Maddness and it's Keeper

by OniGirl13

A collection of one shots and dabbles for one of my favorite slash pairings, Stein and Spirit. It's my first shot at Soul Eater, so I hope it isn't too terrible.

1. Broken

My first crack at this pairing, hopefully it isn't too awful.

Broken

He didn't want to accept it. He didn't want to believe it. There must have been hundreds of things he'd been able to reassemble; this had to be one of them. No matter what it had been, if he had taken it apart or it had been broken, he could always put the pieces back together. So, why couldn't he think of a way to fix this?

The answer had to be something simple, it was the only explanation as to why it was so hard to find. Complex problems always had simple solutions, so simple problems needed a complex solution. Yet, no matter how many times he turned the screw in his head, no matter the number of cigarettes he smoked, or how many nights he say up staring at an empty computer screen no solution came. His mind could not form a single thought or idea.

While he was desperate, he wasn't an idiot. If he hadn't been able to think of anything, there was nothing to think up. It was a problem with no solution and though he didn't want to, he knew he had to accept that. But 'had to' and 'want to' are very different things. While he knew he had to accept the situation as it was and had to wish the other the best, he most definitely did not want to. He wanted to find a way to make the problem disappear and he wanted the other to be his and only his. But it was not a matter of what he wanted; it was a matter of what needed to be done.

Doctor Franken Stein did not cry, under no circumstance was it acceptable. So he acted as he always had. He did his research, he spent his free time making Spirit fear that something unnatural had been done to him over the course of his student life, and when it was appropriate he smiled. He had never known himself to be such a good actor. And then, with a bitten tongue and his best wishes he watched his weapon leave with another meister, pretending it didn't hurt.

After Spirit was gone, a wife and daughter to occupy his time, Stein returned to his laboratory with a new problem for which he would need to find a solution: how to fix a broken heart.