She's hard to read.

It's not fair, he thinks, that she can cheat in ways he cannot. For so many years, he'd spent so much time and energy building his walls meticulously, always fearful of wearing his heart on his sleeve. He was Soul the stone-faced mystery, and while he probably came off a bit cranky and miserable, sometimes, he was still a wall in the end. And when he had his defences, nothing could hurt him. Nothing could get in.

The bathroom door shuts behind her, and Maka's damp hair clings to the slender nape of her neck, half a shade darker than the ash blonde he knows so well. He gets lost, for a moment, admiring the shape of her shoulders, strong from years of lugging his weapon form around and meister training. His thoughts tunnel, embarrassingly, as they do whenever she's around - and when she looks over her shoulder, their eyes meet and crooks a little half-smile she's surely learned from him.

With a start, his heart lurches in his chest, uncomfortably so. Those eyes of hers aren't fair, he thinks, and not just because they're the prettiest shade of green he's ever seen.

No, those angel eyes read souls, and it doesn't matter how tall he builds his walls - a flutter of those wispy blonde lashes and she already knows every feeling he's too cowardly to share.

(It's not fair.)

.

It's not that he's particularly upset with her or anything, though. It's hard to stay upset with Maka, even if they bicker like cats and dogs sometimes, even if they're technically roommates and she loves to drink all of his best tea and leaves the kitchen light on because she's still too stubborn to admit that she's afraid of the dark. It's hard to stay upset with Maka when they've lived together for so long - even if he can't read her soul, he still knows her habits and flaws, and Maka is still Maka, even if she's a little contrary sometimes.

Maka is still Maka, even if she's a cheater who hates cheaters.

Soul rubs his chest sorely. Not… that it's the same thing at all. Maka using her little cheap tricks to catch him making moon eyes at her isn't the same thing as sneaking around to kiss prettier boys.

"Is your scar bothering you?"

He blinks. Maka's leaning over him, and Soul tries his damndest to sink back into the couch behind him and not press his face into her outstretched hand like a cat.

"No," he says, blearily. "It's fine."

"Oh." She blinks, too, but her pupils don't blow out wide. Maka looks him in the face instead of the chest, and for a moment he thinks he might understand Tsubaki and Liz's woes His eyes are up here. "Okay. I just thought-"

"Sorry."

Maka smiles. "No, it's fine. I just worry sometimes, you know? I was pretty sure we still had some of that ointment in the medicine cabinet, if you were really feeling sore or itchy."

He literally hasn't thought about that ointment since he was fourteen and mortified at the thought of his flat-chested but still very girl meister peeking through the cracked bathroom door to watch him lather his bisected chest up. He sputters, only for a moment, because he is a cool twenty-one year old now and only children get tongue-tied by nosy meisters. "No. No ointment."

She hums and plops down next to him. Shoves her sockless feet onto his lap and sighs. "It helped!"

"It was weird." He doesn't shove her out of his lap, though, and merely watches her rest her head on the armrest of their couch like she owns the place. "Felt like I was feeling myself up."

She chuffs. "It was medical."

"You ever caress down your own chest? Weird. Especially with you, like, not even a wall away, trying to backseat drive me lubing up my scar-"

Even while she's leaning her head back, face aimed to the ceiling, he can still pinpoint the exact moment her blush overtakes her and Maka goes bright pink. "I was not! I- You're exaggerating, that's- you were anxious, you jerk, I was just trying to keep you company while minding your boundaries! You used to be so weird about personal space, you know, and I didn't want to make you more uncomfortable than you already were."

"You printed out Stein's instructions and read them to me."

Her feet squirm in his lap. "I wanted to get it right. You tried to hide it from me, but you were really freaked out about it, weren't you?"

Ah. He'd definitely never admitted that little tidbit out loud, that's for sure. Soul finds her ankles and pinches the skin right above one, tender and a little stubbly. It's about as much punishment for underhandedly looking out for him as he can muster. "You talk too much."

Maka sits forward, propped up on her elbows, and now that she's looking at him, he can properly admire the heat in her face. It's not just her rosy cheeks that blaze, though - her eyes are pretty, wild evergreens, but they're dangerous and hot in ways he's never been able to fully put into words. They see right through him, those eyes, and Soul knows he should say something about it, try to level their playing field, but then she smiles, and his breath catches in his throat.

(It's really not fair at all).

"You're my weapon," she says, as if the sun isn't rising on her face, as if she's not stained pink already. "It's my job to look after you, isn't it?"

"You could ask me."

"You'd never tell me." She's probably right, but it doesn't make swallowing any easier. "You try to protect me by only telling me what you think I need to hear. Which is dumb, by the way, and not fair at all, because I like you and want to know things about you, you brat-"

A lesser man would crumble at her feet. She likes him. Soul barely keeps his shit together and instead pinches her ankles again, bricks crumbling around him. "You worry about literally everything, nerd. It's not healthy for your brain to try and process so many things at once. It's gotta catch a break sometimes. Besides, me being worried about my chest being cut open isn't your duty. You're my partner, not my mother."

"I'm a virgo," she says, squinting.

"Not an excuse. You think astrology is bullshit."

She sits there for a moment, stewing on it. Soul tries not to get catch admiring the legs in his lap, nor the way she's scooted forward and tries to melt him beneath the fire of her stare.

"Fine," she says. "It's not my job as your meister to look out of you."

"Nope."

"But it's what I want to do. As your friend." When he glances at her, her eyes flutter, and she's not cheating at all, angel eyes without their halo, and it's all frank, scrappy Maka trying to bulldoze her way through his indecision. The same Maka who'd screamed and cried and still took his hand and reaped Blair's soul.

As his friend. Soul finds himself rubbing his chest again, but it's not at all because of his scar. His heart thunders, caught in his ribcage, and she'll be the death of him, his fickle, stubborn, bull-headed meister.

"Scar's fine," he mutters, shyly.

Maka brushes the hair from his temple and places a single, light kiss there. "I know," she says, half a breath lighter, and how is he not suppose to blush, when she's so sweet? "But I still worry."

"Because you're stubborn."

"Because I love you, jerk," she huffs, pouting, and the urge to sprawl out in her lap like a cat is as embarrassing as it is all consuming. "And you don't tell me things so I have to worry."

.

It's not that he tries to hide things from her, specifically.

Sometimes, he thinks he'd like it if Maka knew these things about him, things he's too embarrassed to admit out loud. Mostly, they're insecurities - a depressing lack of self-worth, shyness stemming from his childhood, fear that she'll find someone better suited to love her and he'll be left to watch her marry someone else - but they're still things she should probably know, all things considered. Things that would benefit their relationship, should he tell her himself.

But it's hard. God, it's hard, admitting things to her like that.

He loves his meister. More than anything, more than anybody - it scares him, sometimes, how deeply and truly he loves Maka. For a long time, he hadn't thought himself capable of feeling for anyone like this. He'd been a depressed, anxious kid, and building relationships with other people had been terrifying and near impossible. Beyond that, even, before the mental illness and childhood trauma - people weren't attractive to him in this way, really. He'd faked it, for a while, desperate to fit in somewhere, anywhere, and boobs were supposedly hot or whatever, but Maka had managed to wrap him around her bruised little fingers without any of that.

She makes him happy. Makes him feel full and complete and worth something. Maka helps fill in the cracks of his personality, and he thinks he does a bang-up job of completing her, too. They're good together, in a weird way. Sunny Maka and cloudy Soul. Like night and day.

And she's not perfect, either. She doesn't always tell him things, if she thinks it'll worry him. Keeps her own darkness to herself and over thinks it, stewing away on her feelings until she's finally able to sort them into neat, comfortable boxes. She likes being organized like that, he thinks. But she's so hard to read, when she's like that. He can't tell what she's thinking about and it drives him up the wall, to know she's distressed but to also be without a way to help her through it.

He likes being helpful. He is her weapon, after all. Her useful tool. Support class.

Soul grumbles and buries his face in Maka's hair. She huffs, but doesn't complain, and allows himself to curl around her like a protective blanket.

"I'll braid my hair if it makes it easier," she says, voice thick with sleep. It's adorable. "Sorry."

His lips find the nape of her neck and he presses a kiss there, very tenderly, very shyly. Maka doesn't voice her opinion, but she does settle more comfortably in his arms and hugs his hand to her chest, so he thinks he's probably done the right thing. "Nah," he mutters, entirely too delighted with the way Maka rubs her thumb along the back of his hand. "New shampoo?"

"Mmmh. Sale."

Sensible Maka. He smiles, despite everything he's been stressing about for the part two days. She has this way about her, this thing that eases him, seemingly without much effort on her part. Being around her is nice. Comfortable.

(It's not fair. He likes her so much.)

"It's nice," he says.

Maka tugs his hand up to her mouth and presses a kiss on his knuckles, too. "I'll braid it."

"No. It's fine."

He should tell her. At least something, he thinks - he should tell her something for once, instead of being a coward and just basking in the nice way she makes him feel. She deserves to know, or, at least, deserves to hear it from him and not feel like she has to study his very soul in order to understand what's going on in his head.

If he's honest with her, she won't feel like she has to use her own personal cheat code to understand him. If he's honest with her, he can have more of this, this comfortable, warm haze of understanding and companionship. Because, for as terrifying as it is, to have these feelings, it's exciting, too - and more than anything else, holding her like this is like coming home. For the first time in his life, he wants, with the same conviction that he could come to deserve it, too. He could deserve something good.

"Maka."

She breathes out, slow and even. For a moment, he's afraid he's blown his chance, that she's fallen asleep, so cozy in his arms that the lull of rest was too much, but she makes this little sighing noise and asks, "Soul?"

God, her voice is cute when she's tired. It's a smidge lower than normal, rougher, more raw. He likes seeing these imperfections in her. She can't always be sugared sunshine or skull-crushing, monster-vanquishing badassery. Sometimes, she's the middle, and he's really, really into that, too.

He chews his words before he swallows. Brushes his toes along her instep. "Sorry."

"Blhh." Blearily, she wiggles. "Don't be."

"Love you."

His knuckles are still pressed to her smiling lips. He thinks she might be trying to kiss him again, but she can't wipe the satisfied little grin from her face, and that's more effective than a chaste little kiss to his knuckles anyway. He can't read her soul the same way she can his, but he can still understand the satisfied, heated glow of hers, lazily coiling around his own.

Wrapped around her bruised little fingers, always. Soul sighs and clutches her tighter to him, stubbornly.

"Dummy," she says, still teetering on that edge between sleep and alertness. "Go to sleep, Soul. I'll still be here in the morning."

But it's easier, in the dark, when she can't see him blush and squirm like a fool. Her eyes are like headlights and he's the deer, and when he's got her in his arms like this, she can't turn around and study him quite so deeply. It gives him time to think. Collect his thoughts into his own neat little boxes before he speaks, too. Try his hand at her game.

"I'll get better," he promises, to this tiny ball of light, cuddled up in his arms. Something darling, something worth working for.

"You're already getting better," she says, and her breath is warm on his fingers. They twitch. "You're getting better every day. I can tell."

I want to do it for you, he wants to say. I want to be someone you can be proud of. I want to be someone you can turn to, too, when you have something to say but nowhere else to say it.

She snoozes in his arms. Ah, well. Someday. He'll get there. Soul presses his lips to the baby hair along the back of her neck and closes his eyes, breathing deeply. The steady thrum of her soul is the sweetest lullaby he's ever had.

this is super unedited and i wrote it in like 2 hours while sick i'm sorry