Soul Eater - Firsts - Chapter 5 - First Aid
Fic Title: Firsts
Chapter Title: First Aid
Rating: T
Warning: No spoilers, mild swearing
Characters: Soul, Maka
Summary: The first few years of Maka and Soul's partnership were anything but smooth. Soul contemplates what happened during their first battle, and reaches a decision about whether or not he wants to stay Maka's Weapon.
He didn’t think he could ever go through something like that again.
No one had told Soul that his Meister’s fear would be felt just as harshly by him as it would be by her, no one had told him that in the dark space of his weapon form the only thing that he could focus on was Maka and her panic. No one had told him that when he was in weapon form he would be so friggin’ useless, and that if his Meister was unable to fight, than he would be too.
Jesus Christ.
Also, no one had told him about the side effects of being thrown around and swung about like a ragdoll whilst being under intense emotional duress - namely, barfing all over a girl who was, really, little more than a stranger.
Soul cringed at the memory, leaning forwards and rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. He was sitting in a small hospital room on a small hospital bed. After the completion of their mission and after the evacuation of his stomach, Soul and Maka had discovered that they had been secretly watched by Sid and Nygus from a small distance the whole time, just to make sure that they wouldn’t be in too much danger. Soul had to wonder exactly what counted as ‘too much danger’ if nearly being killed wasn’t enough to halt the battle.
They had then been taken into the small village nearby to be checked over and cleaned up. Aside from a few scratches and bruises acquired due to running through the dense woodland, both had been fine and, to his eternal shame, Maka was taken out for a shower and a new, vomit-free, change of clothes.
Oh God. He couldn’t believe that he’d actually thrown up on her.
‘You do know that he’s desperate to see you, to make sure that you’re safe?’
Soul’s head snapped up as he heard Nygus’s voice outside his door.
‘I know,’ replied his Meister’s muffled voice. ‘But Mama’s forbidden him from annoying me for at least my first month at Shibusen, so he can find out that I’m safe without seeing me.’
‘He’s being pretty persistent - you know how he gets. Sid was never a man to deny a father access to his daughter.’
‘I know that it’s really selfish of me, but I just want to establish myself at Shibusen first without his … association.’
Nygus sighed. ‘Trust me, I do understand. I’ve made my thoughts on your father perfectly clear in the past, but I still don’t think that this is the best way to handle the situation.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Maka’s voice was small, and Soul had to strain to catch her words - not that he was listening in, or anything. That would be totally uncool. ‘It’s just … hard.’
It was strange, trying to connect that faltering, apologetic voice with the girl whose eyes had blazed and who had swung him so gracefully to meet the claws of the monster they had battled.
‘As is everything. You should check on your Weapon now.’ Soft, brisk footsteps told Soul that Nygus had left his Meister standing by herself in front of his door.
Long moments passed, and Soul wondered why Maka hadn’t entered yet. After a few minutes more, he heard her take a deep breath and open the door.
‘Hey.’ she said softly, leaning just out of the doorframe, speaking as though to an invalid.
‘Hey.’ Soul replied, supported by his hands and leaning back as nonchalantly as he could while avoiding her eyes like the plague. Oh God. He had thrown up on her. He had thrown up. On her.
‘About today, I - uh -’ she was wearing an ill-fitting, baggy jumper and too-small shorts that she had to keep pulling down at the legs. She seemed nervous for some reason. ‘I wanted to say - well, I’m kind of embarrassed about the way I acted.’
She was embarrassed about how she acted?
‘Um, ok?’ It seemed that Soul never quite knew what to say or do around this girl - what the hell was up with that?
There was an awkward pause as Maka sat down on the bed next to his legs and faced away from him. Soul found himself sitting up straighter and inspecting his hands closely.
Finally, she broke the silence.
‘I know that, when I - when we were in the middle of that forest, that I said that you could - you know - change partners, if you want?’ She may have been facing away from him, but Soul could still see her fingers shaking slightly. ‘Well, I think that - I mean, I don’t know how you feel about it but - I think we make a good team and, well, I’d like it if you stayed on as my Weapon. If you want.’
Despite everything he may have thought about Maka, despite vowing that their partnership would be dissolved at the end of the month, Soul found himself weirdly attracted to the idea of being her Weapon. After all, they had managed to defeat the pre-kishin and collect the corrupted soul. She seemed like a hard-worker, fairly dedicated to achieving her goals - it would make things easier for him, he’d be able to sit back and let her take charge. They had also been promoted to actually being eligible for missions after just two weeks of training, something that was completely unprecedented.
Soul smiled to himself. He’d never done anything that could be considered unprecedented before.
Wait a minute. Something was wrong.
‘What actually happened to that corrupted soul?’ Soul asked slowly. ‘I mean, I don’t think we ended up collecting it.’
For the first time since Maka had entered the room, they looked straight at each other. ‘Oh no,’ Maka’s face adopted a horrified look ‘I completely forgot about it because of the … well …’
Because you threw up on me, her face said.
‘… the excitement.’
Fantastic. Soul had finally, finally done something awesome, done something cool, but he’d still found a way to screw it up somehow.
Maka bit her lip. ‘It should still be in the woods, but I don’t think Nygus would be too happy about us going back there. We’re not supposed to move because of our injuries.’ She scornfully held out her arm, showing him the shallow cut that apparently wasn’t even serious enough to warrant bandages.
‘What about Sid, then?’
Maka rolled her eyes. ‘He’s not the kind of man to let children put their lives in danger.’
‘So what was with the whole thing about not interfering with our mission even though you were clearly about to faint and get us killed?’ Soul grumbled.
Maka flushed and turned away. Soul realized what he had said and opened his mouth to try to say something, anything to fix the situation, but nothing came to mind.
There was a pause.
When Maka finally spoke, her voice was quiet.
‘I’m sorry. If I stay with you, I’ll be putting us both in danger. I shouldn’t have forced you to - I’m sorry.’
Soul felt like bashing his head against the corner of the side table. Despite everything that had happened, they had been having a nice, normal conversation, and he had ruined it by being his normal, tactless self. There was self-loathing written all over her face. She didn’t deserve to feel like that.
‘Wait,’ he said, grabbing Maka’s wrist as she got up to leave. She looked down at his hand in surprise, accurately reflecting how Soul felt. He hadn’t consciously meant to reach out to her. Weird.
Anyway.
‘I want to be your Weapon.’ She looked at him skeptically. ‘No, I do.’
‘But I almost got you killed.’
Soul shrugged. ‘It was kinda cool being in a life-threatening situation.’ He let go of her wrist and leaned back down on his arms, a picture of casualness, but for some reason his breath seemed to be caught in his throat.
Maka raised an eyebrow. ‘I burst into tears.’
‘Yeah, well,’ Soul took a deep breath. ‘I threw up on you,’ he said quickly, as though speeding it up would make it less completely and utterly humiliating. ‘We weren’t exactly the smoothest, but we got the job done.’
This made Maka smile. Just a little, but it was still a smile.
She opened her mouth as though to say something, but was interrupted by a knock at the door.
It was Nygus, and she was carrying a glowing, squishy ball of … something.
Soul looked questioningly at Maka, realizing as he did that he seemed to be falling into a pattern of waiting for her to explain unknown things to him.
She did not disappoint.
‘You found the soul!’
Ah. Soul hadn’t actually had the chance to get a good look at it when they were out on the field, being too busy throwing up and being embarrassed by it, and he’d never had the chance to see one before otherwise.
Nygus looked disapproving. ‘Normally we don’t allow students to collect souls that they’ve left behind. It promotes carelessness.’ Her mouth twitched behind her bandages. ‘But Sid seems to think that you guys had a hard enough time out there already.’
‘Sorry,’ Maka mumbled.
‘Never mind. It happens to the best of us. Here.’
Soul recoiled in surprise as Nygus held the soul out to him, its crimson glow casting light on the white of her bandages. Gingerly, he held his hands out and watched her drop the orb into them. It felt … strange. It wasn’t quite solid, as though it belonged to some other world, yet he could still feel it quite firmly in his palms.
‘I’ll leave you two be. If you need anything, just come ask. We should be flying back to Nevada tomorrow morning.’ And with that, Nygus was gone.
Soul couldn’t take his eyes off the soul in his hands. It was a human being. Well, close to. It had been once, he’d learnt from one of his first classes. How weird. He hadn’t actually thought about that until now.
A noise from Maka and he looked up. She turned away quickly but he could have sworn that she had been smirking at him.
‘I’ve never seen one before,’ he said defensively. Then: ‘What am I supposed to do with it?’
‘Oh, I thought you knew.’
‘What?’
‘Well, your name - never mind. You need to absorb the soul. Some Weapons absorb souls through their sheaves, others have them loaded into their magazines like bullets and others,’ here she flashed him a small smile. ‘Others eat them.’
Ah. Well. That was weird. He hadn’t known anything about that when he’d chosen his name. Soul Eater. It had just sounded slightly menacing and cool.
‘I guess I’ll just -’
‘Go ahead.’
He felt kind of embarrassed eating the soul in front of Maka. She was watching him intently, as though he were a science experiment.
Mustering up all his courage (or what was left of it, after the battle), he opened his mouth wide and placed his first soul inside.
Watching Maka’s face light up and basking in the exquisite texture of it sliding down his throat, he vowed that it would definitely not be his last.
First | Previous | FFN Version | Master Ficlist
Chapter Title: First Aid
Rating: T
Warning: No spoilers, mild swearing
Characters: Soul, Maka
Summary: The first few years of Maka and Soul's partnership were anything but smooth. Soul contemplates what happened during their first battle, and reaches a decision about whether or not he wants to stay Maka's Weapon.
He didn’t think he could ever go through something like that again.
No one had told Soul that his Meister’s fear would be felt just as harshly by him as it would be by her, no one had told him that in the dark space of his weapon form the only thing that he could focus on was Maka and her panic. No one had told him that when he was in weapon form he would be so friggin’ useless, and that if his Meister was unable to fight, than he would be too.
Jesus Christ.
Also, no one had told him about the side effects of being thrown around and swung about like a ragdoll whilst being under intense emotional duress - namely, barfing all over a girl who was, really, little more than a stranger.
Soul cringed at the memory, leaning forwards and rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. He was sitting in a small hospital room on a small hospital bed. After the completion of their mission and after the evacuation of his stomach, Soul and Maka had discovered that they had been secretly watched by Sid and Nygus from a small distance the whole time, just to make sure that they wouldn’t be in too much danger. Soul had to wonder exactly what counted as ‘too much danger’ if nearly being killed wasn’t enough to halt the battle.
They had then been taken into the small village nearby to be checked over and cleaned up. Aside from a few scratches and bruises acquired due to running through the dense woodland, both had been fine and, to his eternal shame, Maka was taken out for a shower and a new, vomit-free, change of clothes.
Oh God. He couldn’t believe that he’d actually thrown up on her.
‘You do know that he’s desperate to see you, to make sure that you’re safe?’
Soul’s head snapped up as he heard Nygus’s voice outside his door.
‘I know,’ replied his Meister’s muffled voice. ‘But Mama’s forbidden him from annoying me for at least my first month at Shibusen, so he can find out that I’m safe without seeing me.’
‘He’s being pretty persistent - you know how he gets. Sid was never a man to deny a father access to his daughter.’
‘I know that it’s really selfish of me, but I just want to establish myself at Shibusen first without his … association.’
Nygus sighed. ‘Trust me, I do understand. I’ve made my thoughts on your father perfectly clear in the past, but I still don’t think that this is the best way to handle the situation.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Maka’s voice was small, and Soul had to strain to catch her words - not that he was listening in, or anything. That would be totally uncool. ‘It’s just … hard.’
It was strange, trying to connect that faltering, apologetic voice with the girl whose eyes had blazed and who had swung him so gracefully to meet the claws of the monster they had battled.
‘As is everything. You should check on your Weapon now.’ Soft, brisk footsteps told Soul that Nygus had left his Meister standing by herself in front of his door.
Long moments passed, and Soul wondered why Maka hadn’t entered yet. After a few minutes more, he heard her take a deep breath and open the door.
‘Hey.’ she said softly, leaning just out of the doorframe, speaking as though to an invalid.
‘Hey.’ Soul replied, supported by his hands and leaning back as nonchalantly as he could while avoiding her eyes like the plague. Oh God. He had thrown up on her. He had thrown up. On her.
‘About today, I - uh -’ she was wearing an ill-fitting, baggy jumper and too-small shorts that she had to keep pulling down at the legs. She seemed nervous for some reason. ‘I wanted to say - well, I’m kind of embarrassed about the way I acted.’
She was embarrassed about how she acted?
‘Um, ok?’ It seemed that Soul never quite knew what to say or do around this girl - what the hell was up with that?
There was an awkward pause as Maka sat down on the bed next to his legs and faced away from him. Soul found himself sitting up straighter and inspecting his hands closely.
Finally, she broke the silence.
‘I know that, when I - when we were in the middle of that forest, that I said that you could - you know - change partners, if you want?’ She may have been facing away from him, but Soul could still see her fingers shaking slightly. ‘Well, I think that - I mean, I don’t know how you feel about it but - I think we make a good team and, well, I’d like it if you stayed on as my Weapon. If you want.’
Despite everything he may have thought about Maka, despite vowing that their partnership would be dissolved at the end of the month, Soul found himself weirdly attracted to the idea of being her Weapon. After all, they had managed to defeat the pre-kishin and collect the corrupted soul. She seemed like a hard-worker, fairly dedicated to achieving her goals - it would make things easier for him, he’d be able to sit back and let her take charge. They had also been promoted to actually being eligible for missions after just two weeks of training, something that was completely unprecedented.
Soul smiled to himself. He’d never done anything that could be considered unprecedented before.
Wait a minute. Something was wrong.
‘What actually happened to that corrupted soul?’ Soul asked slowly. ‘I mean, I don’t think we ended up collecting it.’
For the first time since Maka had entered the room, they looked straight at each other. ‘Oh no,’ Maka’s face adopted a horrified look ‘I completely forgot about it because of the … well …’
Because you threw up on me, her face said.
‘… the excitement.’
Fantastic. Soul had finally, finally done something awesome, done something cool, but he’d still found a way to screw it up somehow.
Maka bit her lip. ‘It should still be in the woods, but I don’t think Nygus would be too happy about us going back there. We’re not supposed to move because of our injuries.’ She scornfully held out her arm, showing him the shallow cut that apparently wasn’t even serious enough to warrant bandages.
‘What about Sid, then?’
Maka rolled her eyes. ‘He’s not the kind of man to let children put their lives in danger.’
‘So what was with the whole thing about not interfering with our mission even though you were clearly about to faint and get us killed?’ Soul grumbled.
Maka flushed and turned away. Soul realized what he had said and opened his mouth to try to say something, anything to fix the situation, but nothing came to mind.
There was a pause.
When Maka finally spoke, her voice was quiet.
‘I’m sorry. If I stay with you, I’ll be putting us both in danger. I shouldn’t have forced you to - I’m sorry.’
Soul felt like bashing his head against the corner of the side table. Despite everything that had happened, they had been having a nice, normal conversation, and he had ruined it by being his normal, tactless self. There was self-loathing written all over her face. She didn’t deserve to feel like that.
‘Wait,’ he said, grabbing Maka’s wrist as she got up to leave. She looked down at his hand in surprise, accurately reflecting how Soul felt. He hadn’t consciously meant to reach out to her. Weird.
Anyway.
‘I want to be your Weapon.’ She looked at him skeptically. ‘No, I do.’
‘But I almost got you killed.’
Soul shrugged. ‘It was kinda cool being in a life-threatening situation.’ He let go of her wrist and leaned back down on his arms, a picture of casualness, but for some reason his breath seemed to be caught in his throat.
Maka raised an eyebrow. ‘I burst into tears.’
‘Yeah, well,’ Soul took a deep breath. ‘I threw up on you,’ he said quickly, as though speeding it up would make it less completely and utterly humiliating. ‘We weren’t exactly the smoothest, but we got the job done.’
This made Maka smile. Just a little, but it was still a smile.
She opened her mouth as though to say something, but was interrupted by a knock at the door.
It was Nygus, and she was carrying a glowing, squishy ball of … something.
Soul looked questioningly at Maka, realizing as he did that he seemed to be falling into a pattern of waiting for her to explain unknown things to him.
She did not disappoint.
‘You found the soul!’
Ah. Soul hadn’t actually had the chance to get a good look at it when they were out on the field, being too busy throwing up and being embarrassed by it, and he’d never had the chance to see one before otherwise.
Nygus looked disapproving. ‘Normally we don’t allow students to collect souls that they’ve left behind. It promotes carelessness.’ Her mouth twitched behind her bandages. ‘But Sid seems to think that you guys had a hard enough time out there already.’
‘Sorry,’ Maka mumbled.
‘Never mind. It happens to the best of us. Here.’
Soul recoiled in surprise as Nygus held the soul out to him, its crimson glow casting light on the white of her bandages. Gingerly, he held his hands out and watched her drop the orb into them. It felt … strange. It wasn’t quite solid, as though it belonged to some other world, yet he could still feel it quite firmly in his palms.
‘I’ll leave you two be. If you need anything, just come ask. We should be flying back to Nevada tomorrow morning.’ And with that, Nygus was gone.
Soul couldn’t take his eyes off the soul in his hands. It was a human being. Well, close to. It had been once, he’d learnt from one of his first classes. How weird. He hadn’t actually thought about that until now.
A noise from Maka and he looked up. She turned away quickly but he could have sworn that she had been smirking at him.
‘I’ve never seen one before,’ he said defensively. Then: ‘What am I supposed to do with it?’
‘Oh, I thought you knew.’
‘What?’
‘Well, your name - never mind. You need to absorb the soul. Some Weapons absorb souls through their sheaves, others have them loaded into their magazines like bullets and others,’ here she flashed him a small smile. ‘Others eat them.’
Ah. Well. That was weird. He hadn’t known anything about that when he’d chosen his name. Soul Eater. It had just sounded slightly menacing and cool.
‘I guess I’ll just -’
‘Go ahead.’
He felt kind of embarrassed eating the soul in front of Maka. She was watching him intently, as though he were a science experiment.
Mustering up all his courage (or what was left of it, after the battle), he opened his mouth wide and placed his first soul inside.
Watching Maka’s face light up and basking in the exquisite texture of it sliding down his throat, he vowed that it would definitely not be his last.
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