A/N: This is a collection of unlinked one-shots (following the manga). Basically, it's set after the formation of Spartoi and the events of the Book of Eibon, but before all moon-related chapters (unless stated otherwise). If you haven't read the manga, these will still make sense – Soul is just already a Death Scythe in the manga at this point. Also, Shibusen is the DWMA. It's just a different name for it, an acronym for the Japanese words.

Rating: T – for language (Soul and Black*Star as the main perpetrators, due to their character), and the occasional make-out scene, but there's nothing graphic or anything in here. Chill. This is Fanfiction, not 50 Shades of Smut.
Pairings: SoMa (maybe some Tsu*Star and KiLiz added in on the side, but these are mostly SoMa oneshots).
There are song quotes at the start of each one-shot, but this isn't a songfic, don't worry. The Soul Eater characters aren't a musical. The titles of each one-shot also relate to the song (usually a lyric).
Disclaimer: Fanfiction. FANfiction. Not OWNERfiction, because that's the actual thing. I in no way claim ownership of Soul Eater or any related part of it. All rights go to Atsushi Ohkubo and the respective owners. I also do not own the songs used at the beginnings of chapters.

Okay, enjoy now, yeah. Cool.

ONE – Sleep Until the Sun Goes Down

Some had scars and some had scratches,
That made me wonder about their past.
And as I looked around, I began to notice,
That we were nothing like the rest.
- "Mountain Sound", Of Monsters and Men.

There was no one word to describe their lives - not that he could think of, anyway. 'Brutal' didn't seem strong enough due to what they'd seen. 'Bloodstained' was too inaccurate, as most of their opponents didn't even bleed human blood. 'Heroic' was toyed around with, but he shot that idea down in flames himself – after all, as weapons and meisters it was their job to risk their lives. What else could they do?

Maybe that's the word we should use, Soul thought drily. Risky. He sighed as he looked around the brightly lit café, ever the master of cynicism. For some unknown reason, he was in a crappy mood, and the scenery was catching the brunt of it.

The golden sunshine was a lie created by an ever-laughing manic ball of hydrogen, as far as he was concerned today. The weapon couldn't count the amount of times he'd been a hairs-breadth from death, and the sun had laughed at his fate. The smiling faces of the people flocking the tables were also a falsehood – everybody here was upset about something, surely. After all, how perfect was life? And the absolute untruthfulness in the room was right before him, in the form of his friends. They all communicated and joked, boasted and shied away from probing questions. Besides Black*Star's manic yelling and Kid's rearrangement of the table's condiments, they could pass for normal teenage human beings.

But then life raised its hand and called Bullshit, because these people were anything but normal teens. They were walking weapons in the fight against evil and insanity – literally. They were pawns in the great game of life. They were warriors, victims and victorious at the same time. Each person surrounding him, from the youngest Thompson sister Patti to the eldest group member Tsubaki, was just another scar.

Another injury, a reminder of pain, that hadn't amounted to death, but had left its mark and intended to show its impact on the world's overall existence.

Some scars were more prominent, such as Black*Star. The fool couldn't settle for anything less than a completely defacing injury with no chance of concealment. Then there were others like Tsubaki, a mere memory on a knee or wrist to show that yes, you had fallen, but you didn't really remember the incident that well.

Soul didn't know why he was being so freakin' depressing. He thought it was something to do with the café's coffee. But as he sat at that table and drunk in the feeling of normalcy, he sometimes wondered what it would be like if he weren't just another scar. If he was a person, a teenager. His life problems would be finding a girlfriend, passing his classes acceptably so that his parents didn't kick his ass, and choosing which car would make him look the coolest. But that wasn't Soul's life problem list. Instead, he was lined up against things like massive injury, the death of everybody I care about, complete envelopment of madness, and an Oni that likes to mess with everything private and turn one's soul into their own fancy cocktail bar.

He could probably pin his angry emo cloud of thoughts on the other occupants of the small place in which they sat. Young, like him. With a group of friends, like him. But unlike him, the teenagers eating in the café were safe. Safe and carefree, like he used to be. Pure and innocent, gentle beings that mostly shied away from the sight of blood and guts.

For Soul, those images were pretty well part of the freakin' job description.

He wouldn't say he envied the people at the next table over – the three girls and two guys, having dinner out on a Friday night and probably celebrating the end of exam block*. No, cool guys didn't envy people. He – was frustrated with them. Was that the way to put it? Something about their airy, happy and carefree lives just sort of set his teeth on edge. Maybe it was his lack of empathy for them – after all, with his excessive family income, Soul never really had a normal childhood full of interaction with peers – but they just seemed so . . . useless. Were they contributing to the world? Sure, they might end up inventing some shit that cured cancer, but it wasn't likely. He wasn't being self-important, but he and Maka kicked ass on a regular basis to keep the world safe. How was it fair? Why did normal people get to sit back while he risked everything? Why could they try to calculate math problems while he calculated the risk of death on a mission? It wasn't fair, it was shit, and it was making him angry.

"Are you even listening to me?" he heard someone say impatiently. It took him a moment to realise Black*Star, his best friend (besides Maka, of course, but the 'friend' thing there wasn't really something he liked to think about much) had been lecturing him on something for the past few minutes.

"Uh, sure I am dude," Soul said weakly, trying to catch himself up on the rest of the group's conversation. The blue-haired assassin looked at him expectantly, as did Kid and the Thompson sisters. Maka and Tsubaki were having a side conversation. "What are you lookin' at me like that for?"

"I'm waiting for you to answer my question, duh!"

"What question?"

"See, I knew you weren't listening!" Black*Star wailed, much to Soul's irritation. It's a freakin' public place, come on. "How dare you ignore your God, Soul?"

The Death Scythe rubbed the back of his neck. "Dude, can you not yell? It's not cool."

"TSUBAKI! SOUL ISN'T LISTENING TO ME!"

"HAHAHAHAHA! Look, Sissy! He's going purple, like the monkeys in my colour book!" Patti crowed, to which the elder Thompson sister promptly face-palmed. Kid's condiment arrangement was jostled, causing a meltdown and a half, and now Black*Star was complaining louder so as to get more of the spotlight on him.

Soul sank down in his seat with an unrestrainable sigh, although there was undoubtedly a smirk on his face. Scratch that. They didn't pass for normal teens.

"What's got you so depressed?" he heard from his right, and he turned to see Maka with her nose in her book. Clearly, Tsubaki's conversation hadn't been enough to keep his meister out of the land of ink and pages. Without looking up, she'd managed to tell he was in a funk, likely from her advanced Soul Perception and the link between his own soul wavelength and hers.

Instead of answering her, Soul just shrugged and trusted that her proximity to him would allow her to feel the movement. A small pout entered her features and she nudged him with her elbow, still not looking up from her novel. He didn't respond, and soon she was pushing that bony elbow into his ribs. He made a (sadly, very uncool) noise of pain and she grinned slightly, finally looking up.

"Jeez, woman," Soul complained, rubbing his side. "Why are you always so physical?"

Aha, yep, that was an awesome time for everyone's conversation to stop, he thought suddenly as everyone at their table turned to look at him with wide eyes. "You heard what I said," he huffed, feeling a delicate – wait, not delicate, screw that, he was manly and cool as fuck – blush crawl up his neck.

Maka elbowed him again for good measure, pretending to read so her blush wouldn't be visible to everyone. Once the rest of the group was enveloped in more ridiculous antics – because apparently we're the loony half of Spartoí, although I have my doubts about Ox sometimes, Soul thought – his meister spoke to him again in a decidedly less ostentatious approach.

"Seriously, what's up? You're really pissy, and it's distracting."

Soul grunted in a non-committed fashion. "S'nothing."

"If it's 'nothing', then why's your wavelength so jumpy?" Maka paused. "Are you mad at me?"

"Huh? No, not unless you did something that I should be pissed about and I don't know about it yet?" he probed, fretting for a second that his mood was going to get even more sour. Oni would start making comments if he got any more agitated.

"I didn't do anything!" she hissed, offended. At his raised white eyebrow, she shrugged at him, putting her book down. Soul was surprised. She's actually serious if she's dropping the literature. "Is someone else making you angry?"

"Not anyone at this table."

Maka's eyes lit with interest. She could complain about the 'fake' girls at school all she wanted, but Soul knew that she loved gossip just as much as the next female. "Someone at school?"

"Nah," he answered, and was rewarded with the satisfaction of her eyebrows scrunching together in confusion in a way he didn't find adorable, damnit. Remember, manly as fuck. Her facial expressions got so distracting sometimes, as did her skirt length . . . Soul knew why he was confused though. He wasn't exactly the most socially outgoing guy out there, despite the popularity from being a Death Scythe that kept throwing itself at him. She was probably wondering who it could be now.

" . . . Blair?"

"Wrong again," he answered, but he felt a frown on his face anyway. "Then again, she's in trouble when she gets back from work tonight."

"Why?" the blonde asked, still mulling over Soul's issue and who it was with.

"She's fucking shedding on all of my stuff. And she shredded one of my band shirts yesterday to, and I quote, 'keep her pretty claws shiny.' Can you keep her in your room, please?"

"Why should I? It's your fault she came to live with us anyway, after all."

"So what, it's my fault that I'm just that cool and she wants to be around me? Yeah, uh-huh, I totally see how that's fair."

"Oh shut up," Maka said irritably, kicking him under the table. "Back to your sour mood. Seriously, who is it?"

Soul sighed and caved before she could whip out the infamous puppy eyes. "Fine. It's those people."

"Which people?"

"All of those teenagers over there," he said quietly, but Maka didn't continue on from his example of subtlety when she craned her neck and stared at the aforementioned group with a raised eyebrow.

"What are they doing to bother you, huh?"

He knew she wouldn't understand. After all, she'd always been a part of a weapon-meister family. She'd always known what her future was going to be, so she'd grown up viewing the world in a very different way to how he had. She'd experienced training and the lifestyle of a Shibusen student far before actually enrolling. Soul, on the other hand, had lived a shitty human life before finding out his true heritage. He'd been a part of a human family – although the Evans', in his opinion, were a sad excuse for a family. He'd understood all of the petty problems a normal person felt; abandonment, insecurity, fear of the irrational. Maybe that was a part of his dislike for the human species. They reminded him of his own life, and the way he used to be. That life had been simpler, but by no means pleasant for him. He'd sucked at everything he ever did, compared to his elder brother Wes. At least he knew how to be a weapon. Maka wouldn't get how it felt to not have that constant dangerous threat lurking over her head, so she'd have nothing to place humans in contempt for.

Still, he tried to explain it. "They're just so . . . free, you know?"

His partner's facial expression told him that no, she did not know, please explain.

"Never mind. You wouldn't get it."

"Are you saying I'm not smart enough to understand?" Maka asked through her teeth, her hand visibly itching for that novel on the table. "Is that what you're saying?"

"What? No! Jeez, calm down, Tiny Tits!" Soul grumbled, narrowly avoiding a Chop due to her not hearing his use of the hated nickname. "You just haven't experienced it."

"Experienced what?"

"Normalcy."

He could see the sudden concern on Maka's face and realised that his wavelength must have jumped bitterly again. "What do you mean by that, Soul?"

"I mean, there's a life for some people where there aren't any monsters under the bed. Yeah," he re-iterated, "not in Death City, because we're the headquarters for everything Evil Ass-Kicking. But out there, in the real world, there are people who just . . . I don't know, exist. They don't do anything to fight evil. Hell, most of the time they're the ones fucking up and causing evil. I'm saying, you don't know what that's like. But I do. And it just kinda pisses me off that the world works like that sometimes," he finished. Maka nodded in surprise, contemplating his words.

"If," she started quietly, "there wasn't anyone to protect, or anyone to fight, why would we exist then? We'd be useless, just slightly powerful human beings. You'd probably be seen as evil yourself, and we wouldn't be partners."

"Yeah, but shouldn't there be at least some sort of give and take? I mean, they fight wars against themselves for crying out loud!"

"Wasn't the Kishin once a meister?" Maka argued. "We're fighting our own, too."

"But we have a purpose. It just bothers me that the rest of the world might not."

Maka nodded. "You're right. That's actually kind of sad. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't know what my future held. I mean, I've always known I'd grow up to make a Death Scythe and fight pre-Kishin."

Soul snorted. "Bet you didn't predict half the shit we've dealt with though. We're a freakin' freight train of weird disasters."

Maka laughed too. "You're right, but how would it feel to know you could grow up and end up with nothing? No purpose?"

"Well," he said after a slight pause, feeling the past swell inside him like an ocean tide, "it's actually pretty shit, I've got to say. You're forgetting, I didn't know until I was eleven."

"True," Maka said sombrely. "But, you had the piano before that, right?"

"Are you kidding? Seriously?"

"I wasn't kidding, no. Why should I have been?"

"Because I'd never want to fucking live out my life as one of them," he said bitterly.

"Them?"

"You know what I mean."

"They're your family, Soul," Maka said softly.

"Coulda' fooled me. You're family. These idiots at the table are family. They're the Terra Cotta army**."

Maka raised both eyebrows, impressed that he even knew what the Terra Cotta army was, let alone being able to use it in context. He merely shrugged again, giving an excuse that they were cool and therefore worthy of his knowledge.

"Well," his meister said quietly, "I feel sorry for them. They can never resonate souls. Think of everything they miss."

It was true, she was right. Soul knew that there were so many parts of being a meister-weapon team that made life much better compared to the dull human life. He guessed he should pity them too. After all, he puzzled as Maka, satisfied with her consolation of him, turned back to the table where Patti was folding napkin origami giraffes, if I had to pick between being normal or risking my life to be able to bond with Maka and all of these weirdos.

I'd have to make sure I knew how to get bloodstains out of my jackets, coz those things are way too cool to ever throw away.

So maybe he wasn't mundane. But he was a Death Scythe, and if he had to witness blood and guts on a daily basis to maintain his current life, he would. Because those teenagers could have girlfriends and boyfriends and whatever else, but they couldn't have a partner. They couldn't have Maka. That was one thing he could claim over anyone - even Wes. When all else failed, he had Maka, so he'd be fine.

At that moment, their food came out. Before Soul could quite shake the contemplation of blood and guts, he glanced down at his plate. Spaghetti and meatballs in normally mouth-watering, red, dripping, tomato sauce. But now all he could picture was intestines and blood and –

"Well, shit."

*- I don't know if you guys have this, but in Australia we have this thing in some schools called exam block, where you do all of your big tests for the semester (half year) in a specially organised set time period, so you know when to study and stuff. I guess it would be kind of like 'finals' for the USA? But I don't really know.

**- The Terra Cotta army was the army made of stone in China under the rule of Emperor Qin. I'm not giving a history lesson, but just to make sure you know what I'm talking about, think of thousands of actual human replica statue soldier guys from thousands of years ago, perfectly sized. Soul's making a point that they look perfect but they're really just emotionless lumps of rock, if you're wondering why the Hell I mentioned this.

Hope you enjoyed this. Let me know if I've made any spectacular grammar fails or spelling errors, I have no proof reader besides my spell check on the laptop. Thanks.