Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/980677.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Soul_Eater
  Relationship:
      Spirit_|_Death_Scythe/Franken_Stein
  Character:
      Spirit_|_Death_Scythe, Franken_Stein
  Additional Tags:
      Mildly_Dubious_Consent, Bondage, Cutting, No_Plot/Plotless, Plot_What
      Plot/Porn_Without_Plot, Hand_Jobs, Blood_Kink, First_Time
  Stats:
      Published: 2013-09-25 Words: 4672
****** Experiments ******
by tastewithouttalent
Summary
     "Stein knew that he skimped on the anesthetic this time." Spirit
     wakes up on Stein's operating table. Stein improvises.
Stein knew that he skimped on the anesthetic this time. He knew before he ever
slid the needle into Spirit’s vein that it wasn’t enough, that Spirit would
certain come back to bleary consciousness well before he was done, and then he
dawdled once the weapon was out so Spirit mumbles and shifts and blinks his
eyes open before Stein has even made his first incision.
Stein sets the scalpel down far to the side, where Spirit won’t see it right
away. He didn’t make a conscious decision to let the older boy wake up this
time, didn’t realize his actions were carefully calculated until the weapon
moved, but now he has what he wanted on some unacknowledged level and he is
feeling the encroaching fear of potential regret that it is too late to go
back.
Spirit blinks at the meister. Stein can see the haze fading from the blue in
his eyes, can see the moment they focus into confused recognition.
“Stein…?” Spirit’s voice is as groggy as his eyes. He blinks again, turns his
head towards the bright white of the overhead lamp. “What…?”
Stein doesn’t have any words for him. He just watches, sees Spirit pull against
the restraints on his hands as he tries to rub his face, pull again, twist his
head to see what is holding him down. He can see the half-asleep consciousness
and confusion shift into fright.
“Stein?” When Spirit looks back up at him there is panic and a plea at the back
of his eyes for comfort, for reassurance that this isn’t exactly what it seems.
They hold each other’s gaze for a long moment, and whatever Spirit sees in
Stein’s face pulls the focus of the fear in his eyes onto Stein directly.
“Stein?” That is almost a whisper, audibly frightened and begging for
reassurance. Stein can’t lie to Spirit, though. He’s never done so before. He’s
not sure he would know how to.
“I’ve been experimenting on you.” The words sound flat and emotionless, like
they carry less of a confession than they do, but Stein is only good at
infusing his words with feeling when he is acting. Sincerity drops him flat and
cold and all he can do right now is pour the truth out and see what happens. “I
bring you in here after you’re asleep, cut you apart.” He reaches out for the
scalpel, holds it up so it catches the light and underlines his words as much
as the visceral pleasure scraping in his voice. Spirit’s eyes snag on the
bright metal but only for a moment before they are back on Stein’s face. “I sew
you back up afterward. I guess you hadn’t noticed yet.”
“...No.” Spirit’s voice is shaking now, his eyes are wide with unmitigated
fright, and Stein can’t bear to see the expression in his eyes and can’t stand
to let him up to run, as he is sure the weapon will run, so he looks away and
down to the half-undone row of buttons on Spirit’s jacket. His left hand toys
with the buttons still in place; his right still holds the scalpel and he can’t
bring himself to put it down. He doesn’t have any idea what he is doing, but
for now his body is willing to lead the way and he lets it. Action is better
than awkward indecision.
“It’s just --” he fumbles for the words. It has never happened before, this
speechlessness, but Stein has never tried to describe something he doesn’t
understand before either. He’s never had something he didn’t understand until
Spirit, never spent so long failing to make sense of a problem. His fingers
hook around the V of the opening of Spirit’s coat, stroke across the shadowed
skin underneath. “You are so interesting, senpai.” Spirit is holding his
breath, muscles tight with fear, and the heartbeat under Stein’s sensitive
fingertips is racing far faster than usual. “I need to find out what makes you
you.”
“I’m not that interesting.” It is an attempt at a joke, but the words catch on
the panic in Spirit’s voice and come out as a stutter. The weapon half-whimpers
when Stein undoes another button before he locks his mouth shut around the
sound. The extra inch lets the top edge of one of Stein’s most recent
experiments show above the fabric of the shirt. Stein trails his fingers over
the raised skin and hums in his throat before he realizes what he is doing.
“It looks right.” He continues down the row of buttons until the front of
Spirit’s shirt is open and he can pull the cloth aside one-handed. Spirit is
shaking, probably mostly from fear and a little from cold, and he hasn’t looked
away from Stein since he realized what is happened, has barely blinked. Stein
has hardly glanced back at him, is fixing his eyes on his partner’s scarred
torso and trailing his fingers across the natural lines of Spirit’s skin and
watching the older boy’s heart beat in the curve of his throat.
“Your hands are cold,” Spirit says, very quietly, and Stein’s not sure he was
meant to hear. He can’t do anything about his hands, but with Spirit awake he
can do what he has always wanted to do and lean down to breathe a lungful of
body-warm air across his exposed skin.
The weapon whimpers, tries to shy away against the ties that don’t let his body
shift more than an inch or two, and Stein smiles even though his hair is
blocking Spirit’s view of his mouth. There is pleasure speeding his heart, dark
delight at having Spirit awake and why didn’t he do this sooner, this is so
much more fun with Spirit awake, and the weak part of himself that tries to
hold him back is panicking at the possible repercussions of this moment but
Stein has never been particularly good at considering the fallout. He can feel
Spirit jerk when his mouth brushes the weapon’s chest, feel the sound Spirit
makes through the vibrations in his lips when he slides his tongue across the
cold sweat on Spirit’s skin, feel the rapidfire pace of Spirit’s heart where
his hand is braced against the other boy’s wrist.
He can feel the moment Spirit stops fighting, when he stops trying to flinch
away and goes limp on the table, but apparent resignation doesn’t stop the
panic in the weapon’s pulse and it doesn’t stop the satisfaction in Stein’s
blood. He’s never done this before, there’s never been a point to anything but
the cutting before, but Spirit is trembling under his hands and his mouth and
his skin tastes salty and Stein can feel the texture of old scars under his
tongue.
Stein feels Spirit’s skin warm before he notices anything else. When he brings
his head up from where he was tracing the weapon’s hip with his tongue,
Spirit’s eyes are tightly shut and his face is lined with concentrated
distance, and the assumed relaxation in his muscles is still there, but there
is a clear trail of pink where Stein’s mouth was.
He isn’t sure for a moment. An experimental touch of fingertips against
Spirit’s chest brings up a matching pattern of red, and the weapon’s breath is
still coming too-fast, but it’s not until Stein drags his hand down Spirit’s
chest to the top of the weapon’s pants that he is sure.
“What are you doing,” Spirit half-protests, but the words are weak in his
throat and his breathing is stuttering like Stein’s fingers are controlling his
air supply.
“Tell me to stop,” Stein says.
“Stein, st --” Spirit tries, but the second syllable is lost in a gasp of air
as Stein presses his fingers hard into Spirit’s thigh and the weapon twists in
a way that is not-quite-away from the touch.
“I’ll stop if you tell me to.” Stein isn’t at all sure this is true, but the
words come out like a purring invitation more than a promise. Spirit opens his
mouth but no sound comes out, and then he looks away from Stein and up into the
light and shuts his eyes and presses his lips together and flushes red all
across his face.
Stein laughs. He can’t help it, the amusement bubbles up his throat like
carbonation and heat is suffusing his blood because he did not expect this,
even in the back of his mind that was carefully planning for Spirit to wake up,
no part of him expected this reaction at all, and the surprise is almost as
delightful as the fact itself, that Spirit is flushing hot under his touch and
his breath is hitching from excitement rather than or at least in addition to
fear. He can see every breath Spirit takes, fluttering against the skin of his
throat and the muscles of his stomach, and when he touches Spirit’s jeans and
slides his hand up, up, up, he can see the tension pull tight against the scars
across Spirit’s skin.
Spirit’s eyes come open when Stein moves away, and this time when they catch on
the scalpel they hold there. Stein can see the heat fade from the weapon’s
face, can see the masking fog of pleasure swept clear by the adrenaline panic
of fright again.
“Tell me to stop,” he says again. This time it sound like a taunt, but Spirit
doesn’t say anything, even though his eyes track the metal until he can’t see
it anymore, even though Stein can see him flinching at the shift of air over
his skin in expectation of pain.
Stein has had enough practice to know how much pressure it takes to break
Spirit’s skin with the edge of the scalpel. When he trails the cold across the
weapon’s stomach, it is deliberately just shy of hard enough, pulling a
panicked whimper from Spirit just before he adds enough pressure to cut him and
turning the whimper into a gust of pained exhalation. The sound trickles
against Stein’s spine, shivering like cold water against the flush of blood in
his body, and he doesn’t realize he is smiling, all teeth and dark raw
pleasure. Spirit doesn’t breathe in again until Stein pulls the blade away from
his skin, and then his inhale is shallow, fluttering in his throat like wings
so fast that hyperventilation is a real possibility. Blood is hot in his face,
tracing circles of red against his cheekbones nearly the color of his hair,
nearly the color of the trail against his abdomen. Stein traces his fingers
against the cut, pulls red in curves against Spirit’s skin and listens to the
weapon’s breathing race faster and faster.
“Breathe,” Stein finally tells him, putting meister-command into his voice, and
Spirit gasps a lungful of air, his body reacting to the order before his mind
can override it. “This will be better if you relax.” Another scrape of metal
against skin, this time not hard enough to break, just to see the shift in
Spirit’s breath, the movement of his body trying to pull away. “Relax.”
Command, again, and Spirit goes limp for a moment as Stein sets pressure
against the scalpel, digging deeper than he strictly intended.
Spirit makes a sound, far in the back of his throat, and it would be Stein’s
name and it would be a plea if it weren’t such an instinctive reaction and so
lined with startled pain. Stein brings his hand up to cover Spirit’s mouth
without dropping the scalpel. Bloody fingerprints set against the corner of the
weapon’s mouth, metal lies flat against his lips.
“Sssh,” Stein offers without any real conviction, reaching out with his free
hand to manage the button on Spirit’s pants. His fingers are loose enough that
Spirit can breathe around them; he can feel the pull of air around his fingers,
the careful, frightened panic in the set of Spirit’s mouth to avoid
accidentally cutting himself on the edge of the metal so close.
The button is difficult to handle one-handed, especially fighting against the
tension in the fabric; after a moment Stein moves his hand so he’s got both
together to attack the problem. The scalpel clatters against the metal of the
table and Spirit jerks his head sideways away from it. With two hands the
button and zipper are easy to manage; as soon as they come free Stein wraps his
fingers around Spirit’s erection through the thin fabric of his boxers,
watching the involuntary jerk of the weapon’s hips but listening to the low
tone to his inhalation. He pulls harder than he should, giving too much
friction too quickly, and Spirit groans, the sound totally wordless this time,
but when Stein releases his grip Spirit’s hips follow his hand as much as they
can and the weapon whimpers, and this time it is Stein’s name, barely there at
all but still present.
“Spirit.” He means it to be teasing, a response to Spirit’s involuntary sound,
but it comes out oddly low and strained, almost purring against his vocal
chords, and Spirit shivers and opens his eyes to look at Stein.
“D-don’t stop.” The words are very soft but Spirit isn’t blinking and his
blood-marked lips are as pink as if Stein has been kissing him rather than
cutting him.
Stein’s can’t help the way his eyebrows climb at that anymore than he can help
the absolutely agonizing rush of blood to his groin. He would have sworn up and
down that he couldn’t possibly be any more aroused than he was already, but it
hits him so hard he has to look away from Spirit’s face before he can make
himself take another breath. His heart is racing when he reaches to pick the
scalpel back up with a hand that only barely shakes, and then Spirit tips his
head out of the way and it pulls the curve of his neck into a smooth line and
it is very, very difficult to not set the blade against that line and trail
feather-delicate scars across it. But he can’t trust his hands properly, not
the way they’re trembling now, not on such a critically dangerous game, so he
makes himself go farther down, consider the relatively clean spread of the
weapon’s chest.
The sound Spirit makes when Stein brushes his fingers against his erection,
lightly this time, barely making contact, goes straight through his blood like
Resonance. He has to set the scalpel down again, trying to steady his breathing
and the shake in his fingers, but Spirit is breathing too fast and he keeps
adjusting his inhales to the weapon’s without meaning to.
“Fuck,” he finally says, sharp and cold in the blurry heat of their shared
breathing, and Spirit jerks, first in surprise and then in frustration as Stein
moves his hand away and braces himself on the edge of the table. There’s not
much space around Spirit’s body but Stein’s still compact, and he’s never been
happier with the delay of his most recent growth spurt than he is now. It’s
easy if not graceful to push himself up onto the table, and any complaint
Spirit has about the shift evaporates into a startled exhale when Stein settles
his weight over Spirit’s hips.
Ah. Yes. Stein’s hands are still shaking but his angle is better from this
position, and he can brace himself against the table, and most importantly he
can angle himself forward and dig his feet into Spirit’s thighs and grind his
hips down like that and for a minute he forgets even the scalpel in his hands
in the drag of friction over his skin and the gasping moan Spirit makes at the
contact. His weapon arches up, trying to shift against the restraints that
don’t allow him enough freedom of movement, and Stein’s eyes land against his
wrists and note that there is definitely going to be some bruising from that.
Spirit doesn’t appear to notice the tension, however, judging from the rate of
his breathing and the gasp in his inhales.
Stein brushes down the center line of Spirit’s chest, just with a fingertip,
and the older boy twists under the contact before he realizes there is no
accompanying pain. His stuttering inhales are slowing; he shuts his eyes and
swallows in a visible attempt to retain some sort of calm, and that is entirely
unacceptable.
Stein rocks back, settling his weight on Spirit’s thighs for a minute so he can
free his hands, and his right hand is still clinging to the blade but he has
practice with his less-preferred left too, enough to wraps his fingers around
Spirit’s erection and his weapon moans, shifts his hips as far up into Stein’s
touch as they will go, and Stein’s not ever done this at this angle before and
it’s strange and backwards and his wrist is at an awkward angle but Spirit is
gasping on every inhale and whimpering on every exhale so he’s doing something
right.
It’s hard to keep his balance with one hand occupied, and when Stein tries to
lean forward it’s more of a topple than a graceful descent, but then he’s got
Spirit underneath him and he can feel Spirit’s breathing instead of just seeing
it and Spirit’s blood is soaking into his own shirt and sticking damp to his
skin and the accidental pressure of his wrist against the front of his pants is
tantalizing and nothing like enough at the same time, but he’s still breathing
hard against Spirit’s collarbone, feels the heat of his breath fogging the air
in front of his mouth. He parts his lips, runs his tongue along the dip of skin
over bone, and Spirit tastes like blood and sweat and sugar.
Spirit’s breath is gusting against Stein’s hair, brushing back tendrils in
uneven patterns, and when Stein looks up to see his face his eyes are open but
unfocused, staring up into the light above them like it’s some puzzle that he
can’t quite make sense of. His eyebrows are curved into confusion over those
blue blue eyes, and Stein brings up his free hand to smooth a thumb over one
without thinking. It streaks red-on-red and Spirit turns his head to look at
Stein, jumping like he’s entirely forgotten where he is.
“Look at me, senpai,” Stein says, the words rising on his tongue with
absolutely no process from his brain because his brain has been out of
commission for several minutes now, and he tightens his grip with his left hand
and Spirit’s lips part in a whimper and he starts to shut his eyes again, and
Stein growls and skims the scalpel across Spirit’s ribcage. It flutters in his
hand, his grip is shaky and the angle is bad and his whole body is trembling
with the tension of holding himself up, but Spirit gasps in shock at the pain
and opens his eyes wide.
“Me,” Stein reiterates, and Spirit blinks and looks at him and his eyes are
still dazed but he is tracking Stein now, his gaze skidding along Stein’s
cheekbones and down his nose and Stein has never blushed before in his life but
blood is rising under his skin to follow Spirit’s eyes and now he’s breathing
fast, speeding past Spirit’s rhythm all at once, and his angled strokes are
increasing in pace too.
Spirit is pulling hard against the restraints, this close Stein can see the
blood rising under skin torn thin with friction, and this is stupid this angle
is wrong and he can barely hold the scalpel right now anyway. He drops the
blade. It clatters to the floor but he barely notices it, reaching up to tug at
the ties on Spirit’s wrist. The right one is easy -- Spirit even goes slack to
give him the freedom to work it loose -- but Stein failed to count on Spirit’s
activity once he had a hand free. The weapon twists under him, almost knocking
Stein off the table with more strength than Stein thought he had, and reaches
to undo his other wrist. Stein is trying to reach it as well, but his balance
is severely compromised and he’s not as tall as Spirit is and the weapon gets
to it first, and as soon as his hands are free he is surging up towards Stein,
his bruised hands fisting into the meister’s tangled silver hair and pulling
Stein’s mouth to his so hard that their teeth hit together and Stein’s mouth
fills with the taste of his blood as his lip catches and tears. It is not
pleasant but Spirit is growling against his bleeding lips and that is quite
pleasant, and then Spirit grabs Stein’s hip with one hand and the front of his
pants with the other, and Stein makes a sound that he has never made before in
his life and loses his balance. Luckily they go back to the table instead of
sideways, but Spirit pushes them back up and is trying to manage Spirit’s pants
and talk around Stein’s mouth, and after several attempts manages to hiss
“Untie my feet.”
It’s impossibly hard to move away from him, to retreat from the hold of
Spirit’s hands on him and the magnetism of Spirit’s mouth, but Stein can’t
reach Spirit’s feet without moving and eventually Spirit shoves him backwards.
Stein falls off the table, landing hard on the floor, and it is painful enough
that he would pause but there are much more important things to worry about and
by the time he is on his feet Spirit has slid forward and is pulling at the
cuff around his right ankle so Stein can focus on the left.
As the restraints come undone Stein realizes that he has lost control of the
situation, that he has no idea what to do now with Spirit awake and conscious
and free, but Spirit is sliding forward and appears to have some idea, and then
Spirit’s feet hit the floor and his hands lock onto Stein’s shoulders and he
promptly falls over, pulling the meister down with him.
Spirit lands on top and knocks all the wind out of Stein, and this is going
to really hurt once the adrenaline wears off. Spirit is shoving him down with a
hand on his shoulder and the weapon is looking down with a half-smirk that
Stein recognizes from the mirror more than from Spirit himself.
“Did you drug me?” he asks.
Stein can’t breathe at all, still hasn’t caught his breath from the fall or the
racing of his pulse, and he tries to say “Yes” but can’t manage the word so he
just nods instead.
“You bastard,” Spirit offers, and slides his fingers down the front of Stein’s
pants and boxers to skim his fingers across his erection. Stein entirely stops
breathing. “You sick freak. Can’t even seduce someone right.” The words are
aggressive but his touch is feather-light and he is still smiling like Stein
does and Stein can’t remember how his hands work. “Don’t ever do this again.”
Stein still can’t get his lungs to work on their own, so his breathing is
staticy when he remembers to inhale and exhale consciously, but he does manage
to get his right hand to the open front of Spirit’s jeans. His fingers almost
don’t obey, but then they close around Spirit’s erection through the cloth and
Spirit hums, shuts his eyes, and his smile turns into a real one, his own.
“Okay,” he allows, breathy and high. “You can do this again.” He rocks back on
his heels, frees his other hand so he can open Stein’s pants, and Stein lets
his eyes trace the trickle of blood down the weapon’s chest while his hand sets
a pace in time with Spirit’s breathing instead of his own choking pattern. It
still feels strange and backwards but when he tightens his grip Spirit’s
eyelashes flutter and he groans, and Stein can feel the tension in Spirit’s
thighs at his hips so he must be doing something right.
Spirit gets Stein’s pants open and wraps his hand around the meister’s cock and
Stein has to shut his eyes for a moment because he can feel all the differences
in Spirit’s hands, the shorter fingers and the different pattern of calluses
and the strange angle and the unfamiliar stroke and he didn’t really think
about how good the differences would feel. They spark through his veins like
electricity and fire and he doesn’t realize that he is sighing on his exhale
until he feels the sound vibrating in his throat. Spirit laughs, low and
pleased, and then Stein presses his thumb against the almost-fist he is making
and it twists into a hiss of satisfaction.
Stein is trying to focus, he really is, but the sensation is too much almost to
stand, Spirit is squeezing harder than Stein usually does himself and his hand
is so very warm and either Stein’s eyes are open and he can see
Spirit’s mouth or he shuts them and he sees the very recent past replaying
behind his eyelids and his body is tipping towards orgasm embarrassingly fast
in spite of Spirit’s head start. Spirit keeps speeding up, changing his angle
and increasing the pressure so Stein can’t catch his breath, and his own
fingers are going loose and his pattern long ago ceased to exist but he can’t
regain his grip on his senses, everything is whiting out at the edges like the
light haloing Spirit’s red hair over him, and his body lights up with white-hot
pleasure and Stein loses track of his hands and his voice and his vision and
for a moment there is just satisfaction low in his stomach and rippling out
into his toes and fingers.
It only lasts a few seconds, he thinks, but it feels like the world has come to
a halt in the time it takes for his senses to come back and tell him what he is
doing. He’s turned sideways, curled half around Spirit’s leg, and his bloody
hand is in his hair and his mouth is open and he probably looks approximately
like he’s been shocked, and Spirit’s hand has gone still and he is looking at
Stein like the world just rearranged itself around the meister.
They stare at each other for a moment, Stein blinking like he’s never seen
anything before and Spirit frozen entirely still, and then Stein’s fingers
catch up to his brain and he reaches back down for Spirit’s erection because he
has priorities.
Spirit lets Stein go, shifts a sticky hand to the meister’s hip to mirror his
other, and stops protesting, just lets his shoulders slump forward and his
mouth drop open and gives all his attention to Stein’s unpracticed movements.
Stein wants Spirit to look at him, wants to see those blue eyes, but he doesn’t
remember how to talk and at this angle he can see every time a shudder ripples
across Spirit’s shoulders, and he’s not really going to argue about that. He
pushes up with his free hand so he’s closer; he can’t quite sit up with Spirit
on his lap like he is, but he is eye-level with the fall of Spirit’s hair and
up close he can hear the stutter in Spirit’s throat and the weapon is really
very close.
Once more, twice, three times, and then on the fourth Spirit arches back, tips
his head up to the light, and moans “Stein” as if he always says Stein’s name
when he comes, and the idea is very nearly enough to distract Stein from the
way he can see the muscles in Spirit’s stomach flex, from the way Spirit’s body
curves out instead of in like his does, from the tracery of shallow cuts all
across Spirit’s torso. Not quite, of course. He has sorted out his priorities
now. And besides, there will be other experiments.
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