Bed spins and angst are not a good combination, and Soul was nursing a bad case of both when the frantic knocking started. Only one person was likely to be showing up at this time of this particular night, and Soul answered the front door with a sense of dread. The feeling intensified when he confirmed that Kid was, indeed, on the other side. He looked worse than Soul felt, which was really saying something.
"Please forgive me for coming here so late, but may I...can I come in?" Kid was out of breath, his shirt was untucked, and he looked than a little crazy around the eyes.
Soul pinched the bridge of his nose to ease the pain in his head,
"Sure. Why not?" he said resignedly, "Not like I can stop you anyway."
"Maka isn't answering my calls." Kid slunk past Soul into the apartment, where he stood awkwardly in the hallway, "She's blocking our bond, and she has a blanket or something over her mirror."
"She doesn't want to see you, in case you couldn't figure that out," Soul said, "She's pretty pissed off. We both know it's better to leave her alone when she's like this. Why don't you go home and talk to her in the morning? You could probably use some time out, too. Saying you had a shitty day is the understatement of the century."
"I have to speak to her." Kid insisted, his thin veneer of civility visibly cracking, "I...I need to. I need her!"
"It's your funeral, man," Soul was too wiped out to argue. And a little scared, too. Kid looked more dangerous than Soul had ever seen him. He'd seen his friend in the throes of mental breakdowns and in full-bore Reaper rage mode. Right now he seemed to be combining the two. Maka was far from stable herself, and in the interest of not being dragged into what was sure to be a brawl of epic proportions, Soul made his first good decision of the night and retreated to his room.
Kid knocked lightly on Maka's door.
"Maka," he said softly, "May I come in?"
"No."
She sounded hard and miserable, the way she did when she was trying not to cry. While he couldn't feel her soul, Kid could still see it, and the sight made him sick. Normally Maka shone like the bravest and brightest of stars. Now her soul was dark and deflated, a sad, wrinkled little thing like ones he'd reaped from places where all hope had been lost.
"Please," he entreated, "I'd like to speak to you. And not through this door." He pressed his cheek against the wood, grateful for the cool surface against his hot skin but wishing it was Maka's soothing hand instead.
"I said no!"
Her voice was sharper now; its edge honed by pain. In his panic, he'd hurt her and scared her, and Kid thought he might die of shame. He needed to make this right.
"We need to discuss this. I'm so incredibly sorry for hurting you earlier. I didn't do it on purpose. I swear to you it was an accident."
A pillow whumped against the wall on Maka's side, "I know that you idiot! I'm just...not ready to talk. I'm too mad, and I'll say things I don't mean. I'll let you know when I'm ready to see you. Go home. That's where you want to be anyway."
It was the last place Kid wanted to be. What he wanted, all he wanted, was to be here, with her, and she wouldn't even speak to him. He felt his frayed nerves starting to burn again.
"Damn it, Maka! " Kid slammed his palm against the door, "If you're not mad about me knocking you into a goddamn wall, then why are you mad? It's not fair to blame me for what's going on here when I don't even know what I did."
"I sure as hell DO blame you!" She snarled. Something hard hit the door, and the wood vibrated against Kid's face. Knowing Maka, it was probably a book. Bartlett's Quotations or one of the other hefty missiles she kept near her bed. Even with their bond closed off, Kid knew she'd prefer to be aiming at his head.
"For WHAT?" he hollered back, rattling the doorknob, "Your mother? Mine? And what was that last thing all about? You scream "fine!" at me, take off obviously mad as hell, and now you won't even tell you what you meant? You're not making any bloody sense!"
"I said I don't want to talk about it right now. I'm upset, and I'm not thinking straight, so just go away!" she shrieked hysterically.
"You're upset? How the fuck do you think I feel?" Kid snapped, gripping the doorknob until his knuckles turned white. The metal heated beneath his sparking fingers and began to fold in on itself.
The downstairs neighbors thumped on their ceiling and loudly asked if Kid and Maka knew what time it was and if they could please shut the hell up.
"Apparently it's not my job to care how you feel anymore, so why are you here, anyway?" Maka screamed, ignoring the interruption, "Just to say sorry for cracking a wall with my head? Is that all? Fine, you apologized. You're forgiven."
Emotional devastation had loosened the sharp side of her tongue, and now her temper set it free.
"And you know what? I don't actually give a shit how you feel right now. Why don't you go tell your fucking maman about your problems since she's all you care about?"
Her words were designed to hurt, and they did. Kid had pulled certainty out from under her feet like a rug, and she wanted to get him back. Coming in second-best with him at the clinic when he was everything to her unleashed a violence Maka thought she'd conquered ages ago. She further relieved her feelings by throwing a framed photo across the room. The glass made a satisfying smash when it hit the wall and crashed to the floor. The pieces rattled on the tile as the neighbors, now seriously pissed off, banged energetically on their ceiling with a broom and threatened to call the police.
"What are you talking about? Don't do this to me right now. Not now. Not you." Kid yelled. All he'd wanted was comfort from the one person he could still trust. To know he was loved. To feel her arms around him and find the strength he needed to cope with the truths the night had so brutally delivered. Now he'd had that taken away from him too, and it was more than he could bear.
The silence from Maka was deafening, and Kid swore he could feel his heart cracking in two.
"Fine! Stay in there and be as obtuse and as pouty as you want. You want me to go away, I'm gone," he roared through his pain, "Nice to know I can depend on you when the chips are down. Thanks for NOTHING!"
"All right you guys, knock it off!"
Kid turned to see Soul behind him looking cross and judgey.
"We seriously do NOT need the cops here on top of all the other shit that's gone down tonight." the scythe said as he tucked his phone into the pocket of his plaid lounge pants. The screen glowed through the flannel for a moment and then winked out. Kid wondered who he'd been talking to.
Maka finally broke radio silence, "Stay out of this, Soul!"
"Then stop throwing shit!" her partner replied.
"Don't tell me what to do!"
Soul ignored her and held Kid's flaming gaze, right arm slightly extended in preparation to form a blade.
"You good, dude?" he asked in a voice carefully positioned between concern and wariness.
Kid finally noticed the smell of charred flesh, burned wood and hot metal that scented a hallway partially obscured with the cloudy skulls of his death magic. He took a deep, shaky breath and tried to calm himself.
"I'm, uh, yeah, I'm good," he muttered. Maka's doorknob chose that moment to break free of its melted mounting and clatter to the floor in a twisted, red-hot pretzel. The boys looked down at it and then back at each other
"You sure about that?" Soul relaxed his arm, but not his scrutiny. The fire in Kid's eyes and those creepy-ass robes had retreated to wherever they went when their owner wasn't using them, but the Reaper was obviously far from okay. He was still crazy and tortured, and now mortification was adding itself to the mix.
"I'm...I'm fine." Kid insisted, retreating into the living room, "I apologize for my poor behavior. Someone will be over to repair the damages tomorrow."
"I'm not worried about the knob, dumbass," Soul snorted, "I'm worried about you guys. You never go off on each other."
"First time for everything," Kid replied wanly, "And, in this case, I believe it might also be the last."
He looked sadly around the cozy apartment for what might be the final time, etching its memories of friendship and love into his mind before silently taking his leave.
Later, Kid wouldn't remember leaving the apartment, only his arrival in the cold, shadowy street. Sheer force of habit forced his gaze up to Maka's window. Whenever he left her place, she'd run to it and blow him a kiss when he reached the street. He'd blow one back, or he'd summon Beelzebub and float lazily up to return it to her in person.
Maka was in her window, but it was firmly closed and her back was turned. And she certainly wasn't going to be sending any kisses his way. Instead of reaching out to him, she was rolled up with her face against her knees, and although he was five floors below her, Kid could tell she was trying hard not to cry. Maka always collapsed inward when she got overly emotional, trying to hide what she saw as shameful weakness.
Kid, however, had always cried easily and wasn't surprised when Maka and the building framing her swam into watery abstraction. He ran his sleeve roughly over the tears, trying to cut them off the way he'd been cut off. The sudden loss of his soul bond with Maka made him feel wretchedly hollow and alone. Novels and poetry overflowed with the concept of heartbreak and Kid had always written it off as hyperbole, but now he knew better. Actual pain radiated from his chest and it hurt worse than his burnt hand. That would heal shortly, but he'd never feel better about the night's emotional wounds. A memory of Maka, bruised and battered but with fierce earnestness in her green eyes, rose to torment him further.
There will always be a next time for us. Always, no matter what happens. Forever, remember?
The thought that their "forever" might have just ended at one year, two months and eleven days hit him like a sharp blow to the head. It knocked him to the curb, where he sat with his face in his hands. For the first time in a long while, Kid was heedless of his position. He didn't give a damn that a random passerby might see the son of Death with his feet in the gutter and tears dripping between his trembling fingers. The fear that Maka's promise was a lie, like almost everything else in his life was turning out to be, was all-consuming.
His phone rang, and he dragged it out, grimacing at the caller ID. After the scene he'd had with Death, Kid didn't want to answer a call from his father, but he did it anyway.
Such a good boy. No matter what he does, I'm the dutiful son.
"Yes?" he asked, straining to keep his voice as steady as possible.
"I want you to come over to Stein's," Death said, getting right to the point, "Kami is starting to come around."
"Do you really think it's appropriate for me to see Maka's mother before she does?" Kid asked coldly.
His father sounded even chillier, "You want to know everything, with no secrets between us, and you're going to get it. So get your ass over here. Now."
The line went dead and, on cue, Kid heard tires rumbling over the cobblestones. A long, black limousine slid out of the shadows, coming for him like the embodiment of his dark future as a Reaper. Kid stood to meet it, knowing he had no choice but to get inside. He gave one last, longing glance at Maka's window, but there was no comfort for him there. He slid into the rear seat with all the dignity he could muster while Dave, the chauffeur, pointedly and kindly ignored him. He shut the door behind Kid, sealing him in before speeding away into the night.