Written for qdeanna on tumblr who said, "I am waiting for Franken to collapse or express pain or something after telling Rai not to worry. Like, all those long stares should lead up to something, right? How he simultaneously trusts and distrusts Frankenstein I just, I just want some drama, some consequences."

Chapter follows directly after Chapter 507 Noblesse.

To Look

Sometimes, when all was quiet and there was nothing left to augment, no painting to straighten to the millimetre, no glass to polish, no plants to water, no bones to mend — nothing at all left to be done — he caught Raizel looking at him.

"Master?" Frankenstein removed his glasses and met his gaze. "Is there something you would like me to do?"

Raizel shook his head. "No."

Frankenstein started to notice it.

From across the dinner table between the chattering children, or in the healing chamber's reflection as they stood shoulder to shoulder, or above on the balcony under the yellow light of the lamps, or out in the field when he looked away from his enemy, Frankenstein turned his head to glance at Raizel. Raizel was watching him. Every time, Raizel was watching him.

"Are you sure there's nothing I may do for you?" Frankenstein said, abandoning his glasses on the lab table and getting up, going to him.

He crossed the room, going past Raizel's seat to make him a cup of tea. Raizel watched him go past. Then, at the very last moment, Raizel abruptly extended a hand, grabbing his sleeve. Frankenstein came to a forceful stop.

"…Master?"

There was a pause where Raizel stopped to think, and think carefully about it. Frankenstein waited for his answer.

"It's too much," Raizel settled on saying.

Too much?

Too much of what?

His hand slid down his sleeve, clasping the palm of Frankenstein's hand, but Frankenstein did not clasp him back. Raizel's hand was hot against his skin. Frankenstein sighed apologetically and slipped out of his grasp.

"It's cold. My hands are cold."

The clink of chopsticks on the side of a stemmed glass snapped his attention back to the table.

"First, I'd like to thank my lord and saviour — My Boss — Principal Lee of Yeran High, yo holla!" Tao raised his glass of coca cola so high with so much force half of it spilled into the sizzling bulgogi dish. "Today, we're celebrating Frankenstein beating the living shit out of the Union top brass maniac — the First Elder!"

"Hear, hear," Takeo said, his composure finally breaking into a large grin. He moved to salute Frankenstein with his lemonade.

"Cheers," Seira said, and lifted her energy drink in a stemmed glass.

This was met with everyone raising their glasses just as high, until a glass-raising contest started between Regis and M-21, who thrusted their glasses higher and higher until Regis contemplated standing on his seat to match up.

"I'm so glad you killed my old Boss, Boss," Tao said in an artificially tearful voice. "And of course, to Boss' Boss, who also finished off my old Boss! I'm so happy and thankful!" Tao started manically laughing as he clinked glasses with Frankenstein, and then moved to the other end of the table to clink Raizel's.

Frankenstein chuckled lowly as he took the compliment. "I'm glad we've won your freedom. I'm glad you're all here to celebrate it. I won't stop until we've won everyone else's as well. To the First Elder's demise," Frankenstein said, "And then whoever else is left in the Union." He tipped his glass back.

"Yeah, to that!" Tao said, standing up to toast again.

"Ditto," M-21 remarked.

"We'll get there," Takeo said, filling up Frankenstein's glass again.

Suddenly, on the other side of the table, Frankenstein was acutely aware of Raizel's silence.

"Thank you, Takeo." Frankenstein raised his glass once more, to Raizel. Just Raizel. He said nothing.

Raizel's lips turned upwards into a small smile. He mirrored him, and Frankenstein felt something warm and steady pulse in his chest.

In the lab, Frankenstein quickly regretted his actions as Raizel seemed to sink back into his seat, sinking further away from him. With a turn of his wrist, white gloves materialised out of nothing. He quickly went before him, went to a knee, and took the hand that had tried to hold him. Frankenstein bent and kissed the ring. It was warm from Raizel wearing it. He looked tentatively upwards.

"I'm sorry. Your hands are warm, mine are cold from working. I just didn't want you to get cold. It's just — unpleasant." Frankenstein swallowed and made himself speak. If not now, when could he ask him for something so crucial to understanding this sudden change? "I don't understand what you want me to do."

Raizel's eyes were red like vermillion as they looked at him. His lips thinned uncomfortably, his brow furrowing until it changed the shadows on his face.

"What is too much?" Frankenstein asked. He waited for an answer that would come late.

In the werewolves' facility, Frankenstein rearranged things on a clipboard, mouthing silent calculations to no one. "Are these up to date?" Finally looking up, he faced the first person he could see.

It was Raizel, who had come close to him without him somehow noticing and was blinking in mild confusion. "Um. I will find Lunark to ask her."

Frankenstein's mouth dropped open. "No! I mean—"

Raizel turned back to him, looking apologetic.

"—I didn't mean to ask you, Master! Please, you should take a seat and rest," he said, but it came out as half gibberish. "I'll find Lunark myself."

As Frankenstein moved to go past him, Raizel pressed a hand to his stomach. Startled, Frankenstein let Raizel push him back, gently.

"No," Raizel said, watching him. "I will do as needed."

He walked off, leaving Frankenstein alone wondering what he'd done.

Frankenstein turned on the lights on the balcony before joining Raizel. The cool air blew pleasantly in his face as he looked at the sky. Frankenstein leaned onto one side of the rails, Raizel was standing a safe distance behind it on the other. After a long moment, it was Raizel who broke the silence.

"Humans have even reached this far."

"Yes," Frankenstein replied. "…It's daunting, isn't it? Weapons hanging in the sky, able to shoot down millions on the whim of a madman. It will take so long to find and dismantle them all. And then, even longer to make up for lost progress." He had him. He had the First Elder right within his and Dark Spear's grips. He could have killed him, and he could have ended this all, but his chance had vanished away.

Frankenstein pressed his palms into the wood of the rails, and then stopped suddenly when he realised he could very easily break it. Raizel was still standing nearby, listening. "…I didn't mean to be so bleak."

He turned. Instead of looking at the sky, Raizel was looking at Frankenstein. There was a heavy, pensive look on his face, one that reflected a semblance of how old he really was, how much he'd really seen.

"Frankenstein," Raizel said, his voice rasping like it was brushing against something abrasive, "You are bleeding."

On the wood of the rails, blood was seeping into the cracks and dripping down in straight lines.

"I am the power created by humans to protect humanity," the First Elder had announced, the sword forced into existence from stolen souls resting lazily on his neck, like a trophy.

Like a medal earned and owned.

"Are you not getting tired rambling on and on about that nonsense?" Frankenstein scoffed, hearing parts of Dark Spear slip into his voice. It made hims sound like broken voices, parts of things, tied together.

Hovering high above the earth in the sky, he looked down.

There was Raizel, looking at him again. Looking up. Looking at him with those eyes and that face and that tightly subdued aura, like there was something awful he was stopping from getting out. Every time he happened to check, Raizel had his eyes fixed on him like Frankenstein was the only thing compelling his universe to move.

It was so still and piercing and, and terrible, Frankenstein finally looked away.

"Master, you should look for Muzaka." Frankenstein kept his eyes on the enemy now. "He might have been caught in the explosion before. I'll finish them off and come find you."

He couldn't help himself. He looked down again at those melancholic eyes.

"Frankenstein," Raizel said, and he put his soul into it, something breaking over Frankenstein like a wave. On the ground, Raizel's lips were moving, and in his head, Frankenstein heard his voice. "I'll be waiting for you."

Frankenstein hovered, savouring it. "…Yes, Master."

The First Elder scoffed. "Are you quite done?"

"Quite. Thanks for waiting." Dark Spear screamed like a thousand chirping birds, and burned their way up his face, and Frankenstein let them. He didn't think he could bear it if Raizel kept watching. Kept looking at him as he burned.

The truth was, he revelled in it.

"Oh," Frankenstein started on the balcony. His first instinct was to hide the wounded arm in question. "I'm quite alright. Excuse me."

"You don't have to worry," he said as he smiled largely in the lab, reassuring Raizel, who had always taken his word for it.

"What is too much?" Frankenstein repeated in their home, deep in the night.

"Everything."

Raizel turned his hand to grasp Frankenstein's instead, and with complete forwardness, pulled his sleeve up him arm. Frankenstein's breath stuttered in his throat.

"…It's been days. You have been trying to track the looming weapons. You have been healing Muzaka. You have been nursing the injured werewolves from the battle. You have not rested since you've fought the First Elder. And yet you still move to bring me tea. You work into the night. You ask me what more you could do," Raizel said, and it sounded like his voice was being dropped down a gaping hole, getting quieter and harder to discern every moment more.

"It's too much. You're doing too much, Frankenstein," he breathed.

Frankenstein often caught Raizel looking at him as if Frankenstein was his world, and Frankenstein didn't always know what, for the life of him, to do with that information. That fact.

The cold air met the raw wounds on Frankenstein's shoulder and arms from where the First Elder had pierced from one side to the other. The open wound had mostly healed over without him doing anything. It was a simple wound. A clean one. Any infections he could get he could deal with. There was nothing wrong with leaving something trivial to be—

It hit Frankenstein like a freight train, like being forced to his knees before someone who wasn't his master, and he felt dirty for it, dirtier being like that for a single humiliating second than getting his body bloody and bruised in the dirt.

It was blood. There was the bitter, iron tang of blood in his mouth.

Frankenstein couldn't stop himself, couldn't help but cough and splutter, wanting to get it out. It was already too late when he came back to himself and realised he'd practically spat in Raizel's lap. He'd fucking…spat blood into master's lap.

With a spastic jolt, he startled backwards, feeling more rise up in his throat. But Raizel did not let go. He went forward with him, followed Frankenstein onto his knees on the dirtied lab ground and held him as his energy evaporated, until his body realised it was languid and powerless and utterly exhausted.

"Frankenstein…" Raizel said, his mouth close to Frankenstein's ear like he feared he wouldn't be heard, "Frankenstein…aren't I the one who must bleed?"

Frankenstein made a tired sound as Raizel raised a hand, wiping warm blood from the corner of his lip. Red Spear. For how much time did he use the Red Spear? What would the effect be to use it alongside his Dark Spear? Too much, it seemed.

All too much.

"…Master…" Frankenstein looked up at Raizel, meeting his eyes. "I…didn't know I was betraying your trust."

He didn't know? When did he start saying excuses, when did he start daring to say them to Raizel's face?

Cadis Etrama di Raizel would not refuse to listen to his bonded's advice, act without question if he asked for it, or leave him alone on the battlefield on the whim of a word, because he, without hesitation, trusted Frankenstein's judgement. He did not blame Frankenstein for breaking his orders and unleashing Dark Spear, because he trusted Frankenstein that it was pertinent, it was needed. He trusted Frankenstein to use Red Spear, Raizel's own powers and the power of Lukedonia's Noblesse. And above all, he trusted Frankenstein to come back unharmed. To do the job, and come back in one piece. Come back unhurt.

I trust Frankenstein completely.

Frankenstein told Raizel not to worry, and smiled at him while bleeding inside and out. It usually didn't matter. He was usually fine. He'd done it many times before. It was always fine.

This time, it was Frankenstein shedding blood from the mouth, exhausted out of his mind as his body finally collapsed.

"I'm sorry."

Raizel just knelt there, saying nothing, wiping muck off Frankenstein's face with his fingers. "I don't blame you. I do not blame you. But I will not let this happen again." His voice was harsh, all of a sudden. "I will not watch you work yourself to exhaustion."

Raizel moved Frankenstein into a more comfortable position, draped an arm over his shoulders, and helped him up. As they climbed into the elevator together, Frankenstein focused on keeping his breathing levelled. After a while, he looked up.

Raizel was facing him, looking at him from only inches away.

"Why do you keep looking at me?"

Raizel blinked, his brow furrowing a little.

"You…you used to look outside. You liked looking at your special things, outside the window. You always did."

Raizel's face went into a look of surprise. But, then, he smiled. A warm, genuine smile. "I used to look at the things I admire. Can I not look at the person I admire?"

Raizel watched Frankenstein's face become red, and probably felt Frankenstein's heart start to flutter.

"Can I not look at you as I please?"

As Frankenstein scrambled to find words, Raizel lifted Frankenstein's hand. Without warning, he manoeuvred the glove between his teeth, and began pulling it off in an agonisingly slow action. It landed unceremoniously on the floor. Raizel bent his head, brushed his lips on Frankenstein's hand, and kissed him.

"…Master," Frankenstein whimpered, his head feeling light. He let himself break a little and rest his head on Raizel's shoulder.

"Rest, Frankenstein," Raizel told him warmly, reassuring him, "When you are well, I will be the one to bring you tea, and I will help you with all that you need help with. Sleep, Frankenstein, be rested."

Frankenstein did not recover from Raizel's explanation as he let himself be led into dreamless sleep.

Notes

If someone as strong as Rai has to cough blood as a side effect of using his powers, Franken absolutely should be doubled over hacking his guts out after borrowing Red Spear. No offence, but Franken isn't untouchable. He even used Red Spear whilst using Dark Spear. The absolute madman.