Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/28061.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Soul_Eater
  Relationship:
      Spirit/Franken_Stein
  Character:
      Franken_Stein, Spirit_(Death_Scythe)
  Additional Tags:
      Somnophilia, Masturbation, Sadism, Community:_kink_bingo, Canon_-_Manga,
      Pre-Canon, Non_Consensual
  Stats:
      Published: 2009-06-08 Words: 1805
****** Awakening ******
by Amber
Summary
     Pre-canon. Spirit-senpai is a deep sleeper. | Stein's watched Spirit
     sleep before, but he still finds the process clinically fascinating;
     the slow relaxation of the muscles in his face, the flutter of pulse
     at his throat and breath in his fringe and eyes darting rapidly in
     REM behind their closed lids.
Notes
     Written for the kink_bingo Wild Card slot: Sleepy/Unconscious.
They've been working as partners for almost five years, but it had only taken
six months for Stein to learn the two things about Spirit that would keep their
partnership from falling apart.
Firstly, the guy's a deep sleeper. At the precise dip of a blade into the back
of his calf he barely stirs from slumber, and the perfect gape of the slice is
clean for a moment before blood beads up, dark and red, both augmenting and
assuaging something similar inside Stein, something dark and red lurking at the
back of his throat, its claw-marks on his heart.
Secondly, even when he's awake, Spirit is the most oblivious person Stein
knows.
"Hey, I guess I got cut at practice after all," he tells Stein, hooked
backwards over the back of the couch, elbows akimbo and neck tilting endlessly
to the side to create a steady waterfall of soft red hair.
"Hnn?" Stein doesn't look up from his stitching, long tight pulls patching a
hole in one of Spirit's shirts, peering over his newly-acquired glasses like a
stern aunt (a comparison Spirit has already learned not to vocalize if he
doesn't want to be threatened with one of Stein's scalpels.)
"My leg kinda— I mean it's probably nothing, I haven't really looked at it or
anything, so it's not a big deal. It just kinda aches a little, when I kick it
high." Why he'd been kicking it like that was lost to the realms of
speculation.
"I can look at it for you, if you want," Stein says around a needle hanging
from his mouth like a cigarette. "I'm gonna be a doctor one day."
As though Spirit hadn't heard that before. Doctor one day, he told Stein
repeatedly, didn't make him capable now. Usually while he was bleeding
obscenely after a battle and trying not to notice the way Stein's gaze lingered
on his injuries. But he's also seen the stack of textbooks next to Stein's bed
filled with impossibly long Latin vernacular and creepy pictures of internal
organs. (The latter Stein likes to trace with one long, pale finger; Spirit has
seen him doing it and shuddered, watched him mouthing the names of ventricles
as he caressed a picture of a heart.)
So Spirit swings himself over the back of the couch with an ease that belies
this supposed ache; it wobbles like it might tilt backwards and then thumps
back hard onto the floor when he lands in the cushions.
The examination is cursory. "It's fine," says Stein, and when he lies to Spirit
he thinks of weeping wounds, the strange give of Spirit's skin as he'd tugged
the thread through and patched it together, and he smiles. What Spirit doesn't
know won't hurt him... not seriously, anyway. Not in any way Stein can't fix.
Stein has the advantage; he always has the advantage, even if he's younger and
smaller and Spirit thinks he knows everything the world can hold. That's just
the way it works
Then they have their first long-distance assignment.
After the kill (Stein watching with his usual creepy over-fascination as Spirit
absorbs the Kishin egg) they find the place Shinigami-sama organized for them
to stay overnight in. It's shitty pseudo-modern motel where the owner is fat
and the paint is flaking off the walls in sheets. The light is electric and
yellow, the mosquitoes are everywhere, the curtains have the same pattern as
the dishcloth, and there's only one double bed.
It seems clean enough, though the linen has the ancient hints of long-washed,
long-faded stains, mould or something worse, and the mattress has an
unfortunate dip in the middle. At first sight Spirit wrinkles his nose fussily,
but then Stein says smugly: "That's okay, I'll take it," like he's doing Spirit
a favour and that's enough for them both to end up lying in it come bedtime,
muscles awkwardly rigid as they both try not to roll towards the center.
Stein's watched Spirit sleep before, but he still finds the process clinically
fascinating; the slow relaxation of the muscles in his face, the flutter of
pulse at his throat and breath in his fringe and eyes darting rapidly in REM
behind their closed lids. He's only half-sleepy himself, distant from his
body's exhaustion but enjoying the tantalisingly treacherous promise of
oblivion. He drowses, relaxing towards a center of gravity that pulls them both
unerringly.
He doesn't remember closing his eyes, but when they open again Spirit is very
close, one arm draped heavy over the edge of Stein's ribcage. They're pressed
together, thigh to thigh, and Spirit's face is too shadowed to tell whether
he's awake or sleeping. He murmurs something softly and leans closer, his lips
pressing against Stein's.
Time freezes. Something like bile rises in Stein's throat as Spirit's tongue
darts out into the sloppy kiss. There's a hand on his back, too, moving
fitfully to pull him closer, and Stein can feel the nudge of Spirit's erection
against his thigh. He swallows, and it sounds like it should be loud enough in
the claustrophobic silence to startle Spirit awake — but it isn't. It doesn't.
Stein remembers with a lurch of his stomach: senpai sleeps deep.
Stein knows he could say something, or shake him, or pull away, but he doesn't
do any of those things; just lays impassively as Spirit's mouth trails along
his jaw, nibbling lightly, a puff of a happy sigh hot on his slick skin. It
feels good, but he's not sure yet whether it's the closeness or the empty slump
of Spirit's shoulders that is making him hard.
The blankets shift, and Stein starts like a frightened horse when he thinks
maybe Spirit is waking up. Adrenaline floods through his system, making
everything seem sharper, giving him an acute awareness of every inch of his
body and making his cock pulse — but it's a baseless fear. Instead he realizes
Spirit has rolled his hips back a little, and from the small movements near his
thigh he deduces Spirit is touching himself through his thin pyjama pants,
movements quiet with sleep.
His own hand has been dangling listlessly between them. Stein creeps it forward
by degrees until he can map out the curve of Spirit's hipbone through touch.
There's another miniscule shift that feels as tumultous as an earthquake and
Stein feels Spirit grab his wrist, press his clenched hand tight against his
erection. Stein uncurls and recurls his fingers around it, squeezes
tentatively. Spirit moans the shape of a girl's name and his cock jumps in
Stein's hand.
Then they're kissing again. Stein allows himself to try it, this time, and this
is his first kiss, Spirit's heavy breath tickling his face, his tongue sliding
out the edges of where their mouths meet, their teeth clicking together. Spirit
tastes like toothpaste and it makes Stein want to gag. "Please," he mumbles
indistinctly around the kiss and Stein thinks he might come right then and
there, without even a single real touch.
With a high, girlish and utterly vulnerable series of whimpers, Spirit thrusts
into his hand, and Stein can feel the way he's making the pyjamas damp and
sticky against his palm. Stein dares to move, then, rolling further on top of
Spirit, his hand pulling cloth out of the way. Spirit moves a leg and presses
accidentally against Stein's cock, and for a moment he forgets what he's doing
and just gives himself to frottage, slipping into one of the empty cracks in
his mind.
When the world comes back, Spirit's cock is naked and hard in his hand and he's
saying something insensible, speaking in tongues.
Stein bites down on the other's lip until he tastes blood, but even that
doesn't wake Spirit up, just makes him buck and spill unexpectedly, trembling
all over, his breathy sigh belated. His grip on Stein's wrist relaxes. He's
already cuddling closer even as Stein withdraws his hand, taking a moment from
his tactical retreat to pull Spirit's pants back into place.
This is too much. Spirit already seems to be sinking away from whatever his
dream had been, and Stein ducks out from under his arm, his movements shakingly
slow as he tries to control the frenzied panic bubbling up inside him.
The bathroom light seems cold and sterile against the chipped tiles, strangely
comforting. Stein jerks himself off hard, trying not to think about anything —
but images of Spirit's sleeping face keep shattering the blackness behind his
squeezed-shut eyes, two years older than him and manlier, a dusting of stubble
that could never be a beard, the slack droop of his mouth, they way he'd murmur
with muzzy discontent as Stein stitched his sleeping form back together again,
the taste of his blood in both their mouths— fuck.
Stein comes without a sound, his panting fogging the bathroom mirror.
Afterwards he scrubs his hands raw in the cold brown trickle from the tap and
stares at himself; his lips are swollen and his pupils blown wide like madness.
This is completely outside his experience, and so for now he packages it all
away in a corner of his mind, something he's only just beginning to get used to
doing. He's fairly sure there's something incredibly wrong with him, but that
doesn't really register as a surprise.
The next morning Spirit shakes him awake from where he's curled up on the
couch. "Hey, c'mon, we'll miss our train." He's already dressed, vivid blue
eyes slanted quizzically. "Why are you sleeping here, anyway?"
"You snore," says Stein huffily, sitting upright and not letting himself glance
away.
"I do not!" objects Spirit too-loudly, and hits him with the nearest pillow.
"You're just weird, is all. Now hurry up, I already got you breakfast, so all
you have to do is get changed, if you're even gonna do that. All your clothes
are the same anyway. Didn't I tell you when we met that sleeping in them was
gross? Anyway, I know you like pancakes but they ran out, so I got you eggs and
a donut..."
Stein lets his weapon's babble wind monotonously past him as he begins to get
ready to go. Everything has changed, and yet somehow absolutely nothing is
different. He drags a comb through the sleek pale strands of his wet hair, eyes
the pyjama pants bundled around themselves in a way that screams embarrassment,
stuffed into a corner of Spirit's suitcase. He grins at himself ferociously in
the mirror.
It's definite, then. Spirit is the most oblivious idiot Stein will ever meet.
He makes a mental note to ask Shinigami-sama for more outfield assignments, as
they walk out into the chill Fall air and leave the seedy motel room behind
them. It'll make for good practice, and besides. What Spirit doesn't know won't
hurt him, right?
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