She's been offering an ear to him ever since those blood-fueled, night terror years, but thankfully he doesn't have those kinds of dreams anymore.
No, his problem now isn't nearly so awful— simply stupid. In fact, his nightmares are so superficial that he wakes up irritated instead of frightened.
He doesn't want to talk to her about it because there's nothing to talk about. He's thought it through, examined it frontwards and back, and the only conclusion is that he has the heart of a needy child, so what else is new?
She's always willing to listen to him, but in his dreams, she can't.
The entire world could be deaf to him for all he cared, but when it's her, he panics. And he dreams of her more often than not— she's around so much that it's weirder not to— so honestly he's set up for failure.
Sometimes it starts benignly enough: he calls for her as she's doing dishes or taking notes or any hundred million mundane things, but he's met with silence and blank eyes.
Sometimes it's worse, like when she's on the field, fighting tooth and nail with some nameless monster, and she wants to resonate but it all goes to shit because she can't hear a single note he plays for her, can't hear his very soul.
But the worst is when he wants to tell her everything, but no matter how he says it, how he shouts his secrets or pleads his affection, there's not an ounce of acknowledgement or recognition in her eyes. There's nothing.
He can't reach her anymore.
And he'll wake up relieved that it was all a dream; and he'll end up disgusted that he feels relieved at all.
How can such a small thing make a person feel so vulnerable? Whenever he wakes with a pounding heart, that exchange between panic and relief is glaringly evident, and the fact that it even exists pisses him off.
His nightmares obviously stem from old fears— he understands the concept, more or less. He understands that kind of insecurity must come from some deep-rooted, self-centered part of him where cowardice reigns, and it makes him sick.
No matter how many times he tries to forget it, the fear comes back around sooner or later, toying behind his eyes and tying his heart into knots.
She's sitting on the couch in the living room, her back turned to him. Her hair is down today, dusty gold bunching up against the backrest. When he calls to her, she doesn't budge an inch.
"Maka," he tries, louder this time.
Silence.
Something about this makes his ribs hurt, and before he's aware of what he's doing, his legs carry him to the living room, his skin tingling with something he can't pinpoint. "Maka."
Oblivious, she turns a page of the novel she's been sucked into, and the movement jostles her hair. Earbud cables sway and dangle between golden strands.
His breath wooshes out of his mouth in a noisy exhale, and he realizes he's wound tighter than a spring.
The pang of dissipating anxiety is reminiscent of a child frightened of monsters in the closet— except it's broad daylight, he's not asleep, and he's nineteen years old. This is stupid. He is stupid.
"Oh, sorry—" Maka says, startled to find him so near. "Were you saying something?" she asks, pulling a chittering earbud away from her ear.
Quiet dread builds in his throat despite all logic, so he swallows it. "Makin' tea. Want any?"
She takes the other earbud out and her voice goes soft, at odds with the tinny noises from her headphones. "What's wrong?"
"Nothin'. Do you want tea or what."
The book in her hand snaps shut and is tossed to the side, and his eyes are drawn to the movement before he realizes it's a misdirection. Her fingers wrap around his forearm faster than he can pull away, holding him in place while she stands directly in front of him.
The back of her free hand brushes the side of his face. The touch is too tender right this moment, when his childish heart feels like it might spill over.
"You're pale."
His arm tenses in her hold, and the part of him that is afraid he's still dreaming tells him this conversation is as one-sided as all the others.
"Would you just answer the question?" he spits, only to immediately feel like a prick. She pulls her hand away from his cheek with a mixture of reproach and hurt. "…Please," he mumbles, averting his eyes.
She considers him and whatever the hell she sees in him for a breath before tugging his arm towards the couch. "I want tea. But you sit here and I'll make it."
He sighs, weary and repulsed with himself. "Fine, whatever," he yields, bonelessly melting to the couch while she disappears into the kitchen. It's still warm where she'd been sitting.
He finds one of her headphones under his leg; yanks this out by the cord and brings the tiny speaker to his ear. Then he realizes it's a shitty bootleg copy of the inauguration performance and that his meister is listening to him even when he's not saying anything.
Conflicted, he sinks deeply into the warmth of the cushions and decides if there were an Immature Asshole award, he'd win it.
She waits without expectation. She never pushes to know, always waiting for him to choose to be heard, and he thinks that's why the dreams scare him so much. She is his best audience.
Getting worked up over something so pretentious wears him out.
His subconscious is a piece of shit.
He'd given up the window seat this time and he's regretting it, because when he wakes with a gasp, jolting in his seat, the other passengers of the plane are staring at him like he's on fire.
He runs a hand shakily through his hair, swallowing the ash of nightmares caught in his mouth. The jet engines are loud and echoing in his still-jumbled head, and he wishes he were anywhere but here, feeling raw and exposed. He turns away from the aisle and finds Maka staring at him too, which isn't much better, but he trusts her a hell of a lot more with whatever look is on his face right now than everyone else.
It's a moment of weakness in every sense. Maka lifts the arm rest between them, turning her body and reaching out, and he doesn't resist the gentle pull of her hand on the back of his damp neck, letting her guide him to her shoulder as if to sleep more comfortably.
He's being coddled right now, he thinks, but her scent and touch dampen the sting of feeling so vulnerable. Her hand swipes up his nape, moving his hair out of the way to cool him off. After less than a minute of this, he's already over it, but he doesn't want to move.
He's tired of being tired of this.
"Maka," he says quietly into her collarbone, numbly accepting his own, stubborn relief when he feels her replying hum through her shoulder.
And then, beneath the sounds of the jet engines, he murmurs the cliffnotes version of his nightmares into her ear. He skips over the terror in his selfish heart at the thought of losing her attention, because it's humiliating to say it aloud and he's sure she understands that bit without him spelling it out.
It's probably the most he's ever told her about a dream, which is a shame because he's had so much worse than this yet this is the one he word-vomits to her. Her hand keeps petting the back of his neck, thumb rubbing little comforting sigils into his skin.
This position is doing a number on his spine, but he ignores it, refusing to budge until the flight attendant instructs them to prepare for landing. He feels like an overgrown infant, but he also feels like he probably should have gotten this over with months ago.
The airport is still as a tomb at this time of night, and after she meets him next to the water fountains outside the restrooms, she says , "I have a dream like that, too."
Her voice is just a half step higher than usual, notes of her nervousness bouncing erratically off support beams and sprawling corridors. She strides forward with her little travel bag rolling behind her and tells him her nightmare.
He is a weapon in her dreams— but only that. Just metal. And she knows it's not right, but everyone in her dream tells her he's 'just metal'. So she tries to ask him about it, but he never replies because he's just metal, and that makes her panic. The rest of the dream is spent in a desperation to remember where he is, who he is; his face, his voice.
She is afraid of never hearing him again, too.
"I think nightmares try to tell the truth in really unpleasant ways," she says. "Even though I feel gullible and stupid when I wake up, I don't think that makes what the dream was trying to say any less valid."
Walking into a slice of a revolving door with her, he asks, "What is it trying to say," because he's not blind— their dreams have similar melodies, and if she has derived a meaning that is something other than 'I'm a selfish, attention-seeking brat', he would like to know.
The edges of her ears tint pink, and he nearly trips over himself in the revolving door watching it happen. "I-I think it just means you're part of my life I don't wanna lose, you know?"
Soul Evans has a lot of things he wants to say to this, but he can't pick just one so he doesn't say any of them. They walk in silence until they're outside the terminal and shivering in the desert night of Nevada.
He takes her hand midway through a crosswalk to long-term parking. Her fingers lock with his and ease the knots in his heart.
"Maka."
"Hm?"
"Just checking."
She bites her lip to hold back a smile— unsure if making light of the subject is appropriate— but when she sees his own she gently crashes into his shoulder to knock him off balance.
He's not ready to tell her how essential a part of his life she is just yet, but he knows she'll listen when he is.