Author stuff: I told CV that I would post something today.

Warning: Really old. Only vaguely edited. No matter how much crack I've warned you about in other fics, this one takes the cake. This is blatant laziness and misuse of characters that do not belong to me. EXTREMELY OOC, RIDICULOUS, AND OTHERWISE POINTLESS. I do not expect anything good to come of this. I just wanted something funny to write because Amp is damn depressing.

I do not own Soul Eater, Metroid, Fruit of the Loom, or any other companies/franchises I may have referenced.

Maka is nerdy. That is all.

Motherbrain

Maka hasn't even finished her dinner this time.

His tie is loose and hanging at his shoulders like a silken, steamrolled snake. His hand ruffles his hair, destroying all evidence of how carefully he had styled it about an hour ago. His suit jacket is already shrugged off and sloppily tossed on the counter.

Soul's in a foul mood. She can tell, because she hadn't heard the front door open at all. He does things quietly and softly when he's displeased. Maybe he overcompensates while trying to remain calm- an attempt to not destroy inanimate objects and innocent bystanders in a flash of bladed frustration.

Maka is grateful for this. However, she kind of wishes that he would just let go and stab a hole in a wall once in awhile. Maybe it's her violent tendencies showing, but she thinks it would be justified on days like today.

It is Saturday evening. In fact, nighttime hasn't even fully arrived. On average, normal people their age would be partying or seeing movies or participating in the illustrious act of 'sucking face'.

Maka could say any number of things like "But you just left," or "That was fast," or "Did you forget something," but they've had all those conversations before, and they hadn't ended well. The only outcome had been realizing her mouth is large and really careless when she doesn't read his blank face properly.

In her defense, it's really hard to read between the lines when there aren't any words on the brooding, lifeless page. But Maka Albarn reads (a lot, actually), and over time, she's become fluent in Evans Overcompensation Face. And probably a lot faster than anyone else could have! She's his friend and partner and meister and roommate and however many other connections she has with him, after all.

Taking the napkin from her lap and tossing it lightly next to her meal, she pads to the kitchen and fixes him a plate of food. Maka always makes extra. Not too much- not enough to make him able to accuse her of being eternally prepared for his failure- just a little bit to keep him from going to bed melancholy and hungry. She places it on the table where he usually sits, returns to her seat, and resumes her dinner. She doesn't offer or suggest or demand he sit and eat, only leaving a door open that he can step through should he so desire.

He has the grace to not look miserable. In fact, he looks pretty damn good. The red dress shirt suits him. Unfortunately, he looks terrible while spinning fettechini on his fork in false serenity.

Maka knows that deep down, she's relieved that he's back. It's a terrible feeling to become increasingly pleased the more his dates suck. He doesn't deserve the continual disappointment no matter how she may feel about it. Soul is a good guy- he's easy to live with, dependable, observant- so he really oughtn't be lonely.

She refrains from whistling happily.

Soul's relationships (if they can be called such) are short-lived, lasting three or four days at best. And that's if he doesn't walk out on the first date. He's too picky! They're either too dumb, or wearing too much lipstick, or too clingy- it's like the man has a whole book of excuses that he picks from at random.

Then there's the occasional blind date in which the woman gets a closer look at his face and decides he's scary.

Maka assumes that tonight's failure was brought out by some form of the latter, if the way he keeps his eyes hidden behind a casually-placed hand at his brow is any indication. Soul's eyes are intense, brought out into focus by his shirt, which she thinks he does on purpose. He probably had smiled a lot too, forcing whoever his date was to come face to face with a carnivorous and feral set of pearly intimidation.

He says something that makes her choke on garlic bread. "Excuse me?"

"I said: Do you ever wish your tits were bigger?"

She glares at him while trying to wash down the bread with water. She knows where this conversation is headed. After mastering Evans Overcompensation Face, it's become easy to understand his sideways, tangent-filled dance with words.

He's self-conscious. Maka runs through several scenarios in which this current conversation could end up with her saying something stupid like how he has nothing to worry about because at least one person on the planet wouldn't mind getting into his pants, even if she is romantically inept and can only show her appreciation of his existence by accidentally turning his socks pink when she does the laundry.

But Maka is his friend. Friend. The girl-friend-but-not-girlfriend. Neutral territory. She's gotta keep it platonic, because he trusts her to, right? Even if he brings up her tits at the dinner table. Even if he uses her hairspray before he goes out on a date with some bimbo.

Maka is tempted to kick his shins under the table, but she's not wearing any shoes and she knows that shins are detrimental to unprotected phalanges. She also knows that putting up with his lack of tact is what she should do as his friend.

What was the question again? Larger mammary glands. Right. Uhg. "Sometimes," she answers truthfully, if not grudgingly. His hand slowly falls from his face to rest lightly on the table, his blood eyes fixed on her face in careful attention. Maka's feet rub together under the table in uncomfortable agitation under his scrutiny.

He smirks. "Only sometimes?"

She swallows her displeasure at the jab towards her very plank-like chest. Maka gives him a sour look. "Your personal preferences aside, yes. Only sometimes." Her gaze fumbles to her mostly-empty dinner plate as she speaks. ...Stupid eyes that she can't look at directly. She ought to gouge them out and- "I think it would be nice to not be mistaken as a ten year old when I'm nearly double the age. I think it would be nice to have someone be interested in me for reasons other than lolicon."

She hears a small scoff from him, which lightens her heart a little despite the conversation. "But?"

"But," Maka says with a sigh, "I also think it would be annoying to have people stare at my chest all the time. It's overrated. And what would I do while wielding you?" she rhetorically asks, pointing her fork at him for emphasis. "They'd get in the way and I'd be top-heavy because my center of gravity would be-"

"OKAY, okay. I get it. No need for the physics lesson." Soul puts a hand to his forehead and rubs the bridge of his nose tiredly.

Well he asked! "Anyway, it's probably better to just wait and find someone who's... fine with how I am already." She stabs the last noodle on her plate with a little more force than she had wanted.

Soul hums a little- an introspective grunt of a noise. He swabs some sauce off his plate with a crust of bread. "How I am already, hm?" He chews dispassionately. "Kinda hard to advertise, you know? 'Seeking female that is fine with demon face.'"

He says it lightheartedly, or as lighthearted as someone concentrating on not being displeased can, but Maka's fork clatters painfully against her plate.

"What? Are you serious?"

Silence.

"Who was she?" Maka stands out of her chair, offended. "I'll show her a real demon!"

Soul sighs, exasperated. "Noooo, you can't kill her, Maka-"

"Oh come on. 'Demon face?' She's not even original! Clearly you're more shark than-"

"Not everyone has your vocabulary, Dictionary," he drawls at her with a scowl, standing to take his plate to the sink.

"That's Miss Dictionary to you, and at least I don't insult my dates!"

Not like she's ever had any, but that fact doesn't make her statement any less true. Warning bells ring very, very distantly in the back of her mind, chiming to alarm her of the loudmouth territory she's treading in, but she only hears Soul groan while he places his plate in the dishwasher rack.

"It's not her fault," he chides. "When 'Star introduced us, I had shades on and a hat and shit. She didn't know any better."

Maka's mouth slides open, confounded by his words floating to her from around the corner. "Are you...what are you saying? That you're at fault because of what- false advertising? Is that what this is?" She brings her plate to the kitchen, staring at him while he dries his hands on a towel. "Don't defend her."

"Just drop it, Maka," he says, and slides around her and down the hallway to his room. She hears his belt buckle jingle as he walks away, preemptively undressing. His door shuts with a tiny, composed click.

Maka harrumphs to herself in the kitchen, rinsing her plate. He just has bad luck, is all. Any date that's set up by that blue-haired idiot is bound to end poorly. He shouldn't wallow around and be self-conscious because the average, IQ-allergic, walking vagina doesn't realize he's rather devastatingly handsome. All he needs is to find the right girl and-

...Wait. Her wet hands come up to slap on her face in horror. What is she thinking? Maka's not sure whose side she's even on.

She should just wait quietly until he gets over it and keep her big mouth shut. But damn it all, she had even ironed his stupid slacks so he could go on a date with someone else- the least he can do is show a little self-respect or frustration or something.

It's a terrible idea, but Maka decides to pull the cork off his bottled-up dejection. She's supposed to make him feel better- not make him angry! But all she knows is that she just wants him to not be so damn despondent and lonely. And to slap him. Mostly the latter at the moment, but the former is important too.

It's statistically proven that bottling one's emotions is unhealthy, right? And she's read that cornered animals will lash out when provoked, and he's kind of like an animal anyway!

Deciding, however vaguely, that her reasoning is sound and just, Maka stomps down the hallway, drying off her face with an arm, and throws open his bedroom door, catching her weapon in the middle of sliding a shirt over his head. He sighs irritatedly through threadbare cotton.

Maybe she shouldn't slap him. He definitely wins in the muscular structure department.

Pulling the collar over his nose and chin, he frowns at her. "Do you mind," he growls. She stubbornly frowns back, not willing to give up just yet, so he grumbles and turns away, pulling on faintly plaid, faded sleep pants over his boxers. "Look, it wouldn't have worked out," he says to her silence as he ties the drawstring at his waist. He turns to face her again, his voice superficially joking. "She's from out of town. Imagine her reaction if she had found out what I do for a living."

Maka feels her lips press in a tight line, but she doesn't let up on the staring contest. Soul's eyebrows bunch together in irritation. She takes this as progress.

"What do you want me to say? That she's a cunty bitch?"
"...Yes, actually!"

"Fine. She's a cunty bitch," he tonelessly says. He crosses his arms over his chest, glaring back at her, eyes alight with displeasure. "Nothing changes, no matter what I say about it. I scared her with my 'demon' face. End of story."

"Okay, so when are you gonna get angry about it?"

Soul looks at her like she's offered him a plate of decapitated heads for dinner. She takes this as more progress. "What?" His shoulders slowly straighten behind him as she marches in his room. "There's no point-"

"It'll make you feel better," she reasons, not taking her eyes off of his. She purposely invades his space, attempting to get any part of his emotions to leak out.

"Are you insane?"

"Only because you drive me there," she remarks, and he glowers at her when he realizes that the statement isn't exactly an exaggeration. She takes a finger and rather purposely jabs it into his stomach, harassing him. "Get angry!"

She's rather pleased with herself when he brushes her hand away, almost crushing it in his palm like an annoying wasp repeatedly stinging him. Maka's even more proud when he starts talking in more tones than deadpan, his teeth baring and gleaming. "I am angry, damn it. I'm just trying to not take it out on you, though you're making it really difficult, with your loudmouth smart-assed bullsh-"

"Yell at me! Do it!"

He looks at her, half skeptical and half at wit's end, and then he scoffs exasperatedly, floodgates opening. "FINE, YOU...CRAZY BROAD! Fuck! You're so backwards! You don't make any sense!" Soul yanks her hand that's trapped in his, forcefully pulling her close until she stumbles into his chest, her toes stubbing into his. She has to look almost straight up to keep in contact with his furious glare. "How's this: Don't barge into my room any time you feel like it, don't poke me like a god-damned monkey in a cage, and don't talk about my 'personal preferences' like you know me!"

Maka is slightly derailed when he confronts her about their conversation at the dinner table, unaware that she had apparently offended him. But this is good, right? This is great! He even raised his voice! Instinct from thousands of bicker-matches takes over as she continues to egg him on. "Know you?" The bottom of Maka's chin rubs uncomfortably on his shirt. "Of course I know you! We resonate fifty percent of any given week! I know everything. I know what color your boxers are today."

"Only because you barged into my room while I was changing-"
"The ones yesterday were blue and green Paisley-"
"They're. Amoebas!"
"Believe what you want, but Fruit of the Loom does not cater to the public demand for microscopic germs. It's called Paisley!"

Soul pushes her away from him, howling and cringing. Hands now free, his fingers are taut and flexed in his agitation while he rants. "The fact that you can puke so many god damn syllables in less than three seconds PISSES ME OFF. Why are you filled with such useless information?"

"I read my books out loud. I retain information bett-"
"You're so nerdy! If you dug a god-damn hole with your uncoolness, you'd make it to China, and then careen out the bloody galaxy-"
"Oh for Death's sake! You can not dig to China from Death City! You would end up in the Indian Ocean-"
"And you know what? If you know me so damn well, then let's address this shit again: What tits do I like?"

"Uhh," she sarcastically stalls, thumb and forefinger pressed to her chin in intense thought as if this weren't the easiest question since 'A sound soul dwells within a sound insert-answer-here'. "Ridiculously huge ones?"

"Wrong," he loudly says, flipping her off with one hand.

Maka puts a palm to her (flat) chest in fake apology. "Oh, my mistake. Gigantic ones."

Now flipping her off with both hands, he exclaims, "Wrong!"

"Really?" She's honestly surprised, their bizarre argument thrown off-track. "But what about you spewing like a carotid artery whenever your head is shoved in-"

"What is with all the trivia!" He groans, spine contorting backwards as he mashes his palms to his face. He appears to be making a desperate plea to heaven.

"Hey- it's important stuff. Why do you think I always aim for the neck with your scythe?" Maka says matter-of-factly, poking at her neck in the proper place. "Why don't you learn something and freakin' evolve."

It's Soul's turn to get in her personal space. Maka stands her ground as he comes up close enough to jab a finger to her forehead like she had done to his chest. "What-the FUCK-ever! Store this in your motherbrain vault of pointless information: I like all tits. In fact, I'm fine with tits like yours," he snarls, taking the finger pointed at her forehead and prodding her left nipple with it, "-'cause they're fun to fit in my mouth!" He ends his tirade by nudging what little flesh her breast contains upwards for emphasis.

Maka squeaks. Well, she really only has herself to blame for his state of completely frazzled anger, so she shakily says, "...N-n-noted," while her face contributes more heat to the Nevada desert than the sun has in the past twenty years. There's a bloated silence while he curiously looks at her face, and then his hand, and then somewhere very far away as he realizes what exactly has just happened.

Soul's hand hurriedly flies off of her like he's been burned. "Fuck a duck," he swears with a grimace.

Shut up shut up shut up, "Will you be poking it in the breast as well?" Damn it!

Her weapon glowers at her, clearly pinning the blame of whatever has just transpired on her. "... I really need a beer." He skirts around her and out the door, and then awkwardly (but not silently) shuts it after him, keeping her inside.

In a sharp and ringing silence, Maka stares at the space Soul had recently vacated. A lot of words had been thrown around with reckless abandon, and she takes a moment to breathe and sift through the important facts:

He had completely dodged talking about his date.
He thinks she's some kind of walking Jeopardy game show.
He's in denial about men's underwear fashion.
He actively tries to not yell at her, when she has the presence of mind to keep her mouth shut.
He's fine with her breasts like one is fine with a certain flavor of candy.

Fine. The word brings up a nagging piece of information. What was it? Maka's eyes widen as the doorknob to Soul's bedroom door slowly turns, stops, and turns back. She hears a grumbling; something that sounds like "Get it over with, idiot," and then the barrier swings open, revealing her weapon who tries glare at her but ends up merely eying her warily.

Maka does an internal jig, despite the six or fifty-six ranks of weird that have just occurred, because Soul's face is contorted into an embarrassed, lip-pursing, agitated pout, which is a big improvement over bottled-up brooding. Her weapon stands in the doorway to his own room, halfway refusing to enter. She had inadvertently alienated him out of his own space. The beer can in his hand clicks and hisses- it's casual sound serving absolutely no use as an icebreaker to the awkwardness that swamps them.

"Feel better now?" she offers hesitantly, trying hard to ignore the steady thump-thumping of her stressed heart.

"Please get out," he says to the ceiling.

She wants to ask why he had shut the door and trapped her in here if he wanted her to leave, but she holds her tongue for once. However, her silence lasts only a small time, because as he steps aside from the doorway and she passes him, her tongue rebels.

"If it's any consolation, I'm fine with demon faces," she blurts.

Well, at least she hadn't been poking him in the eyeball when she said it. Maka controls her legs, feeling his eyes on her as she walks away calmly, not sprinting down the hall and out the door and off the planet to Galaxy Uncool like she desires. She risks a glance as she turns the corner into the kitchen to clean up after dinner.

Soul nonchalantly nurses his disgusting beverage while his facial complexion races to catch up with hers.

Shielded by kitchen walls, Maka thumps her forehead repeatedly with her fingertips, berating her stupidity before attacking the dirty pots and pans on the stove. If anyone ever needs an amazing friendship completely alienated, she is ready to tackle the job! Idiot! How much more pathetic can she sound?

"What about shark teeth."

The sponge in her hand makes a disgusting wet slap as it falls from her startled hand. Soul, red-faced and a shade too twitchy to fake calm, leans on a counter. He eyes the yellow and green sponge on the floor, and then her face.

Maka does not want to think about what her face may look like. She bends down to pick up the sponge, rinsing it before continuing her war on food particles. Soul takes a loud sip of his beer.

"W-what about them?" Slosh slosh. Scrub. Rinse. Set pan in dishwasher. Avoid thinking about conversation directly.

"Do they bother you?"

Risking a glance over her shoulder, she spies him staring at the top of the can in his hand, eyebrows furrowed. "Do you want them to bother me?" Maka hesitantly asks, though it's not the question that she had wanted to say. Soul looks at her abruptly, hearing her and hearing the words under it, for he had invented the dance of beating-round-the-bush.

"...No. I don't," he says, the open and unguarded expression on her face making her almost drop the sponge again.

Maka hurriedly washes the pot she had boiled noodles in. "W-w-well too bad. It absolutely bothers me, because you take twenty freakin' minutes to brush them in the bathroom. Do you know how much floss you go through in a month? And don't even get me started on mAAH!"

Soul sets his beer on the counter, one (cold!) hand clamping on her arm closest to him, turning her to face him while the other grabs her opposite wrist to keep her in place.

"Mouthwash," she ends, lamely.

He has that blank face again, and it speaks in a dialect of Overcompensation she is unfamiliar with.

"Are you sure you're fine with ...this?" But he gestures towards nothing, and she can only assume he's talking about his appearance. Like it matters. Like she doesn't have problems finding anyone else attractive because he set the standards so damn high for her.

"Shouldn't I be asking that?" When Soul answers her with a perplexed look, her motor mouth takes over. "I mean, even if I managed to make it past the four-day-girlfriend record, I look like a little boy, I don't wear makeup, I'm nerdy, I buy my underwear in packs of six because they're cheap, and then the little waistband unravels and gets stuck in your nice shirts' buttons so they fall off, and then you get angry because I washed my panties with your dress shirts, and then angrier because neither of us know how to sew on buttons, I'm really sorry about that, by the way..."

"Orange," he says, grimly.

Bewildered, she spits out, "What?"

"The buttons. You sewed them on in bright orange. It looks awful. My dates ask about them, because they're such an eyesore, and then I explain some girl's panties got tangled with them, which pisses them off, and all I can think about is some nerd that's sitting at home with too much dinner on the stove."

Maka's eyes widen in mortification. He had apparently noticed the food surplus all along. "Ah-"

"Ah," he teasingly echoes back at her. His hands gently slide down her arm and wrist to grasp her fingers. "So. Seeing as how we're both fine with the other- shut up, yes, I heard your tirade, you don't need to repeat it- ...maybe we should date. Or something."

Maka experiences what she believes to be her heart doing a belly flop into a pool, which then proceeds to flail, climb out of the pool, and then jump back in again. "I-I reeeally don't know how to do that," she grinds out, attempting to neither hyperventilate nor punch him when his fingers lace between her soapy, wet ones.

"Date? Miss Dictionary admits to not knowing something?" Soul grins lopsidedly.

No matter how loudly her blood roars in her ears, how terrified she is of possibly being dumped by this irreplaceable weirdo, and how irritating his snickering is, she's still quite happy to see him smile, and to be the source of it.

Her mouth has always worked a little faster than her brain, and it drags her forward, meekly pecking at Soul's.

"Ah-" he says, eyebrows arching in pleasant surprise.

"Ah."

The next kiss is informative. The next kiss is a repeat, and thus, boring. The next kiss is downright fascinating, and she would have studied it all evening, ready to add her findings to the very blank subject in her mind labeled "The Act of Sucking Face", but she pushes him away with disgust.

"BLEAH."
"What! What's wrong, what did-"
"You taste like beer. Go brush your teeth!"

After a bewildered moment of silence, Soul bursts out laughing, obligingly turning his head away at her grimace. "Okay, but it'll take me twenty minutes," he manages to say, his fingers squeezing hers. He snorts again when her face lights up in embarrassment.

"...Then just mouthwash is fine."
"Is it?"

Maka growls, exasperated, twisting out of his grasp and shoving him towards the bathroom. "Just go DO IT, or I'll do your laundry!"

"How cruel- the amoebas did nothing to you."

She tells him that it's called 'Paisley', and to "Hurry up, I wanna be your girlfriend, already."