The Scientist by Coldplay

It is raining when Stein finds his way to Spirit's front door. For once the weather matches his mood, catching his emotions as if to demonstrate the empathy he's never quite been able to master or fake, painting his hair flat and dripping against his skull and chilling the too-human warmth out of his blood. It is easier cold, easier with the uncovered scars on his cheek and on his arms catching the water in unnatural curves against his skin and his body shivering and acting on the autopilot of predetermined decision rather than the unpredictable flush of passion.

Spirit opens the door after Stein's first knock, a handful of slow heartbeats enough time for him to pull himself down the narrow hallway Stein can see behind him but not enough for him to hide behind the assumed formality of his usual suit jacket and tie. His shirt is loose, the collar unbuttoned over a triangle of pale skin that draws Stein's eyes for just a moment before they assume their usual fixation on the weapon's hair.

"Stein." The hallway is dim but there is a pool of warm yellow light spreading out from the living room at Spirit's back, dropping the older man into a halo that makes Stein flicker-smile, just for a moment, because everything today is exactly as poetic as he could wish and would have been entirely lost on him any other day, some day when his interiority was drowned out by logic and his feelings weren't pulsing through him in place of his blood.

"Senpai," and the syllables are warm, curved and smooth on his tongue as if they were meant to be there, and something else has come through his voice because Spirit rocks backward, his weight unconsciously flinching from the unfamiliarity of the situation. His eyes are blue like the rain-hidden sky, the angle of his hesitant arm on the edge of the doorway is geometry so perfect Stein can never imitate it even in his memory, the flutter of a swallow in his exposed throat is captivating like the pulse that Stein can't even imagine that he sees, not at the distance he is at.

Stein tries to push his hands into the protection of pockets he doesn't have, lets them drop to his sides as they fail to make contact with anything but the dripping air. He can't find the words, now, now that he is here and everything is perfect and the world is demanding a perfect explanation that he doesn't have. He cannot explain the importance of the rare silence in his head at the moment, the lingering purr of Spirit's voice and the memory of Spirit's hair that have clung to his ears and his eyes until he can neither see nor hear anything but his lost weapon. He can't say that anything went wrong, that there was ever any mistake, because everything in his life feels like it has led to this one moment, with the water trickling against his neck and Spirit silhouetted in his doorway and the emotion thrumming in his veins illuminating the world in understanding that he has lacked in every breath of his life until now.

"What do you want, Stein?" Spirit finally asks, and there is nothing but honest curiosity in his voice, confusion and worry and Stein has never understood how is it that Spirit isn't afraid of him, how can the weapon look at the darkness behind his eyes and the half-healed tears in his skin and not run, not leave him to his demons and his Madness and the cold comfort of reason and logic and experimentation.

The words spill up his throat like water up a straw until they drip across his tongue and form themselves into sound. "I love you."

The syllables are odd, foreign for all that he's heard dozens of other people speak them to others, never to him. It feels like he is unlocking a corner of his brain that has lain dormant, that has cooled into hibernation while the rest of him operated with military efficiency and utter distance. And then there is more to say, more words that he has purchased with the first, his vocabulary expanding as rapidly as a child's. "I need you, senpai. Spirit." Respect and affection and desire all blending too fast to distinguish, names crashing together too fast to chose just one. "Come back. Work with me. Live with me. Be with me."

Spirit steps back, actively shifting his far foot back down the hallway, and Stein feels a flood of panic for the first time in his life and then he is choking on the words that wouldn't come before, half-finishing sentences before the next overtakes them and wipes out the meaning, patterning into a rushing overlap like his thoughts when he is in the grip of Madness.

"I need - I've been so alone - I'm sorry - you are perfect and I'm - sorry, so sorry - don't leave - come back, come back, come - senpai, I - Spirit."

There is something in Spirit's eyes that Stein has never seen before, that Stein doesn't know how to read and doesn't understand, but the weapon hasn't moved and he hasn't shut the door, and Stein can't speak, can't think and can't move until Spirit does, and finally he just repeats himself because that seems to say everything, somehow.

"I love you." Just that, as if the words that went between this and his first words have explained anything at all, as if indecision wasn't scudding across Spirit's face like clouds.

Blue eyes flicker away from Stein's face, trying to read something from his body that Stein doesn't know how to say. Spirit's bottom lip comes up between his teeth, as unconscious as that first rock backward, and his expression gels into resolve and Stein's stomach drops to his feet.

Spirit steps sideways, out of the illumination, and even the indirect light makes Stein blink hard against the increased glow.

"Come in," Spirit's voice invites, and Stein brings a hand to his face, old habits covering his shut eyes and stuttering breath of relief before he tips his face up to Spirit and steps up to the light.