Marie usually didn't like Stein's experiments. They were often dry and boring. In fact, sometimes, they made her feel a little sick, so she chose to leave him be. However, when he mentioned he was interested in the effects of alcohol as it pertained to body size and difference between meister and weapon, Marie grew interested. He had informed her that since he was at a similar size to Spirit, he could easily serve as a comparison of size, but she could prove a wildcard.

It would, obviously, be a sloppy experiment from the start. Even Marie could see that. But she figured Stein wanted an out as to the real reason: he wanted to get drunk.

It had been so long since he could trust himself at anything other than his peak. The madness made it so that any vulnerability would prove his downfall. She didn't blame him for wanting to indulge.

So she told him she could go for a drink.

And they ended up in their living room, pardon the pun, hammered.

"So, what were your parents' names?" Marie asked, taking a sip from her beaker. Stein looked up at the ceiling, exhaling the smoke from his cigarette.

"Jennifer and Arnold Stein."

Marie laughed. "They had some sense of humor, hm?"

"They were a fan of Shelley. The dog was Victor before he passed."

Marie grinned. "Grade school must have been tough," she remarked, leaning back.

Stein shrugged. "For some odd reason, the kids didn't tend to bother with me," he responded, grinning sadistically.

"Was that pre or post facto of the squirrel incident?"

"During sounds more plausible."

Marie giggled, sprawling further into the couch. "I remember when I first met you."

"Hm?"

"I wondered what your last name was for a month. I thought your first was Stein."

"Most people did. I wasn't the biggest fan of 'Franken'."

"Just didn't sound like something someone would scream in a passionate frenzy, hm?"

"Not really, thought that did happen," he replied, drunkenly taking another swill of bourbon. Between the two of them, the bottle was getting dangerously empty. "And what about you, Mjolnir? How ever did you deal with the hammer jokes?"

"You act as though they've stopped," Marie said, leaning forward. "Spirit still quips about my lack of sex life attributing to the fact that, were I drill, I could actually screw."

"Sounds familiar."

Marie snorted into her glass. "Why'd you start smoking?"

"What is this, twenty questions?" Stein quipped, to which Marie smiled.

"Yes, actually."

"Someone told me I needed a hobby other than dissection."

"Who is Spirit for 500."

Stein smirked. "Double wammy."

"My, with all that money, maybe I could pay rent."

Stein dropped his head back, his cigarette dangling. "What rent? I own this place."

"Utilities exist, Franken."

He waved a hand, effectively moving some smoke away. "Technicalities."

Marie looked at him fondly. "How'd you find this place, anyway?"

"Careful, Mjolnir. It's my turn for a question."

"Oh, my apologies, Doctor."

He snorted. "You never told me how you lost your eye."

"Middle school wasn't the best for me, either, Franken."

He lifted his head up to look at her and she was swirling her drink around in the beaker, delicately taking a sip from it. "Elaborate."

She shrugged. "Got bullied. Some kid threw something in my face and it got in my eye. Infection that went untreated since la familia was poor. Add it together and what've you got? Necrotic tissue galore."

"Fascinating," Stein commented, moving to the edge of his chair, refusing to comment on her warped rendition of "Bibbity Bobbity Boo". "May I?" he asked, his hand already moving forward. A sly smile flit over the hammer's face.

"Careful, Doctor. It's my turn for a question."

He huffed. "I found this place when I was training."

"Thank you for sharing, but I haven't asked yet."

"You asked a minute ago."

Marie laughed, leaning forward. "Alright, alright," she conceded, never one to deny Stein for very long. As she wiggled closer, she flipped her eyepatch up to reveal her depressed eyelid and Stein decided to simply stand up and walk over to her.

When she was standing, she barely hit the center of his sternum. Sitting, she was about hip level on him, so he crouched down to examine, wobbling slightly with how many beakers of bourbon he'd consumed. She was looking at him fondly, her good eye crinkled just so as he carefully reached his fingertips out to her closed eyelid.

When he opened it with the gentle precision of a surgeon, he peered into the empty cavity curiously.

"Interesting."

"You can see my wavelength swirl around if I activate it."

His thumb was resting on her cheekbone and the back of his palm had brushed her hair away. Despite how much they had to drink, he kept his mobility as crisp as if he were sober. And, because Marie knew him, she concentrated on her wavelength so he could see the gold churning.

He seemed captivated and Marie blushed under his observations, gently pressing her face into his hand. Her focus was broken (she wasn't used to being in such close proximity to Stein unless she was a weapon or weeping) and the gold that whipped about in her empty socket snuffed out. Stein made a noise in the middle of his throat, something which sounded curiously like "Hmm," but didn't pull away.

Marie forced a grin. "I'm not usually this close to a man unless he's bought me a drink first," she joked. Stein cracked a small smile, easily able to detect how nervous she was.

"I suppose it's a good thing the bourbon was bought under my name."

"My, Doctor! If I didn't know any better, I'd assume you were coming on to me," Marie teased, still warm.

"Ms. Mjolnir. I was merely making scientific observations. I took the Hippocratic Oath, after all."

"Keep talking nerdy to me, Franken. I understand all of it, I assure you."

"What? Does it, as they say, 'get your motor going'?"

Marie laughed, her teeth glinting. "Oh, yeah. My loins are downright quivering."

"Perhaps you have muscular atrophy?"

"You're such a dork," Marie said, affectionately. Stein moved away from her, but simply sat on the table, atop one of her ridiculous magazines.

"I prefer intellectually gifted."

"And modest, too."

Stein was smirking, reaching to pour more alcohol into his beaker. He had long since given up on maintaining the ruse of experimentation and had abandoned the breathalyzer. Marie leaned back into the cushions, moving her knee so it bumped his own.

"Speaking of loins. . ." she trailed off.

Stein raised a brow. "It might be prudent to abandon that line of thought," he advised, bringing the beaker to his lips and knocking back a shot. She stared at the motion of his wrist and didn't say anything until he had poured more.

"Alright. How'd you get the scar on your face?"

He looked at her. "Would you believe me if I revealed I had done it myself?"

"No, because if you had, you would have told me."

He chuckled. "If you must know: Spirit."

Marie looked interested. "Spirit got a hit on you?"

"Yes. Evidently, the anesthesia wore off too quickly."

It wasn't funny. Marie knew it wasn't funny. Stein had seen the inside of Spirit's torso and had, once, revealed that he rearranged the red-head's lungs to face backwards. But she snorted into her drink anyway.

Marie cackled, finding it suddenly hilarious. Stein simply watched her as she unwound. A woman of her size couldn't possibly handle so much alcohol in her blood stream before she went loopy. The silver-haired meister reached for her beaker, setting it down next to his and dropping his half finished cigarette into what was remaining.

When she had calmed, she was pressing her shoulders into the purple cushions. "Sorry, dunno why that made me laugh."

Stein shrugged, knowing he had no room to judge her. He rocked back, looking into the amber of her eye. She had yet to put the eyepatch back.

"Why did you have a crush on me in Shibusen?"

She flushed brighter than before. "Oh, Death. Was I that obvious?"

Stein chuckled. "Your notebook was full of 'Mrs. Franken Stein' and heart doodles: none of them anatomically correct, if I may add after the fact."

"You may not! You leave my cartoonized heart out of this."

"Come now, Marie. You couldn't have possibly believed it was a secret."

"Honestly? I thought you'd be too immersed in. . .whatever it was you were interested in to notice."

"A bit," he confirmed, rolling his shoulders. "But it was rather glaring."

She seemed to think for a minute. "Well, the fact that you never called me 'inflato-boobs' certainly added to the appeal."

"Your standards are immaculately high, Marie."

"Ha, ha. You're a regular comedian."

"So I've been told."

Marie's eye found some clarity. "You were always. . .I don't know. I guess I found you mysterious. Even after we became friends. Speaking of: What made you wanna be friends with me?"

Stein gave her a deadpan look. "I found you smashing, Marie."

She broke into giggles again. "Damn it, Stein. Stop that."

"If you find that funny, you must really have had too much to drink." He stood up, extending a hand for her to take. She shook her head, sitting down on both hands to prevent him from taken them.

"One more question! Each!"

Stein wanted to roll his eyes, but he blinked at her, feeling the alcohol make him drowsy. "Alright." He sat down. "Do you still want to be Mrs. Franken Stein?"

She blushed. He smirked. "Do you want to take back your demands, Mjolnir?"

Looking determined, she simply swayed forward, closer to him. "No."

"To which question?"

"To both. I'm done with wanting to be Mrs. Franken Stein."

He ignored the slight itch in his chest from that, simply looking at her with half lidded eyes. He had a cigarette not too long ago but he wanted another, suddenly. When Marie's face broke into a shy expression, he felt his brow lift.

"Mrs. Marie Stein would be just fine. The bride of Franken Stein has a nice ring, too," she said.

He didn't question why he was smiling. "Is that so?"

She paused and quickly reached for the beaker he had been drinking from, since her own had his cigarette in it. She made sure her lower lip caught on the edge where his had been, and she knocked it back, not breaking eye contact as she downed half of it.

"Would you want me to be Mrs. Franken Stein?" she asked, rocking in her seat. His expression didn't change.

"No." He watched the way her face fell before he laughed, grabbing his beaker back from her and drinking what was left in it. "I prefer Mrs. Marie Stein, too."

"Has a nice ring to it. Maybe you should get me one," Marie muttered, sensitively aware at how she had shared an indirect kiss with her crush.

Backwash in bourbon wasn't romantic.

But Marie wasn't complaining at all.

He put the beaker down next to him and stood again, this time extending a hand out to the hammer which she took. As they stumbled up the stairs, trying to support one another's finely tuned motor skills, Marie draped herself closer to the meister.

"So," she whispered, her hand carefully moving up Stein's back, "For the sake of science, how many scars do you really have?"

Stein hiccupped. "Make a hypothesis," he demanded, stumbling over a few of the steps. Marie seemed deep in thought.

"Like, I dunno, four."

"Now you need to experiment to test your hypothesis," he instructed, mostly supporting them with his shoulder against the wall.

"How'do I do that?" she asked, nuzzling against him.

"Ask me again."

"How do I do that?" she asked, confused.

"No. No. The first question."

"H-how many scars do you have?" She looked up at him and he realized that they had left her eyepatch behind.

He figured he'd already thrown most of his dignity out the window. Slowly, he leaned his face in a little closer to her own. "Wanna find out?"

No, I don't have a surplus of SteinMarie fics just randomly gathering dust on my computer. I am really that addicted.

Also, I have no life and nothing better to do than write a fanfic a day about my current obsession. Don't you judge me!

*administers CPR to the fandom*