I was gonna hold off on posting this, but I felt bad enough for not updating this for so long, so here, have another chapter.

"Shoulda told us you have trouble sleeping in strange places," Liz chuckled. "We could have gone to sleep earlier."

Maka groaned something while her head rested against the passenger window as Liz drove back to Soul's house.

"Sorry Maka, I don't speak zombie."

She only groaned again and bonked her head against the window.

The four of them were still in their pajamas as the plan was mainly to just pick up the boys and go home. Liz and Patti were both pretty sure Kid would be exhausted from dealing with both Soul and Black Star all night without them to keep him balanced and calm, and it was pretty much an unspoken agreement that Black Star was very likely to be some form of drunk. Maka planned on texting Blair to say she was going to be late and then claiming a chunk of Soul's couch for a few hours.

She trudged in after the girls and noticed that the room with the TV that everyone had been in the night before was now empty, save Soul sprawled on one side of the angled couch, blanket about to fall off his waist and pillow already halfway to the floor. Some time during the night he had changed into a white wifebeater and basketball shorts.

The coffee table had an empty reasonably small bottle of vodka and a massive pyramid of empty Mountian Dew cans beside an empty 36 pack box. A perfect, pristine cube of Sprite cans stood in the exact center of the table. Even half dead, Maka was able to guess whose was whose, though from the sheer size of the Mountain Dew pyramid, and a second box she spotted on the other side of the couch, she sincerely hoped that Black Star helped drink all that and it wasn't just Soul.

Liz marched up to him and not too gently nudged his shoulder. "Wake up, squirt."

He groaned and opened one eye. "Oh... hi, Liz."

"Mornin'. Where'd Kid pass out?"

Face still buried in what he still had of his pillow, he raised one sleepy finger pointed at the ceiling. "Beanbag."

Liz nodded and marched upstairs with Patti, and Tsubaki approached Soul, who clumsily pulled himself up to a sitting position. "And Black Star?"

Soul yawned and nodded to the side. "Bathtub."

Tsubaki sighed. "That drunk?"

"Nah... habit I guess. Was on the floor out here, but every time he got up to piss, just crawled into the bathtub and went back to sleep. Came and got him a couple times, but he kept going back. Just left him there. Wasn't drunk… did get a little tipsy. Possibly hung over. Good luck."

Despite the fact that his speech was slurred with sleep, Tsubaki seemed to understand him. She giggled a little at her fiancé's habits before heading for the bathroom. "Thanks, Soul-kun."

Soul glanced up at Maka as she walked into the room, but she ignored him, dropped her bag on the floor, and flopped down on the other side of the couch. He blinked at her before he got up and grabbed a pillow and blanket off the floor that she guessed had been for Black Star, tossed the blanket over her and handed her the pillow, then went back to his side of the couch and righted his own pillow before following her example.

Liz and Patti came down a few minutes later with a somewhat bleary eyed Kid, and Liz leaned over and muttered something to Soul that Maka in her half asleep state didn't catch. Soul groaned, hauled himself up off the couch, and stumped upstairs. Maka briefly wondered if Kid had left a mess as well, though he hadn't look hung over, just sleepy. She guessed not when Soul came down a few seconds later, cradling what appeared to be a speckled brown koosh ball in his hands before lying back down on the couch, setting the ball on his chest, and promptly going back to sleep.

The ball triggered her curiosity more than it normally should. She blamed being sleepy and the odd fact that he was sleeping with it. She couldn't think straight and her mind tended to wander when she was this tired, and this time was no exception. Soul turned his head away from her in his sleep, and she found herself admiring his jaw line and admitting that perhaps Blair was right when she'd made the offhand comment years ago about Maka having some really weird turn-ons…

Blair. Right.

She reached down and blindly rooted through her bag with one hand for her phone. Pulling it out, she flipped it open and took a few tries to type a message to her.

Couldn't sleep well, as usual. Crashing on the couch at Soul's for a while. Be back late.

She laid there staring blearily at her phone until she got a response.

Expectd whn u said slpovr. "Sleep" well. Dnt frgt 2 use protection! :3

Maka scowled at her phone before punching in a response that was almost automatic at this point.

Fuck you, Blair.

Her response was much quicker this time.

I dnt do grls, sry. And Soul dsnt strike me as the type 2 go for 3sums

Maka rolled her eyes.

Whore.

Cunt :D

She threw her phone back in her bag with more force than necessary and shoved her face in her pillow before pulling the blanket over her head in a huff. When sleep still stubbornly refused to come, she glanced back over at Soul and the little brown ball. He held it in place with one hand as he slept, as it would have rolled off onto the floor with his chest rising and falling with his breath. What purpose could it serve, and why had Liz had him go get it?

… And did it just move?

She blinked, rubbed her eyes, and squinted closer at the ball. Nothing. Maybe it was her sleep deprived mind playing tricks on her and—holy shit!

Okay. Ball definitely moved. Ball is also breathing.

Her brain finally got the overly delayed message to her mouth and she yelped in surprise. Soul snapped awake and sat up quickly, carefully supporting the ball, which was now definitely moving as it squirmed in his hands. Eyes wide, he looked over at her to find her staring at the ball before looking back down at it himself. He immediately calmed down and chuckled a little before turning it around in his hands and holding it out for her to see.

Nothing happened at first and Maka wondered what he was doing, and then with a little grunt, a tiny paw poked out of it, followed shortly by a long pointed nose, beady little black eyes, and the cutest little round ears she had ever seen. It regarded her grumpily while the part of her brain dealing with all things cute and adorable quickly processed all this information and came to the necessary conclusion.

Hedgehog. Soul had a hedgehog. Soul had an extremely sexy jaw line and a hedgehog. Damn she needed sleep. Was she always this horny when tired?

Said hedgehog squinted at her for a moment longer, then grunted and balled back up again. Maka was pretty sure she had an incredibly stupid look on her face as she regarded the little spiked ball in a new light. She was pretty sure it wasn't pleased with her for waking both it and Soul up, but she didn't care because it was the cutest thing she'd seen all month. She was positive she had a stupid look on her face when Soul grinned at her.

"Well now she's pissed. She likes sleeping on me because I'm warm and you woke me up." He held the ball closer to his chest as he looked back up at Maka, a little unsure. "It's… not a problem, is it?"

Maka blinked. "No. Why would it be? She's adorable."

Soul chuckled a little. "Kid and Liz are terrified of her."

Maka hummed in response, leaning over to poke gently at his pet, receiving a twitch and a grumpy grunt in response that made her laugh. "What's her name?"

Soul blushed a little. "Spike."

Maka raised an eyebrow. "Spike?"

"I… kinda named her before I knew she was female. By the time I figured that out, it was too late to change her name. She already answered to it."

Maka smiled. "That's actually so much cuter," she blinked. "And I really need sleep. Your hedgehog has turned me into a puddle of goo."

Soul laughed out loud, bringing another annoyed grunt from Spike. "If it's any comfort, so do I. I've been up all night dealing with a not all there Black Star. I sugar crashed hard about an hour before you all showed up." He motioned to the pyramid of Mountain Dew cans. "Black Star helped, but most of that is my doing. And just FYI, vodka mixed with Mountain Dew is disgusting. Never do it. Ever. Black Star did it with all his Mountain Dew and managed to get me to try a shot. Ugh."

Maka made a face. "Noted. That doesn't even sound good."

Soul stretched and flopped back down on the couch, rolling over on his side to face Maka and put Spike between his chest and arm. She promptly uncurled and set her paws and chin on his wrist before falling asleep. He scratched her head with his other hand before settling down on his pillow. "I'd say goodnight, but seeing as it's almost noon, I'll just go with sleep well."

Maka settled down on her side of the couch and stretched out while lying on her back, adamantly ignoring the fact that her fingertips brushed his hair when she did so, and rolled over to face the back of the couch. "Likewise," she yawned back.

When she woke up much later, she found that Soul, the empty bottle, and all the pop cans were gone. She was impressed either with how well she slept, or how quiet Soul was able to clean up the mess, because she hadn't woken up at all. She stretched and hauled herself up to a sitting position, idly shoving some of her unruly dishwater blond hair out of her face. She checked her phone for any messages and found it was 5:30. Blair hadn't seemed to mind her being gone all day today as well, her messages were blank. She shoved her phone back in her bag and stood to look around the room. Aside from her and the mess she was positive she was, the room was spotless.

Damn. She really must have slept like a log. It even looked like he'd vacuumed.

"Sleep well?"

She had been digging through her bag for a change of clothes when Soul decided to give her a heart attack. She surprised both him and herself by leaping backwards over his coffee table.

Soul smirked at her as he leaned on the back of the couch right over where she'd been sitting. "Nice. Impressive landing, too."

Maka looked down to notice that she had landed perfectly balanced on her feet on the other side of the couch. She took a deep breath, let it out, and held up her change of clothes while trying desperately to get her heart rate back under control. "Nearest bathroom?"

"Is still a mess." He pushed off the couch and turned to head upstairs, motioning her to follow him. "You can use mine. I'll grab you a towel."

She hadn't planned on taking a shower, but now that he mentioned it, it sounded like a nice idea. She stepped down off the couch and jogged around the other end to catch up. He was still wearing the wifebeater he'd had on this morning, but had changed into some jeans and some worn tennis shoes. She adamantly refused to acknowledge her perverted brain as it pointed out that he was quite well muscled for a musician, and mentally stomped on any other thoughts before they could follow that track. She cursed Blair, Liz, and Patti, deciding they were all to blame for these sudden treacherous thoughts.

The second story of Soul's house appeared to be nothing more than one large room. There was a TV larger than the one downstairs on the wall closest to the stairs, and the room itself was lined with a couple well worn couches and a loveseat or two, and about five or six beanbag chairs. There was a long table on the far wall with what appeared to be a large rabbit hutch on it as well as a large bag of cage bedding, a bag of cat food, and a box of feed crickets. Spike trooped around inside the hutch with a toilet paper tube stuck on her head, seemingly having the time of her life.

On Maka's right, in the center of the wall, was a sliding door leading out to a balcony that overlooked the front yard, and directly across from that on the opposite wall was a hallway that Soul walked down and opened a door to a small bathroom before turning around to slide open what she assumed to be a linen closet when he reached in and grabbed a towel.

He handed it to her and slid around her to head back downstairs. "Liz leaves some girly shampoo here occasionally, I think there might be some left if you don't wanna use mine, hair dryer's in the top drawer of the counter on the left, and I'm ordering a pizza 'cause I'm too lazy to cook at the moment. Any preferences?"

Maka blinked before shaking her head. "As long as you don't order anchovies, I'll eat whatever."

Soul nodded. "Cool. I'll be downstairs if you need anything." He turned and disappeared around the corner before she heard him thumping down the stairs. She turned and looked curiously at the door at the end of the hallway, assuming it was his bedroom, before shrugging to herself and heading into the bathroom. She trusted Soul, but locked the door anyway.

After spending nearly half an hour in the shower, she felt much better and more awake. She hung the towel up on the rack for lack of a better place to put it and pulled her hair back into a single ponytail to keep it out of her face before grabbing her pajamas and heading out the door to find Soul sitting on one of the couches upstairs facing the TV with a game controller in his hand and an open pizza box on the table in front of him. There was an extra plate and a can of Coke with a glass of ice next to it, and she smiled despite herself as she tossed her pajamas in her bag (that he had also brought upstairs) and sitting down next to him to grab a slice of pizza. She glanced over at the game in idle curiosity and grinned. Smash Brothers. She loved this game.

Soul seemed to catch on and held up another controller to her before grinning in challenge. "Need me to go easy?"

Maka snorted. "You wish. Maybe I should go easy on you."

"Oh really, now?" Soul replied, grin still in place and one eyebrow raised. "Ever played this before?"

Maka simply narrowed her eyes and chose Pit before entering her name below player 2. "Bring it."

When Soul finally brought her home around midnight, she had gone to bed with the satisfaction that she had practically destroyed him for six straight hours of Smash Brothers and he owed her a smoothie from her favorite cafe every Saturday for the next month.

She completely ignored Blair's squeals that she now had a date with Soul every Saturday.