A/N: I do not own Soul Eater or OneRepublic's 'Feel Again', the Hunger Games franchise, Marvel or Harry Potter, or Monopoly.

So, I said that this was going to be the last chapter, but there's a particular way that I want this collection to end and I can't quite write it properly yet.

Would just like to say a massive thank-you for the overwhelming support you've given me for this story. I recently discovered that I got fifty reviews in three chapters, and my favourites and follows numbers just increased exponentially. Thank you so much for the support.

SORRY if the formatting turns out weird on this, I've never written and uploaded from an iPad before so here's hoping it goes okay. WARNING for heavy sexual references.

POST UPLOAD: ITALICS AND BOLDING AREN'T WORKING AND LINE BREAKS, YEESH. SORRY.

Enjoy.

THIRTY-THREE – LONG TIME COMING

I'm feeling better,

Ever since you know me.
I was a lonely soul,

But that's the old me.

-'Feel Again', OneRepublic.

Oh, this was turning out to be an absolutely shithouse day.

Soul cursed sharply as the small plate in the microwave stopped revolving with no warning, the whole machine going black as the countdown to delicious popcorn salvation disappeared. He'd just spent five solid minutes looking for the sachets in their horrific excuse for a pantry, and yet six seconds into the timer, the appliance had called it quits.

Actually, it looked like the whole apartment had. Which meant there would be a new countdown, one to prosecution and bodily harm, in three, two . . .

"Soul! What the Hell!"

Damn, he must be getting slow.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in for strength as the bathroom door swung open, the loud stamping of feet providing a rhythmic harmony to the last beats his heart would likely ever take. The rage got closer and closer and he would swear to Death he could feel the goddamn floor shaking when she finally came to a halt right in front of him, towering over his crouched form in front of the microwave.

"Did you," Maka seethed, her ashy hair still streaming from her abruptly halted shower, "forget to pay the electricity bill again?"

Before the word no could even start to form on his tongue – and there was a considerable delay in the speech considering he was a little distracted by the fact that his meister was in nothing but a towel, by the power of Shinigami, fuck him dead – her fists came down into his hair. He winced as she started to pull, hard.

"Soul – Eater – Evans, how could you be so - !"

"Maka . . . ack! Stop!"

" – Stupid, it was the only job you had to do this week - !"

"But I paid the bill! Oh, God, I think you just ripped off a chunk of skull!"

" – And it isn't even that . . . wait, what do you mean, you paid it?"

"I mean," he gasped, taking advantage of her momentary distraction to scoot as far away from her as he could, his back hitting the kitchen drawers, "I paid it on Tuesday! Fuck, I think my head's bleeding."

Maka's eyes narrowed and she ignored his woeful pains. "Then why do we have no power?"

"I don't know, I guess something shorted out downstairs."

She scowled at him but decided it would be worth investigating before mercilessly murdering him in cold blood on the hardwood floor. She'd made it to the door and was moving to step out and have a look around when Soul coughed a little awkwardly, trying to keep his affable smirk in place despite the blush creeping up his neck like a snitch. "Uh, Maka?"

"What?" She still sounded annoyed.

"You're . . . sorta' not wearing any clothes. Might not want to go outside."

She opened her mouth – to shoot back a crippling comeback, no doubt – but upon looking down in reflex, gave the highest pitched squeal he'd ever heard and dashed back towards the bathroom in a flurry of water droplets. Soul tried to laugh and throw a nasty comment of the nothing to see there anyway variety at her retreating back, but the effect of the shower's remnants clinging to her exposed legs left him feeling somewhat like he'd just tried to dry-swallow some of Blair's home cooking.

He hadn't tried that since the Chilli Eggplant Incident, which neither he or his meister willingly spoke about and had actually managed to close the impenetrable Shibusen for half a day.

Damn him and his whipped ass, Soul thought morosely as he trudged to the door and checked the hallway – if he wasn't so busy being in love with the brat, he might actually manage to land a decent insult. The whole love thing was really making his game slip, and she'd notice soon.

Many of the building's other tenants seemed to be poking their noses out into the empty corridor, squinting at the cream walls, which looked a washed-out monochrome in the dark. He saw the silhouette of Miss Number Five-oh-Four* as she scrabbled around for something, a beam of her flashlight hitting him square in the face a moment later. She immediately squeaked and dropped it, where it hit the floor with a prompt shatter and blacked out again, leaving Soul once again in the dark but with horrific yellowy blotches obscuring his line of vision.

"Oh, no, I'm so sorry!" Five-oh-Four wailed, standing on the cylindrical object and almost hitting the floor. He muttered a rushed, 'it's all good' before hastily disappearing back into his own apartment. She was also a Shibusen student living with a partner of the opposite gender, and although they were both NOT kids, Soul was pretty sure the girl had weird fangirl fantasies about him one day knocking on her door and asking to borrow sugar, only to mean he wanted her.

Last time she'd tried to come over and borrow their milk, Maka had opened the door running on half an hour's sleep after the late return from a mission. Needless to say, they didn't receive any more house calls. That poor soul.

"Well? Is it out everywhere, or are you a moron?" his meister asked pointedly as he came back inside, crisis of awkward confession averted.

"Nah, the whole floor's blacked out so I'm going to guess the building's tripped or something." He passed her, careful not to brush against her and get her wet hair all over his pyjamas, and peered out the window. It was inky blackness punctuated by a few candle-lit stores or car headlights. Soul gave one customary glance to the equally dark moon, mentally greeting Crona as he'd become accustomed to doing, before sighing. "Actually, I think the whole city might be out of power."

"Except for Shibusen," she corrected, joining him at the window. He frowned when that wet hair landed on his shoulder and started to drip through. "It has six large generators which are always fuelled by a combination of fuels and witch magic, based off of an ancient design of Eibon the Great's, so the building cannot lose power in an emergency –"

"Save the history lesson." Sure enough, the school was shining like a beacon at the top of the city. The skull eyes and gaping windows looked downright creepy against the power shortage. "I can't believe the power's out on this big a scale on tonight of all nights."

"What's so special about tonight?"

"It's Marvel Marathon Night!" And he'd just put the popcorn on, too. "Now what?"

"You own all the movies anyway, what's the big deal?"

"They're on in sequential order! Remember the Harry Potter marathon last month?"

"Oh, that was bliss."

"And now it's gone."

"You'll live," Maka muttered unsympathetically, moving away from the window. She never did like looking at the sky for too long, not with that niggling feeling of Crona looking back down and waiting for them. Gazing at the sky was reserved for emotional nights and long periods of dejectedness, and he was relieved to see that that wasn't going down tonight. "Not everything entertaining involves the television."

"You've got no light to read by."

She turned and shot him a dark scowl. "That's not all I do for fun. I'll be perfectly fine entertaining myself like this, thank you very much."

Forty-five minutes proved that she was not perfectly fine.

"Soul," she whined, kicking at him as he lay sprawled on the couch blessing the heavens that he'd charged his iPod the night before on a whim. "It's too hot to sleep and there's nothing to do!"

He snorted. "Real endurer Maka. Top effort."

"It's not fair. You aren't condemned by society for choosing to not wear a shirt so you can avoid the heat." This was a fair point, but hey, if Maka wanted to parade around in her bra to keep away the moist Nevada air, he wasn't gonna' stand around objecting. "The least you could do is give me something to do."

"Yes, because gender stereotypes and segregation of cultures throughout history is entirely my fault, I'm so sorry."

"Shut up and let's do something!"

"Like what?" Oh, there were many somethings he'd like to try while she looked so angelic and beautiful silhouetted by the light of the candles he'd set up in the lounge room, but he wasn't going to be the one to offer suggestions. Skull Survival 101.

She nibbled her lip, and he looked back down at the iPod dutifully to cram all those feelings back inside. "I don't know. What's something we haven't done in a while?"

A sharp grin lit up his features. "Parade around Death City in nothing but short shorts and a sports bra while old perverted men trick us into giving them our phone numbers?"

"That was one freaking time, Soul. Besides," she said, nose wrinkling, "I hate to say it, but you wouldn't be able to fill the sports bra very well, and your ass is too flat for yoga pants. I don't think you'll be able to pull the guys very successfully."

"Wait, you're calling me flat chested? Oh, how the tables have turned."

"If you want to go shopping for training bras, I'm more than happy to hold your hand and help you choose between monkey and strawberry patterns, but both of us know I outgrew that section long ago."

He sighed, fiddling with the volume controls on the device. "Your late growth spurt really ruined all the fun in my life, you know. But that doesn't cancel out one thing."

"And what's that?"

"Someone's been looking at my prime ass enough to imagine it in yoga pants."

"You're well aware of how girls react to your ass, or all of this," she dryly replied, gesturing to his shirtless state. He merely snickered, fingers twirling the earphone cords absent-mindedly.

It was amazing – a year ago, this kind of talk would have sent them both retreating to their rooms, metaphorical tails ducked into non-existence, blushes confirming that this should never be spoken of again. However, after the Moon, the Kishin, and every other terrifying thing they'd been saddled with in that horrible, horrible battle, the squeamishness had just evaporated. Gradually, granted – the walls had only really come down fully in the aftermath of the Honolulu Fountain Incident, and they tried not to talk about that when they could. Some things needed to stay buried for the sake of their partnerships.

Maka settled for sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the couch, finally tugging out his headphone jack. He hadn't needed to pause or lower his music to hear their earlier conversation – her arm had touched his and their souls had been in resonance, so he could hear and feel her soul well enough to know every word coming from her lips, even if it was a little muffled by the audio.

"Right. Should we try Resonance practice for Stein's upcoming wavelength assessment? They've got to validate our Three-Star rating soon."

"I'm gonna' take a pass. I don't come home from a two hour training session after school to train some more."

" . . . So doing a workout for Nygus' combat assessment is out, too?"

"In the dark?" he snorted. "You can't be bored enough to beat me up with your Soul Perception while I can't see properly using just candles. Also, I do not volunteer as tribute."

Maka whacked his leg absently, squawking when he reacted by shoving his foot in her face. "Gross, don't be such a boy! And if you don't want to do any of that stuff, think of something instead!"

Soul's brow furrowed. "We could just sit here and talk? Haven't done that in a while, right? Besides, it's meant to be good for resonance to share thoughts on a regular basis, so this can still count as training for Stein."

"I didn't realise you paid attention in that class," she said, looking impressed, but her smile quickly slipped when he informed her that she'd told him that directly before Chopping him last Wednesday. "Well . . . you probably deserved it."

"Like Hell – no, don't argue, otherwise we'll kill each other in the dark and they'll find our bodies sprawled out on top of each other tomorrow morning."

Maka gave an odd little cough and he saw her face turn away from the candle as she picked at the hem of her shorts, cheeks appearing to be coloured red by the light of the fire. Weird reaction. Maybe she was still feeling a little sensitive about that last Maka Chop, and he had done something to deserve it. Her voice was a little unsteady when she said, "Okay, you tell me something first, then. What've you been thinking about this week?"

"It's Wes's birthday on Saturday."

"Really?" She nearly fell over in her haste to sit up and give him her full attention. Was he starting off with something about the red-tape, no-go, strictly-off-limits-at-every-time topic of his family? "How old will he be?"

"Twenty-six." It sounded weird on his tongue, thinking about how far on in life his brother already was. "Mother's gonna' be telling him to have grandkids soon."

"Do you think he wants children one day? Like, you might be an uncle?"

"Yeah. I remember when I was a kid, he used to complain to Granny that I was getting too big and that he missed my 'cute little smile'."

"What did he mean by that?"

He grinned, knowing this tidbit of information was sure to entertain her. "Surprising as it may seem, I didn't always have shark teeth." At her scandalised gasp, he laughed, "They only got sharp when my adult teeth came through. Good Death it hurt. Couldn't eat for a month."

Maka's eyes were wide but she was laughing as well when she stood up to join him on the couch, heat be damned. "I can't imagine you with human teeth, shit!"

"What can I say, I got cooler with age. Right, your turn."

"But I want to hear about non-demon baby Soul!" she pouted.

"Nope, it's my turn to hear you tell me something. It's gotta' be a kid story, too, because mine was and I can't help but imagine you'd be exactly like Hermione Granger when you were little."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "Fine. You know how Death Children answer 'dead' when they don't know something?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, when I was in pre-school, I had a friend called Sarah, and I went over to her house all the time to play. When I was six, I decided I'd walk to her house while Papa was up at school in a conference and Mama was at the neighbour's house."

"Your parents just left you alone in a house at six?"

She gave him a dry look. "Death Children are a little less prone to danger, Soul. It's kind of hard to be a petty crook in the city of meisters and weapons. Well, I thought I knew where she lived but I took a wrong turn and ended up five streets over. Papa had given me a little walky-talky as a Christmas present and I carried it everywhere – don't look at me like that, I didn't know how much of a bastard he was back then! Anyways, he radioed me on it when he was leaving Shibusen, asking what Mama was doing. I didn't know because I wasn't home, so I said, 'She's dead.' Obviously Papa didn't take that very well, so he asked where I was, and since I was lost I said, 'I'm dead, Papa.' Long story short, he got home and found Mama seemingly not moving in bed while she had a nap and me nowhere to be found, and I gave my father a nervous attack that put him in hospital for a week."

"Shit, you didn't."

"Why do you think he's so paranoid about my safety? You didn't take well to it when I used to say it to you!"

Soul chuckled, shaking his head. "If it was anyone else, I'd feel bad for them."

"Right, your turn. Most embarrassing moment."

He gave her a flat look. "Hockey Pepper Incident."

She cringed. "Don't bring that up; we only ate dinner an hour ago."

"Hey, you asked. What's yours?"

Maka shuddered. "One time at a sleepover with Liz and Patti they convinced me to ring five boys from the NOT class and pretend I was drunk, to ask them whether they'd be my partner for a special mission in Hawaii."

He wouldn't lie, the idea of her calling up five people and saying she wanted them to be her weapon stung a little. Nothing major, just an accidental stumble into an entire swarm of bees with a hive full of them affixed to his head while walking over hot coals. Not much. Still, it didn't strike him as particularly embarrassing.

" – and our mission was see whether hula dancing looked better with or without the grass skirt," she said in a very quick exhale, looking away and snatching his iPod to distract herself.

Wait.

Pause.

Rewind.

"And you fucking agreed to it? Jesus, Maka, what the actual fu-"

She shuddered. "There was information at the time which I wished to keep disclosed, and this was the way to keeping confidentiality."

"Man, I'm so glad I'm not a girl. That's evil."

"Yeah. That's what we refer to as the Drunken Hula Incident."

"Oh! Shit, I thought it was the one time with the bobble-head Hawaiian, when we were following that tainted soul in San Francisco."

As they continued to trade stories and snicker about memories of misadventures on both missions and in their social circles, Soul felt his awareness of the oppressive moonless dark slipping away. The heat couldn't bother him anymore, and the uncooked popcorn in the microwave wasn't really that much of a catastrophe. He wasn't even really sure how fast time was passing, but it was kind of nice, kind of relaxing in an incredibly uncool way to just lounge around and gossip like old women. He found himself getting caught up in her giggle-snorts and the way she paused for breath before admitting something particularly cringe-worthy. Soul was also a little shocked to find that when she asked, he was more than ready to tell her about the time Wes ate a worm at the bottom of a tequila bottle on a dare, at age seventeen, and threw up for forty minutes.

Here he was, the human bottle, Mr Poker Face, spilling out all of these things that, if manipulated and twisted and turned around in pudgy little fingers, could be considered emotional.

Gross.

Oh, how the small blonde meister with the bitchy attitude and childish hairstyles had gotten to him. She'd ruined him, one family secret or coaxed personal fact at a time.

Soul smirked fondly as she finished telling him about the time she licked Patti's foot on a dare. Normally, since he was such a close-shutter kind of guy, he wouldn't be as bold to suggest what he did next. But she'd opened him right up, the candle was setting the perfect mood, and she just looked so – he had to take the chance.

"Hey Maka?"

"Mmm?"

"I got an idea of something else we can do – if you trust me."

She blinked twice at his grin. "Of course I trust you."

"Well, then."

"I can't believe the power's out here, too!" Black*Star grumbled. "If it weren't better to see a big star like me in the sky when there ain't light around, I'd be pissed."

"Hopefully Soul and Maka will want to come stargazing with us since there's not much to do in the dark," Tsubaki mused thoughtfully as they made their way down the corridor of floor five, flashlight cutting a sharp yellow wedge through the dark. "I know we have school tomorrow –"

"Meaning Maka will never stay out late –"

" – but it's only ten o' clock and we don't have to stay out later than half an hour. Besides, it's just a demonstration tomorrow morning, there aren't even any physicals. I think we're having a magic presentation from the witches again."

"Neat, some of those witch girls are hot."

"No."

"But I was gonna' . . ."

"No."

They arrived at number five-oh-six and Tsubaki was about to knock on the door when Black*Star froze, leaning forward intently while holding up a hand. She knew that sign anywhere. Wait.

Straining to catch what her meister had, the ninja arm weapon exhaled and held her breath, concentrating her focus onto the green wooden door. A second too late, she heard it.

A long, drawn out, deep moan.

"Black*Star, did you hear – !"

"Yeah," the boy said, brows furrowed as he heard a high-pitched squeak, definitely Maka's. What was going on in there?

Instantly, bad images flitted through Tsubaki's mind and she cringed. She wanted to give her friends the benefit of the doubt that if they were in some sort of secret relationship, they'd at least let their best friends be in on it; the slam of something into a table, hard, followed by a drawn out curse of, 'oh, fuck' and a loud thumping made her jump back from the door as if it had been poisoned. Surely not bookish Maka Albarn, with her quick form change in the Book of Eibon out of lust, and her feisty, man hating temper . . . Then again, those skirts were pretty short.

"Black*Star, I think we should – no!"

Just as she was about to suggest they leave their friends in – well, not peace – and wait to interrogate tomorrow, her partner clenched his fist and pushed open the door. Shinigami, no, she didn't want to catch Soul and Maka together . . .

"Holy Death, yes, yes!"

The sight before her was not what she was expecting.

Maka was standing on top of the table, tiny pieces of paper clenched in her fists as more tumbled down around her like some sort of snowfall. On the ground, Soul was sitting cross-legged, banging his head against the table repeatedly while his hands splayed out against the coloured board. Upon closer inspection, she could see that the whole Monopoly board was covered in green and red plastic blocks for houses and hotels, and a top hat and a dog both sat on the surface, the dog placed on the navy Mayfair square which had a big fat hotel on it.

"That's game, Eater!" Maka roared triumphantly, still throwing the money in the air. "It took two hours but I Death-damn beat your ass!"

"No, no, why, please," Soul kept muttering, still bashing his head on the table as one elegant pianist's hand flipped the board.

Black*Star and Tsubaki gave each other one look before deciding to just back out of the room slowly.

They were pretty sure they could hear the prone weapon muttering about Round Two, and althought Monopoly was the ultimate test of trust and strength in a partnership, they had no desire to stick around and watch what would soon end in a Maka-Chop.

Soul Evans and Maka Albarn were the definition of comfort to each other, and there was nothing their bond could not withstand – but the Income Tax and four solid hours of Monopoly was sure to test it and by morning, if Soul's skull was intact enough to remember any of last night, he might almost smile at the way he opened up and she caught him, caught everything and held onto it.

Almost.

*-Soul and Maka live in apartment number 506, so their neighbour would be 504 since they're on the fifth floor.

Hope you enjoyed!