It hurt. It always hurt. He struggled and struggled but he could never move- those glassy, convex, black eyes just stared at him. He struggled to get free but was only met with a smile. "What have we learned today Franken?" The knife cut deeply into his exposed flesh. He wanted to vomit.

"I want to wake up now." He didn't want to look, he could feel her dragging the knife through the flesh on his abdomen.

"Don't be a bad little boy." he could hear buzzing- it was suddenly very hot, very sticky. There was more buzzing, tiny feet walking on his stomach. He could feel the furry head of the tiny fly burrow into his stomach's open cut.

This time he did vomit, as he felt it squirming inside him. Then another. Then another.

"You're so gross." he could hear her buzzing laughter as his abdomen started to swell with bugs. "Now, be a good boy and tell me what we learned."

"I WANT TO WAKE UP NOW!" he screamed and began struggling till his wrists began to bleed. And he kept going. Breaking his hands till they fit through the shackles. He clawed at his stomach with broken fingers trying to drag out the bloody winged flies that had been hiding in his skin. "I NEED TO WAKE UP! DEATH! HELP ME! DEATH Ah-" he stopped screaming, choking as he felt squirming in his throat, on his tongue. He started to cough. Started to puke. Flies spewed out of his mouth and squeezed their way through his eyes, tearing at his eyeball until he was blind with blood and wings. He clawed at his eyes, fingers sticky, hot with blood. It hurt.

It hurt so bad.

He was exploding...


Franken Stein woke up, face up on his bed in the DWMA. He was caked in sweat, his hands ached and his insides throbbed. He wanted to cry but he knew Spirit would hear him. He had been lucky enough to find someone who didn't mind being partnered with that weird, quiet kid. He wasn't going to get the reputation for being a crybaby too. Carefully, he lifted the stitched up white shirt he was wearing, peering anxiously at his stomach. There was a thin red line where her knife had been. He felt suddenly very hot, his face started to sweat, he couldn't hear well, he was dizzy and his ears throbbed. He gagged and a fly escaped his mouth.

He vomited onto the floor.

"Dude... the fuck?" Spirit must have heard him throwing up, he was sitting up in his bed looking over in the darkness at Franken, hunched over, trembling in all white, bile dripping from his lips. "Are you sick?"

"No." The answer was curt. Short. Every night these dreams. Every night she asked what he had learned. He wanted to wake up. To never sleep again.

"You keep getting sick at night. Are you pregnant?"

"That's morning sickness." Franken knew Spirit was only trying to cheer him up but he was in no mood. Every night. He only knew Spirit for a month. In that month every time he drifted off he'd see her face. He'd been seeing her for almost four months now, the glassy eyed lady. He thought they were stress dreams, he had always been weird. Other kids didn't like him. He was quiet, standoffish. He was worried about finding a partner. But he had a partner now- an older kid in fact- Spirit was a well known weapon, he was strong and popular, especially with the ladies.

Why was he still freaking out like this?

He hated sleeping. Staying awake for days at a time on caffeine and sugar to avoid sleeping.

"Franken...?" Spirit must have noticed some sort of change in his composure. He sounded worried. "Do I need to get the nurse?"

"I'm fine." He refused to meet Spirit's eyes. The thought of recollecting the dream- even to his weapon- made him feel crazy. He wasn't crazy. This was stress and nothing else.

"I don't know, Franken ... you look awful." Spirit was standing now. Franken wasn't sure when his red headed sempai had gotten up. "You're shaking..." Franken suddenly felt a warm hand on his shoulder. Spirit's hand. "You should see a doctor."

"I don't need one. It's just stress." He hated to be so curt but he didn't want Spirit thinking he was crazier than he all ready did. Spirit sat beside him on the bed and wrapped the blankets around his shoulders.

"You just look a little pale is all." Spirit was hugging him gently, comfortingly through the covers keeping him bundled up not to restrain him, as he first thought, but to console him. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I told you. It's stress."

"Franken ... there's blood on your sheets." The white haired boy froze. He wanted to throw up again but there was nothing in his stomach but acid and bile. "Are you hurt?" He sounded worried. "Franken?" The boy pulled his sheets around himself blocking out the older boy's concern. "Franken!?" He flopped back onto the bed curling up. Ignoring the worried calls of his weapon.


"What have you learned today?" Her fingernails were digging into his wrists holding him to the metal table. "What have you learned Franken Stein?" Her voice buzzed into his ears crawling around with its little feelers scratching at his ear canal.

"Nothing!" He was crying warm, viscous, sticky liquid down his face. Too thick for tears. It smelled like copper. "I don't know what you want from me!" She wouldn't stop digging her nails into his sides her fingers sliding around in his skin her bugs crawling in his muscles wiggling, hundreds of tiny feet squirming through his tissue.

"You're a scientist, right Franken Stein? A scientist like your daddy. A good solid man of science."

"Please stop hurting me..." his voice shook his tongue felt like it was vibrating with little wings.

"It's rude not to answer a lady's question." Her nails raked down into his chest. "Are you a scientist Franken Stein?"

"I... I am..." he knew he had better be honest. She knew everything he thought. The buzzing in his mind would share with her his secrets.

"Wrong." She took a scalpel from beside her. "You are no scientist you never bend morality to suit your curiosities, you never push the limit to make discoveries, you never see how things work on the inside..." she started scraping the scalpel over his clavicle and down between his nipples stopping at his belly button. "And if you aren't a scientist," she made a horizontal cut down around his waist, "and you are a Stein," she cut along the other side. "Then that just leaves one option doesn't it?" Her hands dug into the incision as she tore open the flesh on his chest. Bugs burst out of his body, swarming him. Choking him. Crawling into his eyes and mouth trying to get back in. "You're the experiment."


Everyone in class was staring at him. He had promised himself not to fall asleep but here he was sitting in class, Spirit leaning over him. "Franken?" Spirit's hand was on his back.

"Sorry." He looked away.

"Lord Death, I think my meister is ill. May I escort him home?" Spirit didn't even check how Franken was feeling. He must have looked like shit because Lord Death nodded without question. Spirit's hands helped lift Franken from his desk, the same strong hands held him as he stumbled to walk on shaking legs.

"I didn't need to go home." Franken gave him a bitter look trying fruitlessly to break free of his protective hold and walk on his own trembling feet.

"Is it nightmares?" Spirit ignored his bitter protests.

"What?"

"Why you can't sleep? Is it nightmares?"

"No..." he looked away. It sounded crazy when he thought about it outside of slumber... about why he dreaded sleeping and would avoid it for days.

"Do you wanna sleep with me?" Franken did a double take at the offer.

"Don't be weird..." he refused to look at him.

"I don't mean like sex, I mean I will just sleep in bed with you. I know how restless you are... like you're afraid of sleeping..."

"No... it's too weird..."

"Just this once. I got a big date tonight so I might as well sleep now." Spirit opened the door and lay Franken on the bed. "Cause I am not getting any sleep tonight if you know what I mean."

"I don't want to think about it." Franken remarked dryly hoping his bitter attitude would get Spirit to change his mind. But despite this, Spirit climbed right into the tiny bed beside him.

He really didn't mind it. And that's what worried him. Spirit smelled nice... warm... soft... the feel of his body so close made Franken tingle all over in a strange way. The tingling was nice but it was traveling toward his groin and that weirded him out. He wanted to pull away but Spirit wrapped his arms around Franken like he was a teddy bear pulling him close. His groin tingled with strange heat but... he was able to go to sleep.

It was the best sleep he ever had.

Except he woke up before Spirit with a wet groin and a sore member.

He vaguely remembered dreaming of Spirit that night.