dude reading your old WIPs is WILD esp when they’re ones you worked really hard on but….semi gave up on a while ago?? like i have it in my head that one day i will Finish Every WIP but let’s be real….i will not….

but yeah a year or two ago I wrote a fic where’s Soul’s in a coma and…..it’s really good? soul is inexplicably in a coma he’s been in for MONTHS (past kelly was apparently still fine-tuning how he got this injury) and maka comes to see him every day and talks to him and Soul’s consciousness is stuck in the Black Room and CAN HEAR HER but can’t respond. and Death the Kid, being a reaper, can resonate with Soul and enter the Black Room but Soul has given him strict instructions to never tell Maka that he can do that bc he doesn’t want Maka chained to his bedside when Soul might not ever wake up

like??? it’s real fucking sad but i feel like actually tried really hard writing this and its almost 6k words already and probably only needs another 4 or 5k to be completed. but idk….how past me wanted this to turn out…

anyways i still don’t know how great the odds are of me ever finishing it so here’s a snippet under the cut if you’re interested in what it’s like for Soul to be stuck in hell

“How are you holding up?” Kid asks, finally pulling away
from Soul and holding him at arm’s length for a moment. Soul doesn’t say
anything. He doesn’t need to. He carries his haggardness so openly when he’s by
himself in the Black Room that he can’t be bothered to hide it now. Kid frowns.
“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”

Soul lets go of his friend, going to sit at the iron table
for two that’s now illuminated enough to be seen. In the moments when Kid is
here, it seems hard to believe that Soul is scared
to approach this part of the Room. The chair is just a chair, cold and
uncomfortable as always. It’s only when it’s hidden in darkness that it feels worse
somehow.

“Depends on what you’re even asking about. Listening to Maka
talk to my unresponsive body for days on end, or my loops getting longer and
longer each time I get trapped in them?” Soul shakes his head with a sharp
laugh that definitely isn’t funny. “I guess it doesn’t even matter. Both of
them suck pretty bad.”

Kid looks like he wants to say something, but Soul isn’t in
the mood to hear comfort right now. “I know, I know,” Soul says. “There’s still
hope, you just have to keep on holding on, don’t give up just yet, blahhh. I
get it. You’re the one who asked.”

Kid looks cross. “Are you going to let me speak?”

Soul pauses. He’s gotten so used to upholding both halves of
a conversation that he forgets that he can let the other half speak for itself
now. “Sorry, go ahead.”

Kid levels his gaze with Soul’s.

“I know it’s getting worse,” Kid says, “because it’s getting
easier for me to get in here, Soul.”

If Soul had a heartbeat in here he’s sure it would have
stopped right now.

This is news he’s been expecting, news he’s been trying to
anticipate for a while, but now that it’s here, he doesn’t want to face it.
Even in these months of darkness, there was always that hope that they’d figure
something out. Maka would come up with a solution, Kid would use some of his
Reaper powers, a doctor would be fucking helpful for once. Hell, sometimes Soul
even held onto the idea that he himself would be able to break himself free of
prison the Black Room had become. The longer he stayed in here the more
illogical his hope became, but it was still there, giving him the encouragement
he needed to not give in to the loops when he could have so long ago. It was
all for nothing.

He squeezes his hands into fists and looks away from Kid,
trying to gather some strength when he’s not sure he has any left. Maybe that’s
been the problem this whole time.

He looks back to Kid, his heart a grave.

“I’m dying, aren’t I?”