With shaking hands, Maka clutches the beaded bracelet to her chest.

"Dude," comes Black*Star's voice from behind her. She doesn't turn, but hears his electronic music buzz down to a more reasonable hum as his bedroom door swings shut behind him. "Dude," he says again, "what's with all of the screaming? I didn't ask you to come pick him up because I wanted a front-row seat to some shitty mid-afternoon soap opera-"

Slowly, mindlessly, she turns to face him. She's still processing everything and doesn't have the words to properly explain what that mid-afternoon soap opera was all about, but when he catches a glance of Soul's signature beaded bracelet in her hands, he shuts up. Well, Maka supposes that makes some sort of sense; she'd always thought it was just his favorite accessory, not unlike the way she always wears her mother's wedding ring, but it's clear now that it's a little more important to him than just for the sake of fashion.

She can't blink. Every time she closes her eyes she can still see him, his fleeing back, bones splintering, spine elongated to an inhuman length.

Black*Star doesn't say anything for a while. His music doesn't even fall on her radar anymore. It's like she's in a dream she can't wake up from. Everything she's known as real has been effectively turned upside down so many times in the past few months, and this- this is just the icing on the cake.

Maybe it's a joke. Maybe this whole thing is just one big joke and the universe is fucking with her now. Soul's secretly fantastic at quick changes and he's just hiding at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for her to rush after him like she always does and then he'll try to catch her by surprise and sweep her off her feet. Spin her around, even.

…But it's not a joke. He's upset with her. Scared of her. And… and he doesn't even like her that much anyway. Why would he hold her like some sort of boyfriend eagerly awaiting his partner? They're not together. They've never been together. They've just… been friends, of sorts? She thinks?

At least she'd thought they were friends. Maybe, for a moment there, she'd thought they'd been closer.

Maka swallows.

"... He didn't tell you, did he." It's not a question. Maka doesn't pretend like she's going to answer anyway and Star doesn't wait for her resulting shrug. "Christ. And he left the bracelet, too."

The bracelet. How was she supposed to know it held such significance? It's just a string of black and red beads. The damn thing looks like it's straight out of Hot Topic! And okay, it looks well loved, and certainly looks worn, but that doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Soul is effectively homeless. Most of the rips in his jeans probably weren't even there when he purchased them heaven knows how long ago.

She could barf. "He needs this to go back to normal, doesn't he?"

"That's kind of Soul's normal," Black*Star admits, slapping a heavy hand onto her shoulder. If Maka was feeling more like herself, she'd slap him away and demand more answers, but it's still so much to take in, the monstrous shape of Soul's fleeing back, and she's not really sure she's not going to get sick this time. "The cat's… different."

"Different," she says, blankly.

"The bracelet lets the dude maintain a human form." Black*Star pats her shoulder, then, and swings around to take a seat on the arm of his couch. He slouches, looking up at her, eyes squinting from beneath the brim of his baseball cap. "It's been a long time since I've seen him without it, though. Soul's a lazy bag of bones but he's usually really good about keeping other hands off of his bling."

It's not bling at all. It's not fancy, not glittering or gold. It's something so normal, so disturbingly mundane. How can a single string of painted beads hold Soul's humanity?

"... Where will he go now?"

Black*Star snorts and shakes his head. "Hell if I know. He'll never change back if he doesn't have that bracelet, but there's no way in hell he'll come back here if he knows you have it. He's probably too big of a pussy to face you."

She's too drained to even scold him. "To face me?"

Star laughs, now, but it's got nothing behind it. Like he's only going through the motions of his boisterous energy without really committing to it.

"He likes you, stupid." He says it so easily, so simply. "Bro probably thought he could play it off like he wasn't all demonic and shit if he never told you about it, you know? 'Sides. He's so fucking dense he didn't think you'd ever care enough to find out. Dude probably thinks you have the hots for Kid or something."

Something in her stomach twists, tight and hot. It's stifling, whatever it is, and for a moment, Maka can only stare, beads clutched to her chest as the twisting knots itself there, uncomfortably so. "The hots for Kid," she splutters. "Why would he think that?"

"Uuuuuuh, cuz you spend all your time with him?" He's got one brow arched at her and Maka wants to punch that stupid know-it-all look off of his face. "You're just as dense as he is, girl."

Irrelevant! All irrelevant. Besides. "He likes me?"

"I am not going to sit here and play love guru. I have better things to do. Bigger weights to lift." He stands, then, and plants his hands on her shoulders once more. Black*Star looks her right in the eye and shakes her, not so gently. "Look. Soul's my best bro, but I'm not going to fight this fight for him. The cat is still the cat in the end. All you need to know is that whatever you saw before he rushed outta here is what his true form is, okay? That's what you're dealing with."

What she's dealing with. For someone who apparently loves his best friend, it's such a clinical way to explain it. Even beneath those grotesque ridges of his spine still resides a heart. A soul, even. The same Soul who'd looked at her with understanding eyes and offered her companionship, even when he didn't exactly know what that meant.

The knots in her stomach lace together, now. She thinks she might be crying as she shoves her way out of Black*Star's grasp and begins rushing down the stairs and after her stray again. Probably crying, she realizes as she scrubs at her face - but it's raining again and it doesn't matter if she is, anyway. Who's going to tell?

.

It starts to get dark at 7:30.

Staying out late at night was such a big no-no in Mama's books. Curfew was always sunset, and she'd stand waiting on the front porch, expectantly watching her daughter climb up the steps and set her school bag on the kitchen table, ready to do homework.

So much has changed in such a short amount of time. She doesn't really have a curfew anymore, she thinks, tugging her damp hood further down her forehead. There's someone waiting up for her at home but it's not a parental figure - it's Kid, and he's probably worried sick, pacing the kitchen and staring at his phone. But this is her life now. Pretty-eyed boys waiting up for her and running around in the mid-October rain looking for her cat boy.

Cats have a reputation for hating water, too. He's probably miserable.

… Well. He's probably miserable for more reasons than just that.

She's been doing this for an hour now and Maka feels no closer to finding him than she had when she'd started. It's not like she has any idea where to start looking, either; Soul is a creature of habit, even when he doesn't really have any one specific place to call home and lurks around the same four places on a day to day basis. He spends his days at school, his nights on her roof or in her room, and on the days when she goes to work at night, he either waits up to walk her home or loiters around local music shops.

He can't expect to hide from her in her own bedroom, so that option is out. Soul never goes to school of his own accord, and there's no real reason for him to be hanging out at her ice cream parlor when she's not around - Mifune would've definitely kicked him out by now for taking up space without buying anything - and she's checked every last music shop on this side of town twice, now. She's out of options and ideas.

Maka groans and rubs her face. If she stays out in the rain much longer she's definitely going to catch a cold.

She feels soaked to the bone. Like a drowned rat. The last time she'd felt this way was during her tent days, on a particularly bad rainstorm. The fabric of her tent had barely held up, and Maka had frantically rushed out of her makeshift home to collect her laundry from the clothesline before everything had gotten too drenched.

It seems like forever ago. Another lifetime. Realistically, it's only been a few months. She'd been homeless once, too.

… Hm.

.

It takes some searching, but Maka's little slice of forest is right where she remembers it.

Somehow, her tent still stands, despite everything. Come rain, come shine, come Maka literally not being around to drive the pegs in the ground down again, there it stands, another ghost of her past. Another life Maka had once lived, not too long ago.

She remembers that girl still. Headstrong, determined. Prepared to do whatever it took to get through high school in one piece and undiscovered by the adultier adults around her. What a different life it'd been, without running water, or a solid place to call home. She'd had to do homework by flashlight - or candle light, on some days, when she'd forgotten to budget a restock of double A batteries.

There's no lack of water now, though. It's pouring rain, and Maka squints into the clearing; it's different, out here in the woods without streetlight to at least partially illuminate the way for her. Out here in the trees there is only nature's lighting to clear the way for her, and she supposes she should consider herself lucky, since it is a full moon out tonight. It could be worse. It could be overcast.

But there's really nothing lucky about this. Really, the volumes of creepy that it speaks to are more noteworthy than whatever bullcrap luck she's supposed to believe in; it's a full moon and pouring rain, and apparently there is more to Soul than human and tiny fuzzy kitten. Apparently there's a beast hiding within him somewhere, cursed and managed only by some edgy goth jewelry she'd thought was just aesthetic, and god dammit Liz, her life is totally Twilight now. He's some sort of werecat.

Not the time. Maka shakes her head and tries to scrub the rain from her eyes.

"Soul?"

It's stupid, for her to have come here expecting to find him. How could he have known where she'd been camping? He had never found her there; no, it'd been Kid and Stein to stumble upon her shabby little makeshift campsite. It's stupid, but there'd been a hope, no matter how inconsequential in her, that Soul would've been able to find some sort of comfort in this place, too. Hoped, too, that maybe the place that'd once shielded her from her own tumultuous reality could've protected him, too. If even for a moment.

It's too much faith to place into one campsite. It wasn't like she'd ever been happy here either. She'd cried herself to sleep every other night, wondering why the world hadn't taken her, too. Wondering why Mama had to go and leave her all on her own. She wasn't ready to be alone yet.

She's still not ready to be alone yet. Maka tugs the zipper of her hoodie up past her nose.

There's groaning, somewhere out there. Then sniffling. Squinting, Maka takes several squishy steps through the mud, branches snapping beneath the weight of her boots. Whatever it is, it doesn't sound human, and even though she's out in the woods at night and really shouldn't be approaching inhuman things by herself, there's still a chance it could be Soul.

And, well. Maybe she's not so afraid of things that go bump in the night, anyway. Not when the things that go bump in the night have eyes like Soul's.

"Soul," she breathes again, approaching the writhing, exhausted mass of limbs.

He's lanky.

Lankier than usual. Unnecessarily so. With long, dark red limbs, not quite furry but still not quite smooth. His appendages have too many bones, too many bendy spots, and when he raises his head to meet her eyes she realizes he has horns, too. Horns, sitting atop a rather bulbous head, ears jagged and eyes large and dark. And- oh, his teeth. What had been a charming feature before seems carnivorous, now, fully predatorial, and he grits them at her in full, blindingly white and too large for his head. His mouth splits his dark face cheek to cheek, and Maka gasps despite herself.

Soul's sniffling becomes a howl. "GO AWAY."

"No," she gasps again, taking a step forward despite the overwhelming stench of rotting flesh. God, he doesn't look like he's in any pain or that he's bleeding anywhere, but in this form Maka's not sure what gushing blood would look like, anyway. Does the blood that runs through his veins match the color of his skin? Or does he bleed black, too, the same way the color of his eyes have been painted over by soot? "No, Soul, please-"

The rain always has softened him. It's his feline instincts, she thinks, that make him so lethargic in the rain. Strips him of his fighting spirit. He's napped in her lap so many times during rainstorms, whether cat or human, head in her lap while she watched reruns of Family Feud and Jeopardy. It does its work now, too, as he can't seem to find it in himself to run from her again. He bears his teeth at her in some sort of warning, perhaps, but she's not afraid of monsters anymore. Not if the monsters never intend to hurt her.

He howls, again, and it's such a mournful sound. He scuttles, trying to brace himself to flee again, but it's difficult to find the footing to do so in the mud, and so he sloshes around a bit, snarling, sounding a bit like he's sobbing, too.

"I'm sorry," she blurts, and oh, it's raining on her face, too, even though she's wearing a hood. Funny how that happens. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have touched you, that's so against our rules-"

"I don't live with you," he says, crooning. He might inhabit a body she doesn't recognize but his voice still speaks to her heart, and that tightness in her threatens to tear her apart. It takes a second for her to collect her breath, and Maka tells herself it's because of the way the wind cuts through her and not at all because there's something haunting about Soul's voice. "Go away! Stop looking at me!"

He's meant to be ferocious, probably. An eyesore. His flesh ripples as he moves, and it's fully disgusting. Maka tries not to stare but it's impossible not to.

"STOP."

"I brought your bracelet," she says. "I thought- It's yours, isn't it? I don't want to keep things that don't belong to me. I already have Mama's ring and that's enough."

It's not the first time Soul's hissed at her. It is, however, the first time such a hiss has had the power to forcefully knock her back.

The ground isn't hard beneath her like she'd expected it to be. Well, it's been pouring out for hours; when Maka's ass hits the ground all she does is splash about, landing padded by the sogginess that surrounds her. It only makes sense that she wouldn't get hurt on the way down. What really ends up hurting her is the look Soul fits her with after.

He's not even angry with her. He's still just scared. She can see it there, even in the darkness of his eyes, even when there's no light there. It's clear, in the way the corners of his razor-sharp mouth dips, too. Clear in the way he watches her, raindrops streaming down his face.

Left out in the rain to die. All alone. Maka wipes the mud from her face and crawls toward him.

"I don't want that fucking bracelet," he admits, and there's something tired and broken in his voice. Something that only serves to sever her heart that little bit more. "I'm so tired of hiding behind that goddamn bracelet, you know what. This is who I fucking am, Maka! So deal with it!"

She takes a deep, trembling breath. Oh. Rotting flesh, everywhere. The stench of it is all up in her lungs, suffocating her. Coughing, she crumbles, for a moment, clasping a dirtied hand to her mouth.

"This is what I smell like," he hisses.

He smells like death. Maka can't help it, gagging, sobbing, lilting toward the ground like a weeping willow. It's disgusting, the way he smells. Gruesome. The way she can't keep the bile down breaks her down, and Maka sobs into her hands, hot tears blurring together with the vomit and the downpour above.

(Stronger, she should be stronger than this.)

He scuttles, again, attempting to gain traction. His hind legs find it and he stands, towering, and Maka looks up to him, bent at his feet like some sort of snivelling child. "This is why they're going to lock me away, so take your stupid justice and go stuff it somewhere else. Do you get it yet? I bring agony. I'm abominable."

She spits, trembling, still. Finds it in her to finally look up at him and his limbs shake beneath the weight of her stare. "Not abominable."

"You just got sick, you stupid-"

"No, you listen! You stupid martyr, thinking you can just put words into my mouth, like I'd believe them or something." He should know that she's more stubborn than that. Should know that her sense of justice runs deeper than something shallow like just wanting to do the right thing. "I'm not leaving until you come home with me."

"I don't have a home!" he roars, scrambling, and it's an accident when he lashes out and swipes at her, but Maka takes the chance to latch herself onto his arm instead. "Let go of me!"

Stupid boy. He's hers, now. Doesn't he understand that? Maka has so little left to call her own, in this world. A tent, left pitched alone in the woods. A borrowed bedroom, borrowed home. A heart that won't stop beating, despite the beating it's taken.

He means something to her now. Holds a weight in her life. Rises with her like the sun and pouts when she tries to stick her finger in his mouth when he kitty yawns. Puts up with her moods and temper.

Watches her cry and accepts her pain without second thought.

Friendship is a two-way street. Maka holds tighter and buries her face into the skin of his front leg, fully bawling now.

"You're supposed to be afraid of me," he says, and oh, he's wailing again. "Everyone's afraid of me. Why wouldn't you be afraid of me, I look-"

Of course she's afraid of him. How can she not be? She doesn't recognize this form, these claws, this odor. It isn't either of the versions of Soul she knows and loves, despite their flaws. He holds enough power in those mangled legs to snap her spine in half and hang her out to dry. It's natural to be afraid.

But courage has never been about being fearless. Real bravery comes from the courage to fight through that fear, and Maka clutches his arm to her, crawling, scrambling, feeling just as monstrous as he looks, holding him close. She can't do this to him, in his human form, in the form he apparently favors. Can't hold him to her heart and let him feel the rhythm of her heartbeat when his darkness becomes too much to bear and his eyes go dark and clouded, and in some sort of twisted way it's nice, to be able to do so.

Nice to feel him pressed up against her without fear of his curse touch-blocking them.

"I'm afraid," she admits, and even as the smell of him surrounds her, Maka won't allow herself the weakness of retching again. "I'm afraid all of the time, Soul, and not just of you."

He can't shake her off. Soul seems to hesitate for a moment and then settles back, something within him rumbling. "You're so weird-"

She's not. She just can't fathom a life anymore without him in it. She likes this life she lives, now, more than she'd ever anticipated. Maka likes waking up in the morning to his boots dangling down over her window, likes sharing breakfast with him and Kid, likes walking to school with the two of them. It's nice not to feel so alone in this big world. A little less scary, too, to have companionship.

"I want you to come home," she admits again, leaning back to get a good look at him. His eyes are deep and endless, practically black holes, but that carnivorous, dangerous warning of a grimace has dropped. "Please."

Still, she can feel the rumbling in him. It vibrates through her fingers, still latched on tight. "... I don't have a home."

"You do." Courage, she thinks, rising onto wobbling knees, shaking legs, not unlike a newborn deer. "You have a home with me."

Soul practically gawks at her. Her admittance catches up with her and then she's blushing like a fool, still grasping at what must've once been his shoulders. As long as he's staying put, though, she can't really fault herself for it. Can't fault herself for telling the truth, either. Mama always said that honesty was the best policy.

"If you want it, I mean."

Somehow, he manages to look flustered while not having a human expression. "I mean-"

He doesn't say no. Maka tries to pay the butterflies in her stomach no attention, and she doesn't allow much thought into the way that tightness that once clenched in her gut has now given away to sudden surge of warmth. "There's always a place for you," she says, trudging on, standing taller. Her hands find his jaw, the jagged edges there, and cradles him in her hands. "No matter what Medusa or anyone else says, okay? There's a place for you here with me."

His breath is hot on her face. "Maka."

"I like our little family," she confesses, ears burning, face drenched. It's big and terrifying, but she finds the courage there in Soul's eyes, deep and bottomless but still so his, no matter the shape or form. "I like spending everyday with you and Kid and- and even Stein, so-"

So. So.

She yanks and he falls toward her, and his skin is ice-cold against her forehead, but he melts beneath her touch. It's like the fight in his bones give way, and he lets her man handle him like this, holding him to her. It's a forehead touch and nothing more. Not particularly romantic or anything, but it still feel so personal, so blatantly intimate, and Maka still squeezes her eyes shut anyway.

It's warm. All around her, now, it's warm, and when she opens her eyes, his eyeliner-smeared face meets hers.

He has freckles, she notes with misplaced delight. So many freckles, like tiny, secret constellations along his nose, over the height of his pretty cheekbones.

Cute, even when his hair is matted down to his face, like some sort of drowned cat.

"Soul," she says, nearly choking on his name. "Soul, you're-"

It's warmer with his arms around her. There's a brief, heart-racing moment when his arms circle around her that she realizes he's holding her, and it's such an exciting first-time that she nearly leaps forward, far too eager to be swallowed in his embrace. Maka says to hell with feeling embarrassed for her feelings and wraps her arms around him, too, and when they topple back into the mud together, she's left cradling a tiny stained kitty to her chest.

.

For a while, it's silent.

The beaded bracelet jingles in her pocket as she walks. She's afraid to bring it out, because that'll involve talking about it, and for the time being Maka likes their little slice of the world. It's comfortable, carrying him out of the clearing, even if they're both soaked to the bone and it's still raining. It's comfortable, holding him in her arms, because she knows he's safe, there. For a little while, nothing can hurt him.

He's so small in this form. Small and harmless. It's weird to think about. He holds so many different shapes, so many different versions. This Soul is the very same Soul that'd hugged her so dearly, the same Soul that'd hidden himself away in the woods, afraid of whatever judgement she might pass upon him.

Stupid, she thinks fondly.

.

Soul is actually being quiet because he's asleep.

Well, what else can she expect; the rain makes him so lethargic, and she's caught him napping in cat form in so many odd places around the house that it isn't even funny. Maka tells herself not to be disappointed that they weren't having some sort of silent bonding moment and instead cradles his little head to her chest instead, hoping to lull him into some deeper sleep with the steady rhythm of her heartbeat.

Usually, when he naps around the house, he's got his headphones jammed in his ears. A heartbeat will just have to make do.

The walk is long, but Maka doesn't mind it much. The silence gives her time to really think. It's been such a hectic day - hectic few days, really - that to have a bit of time to herself is welcomed. The rain is nice white noise, and she loses herself in thought, cradling her boy to her chest. It feels right, to have him so close, but still, she can't help but miss what it'd been like to have him reach for her, too. She's never felt that before, not with him. On every occasion that he's bared his whiskers for her it'd been her doing. He's never held her like that before.

He's never really had the chance to. For obvious reasons. Kitty reasons. And don't get her wrong, it's nice, cradling him to her chest like this. It makes her feel big and important, having him depend on her like this, for Soul to allow himself to be so vulnerable in her presence.

Still. It'd been warm in his arms, in the brief moment she'd been allowed to bask in it before the world had shifted around her. Almost as warm as the way her face feels right now.

Soul must agree, even subconsciously. Maka looks down, surprised to find him literally purring in her arms, like some sort of obnoxiously adorable kitten. God. Maybe he is. She should tell him sometime that he is. He'd really hate that. March around like he's big and tough or something and then inevitably pout at her and flop down on the couch until she sits next to him and runs her fingers through his hair.

Yeah, no. It's warmer on her face than it'd been in his arms. She needs to cool it.

"You're a real handful, you know that," she says to him, even as he naps in her arms, curling closer to her chest. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say Black*Star gave you pointers on how to get closer to some boobs."

Even as she chides, it's still frustratingly affectionate of her. Like no matter what she does, she always ends up thinking of him fondly, or remembering something about him, or smiling, despite herself, as he yawns and nestles himself close to her heart.

Maybe she's getting sick after all. Maybe the rain's really getting to her.

Ah, well. They're still living on borrowed time, but for now, she doesn't have to worry about it. For now, she can just carry him home and deal with the damage there when they get there. For now, she won't even worry about trailing her muddy boots into the house, or the surefire blow out that's bound to happen the moment Maka brings the cat home and Kid gives them both a stern talking-to for worrying him sick.

The clouds part as the rain slowly comes to an end. Around her, everything lightens up, street lamps humming softly as they glow yellow. Her boots leave murky footprints on the sidewalk.

For now, she won't worry about anyone locking Soul away. They'll have to take him from her cold, dead hands anyway. She'll fight tooth and nail for his chance.