Why was everything so strange to him…? Spirit felt like… He didn't know.

Thick.

The air was thick.

He… felt confined. Stein freaked him the fuck out. The reflection of his glasses… hiding his eyes. The lack of expression anywhere. Just slouchy, mouth a straight line, invisible eyes and impassive brows. His pale hair was wet. Outside… He'd been outside. Right. Outside…

Rain hammered on the windows.

Stein had blood on him… (again.) Some strange experiment, no doubt.

"What do you want?" Spirit narrowed his eyes a little. He always felt so uneasy around this… odd… man. Franken Stein.

Stein took off his glasses to clean them—really he just made them dirtier. His stare was softer than expected, but still too sharp for Spirit's tastes…

Like a fresh scalpel.

It sent shudders down his spine. (Perhaps he was a masochist, because the shudders… They weren't too unpleasant.)

"I was… exploring… a witch's insides. Since I didn't believe I'd be near you any time…"Stein's lips twitched into a small half-smirk. He raised his hand—Spirit flinched—and swept his hair back out of his eyes. "Guess I was too doubtful."

Wet.

He'd let his guard down. Spirit wondered (not for the first time, nor for the last time…) why he was so DUMB. How could he have let Stein get into his house, let alone his bedroom?

He stared back at Stein. Stein chuckled smugly to himself. Spirit reminded him of a cornered dog… Hackles up (hypothetically so), glaring, tense, lips parted ready to snarl or say something or growl or shout or whatever… Oh, how he'd love to DiSSeCT that… Stein grinned, slipping the lenses back over his face, settling like a glass mask.

Spirit sat on his bed, ready to run, honestly. His animal instincts were on the verge of taking over. Any moment and he'd bolt.

Well, he thought so, anyway. Hoped so…

One could never be sure of these things.

Stein stepped closer… but it was as if he were not moving.

His eyes were hiding again. But his mouth looked kind… Not malicious.

But without eyes you cannot see… Not the real expression.

Not the FEELING.

Although… Stein's eyes seemed not to have FEELING anyway. They showed nothing. So there was almost no difference.

They were just green stones.

Lifeless.

Stein's mouth was once again straight. Less soft, but still not hard.

His body seemed always to be like that. Not soft, not hard, an unhealthy curve to his spine… In between states.

Spirit blinked. He'd drifted. Dumb. Stupid.

…

Idiot.

Stein's hand was on his shoulder. Roughly smooth.

He pushed Spirit down, half on the bed, supporting himself with a knee next to Spirit's hip and a hand on his arm.

He loomed over Spirit. Hell loomed over Spirit.

It was a familiar hell.

He was bathed in Stein's shadow. But the glass-like green circles were clear clear clear… all he could see.

Green rings and a crookedly c-shaped line of stitches like a little curled train track. The eyes small oases. A moon of a grin, crescent and white.

Spirit blinked a few times, realized he'd been holding his breath, inhaled some. Stein was very…

Very

Very

Very

CLOSE.

Spirit felt his eye twitch nervously. Stein's nose was brushing his in a strange way. Like… almost touching… but not. It seemed to be there, but then just a few centimeters away, so not there.

Millimeters.

Five millimeters.

It was like…

Something…?

"You were such a wonderful… test subject…" He pressed down on him like he was…

Gravity.

Stein was heavy… heavy set… heavy weight in his bones… Tall and muscular. He LOOKED like a nerd… but there was more to it than that. Much more indeed.

Spirit couldn't really move. He was pinned. But he didn't really want to move. PINNED… Their noses were definitely touching.

Forehead.

…

Lips.

As he thought.

Not soft, not hard.

"I'm not your test subject…"

"Guess not."

He felt him smirk, rather than saw.

Stein's glasses slid off his face and landed on the bed beside Spirit's cheek. Spirit was freaked out… Stein was frightening, so Spirit wrapped his arms around the man, twined them tight, (under the red-stained lab coat, over the shirt…) his thinking muddled.

He was scary, but also comforting against that scariness.

Spirit took a breath.

"Whatever…"

He didn't care.

Stein let out a quiet, quiet, deep-voiced chuckle.

It was so, so dark, but Spirit didn't care. (The kind of tarry blackness where it doesn't matter whether your eyes are open or closed; it's the same. BLiNDneSS…) He was used to the dark. Even with Stein, (Stein was so heavy.) he liked the darkness.

Hm…

Spirit closed his eyes, closed his eyes, closed them. He moved his thumb in little circles against Stein's shirt. Not for Stein… (To comfort himself.) He needed a distraction, and the fidgeting was a distraction from… It was a distraction.

He felt sort of strangled. He wanted to say something, but he didn't.

All he saw was the two green oases, the tracks, the moon…

He felt like… a little planet orbiting a strangely grayed sun.

A sun pierced with a giant screw to go cricketycrickcrickcrick with every turn… A sun named Doctor Franken Stein.

Mental barbed wire

Slickly polished scalpel blade

The screw

Clickclickclickclickclick…

Spirit sat up with a fluttering gasp, opening his eyes. He blinked a bit, then looked at what was in the corners of his eyes.

Stein stared at him, glass behind lenses, sitting backwards on a chair, hiding glass marbles of that strange emotionless green. No FEELING.

His clothes, hands, shoes, were clean.

No blood.

A slight smile, not soft, not hard.

Spirit couldn't say it. He didn't even know what "it" was. He couldn't voice "it," the strangeness. He crinkled his eyebrows, confused and concerned and a little scared.

Stein gave a little twitch of his lips, almost sweet.

A flash of two green oases… little train tracks…

Moon mouthed smile.

Spirit lay back down. "Hi…" he sighed.

Stein grinned cheerfully, raising a hand in friendly greeting.

"Hello, my most favorite test subject."

Spirit could hear a little lift at the end of his sentence… Like, instead of a period… Stein had punctuated with a heart. Spirit sort of smiled. "Bastard."

The green disappeared with the expression.

Stein settled into watching.

Spirit went about his daily business.

Bathroom.

Clothes.

Shoes…

Flashing oases following his every move.

Strange.

He didn't mind too much, today.

They were…

Comforting.

Not soft, but not hard…