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takeyourcyanide · 3 days

Text

Woeful

AO3

I would just like to say that I think this may or may not have gone completely off the rails. But that’s fine. Because so does Soul Eater. I have also never written smut before in my life, so I hope it’s not a complete dumpster fire! I think it started out fine, and then just plummeted and diverged haha. We’ll see. This is a very experimental fic for me. This might’ve ended up out of character. Whoopsies.

CWs: Porn, implied emotional manipulation and neglect, jealousy issues on both Stein and Kami’s end, internalized misogyny (a little) on Kami’s end, mentions of Stein’s experimenting on Spirit, infidelity, underage alcoholism, teen pregnancy, consensual underage sex, slight physical abuse (?) near the end, toxic relationships

Fandom: Soul Eater

Character(s): Spirit Albarn, Kami (Maka’s mother), Franken Stein, brief mentions of Marie Mjolnir and Joe Buttataki

Word count: 10 192

Tags: hurt/comfort, underage drinking, porn with plot, men crying, verbal humiliation, teen romance, teen angst, teen pregnancy, drinking to cope, angst and porn, praise kink, sadism, masochism, emotional manipulation, resolved sexual tension, infidelity, slapping (Kami slaps Spirit), sexual content, not beta read, etc.

Summary: Kami tells Spirit that she’s pregnant. There’s another thing that she’s also been keeping from him, however, that sends him spiraling into drinking and infidelity with his ex-partner.

Notes: I began with the idea that I’d explore teen pregnancy and its effects on teenagers, Spirit and Kami in this case, as well as how their immaturity, irresponsibility, and vices might effect them during such a trying time. This may or may not have became something entirely different. Oops. It’s a bit of everything, from toxic relationships to alcoholism. So, here, hope you like over 10k words of pure angst. And smut. I made Spirit extremely pathetic in this one. I simultaneously hate this and love it. It’s horrible. LMAOOO. I can never stick to one goddamn thing because I’m tangential. It’s everything. I really need to learn how to. But I’ve written over ten thousand words and I’m not putting that to waste.

Spirit gripped the edges of Kami’s marble countertop with a fervor he was not aware that he possessed; his knuckles just as white as the petals of a daisy, his fingertips vermillion. As he stared down into the sink, not daring to face himself in the bathroom mirror, he forced the bile rising in his throat back down, a stirring cocktail of trepidation, consternation, excitement, joy, shame, and grief falling upon him all at once.

“Spirit… I’m pregnant,” the words screamed repeatedly within the confines of his shaken skull, the perturbation in his lover’s voice still just as apparent as it had been mere moments ago.

He had given his whole life away for the sake of one night of pleasure and passion. Or multiple nights. There was no telling when and where the growing fetus was conceived if he was being entirely honest with himself.

Albarn threw his head back and forth, a repetitive motion, as his nose scrunched, his eyebrows furrowing in terror. His mouth opened and closed, searching for anything at all to respond with.

“Ar… Are you sure?” He began, lifting his slouched figure from the cool and comforting, sturdy rigidity of the counter, looking Kami up and down, his eyes scanning each and every atom surrounding him, panicking. “I mean - how many tests did you take?!”

“Four! I took four, Spirit! Four different pregnancy tests!” She shook her own head in mild disbelief, as though it was completely inconceivable that the results flashed before her eyes on the stick could ever be potentially false. “And they all said ‘positive’!” Kami slapped her hands together, her eyes bugging out of her head, her lips pursed.

“Fuck,” Spirit ran a stressed hand through his crimson hair, deeply swallowing whatever so much as desired to escape from his mouth.

“So, what? You’re not gonna run away and become a deadbeat, are you?” Her voice trembled, her lips quivering, as she forced down the welling and unwelcome tears.

“Death, no! No, no, no, Kami… I know I’m an asshole, but come on,” the scythe rushed over to her, gripping her shoulders, a more sympathetic expression on his countenance than before. “I’d never do that, I promise you. I will love you and this baby, it’s just… Shit…”

“I know, we’re both young..”

“Young and fucking stupid, clearly! We’re seventeen, Kami!” He released a troubled and disquieted chuckle. “I thought you were on birth control?!”

“I lied…”

Her flushed, timorous face left him reeling, as the revelation of the very fact that yet another person he put all of his trust into demonstrably lied to him smacked him upside his gullible, naive head.

“Kami…” Spirit stood, stiff and still, as he simply stared at the meister with wide, alert, and betrayed eyes.

“I thought you wouldn’t want to do anything if I made you wear a condom, or something,” she rushed out in a frenzy, her tone bashful and ashamed, as one stray tear finally spilled.

“Are you kidding me?” His voice was hoarse, hushed. It was evident to anyone purely based upon his expression and shock-induced stupor how thrown for a loop he’d been. He could no longer raise his mortified and stunned voice, resorting to just staring continuously down at the bright tiles underneath him.

“I’m sorry… I know it was dumb, okay?” More and more tears bolted down her cheeks, her hands coming up to her swelling eyes, rubbing them in a harsh and disorganized manner.

Albarn raised his gaze to meet his lover’s, a sudden surge of guilt and empathy swirling inside of him, mixing with the rage and resentment he thought he’d never be able to feel towards Kami.

“Please don’t cry, I hate it when you cry… I want to be fucking mad at you, shit,” he suppressed the tears he felt creeping up on him, emerging from his eyes.

Spirit outstretched his arms, wrapping them around her shuddering form, Kami burying her sodden face into his chest, the thumping of his heart audible.

Listening to his heartbeat was typically something she found rather soothing, but with how rapidly it was banging against his sternum, it only served as a reminder of how monstrously she’d screwed up.

“It’s okay.. It’ll all be okay, baby,” he murmured, lips against her hair as he sappily kissed her. “We can do this..”

“You sure? Our lives just started, Spirit, are they already over?” Albarn placed the palm of his hand on her scalp, his lithe fingers gently scratching, as he mulled everything over, unable to process the newfound information.

“They’re not over.. And even if they are, it’s because a new one’s begun, right? Yeah?” Whether Spirit wanted to admit it or not, he was attempting to convince himself more so than Kami.

🥃

They had long since exited the incandescent bathroom, now both perched upon their leather sofa, entirely silent, all that was left unspoken speaking cacophonous volumes.

Spirit held a book in his hands, of which had been sitting on the side table for weeks, Kami’s tired head resting upon his shoulder, as he merely stared blankly at the words, poorly feigning focus, each and every letter blurring together and forming into one large amalgamation of ink, not even putting in the effort to turn a page once in a while.

Kami simply fiddled with her phone - too, pretending to be impressively engrossed by whatever social media she was scrolling endlessly through.

Neither of them spared so much as a curious glance at the other.

That is, until Kami tossed her cellphone to the side, the device delicately plopping on the cushion beside her.

“Spirit?” Her voice possessed a solemn and chilling timbre, as she spoke under her breath.

“What is it?” He shut his book, returning it to its former place on the side table, his full and undivided attention on his meister upon hearing the tone she quietly used, his own voice gravelly in a way that reflected his seething acrimony.

The sheer tension in the room could be cut with a knife… Or perhaps one of his former meister’s scalpels.

Speaking of which…

Should he tell him that they were having a baby?

“Should we get an abortion?” The scythe peered over at her, utterly taken aback despite the question not truly being unexpected, visage sincerely concerned and almost sorrowfully pained at the notion, his eyes large and hurt.

Kami shifted as to face her boyfriend, tilting her head off to the side in commiseration.

“I know… It’s not that I don’t want it, it’s more so that we’re not ready for a baby at all right now….”

Spirit released a melodramatically elongated and pensive exhale, his abdomen and his chest stuttering up and down.

“I get that.. You’re right, we’re not exactly ‘ready.’ This came way too soon. But I really wanna try, Kami. I think we’d be great parents, even despite… this,” he placed his palm on the top of her hand, languidly intertwining her fingers with his, as he gazed deep within her eyes, practically reading and analyzing every cavernous depth of her soul despite only being a weapon. “Don’t you want to try at the very least? Just try? And not to mention… Is anyone really ‘ready’ to raise another human being? Is there a right time? Don’t you want to-“

“Spirit, a child isn’t something you can just ‘try’ on-“

“A child is the least you can give me after what you did!” His fingers lost their grip on hers, as he shouted, his eyes narrow in pure, unbridled indignation. “You.. You dangle this shit in front of me as if you didn’t already know I wanted a baby one day!”

“Well, fuck, man, for one, you acted like you were ready to run off and join the circus earlier, and second of all, it’s my goddamn body, Spirit! I don’t owe you jack-shit! I’m not ‘dangling’ anything, stop being so dramatic! That’s just flat-out lying!”

The two of them rose from their seats, just as their mutual anger was; it was all clenching jaws and the grinding of aggravated teeth, as they butted heads with each other.

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure you’d know a thing or two about that, now, wouldn’t you?” He quipped, cheeks beet-red.

Spirit trudged off, stomping his wrathful feet, yanking his suit jacket from off of their coatrack, and flinging the front door completely open.

“Where are you going?!” Kami yelled out, rushing over to meet him where he agitatedly stood.

“I’m leaving before I say something I’ll really regret.”

And with that, a glacial-like gust of wind blew her hair in every direction upon the weapon’s slamming of the door in her face, as she flinched at the strident, grating sound.

She angrily walked back over to the couch, slamming herself down onto the cushion shoved between the two others, staring daggers into the door, her arms crossed tautly over her chest, lying in wait for his imminent return.

Her brows were pinched, a frown present on her countenance, as she grimaced, allowing for an outraged tear to slide downwards.

Kami never considered herself to be prone to tears, but what else can one do but weep when they aren’t allowed to simply willy-nilly bludgeon someone else to death.

And when the bastard was to make his grand return, she was more than certain that he’d come back reeking of liquor and some other whore’s cheap-ass perfume.

And she, too, was sure that she’d end up being the one to hold his hair back as he evicted every last content irritating his stomach, since god-forbid he ever put the bottle down when it’s time to stop.

🥃

The snickering crescent moon cascaded beautifully and classily down onto the dingy liquor store, a little bell chiming as he pushed the door open, alerting the staff of his morose presence.

“Mr. Albarn, it’s been a while,” a familiar face warmly spoke, beaming. Spirit gave a friendly smile and nod in return.

Kami hadn’t allowed him to purchase anything with a trace of alcohol in it in a fairly long time, as she viewed him as some sort of “alcoholic” who’d surely end up on the streets one day if he didn’t nip his vice in the bud.

But for just one night, whatever Kami wanted didn’t matter. It could all be about whatever he wanted, and he wanted to drink.

He quickly managed to find the aisle holding the strongest vodka he’d ever drank, wasting no time perusing, smirking as he held the bottle in his hand, inspecting the way in which the fluorescent lighting bounced off of the glass. He took one short step outside of the aisle, before deciding to grab his favorite whiskey, setting both bottles on the counter with a soft ‘clank.’

“Somethin’ happen, sir?” The brunette cashier curiously prodded, one eyebrow raised, as she scanned the two needed barcodes.

“You could say that,” Albarn shrugged his shoulders, his hand diving into his left pocket, fishing for his wallet.

He handed the woman the one-hundred dollar bill he found, watching as she leisurely gathered his change, having already bagged the alcohol.

“Aw, I’m sorry.. I hope whatever you’re going through gets better,” she placed a few bills in his hands, along with a couple of quarters and pennies.

“Thanks,” the cashier handed him the beverage-filled paper bag, Spirit finding his way right back out into the crisp air of the night.

‘Where am I supposed to go? I can’t just sit down on the dirty sidewalks and drink,’ he pondered to himself, suppressing an annoyed groan. ‘I could go to Chupa Cabra’s… But I don’t want to deal with the kindness they’re paid to give me.. Or Kami’s whining about it.. Not to mention, if I were to get too wasted there and said a little too much… If word were to get out about what happened, who knows what would happen to our careers? And I already bought my own alcohol.’

There was only one place he could go.. Only one place where he knew wouldn’t be judged.. Where he knew the individual was tight-lipped… And it was an apartment he didn’t think he’d ever return to.. Not after what happened and how infuriated Kami was about it.

It was his and Stein’s formerly shared apartment - now only inhabited by Stein himself.

‘I think I’d rather Kami think I went to Chupa Cabra’s and hit on some girl…’

Spirit kicked the abundance of pebbles around on the cobblestone sidewalks, begrudgingly finding that his legs seemed to move on their own, leading him right back to Stein, despite the therapy-worthy trauma he put him through.

Their souls would forever be connected.. interlinked… There didn’t seem to be any chance of their wavelengths ever truly going off-balance.

And truthfully, he’d be lying if he said something about that didn’t make him feel… almost pleased.. It was as though their relationship just felt worthwhile, or like an accomplishment - a victory. Their ability to resonate was wholly effortless, and always had been. With Kami, it had always been a struggle despite the pair working decently well with one another on the battlefield.

Sometimes Spirit could still feel deeply within his own soul the calamity and rapid teetering back and forth of Stein’s own soul. It kept him up at night with a genuine and disturbing amount of worry. He still felt responsible for him to a degree, like his little guard dog… And also as his friend. He was still his friend, at least their souls were still intertweaved as thought they were.. And he didn’t want him to just.. completely lose it. He wanted to be a rock for him, though he’d vehemently deny it..

It always made Kami so jealous - their relationship.. She was always so jealous. Could she seriously not understand the history they have together? There was no severing their ties, or getting rid of that - no matter what.

Spirit balled his hand into a fist, having entered one of the apartment buildings commonly occupied by academy students, knocking on the door he sort of felt as though he’d abandoned in some ways.

“Spirit?” Stein spoke in a voice more stunned than the weapon had ever heard come out of him, his eyes bulging out from their sockets.

The scythe held the bag of alcohol upwards, tilting his head to the side questioningly, as if to say, “Can we put everything aside just for one night?”

“You want to come inside? Seriously?” He squinted his eyes in suspicion.

“Yeah.. There’s some really fucked up shit that just happened and… There is no one else in all of Death City as uncaring and willing to keep a secret as you.”

“All right, then,” he held the door open for the redhead apprehensively, and frankly, rather confusedly.

🥃

“So.. What do you have there?” Franken pointed towards the alcohol that had been taken out from the bag and placed onto the coffee table, Spirit running to fetch a few glasses from the cabinets.

“Vodka and whiskey..”

“Straight? Not mixing either with anything?”

“God, no… Not on a night like tonight. I’ll tell you in a second.. But you can look at the bottles if you want, of course. Just don’t lace the drinks with any experimental drug, or whatever,” he paused briefly after opening the cabinet door he expected the glasses and cups to be in. “You still keep them in the same place?”

“Never had any incentive to move them.”

Albarn nostalgically chuckled to himself in response, holding both shot glasses and two plastic cups in his hands, letting them rest against his arms and chest, adoringly looking over them.

He set the cups and glasses onto the table, neatly beside the bottles, sitting almost uncomfortably close to Stein given their… past, though the meister made no moves to force him farther away, nor did the weapon. Franken merely observed soundlessly as the male to his right fiddled with the bottles and such, pouring the vodka into the little shot glasses, filling the cups halfway with whiskey.

“You ready to take a shot?” Spirit smirked smugly.

“Are you going to tell me what you came here to vent about afterwards?”

“Yeah, obviously. Shots first, questions later,” he halfheartedly scowled, raising the glass to his mouth, Stein following suit.

And with one swift swoop, both men were left suppressing grimaces as the liquid burned on its way down their throats, their noses scrunching as they giggled synchronously at their own reactions.

“How’d Kami feel about you coming here? Not great, I presume?” He put his glass back down onto the table, dissecting the whirlwind of emotions within the ginger’s soul, as he stared concurrently expectantly and blankly at him.

“What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” he filled the glasses once more. “But what I didn’t fucking know - despite being a blessing - may or may not affect my ability to become a death scythe.”

“Blessing, huh? What, did you knock her up?” Stein began to laugh, snickering just as the moon was and still is.

“Well, actually, yes,” Spirit gave a sarcastic, frustrated, and small grin, downing whatever he could from the tiny glass.

“Oh, shit,” he delivered rather plainly, clearly unbothered, as he raised his shot glass into the air, teasing with, “A toast to the fact that most know how to properly make use of contraceptives.”

Albarn pushed him by his mocking arm, slapping it, causing the vodka to fly and roll speedily down Franken’s neck as he guzzled it down, sinking into his prominent collarbones, and disappearing down his habitually grey shirt, leaving a wet stream in its wake.

His Adam’s Apple bobbed as he swallowed, leaving Spirit fuzzily scrambling to remember the earlier offense he had taken to his little comment, as well as what he wanted to say back, for some odd and unknown reason, his body slowly heating.

“Seriously, Spirit, I thought you were smarter than that. After all the women you’ve-“

“I get it, I get it,” he flung his hands up in defeat after returning to the world he had been momentarily kicked out of, having been brought back by the realization of what the meister was going to say, stopping Stein before he could embarrass him even more so than he already was. “Actually, Kami lied to me about taking birth control.”

“You know what? That doesn’t surprise me,” Stein fetched the cup of neglected and idle whiskey, taking a swig of it, noticing Spirit doing the same from his peripheral vision. “But you still should have worn a condom, dipshit.”

“I know, I know… I’m an idiot. And I know you’ve always hated her,” the scythe shook his head both playfully and retrospectively disappointedly after finishing off the cup.

The longer time went on, the longer their conversation went on, the more light and pleasurably woozy he began to feel, his problems suddenly seeming more humorous than… whatever word might be appropriate… Appalling, perhaps? Shocking? Distressing?

Stein tittered, quickly catching up with Spirit in terms of his whiskey, before saying, “Well, yeah, she took my greatest experiment from me.”

“Greatest?” He choked out, delightfully perplexed despite the obvious dehumanization.

“Why, yes, of course.. But that’s not why I said that. I could just see her trying to trap you into a relationship, or.. I don’t even know. I could, frankly, just see her being the type to lie in such a way,” he threw his arm up onto the top of the couch, his hand resting right behind Spirit’s dazed head.

The both of them filled their cups up once more, gulping every last bit of the dizzying liquid down.

A vivid blush dusted across both of their cheeks, the entirety of their faces tinted. It was only a matter of time before they began babbling nonsensically to one another.

“Why’s that?” Spirit slammed the cup back down onto the coffee table, more alcohol cascading into it, as he wiped his lips off with his sleeve.

“She’s just… To me, she’s just obnoxious and conniving and thieving.. and..”

“You really don’t like her, huh..?”

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little biased,” he confessed.

Spirit laid his head against the hand behind it, an unconscious decision, after they both finished yet another cup, Stein licking the remaining whiskey from off of his lips, which did not go unnoticed by Albarn.

“Y’know,” the redhead drawled almost seductively. “She was always so jealous of you.”

“I could tell,” his typical sadistic and self-congratulatory smirk appeared on his face, an expression that both unnerved and seemed to turn on Spirit over the years, though he suppressed it. “How come? Did she think you were cheating with me of all people, or something?”

“Dunno… I guess so.. Or I thought she was all jealous because of our close friendship.. Maybe it’s that? Or both?

“I don’t know what her problem is, but she forgets that I was here first. You were my experiment first,” Stein’s countenance distorted into one of minor petulance. “She’s a bitch.”

The weapon’s mouth stretched into a shit-eating grin as he listened to his former partner ramble on, practically nuzzling further into the meister’s freezing hand.

“So.. Is that your way of saying you’re the jealous type, too?” He chuckled. “I never expected you out of everyone to be so possessive..”

“Well, she stole my test subject… I wasn’t done with you yet,” he admitted, the both of them inching closer to one another.

Stein grabbed the entire bottle of vodka, leaning his head back onto the couch, his eyes closed, downing a third of the bottle. Spirit felt as even more blood rushed to his face, as he crossed his legs at the sight of Franken’s cheeks hollowing around the neck of the bottle.

He discarded the alcohol, unthinkingly plonking it onto the side table, his gaze moving down towards exactly what was sticking out like a sore thumb, what Albarn was failing to conceal.

“Now, it’s normal to actively seek and desire any kind of affection, attention, and distraction from others when going through a rough patch… There’s no shame in it,” his smirk grew impossibly larger, as he snickered at the muscles of the weapon’s thighs tightening around each other, as he averted his flustered eyes from Stein’s own.

“Don’t. fucking. tease me,” he sucked cool air in through his teeth, pouty and teary-eyed. “This is embarrassing enough as it is…”

“Aw, the baby’s so sensitive… You were always my cutest test subject, too, y’know,” he chuckled at the furrow in his brows. “But there’s no reason to be so shy about it.. I’ll give you what you want, Spirit.”

“Really?” The ginger whipped his head around, his tone a little too hopeful and giddy, even for his own ears.

Franken laughed at how antsy he was, leaning closer, muttering, “Of course. Take that jacket of yours off, lay down and I’ll make you feel better than that alcohol ever could. I’ll make you forget about everything..”

Spirit thoughtlessly obeyed, the suit jacket being deserted someplace on the floor, lying down on his back, voice already breathy as he questioned, “I didn’t think you were the type to…”

“What? Fuck?” Stein wrapped his fingers around the male’s smaller wrists after removing his glasses, pinning him down to the sofa, both of their gazes half-lidded, Spirit nodding in agreement. “I’m not usually. But you know how I like to experiment. Especially with the most fascinating ones..”

He leaned down, breath fanning against Albarn’s neck, as he chastely pecked the skin, searching for any signs of objection from the reactive man. When he noticed none, he latched onto the flesh, directly above his carotid artery, with his teeth, biting and gently sucking at the skin, feeling pleased with himself as purple and red marks began to blossom.

Stein moved one hand away from his wrist, bringing it slowly down to the buttons of his collared dress shirt, meddling with them until he could feel the warmth and smoothness of skin underneath his fingertips, the weapon’s body becoming his to toy with.

A mortifyingly loud and dramatically long whine escaped Spirit’s mouth, as he felt Franken rub and twist his nipples with his free-hand, hissing when the meister bit down particularly hard into his neck, Stein basking in his noises.

“I’m gonna show this bitch exactly whose scythe you really are,” he growled, rutting his hips desperately into Spirit’s.

“You,” Albarn began in between not-so-hushed moans. “You said you think I’m cute? And fascinating?”

“Mhm,” he hummed in response, shifting to straddle his weapon, still grinding down against the other male’s throbbing erection, whilst shuffling out of his shirt after Spirit’s constant and irritated fussing with its hem, snickering, “You’re so needy.”

“You really think so? Uhm- the cute thing, I mean,” he panted out, biting down onto his lip in a mixture of nervousness and delightful overstimulation.

Stein ceased his movements entirely, squinting his eyes as to analyze Spirit, grinning in the most simultaneously grandiose, doting, and cruel way imaginable.

“Aww… You like that, don’t you? You want me to call you cute? You want me to praise you, huh?” Spirit whimpered, covering his face with his newly freed hand, demurely and sheepishly nodding.

Stein moved to sit further down on the weapon’s thighs, reaching down to unbuckle his belt. He lifted his hips up, helping the scientist to take his pants off.

“Does Kami not compliment you, lovely? Is she neglecting you? I don’t think she realizes how delicate you are,” he cooed, already having drug down the scythe’s ruined boxers, dragging a hand up and down his length, lightly squeezing the shaft, running his thumb over the sopping tip, and using Spirit’s pitifully abundant slick as a lubricant. “You need to be taken care of.”

Given the way in which Franken was speaking, it was clear as day to even Spirit’s fogged mind that he was deriving pleasure from affectionately mocking him and his fragility, from the idea of his weapon being vulnerable - a needy guinea pig for him to play with. He was always a sadist, after all. But Spirit didn’t mind - not when, underneath the clear sardonic tone, he was being praised for the same emotionality his actual lover often shamed and chided him for.

The redhead whined, whimpering as the moistness in his eyes spilled over, bucking his hips up to meet Stein’s quickening hand.

“You’re so adorable when you cry.. So pretty… I’ve always loved how much of a crybaby you are. It’s fucking beautiful,” he said, leaning his head down to kiss the head of his cock, licking an unhurried stripe from the base, upward. “Does she not let you cry either, baby? Because I would. And I have. I think you belong in a museum with the rest of the world’s best and most magnificent art.”

Shocks of pleasure ran up and down the weapon’s spine, his mouth hanging lustfully wide open, his eyes rolling repetitiously back into his skull.

“Please… More, Stein.. Please,” He pleaded in between moans, Franken grunting almost noiselessly at the sight, his own disregarded dick straining against the prison-like confines of his pants. “‘M getting close..”

“God, you should really beg more often,” Stein said in a low, raspy voice, pumping gradually faster, clasping a hand over his own crotch, leisurely palming himself. “You’re truly gorgeous inside and out, and believe me.. I’d know.”

Something about his latter statement, strangely enough, wasn’t a turn-off. He had seen not only the deepest recesses of his soul, but his body - his innards. And he liked what he saw. If only he could tell whether or not Kami did, too.

“You have the prettiest insides I’ve ever seen. I still remember them vividly.. You’re even prettier when you’re stitched up, scarred, and bleeding than when you’re not,” Stein reminisced in the most horny way Spirit had ever seen. “I wan to cut you up again. I want to steal you back. You’d be so much better off with me. I can be gentle. I can take better care of you, sweetheart.”

The combination of the dark glint in Stein’s eyes, the uncharacteristic amount of kind praise and pet names, his hand which seemed to expertly pick up the pace, and how perfectly in tune he was with his needs had him arching his back in no time, his head tilting backwards, a prolonged whine of “fuck” leaving his lips, his muscles contracting rapidly.

Franken grabbed the throw blanket lying over the arm of the couch behind him, cleaning both his hand and Spirit off with whatever he could find.

“Still want me to fuck your brains out?” He asked slightly jokingly.

Spirit’s chest bumped up and down as he caught his breath, his overheated skin perspiring, his hair disheveled, tear tracks staining his bright cheeks.

“Uh-huh,” was all he managed to produce, the back of his hand resting on top of his sweat-slicked forehead.

“Are you sure? You look recked and all I did was give you a handjob. Is Kami that horrible in bed?” Franken laughed, his pants dropping to his ankles, as he gave his weapon the once-over.

“I always do all the work,” he huffed. “Haven’t had anything really done specifically to me in a long time.”

“Oh, so, she IS neglectful?” He tossed his boxer shorts onto the floor, positioning himself above Spirit once more. “As I’ve said, I can take good care of you… better care of you,” Stein held his chin in between his index finger and his thumb, tilting his head back down to face him properly.

“Yeah, but that’s just so you’ll get to dissect me and shit,” he placed his hands onto Stein’s shoulders, of which possessed the same sturdiness that Kami’s stupid marble countertop had, as well.

“You know me so well,” he maliciously smiled.

Spirit wrapped his arms around the meister’s neck, pulling him abruptly down, passionately locking lips with the startled male.

After recovering from the initial shock, Stein kissed him back, taking the lead, as he bit softly down onto Albarn’s bottom lip, earning a soft groan from him. He seized the opportunity, prodding his tongue into the other’s mouth while he was too distracted to continue chasing after the tender eroticism of the kiss as a whole.

He moved an already wandering hand down, his pointer and middle finger flush with his hole, as he gradually and diligently pushed them past the first ring of muscle.

Spirit gasped, his previously closed eyes shooting open at the discomfort. Stein was quick to shush him, continuing to kiss him, moving his other hand to, once again, toy with his nipples as some sort of distraction.

“The pain will subside in a moment, I promise,” he soothed as he took a breath, leaning away from Albarn’s lips.

“If you say so,” Spirit grimaced. “….Can I tell you something?”

“Go ahead,” he said, slowly beginning to thrust his lengthy fingers inwards and outwards according to his weapon’s expressions and body language.

“I’ve been fantasizing about this for a while now,” he ashamedly divulged.

“Oh, really?” The redhead nodded. “Can I tell *you* something?”

“What is it?”

“I already knew that.”

He rammed his two fingers experimentally into him, all the way in, curling them and dragging them against his walls. Spirit dug his fingers into Stein’s arms, jumping a little out of his skin at the odd sensation.

“This feels weird,” he whined in a childish manner. It wasn’t exactly a complaint, but it wasn’t exactly not a complaint either.

Stein laughed, continuing his search for Albarn’s prostate. The least he could do was make the experience as a whole even remotely pleasurable.

“I know it’s not the best feeling, but it’s necessary if you’d like to lessen the pain later. And just give me a second, I think I can make it better for you.”

Spirit shoved his head into the crook of Stein’s neck, having tugged on his shoulders as to tell him to move closer, wrapping both his arms and legs around him tightly.

“Is she not physically affectionate enough for you either?”

“Is it that obvious?” He pursed his bitten lips.

Embracing another warm body seemed to give him a rush.. One of which he was unable to truly describe, other than it made him want to latch onto Stein and never let go - which was only exacerbated by the fact that he even decided to take the time to prep him at all. He was really going the extra mile trying to convince him to return to being his little lab rat.

“Go-god!” He had the wind absolutely and utterly knocked out of him the moment Franken found his g-spot, his fingernails stabbing into the poor man’s back as he groaned out in minor pain.

“Feeling good now?” Stein spoke in a strained voice, his face tensing as he felt the weapon’s nails dig and drag further into and over his spine.

“Thi-this is much better than before,” The scientist added another finger, much to the satisfaction of Spirit.

“Good.. Tell me when you think you’re ready to-“

“Now,” he interrupted restlessly, already achingly hard again. “Now, please.”

“Someone’s impatient,” he smirked, removing his fingers from the other, wiping them off on the soiled blanket.

“Of course, I am! You’ve already said it yourself, sort of!”

“What? That she doesn’t fuck you as much as you fuck her, if at all, and that’s not something you’re exactly handling well?”

“Yeah…”

Stein grabbed ahold of his dick, pumping it a few times before lining it up with Spirit’s hole, pushing into him little by little.

“You okay?” He asked, observing his face attentively. He had removed his hands begrudgingly from Stein, nearly tearing holes into the couch cushion with his nails.

“Yeah,” he took a few deep breaths. “Just stings.”

“Patience is a virtue. Remember that next time,” Spirit shot the meister a glare, watching him sink and disappear into him with rapture. “Tell me when you’re ready for me to move.”

He brought his hands back up to Stein, petting the red markings he’d left up and down his back as an apology, feeling the sigh the man released reverberating within him.

“Why’re you bein’ so nice?” Albarn stared into Franken’s curious and intrigued eyes, a certain glimmer in them he couldn’t quite place, one of which he’d never seen in him before.

“Is this not how you’re supposed to treat someone during sex? Am I doing something wrong? I didn’t know whether or not you were into being treated roughly, but you responded so well to being treated gently-“

“No, no, it’s fine, don’t worry. You’re doing perfectly, I was just wondering. I was halfway expecting you to hack me open,” he chuckled, beginning to wiggle around hastily.

“Well, this was an impulsive decision and I didn’t grab a scalpel.”

“True,” he continued to writhe. “Can you move now, please?”

“Of course,” he concurred, thrusting in deeper, hips flush with Spirit’s, beginning to move in and out. “You wanna start out slow, right?”

“Actually.. No.. I give you free reigns to treat me like a fucking slut now,” he giggled, cringing internally at his own embarrassing words and shrugged his shoulders the best he could in his current position.

“Ah.. Is that so?”

“Yeah, why not?”

Stein pulled nearly entirely out, slamming himself back into Spirit, the scythe’s head coming dangerously close to hitting against the arm of the sofa, as he grinded repeatedly inside of him, causing Albarn’s jaw to go completely slack, his eyes about to burst out of his skull, loud moans and grunts pouring out of him.

He grasped one large hand around the weapon’s neck, his fingers curling around its thickness and squeezing, the redhead wheezing and whining in response.

“Stein,” he panted. “You’re so… quiet. I wanna hear you.”

He leaned much farther down, mouth right beside Spirit’s ear, increasing the speed and impact of his thrusts, as he released low whimpers and groans where he knew he’d be able to hear him best.

Spirit turned his head to the side, fully intending to watch each and every twitch of Stein’s facial muscles. And he was met with a sight more grand than anything else he’d ever seen before.

His eyes had rolled stunningly for a second, his lips wide apart, as pleasant noises and pants escaped him. His cheeks were as vermillion as Spirit’s fingers had been hours ago, his bangs mussed down, sticking to his forehead.

His grip on his neck began to falter, only to tighten once again as he succumbed more and more to the pleasure, murmuring, “I could fuck you like this everyday if you’d just stay mine and obey me like a good mutt should.”

Spirit himself whimpered and moaned, more pangs of pleasure shooting all throughout him like electric shocks, forming an enjoyable pressure and tingling in his lower body.

“Oh, yeah? You like that? You want to be my good mutt? My good dog?” Stein moved his head away from the male’s ear, staring dead at him, his hand leaving his throat and making its way to squeeze his cock, the brilliantly pinkish, reddish tip dripping with pre-cum.

Spirit’s back arched, lifting from off of the cushions below him, as he nodded fervently up and down.

“Then be MY weapon, MY scythe. Not hers. Mine,” he pumped his hand rigorously up and down, grinding as hard as he possibly could into him.

“I am yours, Stein, I swear. You can do whatever you want to me, I don’t care anymore,” he couldn’t remember how to breathe. He could only remember how to meet each and every one of his meister’s desperately libidinous movements.

“Good boy,” he quickened his hand, his hips. “Say it again.”

“I’m yours..”

“Again,” he ordered once more, rubbing at his sensitive tip.

“I’m.. I’m your weapon, I’ve never been hers!” He exclaimed, as streams of white spurted out from him, landing on both his and Stein’s abdomens, his legs quivering.

“Good. Fucking. Boy,” his hips stuttered violently forward, one hand by Spirit’s head, the other lying on his thigh, as he came inside of him, collapsing onto the male.

“That was wonderful,” Albarn sucked in whatever oxygen he could, feeling utterly doused in an unfortunate pool of sweat.

Stein rose from Spirit, his body having been against his, his face having laid momentarily in his blood-red hair.

“Where’re you going?” He whined out in complaint as the scientist stood, walking away from him, leaving him.

“I’m just getting a rag, so we don’t have to use that blanket, Spirit. You can come if you’d like,” he offered, picking his glasses up from off of the side table.

“I’m not sure if I can walk.. I’m tipsy and my legs feel wobbly,” he turned, watching as Stein picked their clothing up off of the floor, throwing it onto the side of the couch opposite to the sulky and clingy scythe. “You should carry me.”

“It’d be quicker for me to just run and get a rag,” the weapon’s expression sank the moment he processed his words.

With a sigh, Stein conceded, “How about this, I’ll put my entire self aside and cuddle you to sleep?”

“Deal,” he yelled gleefully out, the other exhaustedly moving towards the bathroom.

“Oh, and if it provides you any sort of solace or anything, I don’t usually want to fuck my test subjects, Spirit. Remember that. You’re the exception. You’re my favorite.”

🥃

The sun’s morning rays bled through the covered window of the living room, shaking Spirit awake as it flooded into his vision.

It felt as though pins and needles had been dug into his eyes, his temples ready to explode, disorientated and muzzy, as he attempted to lift himself from off of an oddly warm and fleshy mattress.

He looked sleepily to his side, the sight of a pile of clothes scattered across one side of the.. sofa? And a bottle of vodka over beside the clothes on a small table.. And those aforementioned clothes happened to be his and what looked to be.. Stein’s…

Wait a minute… Where was he?

“Look who’s awake,” a sonorous and groggy voice startled him, as he immediately whipped his head downwards in the direction of the sound, only to be met with a nude Stein.

A nude Stein? What?

His eyes tripled in size as he scanned the room, scanned his own apparently mostly naked body, being only covered by his unbuttoned shirt, and scanned what precisely he was perched upon, causing sudden bursts of the previous night to come back to him.

“Oh, God.. Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God,” he rushed out in a panic, scrambling to clothe himself as he stood up and away from Stein, of whom had his arms crossed behind his head, his eyes half-lidded and dull, as nonchalant as ever, all of him out on display.

“Remembering everything now?” He grinned, sitting up and leaning over towards where his pants had been left astray, digging into the pockets and retrieving a cigarette.

“What are we going to do, Stein?” Spirit held his face in his hands, running up and down each side of his head, and through his unkempt hair.

“Laugh,” he said in between self-satisfied chuckles, lighting the end of his cigarette, taking a long drag of it. “That was an impressively interesting way to come out to me, there, Spirit.”

“Oh, Shut up, Stein,” he snarled. “And.. God… she’s pregnant! And what if she finds out?! What if she leaves me?! I.. What have I done? No, no, no, no…”

“Probably shouldn’t have thought with the wrong head, huh?” He blew smoke in the direction opposite of Albarn.

“You’re such an asshole,” he sniveled, wiping away quickly falling tears in humiliation and shame, his shirt still unbuttoned, his pants not zipped up.

Franken sighed, standing and trudging over to the blubbering scythe, placing his cigarette in between his lips and allowing it to hang, zipping his pants up, buckling his belt, and buttoning his dress shirt for him.

This is how he’s always been when hungover. Those of whom viewed him as being overly emotional or even downright theatrical before seeing him the morning after too many drinks had no clue what they were talking about. He’d become a different version of himself when hungover. He’d cry at the slightest change in tone when hungover.

And to be frank, Stein didn’t really blame him. His own head was pounding, every little photon made him want to gouge his eyes out, and his stomach was beginning to churn with nausea, so it’s not as though he himself wasn’t ready to break down sobbing along with him.

Franken took one last inhale of the cigarette before putting it out in the ashtray he’d left on the far end of the coffee table, setting it down inside of it before placing a placid and serene hand on the back of Albarn’s head, pulling him in and comforting him the way he’d learned how to over the years.

He wasn’t typically the type to soothe anyone, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t gain a certain level of sadistic enjoyment from the fact that Spirit was moldeable putty in his hands.. It wasn’t something he was exactly proud of, though he was not ashamed of it either. And, of course, observing the male’s reactions towards his affectionate gestures was truly fascinating.

“It’s going to be okay, Spirit. There’s no use in crying over it. What’s done is done. I can help you cover the hickeys up,” he brushed sweetly up and down his scalp, and up and down his spine.

“You can?” Spirit peered up at the scientist, chin resting on his chest.

“Yeah, all I need to do is put a little makeup on you,” he brushed his cheek with his thumb, tenderly sliding it back and forth against the skin.

“You have makeup?” He gawked at him, Stein being the person he’d expected the least to own any sort of makeup.

“Oh, only a little. I like to do SFX when I get bored, sometimes,” Franken gave the touchy-feely man a touchy-feely kiss on the forehead, analyzing the way in which he fought melting into him. “I’ll just use some concealer and foundation and shit, and it should go all right, unless you turn out to have a drastically different skin tone than me. You’re a bit tanner. But we’ll paint up your face and such, too. I’m sure it’ll be believable given your current predicament.”

“Thank you,” he gratefully smiled. “But what if she notices the foundation? She knows what foundation looks like when applied, Stein..”

“Well, it’s worth a shot, is it not?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” he sullenly pouted.

“The makeup’s in the bathroom.. I’ll have to turn the light on, though,” they both groaned in unison.

“Whatever it takes.. Plus, we’re both probably gonna end up throwing up anyway, might as well already be in there,” they separated from one another, walking side by side to the godforsaken bathroom with its godforsaken lights.

🥃

“Were you being serious last night?” Stein asked, padding against Spirit’s neck with a foundation-covered beauty blender, his eyes remaining solely on the overt markings he’d left behind.

“About what?” The weapon was sat on top of the countertop, a black bag filled with makeup, face-paint, and fake blood sitting on the other side of the sink, Franken standing in between his spread legs.

“…About being my weapon and not hers.”

Spirit narrowed his eyes in thought for a moment, both out of genuine consideration and an attempt to remember at what precise point in time he uttered such words, blushing furiously when it came back to him.

“I… Uhm..”

“It’s okay if not. I only want an honest answer,” thought he spoke in his usual monotone, the scythe couldn’t help but feel the heavy weight of disappointment radiating from Stein.

“No, no.. It’s not that.. I was being honest, but..”

“I know you love her. It’s fine if you prefer her, or would prefer to stay with her. That’s what I expected,” he finished with applying the foundation, fetching some sort of powder and brush to dab onto the area.

Spirit felt more guilty than he ever had before at how ‘used to it’ the meister sounded, being reminded of how he had effectively abandoned the former life he had.

“At the end of the day, I am aware of what I did and what I may or may not continue to do,” he placed the brush down onto the counter, looking closely over the redhead’s skin as to compare and contrast how differently the foundation appeared against his true skin color. “I think I might need to apply it all over your neck and face.. Perhaps even your hands, too..”

“Stein… It’s not that I don’t want to stay with you.. I’m conflicted,” he twiddled his culpability-ridden thumbs.

“You don’t have to force yourself to like me, Spirit. Don’t feel obligated to be nice. You know I prefer bluntness,” he spread the concealer and foundation and such over the rest of his counterpart’s neck, smoothing it into the skin underneath his chin.

“No, I *do* like you! It’s just that I like Kami, too, and she said she’d leave me if I didn’t become and stay her weapon.. She said that’s how she’d know that I love her, and that was, like, the perfect turnout for any couple, and it was romantic, or some shit like that,” he began elucidating, honestly a little frantic to assure Stein he wasn’t just going to give up on him like everyone else seemed to, and that he did, in fact, like him and his… eccentric personality.

Franken paused, ceasing his movements entirely, the blender and brush sitting beside each other as he placed his hands on the counter, both next to Spirit’s thighs.

“Don’t you think it’d be better to leave someone who consistently threatens you, and makes you feel as though you need to measure up? I’m no expert when it comes to any relationships, obviously, but is that not textbook emotional manipulation?” The scientist pointed out precisely what Albarn did not want to accept. “You’re clearly not good for each other. You just cheated on her with me, and she’s.. She’s Kami. Based purely upon the evidence, emotional manipulation and cheating doesn’t tend to have a great effect on the human psyche - unless mental deterioration is your goal, of course.”

The world around him, including the male standing patiently in front of him, blurred and swirled as tears brimmed in his eyes again, spilling out and falling down despite his best efforts.

“I don’t know what to do anymore, Stein… I don’t want to leave her.. And I’m not so great to her either,” he wiped his running nose with the back of his hand, Franken handing him a roll of toilet paper as he did as such.

“What do you mean? The getting fucked by your ex-partner?” He suppressed an amused chuckle.

“Well, yeah… But it’s not just that,” little droplets beaded on Spirit’s long eyelashes, becoming steadily more apparent the harder he wept and the more he tilted his head downwards in yet another burst of shame. “I said something to her.. and I’m mad at myself for it.”

“What’d you say?” Stein moved the makeup utensils farther away from the crybaby, temporarily shuffling them back into the bag.

“I.. All she did was bring up a valid point - that we’re not ready, and she brought up abortion.. And I snapped at her and told her she owed me the baby after lying, and it pissed her off,” he sniffled, blowing his nose cartoonishly into one of the multitude of fuzzy, paper squares.

“That was the best way you could’ve put it,” he sarcastically grinned, Spirit frowning in response, annoyed and fed up with Stein’s teasing. “Hey, I’m just trying to lighten the mood a little.. Here,” he brought the weapon’s head back to his chest, patting him gently on the back as he whimpered sadly.

“‘M sorry I cry so much,” he choked on a pitiful sob.

“Oh, this is pretty interesting to me, so there’s no need to apologize. And you cry a lot less when you’re not hungover and just generally not feeling like complete and total shit,” he reassured in a quiet voice, one of which seemed to soothe Spirit like a lullaby. “I’m not your obnoxious girlfriend. There’s no reason to be insecure about it.”

“Clearly,” he snuffled out in agreement, finding that his extremities were gradually becoming more and more jello-like under the touch of the same man who repeatedly and non-consensually ripped him open. It was as though Stein was two similar, yet distinctive people at times.

“I know it will be difficult for someone such as yourself, especially given her sudden and unprecedented pregnancy, but it’d be best for the both of you to leave one another. You should break up with her. And remember; if you two do end up going through with having the baby, you can always visit the child if it doesn’t happen to live with you,” he brushed the ginger’s hair from out of his eyes and he stared up at him, running guiding and grounding fingers across his forehead, as he tucked the strands behind his ear.

“I know, but I love her…”

“….Truly, it’s your decision to make, Spirit. That’s just my personal opinion,” Franken thumbed away the continuously rolling tears, one hands smoothing over the wrinkles in the back of his shirt.

“Thank you,” he hiccuped.

“Mhm… Now, the foundation isn’t too bad of a match.. But I do still think it could use some work.. Would you like me to use it on your face, as well?”

“Sure… But let me throw up first..”

🥃

Spirit stepped into his shoes, of which had been sat right beside Stein’s, just like old times. It was sickeningly domestic in a sense, as well as wistful.

And with a whisper of “goodbye,” a profound bidding of adieu holding much more than what meets the eye, he trudged out of the apartment, and out of the complex itself, dreading the conversation that was to come, and ignoring the unpleasantly cake-y texture lathered on his face.

He tried to distract himself with the beauty of the nature surrounding him as he walked, only to be hit with constant reminders of his problems, as he lowered his gaze away from the young children skipping along, hand-in-hand with their parents, giggling and acting overly jovial.

He was beginning to think that the universe had it out for him.

He anxiously strolled under a few weeping willows, something of which he found rather ironic given how much he himself had been weeping, and gave that thought a small chuckle.

Unfortunately, however, any and all humor was sucked straight out of him by the soul-crushing black hole that was the coming discussion, as he retrieved the key to his and Kami’s apartment door, slowly turning it within the knob, terrified of being too loud and alerting his girlfriend. Though she’d most likely be waiting for him the moment he pushed the door open.

And that she was.

She was sat down on the very center of the couch, staring at him with what he could only describe as being something mixed between bloodlust and sorrow.

“Look, I’m sor-“

“Spirit,” she abruptly interrupted, evidently not willing to hear any apology he had to give. “Why were you out all night? Where were you? And why do you smell like both liquor and cigarette smoke? Don’t tell me you’re drinking and smoking again.”

Shit. Cigarette smoke. The one thing neither of them thought to account for.

“So, what if I am? I can make my own decisions. And please, just let me-“

“Why can’t you just be more responsible? We’re having a baby, are we not? Given that you won’t even consider abortion.”

Spirit moved closer to Kami, sighing and shoving his keys back into his pocket, and standing in front of her, their round coffee table in between them.

“I think you forget that we’re both seventeen, Kami. I think you forget that we are BOTH pretty irresponsible. Need I remind you of the lie that lead us to this moment?” He crossed his arms over his sternum, looking directly into her self-serving eyes, as he bit into his tongue.

She glowered intensely at him, pursing her lips for a brief moment, as she questioned once more, “Where were you, Spirit?”

His thoughts raced, his mind twisting and turning trying to come up with some decently elaborate, yet not too elaborate lie.

“I went to the liquor store. I went to the tobacco store. I went to Marie’s house. I got drunk, I smoked, and I talked to Marie and Joe.”

“Oh, great, you rattled off to them about me, didn’t you? I bet you tried to fuck her, too,” Kami accusingly stated, standing up, now face-to-face with Spirit, minus the table.

“For one, I believe I just mentioned Joe being there, and he was there the whole time. Secondly, I don’t fuck anyone who’s already with someone else. Thanks for showing how little you think of me.”

“Oh, but you’d fuck any other slut who happened to come onto you, right? So long as they didn’t belong to anyone?” Kami marched on over to Albarn, getting up close and personal, squinting her eyes in suspicion as she got a good look at him. “What the hell’s on your face? Is that foundation? Is that why you look so damn pale? Why are you wearing… Wait a minute..” She touched around his face, his neck, even more anger effervescently bubbling within her.

“Why would you be wearing makeup? Are you trying to hide something, like, I don’t know, a hickey, maybe?”

“Who says I can’t just like makeup?”

“Don’t play dumb, Spirit.”

“Fine. I’m hiding hickeys,” he owned up to his infidelity despite the anxiety that came with it, not desiring in any way, shape, or form to be anything like Kami; a raging liar.

Kami raised her hand, slapping him across his face, her hand leaving a stinging sensation in its wake. He held the cheek her hand collided with delicately and soothingly, fighting back even more tears, not wanting to look weak.

“Who. did. you. fuck. Spirit? It better not have been Marie.”

“You wanna know? You really want to know?” The weapon’s nose was nearly touching hers, as he bared his teeth.

“Yes, I want to fucking know!” She screamed, clenching her fists.

“It was Stein! Are you pleased to no it wasn’t Marie? It was Stein! I never went over to Marie’s place! And he fucked me better than you ever could. It was the best sex I’ve ever had. Do you want to hear exactly what he did to me? Huh?”

“You did what?” Kami took a few detesting steps backwards, beginning to shake her head back and forth in disbelief, similar, yet different to how she had in the bathroom. “I can’t believe you,” she huffed out a laugh. “I expected you to cheat but with STEIN? With HIM? With another MAN? Holy shit…”

“Welp, since it’s already out in the open, is this a good time to tell you I’m bisexual?” He threw his arms in the air, only for them to fall and smack noisily against his thighs.

“God, I just… Why? Why did you do that? And why didn’t you tell me that a long time ago?” She continued to shake her head.

“Well, I got drunk and shit happens. And Of course I didn’t tell you, I figured you’d judge me for it just like you judge me for everything else!”

“Seriously?! You’re so fucking dramatic! And you’re seriously going to try to just dismiss you fucking someone else?!”

“And there you go again! You always say that, any time I’ve ever brought anything up! And no, I’m not trying to make it seem less serious or whatever, I’m just saying, I was wasted and shit happens!” His eyes moistened, his headache surely progressing into a migraine, the tingling and burning of his cheek proving to be a bothersome disturbance.

“You’re a whiny, annoying, cheating piece of shit,” she insulted him, reaching beside him and yanking her purse from off of the coffee table, the strap swinging around her arm and resting on her shoulder. “I’m fucking done with you.“

“Wait! What about the baby?!” He worriedly shouted, watching as Kami swung the door open just as he had.

“You know what, Spirit?” She turned her head and body to the side to face him. “I’ll keep it. I’ll keep the baby. But only so I can take pleasure in the fact that you’ll live in constant agony knowing your child is somewhere, living without a father.. Or at the very least, living without you.”

The door slammed, ringing in Spirit’s shaken ears. And once again, that moistness poured out from his eyes as abundantly as the whiskey had poured from the bottle.

He wouldn’t get to see his baby grow up.

He kneeled down, sitting languidly down onto the floor, still processing what just happened.

Kami was gone. And he wouldn’t get to see his baby grow up. The baby he’d always wanted, unexpected or not.

His chest tightened, feeling as though a boa was wrapping around his heart, constricting and squeezing until the organ was to burst. He coughed out anguished sobs, gasping for air as his hand came to land against his abdomen, his stomach being wrung in and out, his skin boiling.

Should he call someone? Should he call Stein? Should he try to get in his pants again as a distraction? Would Stein even allow for that? Should he drink?

His torso fell forward, as he landed on his hands and knees briefly, his body caving in to the turmoil, soon finding himself lying on the floor and struggling to breathe.

He needed to call someone. He didn’t want to be alone. He wanted comfort. He wanted the comfort Stein gave him, even if he knew the meister only gave it to him as some sort of experiment, for his own selfish reasons.

He dug into his pockets, bringing his cellphone up to his face, dialing Stein’s number from memory, as Kami forced him to both block and delete his number over a year ago.

“Hello?” The scientist’s voice boomed through the speakers.

“St.. Stein?” He called brokenly out in between pathetic sobs.

“Yeah? What happened?”

He could no longer see, could no longer breathe, could no longer properly move; a soul-sucking, alcoholism-inducing depression swaddling him like he’d never be able to do with his baby.

“Can you come over? Kami’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Gone.”

#soul eater #takeyourcyanide #franken stein #stein #stein soul eater #dr stein #spirit albarn #spirit soul eater #kami (soul eater)#kami albarn #maka’s mother #hurt/comfort #smut #soul eater fanfic #soul eater fanfiction #my fanfic #Spotify

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soul-dwelling · 1 year

Note

One problem that is related to Ohkubos sexualization of charachters is the fact that they all get made "attractive" or cute in the same way, leading to the designs themselves to not conveing information. Like for some reason everybody in universe comments how cute Kim is even though to the reader she doesnt look really different from any other girl, except for hairstyle (while also having short hair which often means the opposite in stereotypical gazes)

This is going to be a lengthy reply that rambles and meanders…

I mean, a problem that plagues almost any illustrated work (in comics or animation or even paintings and sculptures) is that, in-story, someone marks someone as attractive, only for it to be a struggle to convey that to an audience, not only because, ideally, it should be rare that all people can agree on what makes someone look attractive physically, but also because we’re working through the medium of that visual art.

Someone’s art style can be very appealing and lead to people finding all of the characters to be attractive.

Then there are art styles where I scratch my head wondering how the story is communicating attractiveness when I don’t find the art style appealing, which already affects whatever my thoughts are as a cishet man and what physical qualities I find attractive in someone. And I mean what I find attractive beyond my sexuality, e.g. what I find attractive in women, men, and people of other genders (because duh).

Like, I can read or watch Initial D, where they act like someone is stunning and attractive--and the art style is so ugly to me that I can’t push through to get why characters find someone attractive.

Or, I can read or watch Hajime No Ippo, where Aoki gets shit by other characters who think his girlfriend Tomiko us ugly--when, motherfucker, look how all of you are designed, who the fuck are you calling ugly, Tomiko looks fine, you’re all just mean, fuck off. You’re one of the reasons we’re stuck with these ridiculous standards for attractiveness when it’s none of your business, you’re not in a relationship with that person, you’re sticking to outdated gender norms and beauty norms, and jokes like these only perpetuate the problem. But there I go on a tangent.

I’ve complained about the same-face problem with Ohkubo, but, again, just about every illustrator has qualities in their art that may be my fault as a viewer: I’m not being very discerning and not noticing differences in eye shape, mouths, noses, and heads. There have been excellent exercises in the Soul Eater fandom to swap faces between characters to show there is variation. But when you aren’t creating a baseline for “normal” in your story, it’s hard to define how someone’s appearance excels beyond “normal” to “beautiful,” especially in a series that is rather fantastic in the types of appearances characters can take. (Plus, in canon, Stein towers over 6 feet tall, even 6 feet 10 inches in the NOT anime, so “normal” in this series is next to impossible.)

I’ll get to how the story presents the teenage characters commenting on other teenagers’ looks--but where I sit as an adult, we also have to talk about the presentation of attractiveness in the adult characters.

I mean, the BONES style is…pig noses / skull faces, so, we have the Initial D problem for me when I look at those adults.

And I can rant a bit about a limited presentation in body types among the adults--but even with how hyper-critical I am, I’m not quite convinced by my own argument. I’m not sure how well my argument would go. I mean, sure, I could point out how characters like Marie, Naigus, Azusa, Gen, Noah (and Grimoire), Spirit, and Stein stick to normalized senses of beauty. But look at those characters I just listed: as much as I can acknowledge that the variety in shapes and sizes and appearances could be more varied, you’d be hard-pressed to act like those are the same body type--Marie is not Naigus is not Gen is not Stein. Then you toss in Joe Buttataki and, yeah, conventional attractiveness, but dude is a tank compared to the characters I just mentioned. And not ignoring variety in body types for Granny or some more fantastic characters like Lord Death, the Flying Dutchman, and Asura (I see you Kishin fuckers).

And with any of the characters, whether it’s an adult like me looking at the adult characters, or a teenage character looking at another teenage character, and how this story is trying to portray “attractive,” you also run that risk of making one person look “beautiful” by exaggerating features in every other character to make them look “ugly,” which then perpetuates harmful details, acting like these characteristics make someone ugly. (Again, see Tomiko in Hajime No Ippo, but also circling back to Granny in Soul Eater getting some potential fat-shaming in NOT.) You could actually spin this off into a decent gag, akin to The Twilight Zone with the pig faces, or Eek! the Cat where the (poorly aged) joke is how Eek thinks Annabelle is the most beautiful person ever while everyone else only focuses on how she is fat--a gag that kind of feels like punching down now, but if ever re-imagined would be, “Eek is valid, y’all are just haters.”

And in response to your point about Kim: it is bizarre how NOT as a prequel reveals she cut her hair short, something that she says bothers her because she liked her long hair and thought it was beautiful and valued it, just so that she would look less attractive and dissuade people from getting close to her. It’s like the “Annabelle is fat” thing above: who is to say what is a common consensus on “beauty”?

This is beyond Soul Eater or Ohkubo himself to answer, because this is not the core question of this work or one I think the creator cares about. (I’ll get to his bird app posts about “Maki or Tamaki” in a moment.)

But maybe that is the point Ohkubo was making. Sure, a lot of common consensus is that a girl with long hair is considered pretty, but I wonder if that is not just because of gender norms but an expectation that the amount of work that goes into it is mistaken for beauty. Granted, there are other markers for how beauty is defined for hair, especially sticking to largely white standards for beautiful hair, at least where I sit in the United States, so maybe the story also conveys that something about the texture and color of Kim’s hair makes her more pretty? I don’t know. But my point to this rambling: my point is, Ohkubo is pointing out this expectation (“girls with long hair are pretty, so that is why Kim feels bad to cut it short”) before offering the obvious answer (“that’s a bullshit norm, beauty comes in multiple forms, it’s about how you are comfortable being, and maybe there are other people who agree with your self-conception of comfort and beauty and find you to be beautiful, too”) and plays that out by having Jackie still like Kim, Ox being devoted to Kim, and ultimately by the time you get to the Soul Eater part of this timeline Kim has kept that hair, even after being outed as a witch, because it’s who she wants to be. There should be something uplifting in this--but I could be over-reading.

One last point I want to make, at least as concerns Ohkubo and any supposed standard of beauty in his works:

A long time ago, on that shitty bird app, I did a thread about the varied girls and women in Fire Force. I’m not going to pretend it is as varied as I think it should be for body types, but it showed potential: Iris doesn’t look like Hibana who doesn’t look like Huang who doesn’t look like Asako. It’s not like Ohkubo doesn’t have varied characters, and they get to look different (except for maybe body types), and in that shitty bird app thread I was impressed how most of those girls and women aren’t reduced to the male gaze (rather, the problem was Ohkubo still sticking to male gaze and fixating it on certain characters, not just some bath scenes of Maki or Hibana being comfortable in her body but in humiliating Iris and Tamaki).

On that same shitty bird app, Ohkubo posted an image inspired by the “Tamaki versus Fake!Assault fight,” when Tamaki and Maki stripped down to their underwear. And the caption from Ohkubo was “Tamaki or Maki,” as if asking the audience to choose. At the time I thought, “This is such bullshit”: it’s again positioning beauty as if it is a competition, as if there are not multiple ways people appear that can be thought of as attractive.

(And for fuck’s sake, I’ve seen so many people confuse Maki and Tamaki not by looks but by name, so it’s an even stupider choice.)

People who are interested in someone may have one type, or multiple types--and that’s all fine, you can find multiple types of people attractive, or you are not interested in romantic or sexual relationships but still can find an aromantic/asexual attractiveness in another person. It was so infuriating to see a man reduce this down to just two types of people and demanding a choice…

…and then I found a companion piece to that art by Ohkubo, where now it’s Vulcan shirtless and Giovanni in his firefighter calendar outfit. So, was this actually “Tamaki or Maki or Vulcan or Giovanni”? Is this now gender equal-opportunity? Is it an escalating joke, where you think it’s asking you to choose between Tamaki or Maki, before pulling back to reveal Vulcan, who is usually shirtless anyway so it’s not like you get someone “new” or more special by having him shirtless, then escalated further by how exaggerated Giovanni’s appearance is?

(Sidebar: I’m mixed on the Giovanni gag. On the one hand, it is a gag around that kind of super-muscular build, and all the complexities around body builder culture. I had a teacher who was a bodybuilder--and he flat out analyzed with us all the problems inherent to the culture, whether the muscles are here for display or utility, how it abuses the body, how it sets up an unrealistic ideal, and on and on. But I never got from him a sense he was shaming that body or that desire for it, so I feel uncomfortable laughing at Giovanni like this, because it feels like I’m body-shaming, akin to but obviously a different context from fat-shaming people or shaming people for their bust size, muscularity, nose, and so on. Or, can I still laugh at this, because the joke is on Giovanni not accepting himself for who he is and instead trying to take on a fake appearance? *Shrug* I can be wrong on this, so I’m open to criticism that I’m being prejudicial.)

Circling back to two points to wrap this up:

First, I haven’t brought up the firefighters calendar in Fire Force where it comes to a lot of conventional attractiveness around men. Set aside for a moment how fucked up it was to have underage characters like Shinra and Arthur posing in it, and set aside how fucked up it was to force Takeru into it against his will. But beyond Giovanni and maybe Onyango as gags about men’s bodies thought of as not fitting the mold for a sexy men’s firefighter calendar, it is traditional presentations of beauty in men, more or less the same model of muscularity, from the 1st Brigade trio and Burns to Benimaru to Takehisa to even Akitaru’s exaggerated but not unrealistic build.

Maybe the takeaway I should have from all of this is that Ohkubo’s notion of “attractiveness” has more to do with body shape than facial attractiveness. Like I said, with illustrations, you’re working through that artist’s style of drawing faces with common features, so beyond exaggerating the features like noses to portray someone as more or less attractive, making a character “attractive” by the face may have been less productive (but still infuriating) with Ohkubo by instead putting the focus on body shapes, not too dissimilar from Arakawa’s design philosophy being men should be "buffed" and women should be "vavoom.” it’s how we get even Stein rocking abs when shirtless and the teens like Soul (and, gross, adults like Giriko) holding up Maka as not matching their sense of beauty because of her bust size (more about that below).

And second, it’s a challenge to look at all of this with “what makes a character look cute or attractive or beautiful or pretty in this series” given the limitations of making an artistic style that will appeal to a generalized sense of beauty that also excludes bodies that are marginalized as not attractive due to shape, size, presence or absence of features and parts.

(And that’s not getting into a longer rant I have about what My Hero Academia is doing right now: it gets tiresome reading fans having certain reactions to Mirko’s injuries and lost limbs, as well as the merchandise and official art typically drawing her before her injuries, as if not wanting to show a body that looks like hers after the war arc.)

It’s like the shitty gags around Maka’s breast size, ignoring that maybe there are people her age who find her body type attractive. It feels like a very cisheteronormative structure. There are fans who look at these characters, and regardless of in-story remarks, still find appearances they want to emulate or that they find attractive in other people (again, I see you, Kishin fuckers). It almost feels like the art can reveal what features a creator finds attractive, or thinks that most people find attractive, or features that will communicate to an audience how you should prejudge the character before the story ironizes that or reinforces that assumption. I don’t say that to read into Ohkubo’s personal life, but writing fiction is as much marketing to an audience, and I have to imagine a creator thinks, “Hey, maybe readers will appearance a character who looks like this, whether because they find it attractive in an artistic sense or a physical attraction sense, or they just think it’s neat.”

#long post

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