[Fanfic] The Prometheuses Unbound [1/?]
Have any of you read a Harry Potter LJ fic called Shoebox? My friend and I kind of imitated the concept, this time with Spirit and Stein. It follows their entire partnership through Shibusen, Spirit's marriage to Kami, the works. The artist is a senior in high school and I just started uni, so things might be choppy as to posting schedule. But here is the prelude, and the picture from the story, and some notes and stuff! Please enjoy.
Subject: New Student! Be Excited!
From: Death, Lord (death@dwma.org)
Sent: Sunday, October 26, 1986 11:54:26 PM
To: Albarn, Spirit (albarns@dwma.org)
>
Spirit!
>
>
I have some good news! Your teachers have already told you about your progress and rising grades, and I heard about it too! I was glad to hear it, very glad. And I was even more glad when I realized it happened to run in with a time we were accepting a new student! And he’s from Germany too, isn’t that interesting? I’ve met him and he’s a bit shy, but I think you would do well to show him around and help him get settled in! And furthermore, why don’t you just go the whole nine yards and be his new partner?
>
Come outside the Death Room tomorrow before all your classes and show him around, will you?
>
Kthxbai!
>
>
Lord Death
Lord Death
Director of Admissions and Dean of Students
13 Styx Avenue
Death City, Nevada
(tel) 42-42-564
Subject: Oh, I forgot!
From: Death, Lord (death@dwma.org)
Sent: Monday, October 27, 1986 12:07:38 AM
To: Albarn, Spirit (albarns@dwma.org)
Attachments: [franken.stein_survey!.doc] [franken.stein_picture.jpg]
>
Sorry to bug you again, Spirit! This time, I gave you a picture of him and a survey that I wrote and had him fill out! Don’t you think it will be nice and easy for you to make conversation this way?
>
Look at the survey! I worked very hard on it. I think it will really help.
>
Lord Death
Lord Death
Director of Admissions and Dean of Students
13 Styx Avenue
Death City, Nevada
(tel) 42-42-564
>
PS No one likes awkward first meetings, Spirit!
PPS It’s hard to type with my hands…
SURVEY FOR FRANKEN STEIN
Hello, Franken! It’s Lord Death! We all want to know more about you, so how about you fill out these questions as honestly as possible?
WHAT IS YOUR NAME? Franken Stein
ARE YOU SURE? Positive
DO YOU LIKE TEA? Coffee
WHAT KIND? Consult above. This question is void.
WHAT DAY IS IT? Saturday…
IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Several. Most of similar hue. Coquelicot, incarnadine, kermes and, finally, madder (in particular)
WHEN YOU PET PUPPIES, HOW DO YOU FEEL? The sensation that I experience is that I am passing my hand along fur.
IF A CANDLE FACTORY WERE TO BURN DOWN, WOULD YOU JUST STAND THERE AND SING HAPPY BIRTHDAY? I don’t… sing…
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOU
ATTACHMENT:
Subject: What happened? :-(
From: Death, Lord (death@dwma.org)
Sent: Monday, October 27, 1986 3:22:41 PM
To: Albarn, Spirit (albarns@dwma.org)
>
Spirit!
>
Why didn’t you come pick up Franken? He was waiting outside of my office all by himself all day today. He looked very sad! I couldn’t take him around, you know how I keep to myself in the Death Room. And he couldn’t even enjoy himself when I invited him in for tea; he doesn’t even like tea!
>
Please help out, Spirit! We all want Franken to make friends.
>
Please pick him up tomorrow before your classes!
>
Okie dokie!
>
Lord Death
Lord Death
Director of Admissions and Dean of Students
13 Styx Avenue
Death City, Nevada
(tel) 42-42-564
Subject: Re: What happened? :-(
From: Albarn, Spirit (albarns@dwma.org)
Sent: Monday, October 27, 1986 5:57:59 PM
To: Death, Lord (death@dwma.org)
>
sorry sorry sorrry lord death! i didnt get the email until today! i promise i will pick him up! tell him i said sorry!
>
spirit
>
p.s. i think something is wrong with the survey you sent me. it got all weird after a couple questions.
_______________
All nerves and jumbles, knowing he had left the boy waiting. Aside from anxious, Spirit is groggy and still bundled in in the soft muddle of sleep: his movements are gauche and nothing graceful, he has stumbled his way through the cupolas and arcades with the suspended guillotines over the way to Lord Death’s office. Newly sixteen, he feels a little bit too big for himself all of a sudden: his body is all skinny and planes and big joints and hard, awkward angles. His hair is piled atop his head, something like a beacon or warning signal, telling people to stay away if they don’t want to come by this ungainliness he’s stumbled upon.
Other parts of him are smooth-- the easy friendliness, laughter, the smiles-- but not the physical parts, the parts that seem to count most. His body has betrayed him, has become something that he finds himself having to grow into, all over again.
His sneakers make a noise against the floor that sounds around him, bouncing around the narrow corridor, and his shadows, even in the morning, are long, and thrown behind him from the glow of the plated and flickering candelabras nailed to corridor’s walls.
There’s a sharp turn before the Death Room, and he leans back right before the blind corner, looking again at the photograph and the “survey” Lord Death has given him. He yawns and rubs at his eyes, thinking back to the sickly jolt in his chest when his alarm sounded in his ears this morning. The snapshot: the boy pressed forcefully into Lord Death’s side, looking up at him with the half smile and apprehensive, beady eyes-- he hadn’t wanted to leave him there again, and when he wound the timer on his alarm clock the day before, he thought about what it must be like to be foreign and alone. No one wants to be left behind. He had made sure this time, he would even be early.
And shit. He makes a confused face, looking again to one of the questions before the weird font on the survey. The crayon question.
Coquelicot? Incarnadine? Kermes? Madder? What…? He tries thinking quickly, but his thoughts loop around each other and ricochet, banal and trite in the early morning. What are the primary colors again? Green-- was green one? Yellow, yeah, yellow--
“You’re there.”
It’s not a question like it should be, not even a statement, but it is some kind of emphatic observation, one resolute enough to pull Spirit out of hiding before he can stop himself-- wait, since when was I hiding?-- and his eyes dart quickly to the picture again before fastening on the boy in the straight-backed chair.
And then Spirit stops, thrust into his delayed reaction. His mind replays the words, but before he can come to the realization--
“I’m Franken,” the boy says, still sitting in his chair, his finger wedged between the middle pages of a large tome. The book looks out of place at his side and not in some forgotten, dusty corner of a library. In his hands is a cup of coffee.
And the realization hits Spirit again, it wraps his mind as realizations should and he digests it, looking at the boy with sudden and unabashed curiosity.
Franken’s words. There are no misplaced forceful and guttural sounds, no blunt noises lodged between vowels. Bs would not become Vs, and Vs would not flatten and spill out into soft ffffs that sounded more like hissing than any alphabet said with force.
“And he’s from Germany, too, isn’t that interesting?” When Spirit read this, he thought about the movie The Terminator and laughed, thought about what it would be like to find a polite way to ask Franken to repeat himself, because he wouldn’t understand the garbled way English would supposedly swill in his mouth. But now--
It was like Franken hadn’t even lived in Germany. Why, it was like he hadn’t lived anywhere, really. His words were bare of inflection, like he had held them under a tap and rinsed them. They were clinical-- not void of emotion, no. Even though the boy was still, his eyes were shifting, taking in, bright. That make him animate and make his words more alive than anything, really. They aren’t monotone, and it wasn’t lack of annunciation… but then what? How could he make his words seem so impersonal, like he was only a witness to them and they weren’t coming from his mouth--
And Franken’s hair: it isn’t some meline, curly thing; his skin isn’t ruddy and his eyes don’t hold that shocking taste of blue. No, his hair is hoary and haphazard, falling every which way and in front of his face, barely allowing Spirit a view of his chartreuse eyes. He looks like he hasn’t seen sunlight in years.
Spirit tries not to over think it and smiles instead. He is suddenly awake. He holds his hand out to Stein.
“I’m Spirit,” he introduces himself, and turns his smile on more. Franken studies his hands, eyes moving along the folds, the creases, taking in the dirt under Spirit’s masticated nails, maybe. Allowing his gaze to lift, he takes another sip of his coffee before shifting aside the book to shake Spirit’s hand. Spirit can now see the embossed title on the spine, but still can’t understand it or even fathom why the Franken is reading it: Προμηθεύς Δεσμώτης.
The boy’s eyes have moved to Spirit’s face. It doesn’t receive the same scrutiny given to the weapon’s hands. Whatever Franken had wanted to assess wasn’t in his face: it was something that could be surmised by his palms and finger joints only. He feels abruptly self-conscious and full of a million questions. He tries thinking faster but his thoughts just loop around in a frenzy again. He snags a few things-- the survey, he thinks, but then he remembers it’s useless. It’s not something he can use to make small talk or dispel his discomfort. No one likes awkward first meetings, Spirit! And his mind tries again. The book! it says, Go for the book!
He rolls his shoulders back and cracks his neck, and feels once more like his body is too big for him, like he can only fidget in his bones. He grins a little nervously at Franken, who takes his time getting up and collecting his things. Franken’s body, at full height, is small-- they are at that awkward time in their adolescence where a few dividing years divvies inches and broadness to one and leaves another, hardly younger, bare. The way Spirit feels too small for his body is, he realizes, the way Franken might feel too big for his-- all of his focus seems to go to his hands, which are spindly and adroit, moving with a surgeon’s decisiveness. So, while the rest of his body is slow, he has gathered his things and made the grace of his hands clear.
Spirit smiles, a little more comfortable even though Franken is not giving him a kind look. At least adolescence had been wry with both of them.
“So,” he says, and starts walking and then waits to see that Franken is following him, “what’re you reading?”
Franken’s eyes are only in rest or unrest, haven’t learned to slip into the in-between haze of half-focus everyone their age has mastered. When Spirit looks at them, he remembers his own father taking him to fish in cloudy ponds, the way the algae would erupt in a bloom of murk when fish on the bottom darted away.
Franken’s steps don’t echo around the two boys like Spirit’s does, and the older boy doesn’t take notice that only his footfalls resound in the hallways. They are the only things breaking the silence for a while before the intensity of Franken’s stare abates, and he looks a little bit to the book before answering.
“Greek. It’s Prometheus Bound.”
“Huh,” Spirit sounds, and he is all body language, tilting his head and at Franken and feeling that curiosity push to the forefront of his mind once more. He doesn’t know shit about Prometheus Bound, but for some off reason, he remembers his father’s hands, big over his own, pulling back his arm before making the cast for the catch. Just bait them a little, Spirit, he had said, as though it were simple, Spirit‘s face usually muddled with confusion.
Spirit offers a smile and is pleased when Franken looks down at his hands again, like instructions on what to do are encrypted there, and smiles back.
Spirit is always a little ignorant. He doesn’t understand that it is a shy thing, that Franken’s smile is an unsure and apprehensive one still.
“Lord Death wanted me back for tea.”
Tea… he doesn’t like tea! I know that!
Franken has kept his head buried in Prometheus Bound all day, and gave blatantly unkind looks to anyone other than Spirit and teachers who had tried to speak to him that day. Spirit, at this point, is itching to break the silence and use the scant knowledge given to him by The Survey.
“You don’t really like tea though, right?”
Franken gives the boy his first truly indifferent look and shrugs: tiny lift of his narrow shoulders, then a fall. The movement is slow. Spirit has re-evaluated some of his opinions all day-- maybe the young boy is just outside himself. Spirit has found himself in that state on more than one occasion. He remembers sitting in the cafeteria with Franken, the canteen a swirling well of cocktailed aromas and shifting bodies and raucous, adolescent chatter. He remembers offering some of his sandwich to Stein, and remembers the deft way Stein reached around his book and across the table, a scalpel sliding out of the sleeve of his blouse. He remembers the way he cut the sandwich, the way his eyes burned bright, the quick way his hands handed him back his portion. The murmured thank you, the way Stein tucked himself away behind the book again.
Maybe Franken isn’t too big for his body, maybe he is just too slow for it, only managing to maintain some kind of control of his hands, deftly turning the pages of his book the whole day long.
“It’s rude to refuse an invitation.” Franken states the words like it’s an indubitable fact, again, and Spirit marvels the no-nonsense way he treats the English language, not stumbling over or jumbling the foreign tongue once.
“I can walk you back to the Death Room,” Spirit offers. His face is quixotic and his posture, for the first time that day, is easy.
“I’ve spent enough time out there waiting to know where it is.”
The statement is incisive, severing through everything not by any direct vindictiveness, but by the implication its simplicity renders. Stein does not need to wound through harsh words, he will let the plainness of observation and simple fact work its way all by its own self.
Spirit withdraws slightly, and feels the guilt again for having the boy sit outside Death’s room, waiting on him.
“But it is rude to refuse an invitation.”
Spirit searches Franken’s face for the smile and finds it buried in the depths of his eyes, under some impersonal kind of amusement. Spirit casts out his smile again, tentatively, and he watches Stein’s eyes turn into something minutely friendlier.
Spirit eases back into his grace slowly, surprised that his step has fallen behind Franken, who he lets lead the way. It doesn’t take long before he settles back into a relaxed carriage.
His joints feel easy. It has been a long time since he’s felt he won’t stumble over his own feet.
“Franken! Spirit!” Lord Death claps his large, foamy hands together in a way of greeting. A strange smell coasts to them, Stein shifts almost imperceptibly next to Spirit, while the Weapon only arches his eyebrows, sniffing inquisitively.
“Ah!” Lord Death exclaims, and he herds the boys in, and not even Spirit can be oblivious to the way Stein changes when he sees the three teacups on the table. “You would recognize the smell, Stein,” Lord Death continues, “Hagenbüttentee sent from Ostfriesland! Will you rethink having tea with me now?”
They are in the room now, and Spirit turns to face Franken, who is scrutinizing the table something mad. The blue sky of Death’s mullioned room holds the stratocumulus low, and the clouds’ shadows come and go across the pale face, darkening and brightening his eyes.
“…My mother usually drank Fencheltee,” he responds eventually, before making his way to the table and sitting down, picking up the teacup carefully.
Spirit looks to Lord Death, and he nods, signaling to him that he could take a place at the table. He makes his way over but then stops, once again having a delayed reaction.
“…My mother usually drank Fencheltee.”
Drank.
Spirit’s face crumples, and he lowers himself to the level of the table, and feels Lord Death do the same at his side. He watches Stein, who stares into his cup, saying nothing.
“Would you have preferred that?” Lord Death asks, sounding remorseful.
Franken’s eyes snap up. “No. No, it was simply an observation.”
“I haven’t made you homesick, have I, Franken?”
“No,” Stein responds, not too quickly, but the words packed with a tone that makes it suspicious nonetheless. He brings the rim of the teacup to his mouth, and locks his gaze to Spirit's before continuing. “There are things to be discovered outside the borders of your home country. It’s counterproductive to get attached.”
He remembers his father's hands, and the reel of the fish coming in. Something, just something, wakes in Spirit's mind, with a start.
Notes:
Some historical accuracies: dates, down to the day, are accurate. And Terminator was totally out then.
Some historical inaccuracies: email and attachments. But the 80s was a sad time anyway, and would have been made much better with the existence of the hardcore interwebs. Willful suspension of disbelief, please!
And for some convo excerpts, between the collaborating author and artist!
[6/23/2010 8:54:52 PM] *Artist* says: I think we should just keep building the tension.
[6/23/2010 8:54:52 PM] *Author* says: oh and dude! missions to weird countries will be SO LEGIT
[6/23/2010 8:55:07 PM] *Artist* says: lots and lots of tension that can only be solves with CROTCH RUBBING
[6/23/2010 8:55:16 PM] *Author* says: FUCKLING LOVE CROTCH RUBBING!
[6/23/2010 8:55:21 PM] *Artist* says: having to share beds in shitty hotels when they are on missions
[6/23/2010 8:55:23 PM] *Author* says: *explodes*
[6/23/2010 8:52:18 PM] *Artist*says: maybe they are just chilling out and there is so much tension that you could cut it with a knife, but instead spirit just cuts it by sticking him tounge in steins mouth
[6/23/2010 8:52:41 PM] *Author* says: RAZOR TONGUE! CUTTING YAOI SEXUAL TENSION SINCE 1932!
[6/23/2010 8:52:46 PM] *Author* says: >8D
[6/23/2010 8:53:22 PM] *Artist* says: XD
As you can tell from the date, this chapter was in the works for a while (23rd of June) In the works really just translates as sitting on my computer rotting amongst too much music, uni essays and fanfic.
Look out for another chapter! This will also be posted on FF, sans all the cool LJ formatting, of course.
Subject: New Student! Be Excited!
From: Death, Lord (death@dwma.org)
Sent: Sunday, October 26, 1986 11:54:26 PM
To: Albarn, Spirit (albarns@dwma.org)
>
Spirit!
>
>
I have some good news! Your teachers have already told you about your progress and rising grades, and I heard about it too! I was glad to hear it, very glad. And I was even more glad when I realized it happened to run in with a time we were accepting a new student! And he’s from Germany too, isn’t that interesting? I’ve met him and he’s a bit shy, but I think you would do well to show him around and help him get settled in! And furthermore, why don’t you just go the whole nine yards and be his new partner?
>
Come outside the Death Room tomorrow before all your classes and show him around, will you?
>
Kthxbai!
>
>
Lord Death
Lord Death
Director of Admissions and Dean of Students
13 Styx Avenue
Death City, Nevada
(tel) 42-42-564
Subject: Oh, I forgot!
From: Death, Lord (death@dwma.org)
Sent: Monday, October 27, 1986 12:07:38 AM
To: Albarn, Spirit (albarns@dwma.org)
Attachments: [franken.stein_survey!.doc] [franken.stein_picture.jpg]
>
Sorry to bug you again, Spirit! This time, I gave you a picture of him and a survey that I wrote and had him fill out! Don’t you think it will be nice and easy for you to make conversation this way?
>
Look at the survey! I worked very hard on it. I think it will really help.
>
Lord Death
Lord Death
Director of Admissions and Dean of Students
13 Styx Avenue
Death City, Nevada
(tel) 42-42-564
>
PS No one likes awkward first meetings, Spirit!
PPS It’s hard to type with my hands…
SURVEY FOR FRANKEN STEIN
Hello, Franken! It’s Lord Death! We all want to know more about you, so how about you fill out these questions as honestly as possible?
WHAT IS YOUR NAME? Franken Stein
ARE YOU SURE? Positive
DO YOU LIKE TEA? Coffee
WHAT KIND? Consult above. This question is void.
WHAT DAY IS IT? Saturday…
IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Several. Most of similar hue. Coquelicot, incarnadine, kermes and, finally, madder (in particular)
WHEN YOU PET PUPPIES, HOW DO YOU FEEL? The sensation that I experience is that I am passing my hand along fur.
IF A CANDLE FACTORY WERE TO BURN DOWN, WOULD YOU JUST STAND THERE AND SING HAPPY BIRTHDAY? I don’t… sing…
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOU
ATTACHMENT:
Subject: What happened? :-(
From: Death, Lord (death@dwma.org)
Sent: Monday, October 27, 1986 3:22:41 PM
To: Albarn, Spirit (albarns@dwma.org)
>
Spirit!
>
Why didn’t you come pick up Franken? He was waiting outside of my office all by himself all day today. He looked very sad! I couldn’t take him around, you know how I keep to myself in the Death Room. And he couldn’t even enjoy himself when I invited him in for tea; he doesn’t even like tea!
>
Please help out, Spirit! We all want Franken to make friends.
>
Please pick him up tomorrow before your classes!
>
Okie dokie!
>
Lord Death
Lord Death
Director of Admissions and Dean of Students
13 Styx Avenue
Death City, Nevada
(tel) 42-42-564
Subject: Re: What happened? :-(
From: Albarn, Spirit (albarns@dwma.org)
Sent: Monday, October 27, 1986 5:57:59 PM
To: Death, Lord (death@dwma.org)
>
sorry sorry sorrry lord death! i didnt get the email until today! i promise i will pick him up! tell him i said sorry!
>
spirit
>
p.s. i think something is wrong with the survey you sent me. it got all weird after a couple questions.
_______________
All nerves and jumbles, knowing he had left the boy waiting. Aside from anxious, Spirit is groggy and still bundled in in the soft muddle of sleep: his movements are gauche and nothing graceful, he has stumbled his way through the cupolas and arcades with the suspended guillotines over the way to Lord Death’s office. Newly sixteen, he feels a little bit too big for himself all of a sudden: his body is all skinny and planes and big joints and hard, awkward angles. His hair is piled atop his head, something like a beacon or warning signal, telling people to stay away if they don’t want to come by this ungainliness he’s stumbled upon.
Other parts of him are smooth-- the easy friendliness, laughter, the smiles-- but not the physical parts, the parts that seem to count most. His body has betrayed him, has become something that he finds himself having to grow into, all over again.
His sneakers make a noise against the floor that sounds around him, bouncing around the narrow corridor, and his shadows, even in the morning, are long, and thrown behind him from the glow of the plated and flickering candelabras nailed to corridor’s walls.
There’s a sharp turn before the Death Room, and he leans back right before the blind corner, looking again at the photograph and the “survey” Lord Death has given him. He yawns and rubs at his eyes, thinking back to the sickly jolt in his chest when his alarm sounded in his ears this morning. The snapshot: the boy pressed forcefully into Lord Death’s side, looking up at him with the half smile and apprehensive, beady eyes-- he hadn’t wanted to leave him there again, and when he wound the timer on his alarm clock the day before, he thought about what it must be like to be foreign and alone. No one wants to be left behind. He had made sure this time, he would even be early.
And shit. He makes a confused face, looking again to one of the questions before the weird font on the survey. The crayon question.
Coquelicot? Incarnadine? Kermes? Madder? What…? He tries thinking quickly, but his thoughts loop around each other and ricochet, banal and trite in the early morning. What are the primary colors again? Green-- was green one? Yellow, yeah, yellow--
“You’re there.”
It’s not a question like it should be, not even a statement, but it is some kind of emphatic observation, one resolute enough to pull Spirit out of hiding before he can stop himself-- wait, since when was I hiding?-- and his eyes dart quickly to the picture again before fastening on the boy in the straight-backed chair.
And then Spirit stops, thrust into his delayed reaction. His mind replays the words, but before he can come to the realization--
“I’m Franken,” the boy says, still sitting in his chair, his finger wedged between the middle pages of a large tome. The book looks out of place at his side and not in some forgotten, dusty corner of a library. In his hands is a cup of coffee.
And the realization hits Spirit again, it wraps his mind as realizations should and he digests it, looking at the boy with sudden and unabashed curiosity.
Franken’s words. There are no misplaced forceful and guttural sounds, no blunt noises lodged between vowels. Bs would not become Vs, and Vs would not flatten and spill out into soft ffffs that sounded more like hissing than any alphabet said with force.
“And he’s from Germany, too, isn’t that interesting?” When Spirit read this, he thought about the movie The Terminator and laughed, thought about what it would be like to find a polite way to ask Franken to repeat himself, because he wouldn’t understand the garbled way English would supposedly swill in his mouth. But now--
It was like Franken hadn’t even lived in Germany. Why, it was like he hadn’t lived anywhere, really. His words were bare of inflection, like he had held them under a tap and rinsed them. They were clinical-- not void of emotion, no. Even though the boy was still, his eyes were shifting, taking in, bright. That make him animate and make his words more alive than anything, really. They aren’t monotone, and it wasn’t lack of annunciation… but then what? How could he make his words seem so impersonal, like he was only a witness to them and they weren’t coming from his mouth--
And Franken’s hair: it isn’t some meline, curly thing; his skin isn’t ruddy and his eyes don’t hold that shocking taste of blue. No, his hair is hoary and haphazard, falling every which way and in front of his face, barely allowing Spirit a view of his chartreuse eyes. He looks like he hasn’t seen sunlight in years.
Spirit tries not to over think it and smiles instead. He is suddenly awake. He holds his hand out to Stein.
“I’m Spirit,” he introduces himself, and turns his smile on more. Franken studies his hands, eyes moving along the folds, the creases, taking in the dirt under Spirit’s masticated nails, maybe. Allowing his gaze to lift, he takes another sip of his coffee before shifting aside the book to shake Spirit’s hand. Spirit can now see the embossed title on the spine, but still can’t understand it or even fathom why the Franken is reading it: Προμηθεύς Δεσμώτης.
The boy’s eyes have moved to Spirit’s face. It doesn’t receive the same scrutiny given to the weapon’s hands. Whatever Franken had wanted to assess wasn’t in his face: it was something that could be surmised by his palms and finger joints only. He feels abruptly self-conscious and full of a million questions. He tries thinking faster but his thoughts just loop around in a frenzy again. He snags a few things-- the survey, he thinks, but then he remembers it’s useless. It’s not something he can use to make small talk or dispel his discomfort. No one likes awkward first meetings, Spirit! And his mind tries again. The book! it says, Go for the book!
He rolls his shoulders back and cracks his neck, and feels once more like his body is too big for him, like he can only fidget in his bones. He grins a little nervously at Franken, who takes his time getting up and collecting his things. Franken’s body, at full height, is small-- they are at that awkward time in their adolescence where a few dividing years divvies inches and broadness to one and leaves another, hardly younger, bare. The way Spirit feels too small for his body is, he realizes, the way Franken might feel too big for his-- all of his focus seems to go to his hands, which are spindly and adroit, moving with a surgeon’s decisiveness. So, while the rest of his body is slow, he has gathered his things and made the grace of his hands clear.
Spirit smiles, a little more comfortable even though Franken is not giving him a kind look. At least adolescence had been wry with both of them.
“So,” he says, and starts walking and then waits to see that Franken is following him, “what’re you reading?”
Franken’s eyes are only in rest or unrest, haven’t learned to slip into the in-between haze of half-focus everyone their age has mastered. When Spirit looks at them, he remembers his own father taking him to fish in cloudy ponds, the way the algae would erupt in a bloom of murk when fish on the bottom darted away.
Franken’s steps don’t echo around the two boys like Spirit’s does, and the older boy doesn’t take notice that only his footfalls resound in the hallways. They are the only things breaking the silence for a while before the intensity of Franken’s stare abates, and he looks a little bit to the book before answering.
“Greek. It’s Prometheus Bound.”
“Huh,” Spirit sounds, and he is all body language, tilting his head and at Franken and feeling that curiosity push to the forefront of his mind once more. He doesn’t know shit about Prometheus Bound, but for some off reason, he remembers his father’s hands, big over his own, pulling back his arm before making the cast for the catch. Just bait them a little, Spirit, he had said, as though it were simple, Spirit‘s face usually muddled with confusion.
Spirit offers a smile and is pleased when Franken looks down at his hands again, like instructions on what to do are encrypted there, and smiles back.
Spirit is always a little ignorant. He doesn’t understand that it is a shy thing, that Franken’s smile is an unsure and apprehensive one still.
“Lord Death wanted me back for tea.”
Tea… he doesn’t like tea! I know that!
Franken has kept his head buried in Prometheus Bound all day, and gave blatantly unkind looks to anyone other than Spirit and teachers who had tried to speak to him that day. Spirit, at this point, is itching to break the silence and use the scant knowledge given to him by The Survey.
“You don’t really like tea though, right?”
Franken gives the boy his first truly indifferent look and shrugs: tiny lift of his narrow shoulders, then a fall. The movement is slow. Spirit has re-evaluated some of his opinions all day-- maybe the young boy is just outside himself. Spirit has found himself in that state on more than one occasion. He remembers sitting in the cafeteria with Franken, the canteen a swirling well of cocktailed aromas and shifting bodies and raucous, adolescent chatter. He remembers offering some of his sandwich to Stein, and remembers the deft way Stein reached around his book and across the table, a scalpel sliding out of the sleeve of his blouse. He remembers the way he cut the sandwich, the way his eyes burned bright, the quick way his hands handed him back his portion. The murmured thank you, the way Stein tucked himself away behind the book again.
Maybe Franken isn’t too big for his body, maybe he is just too slow for it, only managing to maintain some kind of control of his hands, deftly turning the pages of his book the whole day long.
“It’s rude to refuse an invitation.” Franken states the words like it’s an indubitable fact, again, and Spirit marvels the no-nonsense way he treats the English language, not stumbling over or jumbling the foreign tongue once.
“I can walk you back to the Death Room,” Spirit offers. His face is quixotic and his posture, for the first time that day, is easy.
“I’ve spent enough time out there waiting to know where it is.”
The statement is incisive, severing through everything not by any direct vindictiveness, but by the implication its simplicity renders. Stein does not need to wound through harsh words, he will let the plainness of observation and simple fact work its way all by its own self.
Spirit withdraws slightly, and feels the guilt again for having the boy sit outside Death’s room, waiting on him.
“But it is rude to refuse an invitation.”
Spirit searches Franken’s face for the smile and finds it buried in the depths of his eyes, under some impersonal kind of amusement. Spirit casts out his smile again, tentatively, and he watches Stein’s eyes turn into something minutely friendlier.
Spirit eases back into his grace slowly, surprised that his step has fallen behind Franken, who he lets lead the way. It doesn’t take long before he settles back into a relaxed carriage.
His joints feel easy. It has been a long time since he’s felt he won’t stumble over his own feet.
“Franken! Spirit!” Lord Death claps his large, foamy hands together in a way of greeting. A strange smell coasts to them, Stein shifts almost imperceptibly next to Spirit, while the Weapon only arches his eyebrows, sniffing inquisitively.
“Ah!” Lord Death exclaims, and he herds the boys in, and not even Spirit can be oblivious to the way Stein changes when he sees the three teacups on the table. “You would recognize the smell, Stein,” Lord Death continues, “Hagenbüttentee sent from Ostfriesland! Will you rethink having tea with me now?”
They are in the room now, and Spirit turns to face Franken, who is scrutinizing the table something mad. The blue sky of Death’s mullioned room holds the stratocumulus low, and the clouds’ shadows come and go across the pale face, darkening and brightening his eyes.
“…My mother usually drank Fencheltee,” he responds eventually, before making his way to the table and sitting down, picking up the teacup carefully.
Spirit looks to Lord Death, and he nods, signaling to him that he could take a place at the table. He makes his way over but then stops, once again having a delayed reaction.
“…My mother usually drank Fencheltee.”
Drank.
Spirit’s face crumples, and he lowers himself to the level of the table, and feels Lord Death do the same at his side. He watches Stein, who stares into his cup, saying nothing.
“Would you have preferred that?” Lord Death asks, sounding remorseful.
Franken’s eyes snap up. “No. No, it was simply an observation.”
“I haven’t made you homesick, have I, Franken?”
“No,” Stein responds, not too quickly, but the words packed with a tone that makes it suspicious nonetheless. He brings the rim of the teacup to his mouth, and locks his gaze to Spirit's before continuing. “There are things to be discovered outside the borders of your home country. It’s counterproductive to get attached.”
He remembers his father's hands, and the reel of the fish coming in. Something, just something, wakes in Spirit's mind, with a start.
Notes:
Some historical accuracies: dates, down to the day, are accurate. And Terminator was totally out then.
Some historical inaccuracies: email and attachments. But the 80s was a sad time anyway, and would have been made much better with the existence of the hardcore interwebs. Willful suspension of disbelief, please!
And for some convo excerpts, between the collaborating author and artist!
[6/23/2010 8:54:52 PM] *Artist* says: I think we should just keep building the tension.
[6/23/2010 8:54:52 PM] *Author* says: oh and dude! missions to weird countries will be SO LEGIT
[6/23/2010 8:55:07 PM] *Artist* says: lots and lots of tension that can only be solves with CROTCH RUBBING
[6/23/2010 8:55:16 PM] *Author* says: FUCKLING LOVE CROTCH RUBBING!
[6/23/2010 8:55:21 PM] *Artist* says: having to share beds in shitty hotels when they are on missions
[6/23/2010 8:55:23 PM] *Author* says: *explodes*
[6/23/2010 8:52:18 PM] *Artist*says: maybe they are just chilling out and there is so much tension that you could cut it with a knife, but instead spirit just cuts it by sticking him tounge in steins mouth
[6/23/2010 8:52:41 PM] *Author* says: RAZOR TONGUE! CUTTING YAOI SEXUAL TENSION SINCE 1932!
[6/23/2010 8:52:46 PM] *Author* says: >8D
[6/23/2010 8:53:22 PM] *Artist* says: XD
As you can tell from the date, this chapter was in the works for a while (23rd of June) In the works really just translates as sitting on my computer rotting amongst too much music, uni essays and fanfic.
Look out for another chapter! This will also be posted on FF, sans all the cool LJ formatting, of course.