The flick of scales off of softer, paler skin. Brushing against him like soft scored PVC piping.
They were everywhere. They writhed through the walls of the laboratory, cold cords of muscle pulling books from shelves, disturbing wiring in walls, tugging at the protective table covers. The floor seethed with cool, textured skin. Order: Squamata. Superfamily: Varanoidea. Suborder: Serpentes. Simple brain, basic organ function. One extraordinary lung. The scientist in him wouldn't shut up.
His hand shook as it gripped the beaker. A few fingers of a good bourbon. C2H6O. Not that it had helped. Not that he was much of a drinker anyway. Anything to calm the nerves? That's not what this was. His fingers tightened.
Wouldn't it be nice?
The thought was a flash, a fracture, less than a second, but his hand obeyed. The beaker shattered. The sound was glorious, fine shards of glass, both massive and microscopic fell. The simple, brief sound was a cacophony. He giggled a little then. He shouldn't have.
"…Stein….?"
No. No. No no no no no. She couldn't be here. The blonde's voice should have been welcome. But then, he shouldn't have laughed and he had. Her voice should have been soothing, but it wasn't. Her hand on his shoulder should have melted him. It lit up his energies like exposed wiring in water. It made him nauseous, made the room lurch, made the colors drop out of the world, replaced with sickening hues of green, yellow, orange.
"Come away from there. It's okay."
He didn't remember having stood up, but he was suddenly standing. He shouldn't have followed her, but he did. The world was askew, the laughing moon Chartreuse in a heavy oxblood sky. The stars were screaming while the moon devoured them. The hallway she led him down didn't look like anywhere he'd ever been before. But he lived here, didn't he? Wasn't this his home? It wasn't familiar. It was too narrow, too tall, too dark. She shouldn't be around him like this. She shouldn't be here at all.
This wasn't like her; her scent didn't hypnotize him, her stride didn't intimidate him. She sat on the edge of the bed, beckoning.
She shouldn't have seemed so soft and sweet. Who was this woman? Her golden hair welled around slender, strong shoulders. Long, perfect legs swept to one side, crossed demurely at her ankles. The black clothes minimized her frame, made her seem even more feminine.
Who was this woman?
He stood before her and she smiled up at him. She took his hand in hers and brought it to her lips, softly, gently, a hint of a kiss. His hand went to her neck and he hovered over her. His fingers brushed the curve of her sternum, the slope of her shoulder. He studied the contours of her neck. Billions and billions of skin cells; that's all it was. How can so many simple things create something so… beautiful? Was that the right word? His thumb caressed the way her throat dipped into the hollow between her clavicles. Scapula. Sternum. Pectoral Girdle. Pliable, bending bones. Hard to break, but remarkably damaging when broken.
Shut up, Professor.
Her hands left his to ease her jacket off of her shoulders. He traced the movement of the garment, down the long, muscled upper arm to the crook of her elbow. His eyes were fogged with madness and fascination. Tricep, bicep wrapped around the humerus. The basilic vein and brachial artery tucked among the muscle.
"Shut up, Professor." He realized then he'd been speaking out loud. Her voice was sturdier this time, like he remembered it. Like it should have been.
He kissed her forehead. Ran his hand down the winding black spots of her arm, the snake. Cobra, the 'hooded snake'. Family: Elapidae, at least mostly. There were exceptions.
Shut the hell up, Professor.
Her violent golden eyes burned into his. They fascinated him further. Brilliant yellow cosmos of swirling hate. Slitted, vertical pupils. The floor still seethed with scales. His hands concentrated back on the impeccable flesh of her neck, how perfect: her throat, his hands…
Wouldn't it be nice?
They tightened. She choked. She swore at him, gritting out obscenities between her teeth as the saliva caught in her closing throat. Her tempestuous eyes damned him, communicated the loathing that her voice could not. He felt that perfect flesh crush beneath his fingers, the cells bursting and reforming; the blood seeping away then rushing back when the pressure changed; the veins and arteries ceasing their flow and engorging themselves with wasted blood. He felt her begin to convulse. He felt himself begin to laugh.
She went limp and his hands dropped. As she slumped back into the bed, she changed.
He stopped laughing then. He should have never been laughing.
The beautiful curve of her neck, her golden hair, the long, slender legs… The one golden eye was dreary, disoriented, dying. The lightning-emblazoned patch betrayed no emotion.
No.
The svelte legs spasmed lightly. Her un-marked arms were curled towards her, showing where she'd tried to pry his hands from her throat.
No.
The snakes that made up the floor stopped moving. They shrank back into carpet. The moon was yellow, cackling its bloody smile in a cobalt sky. The stars weren't screaming. The room was the way it had always been. The hallway beyond the door was normal. The world was realigned.
No.
Marie was breathing, but barely. Her chest rose and fell in hiccupping half-breaths. Her limbs seized lightly as her throat reopened.
After what seemed like a lifetime, she finally gasped deep, desperate breaths. After what seemed like five lifetimes, the golden eye reopened. Her hand flew to her throat, a mass of purple-red bruises. Propped on her other arm, she drew great lungfuls of air. As the realization dawned on her, she looked at him in horror.
He was on his knees a few feet from her, on the floor. His hands, bloody from the glass that seemed to have broken days ago, twisted the great screw through his skull futilely, continually. His eyes were devoid. Emptiness seeped into the air from his frame. He looked smaller when breaking.
"Stein… I.. What was…" She had no words, so she let her voice fall. She knew why. She knew he didn't mean to. If he had, he'd still be laughing. He would have never let go.
But the laugh haunted her.
Still, she put her hands on his shoulders, her forehead touched his and she fell into him, too weak to keep herself propped up, but wanting to be near him. Unafraid of being near him.
Shinigami-sama had wanted her to report anything like this. Hell, everyone had wanted her to report anything like this. Strange behavior, violent and/or sudden actions, obvious disorientation; they were all key signs of the insanity wavelength taking hold.
And yet…
He was shaking. She couldn't tell if they were silent sobs or just convulsions of horror, but she held him as tightly as her exhausted arms could until the tremors stopped. This incident could ruin everything. Stein would be stripped of any title or role at the Academy. He'd be locked up, put under strict supervision, unable to leave. He'd rot in a cell until Shinigami-sama defeated Asura.
…If Shinigami-sama could defeat Asura.
Stein could not handle that, she knew. His mind was too calculating, too precise, too curious. Even on his best day, he needed to research, to experiment, to test. He was too brilliant to waste behind a locked door.
She couldn't let him waste behind a locked door.
"I'm… I'm so…" His voice shook as much as his frame did. She sighed a soft 'Shhhh…' at him.
They both knew she would never tell.
/
So this is a pretty popular idea for a one-shot, but this is my working of it. Marie and Medusa have a hell of a lot in common before you figure out which one is being mentioned, huh?
Feel free to ask any questions about the story, me, life, the universe, everything, etc.; I will answer to the best of my ability. The Latin words used are in regard to snakes' or the 'Serpentes' family's scientific names. The molecular structure C2H6O refers to Ethanol, the type of alcohol that is in alcoholic drinks. I will upload this fic after reading it approximately twenty or so times to check for grammatical and/or spelling errors, but I apologize if any sneak through. Well I don't really apologize, because I like rum. Woo!
I know that everyone who writes for Soul Eater does a "Stein-goes-nuts" story, but hey, I love Stein; I'm crazy, he's crazy, it works. Anyway, hope you enjoy. If not, oh well, maybe next time.
Have a good one.