It is very quiet in the apartment. Stein has been sitting on the couch in the living room for hours, letting the darkness seep into his surroundings as the distant muffled voices of neighbors and the faint hum of the outdoors deaden into sleep. His eyes are shut, though he is nothing like close to sleep; rather the distraction of even darkened vision is more than he wants right now and it is easier to shut it out.

There is the creak of a door opening. Stein's lips twitch in almost-a-smile before he composes his face into blankness. The light is blinding even behind the protection of eyelids, but he is expecting it and so manages to avoid flinching.

"Stein?" Spirit's voice is loud in the oppressive silence, lacking all the sleepy softness someone not Stein might expect at four in the morning. "Are you asleep?"

"No." Stein refrains from pointing out that even if he was he wouldn't be after the question.

"What are you doing?"

"Listening." The physical pain of the sudden light has faded. Stein opens his eyes to the ceiling and waits for the blister of defensive tears to pass.

"To what?" Spirit's voice is strained. Stein can hear the tension pulling at the muscles of his neck and throat in the involuntary sharpness of his tone.

Stein could say he was listening to the night, listening to silence creep over the world, letting it seep into his bones in the closest thing to sleep he will get tonight. But that would be a lie so instead he goes with the truth. "You."

"What?"

Stein tips himself sideways so he can twist his neck back and see Spirit upside-down and bisected by the dark rim of his askew glasses. "I was listening to you not sleep. You're worried."

There is always a moment when Spirit considers lying. It is very brief, a tightening of his face into a mask that makes Stein think of what he will look like as an adult in a few years. Stein doesn't like the tension, but the capitulation into blatant emotion that follows hard on its heels is well worth the momentary delay.

Spirit huffs a sigh and drags his fingers roughly across his face. "I can't sleep." He comes around the edge of the couch and casts himself in the space next to Stein before the meister has a chance to react. Stein feels the tension of proximity seize his muscles as Spirit slouches next to him, like they have a single shared pool of stress and he is leeching it out of the weapon. Uncertainty makes him clumsy in his own body, makes every motion impossibly complex and carry far more meaning than Stein has ever known how to read. He has made an art of distance and he knows how to give in to wanton aggression, but the casual contact of Spirit's knee against his is ungluing the joints of his body and the cohesiveness of his thoughts.

He shifts away, pulling himself sideways and compressing his limbs together so he can keep air between their bodies without actually getting up from the couch. His knees end up trying to occupy the same space, but he knows how to deal with the eccentricities of his own body. It's the unpredictability of others' that unsettles him.

Spirit's arms and legs are limp with exhaustion even if his mind is not. The weapon's eyes are wide open with the entire absence of half-lidded drowsiness that Stein identifies as true insomnia, the tension along his jawline and at the corners of his eyes juxtaposing with the loose curl of his fingers and the droop of his knee.

"Have you slept?" Spirit isn't looking at Stein, just staring straight ahead like he can see something past their backlit reflections in the window, but when Stein shakes his head briefly Spirit's mouth curves in humorless acknowledgement.

"Are you nervous?"

Gestures alone cannot convey the conviction Stein needs. "No."

"I am," Spirit responds, as if it needs stating. "I know I should sleep but I just ended up lying in bed staring at the ceiling."

Stein doesn't need to be told this. With his eyes shut, he could hear every time Spirit turned over in pursuit of the rest he won't be attaining tonight. Once the murmur of other sounds vanished, he could hear the weapon's breathing, too fast and too irregular for sleep, creasing the night into waves of panic.

The silence goes taut with expectation as Spirit waits for some sort of a response. Stein is not good at lying, which is to say he rarely bothers to lie. In this case it's not necessary. "We'll be fine. We were fine last time."

"But what if we're not?" Spirit's voice jumps high on the last word and words start to accelerate out of him. "We'll be fighting a horrible monster. We could get really hurt. We could die. Meisters do die; weapons die fighting these things. What if this is too much for us?"

"It won't be."

"I don't how how to do this. I don't know what I did last time or if it was all you and what if you need me and I let you down? What if I get hurt or you get hurt?"

"We won't."

Spirit turns just his head to look at the meister. He looks exhausted and very young in spite of the years and the height he has on Stein. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." Stein has no evidence at all for this, but Spirit doesn't ask for anything but the reassurance of confidence, and that he can provide.

"Are you looking forward to it?" Spirit's voice is very soft, the words almost too quiet to catch. Stein could ignore them if he wants, just let the question go by and pretend he didn't hear.

"Yes."

There is a pause of perfect, crystalline silence, and then Spirit sighs. There is something of resignation and something of relief in it. The weapon shuts his eyes and lets his head fall back against the edge of the couch, and almost immediately his breathing slows into the rhythm of rest that has been so elusive for him.

Stein waits until Spirit is fully asleep in his awkward position before he turns to look at him, crossing his legs safely under his hips so he is compressed into the available space. The weapon is sprawled out, taking nearly half the couch even while sitting up. His eyelids are blue with exhaustion; when Stein looks long enough he begins to see the tracery of blood in the ultra-thin layer of skin. Red hair tangles along the back of the couch and fall over his face, a handful of strands catching on the moisture of his structure of his face is at odds with itself, childish softness remaining at his cheekbones and near his eyes alongside the angles of an adult jawline. His head is tipped far back until it rests on the back of the sofa, the angle drawing out tension in his throat and the back of his neck that will certainly hurt when he wakes up.

Stein reaches out towards Spirit's skin with his near hand. The other boy is entirely unconscious, still like he never is when awake. Stein stops his fingers just short of the weapon's face, so close that he can feel every breath as a motion in the air and the tips of his fingers can feel the warmth of the blood in Spirit's body. Stein's fingers separate the air over Spirit's face, tracing the arc of eyebrows, mouth, throat, never quite making contact but always about to if either of them shift at all. But Stein has steady hands and Spirit is very deeply asleep, and the stillness of the night unfolds around them without interruption.

Stein doesn't sleep at all that night.