Soul Eater Drabble (10/11: no place like home)
Title: no place like home
Fandom: Soul Eater
Pairing: Spirit/Stein
Rating: NC-17
Notes: I totally, utterly, completely blame flyingteapot for this. On the other hand, this plot has also been in my head for a very long time now, so that part isn't your fault. Maybe. Probably.
Written sparsely without much fanfare (yay, less flowery CRAP). Set in Spirit and Stein's good ol' school days. Oh, why the hell did I take a break from Reborn and write this again?!
11. no place like home
He stares down at the figure on his doorstep. For once Stein is calm, taking apart the sight of the paint peeling away from the doorframe, probably picturing skin or muscle flayed from bones or something equally disgusting. When Spirit asks, "Hey, what're you doing here?" he gets no answer. He's sure, though, that he heard the knock in the first place, or else he wouldn't be here, glaring at the one who's interrupted him right before his beauty rest.
"You want to come in or something?," he asks after a moment, and sighs when the boy doesn't move, except to switch gazes from the doorframe to Spirit's feet. Just for fun, the older student wiggles them against the carpet, just to see what kind of reaction he can egg out of Stein. He expects one of those maniacal grins that stretches from ear to ear, exposing all the teeth in between - but to his confusion all Stein does is look away this time, his own bare toes squirming like pale worms away from him. The face shows nothing, no delight, no pain, no anything. Spirit is relieved, and somehow disappointed.
He stands aside just a little, and the boy scrapes his feet over the threshold as he strays inside. Once in the room, his eyes flicker from object to object, roving like a hummingbird, until finally they settle on the bed. It isn't a very large room - a narrow single, with the bed on one end and the bookshelf and desk next to it, all plain dark wood - but watching Stein stand in the middle of it, eyes unable to take in all of it, Spirit can't help but feel a little proud of all the stupid little personal effects he's gathered through the year.
"Not much, but make yourself at home." He moves past the other student to the bed, picking up a dogeared novel from the nightstand on the way. Propping the pillow against the headboard, he flips to the bookmark - only to glance back at the weapons user slouched like a humpbacked statue in the middle of the floor.
Even if he wasn't subconsciously avoiding the little circle of light, Stein stands apart from everything else. His pajamas are a little rumpled, flannel crinkled in corners. His hands are still for once, not reaching for bugs or people or scalpels, just hanging there like dead things. His hair is limp, sticking up in places, and Spirit knows that the other boy's tried to sleep, and is having nightmares again, just like the school nurse said.
Just today, he stopped Stein from slicing apart another student, eyes wild and unseeing even as his ear-to-ear grin slashed his face in half. He'd had to pin Stein down with his entire body, screaming in his ear until the other screamed back. They'd grappled then, Stein's fingers digging fruitlessly into his shoulders before catching him across the face with a glancing fist.
I told you to stop! Hello, anybody home? Can you even hear me in that cracked-up brain of yours?
Why? Why can't I? Look, they're so ripe - why can't I cut them open? Why do you keep on getting in my way?
Cuz it's my job, idiot!
Ruefully he rubs his cheek in passing. This time Stein's toes snap towards himself, curling like pillbugs as his hands started to fidget, pulling fitfully with the hem of his pajama top. His entire body twitches, left to right, right to left, until Spirit can't help but frown in response. He knows the bare bones of what happened to his charge - but it's different than seeing the negative effects spring from the boy himself.
The story has never told itself louder than it did now.
He sighs, and takes pity on the weapons user. "C'mere," he commands gruffly, gesturing with one hand. Stein doesn't move, gaze still aimed towards the bottom of his desk, where (undoubtedly) his day-old socks are probably still stinking up to high heaven. Shrimp, thinking he can ignore me... Annoyed, Stein puts the book down and tosses back the covers. To his credit, the kid sees it coming a split second before and tries to avoid it - but all the same Spirit fights off the hands that try to slap his away, mutely ignoring the little whimper of confusion like the kid ignores his kindness -
- and manually hauls the younger boy into bed with him.
Stein yelps in alarm, still trying to get away, but Spirit hooks a foot around his waist and brings him down until Stein's practically flat on top of him. The weapon gets an eyeful of Stein's bewildered face before he shuts off the light and wraps his arms securely around the other. Stein struggles like mad at first, but gradually, seeing that his sempai isn't going to let him go, he sullenly settles for jabbing the older student in the ribs and under the arms (damn him for going after the weak spots he just knows are there!). Feeling the other weigh down on him like a stone, Spirit flips them so they're side-to-side - and then, maddeningly enough, the cycle starts again.
"Stay still -"
"Don't want -"
"No -"
Stein kicks out with his legs and catches him accidentally (and painfully) in the thigh. He grunts, fingers digging into the flesh of the other student's upper arm until an answering growl can be heard. They wrestle for one vivid moment, before Spirit barely comes out on top in brute strength. He grabs madly at the other's arms, torso, elbowing him accidentally in the neck before he bounces the other student's head lightly on the bed, just to stun him. Stein's eyes are still gold in the dark, but wide with something other than insanity. His mind tries to come up with an adjective through the distraction of attempting to bring the other closer to him, and then -
In the same moment that he figures out it's fear, something hard and warm pokes him in the thigh.
He almost falls off the bed in that instant, but instinctively his brain yells at him to stay put. He only backs up a couple of inches away to see the weapons user's face stare back at him, bare of everything except for that goddamn fear. What fear, he thinks angrily to himself, what is there to fear in me? Throwing the silent, unanswered question aside, he forces himself to sit up, bringing the other boy with him.
He searches deep into the other's eyes, still frowning. "Has this happened to you before?," he demands, and winces at the tone. The younger student looks at him with that This feels like where I should run away look. Spirit's hands are still digging into Stein's shoulders; he has to loosen them consciously.
The younger boy seems smaller than usual where he is, half-kneeling with his feet to the side. The toes twitch as he answers, "No." And then adds just as quickly, "Yes. A couple of times, sempai."
His brain is putting up a hell of a hissy fit over this one in his mind. In the end Spirit nods slowly once, and slides off of the bed, eyes still trained on the other student's alert face. Dragging the younger boy's feet towards him to hang over the edge, he asks as conversationally as he can, "Do you know what it is?"
"An erection is a reaction to physical contact in a human's erogenous -"
"Stop." He really didn't need to know the dictionary definition for it, and he sure as hell didn't want to know what dictionary it was that Stein read. Though, knowing him, nothing in the library was off-limits to that curious mind, especially not the ones involving human bodies and experiments. "What I mean is, do you know what to do about it?"
Do you know what it usually means?, he wants to ask. But then again, he can guess Stein's answer.
Stein shakes his head, so resignedly (through his mind's long-winded scream of NO I LOVE GIRLS!!!) Spirit tugs lightly on the hem of the other's pants, and tells him, "Take it off."
The younger boy just stares at him, most likely not confused about the command but about the meaning of the action itself. Again the weapon sighs, and then gives the other student a little shove so he's lying on his back, and then yanks the offending clothing off himself. "I said strip!," he mutters angrily to himself as the other student kicks out with his bare feet again, catching him in the shoulder. "I'm trying to help you here!," he adds indignantly after he grips both slender ankles in a vain attempt to pound the command through physical means.
Stein gives him a look that clearly says that he doesn't believe it in the least. And what is it in that glare that makes Spirit doubt himself too?
Huffing in half-embarrassment, half-anger, Spirit gestures to the other's underwear. His brain is still screaming at him to stop this madness because it's too late. He reflects briefly to why he likes women. Admittedly, one part is because of this stupid kid who refuses to calm the fuck down long enough to become normal, despite his reluctant sempai's best efforts. There were good days, of course - but good days should never be characterized by a lack of homicidal urges.
He wonders, not for the first or last time, when the hell the kid will just give it up and be normal. Then again, if Stein could do that, he probably would have done so already. It'd save both of them a lot of grief.
The weapons user is still staring up at him with the patient look of someone who needed a clear explanation as to why they were faced with such stupidity. It's easier this time to pull the other student's clothes down, just far enough so that the soft curve of a half-erection can be seen, nestled in the silvery-brown curls. Stein shudders, something like shame fleeting across his face. His sempai follows it with careful eyes, and frowns as the other shivers again, thighs warm beneath the older student's palms.
Spirit soothes that baby-soft paleness calmly, feeling the objecting part of his brain retreat to a distant corner of his mind. His heart is beating up a storm, for some reason he still doesn't know. But he does want that haunted wariness in his charge to go away. Or in the least, he wants to be the one that can stand behind Stein and not have those hackles raise behind that desire to slice up everything in the way.
He squeezes one kneecap in as reassuring a manner as he can, but still the other student's as stiff as a corpse, mouth a tense little line. Kneeling between another boy's legs should have felt stranger, Spirit observes absently, or maybe it's just because it's Stein. Even if he has no idea what went on in that kid's brains other than his neverending research and desire to know all there was about the human anatomy, he knows enough of the other from the things he'd picked up in passing. The way Stein can twirl anything between his fingers, even spoons from the cafeteria. His strange hobby of cutting out fake skeletons from white paper. The way his fingers twitch like they're moving over piano keys when class lecture covers something he already knows.
It's not a lot, but it's more than anybody else can claim. He wonders if this makes him closer to Stein - he wonders if Stein considers him too close, and a threat. But the other boy hasn't pushed him away yet.
"Sempai," he hears the younger student voice in rough and pleading a tone as he's ever heard it. In response, he combs his fingers idly through the burst of silvery hair, and curls his fingers decisively around the weapon user's naked sex. In the same motion, he tilts his head up to where Stein is slouched over him like he usually only does over his computer keyboard, and thoughtlessly presses a kiss to the corner of that parted mouth.
Breath hitches in the silence of the room. The younger student's eyes are still that impossible hue in the scant light, pools of watery platinum. Spirit moves his hand, and the weapons user stops his mouth with his fist, but not before a harsh sound exhales from between those lips. He's thrilled, for no reason at all other than the success of having dragged an involuntary reaction from the other student's body. The older student savors each glimpse of vulnerability in turn - the short little not-gasps, eyes wide and drinking in the experience drunkenly.
Spirit sighs a little against the other student's neck, feeling the pale skin bump against his nose as Stein trembles, then stills himself abruptly as if he'd consciously cut off the reaction. The weapon then sighs, and huffs quietly, "Hands on shoulders." Stein obeys without comment. "And legs wider." Again, his command is met only with instant compliancy. He's almost disappointed - until he takes a peek up at the pale moon of Stein's face hanging above him, with its hazy eyes and soft pants. A strangled choke emerges when he leans his forehead heavily against Stein's shoulder.
He's never done this to anyone, but it isn't hard to guess when he's taken care of himself before. He pumps faster, feeling the flesh stiffen under his hands. Stein's hips are downright bony, despite all the food Spirit makes him ingest. There is power hidden there too, flexibility packed in growing muscle, intelligence in that tricky little skull. One day, Spirit grudgingly admits, Stein was going to be beautiful.
For even thinking anywhere near there, he vindicatively jerks his thumb over the tip, feeling the body jerk under his touch. A couple more repetitions of the same and the younger boy is gone, arching into the pleasure with his mouth open in a silent scream. Spirit wipes off his hand on some tissues and halfheartedly tries to shoo away his own little problem between the legs. When he looks back, Stein is still sitting on the edge of the bed, regaining his breath in little shudders. Spirit kneels back down between those legs, hands cleaning up the area, when the weapons user's hands settle down on his shoulders like they've never left.
Spirit looks up then. "Stein," he says seriously, and the boy actually looks like he's listening for once. "You can't just do what we just did anywhere, alright? Go to a secluded place to do it - no, wait," he wracks his brains on how to avoid what could possibly turn into a catastrophe. "Actually, come here to do it."
"Every time?" Stein's eyes shine like coins in the dark. The bed creaks when his hands tightened on his sempai's shoulders.
"Every time," Spirit says firmly, and ignores the side of his libido that still insists he only likes women. Hey, it was for a good cause, wasn't it?
Ten years later, Stein plunks his bag down in the middle of the floor where he'd once stood, and surveys his surroundings once again. He's taller now, and there aren't any stinky socks lurking under the desk. Dead insects line the windowsill where no student's lived since the last one moved out.
His smirk melts reluctantly into a fond smile. All in all, it looks the same, save the lack of knick-knacks that cover the walls and shelves. He's almost disappointed.
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You gotta wonder at my sanity when THIS is the first Soul Eater writing I do. At least with Reborn I started with gen, sheesh.
Fandom: Soul Eater
Pairing: Spirit/Stein
Rating: NC-17
Notes: I totally, utterly, completely blame flyingteapot for this. On the other hand, this plot has also been in my head for a very long time now, so that part isn't your fault. Maybe. Probably.
Written sparsely without much fanfare (yay, less flowery CRAP). Set in Spirit and Stein's good ol' school days. Oh, why the hell did I take a break from Reborn and write this again?!
11. no place like home
He stares down at the figure on his doorstep. For once Stein is calm, taking apart the sight of the paint peeling away from the doorframe, probably picturing skin or muscle flayed from bones or something equally disgusting. When Spirit asks, "Hey, what're you doing here?" he gets no answer. He's sure, though, that he heard the knock in the first place, or else he wouldn't be here, glaring at the one who's interrupted him right before his beauty rest.
"You want to come in or something?," he asks after a moment, and sighs when the boy doesn't move, except to switch gazes from the doorframe to Spirit's feet. Just for fun, the older student wiggles them against the carpet, just to see what kind of reaction he can egg out of Stein. He expects one of those maniacal grins that stretches from ear to ear, exposing all the teeth in between - but to his confusion all Stein does is look away this time, his own bare toes squirming like pale worms away from him. The face shows nothing, no delight, no pain, no anything. Spirit is relieved, and somehow disappointed.
He stands aside just a little, and the boy scrapes his feet over the threshold as he strays inside. Once in the room, his eyes flicker from object to object, roving like a hummingbird, until finally they settle on the bed. It isn't a very large room - a narrow single, with the bed on one end and the bookshelf and desk next to it, all plain dark wood - but watching Stein stand in the middle of it, eyes unable to take in all of it, Spirit can't help but feel a little proud of all the stupid little personal effects he's gathered through the year.
"Not much, but make yourself at home." He moves past the other student to the bed, picking up a dogeared novel from the nightstand on the way. Propping the pillow against the headboard, he flips to the bookmark - only to glance back at the weapons user slouched like a humpbacked statue in the middle of the floor.
Even if he wasn't subconsciously avoiding the little circle of light, Stein stands apart from everything else. His pajamas are a little rumpled, flannel crinkled in corners. His hands are still for once, not reaching for bugs or people or scalpels, just hanging there like dead things. His hair is limp, sticking up in places, and Spirit knows that the other boy's tried to sleep, and is having nightmares again, just like the school nurse said.
Just today, he stopped Stein from slicing apart another student, eyes wild and unseeing even as his ear-to-ear grin slashed his face in half. He'd had to pin Stein down with his entire body, screaming in his ear until the other screamed back. They'd grappled then, Stein's fingers digging fruitlessly into his shoulders before catching him across the face with a glancing fist.
I told you to stop! Hello, anybody home? Can you even hear me in that cracked-up brain of yours?
Why? Why can't I? Look, they're so ripe - why can't I cut them open? Why do you keep on getting in my way?
Cuz it's my job, idiot!
Ruefully he rubs his cheek in passing. This time Stein's toes snap towards himself, curling like pillbugs as his hands started to fidget, pulling fitfully with the hem of his pajama top. His entire body twitches, left to right, right to left, until Spirit can't help but frown in response. He knows the bare bones of what happened to his charge - but it's different than seeing the negative effects spring from the boy himself.
The story has never told itself louder than it did now.
He sighs, and takes pity on the weapons user. "C'mere," he commands gruffly, gesturing with one hand. Stein doesn't move, gaze still aimed towards the bottom of his desk, where (undoubtedly) his day-old socks are probably still stinking up to high heaven. Shrimp, thinking he can ignore me... Annoyed, Stein puts the book down and tosses back the covers. To his credit, the kid sees it coming a split second before and tries to avoid it - but all the same Spirit fights off the hands that try to slap his away, mutely ignoring the little whimper of confusion like the kid ignores his kindness -
- and manually hauls the younger boy into bed with him.
Stein yelps in alarm, still trying to get away, but Spirit hooks a foot around his waist and brings him down until Stein's practically flat on top of him. The weapon gets an eyeful of Stein's bewildered face before he shuts off the light and wraps his arms securely around the other. Stein struggles like mad at first, but gradually, seeing that his sempai isn't going to let him go, he sullenly settles for jabbing the older student in the ribs and under the arms (damn him for going after the weak spots he just knows are there!). Feeling the other weigh down on him like a stone, Spirit flips them so they're side-to-side - and then, maddeningly enough, the cycle starts again.
"Stay still -"
"Don't want -"
"No -"
Stein kicks out with his legs and catches him accidentally (and painfully) in the thigh. He grunts, fingers digging into the flesh of the other student's upper arm until an answering growl can be heard. They wrestle for one vivid moment, before Spirit barely comes out on top in brute strength. He grabs madly at the other's arms, torso, elbowing him accidentally in the neck before he bounces the other student's head lightly on the bed, just to stun him. Stein's eyes are still gold in the dark, but wide with something other than insanity. His mind tries to come up with an adjective through the distraction of attempting to bring the other closer to him, and then -
In the same moment that he figures out it's fear, something hard and warm pokes him in the thigh.
He almost falls off the bed in that instant, but instinctively his brain yells at him to stay put. He only backs up a couple of inches away to see the weapons user's face stare back at him, bare of everything except for that goddamn fear. What fear, he thinks angrily to himself, what is there to fear in me? Throwing the silent, unanswered question aside, he forces himself to sit up, bringing the other boy with him.
He searches deep into the other's eyes, still frowning. "Has this happened to you before?," he demands, and winces at the tone. The younger student looks at him with that This feels like where I should run away look. Spirit's hands are still digging into Stein's shoulders; he has to loosen them consciously.
The younger boy seems smaller than usual where he is, half-kneeling with his feet to the side. The toes twitch as he answers, "No." And then adds just as quickly, "Yes. A couple of times, sempai."
His brain is putting up a hell of a hissy fit over this one in his mind. In the end Spirit nods slowly once, and slides off of the bed, eyes still trained on the other student's alert face. Dragging the younger boy's feet towards him to hang over the edge, he asks as conversationally as he can, "Do you know what it is?"
"An erection is a reaction to physical contact in a human's erogenous -"
"Stop." He really didn't need to know the dictionary definition for it, and he sure as hell didn't want to know what dictionary it was that Stein read. Though, knowing him, nothing in the library was off-limits to that curious mind, especially not the ones involving human bodies and experiments. "What I mean is, do you know what to do about it?"
Do you know what it usually means?, he wants to ask. But then again, he can guess Stein's answer.
Stein shakes his head, so resignedly (through his mind's long-winded scream of NO I LOVE GIRLS!!!) Spirit tugs lightly on the hem of the other's pants, and tells him, "Take it off."
The younger boy just stares at him, most likely not confused about the command but about the meaning of the action itself. Again the weapon sighs, and then gives the other student a little shove so he's lying on his back, and then yanks the offending clothing off himself. "I said strip!," he mutters angrily to himself as the other student kicks out with his bare feet again, catching him in the shoulder. "I'm trying to help you here!," he adds indignantly after he grips both slender ankles in a vain attempt to pound the command through physical means.
Stein gives him a look that clearly says that he doesn't believe it in the least. And what is it in that glare that makes Spirit doubt himself too?
Huffing in half-embarrassment, half-anger, Spirit gestures to the other's underwear. His brain is still screaming at him to stop this madness because it's too late. He reflects briefly to why he likes women. Admittedly, one part is because of this stupid kid who refuses to calm the fuck down long enough to become normal, despite his reluctant sempai's best efforts. There were good days, of course - but good days should never be characterized by a lack of homicidal urges.
He wonders, not for the first or last time, when the hell the kid will just give it up and be normal. Then again, if Stein could do that, he probably would have done so already. It'd save both of them a lot of grief.
The weapons user is still staring up at him with the patient look of someone who needed a clear explanation as to why they were faced with such stupidity. It's easier this time to pull the other student's clothes down, just far enough so that the soft curve of a half-erection can be seen, nestled in the silvery-brown curls. Stein shudders, something like shame fleeting across his face. His sempai follows it with careful eyes, and frowns as the other shivers again, thighs warm beneath the older student's palms.
Spirit soothes that baby-soft paleness calmly, feeling the objecting part of his brain retreat to a distant corner of his mind. His heart is beating up a storm, for some reason he still doesn't know. But he does want that haunted wariness in his charge to go away. Or in the least, he wants to be the one that can stand behind Stein and not have those hackles raise behind that desire to slice up everything in the way.
He squeezes one kneecap in as reassuring a manner as he can, but still the other student's as stiff as a corpse, mouth a tense little line. Kneeling between another boy's legs should have felt stranger, Spirit observes absently, or maybe it's just because it's Stein. Even if he has no idea what went on in that kid's brains other than his neverending research and desire to know all there was about the human anatomy, he knows enough of the other from the things he'd picked up in passing. The way Stein can twirl anything between his fingers, even spoons from the cafeteria. His strange hobby of cutting out fake skeletons from white paper. The way his fingers twitch like they're moving over piano keys when class lecture covers something he already knows.
It's not a lot, but it's more than anybody else can claim. He wonders if this makes him closer to Stein - he wonders if Stein considers him too close, and a threat. But the other boy hasn't pushed him away yet.
"Sempai," he hears the younger student voice in rough and pleading a tone as he's ever heard it. In response, he combs his fingers idly through the burst of silvery hair, and curls his fingers decisively around the weapon user's naked sex. In the same motion, he tilts his head up to where Stein is slouched over him like he usually only does over his computer keyboard, and thoughtlessly presses a kiss to the corner of that parted mouth.
Breath hitches in the silence of the room. The younger student's eyes are still that impossible hue in the scant light, pools of watery platinum. Spirit moves his hand, and the weapons user stops his mouth with his fist, but not before a harsh sound exhales from between those lips. He's thrilled, for no reason at all other than the success of having dragged an involuntary reaction from the other student's body. The older student savors each glimpse of vulnerability in turn - the short little not-gasps, eyes wide and drinking in the experience drunkenly.
Spirit sighs a little against the other student's neck, feeling the pale skin bump against his nose as Stein trembles, then stills himself abruptly as if he'd consciously cut off the reaction. The weapon then sighs, and huffs quietly, "Hands on shoulders." Stein obeys without comment. "And legs wider." Again, his command is met only with instant compliancy. He's almost disappointed - until he takes a peek up at the pale moon of Stein's face hanging above him, with its hazy eyes and soft pants. A strangled choke emerges when he leans his forehead heavily against Stein's shoulder.
He's never done this to anyone, but it isn't hard to guess when he's taken care of himself before. He pumps faster, feeling the flesh stiffen under his hands. Stein's hips are downright bony, despite all the food Spirit makes him ingest. There is power hidden there too, flexibility packed in growing muscle, intelligence in that tricky little skull. One day, Spirit grudgingly admits, Stein was going to be beautiful.
For even thinking anywhere near there, he vindicatively jerks his thumb over the tip, feeling the body jerk under his touch. A couple more repetitions of the same and the younger boy is gone, arching into the pleasure with his mouth open in a silent scream. Spirit wipes off his hand on some tissues and halfheartedly tries to shoo away his own little problem between the legs. When he looks back, Stein is still sitting on the edge of the bed, regaining his breath in little shudders. Spirit kneels back down between those legs, hands cleaning up the area, when the weapons user's hands settle down on his shoulders like they've never left.
Spirit looks up then. "Stein," he says seriously, and the boy actually looks like he's listening for once. "You can't just do what we just did anywhere, alright? Go to a secluded place to do it - no, wait," he wracks his brains on how to avoid what could possibly turn into a catastrophe. "Actually, come here to do it."
"Every time?" Stein's eyes shine like coins in the dark. The bed creaks when his hands tightened on his sempai's shoulders.
"Every time," Spirit says firmly, and ignores the side of his libido that still insists he only likes women. Hey, it was for a good cause, wasn't it?
Ten years later, Stein plunks his bag down in the middle of the floor where he'd once stood, and surveys his surroundings once again. He's taller now, and there aren't any stinky socks lurking under the desk. Dead insects line the windowsill where no student's lived since the last one moved out.
His smirk melts reluctantly into a fond smile. All in all, it looks the same, save the lack of knick-knacks that cover the walls and shelves. He's almost disappointed.
----------
You gotta wonder at my sanity when THIS is the first Soul Eater writing I do. At least with Reborn I started with gen, sheesh.