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At first, he’s not even conscious.
He just sleeps and sleeps—sleeps when they drug him to sleep and sleeps even when his body isn’t under influence of narcotics being pumped into him. He can’t move around, anyway, so sleeping is probably the best way to go, least he bitch and moan about being bored and having to stare at the ceiling.
Maka remembers this much, because every time she picks up Death of a Salesman, she remembers sitting at his bedside, the warmth of the sun coming in from the window hitting her lap as she sits next to Soul’s bed, looking away every few lines to either watch his chest move in awkward twitches as he breathes or to look off at the wall to hold back the burning of tears that threatens to overtake her.
She cries often when he sleeps.
.
Soon, he tries to stay awake when she’s sitting with him, trying to interact, not getting much from it when he can’t exactly sit up or really move his arms or do much of anything but talk, and even that gets difficult after awhile—the split down his chest makes his everything hurt, even drugged up, he can feel the stitches, and they’re stiff, not-skin, that make him feel awkward in his own flesh.
Maka watches him sigh, cringe, feel at his chest, grimace, and then turn to continue a conversation with her, because he’s got a point to prove with the whole “it’s not your fault, it’s mine” thing that she can’t bring herself to believe; the proof that she fucked up is lying right before her, trying to get her to do more than give him sympathetic smiles and offer to do whatever she can to make him feel a little more comfortable. It makes him angry, but he can’t snap at her—when he does, only because he’s angry with himself more often than her in actuality, she ends up crying.
(Even when he doesn’t, she still ends up crying. He hears her when she thinks he’s resting. It makes him feel sick.)
She remembers these afternoons every time she even so glances at her very worn copy of Les Miserables, a book that already brings her to tears, and the fact she associates it with the days she watched her weapon too battered to even sit up in bed is enough to make her sob until she feels ill.
.
Eventually, Soul can sit up. He eats everything he’s brought (because he’s given up on the “I’m not pissing in a bedpan” thing long ago; he still refuses to go when she’s there, because it’s “rude”) and seems mostly alright. He jabs jokes at her, nothing referring to small breasts and her wit, but simple things, things that actually make her chuckle and make him smile in reply to the sound.
He’s different, though—the scar changes him. Not in a bad way, she supposes, but it’s there, she sees it. In his eyes, the way he has bags there, not from lack of sleep, but from something far more deep, something that won’t go away with a full night’s rest.
(Little does she know, what she sees is fear, the kind that laces deep into the soul, that weaves its threads into one’s being, shapes who they are. He fears a reprieve, another risk of losing her. He fears what will happen if he exchanges his life for hers, not because he is afraid of death, but because she is. Not because she fears her own death, but because she fears his.)
They talk the entirety of the afternoon and Maka leaves each evening when she’s shooed out, always asking if Soul wants her to get something for him on her way out. In his time away from home, he only asks for his iPod and sometimes paper, always making sure to tell her “but it’s alright if you don’t” because he doesn’t actually need those things, they’re just nice to have for when he’s stuck staring at the parlor walls, when she’s gone.
Maka remembers these days by her copy of Mercy, swallowing hard as she identifies with the guilt the book seems centered around, and how accurately it reflects herself every time she has to watch her partner itch at his chest while telling her about something she’s not particularly listening to, and know that her own mistake will be etched into his being for the rest of his life. It is a heavy burden to carry.
.
When he returns home, he smells strange, like foreign sheets and the academy, but she hugs him anyway, and tells him an awful lie when she gets choked up—the last time she hugged him, he was limp in her lap, his blood on her coat and skirt, running into her knees and staining her hands and her hair. She quickly thinks that smelling like sheets and school is much better than the scent of blood loss and stagnant candles.
Life goes back to normal, except there’s a gouge in her partner that makes her feel nauseous every time she sees Soul changing his shirt or stepping out of the shower, and there’s a guilt in her soul that makes her re-evaluate her choices in being a meister. Every word she hears from other students about her mistakes, her weapon, her depression about the matter, makes her sink a little more, makes her ache.
She’s not sure how to handle feeling so guilty.
She dreams of losing him, of Professor Stein telling her he’s already lost, and instead of pulling his coat on top of him for comfort, he pulls it on top of him like a sheet, over his head, to signify her loss. She dreams of her taking the blow, of dying for him, and spends the rest of those dreams in nothing but darkness. She dreams of Soul screaming—
Wait, no, that’s actually happening.
She leaps out of bed, slips and falls in the hallway, scrambles up and slides to Soul’s doorway; she’s never thought of what to do if he were attacked, it wasn’t ever a concern of hers but—
He stops, looks at her, looks at her like a child afraid of a scolding, drops back down into his pillows, and mumbles for her to go away, he’s fine, really. He’s already rolled over, pulled the blankets over him and has become nothing more than a lump in the darkness.
Her guilt strangles hold of her, marching her up to his bedside and sits her down on his mattress, yanking her arms dumbly around him and hugging him in a way that can only be defined as angry; guilt is what lets weeks of tears streak her cheeks and wet his shoulder, it’s what seizes her voice and chokes out how scared she is, was, will be for him, because she’s ruined him and he’s ruined her and they’re never going to sleep well again at this rate, she wants to sleep a night so badly where she doesn’t see terrible things that make her question her subconscious morals.
She is surprised to feel Soul hold her, pull his arms around her and offer her a snug spot with him under his sheets. He tugs the blankets over their heads, pulls her close so that her head rests under his chin, and tells her in a million ways that he’s sorry, that the choice to jump was his and he took it to save her this very problem, but he’s bad at thinking things through and that he’s, again, very, very, sorry.
And it’s not awkward to lie with him, it’s stunning relief that he’s even here at home, in his room and breathing right here beside her. She kisses him, because it’s really the only action she thinks is suitable to the situation, and kisses him over and over, at his chest, at his heart, at anywhere. She’s not kissing for lust, she’s kissing for her elation and her love for him and her apologies for marring him with her carelessness.
“I’m sorry,” she tells him, until her voice is gone and all she can do is cry, and after she’s cried all her tears, Soul takes her hand and guides it up warped scar tissue, from his right hip to his left shoulder, but she keeps her hand on his heart—not because of the love, but because he was that close to death. An inch deeper and, she doesn’t want to think.
She tells him she’ll protect him next time. Soul tells her to stop being stupid, tucks his arms around her and hugs her close, hums that he’s tired and really, just wants to get back to bed, she needs to leave if she doesn’t want to sleep here with him or she’s going to end up being trapped. Maka decides the solid mass of his breathing being is enough to keep her subconscious from plaguing her, and tells him she’ll stay, laying beside him quietly. She feels awkward lying next to him and not really touching him, but Soul ends up tangling their fingers together, turning towards her and falls asleep.
She feels his pulse in his wrist against her arm, and decides that she’s the stupidest of them all, because him surviving this is proof that she needs to get stronger, needs to protect him.
Maka dreams of standing alone on a stage—her own act.