Summary: Soul and Liz - pros at fixing everyone's problems but their own.
Notes: Thank you so much for reading, you guys. I'll go back to leaving individual review responses in the next chapter. In the meantime, my eternal gratitude for the comments and PMs 3
Liz was In the hot tub. Wearing sunglasses. At 9 pm.
"What the hell are you doing?"
Soul sounded concerned, not judgey, which meant she didn't have to throw anything at him. And that was good for Soul because all she had at hand was a vodka bottle. Liz was full up on dealing with assholes for the day, and, unlike all the assholes she lived with, interacting with Soul was completely voluntary.
"Decompressing in style. I haven't had a chance to wear these sunglasses yet, and I needed a little treat," she said, lifting her head and peering up at him. It looked like it took some effort, and Soul raised an eyebrow at the cut glass tumbler beside her.
"You really shouldn't drink all by yourself in the water." he admonished.
"I know. That's why I invited you over."
"Oh."
There was an awkward pause.
"This feels kinda weird. Is it weird?" he asked. He could hardly believe it, but his legendary cool was failing him.
"I dunno, Soul. Do you want it to be weird?" Liz asked wearily, "I do not have the bandwidth to deal with drama from you, so if hanging out with me is too weird for you, then go the fuck home." she whipped off the huge Versace sunglasses and tried to glare at him, but it just made her red, swollen eyes look puffier.
"Nah, I'm good," he was carefully casual, "I've never been out here without everybody else. So yeah, a little weird. Has nothing to do with you personally." He didn't mention that knocking on The Gallow's front door and being admitted as a "Miss Elizabeth's" guest had been extremely weird. He rarely came to The Gallows alone, and when he did, it was tacitly understood that he was Kid's guest.
"Did you bring the orange juice?" Liz asked, attempting to interrupt the discomfort she wouldn't admit to feeling.
"Yep. Pulp-free, as requested," Soul put his backpack down and rummaged through it, glad of the distraction.
"Thank God," Liz said, holding out her glass so he could add juice to the vodka in it. She stirred the concoction with her finger and took a gulp.
"That's about the best thing that's happened today," she sighed, "Thanks for bringing it over. They don't do pre-made mixers in this joint. It's late, I'm wiped out, and orange juice means getting out the juicer and actual oranges. Or I could ask Nadine to come in and make it, but I do not have the balls for that. Sometimes…sometimes I just want stuff to be easy, you know?"
Her voice was strained, maybe even cracking, and Soul didn't think it was from fear of The Gallows' chef's legendary temper. The drinking-in-sunglasses-at-night was one thing, but Liz was tough as nails unless she had to deal with the supernatural. And tonight, she was getting emotional over juice? Soul was tired of worrying about other people and had hoped for a night off, but here he was, worrying.
"You gotta admit that you guys have really good orange juice, though," he said, trying to lighten the mood.
"Well, duh. Like, this Tropicana shit can't even begin to compare, right?" her laugh sounded like she was working for it. "You wanna come in?" she asked, slipping the sunglasses and her regularly scheduled persona back on.
"Are you sure you feel up to having company?"
"Yeah, that's why I texted you to bring orange juice and a swimsuit. Because I don't want company. Again, if this is too weird for you, I get it."
"I'm not being weird. You're the weird one." Soul retorted. They gave each other Very Serious Looks that finally broke into relieved laughter. Real laughter that drove the unacknowledged weird away. Soul yanked his shirt over his head and waded in. He sat on the bench beside, but not too close, to Liz, and she handed him her drink.
Soul took a sip. "You wanna tell me why we're drinking screwdrivers in the hot tub when it's 95 degrees outside?"
She tossed the sunglasses aside, and Soul thought Liz was giving him The Look, but it was hard to tell when her eyes were so swollen. Years of living with Maka had taught Soul what could happen after a girl gave somebody The Look, and he hastened to add that he was fine with not talking at all if she preferred. Luckily, she just sighed.
"Nah, it's okay. It's been a hellacious couple of days, ya know?"
"Right? It feels like a month since we went to Seattle." Soul had a slightly larger sip of the screwdriver to avoid further discussion of Seattle. Why did I bring up Seattle? WHY? Seattle was so far down the list of things he wanted to talk about that it had fallen off the bottom.
Liz motioned for him to hand the drink to her, "Everybody here is a fucking wreck except Patty, and keeping her away from her new best friend is a full-time job."
"Her new best friend?"
"She wants to hang with Sophie 24/7. Because reading "Wuthering Heights" to a psycho killer is apparently 'the most fun ever.'"
She took a swig and put the glass on the hot tub's tiled rim, "I can't always watch her because Kid and Lord Dad are absolutely destroyed, and I have to watch them. They've had two huge fights, and the one today ended up with all three of us bawling for, like, two hours. I'm not saying we didn't need it, especially them. The air has needed clearing around here for years. But I'm worn the fuck out. I'm sure you're in the same boat."
Soul nodded, "Yeah. Maka's a mess. Pissed off, crying, constantly scribbling in a notebook, working out like a fucking freak. Sometimes, all at once. I told her I'm not practicing with her until her fingers are all working, and she went off like a bomb. Like, legit kicking and screaming in the dirt. I don't want her to get hurt any worse than she is. Plus, she's got a concussion, and she should be taking it easy."
"I think we need a refill," Liz announced. She proceeded to mix one while thinking about what to say next. She drank half of it to fortify herself and gave the other half to Soul because he needed fortifying, too. He didn't know it yet, but he did.
"I went to talk to Maka yesterday," she finally said, "And she practically ignored me. I went to the gym, and she was working dismounts off a balance beam in full uniform - even her boots. We kinda got into it. I tried to get her to at least answer Kid's texts, but she took it all wrong. Like I was blaming her for the fight or something."
Soul decided finishing the drink and having a third was an excellent idea.
"Is that why she was so mad when she got home? She wouldn't talk until after dinner, and by then, she was torturing herself by imagining what seeing Kid with a new girlfriend would feel like. On top of the thing with him, her mom is being a dick to her, and I'm really worried. Her heart is fucking broken, and I don't want anybody upsetting her more." Soul was going for firm, but the words came out angry. Liz heated up in response.
"I was trying to help, asshole. Which is more than you've done for Kid! You're supposed to be his friend, too!" she snapped.
"I've been calling and texting him for days, but he just sends me to voice mail or leaves me on read!" Soul snapped in return, "And coming over here to see him after he cracked a wall with my partner's head didn't seem like a good idea! He's lucky I even tried after what he did to Maka and how nuts he went at our house. He almost set her door on fire, for fuck's sake! And for your information, he's the one who broke up with her!"
"Maybe if she'd acted like an adult instead of throwing a hissy fit, he wouldn't have! And did you forget that his mom came back from the fucking dead? Or doesn't that deserve some slack and some goddamn understanding?" Liz was yelling now and didn't care if somebody heard them.
Soul didn't care, either. "Well, his not-dead mom almost killed Maka's, but she still tried to help that crazy bitch. And don't you forget that she almost got her finger ripped off, and Kid hit her while she was doing it! Slack is the only reason Black Star and I haven't killed him!"
He stood up to better vent his fury, and she jumped up in response. Water sloshed around their thighs and overflowed onto the patio. Liz thought about taking a swing at him but surprised herself by bursting into tears instead. Soul lurched backward as if she had hit him. Damnit, now what do I do? Should I leave, or hug her, or what? He found himself apologizing instead.
"This is so uncool. I'm sorry," he said, "Neither of us need this shit on top of everything else. We can't take all this personally. I mean, we love them, but us getting pissed at each other isn't going to help anybody. You and I can figure out something together - we always do when everybody goes nuts."
"It's hard having to fix everybody's social life because we're the only normal people we know!" Liz sat back down with a splash, but she missed the bench and sank to the bottom of the tub.
"Jesus Christ!" Soul panicked and ducked into the water, scrambling for a hold on her. He fished her up by the armpits, both of them spitting water.
"I'm sorry, too," Liz spluttered.
Soul put his arm across her shoulders."Never mind that. Are you okay?"
"Yeah," she hiccuped into his chest, "But I am sorry. And you're right. About everything, but mostly about not drinking in this fucking hot tub."
"If we drown, we won't have to fix other people's shit, I guess," he chuckled, patting her upper arm.
Liz gave a waterlogged giggle, "They deserve it! But let's not. If we die, we need to do it looking fabulous, not like drowned rats."
Now he was giggling, too, "Our corpses have to look good in the crime scene pictures!"
They laughed like hyenas. Drunk hyenas.
"We gotta get out of here!" Liz finally gasped, and Soul steered them out of the tub and onto a nearby chaise lounge.
"Safe!" he announced, sticking his arms up triumphantly.
"What are you, a baseball announcer now?" Liz snorted, looking around, "Speaking of safe, I can't believe we haven't gotten busted for being drunk and disorderly out here. I'd say we could go hide out in my room and sober up, but it's like Grand Central station. Somebody's always coming in to freak out right now. Plus, we need to devise a plan to solve everyone's problems again, and Kid'll have a fit if he hears us."
"We can't go to my house; Maka's there," Soul told her, "also. I'm too fucked up to walk that far."
"Me too, but we can't stay here," Liz thought for a minute and finally realized that she was looking at the solution to their problem.
"Pool house!" she exclaimed, carefully bending down to retrieve their glass from the patio, "Grab the vodka!"
Soul did and then wobbled toward the little building in Liz's unsteady wake. "I thought we were trying to sober up?"
She glanced over her shoulder at him, "We will. And then we'll get gorgeous and fix the world. But first….you wanna talk about Seattle?"
Soul paused and thought for a second. Then he took a swig right out of the bottle.
"Yeah, what the hell. Let's talk about Seattle."