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Soul feels like punching a few walls, or maybe slashing a few walls into dusty cubes with his retractable scythe arm. He's pissed off that this stupid problem is even happening to him, he's pissed off that despite her immense capacity to be shrill and irritating, he misses the hell out of Maka, and he's mostly pissed off that it's gotten to this ridiculous point, and now the teachers were starting to figure him out.
Maybe he should just tell her.
He clamps down on that thought as soon as it crops up and shoves it to the back of his mind.
No, not an option.
But… maybe he should tell Dr Stein? Spirit? Someone?
He's on his trudging his slow, dingy way around the winding dungeons to his meeting with Dr Stein, so if there was ever a time for him to come clean and get this all off his chest, now might possibly have been the time to consider it.
He slumps against Dr Stein's office walls when he reaches the fourth orgate wooden door in a series of four, a layer of dust sticking to the side of his hoodie most unpleasantly on the wall where he leans. He wrinkles up his nose, deciding to knock. After all- when barging into Dr Stein's laboratory, you never quite knew what you might see; pre-made appointments be damned.
"Come in." the cold, echoey voice resonates through the walls. Soul pushes open the heavy door, expecting the worst and -
Oh. It's just Stein, grading some papers.
Normalcy doesn't suit him.
Soul cranes his neck a little up to the desk to see if he recognizes any of the names of the papers he's marking, and as if reading his mind, the professor suddenly and jarringly whips the pile upside-down mid scrawl. His hands make a bang against the desk, his eyes wide and bugging out of his scalp.
"You wanted to see me." Soul says unsurely. He's unnerved by the idea that this man wants to see him alone, and that he won't be able to hide behind his Meister's talkative nature to get through this particular meeting.
"Yes." Stein muses back, his voice ricocheting off the jagged, unpainted brick walls in a discordant fashion. "Evans, please, take a seat."
Soul brushes the residual dust that's settled into his arm off in another vain attempt to get it off, but he's met with no avail, so he sinks down into his chair, accepting his doom and accepting his dirtiness.
Stein starts up again.
"You know, you and I have something in common," he starts.
A penchant for eclectic, unusual hobbies that nobody else quite understands? The fact that they both have the distinct misfortune of looking like hideous monsters out of some sort of horror novel?
"Madness?" Soul guesses. Stein nods his head subtly downwards.
"Moreover, our susceptibility to madness. Mine; a natural extension of my personality and soul, deepened by my experiences with Medusa. Yours; an unfortunate combination of your soul type and your black blood infection." He drawls. "But this isn't anything new, is it?"
Soul shakes his head by way of response.
"At first, we were careful about which missions we'd send you on." Stein continues. "Anything where we deemed there would be influences which might negatively affect your mental state, and we avoided it. But… I kept pushing Lord Death, and eventually he agreed to a sort of… experiment, if you will."
Why was he not surprised that he's always been an unwilling, unaware participant in one of Stein's studies?
"We started to give you those missions that we'd been holding out on you. And consistently, you came back fine. It was extraordinary." He pushes his glasses up his nose once again. "And then Asura came again. That was the ultimate test of your limit. And yet: you were fine. You came back."
Soul realises where he's going with this.
"Maka's Grigori soul…" he says quietly.
"As you're aware, Maka's particular soul type is very well positioned to deflect madness wavelengths and neutralise yours. I have first-hand experience of this type of healing soul power- Marie."
Soul remains silent, but Stein doesn't pause.
"In one of our earlier sessions, we tried to get the two of you to resonate while Miss Marie's healing wavelength influenced the both of you." There's a small pause. "And I watched, with my soul perception."
Had he had soul perception on? Soul hadn't noticed.
Perhaps Stein was a more diligent soul perceiver than he realised.
His thoughts come true almost immediately as Stein confirms that theory for him. "Any threat, or negative influence would have been neutralised by Marie. You were safe to resonate. And yet, you didn't." Stein's tone changes, his intonation lower and his stance leaning back accusingly.
Soul swallow a thick lump in his throat.
Maybe now was the time to come clean.
"I-" he starts, but Stein doesn't let him.
"You're stopping the Resonance." He repeats his point again, softer. "I assume, to protect Maka from being infected by the blood?"
Just say it.
"Yes."
Stein's head cocks to the side, not dissimilar to that of a curious puppy.
"Why, though, after all these years, is-"
"Our Resonance, it got too strong. It's… it's trying to pull her down." He reveals, feeling a burden lifting off him while simultaneously feeling another pang of nerves bundle together in his stomach at the thought of Stein knowing the whole truth. "She's not safe," he concludes.
"So, you end the link before she can get close." He repeats. "Why didn't you say anything before, if you felt she was at risk?"
Soul doesn't reply.
"You've gotten good at hiding from soul perception, Evans. Perhaps that's because your partner is so qualified." Stein comments. "Are you capable of letting me perceive your soul, now?"
His body instinctively resists but his mind is tired to argue. He closes his eyes, and balls his fists, summoning the whole being of his soul in his mind, letting down his guard and letting it wander free, unhidden.
There's a brief silence in which Stein forgets to push his glasses up his nose, and they fall messily down his face.
"Oh, my." Stein replies, his words alone summoning shock, but his voice remaining curiously even and smooth. His own soul is a large, green, tilting and shuddering but ultimately stable field around which he sits. The soul in front of him is only slightly smaller; a similar shape, but where his own soul contains a sort of translucent light, Soul's soul is almost completely covered in a thick layer of black, tar-like substance.
"You see?"
Dr Stein examines it for just a moment, titillated by the thrill of new knowledge, before he switches his soul perception off to speak directly to his student.
"Quite profound."
Soul then reaches his arms out, turning his right forearm into a scythe which transforms just enough to scrape along the skin of his left palm, a long scratch forming in its place. And where the skin puckers, beads of thick, blackened tar formulate instead of apparitions of liquid red.
He looks meaningfully at Stein, trying to get his point across while wiping the black blood onto his jeans. In the unlikely occurrence that Maka asks about the sticky substance on his laundry, he'll just tell her it's motorcycle oil. She'll never know the difference.
"I can't resonate with her. It will infect her. She's too… too close. These days, we Resonate at the same rate as Genie hunter every single time. And… I don't know what's happening with me."
"You still resisted, though, when the two of you tried to Resonate with Marie's healing, neutralising wavelength present. Maka was safe, no?" He says factually, carefully placing a cigarette in his mouth and leaning into his lit Bunsen burner to set the thing on fire. He'd taken up smoking again after the pregnancy-long hiatus.
How very perceptive of the man.
"It's become an unconscious instinct, to kick her out."
"Sub-conscious," Stein corrects him, cogs moving around in his brain. "These processes all happen subconsciously, because if you were truly unconscious, then they wouldn't happen…"
Who cares?
Unless…
"I have a new idea."
Soul sinks in his chair, knowing that whatever lines he had marked as uncrossable in his head, Dr Stein was completely ready and willing to absolutely destroy those lines in the pursuit of a solution.
He scuffs his boots up in the process of dragging his feet as he meanders out of Stein's office. The design of the Shibusen dungeons were clearly intended to drive prisoners completely mad, if the dim lights, echoing sounds and the constant noise of a dripping tap were anything to believe. Some part of Stein suited this place, but another part of him could probably do with being somewhere a little more like Kid's office. Organised. Homely.
Soul spies a familiar door out the corner of his eye, and something in him tells him to go through it.
He enters the room where he first met Maka, all those years ago.
He slides his fingers along the grand piano, gathering dust like a snowball against his fingertips, and flicking it onto the floor in disgust.
So, nobody else used this room, then?
In a way he's a little relieved. This meant that this place could remain his and Maka's, part of their story, and avoid becoming a cool hangout spot for bored students. That's what had happened to Lord Death's office, when he had passed away. Teenage weapons and meisters would go in there and look at the clouds and chat and probably eat snacks and make fun of their teachers in the breaks.
Soul was glad nothing like that could happen in here.
He sits down grandly on the piano stool, still perfectly adjusted to his height as per the last time he came in here to practice.
His fingers do the rest; fly over the ivory keys on an ebony base. An intricate harmony formulates underneath them- a version of Chopin's Revolutionary. He's been drummed into the finer points of musical theory and performance art that his brain barely has to engage at all.
When he played like this, some part of him always wants to make it darker, less harmonic; more chaotic. He gingerly pushes away that part of him and keeps playing the piece as the great Chopin had intended, without any of his particularly brand of brooding, discordant music.
He plays and plays, barely noticing that he's speeding up and playing with higher and higher intensity, his fingers slamming angrily and repeatedly against the poor, creaking keys, until eventually something takes over him.
His fingers turn sharp and scythe-like without provocation, jamming them accidentally into the piano keys.
The discomfort mixed with the immediate, hideous cacophony of noise snaps him out of it immediately.
What the hell?
He stares dumbfoundedly down at his hands and tugs each spiky finger painstakingly out of the instrument, one by one. The stuck, blunt noise which plays as each one loosens makes him wince.
He's just about done with the last one, still in shock, when a polite knock on the door pulls him out of his reverie and sends him into a mild state of panic.
"Uh… yeah?" he calls back, wondering who the hell is knocking while he shoves his Edward Scissorhands-esque fingers behind his back. The door creaks open slowly. A part of him experiences a sense of Déjà vu as he remembers the first time, he and Maka were introduced.
It's not Maka that interrupts, although it is another blonde female.
"Hello, Soul, I thought it would be you in here." The Intruder sends him a faint smile. "I'm so sorry for interrupting your piece. It sounded lovely." She beams as compliments roll oh so easily off her tongue.
"Thanks, Miss Marie." He gets the uncontrollable urge to fiddle with his hand, but controls the urge, keeping them safely behind his body.
"Frank said he was meeting with you. And then I heard the piece, and figured it was you. Listen, Soul. I wanted to ask you something." She closes the door behind her, and Soul gets a sinking feeling that it might be something serious. Marie clears her throat. "Frank has been… acting more than a little strange recently. I know he's been working closely with you, and I just wondered if you or Maka had noticed anything being up?"
Soul frowns.
"Weirder than usual?" he says, before tensing up, remembering that Marie and Stein were dating. "I mean, uh, you know…" he stutters, but Marie saves him.
"Don't worry, Soul." She faintly chuckles. There's an expression of worry permeating the noise. "Yes, weirder than usual. I'm just worried about him. And I don't want to scare you and Maka, I know how hard you guys work and everything," Marie seems distracted.
"He has been quite…" Unhinged. Obsessive. "…intense." Soul answers carefully. "About this problem me and Maka are having." Soul frowns, thinking hard about it now she mentions it. "Yes. I mean, a little. Obsessed, I guess. It reminds me of how he used to be, before he met you. It could be nothing,"
"Really?" Marie bites her thumbnail in anxiety, seeming doubtful. "It's been so stressful, the last few months. He's been so distant, and we have a new toddler," Her eyes appear to spring with tears as she seems set to go on a misplaced vent about her home life. It wasn't a huge surprise, everyone around the academy knew that despite her kind, stabilizing wavelength- Marie Mjolnir really was an emotional drama queen at times. In fact, now that Soul thinks about it, he's heard weird stories about her wandering around the dungeons late at night and looking for toilets, of all things, to destroy with her hammer.
Soul's really not in the right mindset for this, his mind is still spinning, and his back is still concealing jagged weapon-hands. Which, if he gets up to comfort her, she will get an eyeful of. He doesn't need more questions, not now. Not to mention, he's still a little freaked out by his meeting with Stein.
So that's why he says:
"Yeah, Marie. I think everything's fine. Maybe he's just been a little stressed recently because of work. I think all of us, including Kid. Maybe just speak to him, see what's up." He recommends, and then, in a vain attempt to get rid of her he follow it up with: "I've really got to practice. I've uh… got a recital in a few days. Sorry, Miss Marie." He fudges.
She narrows her eyes at him.
Shit, was that too obvious of a lie?
Her narrowed eyes turn to unbridled delight.
"You have a recital! That's great news! I didn't know you were playing again, Soul!" she gushes in excitement. "Oh, sorry, sorry. I should let you practice! I want you to do well in your recital," she grins, seamlessly disregarding her previous complaints as she swans out of the room and proceeds to, presumably, immediately get lost in the dungeon maze that was the Shibusen basement.
Soul's mortified realization that his web of lies might now force him to fake a piano recital sweeps over him, counteracting any feelings of relief that he managed to quickly and inoffensively get rid of the teacher.
As a result, he forgets all about what Miss Marie was trying to tell him.