I don't know how I feel about the second part - the ending is cute but the middle? I don't know. Tell me what you think.
Under the tree at the far end of campus was the meeting place for serious discussions only but the mood seemed anything but. Liz was running her fingers through Maka's hair, untangling the last of its knots before she'd start the process of braiding while Tsubaki laid on her stomach in the grass next to them, a manga open but not actively being read between her arms. Liz had been talking aimlessly about her last few dates, giving half-hearted details without much enthusiasm.
"I don't know, Liz," Tsubaki started gently. "It just seems like they're never enough for you."
"I have standards," Liz sighed.
"Or she's just used to her high-maintenance meister," Maka snorted a laugh.
Liz was quick to give her hair a little tug, "Hey!"
"I think she likes high-maintenance," Tsubaki sang.
"Not every weapon has to fall for their meister," Liz grumbled as she shot furrowed glares at both of them. "It doesn't help that two out of three of us here have. Ugh, the odds are not in my favor."
"I think it's natural for a weapon and meister to fall in love," Maka murmured and both girls answered with quick whistles.
"Maka Albarn!" Liz cooed, "Absolutely unbelievable. Soul has performed a miracle."
"Shut up," Maka tried to make it sound biting but the sweet smile and blush to match dissolved any power behind the words. She turned her head, Liz obliging by moving the braiding process. "How's it going with Black Star, Tsu?"
Tsubaki smiled sweetly, "He's a little dense about a few things, but… he always listens, you know? Sometimes I think he almost takes it as seriously as training. Almost."
"Dense about what?" Maka was keeping Liz in the corner of her eye, waiting for her to tie off the braid before joining Tsubaki in the grass.
"Oh, just the emotional stuff," Tsubaki shrugged. "He understands the physical parts. The kissing, the-" She cut herself off, a blush touching her cheeks.
"The what?" Liz teased as she laid down to create the triangle of faces and the way they most often transferred secrets.
"Well…"
"Does that mean you two have…?" Maka always choked on the word and somewhere she could hear Soul laughing at her.
Tsubaki offered a quick nod before hiding her colored cheeks in her hands.
"When?" Liz practically shrieked as she reached out a hand to shake Tsubaki's shoulder.
She picked her head up and while the blush was still vibrant her smile was even better. "Um… we've been physical for a few months now but last week… I guess I got a little carried away and…"
"You?" Maka almost choked on the word. "You mean, he didn't? You asked?"
"Why shouldn't she?" Liz shook her head at Maka.
"Not saying shouldn't, but…" Maka huffed as she dropped her chin on her fist. "How did you know?"
Tsubaki blinked slowly, her mind weaving together the words carefully before letting them leave her lips. "I guess I didn't. I know he loves me. I know he'd do anything I needed. So I guess I just assumed both of those things would make the rest of it alright. And, well, it does help that he's…" she sighed wistfully to end as a little more pink hit her cheeks.
"Oh," Liz nudged her again as she elongated the vowel. "I never actually pictured Black Star as attentive but I guess he's a little different one on one?"
"Much different," Tsubaki sighed sweetly. "But he kind of forgets that showing he loves me doesn't mean he doesn't have to say it, too."
"More sexual than intimate?" Liz offered.
Tsubaki pondered that for a moment before nodding slowly. "He's intense, just like you'd expect him to be, and he always makes sure that I'm… happy but after he kind of just jumps up, back to business as usual and I, well, I kind of had to sit him down and tell him. He just didn't realize. Didn't even think about it."
"And now?" Maka encouraged her with a hand reaching across the divide, touching at her fingers gently.
"He's getting better," Tsubaki smiled with a tilt of her head. "Everytime he stays put for just a little longer. Guess he has to just be conditioned." She added a soft laugh. "But you and Soul…?"
Maka shook her head swiftly. "Not to say that we haven't talked about it."
"Talked," Liz huffed. "First you two spend years pining over each other."
"But that's how they are," Tsubaki shot back. "It wouldn't be Maka and Soul if they didn't argue something to death before they did it."
Maka didn't know whether to blush or to sigh so she settled somewhere in between with a still delicate curl of happiness to her lip. "Um, actually… so…" She started but stopped, letting her eyes dart between each girl and seeing the sweet, soothing understanding instead of hard stares. "He wants to… try oral."
"He wants to eat you out," Liz corrected. Maka turned a particular shade of scarlet and her mouth gaped once or twice before slapping back shut. Both girls just raised their eyebrows, waiting for the complication but when nothing came Liz murmured, "And you don't want to?"
"I…" Maka pursed her lips together before blurting the painful admission. "I can't get used to the idea of him looking at it."
"Well, it is kind of up-close and personal," Liz muttered with a shrug. "But, and I really hope the answer is no or I'll kill him, but he hasn't reacted in any bad way about any other part of you, has he?"
Her head shook firmly before that smile crinkled a little on her lips, "He called me hot."
Tsubaki and Liz twittered into laughter, collapsing into each other with amusement. "Oh, Maka, you little vixen," Liz teased.
"Stop it," Tsubaki nudged her. "Then what is it about him looking at you? I mean, he's seen everything at this point, hasn't he?"
Maka worried at her lower lip before sighing, "I don't take my underwear off."
"Oh," Tsubaki came back quickly. "But just the underwear?"
"Yes."
"And he's definitely had a hand in that underwear," Liz didn't make that a question, filling her voice with incredulity that made Maka's blush worsen.
"And it's not just the looks," Maka's voice shrunk to a murmur. "It's all of it. What if… what if it's not good? The first step we kind of taught each other but this part? It's not like he can show me how to…"
"Blow him," Liz finished unceremoniously. "Because if he does it to you, you have to do it back, huh?"
Maka sighed, "Yes."
Tsubaki smiled with the radiance of an automatic answer on her tongue. "I think all you need to do is what you always do."
"What's that?" Maka murmured with a twinge of wonder especially as that grin on Tsubaki's face stretched to all-knowing.
"You boss each other around," Tsubaki replied with a laugh. "How many times have you critiqued each other? I don't think there's one fight where you don't come back at each other with notes."
"But that's work, fighting," she sighed back.
Liz shook her head, "Not different. Since I'm pretty sure all of the above require that you respect and care about each other enough to take and dish out the criticism."
A fluttering sigh left her lips as she remembered all his little moments, all the slowdowns, all the testing the water of her feelings before giving in to his urges. Maybe it all just was that simple.
"Hey," Soul shouted up from the bottom of the hill, making all the girls jump. "You done pickin' Maka's guts? I need her for just a second."
"Picking your guts?" Tsubaki shook her head before giggling.
"What kind of friends does he think we are?" Liz grumbled.
Maka offered them a laugh before getting to her feet. "Be right back."
Soul offered her a hand before she was even halfway there and Maka skipped down the rest to get to it quickly, a tight hold of her fingers betraying him almost immediately. "Kid wants me to do a mission with him so I'm going, probably a couple days."
"And I'm guessing it's right now?" Maka couldn't help the forlorn lilt to her voice.
"'Course," he muttered. "Don't laugh at me but as soon as he said it I couldn't help but think I was gonna miss you."
Maka betrayed him, letting a soft giggle leave her throat at the utter relief of it all, the instantaneous reminder of how deep his love was.
"I told you not to laugh," he grumbled as he pulled her a step closer. His other hand touched tentatively to her cheek. "Maybe I should of just-"
She easily bridged the gap as she pressed up on her toes to meet his lips. Her heart twittered happily as he slid that hand from her cheek to her hair, keeping her to him long enough to deepen the kiss regardless of the wolf whistles calling in the background. "I'll miss you too."
Soul grunted, "Why'd you have to kiss me like that and make it worse?"
Her smile was beaming but she was forced to hide it in his shirt, wrapping her arms around his waist. "You were going to kiss me goodbye anyway, weren't you?"
"Maybe." His arms tightened around her as he let his lips linger at her hairline, leaving another soft kiss there. "I'll see you when I get home."
She took one more deep breath of him, trying to soak up every last bit of his warmth. "I'll be waiting."
Soul woke up to the same strange ceiling, the room only illuminated by the red numbers on the clock mocking him with 3 AM. This was his first night's sleep in a bed in 2 weeks, that stupid couple of days worth of a mission turning into crossing two country borders. He should have been restfully snoozing but his mind couldn't stop bringing up her, touching her skin, kissing her lips, and - with a sigh full of futility, Soul rolled to his side and picked up his phone. He calculated the time difference groggily before giving up and just clicking on her name.
It rang twice before the pick-up, an immediate, "Are you OK?" filling his ear.
"Fine," he murmured through a crooked smile.
"It's late where you are, isn't it? Why aren't you sleeping?" Her voice was rising with each accusation and Soul couldn't find it anything but cute.
"Was trying, it didn't work out," he sighed. "Kept thinking about you."
"Oh," all of momming came to an immediate halt.
"I'm exhausted," he laughed softly, "I feel like I still reek from the pine needles we've been sleeping on for a week since the sap is fucking everywhere and we've still got searching to do tomorrow with no promising leads but… all my brain wants to do is think about kissing you." The sigh that erupted from the other side of the line made it worse, just imagining that longing look on her face. Soul tried to clear it all away. "Just tell me about your day. You home? How was school?"
"Fine, but… um, are you alone?"
"I'm not keeping Kid up or anything," Soul snorted a laugh. "All those times we had to bunk together but going out with the boss means you get a private room. Guess he doesn't want to keep you up all night as he rearranges for symmetry."
Her sweet giggle filled his ear but it was cut off by another hum. "Soul, can we talk about something?"
"Uh, yeah," Soul started cautiously. He was hoping just for the everyday pleasantries, hearing her voice, and maybe the last thing his sleep needed was one of her soul-searching endeavors.
"Could you… explain that thing you wanted to try?"
Soul squinted into the darkness, wondering how much of his mind was still asleep as he couldn't seem to put her words together. "What thing?"
"Eating me out."
He shot up straight in the bed, pinching his leg in the process since this had to be a dream. She doesn't even know that phrase. There's no fucking way in hell. I'm dreaming, I'm sleeping, and this is just one of those stupid- but the pain was real and so was the impatient clearing of her throat on the other end. "What do you want to know?" His chest felt tight but the lack of oxygen wasn't diminishing his blood flow and he was suddenly uncomfortably aware of how much he had been thinking of her.
"You should tell me what it'd be like."
"Would that… make you less scared?" Soul offered with a slow swallow.
A sweet happy hum slipped past his ear, "Yes, and I think maybe it'll help you relax."
Relax? Soul could have shrieked it out with all the nerves jangling through him.
"So while you describe it," Maka broke through his panic with a whisper, "while you think about me, you should do whatever feels good."
"Whatever feels good," Soul echoed almost as a question before the next barely eked out, "Are we… are you going to relax too?"
"I'm going to try," her voice was small but oh so mighty in his ears, making a shiver run down his spine.
We're having phone sex. For Death's sake don't say that but that's what this is, isn't it? She's going to and you're going to and… Soul sucked in a desperate breath of air. "I'd, uh, well…" It took another slow inhale before Soul could convince his mind to edge something close to clear, or at the very least concentrated on his task. This is just like practice, just imaginary first rather than the real thing. Convince her the trial run is worth it. "I'd start like I always do because I have to. There's no other way I want to because I like the way you run your fingers through my hair and that sigh you always do the first time my hand gets under your shirt."
"I have a sigh?" she asked dreamily.
"Yeah," he chuckled. "It's the same one every time. It's you unwinding and I love it." And just on cue, she produced it in his ear. "That's it." He chased it with his own as his hand drifted down his leg.
"Less unwinding, more winding up," she corrected. He didn't know how close he was to mirroring her move but he lacked Maka's bravery, her hand already caressing over her panties.
"Which means you're… oh fuck, Maka, this is ridiculous but I need you to just come out and say it."
"I'm turned on," Maka said with a short laugh, "and I hope you're doing the same thing I'm doing, OK?"
"Fuck," he expelled as he finally allowed his hand to venture into his boxers. "OK, alright, I just… I miss you, I do, and I don't want you to think-"
"Soul," Maka corrected sharply. "I asked you to explain, not apologize."
"Right." Soul forced his breath to slow and tried to focus on her body, the curves and intricacies he'd been devoted to memorizing. "I want to kiss the inside of your thigh." He let that sit in the air for a second, waiting for the proverbial Maka-chop even long distance. When nothing came he let the rest that had been waiting on the tip of his tongue go. "Make a line from your knee to, um, I guess however far you'd let me get."
"In this scenario, panties are off…" Maka trailed off with a sigh, another one of those sighs and he let it feed the tension in his fingers.
Soul grunted, "I want to… take them off you. I want to run my hands down your thighs and… Do you know how beautiful your legs are? They're perfect. And I want to see if you can stand the teeth or if I'm just kissing the inside of your leg until you can't take it anymore." There was a fleeting second of guilt but it fizzled with her soft moan in his ear as he slid his hand up smoothly. It wasn't half as good as her fingers had become and there was a loneliness to it but he still let out a contented groan. "But I want to know what you taste like. I want to slide my tongue along to see where you react because you always tell me. Your body, your soul, all of it, you always let me know what you need."
"Soul…" but it wasn't one of her lustful moans of his name but a comfort and ease he wasn't ready for.
He paused in his need. "Yeah, Maka?"
"You'd tell me too, right?"
"Fuck yeah," he laughed softly. "And, to be honest, what I need is you. That's it. Everything else is extra and even if just let me get a taste and then we're back to the fingers I don't give a damn."
"Back on track, Soul," she murmured playfully.
"Right," he laughed softly as he started to stroke again. "Oh, Death," he had to pause at the tip as he felt the blush flush his face, "You think it'd feel better to lick or to suck?"
"Both," her voice was breathless and it was followed by a catching moan.
Oh, fucking Death I said it and she's into it. She's… shut up in here and get your lips moving! "It's my tongue between your legs but don't think I forgot about my fingers, the way to hit that one spot that makes you tremble." He couldn't concentrate on himself for even a second, hearing the irregular pattern in her breath over the line. "Oh, Maka, if I was fucking there I'd be biting your lip right now, ready to catch that moan I know you're about to make. Do it." Soul surprised himself with the order but it only lasted momentarily, the her bright half-yelp breaking over the line.
"Soul," she murmured sweetly. "You didn't, did you?"
"Uh," Soul looked down with a hint of chagrin. "Nah, got a little too interested in you for a second."
"That's so you."
"That better be a good thing," he grumbled.
"It is," she laughed softly. "But I want you to get interested in yourself for a second." He let out a trembling sigh as he let his hand fall back into that pre-Maka pattern. He tried to let that moan echo in his mind but her whisper started in his ear just as loudly, "What if I… do you think you'd like my mouth better than my hand?"
That idea alone earned a warbling groan from his mouth, the thought of those perfect pink lips anywhere near him sending a tingle from the base of his spine to his toes.
"I'll take that as a yes," her whisper was like a brushfire in his brain and as he tried to make it process an answer she came right back again, "and I want to try it when you get home, after your shower, you could sit in the chair in the living room and I think I could kneel between your legs-"
"Shit," he barely gasped out the word as he felt the warm liquid shoot onto his bare stomach and the electricity erupt from his center. "Oh, fuck, Maka. That…" Having her between his legs had been enough, the idea that she in any way would even accept the idea of bending to him. Maybe I'm not entirely proud of that but… for a second, I think I liked ordering her around, having her following me for once.
"Promise me you actually did," Maka laughed.
"Fuck yes, I did," he sighed contently before eyeing his mess with only a smidge of dismay.
"Feel guilty? Weird?"
"Uh," he tried to press out the vowel to buy him one more second of thought. "Maybe about telling you what to do. Kind of ordered you to… you know."
"Since when can't you say it?"
Soul snorted, "Since I'm saying it to your poor sensitive little ears."
"Shut up," she laughed. "You told me to cum, how's that?"
He practically guffawed, just catching it as another loud snort. "Maka. That sounds ridiculous from your mouth, you know that?"
"But I said it," she sent back with just a short wave of defensiveness before that soft joy sunk back in. "I kind of liked it."
"Liked it?" Soul let out a low whistle. "You never like taking someone else's orders."
"Well, everything tonight was out of the ordinary." A contented sigh followed that and he could imagine that dreamy just before bed smile on her face. "I miss you too. If you get home while I'm asleep, will you wake me up?"
"As long as that doesn't earn me a chop," he chuckled.
"Promise," she chimed.
Soul let another breath linger into the line. "Thanks, Maka, I needed that."
"You know… it's OK to ask for that," Maka's voice fell to a tiny murmur. "I don't mind, especially since I know it's inevitable. We're going to be apart."
"Yeah," he sighed. "I like the real thing better though."
"Duh," her voice came back a little stronger, bolstered by a laugh. "I think I miss the after part the most."
Soul hesitated but let the question roll off his lips along with the rest of his hesitation. "What happens after?"
"You hold me," she sighed sweetly. "You run your fingers through my hair. You make that seem like the most important part to you and I don't know how."
While his smirk was toothy, it was all warm with no bite. "Like I said, all I need is you."