Disclaimer: I don't own Soul Eater

The fifteenth!

"gravel road"

They stand at a crossroads, neither one wanting to look at the other and risk voicing what they both already know, that this would be the last time they'd be together like this before they go and risk their hearts and beings in a fight that they don't know if they can win.

Of course, she'll be somewhere else dealing with the damage this war has already caused so many villages and towns. She won't be the one heading out onto the literal battlefield, because she can't, she's not allowed, even though he'd much rather be fighting side-by-side with her than anyone else. He hates it, how they don't understand that he does his best when he's in her hands, under her control.

The silence suffocates them, and just as she takes a step forward, onto her own fork, her own path alone, without him, he snaps.

He grabs her by her frail shoulders and stops her in her tracks. She freezes but says nothing, her fingers inching up to cover his. Nothing is more painful than the soft, tender touch of her skin against his, something he's not used to from her at all and he knows that this is something she's scared of, this ending and losing him and trying to be closer all at once.

A heavy exhale shakes her body, and he feels the air leave her. All his life, he's been looking for someone like her, walking the streets searching for someone that had always been with him, hidden in plain sight, so blindingly obvious that he missed all the signs. She doesn't know how much he needs her to keep his world from falling apart, even though it already is all around them, but he can't find the words to tell her as they stand like statues here at the end of it all.

He thinks about how stupid he's been and how frustrating she's been too, but it doesn't take away the pain of her moving out of his hold, half-turning to look at him with the same eyes that he'd seen full of insanity, exhaustion, laughter, rage, sadness and maybe the subtle glow of what he hopes is trust and bliss and some secret kind of love. Now, they flicker at him in this near darkness with masked pain and what might just be tears. She opens her mouth but he won't let her say a word as he rushes towards her, his hands tilting her face up to mesh her mouth with his.

They stay like that for a long time, a single touch turning into several, quiet and sad and feather-light. God, he's wanted to do this for so long and hadn't really even thought about it until this ending of him and her and them. She doesn't fight at all, her hands fisted up in his jacket.

Just as he was the one to start it, he's the one who pulls away, his eyes still closed because he can't look at her right now, as she leaves him before anything amazing like those kisses could really even start. He doesn't open them as she reaches up to grab both his hands and lift them gently from where they were resting on either side of her face, lowering them slowly between them.

She lets go.

Her boots scrape along the ground as she backs away. He doesn't trust himself to watch her go, doesn't want that image of her leaving him stuck in his mind as he tears through demons sent directly from hell. All he wants to haunt his dreams is the feel of her lips against his, the way she met him halfway each time they broke apart, the feeling of her soul finally mixed with his.

Because he wants his last dying breath to be her name, to have his last thought be remembering her as someone who loved him enough to never leave.

I know, I know, over a year and the first update is short and doesn't make much sense. Sorry, but I'm back now, and I'm about to go through and major edit bits of this collection.

Because I love your thoughts,

-datt