Getting drunk had obviously been Black Star's idea and while Maka would usually harp on the illegality of underage drinking there was no room in the face of peer pressure. Even responsible Tsubaki had tipped back more than one glass of cheap wine as they sat around the bonfire that night. While Maka had feigned her way through enjoying a cup, it stayed just that, slow nursing of the intoxicant as she watched Soul give in.

He wasn't stumbling but wouldn't be dancing the foxtrot any time soon. His eyes had that hazy, droopy laziness to them and he was mostly asleep on his feet it seemed, an arm linked around her waist more for his own balance than anything else. Maka detached him to get through the door but found his arms circling around her shoulders as soon as they were a few steps in, his lips coming just to her earlobe. "I've been thinking about you all night," he whispered huskily.

While the electricity of that dance across her skin, Maka felt her heart lurch in place, her hands quickly coming to the arms around her. "Soul…" When his lips closed over her earlobe, a tender tease of teeth just after it, she couldn't save enough air for the words, the only thing eking from her lips a soft, "Please."

"Please what?" The genuine curiosity suffused his voice as he used a hand on her hip to turn her to him.

The flash in those green eyes wasn't what he was expecting and Soul felt the fuzz in his mind reverberate around her words. "Please stop."

His eyebrows furrowed as he brought his hands to her face, touches so tender that he was barely stealing the heat from them and felt the trickle of the liquid underneath his palm as the first tear fell from her eyes. "Maka, what is it?"

"Um, just don't," she murmured back weakly. "It's nothing, it's stupid, but don't." Her hands came over his and tore them away before turning down the hallway. "I'm just tired. I… I'm going to bed."

Soul waited, her soul now looking just as murky as the edges of the world around him. Without ceremony, without goodnight, without any of the sweetness he had wanted to share with her, Maka went into her room and shut the door. His stomach reeled, not the liquor giving it a turn but the silence. Each second was being played back in his mind, each moment broke down to the very movement of his fingers to try to figure the transgression. For once, he was lucky for the drink, the way it muddled his mind because it left the inhibition in his feet behind and urged them forward.

They were stomping steps down the hall and after opening her door his fists clenched tightly at his sides. Maka jumped as it swung on its hinges but kept her back to him. "You're bottling!" It was almost the voice of a petulant child and Soul didn't care. "And that was a fucking push if I ever felt one!"

While the words struck like a knife to her gut, turning and seeing him, trembling hands and red in the face somehow almost urged a laugh to her lips. He's drunk, so drunk, and while he should have just crumbled to the floor it's a tantrum instead because…

"You said," he started to yell again but at least his hands started to relax, his fingers going from white to pink. "Deal-breaker was secrets and that was a secret. You can't just cry and expect me to-"

"I know." With a gentle wave of her hands to calm the air between them she took a step closer. "I think… I think I was still… thinking it was years ago," she sighed at the lack of eloquence, the way the words wanted to stop and start on her tongue. "You would have let me do that before."

"Maybe," he muttered. One of his hands tentatively transgressed into the divide.

Maka avoided it, instead walking straight into him to circle her arms around his waist, holding him steady and still against her. "I think you would have let me do it now, too, if you weren't so drunk."

"Maybe," he echoed weakly, his hand coming to her hair. "But you have to tell me."

"That's an order?" she murmured before tucking her face into his shirt.

His throat bobbed with a nervous swallow and Maka could feel it spurring the kick of his heart in his chest. "Yeah."

She exhaled slowly, lungs unfurling as her fingers clenched into his shirt. "I don't want you to touch me while you're drunk. Not like that."

"Why?"

"I used to…" a trembling moan wanted to come from her mouth and she trapped it as a weak hum, adding a painful melody before the words. "Maybe I used to think that was the only way you'd want me. Maybe I used to think that was the only way it was possible."

"That doesn't sound like a maybe," he murmured. "You… thought I'd only kiss you if I was drunk?"

"You never showed any interest in me that way," the breath caught in her throat and Maka forced an exhale through her nose. "And when you get drunk, that's the only time I've ever seen you not think about what you do, just do it, and I thought that'd be the only time you'd even consider and I… I felt pathetic, thinking about you, pining over you but I did and when I did that was the only fantasy I could come up with because why would you ever-"

"Stop," he grunted out the word as he pressed his lips to her hairline at her temple.

"No," she murmured. "No, you should hear it, right? No secrets because sometimes… I still wonder what it is you see. You used to say I wasn't anything to look at-"

His fingers tightened their hold on her. "Maka-"

"And I said the same thing about you," she corrected quickly and the rest kept sliding off her tongue into his shirt. "I know what I said was a lie, and you know it, too, because there are girls who chase after you. Some of those offers to be your meister aren't all business and you know that." The next words slowly unwound from their stranglehold on her heart. "But no one's chased after me so I assume it's because, well, I'm not all that pretty. So what you said still seems like the truth. Even with the compliments now, sometimes I wonder if you settled."

"It's my fault," he muttered.

She sighed sharply before knocking a fist to his chest. "No, that's not what I'm saying."

"But I am," he shot back quickly. There was a strange quality to his voice, and as Maka analyzed it in the break for breath she realized suddenly that he was amused, almost laughing. "You think guys didn't ask you out because you're not pretty? Bullshit. They didn't ask you out because of me." Now there was a twinge of self-deprecation to it and Maka lifted her head, looking up at scarlet eyes that were burning down at her. "Think about some poor sap trying to ask you out with me hovering behind you. You know what face I make when other guys look at you? When other guys talk to you?"

"I don't…"

"If looks could kill," he huffed back. "You're beautiful, Maka. Guys look, and, hell, guys probably would have tried if I didn't follow you around the way I do." His eyes narrowed, "And you should know, I didn't want you tonight because I was drunk. I meant what I said, that I've been thinking about you all night because when we got to the damn party, Black Star was running his mouth about all the sweet stuff Tsubaki does and all I could do was keep a tally that you do all the same stuff and more and for a second, before I even had a fucking drink, I told him so. Then of course I had to start thinking about what the hell I do for you and I got it in my head that I needed to show you more."

Her lip trembled and all she could manage was a soft, "Soul…"

"So did I want something to happen tonight? I guess, especially since drinking sort of does get me worked up but I wanted something to happen because I was trying to show you how much I love you." He huffed out a sigh, his eyes somehow getting even tighter and driving the words into her. "So you go to bed. I'm going to stay up, sober up for a while, and then I'm going to come to bed and hold you all fucking night again."

Her head started to weakly shake. "Soul, you don't-"

"I do," he pressed. "But you have to let me."

The shake turned to a nod. "I'll be waiting."

He pushed her off towards the bed with a sigh, turning and making sulking footsteps into the hallway. Every switch in his brain was turned up and the chatter was endless so after pouring himself the largest glass of water possible he settled on the couch with his headphones. It was jazz at the decibel just below ear-bleeding and slow sips as he watched the pattern of lights cut across the wall from the window. There wasn't much, traffic winding down at this time of night, but he followed what came, letting it break the repetitive patterns of his thoughts only momentarily. He let the time tick by.

She thinks I settled. There was no bottom to the well of self-deprecation there, sure he could bring up a million and ten reasons why she had settled for him but sober enough now to know that wasn't the point. He tossed his phone in his hand, and almost out of habit opened up the camera, considering an impromptu video of the endless reasons he wanted her. He could make up for all the puerile jeers that had come out of his mouth over the years. He could take it all back and tell her how much he'd agonized over her beauty at different points in their lives. He could say that all to a screen.

Instead, he ripped the buds from his ears, tossing all of the technology to the side as he stood now on steady feet. It'd taken at least an hour and plenty of water but the world was back to even and he had no trouble navigating the hallway in the darkness. When he got to her room she was curled tightly in the sheets, fists set in the fabric but her breath slow in sleep. He slid in next to her and her breath caught, her body going from stiff to pliable as it relaxed against his chest. "Soul, I-"

"Don't," he murmured. "I got things to say and I'm just about to chicken out, so don't, not just yet." He let out a weak laugh as he let his whispers fall next to her ear. "I'm not proud of what I'm about to tell you and I don't want you thinking I am. It was shitty. It was possessive and shitty and I had no right but jealousy was something I got used to when it came to you. I was sure you'd never want me so it was easy to feel it creep in about anyone I thought you could want. Jealousy never leads to good behavior and I can't say I'm any different. You don't see the way other guys look at you but I definitely do, even now when I know I have you, I see it and it's getting better but it still turns something in me."

"One of those guys once had the nerve to ask me what your deal was. He was a weapon, had seen you come pick me up at class, had seen us together, wondered. I didn't have the guts to say we were something, couldn't lie like that because if it did get back to you…" He huffed out a desperate sigh. "But I still told him to fuck off. Told him he was barking up the wrong fucking tree. I guess he spread that around because I didn't get any more questions after that and if I was with you when a guy was looking, they sure as hell stopped staring pretty fast."

Soul loosened his grip on her, waiting for the turn, the accusation, or the rage that he deserved. Instead, in her creeping silence, he continued, "And, while I never told him to, I'm pretty sure Black Star did the same thing on the meister side because he's known for as long as I have that I loved you." Again, she was motionless even though it felt like her soul was tugging on his, pulling the rest of his thoughts from his lips. "And while you did the math, that eight two percent of the time it's just that, loving you, you know that doesn't mean I don't want you. It's just still hard for me to talk about that part because, well, I still don't want to hurt you. I don't want you to think it's just your body I'm after. But if you want to hear it, I'll try more."

Maka's hand clasped over his, breaking the stillness along with her sweet voice, "I do… could you try one now?"

He cleared his throat, trying to ease the way his brain attempted to strangle him. It only added to the scraping lowness of his voice, making her tremble as the words buzz across her ear, "There's this one skirt you have, the black and white striped one that I know you don't wear that often because it's old, too short, but when you do, oh, fucking hell, if you lean even a little forward it shows off enough where I can get a view of that perfect curve where your thighs almost meet and… well, now it just brings back the memories of my hand there, the way you cry out my name."

"You… like that?"

"Maka," he grunted out a laugh as he pulled her tightly against his chest. "I can't get enough of it. You're right, I sure as hell know that there were other girls interested in me but you have to get this through your head that just the way you say my damn name is enough. There's no one else in this world that has gotten close to that. You," he let that word fill with everything, all his want, his love. "You are the only one."