Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater.
This story takes place when Spirit and Stein were still students at the DWMA.
"You're not supposed to smoke on school grounds, you know."
He doesn't even look up, and that hurts Spirit much more than he'd be willing to admit. The redhead leans against the outer Academy wall, hands buried in the pocket of his black pants. He wouldn't admit that he had gone searching for the other boy on purpose, either - God knows he already had enough shit just by being this guy's friend. Paranoid, he jerks his gaze over his shoulder, just to make sure the trees are clear. Empty shadows confirm their solitude and he turns back to the other boy, a wrinkle in his brow.
Spirit had been worried. The sun was setting, curfew was approaching, and Stein still hadn't shown up. It wasn't unlike the boy to go wandering off - most nights he was in the lab, dissecting something he probably wasn't supposed to be dissecting, but Spirit had ducked in there first, and the library, and the cafeteria, and had bustled off with an unsettling feeling of unease toward the courtyard. It wasn't like anyone else was going to go looking for the deranged boy. No one else cared even a sliver of what Spirit did. Spirit felt obligated. He had seen him grow from a weird kid to a weird teenager, and had been living together since the school year started. He was quiet, for the most part, and Spirit usually left him alone - but the setting sun and lack of him put him off and he knew he wouldn't be able to rest without knowing where the kid was.
Spirit wasn't entirely sure what the pair were - acquaintances? Roommates? Friends? Words didn't seem to fit what they were, whatever it was, and Spirit had shrugged his shoulders uneasily until he rounded the wall and found Stein sucking away at cancer in a stick.
He's always in that stupid, white lab coat, like he's some kind of doctor or something. His head is down, hands wound deep into his pockets, a smoldering cigarette pulsing red at the corner of his mouth. Spirit tilts his head slowly, trying to catch a glimpse of those golden eyes through shards of gray hair, but there is nothing but twisting smoke. Stein has always been a solitary creature, wandering away from groups, not participating in class unless there was something bleeding to be seen, and he, frankly, freaked everyone else out. People were put off by his strange demeanor and his blank expression - and when it wasn't blank, they were even more put off. The only class he showed any interest in was biology, and the smile he bore was manic and almost loony as his delicate hands handled the scalpel and sliced away at a dead rat or a squid. Really, it was the only class he talked in at all, and what little he said was mostly chastising the other students for not doing things correctly, or scolding the girls for getting grossed out, or begging the teacher to have more dissection time. It was ... scary, how excited he would get, peeling flesh and reassembling body parts and sewing things in places they didn't belong.
He was Franken Stein, The Freak.
"Did you hear me?" Spirit pushes off of the wall slightly, twisting a frown in the other boy's direction. "I said you're not supposed -"
"I will sew your mouth shut, Spirit." The mediocre surgeon lifts his head then, and the fading sunlight catches off of the glass of his round spectacles. It's a flash that sends Spirit's heart into a winding panic as he slides a foot back, amber eyes rooting him still. It was almost predatory the way Stein was looking at him, eyes flicking around his face and neck and shoulders like he was imagining the very lines in which to cut him.
Spirit likes to brag that he isn't afraid of anything - hell, he has met Lord Death for fuck's sake, and yet this boy, this ... this deranged kid really, truly scares him. Another thing he would never admit. Not out loud, anyway. It's the way Stein is so silent, so calculating, how he says stuff like 'I will sew your mouth shut' like he's not joking at all. Spirit swallows but doesn't leave, even taking a slow, courageous step forward. Stein is different, that much he's aware of, but just to what extent is still unknown. It's not that he's ever been really mean or an overall bad student - he's just out of his fucking mind.
He used to get teased a lot more than he does now. People would push his books out of his arms, rip his labcoat, try to snag his glasses. But Stein never took it - he always fought back, lashed out, and never had Spirit seen Stein lose a fight. He was strong and fast and fueled by something only the insane can understand. More than once Spirit had had to step in, afraid that Stein really would lose it and fucking kill somebody if he didn't do anything.
It's hard, having to be that person - the one to hook his arms around Stein's elbows and yank him away from a trembling bully sobbing into the grass. But he was the only one who had ever really bothered with Stein, had ever been at least kind of nice to him. Spirit still wasn't sure why that was - he just knew that sometimes, at night, when Spirit would study at the desk in their living room, he would occasionally look over at Stein, laying in silence on the couch with a book on his chest and his eyes on the ceiling and he didn't see a monster, like everyone else did. He saw a talented young meister with a mind like a maze.
Their soul wave lengths were in sync. It wasn't something one could choose, it just simply was, and Lord Death had paired the two together since they were young. And when the two were in battle, they were unlike any other duo the Academy had ever seen. Spirit was a powerful weapon, but without Stein, he was useless. It turned out the lonely psychopath was the only one strong enough to come close to creating a Death Scythe.
"What are you doing out here? It's almost curfew." Spirit cringes at his own words - what is he, Stein's mother? He frowns and rubs at his neck, rolling his shoulders. "I mean, I'm not, like, you can do whatever, I just, you weren't home and the sun's going down and I was a little worried and I just wanted to make sure you weren't -" Spirit shuts his jaw. I just wanted to make sure you weren't hurt and that you weren't hurting someone else, his mind supplies, but he chops his words off and shakes his head. "Just wanted to make sure you were okay."
Stein, his face still emotion-free, releases a long breath of smoke. "I'm a big boy, Spear." He flicks ash at the ground. "I just wanted to be alone."
Spirit turns his head away to smile hard on one side of his face. The nickname was something Stein had used so sparingly over the years that being able to hear it was almost like a gift, a kind of present Stein gave to him. It was also on his list of things never to admit that he liked it. He liked it a lot. If he thinks too much about the 'why' to that, it gives him a headache. Spirit has known Stein so long that he doesn't even remember meeting him for the first time, or discovering when their soul wave lengths matched almost perfectly, how they lined up and allowed for a relationship that transcended most human ones. But, sometimes, he can feel it - moving in time with Stein, their bodies often mirroring each other, and sometimes ... sometimes Spirit swears he can feel a pulse of madness run through him, a blip of an unsteady feeling and then it vanishes.
Their bond is close and neither of them truly know just how much.
Spirit scuffs his foot against the grass, jerking his eyes back to Stein. The boy has tilted his head back, eyes on the melting sky, his cigarette now between his knuckles. Spirit's eyes follow the sleeve of the lab coat and focus on the red tip for a long moment before he says, absently, "I've never smoked before."
Stein's head turns, gray hair sliding against the cement wall. His face stays blank as he meets Spirit's gaze before raising the cigarette slowly, offering it. He perks a slender brow in an unasked question. Spirit's hand starts to raise, only to falter - what if it's not even a real cigarette? Considering Stein's tendency to create unnatural things in their apartment, he wouldn't be surprised to find out that there was actually something crazy in it, like cyanide or some other fatal poison. Spirit swallows, his fingers twitching in the air.
"...It's just tobacco, right?"
Spirit frowns when he sees something flicker in Stein's eyes, something akin to hurt, like he hated that Spirit had to even ask something like that. He regrets it immediately - no one trusts this kid, not even the one person who is nice to him. Stein rests his elbow on his hip, the cigarette still angled toward the other boy.
"Yes. I wouldn't -" He stops, shakes his head, and straightens his arm again. "Do you want to try?"
Spirit's eyes shift between the boy's hand and his eyes, now focused on the ground. He takes a long breath before reaching forward, his fingers gliding over Stein's cold ones before pinching the cigarette. Stein's hand drops as Spirit brings it to his face, cobalt eyes squinting through the sting. He coughs lightly, the sound turning Stein's head to watch him. Spirit is surprised to see a mild form of amusement on the other kid's face, his lips pressed in a tight line.
"Don't laugh." Spirit narrows his eyes again, tentatively wrapping his lips around the butt of the cigarette. He takes a short breath in, only for a swell of tar to stick on his tongue and his throat to close up, scalding the flesh. He coughs again, louder this time, holding the cigarette out at arms length. "Ugh, that is disgusting!"
And - if he hadn't been there to witness it personally, he would have never believed it - Stein starts laughing. "You're not doing it right."
"Is there a damn art to this kind of thing?" Spirit stares accusingly at the gross smoke billowing in the air above them. "You make it look so easy."
"It is. Surely an aspiring Death Scythe can master something as trivial as a cigarette puff." He straightens his back - this is really the only time Stein ever gets talk-y, when he's teaching someone. He turns toward the other boy, taking a step forward, reaching out to circle his fingers around Spirit's wrist. "Try again, only this time, take it slower. Breathe deep and wide. You're not sucking on it, you're just drawing it out."
Spirit falters, swallows, tar still thick in his mouth before he raises the cigarette again, Stein's fingers slipping away. He presses his lips around it once more, eyes twisting closed as he tries again - but his throat constricts again, and he pulls too fast, and he bends over and coughs into his curled fist. Stein is laughing again as Spirit resurfaces, narrowing his angry gaze at the other boy.
"Jerk." There's no real malice in the word. Spirit frowns at the cigarette. Oh, he can kill the average kishin any day without breaking a sweat but a cigarette has his eyes watering his body doing all kinds of embarrassing things. Great.
"Here." Stein unrolls his hand, sandy eyes watching Spirit expectantly. The redhead turns the cigarette over, watching as the young scientist brings the cigarette to his lips. His eyes don't even flicker, even as the smoke rolls over his glasses. He breathes in, the action fluid and soft, and then he's lowering his hand, black and gray ash spilling to the grass.
Spirit doesn't really notice what is happening until it's happening - Stein's hand is on his chin and he's pulling him toward his face. Very close to his face, actually. Spirit's lips part in surprise at the proximity - up this close, he can see the flecks of saffron swirled around the black pupil of his eyes. There's a question building in his throat, it's just taking a lot longer than usual to get his brain in line with it so he can actually, you know, talk, but then Stein is so close to him he can't focus and Spirit's eyes are the size of golf balls when he feels Stein's lips brush against his own.
Spirit gasps and smoke spills into his lungs. His throat doesn't constrict, his tongue doesn't feel thick or heavy, and suddenly the taste is ... it's good. Stein's breath has a lingering smell of peach, a faint essence of the fruit swirling in Spirit's mouth when the boy leans away, a cool swipe of lips staining his. The gray-haired boy throws his eyebrows up at Spirit, who is frozen in place, smoke falling out of his mouth in one hard gush as he exhales hard.
All kinds of things are going on in his chest that he doesn't even want to think about. Or admit.
"Your soul waves are spazzing. You okay?"
Spirit blinks once. And again. And a third time before he turns away from the other boy, a hand absently touching his sternum. "Yeah. It's probably the ... nicotine, or something. That, uh, tasted kind of good." He almost blushes, not sure what tasted better - the smoke, or the peaches Stein must have been eating.
"Third time's the charm. Smoking is a lot like dissection - takes practice to be really good at it." Stein offers one of those few lop-sided grins of his before he pushes off of the wall. He drops the cigarette, smothering what was left of the smoldering butt under his black shoe. "Curfew's passed. We're going to get in trouble."
Spirit runs a nervous hand through his hair. Suddenly he feels like he does when he's trying to get with a girl - jittery hands, crazy heartbeat, stuttering soul waves - just great, really. Spirit rubs his hands on the front of his shirt and starts walking sideways. "We should go then, hey?"
Stein nods. He is completely unphased; even his soul waves are calm, though as always, ringed with the darkness that is madness. The two fall in step beside each other and Spirit lets his eyes drift slowly over to his meister, a faint smile coming to his lips. Words like 'roommates', 'acquaintances', even 'friends' didn't fit them very well. Spirit wasn't sure if there was a word out there that did.
"If we get a detention for this, I am so going to break all of your cigarettes and toss them out of the window."
Stein's shoulder bumps his. "I meant it when I said I will sew your mouth shut, Spear."
And, for once, he sounds like he's genuinely joking.
A/N: See, there's a little Spirit/Stein romance in there, if you squint.
First fic for the fandom, cut me a little slack? These two just might be my OTP.