It's not until she's down on her hands and knees in the kitchen with a toothbrush and a spray bottle of bleach that she realizes how easily blood gets on fucking everything. Which, yeah, you'd think she'd know this by now, and she does, it's just that it never sinks in until she does a deep-cleaning like this.

Honestly, she's not sure if she's comforted by the fact that at least most of it is either Soul's or her own.

Maka's digging the poor, abused bristles into the grout line leading beneath the fridge when she hears a series of swears flow from the living room. She pops her head up, peeking over the dinner table, to find Soul's ass up in the air as he peers into the air duct half-hidden by their entertainment center.

"What's wrong?"

Soul pulls off one of his gaudy rubber yellow gloves with a snap, transforms his pointer finger, pries off the grate and sets it aside. The flashlight on his phone blazes to life a second later, and he fakes a gag after shining it down into the gaping hole. "You don't wanna know."

"Oh, c'mon. It can't be that bad."

He shoots her a glare from under his arm. "Y'know that scene from The Shining, where the doors open and all that blood comes out?" She nods. "Yeah, well, this is what I'd imagine that hallway to look like if they let it sit for a month."

"Oh, ew."

"Yeah."

Maka makes a face at the thought, tosses a quick glance at the air vent in the kitchen with a feeling of dread, and instead ducks back down to get at what she can of the tile leading under their appliances. Maybe she can bribe Soul into cleaning this vent, too. She sprays a bit more bleach onto a clot stuck to the floor, and oh-so-casually says, "So, do you want to order some Thai tonight?"

"One, I'm not cleaning the kitchen vent." Maka curses under her breath. "Two, we had Thai the last two nights. You'll have to think of a better bribe."

The clot comes unstuck with a little help from a dash of hydrogen peroxide and a little pink cloud of foam. Her mouth screws to the side as she swipes it away with a rag. "Fine. How about…pizza? I think The Evil Olive is running a two-for-one special." Soul groans, and she hears the floorboards squeak as he crosses into the kitchen. "Was that a 'yes I want pizza' groan or 'I have the skeletal structure of an eighty year old man' groan?"

"Uh." He pops his neck and then his back. "Yes?"

Maka celebrates internally, sits back on her haunches and begins pulling off her own set of gaudy yellow gloves. "So, while I call in our order, you can do me a favor and clean out the-" She turns to find him with his phone already to his ear, hip cocked and leaning against the table. Her hands drop to her lap and he flashes her a sharp-toothed smile.

Goddammit.

She glares at him, and he does her the favor of cradling the phone against his shoulder so he can kneel down and pry open the grate for her. Maka flips him off before tugging the gloves back on. She slings the big brown bottle of peroxide at him, taking joy in the way he hops to avoid it (but still takes it to the ankle anyway) and scoots across the floor to meet her impending doom head-on.

Maka takes out her own phone to shine her light down the vent, grimacing at what she finds. In some places, it looks a little like rust streaks. In others, it's still semi-fresh and at the gross wet-but-not-wet gooey state; kinda like the way sap beads on tree bark after it's been cut. Overall, gross, but not the worst thing she's had to clean up by a long shot. Still, she'd be extra grateful if Soul cleaned it up for her instead.

She swallows back a bit of bile and sticks her hand down the vent, scrubbing at the metal walls with a ball of steel wool, occasionally adding an extra spritz of bleach to help with the mess. Beside her, Soul hops up on the counter and absently picks at his nails as he puts in their order: one stuffed-crust pizza with Canadian bacon and white Alfredo sauce (which, as far as Maka's concerned, is more disgusting than all of this old blood combined) and one stuffed-crust Hawaiian pizza with extra pineapple. She glances up at him, mouths at him to ask for garlic butter, and grins as he wrinkles his nose in disgust.

Soon, while she's elbow deep in the vent, trying to make sure she's gotten it as clean as she possibly can; Soul is busy trying the wriggle the fridge out of it's usual spot so it can also be cleaned. He grunts, alternating between pulling it out and shouldering it back in an attempt to shimmy it out. Maka retrieves her arm and inspects what she can see of the vent. It looks clean enough. Or, at least, as clean as it's gonna get.

"Hey, where do you think this blood goes to?"

Soul stops, still bear-hugging the fridge, and his brows pull together as he thinks. "Uh. I dunno." He goes back to trying to tug the thing out of it's little space, cursing a little as it knocks into the counter. "You don't think it like, drops to the apartment below us, do you?"

Maka sits back and moves the grate back in place, scrubbing her forearm across her forehead. "I mean, I hope not. Mrs. Morte is really nice and I'd feel bad getting blood all over her place, y'know?" Maka stands and pops her own back, slips of her gloves and rubs her sweaty palms against her jeans. "Plus, it's pretty gross to get blood on other people's stuff anyway."

She moves to help him, half leaning over the counter to hook one of her hands behind the refrigerator. "Actually, most people find it gross to get blood on anything ever, but since this is DC we're talking about, it's probably fine." They both pull the fridge out, grunting under its weight.

It's only half-way out when Maka glances behind it and makes a face. "What the fuck."

"What?"

"Just- Hang on a sec." Together, they pull it he rest of the way out, and there's this gross...squelching sound as it settles.

Soul closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath through his nose, forehead pressed to the door of the freezer. "Do I even want to know what the hell that was."

"Mmm, probably not."

He looks anyway, and immediately wishes he didn't. "Oh, what the fuck."

Maka scrutinizes the mess. "That has to be from you."

"Uh, no. I keep my bleeding to the bathroom and the bedroom. You're the one who bleeds in here all the time."

"Like hell I do! This isn't even just blood, this is downright viscera. Besides, I wouldn't be able to survive this much, and, I mean, how did all of that even get behind there?"

"I...have no idea." They both stare at the vertible murder scene behind their fridge. "Could it have been from the—no, wait, we cleaned after that."

Maka snaps her fingers. "Maybe it was from that one time when we—no. That was in the living room."

They stand there for longer than what's probably necessary, staring and wondering and maybe a little concerned because how did all of this happen and how can they not recall what exactly happened. Granted, their lives kind of made it difficult to pinpoint exact moments that were especially gory, but you'd think they'd be able to at least figure out what happened in their own damn kitchen that'd make such a mess.

Despite their ponderance, the rest of the world had things to do, like, for instance, delivering their pizzas.

There's a short knock at their door, and Maka snaps out of it enough to go answer. She's greeted to the sight of one of the underclassmen from Shibusen—a weapon, maybe, if she's remembering right—and his face drops when he sees who it is. Then it's all shaky hands and nervous stuttering, and she's trying not to laugh as she exchanges the money for the food. Their little interaction is almost over when the boy suddenly falls silent and his eyes grow wide. Maka glances over her shoulder to find Soul finally getting the fridge completely cleared away so it can be cleaned, giving the poor boy a clear view of the carnage left in its wake.

"Uh, anyway! Thanksgoodnight!" She may or may not have slammed the door in his face, maybe, and presses her back to the door. Soul snorts, cheeks puffing a bit as he tries not to laugh, but they both lose it and burst; cackling at the situation. How many people can honestly say that cleaning blood and viscera was a common, and legal, activity for a couple? Off the top of her head, Maka can think of a few, but outside the city limits she'd guess the numbers would dwindle.

Eventually, they calm enough to dig into their pizza, and they both lean against their table as they munch on their dinner. Maka's staring at the living room as she eats, contemplating as she enjoys her sweet pineapple-y goodness.

"The living room looks really good."

"Thanks," Soul replies around a mouthful of stuffed crust, already reaching for another slice. "The kitchen's looked...better." She elbows him with a grin, looking back at the newest mess thoughtfully.

They chew their food in silence, shoulders pressed together, the sounds of some party down the street drifting in through their open windows on a breeze carrying the desert heat. It's nice, so long as you can ignore all the blood and gore, but there are worse things, probably, and at least they clean. Stein didn't do more than the bare minimum until Marie moved in—which was honestly part of the reason why Maka had stopped going over there. Well, that and the whole thing with her dad bugging out every time anyone so much as mentioned his name.

She's torn out of whatever little reverie she had worked herself into at the sound of a nasty little splat. She and Soul trade glances, and then they're both peering around the fridge to find one of Maka's old gloves; covered in old blood, half-crusted half-soaked, and covered in dust bunnies. It's pair hangs tangled from the coils on the back, looking no better than it's twin.

Soul looks at her with a shit-eating grin. "Now, what was that about 'that isn't mine'?" He says in a high-pitched, sing-songy voice, leaning his head on her shoulder. She makes a noise of disgust and plants her hand on his forehead to push him away, rolling her eyes as he laughs.

She turns and tosses the rest of her pizza slice into the box, snatches up her gloves and begins pulling them on. Maka sighs, scooping up her bucket of supplies. "Man, I'm getting really sick of the sight of my own blood."

Soul snorts, leaning forward to grab a soda out of the fridge. He pops the tab with a crack of the carbonation. "Aren't we all?" She grunts in affirmation, tossing the old gloves in the trash. "I know that pizza boy sure is sick of it."

Maka gives him The Look, and he merely grins at her from behind his can.