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Despite everything, Soul still doesn't like parties.
They aren't the worst. But it's always coupled with the exhaustion that comes from having to talk to everyone who approaches you. It's something he's experienced with due to his childhood, but if that weren't enough to put him off for an eternity, the way his father would introduce him after a recital would.
It doesn't help that, instead of being congratulated for being a piano prodigy in the way that they tell that to his parents and reduce him to a trophy, he's the Last Death Scythe. It's a title he'll wear with pride-- it's the most blatant signifier of his and Maka's partnership and it's hard to ever want to drop something like that-- but it does mean that people want to talk to him and his meister all the time, and as someone who already doesn't like answering questions, getting badgered for details he either doesn't care to remember or just doesn't want to say wears on him quickly. Luckily, Maka has slightly more grace with these things. If grace counts as her leveling a glare at anyone else who wants to socialize with them while Soul puts his head on the table and folds his hands over the back of his skull like that'll make his white as fuck hair stop being as much of a beacon as it is.
On the upside, no one at this event bullies him into performing. He's fine with that nowadays but it does add a certain extra amount of strain to a party that's already pushing it.
No amount of raw fish is going to boost him back up energy-wise when he's already totally drained from being around others. He's already lazy; this advances it to lethargic.
Maka knows all this, which is why she jumps only a little bit when Soul's arms capture her from behind and his chin rests on the top of her head as soon as their apartment door closes.
"Soul," she says. It only gets a grunt in reply and she rolls her eyes. This isn't unusual and neither of them are shy with physical contact, not after this many years, but, "I need to take off my heels."
"Kick them off on the couch."
"I'm not breaking my ankle tomorrow because you're lazy, dummy."
Whatever he mumbles in reply is entirely indecipherable. Fortunately, when Maka pries at his arms, he lets go and stands up, head still hanging until he stretches and yawns. As long as he’s still standing, he’s not going to fall asleep, though he’s definitely tried his best to do so before.
When Maka grabs onto his arm for balance so she can yank off the annoying three inch heels she decided to wear (which are more practical than stilettos, but she’s not sure the added height was worth it), he diligently stays still and acts as a support, though he does list to the side a bit when she has to yank the strap hard to get it to come loose and pulls on him too heavily.
But then her shoes are off and left by the door and the relief is immense.
Soul doesn’t waste time kicking off his shoes. He toes them off in an entirely practical manner and then kicks them out towards their sad excuse for a shoe rack instead of just sliding them over. It’s hard to tell if that’s some bizarre sort of teenage rebellion or something else, but either way it’s getting a grimace with how loud the wood hitting the wall is.
His flagrant disregard continues as he wanders over to the couch and drops his full weight onto it, one of their throw pillows tumbling to the floor. Despite taking up practically all the space, he lifts his arms expectantly. Maka promptly ignores that to head down the hallway instead.
“You’d do this to me? You’d do this to your partner?” She snorts at him calling after her, pausing just outside of her doorway to lean into his view again.
“Okay, Miette, we can watch a movie once I’m in comfy clothes. Unlike you, I’m not willing to crumple this dress and spend a stupid amount of money drycleaning it.”
“I can dryclean it.”
“You and what fancy washer?”
“The one I’ll buy exclusively for this.”
“Uh huh.” She doesn’t bother closing her door all the way. Something about missing what he’s saying by a single decibel irritates her more than not hearing him at all and he’s insufferably good at hitting that just-audible level. It’s whatever, though; there’s nothing either of them haven’t seen at this point and trying to yank off a fancy dress is just another commonality in their lives.
Her stockings meet the ground first and she stretches out her legs, letting her ankles pop as she settles her weight against her bed. On hand reaches up behind her and just barely misses the pull for the zipper-- the little plastic twists right out of her hands, too small to grab at any angle that counts as awkward.
She still puts in the effort to try, though. It’s just a zipper. One that is irritatingly good at escaping her grasp, but dammit, she has experience with these kinds of things and if she’s capable of swinging a scythe around for an hour, she can succeed in a few seconds with this.
As the seconds crawl into a minute, then more than a minute, then more than three, she finally admits defeat. Her wrist rolls to lessen the strain of the reach. Her voice raises only slightly; the apartment is devoid of any other sound, which means Soul might have already fallen asleep. If that’s the case, then poor him-- he should’ve known to get changed into pajamas anyways.
“Soul!”
“Mmm?”
“Stop wrinkling your jacket and help me out of this dress.”
“Maka. Think about the children! They’ll be depressed if they realize you were doomed by a satin monstrosity.”
Good to know him being tired doesn’t stop him from being a snarky asshole. If only that was the case. Briefly, her mind’s lost in a daydream where Soul doesn’t make inane comments when she asks him to do something, but the idea quickly feels all sorts of wrong; she’d think something was up with him if he ever decided to stop acting like that.
It’d be the same as if she stopped challenging everything in her way. The universe would have something fundamentally wrong with it.
Despite his complaint, he’s still at her door in less than a minute, jacket with a brand new crease in it from where it was pinned under him. His tie is a little loose but not quite off yet, despite the fact he’s been tugging it on and off for the last few hours.
She turns around. Like any helpful weapon, he finangles the too-small bit of plastic and frees her from the confines of a very pretty but unfortunately tight dress. One hand to keep it on and the other reaching out, she pushes his chest to convince him to leave her room again. Or, rather, “Go put on your comfy clothes.”
“You made me come all this way to order me around? What the fuck, Maka, I thought we had an understanding here. The understanding being: that’s so much work and I’m not doing it.”
“What, you want to lay around in your slacks?” Her eyebrow raises. The challenge in her tone makes him stop briefly, weight shifted back on his heels as he debates the merits of getting into things he can laze around in versus spiting her for the sake of it. Unsurprisingly, it’s a competition she wins, announced silently with him leaning down so she can properly undo his tie since somehow he always gets it knotted up despite having known how to properly tie one for years. It’s a little difficult one-handed, but not enough so that she minds. Once it’s loose, Soul’s sighing dramatically and turning heel to head to his own room.
Drama queen.
One kettle of water and a number of concerning thumping noises from beyond the shut door of Soul’s room later, they’re both set. It’s not very likely that either of them will be paying any actual attention to the movie they put on, Maka with her book and Soul with a phone to mess around on, but the background noise is nice and easy to keep at a volume that’s just perfect to make the house seem less ominous.
She pours two cups of tea and slogs an unreasonable amount of honey into one before they’re both picked up. Soul’s squatting in front of the TV, eyes raking across the selection they have, before he grabs one and holds it over his shoulder.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith. “This work?”
Maybe they will be watching it, actually. Something about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt having to navigate a marriage where they’re spies fighting against each other has always been a weird outlier to her usual preferences, but it’s captivating nonetheless, and it makes her nose wrinkle when she realizes it.
“You’re poisoning my good taste.”
“I’m helping your shit taste. It’s for your own good, you have to let go of whatever the hell you play so loud on your headphones anyways.”
Indignantly, she scoffs. “It’s not my fault you don’t like trance fusion! That’s not even what I was talking about.”
“It’s what we’re talking about now.” The disk slips into the DVD player and he stands up only enough that he can shamble over to the couch and collapse on it for the second time, leg swinging up to take up the remaining cushions.
“Not everyone likes classical music, Soul. Some people just find it boring.” He mutters a thanks as she hands off his mug, settling down on the couch so she can lean back on him. Briefly, she sits up again to grab her book in case she does end up wanting to read it, but she’s back in place moments later.
“Yeah, that’s definitely what it is. Uh huh. I’ll postpone all of my future performances so I don’t bore you, Maka.”
“That’d require you scheduling them in the first place.” He gives a short bark of laughter into his mug and takes a drink before it’s put on the floor beside them-- it’s useless to try to get him to put it on the table and it’s also more trouble than it's worth when they’re both comfortable, so she doesn’t argue against it. In fact, she does the same thing, quietly clinking her own on the ground.
“I’m a fan of what they call winging it. Do you have the remote?”
“That’s called being lazy. You didn’t grab it when you were up?”
Soul mutters a colorful array of expletives under his breath, squinting towards the TV. It’s obvious he doesn’t want to move under any circumstances, not when they’re already here, so he starts patting over the back of the couch with some dismal hope that it’s not stuck across the room. To his luck, there’s the thump of hard plastic against the wall before he fishes it out and looks down at Maka.
Maka raises her eyebrows.
“Okay, fine, don’t be happy for my miraculous save. Fuckin’ hell, why do I try.”
That gets a giggle out of her. A button click has the movie playing before the remote clatters on the coffee table.
While she drums her fingers against the cover of her book, Soul starts fixing her hair. Or unfixing it, as the case may be-- she used to do that by herself, taking Death knows how long in the bathroom trying to yank tangles that somehow appeared in the few hours her hair was up in anything other than pigtails, before Soul managed to somehow both complain and also coerce her into letting him do it, muttering something about I already put it up in the first place, might as well stop you from prematurely balding, you’re breaking all the damn combs in the house anyways. It’s the same poor defense he gives for anything he actually wants to do that doesn’t classify as ‘cool’, something she would rib him on more if she also didn’t like it.
It’s relaxing. A nice way to end the day after one too many people.
Conversation lags from there. They still comment on the movie on and off, unable to resist poking at some of the more obvious flaws (Maka) or stoutly defending the use of way too big explosions to prove a point (Soul). How he enjoys blow-’em-up action movies and yet complains any time she brings up music that he’d consider less than good (which is basically everything she listens to, the snob) is beyond her.
About two hours later, the credits are finally rolling. The book’s remained closed on her lap the entire time, more of an armrest than anything else. Soul passed out about half an hour ago, breathing evening out and quiet snores occasionally interrupting the chaos of shooting guns and breaking windows. It’s nearly enough to lull her to sleep too, but stubbornly she’s hung onto her consciousness to see the end of it through.
Black and white fills the screen. The light is a little eye-searing now from how much her eyelids have drifted closed, and content with watching it all again (though she probably should’ve abandoned it as soon as Soul passed out, but whatever), she shifts slightly to be a little more comfortable. No doubt that this is going to cause them both to have sore necks tomorrow, but it’s too comfy to resist-- and trying to escape Soul’s arms around her is much more trouble than it’s worth.
Music still playing as it slowly returns to the home screen, Maka closes her eyes and is out in a matter of seconds.
(“Why did you make me the pillow,” Soul laments the next morning-- afternoon, technically, since 12 has only just passed and he’s allergic to being conscious before then.
“Did you think I was going to carry you to your room? Get real, Soul.”
She does a very poor job of muffling her laughter when he finally sits up and leans far enough to see her in the kitchen. His hair’s a mess, sticking up more places than it usually does, and his eyes keep closing of their own volition. Looks like his battery still isn’t fully charged yet, but he’s always been a slow waker anyways.
“Just transform me into a scythe next time.”
“Sure, I’ll just pick that ability up.”
“Learn how, bookworm.”
“How about I leave you in the closet, then? You know, where weapons are usually stored.”
One hand rests on his neck as he tries to telepathically force the kink out of it, other coming up in a tired surrender. “Thank you, my wonderful meister to whom I owe my life and incredible neck pain to. Did you start the coffee?”
“I’m not giving you any with that attitude.”
“Maka.”)