A/N: I just thought of this off hand... I'm kinda just making it up as I go xD
Does contain an OC , but considering what the plot is, that was unavoidable.
I lack ownership of the SoulEater
"Well, he has these fits, you see..."
She'd explain it that way each and every time, embarrassment welling up in her features as she tucked her curly brown hair behind her ears. She'd keep doing it, too, fixing her hair. It'd already be stuck behind her tiny, reddening ears but she'd just keep creating the motion, fixing what did not need to be fixed.
It bothered him.
A lot.
"He'll just sort of, well..."
She fixed it again, pressing her chocolate colored locks further into the crevice behind her ears. Perhaps it would be more useful if she would stop fixing her fringe and just put that piece of her bun that had fallen out back to where it belonged. Yes, that would be wonderful. But she never would. She never fixed that part. No. She never fixed anything genuinely worth fixing.
"Well, he just sort of get's on the ground and starts sobbing."
She also kept pushing her sleeves up. They were already scrunched up around her elbows in a band of tight wrinkles. Yet, she kept pushing them, as though she hadn't already done so. They weren't going up any further. They were already rolled up as far as could be achieved in a cotton sweater.
"It's usually impossible to get him to stop."
Yes, but she kept pushing them up, and then retucking her hair. It was all horribly unnecessary. Sometimes she'd fidget with her hands, too. She'd just pull and rub at the loose skin on her fingers, bending them this way and that. Other times, she would exercise the revolting habit of biting her nails, grinding them down with her teeth until they were nothing more than damp, ragged, shells that barely made it to the ends of her fingers. Luckily, she hadn't begun doing that yet this time.
"I'm never quite sure what to do about it."
Oh, and now she was pushing her glasses up. That was another thing that she'd fix repeatedly, just like her hair. Really, they weren't going to go up any further onto her nose. But she just kept doing it. And then she'd "fix" her hair again, just pressing it further and further behind her ear. She was horrendously repetitive with these things. It was illogical and so incredibly annoying. She wasn't even doing it evenly.
"Sometimes, he'll get nosebleeds too."
Then she'd fix her sleeves again, just slipping them up more and more as though they could get further over her elbows than they already were. Couldn't she feel that? It must be awfully tight around her arms all bunched up like that. It couldn't be comfortable. Yet over and over again, she'd just try to force them to go somewhere they were not meant to be.
"If it's really bad, the blood'll even come out of his mouth."
Now she was playing with her own fingers again. Sometimes, though, she'd tug at that silver chain bracelet that hung on her skinny, sun kissed wrist. She only wore one of those stupid things. She only wore it on one wrist, on one side. She was so horrendously unbalanced. It was disgusting. She should just get a second bracelet and wear it on the other wrist. He didn't understand what was so hard about that.
"I really don't know what to do."
She also had the option of just not wearing the damned thing. That would be perfectly acceptable as well. She didn't need to wear jewelry. It truly was unnecessary. He wished she'd take it off. And now she was fixing her hair again. There was really no reason for her to be doing these things. There was absolutely none. None.
"His father said to call you, Professor Stein."
Oh and him, too. Professor Stein was a wonder to behold. There was no part of his body that was not lined with scars from sutures and stitches. Wether those had been stitched in from battles and accidents or had been placed there by means far closer to self-infliction could never be told. This, though, was not the worst part, even if his patchwork face was rather disturbing and off balance.
"Well, I'm not a psychologist so I don't know what he was thinking."
It also was not that he too had the horrible habit of repeatedly pushing his glasses up his nose. He would do it in just the same manner, pushing them up the bridge of his nose for some reason thinking it could go beyond his forehead. He would simply jam them up, over and over again. It was absolutely maddening.
"I'm not sure. I think he might've been hoping you'd solve the bleeding problem."
The worst part about this man, also, was not the way he would glance at him with those honeydew eyes like he wanted to eat him. It also was not the fact that he had overheard him on numerous occasions speaking of how much he'd like to cut him open and see his innards, because he'd never seen the organs of a reaper before and wanted to know what they looked like and how they worked. He was certainly a rather deranged man, with his messy silver hair and unnatural curiosity about the inner-workings of all living creatures. However, this was still not the worst part.
"I'd have to know just where that blood is coming from then. It shouldn't be that hard. I could figure it out pretty easily, but..."
There was a peculiar smirk in the graying skin of the Professor's face as he lightly took his creamy-skinned chin and tilted his head to the side. A thoughtful look clouded his eyes as he tilted it the other direction. He did not resist it, but he was not at all happy with his calloused fingers touching his skin. This was truly not something he needed to be doing. Though, the fact that he'd done this on more than one occasion was not what revolted him the most.
"I may have to do a little exploring to find the source. It's probably from the sinuses, but, you never know. I've got no idea if reapers even have sinuses."
His breath hitched slightly and his neatly folded fingers tightened around each other. Then the professor brought his attention to his very worst quality. It was just what he did when he was thinking, he was always told. It wasn't polite to stare. However, the fact that he had this habit was not what bothered him. The fact that he carried out the act, with that horrible, twisting, grinding noise cranking through his deranged skull, was not what bothered him in the least. It was the simply what he had the device with which to carry out such an act.
"Other than that, I don't know what to tell you, Anne."
"Oh, well then... I don't know if... um..."
Why in the world the thing was wedged into his head in the first place was beyond him. But as the professor contemplated, the whole time gripping and twisting the enormous, metal screw that had been shoved well and fully through his skull, he couldn't help but internally gag. His head was so horrendously unbalanced. He could only imagine, watching him rotate it thoroughly, what it would feel like if it were in his own head. His head would be so much heavier on one side than the other. It was no wonder that his head was always tilted a little to the side.
Why in the world would anyone do such a thing to themselves?
"It wouldn't be any trouble," he said. "Really."
And then his hands were on his face again, this time tilting it downward. Then, with his pinky finger, he traced over his nose and stated that, "This is where I think I'd start." Then he tilted the boy's head again and traced his jaw. "Although, it also could be more practical to start at the jawline and just peel the skin back."
He felt a nervous shiver crawl over his skin, pushing up goose-bumps. He felt his eye twitch slightly as his teeth tightened. As horrible as that screw was, he supposed, perhaps he really did actually hate this more. He couldn't even count how many times he'd requested cutting him open.
"Reapers, as far as I've seen, don't seem to scar anyway so that's not anything to worry about."
Yes, except that he really did not at all want to have surgery done for no reason. There was nothing wrong with him. Nothing needed to be fixed.
"W-well," Anne stuttered as she tucked her hair behind her ear for the umpteenth time. "I don't know if that sort of thing is really.. um.."
She was so useless and unassertive.
"Perhaps, we should ask Lord Death about that..." she finally managed to spit out. "Wh-what I'm really worried about is um... Well... the fits and the fainting spells..."
The professor thought this over, twisting and grinding that unsightly screw. "And you've told Lord Death about absolutely all of this, right?"
"Um..."
There was nothing to tell. There wasn't anything wrong with him. It was this world that was messed up and needed fixing.
"No..." she admitted. "I've only told him about the nosebleeds."
The professor sighed and immediately she became defensive.
"Well, would you like to be the one to tell Lord Death that his son is..." She paused, shoving her sleeves up again and fixing her hair. "...dysfunctional?"
A silent frustrated sigh came out of his nose. There wasn't a single thing wrong with him. It's not like the world couldn't use to be more orderly. That was all he wanted anyway. He just wanted order. And that was what his father had always told him was the purpose of reapers, to maintain order and balance. There wasn't anything he was doing wrong. Also, did they really need to speak of him as though he were out of the room? He was sitting in a chair right in front of them.
"No, I suppose I wouldn't," the professor said, an awkward smile at the corners of his mouth for just a moment. "I'm sure it isn't anything to worry about, though. The Kid is only just five. I'm sure he'll grow out of whatever it is."
"I... I guess you're right."
"Yes. So don't worry about it. But..." The professor paused this time, glancing at The Kid out of the corner of his eye for a second. Then he dropped his voice slightly, as though there was a reason to. "What exactly causes him to act like this?"
"I uh... I'm not sure, exactly," Anne said, scratching her frizzy brown hair. "He just worries about things, I suppose. Anxiety."
That was not it. That wasn't it at all.
"And there's just a lot of other things, too. He's so neat about things. He'll stack blocks according to color and size and he won't play with other kids or go outside and he doesn't talk much," she further explained worriedly. "I'm... I'm wondering if he's autistic."
He'd heard her throw that word around before. He still wasn't sure what it meant, but he didn't think it was anything nice.
"That part could just be that he's a reaper," the professor reassured. "He's technically a god, after all. His intelligence I imagine is far above other children his age and he might not be able to relate to them very well. The whole thing, actually, could just be that he's a reaper."
"I... That's probably right..."
He nodded, glancing over at him one more time. "Though, you should probably tell Lord Death about it if it doesn't stop," he said. Anne nodded, pushing her hair back. His face morphed into a horrible smirk. "And remember, my offer is always open."
"Death the Kid, your father wants to talk to you after lunch."
"Okay."
His hands barely fit all the way around the glass he was drinking sticky red juice from. He always used a straw. He'd complain if he didn't, because liked all children his mouth was not large enough to prevent juice from staining the corners of his mouth pink, which in turn would make him sticky and unhappy.
Anne knew very well why this was. The Kid had never been allowed to be messy or dirty. His previous nanny had never let him exist for more than a second with a spec of dirt or crumbs of any sort on his face or clothes. She had always been incredibly careful to keep him clean and well dressed, just like a dresden doll with pure white skin and golden glass eyes. He may as well be one anyway, the way he was cared for.
The Kid was quite literally one of a kind. There had never been and never would be, at least not for thousands if not millions of years, another child reaper. No one knew how he was supposed to act or look or function. No one knew what he needed. However, they did know that he was not to be hurt or broken under any circumstances. He was to always be publicly presentable. He was always to be spotlessly and utterly perfect, like a little doll kept on a shelf.
Besides that, no one wanted the son of Death to be unhappy. He may seem joking and quite harmless when he spoke, but he was first and foremost the being that would one day own your soul. No one wanted to upset him.
And so Death the Kid would be spoiled rotten until his milky skin curdled and his caramel and poured-sugar eyes turned sour. Even though the woman who had previously taken care of him had been elderly and could no longer take care of him due to an unfortunately broken hip, he had been brought up so far being taught that there should never be a thing on his face or on his hands and he was never ever to spill anything on the carpets or down his shirt.
Which is precisely why, as he sat at the long dining-room table meant more for banquets and special occasions than for lunch, he would wipe off his face between every spoonful of soup, just in case, and would refuse to eat without a napkin. He was only five and already he had been trained to keep himself perfect and precise at every second of the day.
Oh, no, this boy would never be normal.
Anne had learned from her short experience in The Gallows Manner House precisely how she would not raise her children once her and her fiance were married and ready. There was no way around this, however, when it came to Death the Kid. The way his life was was never meant to be simple and it was never meant to be normal.
This lack of normality was why this five-year-old boy, when finished with his lunch of leek soup and cranberry juice, two things no child his age would dare touch, brought the emptied glass and bowl into the kitchen himself and placed it into the sink. She would then him bring him upstairs to his bedroom, which was larger than her apartment, to dress him up like the little porcelain doll he was.
Only this boy would have to dress up to go see his father.
It wasn't as though his father genuinely minded. In fact, she highly doubted that he cared if his son was as pristine as he was made to be. But this was how he was supposed to be, and it was her job to keep him this way.
"What does Father want to talk about?" he asked. His voice was soprano and young, but his vocations were perfect. He had speech classes every Wednesday that she always took him to, not that he really needed them. This child had the most fantastic pronunciation skills she'd ever heard. There was something else in the way he spoke as well that made her believe he could sing if he wanted to.
"Oh, I don't know. I think he just wants to see you," she told him as she buttoned up his shirt.
"Okay."
The Kid didn't talk much.
She slipped on his jacket, which was elaborate with little white rectangle outlining the shoulders as well as more serving as buttons down his front. Then he lifted his chin obediently to let her pin his shirt closed around his neck with a little silver skull broach that perfectly mimicked his father's mask.
She smoothed his suit jacket and then stood up, her knees popping slightly. She sighed.
"Let's go then."
He nodded, looking off to the side with those soft golden eyes.
No, The Kid didn't talk much at all.
It was such a production to take him to talk to his father. He had to be perfect whenever he was in front of him. He had to be. There was no room for error. That included his socks, he knew, as he pulled them up closer to the ends of his shorts. Then, before anyone could see, he folded his hands behind his back again.
The Kid walked next to his nanny or chaperone or whatever she was supposed to be called. It didn't matter. She was still fixing her hair over and over again. So long as she did that she would remain nameless.
As he took step after step up the enormous staircase that lead up to where his father always was, he was always at least four steps in front of her. She was so slow, so far behind.
"Jeez, aren't you fast," she said laughing slightly. She sounded slightly out of breath.
He wasn't sure how to respond to that and just looked at her as he continued up the steps.
"I used to go to school here too. Guess I'm kinda outa' shape now, huh?" she continued, smiling softly.
The Kid blinked at her, hands still tucked neatly behind his back. Perhaps she wasn't too awful if she went to Father's school. However, she must not have been the best student. He still didn't know how to respond, though.
"D'you think you're going to go to school here when you're older?" she asked, still smiling that sweet as sugar smile.
That wasn't even something he needed to think about.
"No," he said simply, turning his head away from her to keep an eye on his footing. "Father said he'd teach me everything, so I don't need to."
"Oh?" She sounded shocked. Then she hesitated. He didn't even have to look at her to know she was fixing her hair.
"Mhmm."
"Well, I'm sure that'll be nice, being taught by your own father," she said. He could practically hear her smiling.
"Yup."
Then she was silent again, no doubt fixing her hair and her glasses and her sleeves and just generally moving around uselessly. To think she'd gone to this school too. How embarrassing...
Spirit was still new to being Lord Death's personal Death Scythe of choice. He wasn't nervous about anything, really. Lord Death was quite approachable and it was easy to be comfortable around him. There was nothing hard about that he had to do either. Though, he did sometimes feel like his errand boy. At the moment, though, there was something just burning a hole in his throat.
As he and the reaper stood in front of the mirror, with it's elaborate frame all golden and swirling, monitoring a meister and weapon team's mission, he couldn't help but keep shifting his attention away. He simply could not keep focused.
He for once, also, was not paranoid that one of the many enormous candles hovering and floating through the room with their wicks aflame would drip wax on his head again. He was also not afraid that this wax would rip a good chunk of his long crimson hair out again. He'd spoken to Lord Death about these candles. He said he was thinking about changing them up, making them clouds apparently. He hoped he did so soon. He really did not like them.
But he wasn't worried about them today.
He wasn't even that horribly worried about the meister and weapon team in the mirror, though the enormous spider-like kishin they were fighting had almost taken the meister's head off a few minutes ago with it's pincers. That had made him focus initially, but when it was clear that she was fine he didn't fret on it.
No, what he was so deeply worried about was their 'guest' today. He'd never met the child sitting on top of the swirling, shadowy robe covered shoulders of the reaper beside him. Lord Death had always made sure he was somewhere else whenever he came. In the five years this boy had been alive, he'd only seen glances of him. This, though, was excluding the time when he was a baby. He'd lived in the death room up until he was almost two when the reaper had built not a house, but a mansion for The Kid. Since then, he hadn't seen him at all. Lord Death claimed it was because he didn't like people much and crowds upset him.
Spirit was not a crowd, though, so he didn't understand why he hadn't been allowed to see him. He supposed he was too busy being infinitely fussed over.
Perhaps, though, that was why he'd decided to hide him like that. When he was a baby, there had been so many people that had wanted to see him and so many hands trying to steal him and coddle him. No parent would want that for their child. Perhaps it was better to hide him.
But he still didn't understand why he hadn't been allowed to see him. He had a daughter of his own, who was the most beautiful and perfect little girl you'd ever see in your life, that was only a year younger than him. He'd understand the need for boundaries.
He couldn't keep his eyes off him, though, as he sat perfectly still, still as a doll, gripping his father's robes with both hands and watching the mirror with unblinking, unwavering, unperturbed, desensitized eyes the color of liquid honey and listened to the fight with ears lulled to sleep with poetry and stories by Edgar Allen Poe. Lord Death had told him before that his favorite was the Masque of the Red Death. The odd thing was Spirit was entirely sure The Kid fully understood the story.
He supposed it was fitting, though, for a young reaper to hear that story. There was just something odd about any child being exposed to so much death at such a young age. But his father was death. Still, it seemed so incredibly strange and wrong. He supposed it wasn't, though. He supposed. He supposed.
Spirit sighed through his nose and tried to focus on watching the mirror again. Just then, though, it switched off with a flick, the surface turning back into finely polished metal and the reflections of the three standing before it.
"Well, I think that's enough of that for now."
Then he raised one of his enormous hands and with just the tips of his fingers plucked The Kid off of his perch atop his shoulders by the back of his shirt.
"H-hey!"
He protested with his soprano voice, squealing and laughing all the same, until he was placed in his other hand with it's flat open palm. The Kid seemed just so small like that Spirit had to smile. Then the death god ruffled his hair, his mask smiling affectionately, making the child squeal again and feverishly fix it and realign the horizontal stripes cutting across the left side of his forehead.
Maybe he was normal. Maybe he wasn't. At least at this moment they looked like a father and child.
A/N: Maybe there'll be more. not sure. if anyone wants more i'll write more. this isn't going to be unlimited like If Wishes were Bullets, though. I don't have time for it. xD I'm thinking of adding some about Liz and Patty's childhood as well.