Sordid

Marie stood before him as she held his glasses in the proper position on his face while reaching for a thin piece of masking tape. Dr. Stein held still though his eyes were dull and he looked either disinterested or annoyed that his glasses had to be so crudely fixed. "This is just temporary," she said, apparently reading his face quite well. "We'll get you new ones and they'll be just like the ones you have now. But until then…" Marie stuck her tongue out a bit in concentration as she tightly wound the tape around the break. When she had finished she smiled and adjusted the frames again. "There. Almost good as new." He blinked softly in what she had translated long ago as "thank you." She held his face tenderly in both hands, her thumb grazing the scars on his face before she lightly planted a soft kiss on his forehead. He blinked again at the contact and met her gaze. At the same time he inhaled to prepare to speak, a knock came at their door. "Hm! I wonder who that could be," Marie said brightly as she went to go open the door. He released his breath and remained seated.

She opened the door and blinked in surprise to see William standing in the hallway. Before she could react, he spoke in a rushed tone. "Can I talk to you? I mean—I need to talk to Professor Stein, too, but… each separately probably." His chest deflated nervously.

"Um…" She glanced back at Stein who was staring at both of them. "Sure." She directed William into the living room where they had a seat across from each other. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

He put his hands together and started to wring them roughly and let out a loud sigh. His eyes met her eye and he maintained a fragile and anxious expression. "Are you mad at me?"

Marie stared for a moment then huffed with a slight smile. "No, William. I'm not mad at you. Frustrated and a little disappointed. But not mad." She shook her head to reinforce her honesty.

His eyelids twitched a little. "Is that worse?"

She sighed, overcome with pity now that he was so vulnerable. "You made a mistake. You did something stupid tonight and you know you shouldn't have done it and you did it anyway. Therefore I am going to be disappointed in you. But you're going to have to take your lumps."

William averted his gaze to the floor where he rubbed his worn out tennis shoes together. "I don't want to disappoint you," he mumbled.

"Then why did you leave the castle and take Nikki with you and allow both of you to be in harm's way? You knew if there was anything you could do to disappoint me that this had to be it." She cocked her head a little as she watched him. Her voice was back to its usual sweet tone, her words only conveying simple inquiring rather than scolding as she had an hour or so before.

"I just—I got really restless. I get—antsy, I can't help it sometimes it's—"

"That's not an excuse. Especially not for taking Nikki with you. Since when have you needed company in order to fulfill even your most destructive indulgences?"

He sighed loudly and put his head in his hands. "I don't know."

Marie leaned forward a bit, some of her golden locks falling over her shoulder. "Have you still been adhering to my advice? About how to keep yourself calm or otherwise occupied so these urges occur less?"

William sat up again. "Yes. It's just… it's hard. It's… gotten harder."

She blinked softly at him. "What exactly has become more difficult?"

He didn't look at her. "Just… stuff."

"What stuff."

He took a breath and glanced to the office where Dr. Stein still was. He gripped his own forearm and started twisting his grasp and pulling his skin. "Never mind. I'm sorry. I was stupid. But I'm… mainly sorry because I disappointed you. I don't want to do that again. And I'm going to try really hard not to."

Marie softly exhaled through her nose, keeping her fingers laced in her lap. She very well couldn't scold him for being more remorseful for one thing than the other—as long as he was remorseful, it was progress. "That's all right."

"I have changed." He finally looked back at her. "Your efforts were not wasted… I have changed. I just screw up sometimes." He kept twisting the skin on his arm.

She nodded. "I understand."

He began to stand up. "I'm sorry to bother you. Thanks for listening to me."

She stood and met him. "You never bother me. And I'll always listen to you, William."

Though his features were still ridden with guilt, he barely pursed his lips in solemn gratitude. Marie softly grazed his cheek with her hand before stepping out of the living room and to the kitchen area. William made his way into Dr. Stein's office in the small apartment. He found the scientist in his rolling chair with his back turned and facing his computer monitor. The lights had been turned down and the light from the screen threw a halo around his outline. William could see a faint stream of smoke rising up, indicating that the doctor had lit another cigarette. He stood back and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "Can I ask you what happened tonight," he said flatly.

It was a moment before he replied and he didn't turn around, his fingers still tapping against the keys on his keyboard without slowing down. "I'm afraid I don't know what you're referring to. Do you mean what Lord Death was doing?"

William blinked. "That was my next question."

"I don't know." He blew out a thick cloud of smoke.

"You don't know who he was fighting? Was it Avetta?"

"I honestly haven't the slightest clue."

William sighed. "Then what happened when we resonated, huh?"

"What do you mean," he asked dully.

"You know what I mean. You can't tell me you didn't feel that."

Finally Dr. Stein swiveled around in his chair and faced him. He swept back his gray hair and took his cigarette away from his lips. "Feel what."

The other exhaled through his nose audibly. "You know, that—edgy… skin-crawling feeling. That—" William quickly rubbed a hand over his mouth and shifted his weight. "Are you sure you and I resonating is a good idea?"

"Well, it's like you said, William." Dr. Stein propped his ankle over his knee and leaned back in his chair. "We are the two sociopaths of the academy. There are going to be some moments when sparks may fly."

"What about keeping the black blood from spreading?"

"I need you to trust me. It may take some time." He didn't meet his eyes.

William took a step forward. "Doc."

Stein's eyes shifted to his face, rather listless but still receiving.

The student kept his tone forceful. "Do you have a grip on yourself?"

For a moment the teacher only stared. Soon the corner of his mouth twitched in a way that it may have been entertaining a smirk. But it didn't make it that far. "Of course."

He stared back at him and glanced between both eyes for the real answer. When he decided he would rather not know for certain, he turned around and headed to the door of his office.

"William."

He stopped and reluctantly turned around.

Dr. Stein dipped his chin a little. "Do you?"

Not a feature of his face reacted in the pause. "Yeah."

The instructor nodded a little. "Have a good night."

William instilled another solid stare before he left the room.

He could hear him say goodbye and goodnight to Marie before he left and closed the door behind him. Dr. Stein kept watching the empty doorway as he reached up and stuck his cigarette back in his lips while giving the screw in his head a loud torque.

Marie looked up at him with that same soft but glowing smile she always had, the one thing that tethered him in his least manageable moments. He couldn't tell if he had just had one or not. Everything else was so far out of mind and out of reach that there was not even the slightest signal to care. They were dancing slowly, a perfect waltz. Their steps remained completely cohesive and in time with one hand on her waist and the other hand supporting one of hers. When he got a little out of synch with her, she gently nudged him right back into place. His eyes couldn't leave her face though. This felt wonderful.

Soon she stopped and stepped back, still smiling happily. He smiled back. Marie took another step back in the edge of the spotlight that shone on them. A pair of arms slowly reached out of the darkness behind her and wrapped around her middle. His smile quickly faded.

She turned to her embracer and her lips were met by William's. He forced down on her, his hands on her waist and making her bend backwards with the power of his kiss. Her eye was closed and her hands instinctively found his face and caressed it gently. Stein's breath stalled in his chest as he watched, wanting to jump forward and tear him away from her, grab him and toss him to the floor and beat him relentlessly. But none of his desires extended past his chest to his brain. Nothing happened. He stood and watched, his expression somewhere between horror and rage.

William's hands ventured to her behind and gave an insulting squeeze. She only melted further into his arms, making soft noises of approval as she welcomed his tongue in her mouth. He swept her around to turn her back on Stein. He paused and their eyes met. William's sly smirk pierced into his chest. Stein's breath quickened, his lip twitching in fury and his hands aching to be around his neck. Suddenly William's mouth opened wide and his jaws were lined with long sharp teeth. He clamped down on Marie's shoulder with a hot spurt of blood while she screamed.

The doctor jerked in his rolling chair, his forehead quickly coming up off the desk in front of his keyboard. His breath was still fast and a little uneven as he sat up. His hands went over the hills of his face and pulled the skin down and waited for his heart to calm. When it felt like he could start to breathe normally he shook his fingers in his hair and looked at the time on his computer. It was 3:05 a.m. He glanced at the screen and did a double take. Dr. Stein held still and stared for a moment, waiting for this hallucination to end. But it seemed that maybe it wasn't a hallucination. The words stayed the same, repeated perhaps five hundred times: SORDID SORDID SORDID SORDID SORDID SORDID SORDID… the last followed by a blinking cursor.

Dr. Stein lifted a shaking hand to rub his eyes before he closed the document and turned off the monitor. He stood from his chair with a few pops of his shifting bones and left his office to lie down in bed.