A/N: Inspired by art. Been staring at a piece of fanart (check my AO3 for link) since August trying to figure out what to do with it. Finally decided.

Short little canon-compliant one-shot, anime-verse. Missing scene from episode 40. Takes place after Spirit finds Stein lurking around Medusa's prison cell in the DWMA, but before Stein's flight. I guess theoretically after Spirit fails to torture Medusa but before he talks to Lord Death about it?

Enjoy a sort of uh...suspenseful angst with hints of pining? Idk. And apparently I write in present tense now? Anyway yeah, enjoy.

Remember Me

"Will you remember me, after I'm gone?"

"What?"

Stein listens to the familiar way the response is voiced. Timbre high, breathy, with the final consonant punctuated just enough to add weight to the question. He can read the weapon's thoughts in that single word.

What does he mean by 'gone'? Why will he be gone? What will be the cause? And the meaning that grounds Stein to the moment the most—don't go.

"I think..." Stein continues, not answering the spoken nor the implied questions, "I would like to be remembered."

"Stein you're... It's... You're stronger than this. I know you are."

"Hmm," is the slightly sighing, slightly scoffing response Stein gives.

He begins to turn his head up from where it's set back against the wall, and the pain the movement causes brings him a greater awareness of the environment.

He is in the very back of his lab-home, in a small room little used except recently by Marie. Someone has drawn back the curtains that keep the world from getting inside, allowing sunlight to break through and illuminate the destruction his madness has wrought. Furniture overturned, objects torn apart, everything scattered across the floor as if a robber had broken in and a fight had ensued. And there is blood staining everything, because there is always blood.

Stein wonders what injuries will be revealed when he finally does try to move.

The skittering creatures and dark hands that threaten to squeeze the life from his throat have gone. So has the rain of blood that was nothing like the real thing now that he can see it before him. He's aware of a slight chill and realizes one shoulder of his coat has fallen down his arm, but he makes no motion to correct it. His glasses are gone too.

He wonders what brought him back this time, can't remember any specific word or action that did it. Only that the pressure, the madness, retreated suddenly. And then he became aware of a familiar, welcome soul at his side.

In his periphery, less than two feet distant on his right, he can see the dark trouser leg of the weapon standing next to him. He's not leaning against the wall but facing it instead, and Stein painfully tilts his head up just enough to see that Spirit has his left arm folded high on said wall and his forehead is rested against it. His eyes are closed and his face is twisted in anxiety.

Stein licks his lips, tastes drying blood. He stares.

If this is to be his last true moment of sanity, he wants to memorize every detail. He wants to recall the way Spirit's brows pinch together as they always do when he's stressed. The way the skin of his cheeks have paled indicating it's not anger that has his mouth twisted into a snarl. The way his hair just brushes his shoulders, and how that one longer strand falls across his face and yet never seems to bother him.

That hair. It's always been better, somehow, than the blood that Stein can feel seeping out of him in undiscovered wounds. Better than the trails of it he can see on the floor, than the dark stains of it on Spirit's cuff. Somehow Spirit's hair has had more life to it than blood ever can. Perhaps because it doesn't control life, the way blood does, so can never herald death. Or perhaps simply because it's so near his expressive eyes.

Stein suddenly blinks out of his study. Blood. On Spirit's cuff. He reaches out unthinkingly and touches it, so lightly that the weapon doesn't notice.

"Did I hurt you?"

Spirit opens his eyes, and Stein forgets where he is as clear teal eyes fix upon his face.

"No," Spirit replies with a slight shake of his head, and Stein believes him.

Spirit is staring down at him. Despite how expressive his eyes are, and despite how Stein spent the better part of five years simply staring at them, learning to the read them and know his weapon's thoughts... He doesn't know what Spirit is thinking.

"Will you...remember? Me?" Stein voices again, the words heavy with their years of memories, and he knows the look that enters the older man's eyes then.

Pain. Fear. Words he wants to say but holds back with his breath.

Spirit's lips part in silence, and when he does glance away he bites his lower lip and gives an uneasy sigh. Stein slowly sets his head back against the wall and lets his gaze drift over the room, to a panel of sunlight on the bloodstained floor.

It occurs to him then... This is the only time since Lord Death brought them back together that they've really been able to be alone, to talk as just themselves. Not as duty-bound meister and weapon, not as teachers at the academy, not as doctor and death scythe... But just them. He wonders if Spirit knows it too.

Of course, he thinks ironically, he has to barely have a hold on sanity for the conversation.

"If...if I say yes..." Spirit begins hesitantly, and Stein can't help the slight warmth that curls through him. Spirit could never deny him anything. "Will you promise me, Stein..."

Stein shifts slightly, focuses his gaze on Spirit's bright, unblinking eyes.

"Will you promise me you won't give up?"

For a moment all is still. And then the corners of Stein's mouth make an almost imperceptible turn upward.

As much as he has learned to read the weapon, likewise the older man knows exactly how to read him and follow the trail of his thoughts to every possible conclusion. And Spirit isn't wrong in what he is thinking.

A bitter ache settles over Stein's chest, because he knows now that that path is closed to him.

"I promise."

The choking darkness begins to lift, and the resolve in his own voice surprises him. But it shouldn't, really. After all, Stein could never deny Spirit anything.

Spirit doesn't turn, but he does reach down to where Stein is seated, his fingers lightly curled and hovering near the meister's shoulder. When Stein reaches up he's surprised to see blood on his knuckles, but then a vague memory of striking out at the creatures and the groping hands reminds him of the source of the small wounds. He wonders how the other more serious ones he can feel occurred while he was lost to the madness.

The touch, slight though it is, is like electricity. Warm and life-giving and making him believe he can at least try to follow through on the promise. He allows Spirit to help him to his feet, takes a moment to let the dizziness pass as he presses his hand to a wound at his hip, the act of standing causing it to re-open. He takes a slow breath through his nostrils and doesn't say anything.

"Let's ah...let's go back to the lab," Spirit says a little uncertainly, starting slowly for the corridor. He makes no move to release Stein's fingers, and the meister follows obediently. "Where's Marie?"

"She's..." Stein trails off as his brow furrows. Where is his other weapon?

In the doorway Spirit pauses, turns to look at him as he puzzles over the question. Stein listens to his sigh and doesn't need to look up to know disappointment will have joined the other emotions in the teal eyes.

"Have a seat," Spirit says, finally releasing the slight hold on Stein's fingers to gesture to the eyesore of a couch that Marie had placed in the great room of his office.

Stein swallows and slowly steps past Spirit, releasing the pressure on the wound in his side. He straightens his coat before sitting, hoping the weapon won't notice the more serious wound, and then tips his head to rest on the back of the couch and closes his eyes against the spinning of the room.

A multi-colored, multi-legged creature flickers through the blackness in his vision, and Stein opens his eyes again.

"I'm supposed to be reporting to Lord Death. I'll...see if I can find someone to clean up that room for you. All right?" Spirit says and starts to turn for the door.

"Spirit."

The meister is relieved to see his weapon stop immediately, turn on his heel and the muddle of emotions in his eyes melt away into nothing but concern. But the words Stein had been about to say have left him, his mind falling blank under the kind gaze from clear, teal eyes.

Apparently words aren't necessary as Spirit approaches the couch and kneels in front of him. A hand settles on his shoulder and Stein again feels the electricity, the warmth. Not a true resonance, because he doesn't dare expose Spirit to his mind the way it is, but just enough of a connection that he feels he can actually make good on his promise.

"Please." Again, the timbre of the weapon's voice rises. The word comes out on an exhale, and the end of the word is precise.

Stein simply stares, again memorizing as much as he can while his mind is his own. The crystalline intensity of teal that seems to stare straight into his soul. The feathery halo of red that perfectly frames gentle cheekbones and a strong jaw.

It's almost enough to banish the dancing of technicolor creatures that are beginning to swarm the edges of his vision again. Almost. But he ignores them if only for one last moment of clarity. One last look at his weapon.

"I..."

"Please, Stein. Don't give up! Try to fight it!"

Stein's voice is lost again, lost somewhere between the dark forest of hands that waver behind the protective shield that surrounds him with his weapon's presence, and behind the sincere care of a friend.

"I have to go... Just try. I'll come back."

Spirit's hand leaves his shoulder, taking the warmth with it. The creatures skitter closer and the dark hands eagerly surround the weapon as he retreats, moving past him and snaking slowly toward Stein. He draws his elbows up to the back of the couch as if readying to flee, but the rest of his body is as lead. Too weak to fight anymore. Except...

"I'll try," he echoes, and Spirit stops at the door and looks back at him one last time. Stein's gaze pierces beyond the eel-like arms coming closer and the bright things hovering near his feet to look at the grim set of the weapon's jaw. But his eyes rise higher, to a pair of narrowed, giant yellow eyes above the door and a forked tongue that flicks toward him suddenly.

His throat tightens, and he lowers his eyes anxiously to the weapon.

"I'll come back."

It's on that promise that Stein sets his hope as everything closes in. Spirit vanishes through the door, taking his radiance and sound mind with him, and then the whole of the lab wall seems to disappear to be replaced by three massive, ominous eyes arranged like rosebuds, red and twitching and bleeding evil that sings toward Stein with dark purpose.

The strange, dazzling creatures skitter upon the sofa toward his knees. The eyes blink and a static begins filling his ears, getting louder and louder until he can hear nothing but noise and the fearful hammering of blood in his ears. The forked tongue darts out of the swarm of arms to lick his face as the black hands get closer, only inches away now.

Stein closes his eyes to all of it. Pictures teal eyes and red hair, clings to the image. And as he feels the creatures attack and the hands close around his throat, before the madness can steal his breath fully, he parts his lips one last time.

"Remember me."