Brief Commentary:
Stein/Medusa...damn it, it's so close to being my favorite Soul Eater pairing - it would be if Soul and Maka weren't so damn cannon. D: Anyway, there's only one fanfic for these two!? HOW LAME. They need moar attention. -sob-

Stoplight, lock the door
Don't look back
Undress in the dark
And hide from you
All of you

Science is Irrelevant

Professor Franken Stein had done his research. He knew that everything could easily be explained in terms of science. Even the frequent "appearances" of Medusa, in his laboratory or elsewhere, could be broken down into a simple explanation. The phantasm that lurked on the far edge of his mind, the hallucination that tempted him into insanity and the illusion that suggested so much more. It was due to an unstable mental state, or the result of an exhausted conscience. Stein knew that he had suffered from both traits for years, and with the leaking of Kishin's insanity into the atmosphere, it was only amplified to quite unhealthy levels.

Medusa's appearance, as attractive as he found it to be, could be explained as well. During his short decade of solitude (which began around the time that Spirit had exchanged him for his ex-wife's partnership), he had dipped quite curiously into the study of witches. Firstly, he had learned, there were no male witches. In order for witches to reproduce and carry on in the next generation, the use of a man, whether he be a meister, a weapon, or a regular human, was necessary. The average witch's physical appearance was used for this purpose, as their bodies helped to lure in unsuspecting human males; it was entirely genetic and a classic process of natural selection as well as adaptation. Witches who had reached the age of 65 or so would then begin to decline into old age, their life-spans being nearly twice that of the average homo sapiens.

Witches were fiercely intelligent and cunning, and with the aid of their powerful magic, they were rather lethal opponents (Stein had experienced this himself more than once). Bluntly speaking, their race was far superior to his, but then again, this had been equalized through the ironic creation of human weapons and meisters - a witch herself having first established such beings, thus bringing the downfall of many of her own kind.

Stein knew this information as well as the back of his own hand. However, this knowledge did little to help him with his main issue: despite his solid facts, this did not stop the apparitions of Medusa from being so sleek and touchable to his senses. This did not stop the natural reactions of his terribly human body when she would make herself comfortable in his lap, while he tried to dredge up more knowledge from the old computer he sat in front of in the early morning hours. This did not stop a small part of his mind from just wishing that she truly was there.

Despite the fact that he knew that she was but a hallucination, he could not find anything, in all of his expanded knowledge about witches and hallucinations and the like, that could explain why the fingers that trailed down his chest in the evenings felt so solid, so there. The soft brushing of her warm breaths against his ears had seemed so real that often times he had turned around, expecting to see her face. And occasionally, Stein had almost been convinced that he did sense the light, teasing presence of lips over his, daring him to do more, to initiate the next step.

Through some small form of will power, Stein had been able to avoid following her into insanity, into the tempting, impure sensation of sex he might wish he had. He supposed that a subconscious part of his mind had recognized the cunning in the apparition's actions, non-existent as they were, and pushed him away, helping him realize that to submit to this, as much as he may want to, would be wrong, and only lead to disappointment.

Even though Stein knew enough to keep himself away, she still appeared every evening, not even by a small percentage less desirable, to touch him and blow in his ears and to give him painfully real kisses down the jugular vein in his neck, her lips somehow piercing through the shirt he wore to brush his chest. He knew she was trying to send his unstable mind reeling, and often times it almost, almost worked. As much as he fought (which he seemed to do so little of), Stein could not help but think that one day, he would give in, have what he desired for a second or so, then be sent into a long down spiral of failure and disappointment.

As much as science did explain, it did little for him in such a situation.

...yeah, I guess I'll try to make this into a series of about twenty "drabbles" or so. This pairing deserves at least that much. -wail-