Smoke Break
Here I am, proving I can write characters other than Crona and Kid. Also that not everything I write is romantic/angst. Been thinking about doing a series of one shots focusing on the relationships between the students and teachers of SE.
A/N: NOT SHIPPING. It's not shipping, everything here is platonic so don't even start.
It's the break between morning lessons and afternoon sparring and Stein's taking his cigarette break at the back of the school, staring at nothing in particular. He takes steady inhales the smoke, not even bothering to cough when it burns the back of his throat.
He's used to it.
The sound of high heels breaks his meditative stare and he turns slightly, just to check whose soul is might be. Much to his surprise, it's not Marie, baring coffee and pillaged cookies from the staff room.
It's Liz Thompson who is making her way towards him, and what really makes Stein raise his eyebrows is that her meister and her sister are both missing. It's rare to ever see the three of them separated. He doesn't turn as she get closer but he sits up a little straighter, just so she knows he knows that she's coming.
"Hey Professor." She leans on the wall next to his chair and waits to be acknowledged. Her soul is slightly agitated and Stein wonders if it's about the next exam.
"Liz." He stubs out his cigarette and drops the butt in his pocket. Marie has talked to him enough about littering. "How can I help you?" He finally looks up and notices she's chewing a thumb nail. "Where's Patti and Kid?"
She tosses her hair over a shoulder. "Hopefully still where I left them." Her eyes slide over to him and she sighs, dropping her hand from her mouth.
"Can I bum a cigarette from you?"
It takes a lot to surprise Stein. There's a short list of people who can do it. And only two are still living. Well, he should amend it to three because he was not expecting to have Liz Thompson come up and ask him for a smoke.
"Excuse me?"
"Can I have a cigarette? I can't buy any because Kid will know and throw them out before I ever get a chance to smoke it. He made me quit when Patti and I became his weapons," She explains in a rush. "Please professor? Help a fellow nicotine addict out."
Stein sighs. "As a health professional, I should let you know that it increases your risk of lung cancer." He fishes out the package anyway and checks there are still more than two left.
"Oh thank god you don't smoke menthol." She grabs the pack and takes one and sticks it behind her ear and another went into her mouth. "Got a light?"
Stein snorts in amusement and hands her a match. Liz casually lights it against her hand and takes her first lungful of smoke.
"Ugh. I needed this."
Stein lights up his own and the words slipped out. "Need to talk about it?"
Stupid. That had been a stupid thing to say. Who would want to talk to their teacher about their problems? Stein never had, not even to the counselor that the school had assigned him after he was caught catching squirrels and euthanizing them to see if he could adapt their lungs to that of rats.
Stein nearly jumps back in surprise when Liz starts talking, so quickly that he had difficulty keeping up.
"Kid and Patti have been driving me up the wall this morning. Like, look, I love them both from the bottom of my heart and I'd happily kill for them both but occasionally they both drive me nuts. Seriously, I came home last night and caught Kid reorganizing my underwear, again. And of course Patti just eggs him on, she thinks it's just hilarious when he gets all keyed up. And I tried talking to Tsubaki about it but she all 'solution oriented' and I'm like, 'hun I just need you to sit there while I complain, and make sympathetic noises please' and Soul is so over the moon about Maka that I think he's about a week away from simply worshipping her as his own personal savior."
Stein nods when she looks over and Liz takes another inhale of the cigarette and keeps going, the smoke pouring from her nose.
"So now I try talking to Tsugumi about it but she always just looks kinda confused, and Boss would just ask me to work on saturday again so I'm absolutely not doing that, and Crona's a good listener but Ragnarok always hits on me and I've been hit on by a lot of creepy people but I draw the freaking line at blood making a pass at me, okay? I don't care how symmetrical Kid thinks they are."
Stein raises his eyebrows.
Maybe he should start sitting in the staff room and listen to more of teenage melodrama that Marie likes to talk about. This was all rather interesting.
"Jackie's in the same boat as Soul and I'd tease them about 'how's it feel to be in love with your meister' but it's not as much fun when Patti's not there. And then there's freaking Kilik with his crush on Ms. Marie."
"His what?" Stein was jerked back to earth.
"His crush on Marie. He has 'Mr. Kilik Mjolnir' written all over his soulology notebook." Liz looks over, head tilted. "Did you not know that? He barely ever stops talking about her."
Stein had been blissfully unaware until this moment that a 16 year old has a crush on his girlfriend.
"Anyway, yeah, that's why I need a cigarette. 'Cause Nicotine doesn't go through my bras and try to organise them. Nicotine doesn't talk to me about their romantic entanglements. Because nicotine understands." Liz finishes, and took a huge drag. He was impressed that she didn't even cough. Stein reminded himself to tease Spirit about that later.
He still smoked menthols, the weak lunged pansy. The last time Stein had shared his cigarette with Spirit, he'd damn near coughed up a lung.
While Stein thought about this, Liz finishes hers and she stubs it out. She puts the other one in her coin purse and carefully hid it in her boot.
"You're going to have a headache later," Stein reminded her of the crash.
Liz shrugs. "I'll drink lots of water." She hopped up on the low wall and looked out over the city. They both sat there silently, Stein ruminating on his lessons for the rest of the day.
The bell rang.
Liz jumps off the wall, looking over at him.
"Thanks for the cigarette, Professor."
Stein stands up and cracks his neck.
"Don't make it a habit. Marie's going to get me to quit. She keep replacing them with crayons You'll lose your supply."
Liz smirks. "Good to know." She starts to turn away, but Stein tapped her on the shoulder.
"Hey. When she does, you can still come to talk. Uh. If you need to."
Liz blinked, mouth half open.
"Y-yeah, sure, Professor. Thanks."
Stein aimed for a gentle smile and she didn't run. So he assumes it worked.
Hmph. Maybe Marie is right, when she says that the kid's look up to him.
'Well of course Marie, I'm nearly seven feet tall. Most people look up to me.'
"Get to class. Wouldn't do for us both to be late."
Liz nodded and ran off, heels clicking.
Stein smiles again.
It's time to go ask Kilik to the lesson assistant today.
Working in a high school was going to make him immature.
More immature.
'Mr. Kilik Mjolnir', indeed.