But for a Pencil

Written for the Soul Eater livejournal prompt community, 42_souls.

Pairing: Kid/Liz/Patti. Prompt: Eternity.

Liz still didn't understand. Patti watched her lounging on top of the bed, twirling her pencil the way that she sometimes twirled Patti in her gun form, frowning down at the glossy magazine propped open on her knees. She licked her lips, then used the pencil to check off another answer. "Elegant," she murmured to herself, "definitely elegant." Then she flipped the page, her eyes darting back and forth as she read the result of her self-evaluation. "Oh, great," she said. "Now it says that my ideal boyfriend has a career in the sciences. Sure. Maybe if I wanted some nerd loser with bad skin."

Patti folded the pages of her own magazine into paper airplanes. "Why?" she asked.

"Why what?"

"Why are you still looking for a boyfriend?" Patti thought that Liz was being stupid. They already had tons of money and a huge house and lots of pretty clothes, and they never had to steal anything anymore, either. Patti didn't even remember what it had felt like to be mean and hungry all the time. She didn't let herself remember.

Liz glanced over at her sister, almost furtively. "You wouldn't understand, Patti. Adults have… urges."

Patti laughed. "You're not an adult!"

Liz's face darkened. "Patti…"

"LIZ!" Kid burst into the room with that frantic look in his eyes that meant that either the universe was facing impending doom, or that he that had misplaced a writing utensil. Both situations, for some reason, elicited from him the same response. "Liz, there's an uneven number of pencils in… my…" His eyes focused, laser-like, on the pencil in her hand. "A-HA! I knew you'd taken it."

Liz set down the pencil and rubbed at her temples wearily. "Oh my god, it is just one pencil. I just borrowed it for ten minutes. Would you relax?!"

"You know perfectly well that the answer to that is no!"

"Let me guess. There were eight and I took one, so that makes seven?" Liz shrugged. "Not like I counted them or anything. I just grabbed one."

"Fine. I don't care. Just give it back."

Then Liz got that look in her eye. That sly, calculating look. She picked the pencil back up, and twirled it in her fingers again. "How badly do you want it back?"

"Not bad enough to sacrifice my dignity, if that's what you're thinking."

"You're bluffing." She held out the pencil, dangling it enticingly from her fingers. "Get down on your hands and knees and beg me."

Kid glared cold-blooded murder at her. But Liz, as usual, wasn't even mildly intimidated. Finally, Kid slowly lowered himself to his knees, crawled over toward her, and groveled on the carpet. "Pleeeeaaaaaasssssse?"

Patti watched the tragedy unfolding in front of her, clutched at her stomach, and laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Her stupid big sister and stupid Kid were funniest when they both forgot that they were pretending to be adults. Which, by the way, Patti found both hilarious and frustrating. There was something both comic and tragic in the way that they both insisted on playing the part of grown-ups all the time.

That wasn't entirely their fault, though. Patti still had a fairly good sense of how young they had been when Liz had suddenly become the only adult in her life. How scared they had been, of starving or freezing to death, and how much of a show Liz had put on of being scary instead of being scared. How powerful they had convinced themselves that they were, if only to deny how powerless they had been. And now that things were different, maybe Liz didn't have to play at being the only adult anymore. But old habits died hard.

And then there was Kid, raised all alone in this big echoing mansion, used to taking care of himself and his own business. Probably concerned with adult matters since he had been old enough to toddle, Patti figured. He had that type of personality. Still just a child, but a child convinced that he was adult enough to make his own way in the world. That was why he had been walking around alone and unarmed when Liz and Patti had found him. Him too dumb to be afraid of Liz, and Liz too dumb to let herself realize that mugging a reaper was a bad idea. The unstoppable force meeting an unmovable object. Two souls that absolutely refused to be afraid of each other.

Patti had laughed and laughed and laughed at Liz after the failed mugging attempt. Liz had been furious. And then she had actually been surprised when the boy had come back. Patti hadn't been surprised. She'd sensed the connection forged the moment that her sister had held her cold steel to the boy's cheek. The moment when her big sister had finally met her match. The moment when Patti had looked at the boy and realized that she liked him a whole lot. Because he was like her big sister in so many ways, but also because he was so damn funny, whether he meant to be or not. (Mostly not, which made it even better.) And also the look in his eyes when he had held out his hands to them, making his offer. A promise of both giving and needing. Partnership. The way that he had looked at Patti the same way that he had looked at Liz. Patti had really liked that, from the beginning. She had been a little bit tired of people always talking to her sister and seeing through her.

Back in the present, however, for the moment Kid's attention was focused entirely on Patti's sister. "There. Was that good enough?"

"You're not a very convincing groveler," Liz said, still dangling the pencil enticingly out of his reach.

"You can't ask me to not fake it," he pointed out.

"All right then." She swung her perfectly-pedicured foot out toward him. "Kiss my feet and call me Princess."

"I don't think so."

"Then you'll never get--"

She was silenced when he suddenly stood up, leaned over, and kissed her on the lips.

A moment later, he drew back his head. Liz licked her lips and said, "Well. Huh."

Kid reached for the pencil that should have been in her hand, but it was gone. He turned his head, and saw Patti now standing behind him, dangling the pencil from her fingertips like a carrot on a stick. "Patti, that is impressively sneaky," he said.

"She used to be an excellent pickpocket, you know," Liz said, leaning back and watching them both smugly.

"He he." Patti grinned because she didn't even need to tell Kid what to do next. He kissed her lips, lingering against her for a brief, warm moment. Then she pressed the pencil into his hand and said, "Here you go."

"Much obliged." Calmer now, he left the room without another word.

Patti flopped down on the bed happily, sighing. Then she turned her head, saw the baffled look on Liz's face, and laughed helplessly.

"What's so funny?" Liz fumed.

"Your face!" Patti giggled helplessly. That surprised and baffled look on her sister's face! It was just too hilarious.

A long long time ago, Patti's sister had once told her that she didn't want a technician partner, because those partnerships had a way of becoming permanent attachments. After all, soul resonance wasn't exactly something that one could do with another person and then just walk away from him or her. But nevertheless, once upon a time, Liz had taken that boy's hand when he had offered it to her. He had offered, and she had accepted his offer, because they had both been children playing like adults and because neither of them had really understood the consequences of what they were agreeing to.

Patti had understood from the beginning, though. Her sister had always been her Forever-person. When that boy had held out his hand to her, he had been asking to become her Forever-person, too. And Patti had accepted his offer because to her, it all made so much perfect sense. Her and her sister and this funny boy, together. It still seemed like a pretty sweet deal as far as Forever went.

Now all Patti had to do was sit back and watch her stupid sister and the stupid reaper pull each other back and forth until they finally got it and would fall into each other's gravity. It was pretty damn hilarious, watching them digging in their heels and trying to deny Forever.

When they finally grew up and got over themselves, however, Patti would be waiting for them.

"It was just a kiss-bribe, Patti," Liz was saying, defensively. "It didn't mean anything."

"Sure it didn't." Patti laughed again.