Chapter Text
Smoke floated in puffs through the sunny blue sky until it dissipated some feet up. It never really disappeared, nothing ever did, but the visible part of it was gone, and so the human mind rendered it as having disappeared forever. No longer relevant.
In reality, the smoke simply changed from a visible gas to an invisible one. Its particles, molecules, atoms still existed, and would change from smoke to simple carbon dioxide, maybe some water. Most things had water, in one way or another, as unlikely as it seemed out in the searing heat of the Nevada desert.
Another drag came and went, and more smoke floated into the sky and dissipated. No longer relevant, not to the average mind. Climate scientists cared, or fire experts, or politicians trying to get on the good side of people worried about the atmosphere.
For how much people considered irrelevant, the things that were relevant varied wildly from person to person. Some people cared about dogs, some didn't. Some cared about the integrity of gravestones, some didn't. Most people cared about cadavers of loved ones, regardless of their thoughts on souls, but a few didn't. You could hate certain people, but love others.
Hate was easy to understand. Hate has been around forever, pretty much since sentient life. It was just the way of life. Everyone wanted something somebody else had.
Love was harder to understand. People did crazy things for love. It was an incredibly strong motivator, but not only for good things. Love caused more hate than it did happiness, didn't it? Weren't people murdered over love? Did not Troy fall for a woman?
Franken Stein was a doctor, and a pretty good one despite it all, but he did not understand love. And as much as he lied to himself and others, he wanted to. He wanted to know if what he felt for Marie was love.
Evidence said she loved him. She had also told him, directly, but people could lie. He knew that well. Her actions spoke louder. A liar wouldn't risk everything to hunt him down and rescue him from madness and a witch. A liar wouldn't believe him, believe in him, against all odds. A liar might sleep with him, sure, but a liar wouldn't defy a god for him. A lover might.
He took another drag off his cigarette. He thought about Marie a lot, but surely that wasn't enough to warrant love. But there were times where he had the urge to cling to her and never let go. There were times where he felt almost ethereal when they talked, when she was gentle. He was a cold person with a cold body, but she made him feel warm. It was nice.
Stein was well aware of her presence beside him now. They stood side by side in the destroyed Death Room, past its fake, endless, sunny blue skies to the real sky. The cloudy red of the madness had dissipated, and it was replaced with a gentle blue that was fading into night as the sun set on the horizon. Thousands of souls were floating into the sky, glowing softly, as if they were stars floating into place on the dark quilt of night.
He wasn't sure if it was the beautiful sight that was giving him this warmth, or the woman beside him who leaned against his arm, not with all her weight, not making a show of it. Just enough for him to know she was there.
The arm she was not leaning on held his cigarette, nearly gone. He crushed the tip with his fingers to put it out, and put the remains in the pocket of his pants. The Death Room didn't need any more litter.
Standing in front of him and Marie was an awkward, lanky traitor, currently swimming in Stein's lab coat. They were tall, but not nearly as tall as Stein. If Crona disliked the smell of cigarettes, they didn't show it at this point — their attention was solely on the remains of Baba Yaga Castle, where a ragtag group of students had just defeated a god. They were safe, Stein could tell, but they were his students. They were his friends. He still felt the tense anxiety that was over all of them when the kishin's dome had been up, and they all had been locked inside.
They were safe now, and help was on the way. Everyone would rest up, and the world would return to normal in time. Business as usual, though it wasn't every day you prevented an apocalypse.
Stein did not prevent an apocalypse. Those students down there, Maka and her friends, they saved the day, saved the world. Maka saved the little girl Medusa had been inhabiting, and saved Crona. Marie had saved him.
The warmth and relief and happiness he had felt dissipated like the smoke as he realized that all he had done since the kishin awoke, and even before then, was cause trouble. He wished he hadn't put out his cigarette — his nerves were now itching for one, and his lighter was in his lab coat, as were the rest of his cigarettes. Would it be rude to steal the garment from Crona so suddenly? Did they really care, or were they just wearing it to be nice, or because they had gotten so wrapped up in the action that they had forgotten they even had it on?
He decided to let them hold onto it for the time being. Crona was an interesting specimen, and a curious soul. He hoped that after all this, they'd be willing to let him run some tests. Maybe he could do so without them knowing. After that gash, they'd need check-ups for a while.
No, he thought. After all they've been through, they didn't need more trust issues.
Marie stepped forward, the last of her warmth leaving him, and stood beside Crona, putting her hand on their back. Her touch was gentle, Stein was sure of it, but still they flinched. Marie looked down at the ruins of the castle, watching the response team collect the kids who saved the world, but Crona's attention was on her.
Their eyes were wide, as apparently this small gesture was world-shattering to them. As Marie didn't move further, they detensed, and smiled shyly to themself. They turned back to the ruins, and Stein couldn't read their expression anymore.
Something about the exchange left him smiling, too. He didn't bother hiding it, everyone was too wrapped up with the averted apocalypse to notice, and if someone did see, they wouldn't care. But Stein was not one to smile at nothing, and most of the things he smiled at were gorey dissections and other less-appropriate things. Which begged the question, why exactly did he smile at such a casual, vague interaction between Crona and Marie?
He smiled a lot with Marie. Was that a symptom of love? That couldn't be the case — he had smiled at Crona, if anyone, and they were a child. People called him a creep, and he wasn't inclined to disagree, but Lord Death smite him if he were a pedophile.
So smiling did not equal love. Part of him thought that warmth might equal love, but the sun could make him warm, as could a number of other things, so that theory was tossed out, too.
The scientific method was a simple process to follow and could be applied to most anything. Like the Hero's Journey, except for the real world. Make observations, ask a question, form a hypothesis, conduct experiments and gather data, analyze said data, and come to a conclusion. He had made observations, and he had his question — what exactly is love? But he felt like he didn't have enough foreknowledge to make a hypothesis for it. Science was all a cycle of theorizing and observation, he could break the cycle, but something in him felt broken at the realization that he didn't understand love enough to properly recognize it. Like a rib out of place.
Some people didn't feel love, and that was fine. Stein thought he was one of them for a long time, though didn't bother "officially" labelling himself such. It wasn't the absence of love that bothered him, it was the conflict. The confusion. The uncertainty. And, of course, even those who didn't feel love often still understood what it was, what it felt like for others.
Maybe it was as simple as asking others. Spirit loved openly, without boundaries, though he maybe wasn't the best person to gather unbiased observational data from. His students often loved. Ox and Jackie loved Kim, Kim loved money. Soul and Maka loved each other, though they fought often. Tsubaki and Blackstar, too, and certainly more. Maybe this experiment wasn't as hopeless as it seemed.
Plenty of people to observe, and once he felt a bit more confident, he could interview them to collect data. Though, that might be a breach of ethics, a teacher bothering their students about their love lives. Then again, when was he one to care about ethics? This wasn't harmful, it was at best annoying. And they could live with a little annoyance.
When the heroes were brought back to the moving city and were brought for medical attention, there was plenty to observe. Soul and Maka's concern over each other even though they were both terribly beaten; skin on Maka's side had been torn open, not by any blade or bullet, and she had a quickly-darkening bruise around her neck. Soul had an impact burn across his chest, and a pretty severe concussion. Blackstar was his usual boisterous self, but was absolutely riddled with cuts and bruises, staining his skin purple and red. Despite not being in her weapon form, the stripes that came with the Enchanted Sword mode still lightly haunted Tsubaki's skin. The Thompson's were lucky to escape with more minor injuries, but Kid had a large gap in his memory and a larger hole through his chest, which was healing itself and very curious to watch, as well as a one fully-connected Line of Sanzu.
These kids all cared for each other greatly, and others cared for them. Was that all love was? Caring for someone greatly? It couldn't be that simple.
Despite being injured himself, Spirit held Maka close, all but sobbing, and she didn't fight against him. Maybe she was too tired, maybe she didn't hate him as much as she claimed. Was love simply a lack of hatred?
Parents loved their children, but that wasn't the kind of love he was looking for. Though, the more he thought about it, the less he understood in that regard, either. Only in an animalistic sense; parents have an instinct to protect their offspring. Once they reach maturity, they're on their own — unless they're human, it seemed. Was that love? To care for someone even when they don't need you anymore?
Lord Death, still recovering himself, spoke quietly to his son, who was fighting not to let the tears filling his eyes spill over. Kid had no need to put on a brave face for his father or anyone else in the room, as at the moment he quite literally had his heart exposed, but he did anyway. The older reaper didn't seem to point it out, and like Spirit, he too held his child close.
Reapers weren't human. Did they have that same instinct? Did they love the same way? Lord Death wouldn't live to see Kid's true maturity; once all the lines were connected, he would die, and Kid would take his place. There was no knowing if that love would continue, because he wouldn't be around to show it. Was love making the most while someone was around?
Marie came up to him, putting a hand on his arm, and taking him out of his thoughts. With her presence, the warmth returned, though for a moment she looked only at the after-battle chaos in the room. When she did look at him, her golden eye was so warm, he was almost glad he didn't have his lab coat. It wasn't logical that a person's presence could incite such a drastic physical response. Was that love? A drastic, illogical, physical response?
Did Troy not fall for a woman?
Marie could rival Helen, but she wouldn't let a kingdom fall to ruin because of a couple jealous men. She'd sooner tear it down herself, and he admired that. Was that love? Admiration?
He knew there was, at least, a physical attraction, but that did not equate love. Spirit had a physical attraction to just about every woman he met, and he certainly did not love them all. Spirit had joked about being attracted to Marie, had tried to ask her out before and was met with a hammer swing to the face. She assured him that she would not be one of his flings, and he ceased his pursuit of her.
That had been an interesting few days. When Spirit spoke with Marie then, there was a warmth, but not the soft warmth that she brought. It was a harsher, searing heat, centered down in his stomach. He had thought about cutting up Spirit then, but those thoughts were not unusual, so he dismissed them. When Marie's rejection seemed to have gotten through the man's thick skull and rattled what was left of his brain around, the heat petered out. He laughed with Marie when she complained about it later, back at the lab.
Sometimes just the sight of Marie brought about that warmth he'd grown so accustomed to. Golden hair that she would sometimes ask his thoughts on when she put it up in various styles (he had no opinion, as they all brought about the same warmth), amber eyes that never looked at him with malice or distrust, and a smile that somehow calmed him more than even her healing wavelength. She was a good person, but that didn't have any say over love. Bad people could fall in love and be loved, couldn't they? Medusa certainly tried to convince him that. He didn't believe anyone loved her, and she only loved herself. Could one only love oneself?
Part of him wanted to throw out the questions, abandon the method, and just relish in the warmth. Don't label it, don't think about it, just stay near her. He was always so cold when she was gone. He didn't know he hated it until he was introduced to her warmth.
The rest of him thought the notion ridiculous. If he didn't love Marie, he wanted to know, he wanted her to know. If he did love her, he wanted to know. He wanted to tell her. Either way, he wanted an answer, and she deserved the truth. Both parts of him agreed that he didn't want to hurt Marie in any way, if he could.
Was that love? The want to protect someone from harm, physical or otherwise? That seemed to fit all forms of love he knew of.
Hypothesis: If you love someone, then you will try to keep them safe and out of pain.