes a moment to recognize the feeling twisting in his chest is annoyance. "Therapist sensitivity isn't a good look on you."
"Fine." Black Star lets the dough in his hands fall onto the table. "Dude, what the fuck."
"Yeah."
"You looked like that dude from The Shining," Black Star says, hitting his stride. "Minus the murder, obviously."
"Your bedside manner is flawless."
"I said without the murder." Black Star pauses, clearly weighing his words. "How long has this been going on?"
"The Shining or the other stuff?" Soul sets down the roller when Black Star glares at him. "A while," he says. "But you always knew I struggled with...stuff."
"Yeah," he concedes reluctantly. "But you look like you're ready to be kicked into the grave."
"I agree."
He knows Black Star is waiting for more but words are difficult when there's no point to them. The comfort and catharsis from someone realizing how messed up his head has become is absent, although there is a tiny part of him that begs him to feel it. But there is nothing, only frustration burning in his veins after months of numbness and fog, stabbing him with a sharpness that makes him want to rip his heart out because words can't save him, nothing can save him and if this is all he's going to feel for the rest of his life, then maybe his parents had been right in sending him to that mental hospital after his meltdown.
He says none of this but Black Star is perceptive, even though he generally chooses not to show it. "You don't have to feel everything if all you can do is survive. Just make your pizzas and be here for the second."
Those words do reach that tiny part of Soul or at least he hopes they do. "That was almost wise."
Black Star grins. "My true greatness is too much for your mortal ears."
Soul is finishing the last of his batch of pizzas when Maka returns from the library. He's slightly surprised to see her-after last night, he half-expected her to be gone in the morning but she had been there, waiting on the couch for him so they could go for breakfast. Seeing Maka now makes his heart feel light for an instant and he puts aside the pizza he was working on to go talk to her, even though he can see her from the kitchen.
His newly resurging feelings are a pendulum that Soul can't keep up with nor understand.
He gestures to her back, straining with the number of books it carries. "The library search went well, I see."
"That depends on if I find what I'm looking for," she grunts as she hefts the backpack onto the counter.
From where he sits behind the counter, Stein looks up from the baby magazine he's reading, glasses flashing as he reads aloud the title of the book Maka holds. "The History and Details of Modern Witchcraft."
"It's light reading," she says.
Soul eyes her backpack. "Studying the occult is light reading?"
Pink burns brights in her cheeks though she holds her head high. "Are you mocking my reading taste?"
"Only questioning it."
She wrinkles her nose at him before turning to Stein. "How is Marie doing?"
"As well as a heavily pregnant woman can be in the middle of summer," Stein answers, going back to his magazine. "Her baby shower is next Sunday."
Maka frowns. "How are you going to bathe her baby when they haven't been born?"
"It's a party for pregnant people," Soul explains. "And something I'd already declined," he says, tossing a glare at Stein.
"Are you going to be the one to tell that to Marie?" Stein flips his page. "Bring Maka too."
Soul scowls. "I'm going to finish the pizzas."
Maka leans forward eagerly. "Can I help?"
"Um." Soul glances at Stein and Stein, who never cared much for professionalism even when he was a doctor, shrugs. "Make sure the pizzas don't get burnt."
The soft wonder on Maka's face as he demonstrates kneading and rolling out the dough makes it hard for Soul to concentrate on the pizza and he had to roll the dough another three times before it's right, though Maka doesn't seem to notice or mind.
He's explaining how to apply the sauce, cheese and toppings when Stein pops his head in the kitchen. "I'm leaving for the day and I gave Kid the afternoon off so you can close up when you're done with the last order."
Stein begins to leave when he pauses. "I'm telling Marie you RSVP'd by the way." He's gone before Soul can protest.
"He has a soft spot for you," Maka observes.
"I'm his godson so he's morally obligated to," Soul says. "He gave me this job so I wouldn't lose my head every other day from cooping up in my brother's apartment."
His words backhand him in the face as soon as they leave his mouth and he wants to swallow them back but they're in the air now. He waits for a comment or a question about last night, a joke at the very least, but Maka only looks from the pizza to him. "Can I try making a pizza?"
Maka does very well with her first pizza and she looks at Soul before moving onto her second. A strange look comes across her face, however, as she's measuring out the flour to make more dough and Soul opens his mouth to ask if she's alright when she sneezes suddenly.
Flour flies into the air and clings to Maka's face and hair. She turns to Soul, face in complete shock, as the flour settles and he's reminded of the time when Wes convinced him dipping himself in powdered sugar was a good idea.
His laugh is quiet and unfamiliar to his ears.
Maka's shock melts away and her lips part slightly like his laugh is something she hasn't heard in a long time as well.
Curiosity and something else quickens Soul's heartbeat and he edges closer, though he has no excuse to use if Maka questions it. Instead of saying anything, however, she pinches some flour onto her palm, leans in close and blows it at his face instead. "Fair consequence for laughing at me," she says casually.
The flour takes on a strange golden tint, shining like diamonds, as it swirls around Soul in whorls that resemble dancing figures.
But it's Maka that Soul can't take his eyes off. He's only been this close to her briefly, never long enough to see her fully. She has similar golden flecks laying in the green of her eyes and maybe it was in a dream but he's seen them before.
He knows her eyes; his gaze traces her face.
He knows Maka.