It had been his only companion for years. He had grown used to it; complacent perhaps. With the Kishin's revival his companion only became louder; it was a screeching noise where it had only been a persistent buzzing. He could feel the urges overwhelming him if he wasn't vigilant.
And there were times when he wasn't. He would lose tracks of time, but he would find notes of those times. They hinted at greater knowledge than he had thought possible. They hinted at things that he could never know as a sane man. He wanted that knowledge, that freedom, that power. He needed it.
It became an all-consuming craving.
His consumption of cigarettes dramatically increased. He knew that they could, and probably would, kill him, but they kept the want at bay. He found himself grateful for the teaching position at Shibusen just because it kept him out of his lab and gave him something to focus his mind on.
Time dragged by slowly, the madness eating at his sanity more with each passing day. The death scythes were called in, and he couldn't even find it in himself to object to Marie being assigned his partner, or to object when she all but invited herself to stay in the lab.
"Don't blame me if you wind up dissected."
Since when did he joke? He pondered on that for a short while after he agreed to it. She should honestly be worried about it, but he found that he didn't have the desire to dissect her. Perhaps there was some merit to Shinigami-sama's suggestion. Or perhaps it was simply Marie Mjolnir's unique wavelength, tempering the urges that he felt.
His hands itched, the urge to dissect her finally settling in as he considered her unique wavelength and the purposes that he could put it to if he could only understand how to.
A cigarette helped to squash the urge. He took a shuddering drag on it, his free hand clenched into a fist as he ignored the comforting weight of the scalpel in his pocket. He didn't even realize that his eyes were closed until he felt her wavelength approach him and he opened them.
"Marie?"
"Dinner's done, Franken. You're eating tonight."
He regarded her warily. Why would she be so insistent on feeding him? He felt the madness well up, paranoia telling him that he was just an experiment for her, that she was going to get him used to eating on a regular basis only to vary it; that she would add something to the food, that there were a million things that she could do to him if he were to grow complacent and allowed her to interfere with such a mundane aspect of his life.
His empty hand twisted the screw in his head, banishing some of the madness as he reminded himself that Marie didn't possess the desire to do anything like that to him. She was simply being helpful, making certain that she wasn't a burden to him, as she was living in his home. The things he was imagining were things that he would, no could but wouldn't, do to her. Not the other way around.
He could hear the madness quieting down as she moved to stand near him, her hand barely brushing against his arm as she repeated herself. Her eye was wide as he looked down at her, smoke leaking from his nose as he exhaled.
The sudden image of the cigarette in his hand being shoved into the empty socket that lay beneath the eye patch assaulted him and he took a sharp drag of the cigarette, desperate to ignore the urge. He flinched away from her when he felt her hand tighten around his arm, but she maintained her grasp.
"Franken, are you alright?"
There was true concern in her voice. It, along with her touch, rooted him in his sanity and he exhaled another gout of smoke. He didn't answer, just dropped the cigarette to the concrete floor and ground it out beneath his stitched shoe before moving past her and out of his lab and toward the kitchen.
He sat hours later in his lab, his hand twisting the screw. He could still feel her wavelength and he wondered what it was costing her to keep it maintained like she was doing. He knew it had to be exhaustive for her.
He staggered to his feet and had his hand on the doorknob to her room before he even realized it, a hypodermic needle in his other hand. He didn't know what was in the syringe; he just knew that he had been planning on injecting it into her.
For her own good. She needs rest.
The voice echoed comfortingly in his mind, it made sense. Too much sense. He feared that she would never wake if he did inject whatever was in the cocktail into her. With a heavy stride he turned and moved away from her door, destroying the mixture and watching it drain away once he was inside the research lab again. His hands trembled, her wavelength becoming background noise only as she drifted off to sleep.
That all-consuming urge to know nearly overwhelmed him. He stood with his hands pressed flat against an operating table, Marie's face smiling at him from behind closed eyelids. His arms trembled as his hands slipped down to grab ahold of the edges of the table, anchoring him to reality as his legs wanted to turn and walk back to her bedroom. He twirled suddenly, striding to his desk and grabbing a scalpel.
Without a second thought he brought the sharp blade on a collision course with his abdomen. He hit his knees, air hissing out from between clenched teeth as he buried the blade into it. The wound wasn't bad- the blade was less than an inch and a half long.
He knew that it wouldn't suffice. He knew from experience that it wouldn't be enough, that it would only fuel his curiosity. Before his mind could wander to wondering how Marie's interior makeup would compare to his own Stein steeled himself, twisting the blade and sliding it through skin and muscle.
Marie's scream echoed through the lab the next morning when she found him lying in a pool of his own blood, the incision hastily stitched closed.
She wouldn't leave his side. Tears had streamed down her face when she had found him, and they hadn't abated since. He was confined to a hospital bed, the nurses all but demanding a psychiatric evaluation.
He had never been more thankful for someone saying no before. Marie remained adamant that it was an accident, and with no proof the nurses and doctors could do nothing. He spent a day in the bed, silent and still as a dead man, before they released him.
They wouldn't allow him to walk out. He gritted his teeth as a female nurse pushed him through the halls in a wheelchair and prattled onto Marie about how she needed to take care of the stitches that were in his stomach and side.
As if he would allow Marie to see the wound, much less clean and care for it. He wouldn't subject her to that. She had seen enough blood and wounds in the battles that brought her to death scythe status and those that came after.
She tried to make conversation on the way home. He didn't speak, just kept quiet and watched the city pass by from the passenger seat. She had refused to allow him to drive, had been surprised when he had wordlessly shown her the license in his wallet. He suspected that she was surprised to see that he even owned a wallet.
He opened the door and stood without her help before she could even climb out of the vehicle, ignoring her protests as he moved into the lab. He noted the tightness of the stitching, done by someone else's hands, the odd placements of the sutures. He moved into the research lab, letting the door swing shut behind him, before removing his shirt and retrieving a scalpel.
He sliced the stitches, wincing at the pain of removing them before beginning the process of resetting them. He didn't notice Marie's presence until he heard the click of her boots as she turned and left the room. He could sense the worry emanating from her even without his Soul Perception. He had to force himself to not follow her, to finish resetting the stitches.
When it was done he felt more like himself, and he looked down at what would soon be just another scar.
A glance at the computer screen showed it to be just after 7pm, and he stood, a brief look of pain crossing his face as he did so, the stitches pulling in very tender skin. He moved over to the wall, looking into the glass cabinets before finally settling on a low dosage pain killer that would dull the ache but leave the edge behind the pain.
He wanted the reminder.
He removed the medication and injected the proper dosage before replacing it. He turned and took a step back, surprised that Marie was standing behind him with a plate in her hand.
"I know that you didn't eat much at the hospital, Franken, and that you need to. You lost a lot of blood and fluids with the," there was a brief pause and he could see the effort it took her to not cry, "accident, and you need to make sure you eat properly to get back on your feet again."
He couldn't stop himself. The madness crashed over him and he grabbed her wrist, twisting it sideways and causing the plate to fall from her hands. It fell to the ground with a crash, food splattering against the concrete floor as the glass plate broke. He stepped forwards, forcing her to step backwards as he towered over her before spinning suddenly. She was forced to follow his arch and was slammed against the cabinet that he had been standing in front of.
Her back pressed against it as he stepped to her, her wrist still twisted at a painful angle, trapped between the two of them. His free hand had a scalpel pressed against her throat a second later, her eye wide as he pressed lightly against it. Hatred and disgust twisted his face, and she could barely recognize the man in front of her for it.
"You're not going to use me," he hissed out, a thin line of blood being drawn as he pressed the scalpel harder against her throat. "You're not going to change me. You're not going to make me your experiment."
Marie swallowed, trying to move away from him, fear stealing her voice.
"I won't let you destroy me! I'll tear you to pieces first!" Stein was breathing heavily, his body pressed against hers, but Marie didn't find any pleasure in the contact. The scalpel slid against her throat, the line extending, bright and red, droplets of blood slipping down her throat to pool in the hollow of her throat, to stain the dress she was wearing.
She acted as he started laughing, adrenaline surging through her. Her free hand grabbed the end of the screw that was jutting from his head and she twisted, her wavelength suffusing the air with a golden glow.
It crashed over him, an all-consuming wave of patience and trust and everything that Stein couldn't understand. It drowned out the screech of the madness, wrapped him in its golden glow, soothed his frazzled nerves. It brought him to his knees; the scalpel falling from his hand, his arms wrapped around Marie's back, holding her tight to his chest as she sobbed.
She refused to move, the blood from the cut, more a scratch, stopping on its own as she sat there in his arms. He didn't understand why he felt such peace radiating from her, such acceptance, or why her soul would seem so content. He couldn't understand that she loved him, and wouldn't leave him no matter what.
Perhaps she didn't even know. But it didn't matter. His time as a hermit, living with just the madness was over, and neither of them would change that.
A/N: I don't own Soul Eater. I hope that you enjoyed this! I do take requests, so if there's something in particular you want, just let me know. Thanks for all the support, love you all :3