SoMa Week 2k16 Day 4- Art

Collaboration with Flamedork See her art on tumblr

Thank you to wife Ree too for her eyes

Maka called out into the seemingly empty apartment, tucking her "emergencies only" key into her sock, keeping it close to the hem against her ankle. The sound of the plastic bag hitting the floor stirred Soul from hiding- otherwise he would likely have refused to budge from the comforts of his bed. So he was excited to see the produce, but not Maka?

That called for punishment.

"No 'thank you'?" she teased, stripping herself of her boots and flinging her beanie off to the side. A quick kiss to her lips was his answer, but it did little to quell her annoyance. "Hey, I ran straight here from work and that's it?"

Soul hooked the bag onto his arm, resting it on a tattoo of Medusa before leaning down to kiss Maka's forehead. "Thank you for the milk. I only drink skimmed though." He dodged her kick and was hardly bothered when she hopped onto him, walking to the kitchen with her on his back, ignoring her swatting on his carefully mussed hair.

"Soul, you liar! Fiend! Scum of the earth!"

"Did I really lie though? I said I only drink skimmed- which isn't a lie since I bake with whole."

He poured the carton into his bowl, eyeing the amount with just his eyes. Maka found comfort in the rhythmic motion as he began to mix the contents and settled deeper into his back. She snickered at his restricted movements and waited patiently until Soul demanded her to climb down, stealing a taste of the batter before she retreated into his room.

It was as dark as the rest of his apartment and just as grossly decorated. Soul claimed that he didn't bother to update his style from his old goth days, but Maka knew that he was attached to the sparse items and memories. Also that it somewhat matched his crappy punk outfits now with the help of a few new DIYs here and there.

It was the same with his tattoos. His damn attachment to all of his weird tattoos. His entire right arm was covered in them and extended all the way to his neck and a little bit of his side. They were in black, a collection of various designs tied together in harmony with outlines of flowers of all sorts. There was no connection between them besides the fact that they were a chronology of what Soul was into at the time.

The skeleton of a snake. A relic from his goth phase. The head of Medusa. A reminder of myth and the power of women. Daisies and cherry blossoms and dahlias and more. For his innocence, renewal, and inner strength when he remade himself from his childhood. The sun and moon. A dual existence. That and because it was a design from one of his favorite tattoo artists that he liked. And there were so many more… So much left to analyze and see...

The wings on his bicep though. They were her favorite.

They were a cross between a butterfly and a bird, lightly shaded around the edges of each geometric shape that came together to make the frame. Maka was unsure of which animal it resembled more closely, but if she were to give her opinion, Soul was given these wings from angels. They were flared outwards, spreading like hands that praised deities, and took up the area selfishly. Teeny lines dots formed a diamond-like shape behind them, distinctly separating them from the rest of his tattoos.

"Look at me," they seemed to say.

"Find me."

He said he's had them since he was born, that he didn't bother to alter it or change it like others who wanted to escape destiny. In the past, Soul had no fear for the soul mate who bore the same mark as him, he said, but the existence surrounding tattoos told another story. But still, he said they were his favorite too, especially because Maka had the same pair of wings on her ankle.

Maka was an artist though; she was granted the gift to read between the lines and to go through them. When she met him, she knew that he was just like all the others who hid behind fresh ink, avoiding their soul marks. The only difference was that he tried to hide in plain sight rather than change it entirely. No one would have guessed that the wings were his soul mark from the way he wore it; they probably thought the snull (snake skull) on his forearm or the teeny scorpion resting on a flower on the back of his neck were the real deal. Those ones were slightly more defined, smaller than the attention grabbing wings that took on the role of being the center piece. It was playing on psychology of the human mind- you woulda never thought...

In reality, he wanted to be able to choose who to love, not to fall into a path chosen for him. He would be ready to reveal which one was his soul mark after the fact, and he wouldn't care who he fell in love with so long as they didn't do it over a mark. Which was why Soul thought it was always so silly when people approached him with a fresh tattoo in view- the best of these stories being one about three girls who approached him simultaneously, each with an identical tattoo on their arms.

It's cliche to say that Maka was different. He didn't realize the mark was like hers until one fateful night when he pulled off her socks off her feet, demanding her to prove that her ankles weren't fat. And she never thought she would have to take the phrase "wear your heart on your sleeve" so seriously until it came to Soul. His band t-shirts always hid half of the mark, and god forbid- he refused to wear a tank top without a lovely leather jacket because "my nipples get cold in public."

It wasn't until they were tucked away as an item that they began to tease and poke at each other as a comfortable "guys please we're not a couple" couple could. One stolen sock and a tickled foot later, Soul folded his sleeve up to reveal his wings to her.

They weren't searching, not in the slightest. But then again, sometimes people don't know they've embarked on a journey until they reach their destination- certainly not Maka who wore her socks stretched past the tip of her mark, and certainly not Soul who was afraid of others' opinions more than he lets on.

"I found you," they whispered together, out of breath.

By the time Soul re-entered his bedroom, Maka had already claimed his spot in the center of his twin sized bed and fit herself into his imprint. She plucked what few notes she could remember on his guitar and filled in the rest of the space with her creativity. He loved her enough to record her song but knew she would prefer to leave music to him. She was sound deaf anyway. The vibrating strings stopped when she saw what was in Soul's hands and his bewildered expression.

"Watercolors?"

"They were on sale," Maka defended. "For a dollar."

"Watercolors?" he repeated in the same tone of disbelief, finding a seat at the base of his bed.

She smiled at him in the way a small child would when they were caught red handed, the look of innocence and playful shamelessness stirring his shyness. His guitar returned back to its stand on the other side of his bed, and Maka gestured for him to scooch closer. When he didn't come, she crawled towards him instead, splaying herself over his legs.

"Please?"

"No," he said firmly. However, he didn't look away from her face fast enough to avoid her pleading eyes. "No," he said a little quieter.

And so Maka was allowed one whole entire tattoo to paint, which became his entire arm, which then became his entire tattoo'd body.

"For punishment," she reminded him, tugging his makeshift tanktop-shirt above his head, careful not to disturb his freshly colored forearm. "You should appreciate me more."

Soul stayed silent, laying down to expose the few tattoos he had on his back. He struggled to remain still as Maka messily, but deliberately drag her brush over his lines, dipping lightly into her palette when she felt it was necessary. The last thing she wanted to do was to cover the original lines of his tattoos. They were as special to her as they were to him, but she let the paint run far off course, not bothering to stay between the lines as she added yellows and blues to an image of a spider web.

The effects reflected her personality; she was never one to hold still or to keep within the restraints of boundaries. Maka was a free spirit- her own master under her decisions. And if she wanted to paint like a five year old and call it modern art, she was going to do that. It was refreshing to Soul to see someone's resolve to never fit into someone else's mold though. He welcomed her always- except for when she used her thumb to rub a bit of water away to keep it from running to far to the center of Soul's back. She smiled playfully at his efforts to suppress his laughter.

"Keep still! You'll ruin my designs!"

"I should be saying the same to you though," Soul scoffed. "The tats were colorless for a reason."

"But now I can bring color to your life right?" The way he was always waiting for.

It took a moment for him to respond. All he could say though was "gross."

When she was done with the purple bowtie on a leg of the scorpion on neck, she instructed him to sit up, reassuring him that none of the wet paint would touch his bed. Maka had left his upper arm and shoulder area untouched to save the best part for last. At first, she dipped into the green and combined it with enough water to match her eyes. Instead, she decided to mix a bit of yellow into it for the flower above the wings.

Half way through with his arm, she grew warm under his gaze. "Stop staring, I'll mess up."

"'You can't mess up art,' quoting the Maka." He's not wrong. "But I was thinking about the color you would use on our mark. You didn't save the green you mixed."

She returned her brush to the glass of water by Soul's bedstand. "It's too cliche to paint it my color. On top of that, it's too singular. Where's the fun in that?"

Soul thought for a moment, then reached for her brush. "I could paint yours, maybe? For ideas." He instructed her to give him her foot and peeled the cotton away from her ankles, commenting on how he was going through a sock shortage for some reason as he removed her "emergencies only" key from the folds. "I wonder why they've been going missing."

"Maybe the sock fairies have been visiting?"

"Ah, but you aren't a fairy." She shushed him, but suddenly jerked back from him after his quick fingers wiggled under her toes. "Keep still," he teased.

But how could she keep still when he was there, and how could she relax when he filled her with so much warmth and color?

His style was one that followed laws and structure given, but he grew within the constraints he received. He knew when to seek new things, but he did best with the familiar. That being said, he filled the spaces between Maka's mark with a spectrum of reds and yellows. They never touched or blended- he was too neat and careful to go beyond the lines- but they melded together as a whole, creating a mosaic resembling fire.

She knew what to paint on his wings just then.

Maka closed her watercolor case, peeking over at Soul as he smoothed his tanktop over his stomach, laying back onto his pillows with a deep breath. Before she joined him, she took a quick look at her work, especially admiring the cool colors that she spread onto his skin.

His arms were warm though, so very warm.