Chapter Text
“Just get the room open,” Soul hissed at Ox, “we don’t have time for this.”
“Maka needs her own room. It’s against protocol, and—”
“Protocol? I literally live with her! Just open the door. You’re making a scene,” He fumed, shifting Maka’s weight in his arms. She was cradled against his chest, bloodied, battered, and more than a little dazed.
When Ox continued to stand in front of the hotel door, neglecting to open it, Soul turned his glare on Harvar.
“Talk to your Meister before I punch his face in,” He demanded. Harvar glared back, his stupid glasses long gone, buried somewhere in the aftermath of their battle.
He shifted Maka’s weight again, and she groaned, causing his heart to palpitate. For fuck sake, he didn’t want to pull rank on these assholes, but he wasn’t above it!
“It’s not like she can bandage herself!” He pleaded, shooting her a worried look. Blood caked one side of her head, and while he knew head wounds purposefully bled more, it was making him lightheaded. Coupled with the beating the rest of her face had taken, he was close to a nervous breakdown. And that was without considering the odd angle her right ankle was hanging.
“We should be taking her to a hospital!” Ox snapped back, “This is ridiculous!”
“Wow! A hospital! How come I didn’t think of that—oh wait! Because there are no hospitals! Did you see a hospital? Cause I sure didn’t! And it’s not like we can drive to one! Because someone fried the damn battery!”
They had been lucky enough to find a hotel if it could even be called that. It was more like a motel, but shittier, located next to the mechanic that would hopefully be open tomorrow morning, so they could get their DWMA-leased car to work again. They had pulled into the parking lot literally on their last wheel, with poor Maka in the back wheezing the whole ride down.
And, wait, did the wheezing mean she had a broken rib?
He felt cold sweat slip down his neck as he paled.
Yeah, he was definitely close to hyperventilating.
Of course, none of them would have been in this shitty situation if they had just listened to him in the first place. He hadn’t wanted to take this joint mission with Ox and Harvar, not because of the company (though it was quickly becoming “because of the company”), but because after everything they had been through, a D-rank mission had a certain “below them” quality to it. But, unfortunately, Ox and Maka couldn’t let go of their pissing competition for more than five minutes to figure that out for themselves or listen to reason, and fucking Harvar was as unhelpful as ever in that regard.
In the end, though, they had all been wrong. Neither Ox’s nor Maka’s “superior intellect” had broken any supposed DWMA D-rank records, and Soul had extremely misjudged the difficulty of the assigned task. If Soul hadn’t already had his suspicions that Kid reshuffled the assignments so each rank would have an equal and even number of missions to complete, which was, evidently, how a D-rank mission could become a B-rank without warning, he’d also think this meant the new Death Lord had extremely misjudged the difficulty of the assigned task. But really, this just confirmed his (and Liz’s) suspicions that Kid was skipping out on his anxiety medication. Again.
“Ox,” Harvar eventually sighed, pushing his not-there glasses up his nose, “he’s right, she’s not well, and we don’t have enough money to afford the mechanic and another room. I believe the front desk attendant knows we’re—” He paused, “—unfortunately desperate and skewed the prices.”
“What’s the big deal anyway?” Soul huffed.
“She’s a girl,” Ox whined like he was still twelve, and they were all still stuck in the single-sex dorms at DWMA. He had bitched about it when Maka would sneak in before they moved off-campus together. “It’s inappropriate.”
“And we wonder why you haven’t gotten laid yet.” He deadpanned, clutching Maka closer to him, who had begun to shiver.
Ox’s cheeks flooded with color, “H-hey, I—” He straightened, “—I won’t stand for that! I have to!”
Of course, he hadn’t. They wouldn’t have heard the end of it if he had. And by “they,” Soul meant the “boys-only” group chat Ox had explicitly created so he could bitch about Kim without Kim finding out. He was probably the only one who actually used it.
Soul felt his shoulders slump as exhaustion rolled through him, but he kept a tight grip on Maka.
It had been a long two days of driving, roughing it in the woods, fighting for their lives, and now, this, with Maka hurt and him feeling useless, crummy, and anxious beyond belief. He hated—absolutely loathed—Maka getting hurt. It physically made him nauseous. DWMA nurses told him he was a casebook study of Couvade Syndrome, which was better known as sympathetic pregnancy to ordinary people, and commonly found in meister-weapon relationships on account of the soul-bond, of which his and Maka’s was very strong for obvious, black-blood related reasons.
“Just open the door, please,” He begged, letting his eyes fall shut.
Maybe they could hear the desperation in his voice because, after a short pause, the door clicked open. He didn’t wait for grand gestures as he breezed past them, gingerly putting Maka down on the closest of the two full-sized beds. If she were more coherent, she would have been beyond pissed. She never laid down on a strange bed without first checking for bed bugs, but Soul was well past the patience needed for that.
He began unlacing her combat boots as Ox and Harvar sat their things down on the other bed. They had a ridiculous amount of luggage, most of which held Ox’s copious amount of hair products. On the other hand, Maka and Soul’s stuff was all contained in one duffle bag currently strapped to his back. They preferred traveling light with nothing valuable just in case they were whisked away to, hell, the moon? It had happened before, and the moment they thought it wouldn’t happen again, it was sure to happen again. His favorite headband was still up there, sad, lost, and alone.
Or, well, alone wasn’t the right word, but whatever.
Regardless, Ox and Harvar didn’t seem to care about Murphy’s Law. It was frustrating and so different from how he and Maka operated as a team. The two other boys were so smart, but they didn’t share even a single brain cell when it came to common sense. How they had made it this far in the DWMA program was beyond Soul, but he had other things to worry about—Maka-related things.
“That fucker got a good swipe at her back. I’m going to have to clean the cut. Maybe do stitches?” He shook his head, “I dunno. I need to get her cleaned off. It shouldn’t take long.”
He scoped her back into his arms and, for a split second, marveled at how light she was for someone who could pack such a punch.
“You’re going to the bathroom?” Ox asked, mouth falling open.
Soul scowled, “I’m sorry did you want to go first?”
Ox had enough grace to look offended, “Of course not! I—it’s just, well, you’re going in there with her?”
He looked down at Maka, cradled snuggly in his arms, half-mumbling, half-moaning, “Uh, duh? She’s half-conscious?”
“Should we—” Ox shared a look with Harvar, “—uh, come supervise?”
Soul blinked, “I’m sorry?”
“Well, you know, for dignity’s sake.”
He stared at Ox and Harvar for a full minute, trying to figure out what they meant when it hit him square in the face, and whatever ill-boding feeling he had developed for them over the last two days did a seemingly impossible speedrun into hatred.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” He asked, knowing full well what the fuck that was supposed to mean. His blood boiled as his grip on Maka tightened, turning her slightly away to obscure their view of her.
In a pacifying motion, Ox threw up his hands, “It’s not that we don’t trust you, Soul. It’s just that she’s half-unconscious like you said,” he emphasized, “and we don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea. I’m just trying to take Maka’s best interest into account.”
He was beyond offended, literally dumbfounded.
“Right,” He sneered, turning towards the shitty motel bathroom, “makes total sense, three guys watching her bathe as opposed to one, got it. That’s so much better.” He bared his teeth, pushing the door open with his shoulder, “Do me a favor, Ox, and go fuck yourself, okay? Maka’s my meister. There’s nothing about her I haven’t seen before.”
And with that, he let the door slam close behind him.
He stood there momentarily, huffing and puffing until she gurgled a half-attempted word. It was the total gibberish of a half-conscious person, but it stopped the red and black haze threatening to take over his mind. Then, gently, he set her down on the dirty tile floor and examined the sorry state of the bathtub. He crinkled his nose in distaste.
Looking around, he noticed the whole bathroom was just as grimy. Colonies of Silverfish bugs crawled in and out of all three drains, one for the sink, one for the bathtub, and a mysterious third one in the center of the room.
He mumbled obscenities to himself as he set up a measly washing station and decided not to put Maka in the tub. Instead, he sat her on the lip, balancing her as best he could with his limited resources.
His actions were mechanical as he undressed her, leaving her underwear on for now but removing her sports bra. Then, carefully, he examined her, noting the various wounds and taking special care of the angrier-looking cuts and scratches. He had been right, her head bleed wasn’t as serious as it looked, but the scratches on her back were deep. Luckily, he didn’t think they would need stitches, which was good as the bathroom clearly wasn’t sterile, but she wouldn’t like it when he disinfected them.
His anger faded as he fell into his work, thinking nothing of her nakedness. After years of fixing Maka up after fights, he was used to her naked body in the most platonic way possible, like she was with his. It was a part of the partnership that every weapon and meister formed, same-sex and co-ed. Because who else was going to stitch you up when there were no doctors around?
Obviously, Ox and Harvar didn’t understand co-ed partnerships were exactly the same as same-sex ones because those two were a same-sex partnership, and worse, they were both totally guys about it. Chicks seemed to get it more than the guys ever did. Guys all had this same preconceived notion about co-ed partners that non-meisters and non-weapons had, which always boiled down to the same stupid question without fail: “Are you two hooking up?”
Soul didn’t understand why same-sex partners weren’t drilled about the same thing. He had seen Kim and Jackie in way more provocative situations than he and Maka had ever been, seemingly on purpose, but no, nope! Soul was the degenerate for helping his meister!
It was fucking ridiculous.
Rolling his eyes, he brushed hair from Maka’s face and returned to the task at hand. There was a nasty lump on her forehead that would have given even Black*Star a concussion, a big ugly bruise wrapping around the left side of her chest and waist, and a twisted ankle so swollen she couldn’t possibly get her boot back on around it.
“Oh, Maka,” He let out a heavy sigh, leaning over to turn on the bath faucet, “you gotta stop doing this to yourself.”
The faucet sputtered to life. The water that came out was hardly lukewarm but, thankfully, clean-looking. Grabbing a spare washcloth from their pack, Soul cleaned the muck and grime off her, wincing in sympathy when she did, even at the lightest of touches.
“I know,” He comforted, “I’m sorry. I’m almost done.”
“Soul?” Her eyes blinked open blearily.
“I’m here.”
She sighed, “My head hurts.”
“I know. We’ll get to that in a second, okay? Gotta get the blood off.”
“I’m tired.”
“Just a little longer.”
She groaned and then whined, “I’ve gotta pee.”
He snorted, cracking a smile for the first time that night, “Okay, hold on. Do you think you can manage wiping your own ass?”
She scoffed as much as she could, “Yes.”
“Then clean yourself first—” He gestured to her bottom half, “—while I get your clothes ready. Then, bathroom, I promise. Just keep holding on to me.”
“I won’t let go.”
Her words rang clear and sober, and his heart skipped a miserable beat.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The whole bathing charade couldn’t have lasted more than fifteen to twenty minutes before Soul was helping Maka hobble out the door. Despite the colder weather outside, she was in a fresh set of pajamas consisting of an oversized shirt and a pair of shorts.
“It’s yours,” he said gruffly to Ox and Harvar. “Don’t worry. Dignity still intact.”
“What?” Maka stared at him.
“Don’t worry about it,” He shook his head, glaring at Ox as he entered the bathroom.
“Are you feeling better, Maka?” Ox pushed his glasses up his nose.
“Hardly.” She sighed, “But don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”
“Of course,” He nodded, closing the door.
“And how about you? Are you okay, Harvar?” She asked, staring at the other weapon setting up a makeshift bed with the room’s two armchairs.
“Yes.”
This was a standard, flippant Harvar response, but Maka’s eyebrows still furrowed together in confusion.
“What’s their problem?” She whispered, but he shook his head.
“Come on, time for bed. Lay down.”
She looked at the bed with disgust, “Did you check it for—”
“Maka, bed.” He gently pushed her down, “Here—” He pulled out his spare sleep shirt and wrapped her pillow in it “—just lay on top. You don’t have to get under the blankets.”
“That makes it not better.”
“We really don’t have a choice.” He rooted around their duffle bag for his hoodie and passed it over to her, worried she’d get too cold in the middle of the night without a cover of some sort.
“It’s yours,” she protested. “I already have your—”
“Just take it,” he said, exasperated. Couldn’t people just do what he wanted without arguing?
“Should we flip a coin for it?” Harvar spoke up suddenly, and he and Maka turned to look at the boy.
“What now?” Soul asked, reaching the end of his patience.
Harvar gestured to the makeshift bed, “Maka, of course, will have a bed, and Ox too since they did the physical stuff. It’s only fair, after all. But me and you, one of us gets the floor, and the other gets the chairs.”
“Oh no,” Maka shook her head, “you don’t have to do that. The beds are big enough, Harvar. Me and Ox can share them with you guys.”
A hard look passed over Harvar’s face, “That’s hardly appropriate.”
“What do you—”
“Holy shit,” Soul seethed, interrupting Maka’s question, “fuck off with the appropriate bullshit. I’ll share the bed with Maka; you can be weird and have armchairs. I don’t care! Literally, no one cares! I’m not going to—” He sputtered, looking for the right word, “—to defile her, so quit the hero act! Now! Good! Night!”
Still covered in his own healthy layer of muck and grime, he flopped onto his and Maka’s bed with his back turned toward Harvar. And then, after a second, pulled Maka down with him to make a show of how normal and totally not weird it was, ignoring the way she hissed, “Be careful, idiot!”
Soul glared at the wall closest to Maka, shielding her from the view of the other bed. Then, fidgeted, sat up, and pulled the shirt he was wearing off by the collar before plopping down again.
“What’s going on?” Maka whispered, touching his cheek to get his attention, “Did you three fight? I…I can’t remember much.”
His anger dissipated slightly at the worry wrinkling her forehead. He grabbed the hand on his face and felt some relief flood into his shoulders. It was good that Maka was well enough to be doing Maka-things, like worrying about other peoples’ feelings while she was falling apart. It made him worry less, though her memory issues were still concerning.
“Sort of,” He whispered back, “but it doesn’t matter. Just go to bed. We can talk about it later. Alone.”
She nodded, letting her hand drop from his face as her eyelids started to droop. “Hum me to sleep?” She asked.
“Maka,” He groaned again, hyperaware they weren’t alone.
“Please?” She peeked open one eye, “I’m so skeeved out by this bed right now. I’ll never sleep at this rate.”
“That’s a lie. You’re falling asleep as we speak.”
The edges of her mouth quirked up. “Please,” she asked again, anyway.
Now, here, if he were Ox or Harvar, is where he would have started to worry about the state of his and Maka’s dignity. It wasn’t the nakedness, or the shared bed, or their general touchy-feely bullshit, though Soul was smart enough to understand what those may have looked like to an outsider.
But the music?
Someday, it was going to give him away. Someday, someone who wasn’t so tone-death was going to look at him and call him out on all his bullshit.
Still, because she had asked, he hummed, falling asleep with her tangled up in his arms.
Platonically, of course.
--------------------------------------------------------------
A throat was cleared, once, twice, then, “Soul.”
“Eh,” He groaned, nuzzling further into his pillow. His body ached with fatigue and he couldn’t find it in himself to care about whatever the ominous voice wanted him to care about, “’ive more m’nutes.”
“The mechanic’s open. Wake up.” A blanket was ripped off of him, and he shrunk into a ball, screwing his eyes shut as he patted around the bed for the lost source of comfort.
“H—ey,” He whined, “no.”
“Soul!” Maka shoved him off of her, “Let go of me! And wake up!”
He landed hard on the motel’s floor, eyes flying open as his brain worked overtime to orient him in time and space.
“Hey!” He cried when he realized what had just transpired, “What’s the big idea! I was sleeping.”
“You need to be waking,” Maka hissed back, rubbing her arms.
He blinked, angry and then worried, watching her rub her arms. A collage of purple and yellow bruises littered them, which was confusing until yesterday hit him like a sack of bricks.
He sat up straighter, remembering that he wasn’t home safe and sound in the comfort of his own bed.
“How are you feeling?” He asked her, scrambling to his feet.
She huffed, rolling her eyes as he fussed around her.
“Worse has happened, Soul,” She allowed him to prop her swollen ankle up on the pillow he had been using, “just go with Harvar, okay? He’s been—” She waved towards the other weapon, who Soul finally noticed at the end of their bed, watching, “—staring.”
“You’re still a heavy sleeper,” Harvar sniffed, walking out, “The mechanics open. I’ll meet you in the hobby.”
“Uh, yeah, okay.” Soul nodded, then looked at Maka, who shrugged.
“He woke me up while he was trying to wake you up. I don’t know how you didn’t feel it,” She whispered, referring to the weight of Harvar’s notorious stare, “seriously, what is their deal?”
Soul thought momentarily about how he had held Maka while he slept, and something warm stirred in his gut.
“I think we are,” He muttered to himself, pulling on a clean shirt.
“What?” She leaned in, “I couldn’t—”
“Excuse me,” Ox said from the other bed, sitting up on his elbows to glare at them—or well, that was likely his intent because the plush, pink sleeping mask he was wearing obscured the gesture, but it rang loud and clear in his tone, “some of us are trying to sleep.”
Soul glared back before turning back to Maka, “Are you okay? I’ll see if I can rustle up some coffee.”
Her face fell and Soul ached with her.
“Pain killers?” She finally asked, “I think I only packed my migraine stuff.”
“Right, no problem.” He patted his back pockets, checking for his wallet, “Need help going to the—”
“Still trying to sleep!” Ox snapped, making a show of tossing and turning, then beating his pillows back to plump.
“Just go,” she said through gritted teeth, giving Ox a crossed look, “obviously—” She chucked one of the pillows she had behind her back at the other bed, “—sleeping beauty here can’t be disturbed even though this is all his fault.”
“Excuse me!” Ox sputtered, sitting up, arguing with his eye mask still on, “My fault!”
“You heard me, Poindexter!” She argued, “Your fault!”
“I’m not the one who charged in head first without a plan!”
“I had a plan, asshole! You didn’t want to listen to it!”
“You weren’t being reasonable!”
“You fried the car!”
Soul was out the door before things could turn violent.
----------------------------------------------------------------
“Sorry, they were fighting.” Soul offered to Harvar as an explanation for his obvious tardiness when he finally made it down to the lobby.
Harvar didn’t respond. He simply turned on his heels and made for the door to the sad, rundown parking lot.
The walk to the mechanic was silent, which wasn’t unexpected. Neither of them was the type to initiate conversation.
“Are you two close?” He remembered Maka had asked a long time ago when they first partnered up. “You’re pretty similar, you know, in some ways, mannerism-wise.”
He had found the comparison largely offensive and told her so over the sound of her laughing.
Harvar had been his roommate the first year he had been at DWMA. While Harvar had already been at the school for two years prior to Soul attending, they had been paired together based on their NOT year courses, not seniority. So while it had technically been Soul’s first year at the school, in his NOT courses, he had been a seventh year, and up until he met Maka, he figured he would be staying in the NOT courses, but no way in hell did that mean he wanted to stay Harvar’s roommate.
On paper, Harvar was a fine roommate, Soul supposed. He was quiet, kept to himself, and neat about things, but Soul instantly preferred Kilik, their suitemate and Ox’s original roommate. Harvar had always been too cold. Not cool. And boring. And intense about it. He had a pension for ratting Soul out whenever he broke a rule, which, yeah, included sneaking Maka into their boys-only dorm, among a few other, more incriminating stunts, and he cared way too much about schoolwork. Sure, Maka was also intense about it, but she liked school in a cute nerdy way. Harvar (and Ox) took it to an unlikable extreme.
So, yes, while Harvar was maybe quiet like Soul, and they had been fine together as roommates and worked together as part of the Spartoi, that was all he has was to Soul. His first-year roommate.
“You know I’ll have to inform Lord Death, correct?” Harvar spoke suddenly.
Soul stared at him, surprised he had spoken. They were now waiting for the mechanic to look over the car. Soul had been elected to attend the appointment because he knew a few things about cars. Harvar had volunteered to attend because he probably thought Soul was incompetent.
“About what?” He drawled out, “The fight? The car? The incorrect assignment rating? I’m pretty sure Maka can cover chewing Kid out for all of us.”
“Lord Death,” Harvar corrected, and Soul did his best not to roll his eyes. He’d be long dead before he addressed Kid by his fucking title. Black-Moon-Last-Death-Scythe-One-of-His-Best-Friends privilege and all that.
“And no, I mean about yours and Maka’s relationship.”
“And what about our relationship would you be reporting? The part where I didn’t let her bleed out?”
“You still think of her as your meister.”
He made a move to argue that she was, in fact, obviously, still his meister but immediately clamped his mouth shut because Harvar was right. Maka wasn’t actually his meister anymore. He was a Death Scythe. He was Kid’s, but that was a load of bullshit, in his opinion. All of Kid’s directives had paired Soul with Maka, and that was normal. Usually, the meister who created the death scythe continued to work with said scythe. He honestly didn’t think Kid would make a habit of pairing him with someone else, all things considering. Sure, there would be times when they would be called apart, but Maka would always be one of Kid’s top agents, Soul had no doubt about that, so “apart” for them would never be too long.
And despite what Maka’s old man claimed, Soul wasn’t gunning to be Kid’s right-hand man. Spirit’s real competition was Liz and Patty, who were technically Death Scythes just by virtue of being Kid’s first chosen weapons, and no way would Spirit come out on top against those two. Soul didn’t think the old Scythe would be reassigned, but he knew where Kid’s preferences lay.
Regardless, he didn’t appreciate being threatened. Obviously, Harvar’s issue with him wasn’t the same trivial technicalities Spirit worried about. To Harvar, Soul had broken a rule every death weapon knew when they were told about the “wonders” of becoming a Death Scythe. In some way, you gave up your idea of meister. You no longer got to choose who wielded you; you were Death’s and Death’s alone, a title worth the sacrifice of choice.
Harvar had been one of those death weapons who had wanted to make that sacrifice before Kid had gone and changed the rules. Soul had been one of those weapons, too, at first. Definitely, before black blood had changed everything and Maka had become too important to lose.
There had been a time when he couldn’t fathom why some weapons had no desire to be Death Scythes. He understood now, a little too late.
And Harvar, the preceptive piece of shit, had caught on to that.
He swallowed his panic, fighting to keep it off his face. On the off-chance Harvar wasn’t bluffing, Soul didn’t know what Kid would do when he found out, but for propriety’s sake, he’d probably have to do a few missions sans Maka, and the dependency problems he was avoiding screamed at the very idea.
“Sure, Harvar, and don’t forget to tell him the part where you wouldn’t let us into the hotel room and then wanted to watch her bathe. I bet he’d love to hear that, especially with Liz and Pat right there next to him. Hey,” He turned to stare at the other boy, “FYI, those three have shared a bed before, too, so don’t forget to mention how inappropriate you think that is, okay? They’d get a good laugh out of it.”
Harvar didn’t reply, and nothing else was said between them. When they returned to the hotel, Maka and Ox weren’t speaking either. To say the least, the ride home was long and awkward.