He is bound to his meister's word.

Sometimes, he thinks it's just part of being a weapon. It's not unreasonable, to chalk up the tether he feels to their partnering, their soul-deep bond. After all, he's been her sword and shield since thirteen - there's something psychological in that for sure, vowing to protect and die for another before even clearing puberty. Sometimes, sometimes, he thinks the weakness in his knees that comes from watching Maka clench her fist is just that; Maka has been his meister since he was practically a child, and he would do anything for her. He would die for her, if she asked him to. No questions asked.

She wouldn't, though, and the thought softens his edges just a little. His stupid, bullheaded meister would rather throw herself into the front lines than allow her scythe to take a blow for her, and while it upsets him, it still coddles something frightened and feeble within him. Such loyalty is terrifying, sometimes, allowing so much of him to be vulnerable for her, no matter how right it feels - but to know she'd throw her hand in the fire for him too makes his resolve easier to swallow.

His blood yields to her command. Maka could merely outstretch a hand and he'd be steel in her grasp in less than a moment's notice. He knows her ticks, knows her tells; hell, she could quirk her confident grin and he'd already be halfway between boy and scythe. What Maka wants, Maka gets.

And if she wants him pinned between her knees, well, who is he to disobey?

.

His meister is a warrior.

Her skin is not unblemished, despite his best efforts. Claws have scarred her ribs, splotches of purple bruise her thighs and there's a new cut right above her eyebrow now, and Soul can remember the exact moment the pre-kishin's talons had sliced her skin. Her scars might even outnumber his now, and she wears them with such stubborn, clumsy pride that he can't bring himself to do anything more than stare mournfully.

(Not because they interrupt her beauty. No, only because they're failures on his part, his own inability to keep her fully safe.)

He tries to reach and brush his thumb along a particularly old scar but Maka catches his hand and brings his hand to her lips before he has a chance. She kisses his fingers like some sort of knight and he feels himself blush, despite himself. He's a grown ass man, he thinks, irrationally so. A grown ass man who has loved and kissed this girl more times than he can count, and there's no reason why Maka kissing his knuckles so reverently should be the thing that gets him flustered.

She's naked. She's very naked and sitting on him. He needs to get it together.

"You're cute when you blush," she says, entirely too pleased with herself.

"I know what you are but what am I."

She rolls her eyes but doesn't scold him for it. Maka takes his hand and flattens it on her chest instead, and Soul tries not to be too much of a creep but she's sort of making him cup her breast. "Dummy."

Yeah. He's the dummy. Well, whatever. He'll be a fool for her forever, if it means he gets to touch her this way, to be with her like this. His meister is a warrior, unabashedly so, but she is still the same pigtailed, motherless girl with the same complexes she's always been, and when she looks at him, sitting high and proud, mounted atop of him, he feels a little tongue tied.

Maybe he's always been tongue tied. Maybe he's never stood a chance.

"Do you feel that?"

"... Um."

"Not that, you pervert," she says, without scowling.

"You have boobs-"

"Can I get that in writing?" she asks, cheekily, and drags his palm a little further north. And ah, her heartbeat rumbles beneath his palm. "Do you feel that?"

Soul tries not to bask in the rhythm of it. Her heartbeat is surprisingly steady, he thinks, for a girl who'd blushed so thoroughly the first time she'd seen him naked. It's like it's second nature for her now, to just plant herself on top of him and run her hands so greedily over him.

He tries not to smile like a fool. Fails miserably. Maka takes his hand and plants it beside him, and Soul can only worry that he's offended her somehow, by getting a thrill out of feeling her heart.

He lets out a breath. "Sorry."

She shakes her head. With free hands of her own, she can trail her touch down his abdomen, and every brush of those calloused fingers across his own scar makes his blood ignite. He can't help the way his hips jerk when she journeys further south, and he is just one humble, lovestruck scythe, and Maka fondling him will always elicit a reaction out of him. He cannot just sit here and take it, as if her hands are nothing.

Her hands are so much. He's spent too many nights thinking about those hands, gloved or otherwise.

She's magnetic. Soul reaches for her, because it's hard, letting her touch him like this without touching her, too, but she fits him with such a look that he catches himself. There's fire there in her eyes, an edge sharper than any blade he'll ever be able to manifest, and when Maka looks at him like that something in him pulls taut, like he's a violin being finely tuned.

Paused, he can only let out a shaky breath. Her hands have stopped too. It's too close to teetering over that edge for comfort, and Soul struggles with himself to find words. "Ah, mm. Maka?"

His mattress creeks beneath the weight of her knees, springs squeaking as she shifts. She seems bigger now, leaning up, all sleek muscle and intimidating thighs, but it's still evergreen fire that keeps him pinned to the bed, neatly beneath her watchful eye.

"I was thinking," she starts, and she leans over him now, caging him in with her arms.

Soul can practically hear her nerd brain ticking. Her hair tickles the very top of his scar as she leans further, now, and eye-to-eye he can only stare back at her in thoughtful obedience. He is bound to his meister's word, even if it is unspoken. What Maka wants, Maka gets, and if she wants him to hang back and wait, well, he is but her faithful weapon.

"Mmm," he hums. "Sounds like you."

Maka doesn't smile. One hand brushes back his bangs. Her hands are so warm and he tries to resist leaning into her touch like some sort of cat but he fails, just a little.

"Don't touch me," she says.

Soul does not think twice about disobeying such an order. He does purse his lips, though, as he watches his partner sit back. She's pretty, he thinks, when she's all dolled up, tight little pencil skirts and kitten heels and the slightest pop of lip gloss - but she's hot when she's commanding, when she knows what she wants and how to get it. Maybe it's his weapon blood that's playing tricks on him, or maybe it's something about Death City that's finally gotten under his skin and infected him, but the stutter in his pulse is undeniable. His heartbeat sure isn't steady at all.

Don't touch her. He could never go against her word - certainly never her command - but it proves difficult, if only because she's especially intimidatingly hot grinding on top of him, eyes burning like is nothing carefully contained about her, nor has there ever been - for all of her sweater vests and neat, pleated skirts, and for all of her lists and schedules there is a stubborn, reckless streak that makes her so frustratingly contrary. She does not sit and sigh as she works herself against him, rutting delightfully so - she is no serene forest, and there has always been danger there, in her eyes, in her command. Maka is as fearsome as she is prim, and sometimes - like now - those two ends of her meet in an impressive, overwhelming explosion of sensation.

He's pinned to the bed as if held beneath a microscope. Eyes blown wide, it's all he can do to simply lay and watch her work, watch the way the hands of a soldier trace down his scant abs, brush against where their heat meets and - Soul clenches the blankets between his fingers, knuckles white.

Her word is stronger than any bind, any silk scarf or cuff or hell, even any tie. Maka's lips part and she moans low, voice breaking off as she lines him up against her clit and just works him there, rubbing and lashes fluttering as she uses him.

And, well. He is her weapon. She can do with him what she sees fit. If she wants to mount him and ride him to the finish line then great, awesome, he's happy to help.

If she wants to use him to get herself off without playing the penetration game that's fine too. He's bound to her, after all, shackles or not. It's funny, to think about who he is now, and how his world has shrunk down seemingly to just contain her and those eyes of hers, that smile. The proud jut of her skinny hips, and the way she tucks her hair behind her ear and leans her head back, offering him a voyueristic glimpse of the sleek line of her throat. God, what he wouldn't give to kiss her, right there, to feel her breath, the heat of her skin.

But then the moment passes and her eyes are on him again, and Soul feels stupid and young and fried when she sinks down upon him, stare blazing. The warmth of her is incredible, and overwhelming, and a lesser man would fall apart then and there, would grab her by the hips and hold her there and jackrabbit into her like some sort of loser.

He's better trained than that. He budges his hips and watches the way she bites her lip, digs the heels of his feet into the mattress. Basks in her, really, and the way she sighs, so fucking contentedly, as if it's pleasurable for her to be filled by him. As if she gets off to the way he heeds to her command and lets her use him like this.

Use him. Hah. He's getting just as much out of this as she is.

Maybe more. Maka fits him with a look and runs her fingers up and down his scar, and his toes curl, god dammit.

"I love the way you look at me," she admits, and she may be his meister, but she is still Maka, through and through, and blushes her way through it, stern as she may be. "It's just- You just-"

Such admittance is unfair. He could say the same. One look from her makes him unravel, bulldozes through his carefully constructed walls like a bull in a china shop.

She gives pause, shifting her hips, and then she moans and something pulls so deep in his chest, he might as well be a puppet. Her loyal, lovestruck puppet, and his heart might as well leap out of his chest.

"... Makes me feel special," she says, and she's too much for him, really. Maka plants her palms down on his chest and grinds on him, warrior's hips relentless and hypnotic and the sheets crinkle beneath the effort of his grip. "Like I can do anything."

Soul barks out a half-laugh, but it's void of any humor. More like a gasp, really, as the mesmerizing heat of her tightens around him. But he can't blow it, not yet, not while she's still on the other side of that edge. Ladies first. Maka first, always. He lives to serve, and it's beyond any weapon obligation that drives him, he's sure of it. It's her honesty, her possessive dig of her nails into his shoulders, his arm. Because he's hers, always has been, and it goes deeper than any official partnership will ever be able to explain.

(Love, he thinks, blearily, as Maka croons his name and rides him. He loves her.)

Rationalizing it out isn't his thing anyway. It's hers. She overthinks connotations and obligations, and he holds her hand and watches her hold the world on her shoulders and offers his own for her to cry on.

"Soul." His name makes him jump, alert, pulled taut like a live wire. "Soul, I need-"

"Can't touch you," he pants.

"Move," she whines, and she takes his face in her hands, cradling his jaw, as if he is something precious. "Move, please. Do it for me."

He is not the strong one of the two of them. He's never been. She could crush skulls between her thighs and he plays piano and shifts into dangerous demonsteel when the going gets dangerous. But he cannot deny a request from her, not in the throes of passion when she makes him feel like he can do anything, and so he plays the part, plays pretend. When Maka asks, he rolls his hips, and when they meet in the middle and he hits something deep within her, it's like fireworks.

It's watching her throw her head back and lose herself that gets him. It's Maka's nails dragging down his chest as she arcs her head back, blonde hair glinting golden in the light of sun as it falls behind her that undoes him, and when Maka gasps and shudders and shakes and rubs her clit until she finds it, that ah-ha! moment, Soul tumbles over the edge with her.

.

It's explosive. He feels explosive, and spent, and very tired and sated and happy, as he watches Maka let out a long, exhaustive sigh. To admit out loud that there's nowhere else he'd rather be than between her capable thighs, admiring her as she takes what she needs from him, would be embarrassing, but there's something about the afterglow that makes him brave. Or stupid.

Stupid for her. But that's nothing new. He's been stupid for her since that first day in the music room, when she'd held her hand out to him and accepted him for who he was, darkness and all.

He laughs, now, pleasantly used, and loosens his death-grip on his bedsheets. "Like you can do anything, huh?"

The way she looks at him - with such express, unfathomable fondness - chokes him up. Maka smiles down at him and shrugs, reaching for a hand to hold. "Thanks."

"Pfff." He doesn't think she should be thanking him for anything. He'd came, too. Hard. And his orgasm is decidedly messier than hers is. "Brat."

He is all bark and no bite, and she knows it. How can she not? They're tied, soul-deep, and even if she wielded another he still knows there's a space inside of her reserved for him because she same goes for him, too. When Maka's hand finds his, she squeezes tight and kisses his knuckles again, and Soul still feels himself blushing like a schoolboy. Stupid. He's so stupid.

"You're good to me," she says, so fearlessly, and Soul knows he'd stumble over the words, if the roles were reversed. "You put so much trust in me. And you let me boss you around."

"Hm," he hums.

Maka's brows raise. His response had not been convincing enough. "... Unless-"

"Maka."

Her grin is too much. Know it all. She giggles and pokes and prods and Soul tries to slip away, tries to roll over and bury his blushing face into his pillows and play it cool but it's impossible, when she's still on top of him. "Sooooul," she sing-songs, and even when he manages to slip away, she's got her arms around him like a vice, one leg hooked around his hip possessively. "Soul."

Christ. She has a hand planted over his heart. How's he ever supposed to stand a chance?

"Soul," she says again, and he grunts faux-moodily in response. "Soul, you know… I liked it."

"I hope you like the sex," he says, huffing. "Otherwise I wouldn't bother."

She shifts behind him, and she's such a little wiggle worm, but she's got him in her grasp, tangled around him, delightfully so. Her breasts are warm and soft against his bare back, and he tries not to think about the damp warmth pressed behind him, too.

He can't get away with playing tough. She knows him too well. Where there is trust there is also understanding, and for all the lip he gives and cool he pretends to exude, Maka knows the truth. Maka knows what makes him tick. Her palm presses to his heartbeat protectively and she kisses the back of his neck with such reverence that Soul feels any defenses he might still have wash away beneath her touch.

"I hope you liked it, too." Her lips are a little chapped, but it's okay. Any part of her is welcomed. All of her is welcomed, always. "Because, if you didn't, you could say something and I wouldn't-"

Soul grunts and gives in. Rolls over and takes his tiny, fearsome, stubborn meister into his arms and stops pondering. "Shut up," he mutters, and tucks her face against the crook of his neck. Allows himself to bask in the heat of her breath against his throat, only for a moment, while he gathers his own courage. "You know I don't mind being bossed around. I'm too used to it now."

Used to it. As if he hadn't felt torn apart and pieced back together when she'd pinned him to his own bed with nothing more than a stern stare. As if he hadn't just barely outlasted her, through only sheer force of ironclad will.

Well. She's the brave one, not him. He can hide behind his words all he wants. In the end, Maka still knows his truth. And when she leans back and smiles at him, tiny and secretive and so fucking pleased with herself and him and the world he doesn't balk. Doesn't even complain. Just takes her face into his hands and kisses her soundly.

Maka's smiling lips are hard to kiss, though. Doesn't she know he wants to taste her tongue? She should stop being so smug. He hates it.

(He loves it, who is he kidding.)

"So," she says, and ah, her mouth is mesmerizing, too. Just as much as her fingers brushing through his hair, twirling a stray, mutinous curl at the base of his neck. "So. It's okay, then?"

"Don't make me say it."

She presses a finger to his lips, now, and leans back, brows furrowed. "Say it."

Her meister voice does things to him that he could never admit outloud. There's command, there, in her tone. Delicious, dominating command, and Soul's never really been down to call the shots, anyway. It's always been Maka's department. Hopefully always will be.

He bites her finger. She flicks his nose. "Soul."

"I'm yours however you see fit," he says, and it's as teasing as it is vulnerable. Those grigori eyes can see through his walls anyway. Can see the honest, shy truth there, bellied by his tone. "A good weapon heeds his meister's orders."

"It's not that," she says, shaking her head, that wrinkle between her brows creasing. "I don't want you to think you have to."

Soul scoffs and bites at her finger again. "You'd never make me do anything."

Her eyes light up. Ah. Maybe that'd been a bit too much. It'll go to her head. Such bold admittance, for a man who gripes and complains every time it's his turn to do the dishes or the laundry. But that's not what she's really asking, anyway, and he knows she knows it; when it's just the two of them, alone, and he allows himself to be intimate with her in the same she allows herself to him, there is trust there. Trust that goes beyond any meister/weapon obligation. He is hers, just as much as she's his, and maybe he likes being told what to do, okay. Whatever.

"Kiss me," she says - asks, commands, requests - and he doesn't think twice about it. She's not smiling, this time, and Soul finds himself beneath her again, finds her hands in his hair and that's that.

Whatever. She makes him feel special, too.