A Marionette's Dance

The attacks came more and more often with Marie away. Stein sat on his chair, locked, by his own hand, in a small storage closet. The key was gone, pushed underneath the door in his saner moments. He knew, logically, that if he did lose it completely the thin door was not going to stop his escape, just irritate him for a moment before his wavelength destroyed it.

He hoped that it wouldn't come to that. He sat in the dark, a mirror his only company, light pouring through it. Shinigami-sama watched from the other side as the man he had asked to come back to Shibusen fought the Kishin's madness, the scientist's insane giggles drifting eerily through the silence of the Death Room.

"Stein-kun, I wish I could do something to help you." The Death God murmured silently in his mask, even though he knew that the only kindness he could offer the man was a swift death if he slipped off the path he was clinging so desperately to and refused to return.

A flash of light filled the small closet as Stein dragged a cigarette out of his lab coat and lit it, inhaling the smoke. He trembled as he exhaled, one hand reaching up to turn the screw in his head as he tilted his head to stare through the mirror at the being on the other side.

"You're God." The scientist said, a giggle escaping at the end.

"I'm Death." Shinigami-sama said quietly, knowing that the man on the other side of the mirror wouldn't comprehend the difference.

"I dance like a puppet to your strings." The giggles curved up into hysterical laughter that took several minutes for Stein to return from, his limbs jerking like a marionette as he laughed. "I don't like dancing." He said suddenly, very serious.

"You choose to dance though, Stein-kun." Shinigami-sama replied.

"A stupid choice." Stein snarled out, one hand slamming into the wall the mirror was propped up against, ripples running across the mirror's surface.

"Is it? You're still alive, doing what you love."

Stein's demeanor changed instantly, his voice high pitched. "Stein has no love in him." He quoted.

"Nygus is wrong." Shinigami-sama countered.

"I don't love anything." Stein said bitterly.

"You do."

"No."

"Dissection. Experimentation. Knowledge."

Stein stopped, his head tilted and one shaking hand turned the screw in his head.

"You love teaching as well, and I dare say that you love your students, whether you see it as love or not, Stein-kun. You even, in your fashion, love Spirit-kun and Marie-nya." Shinigami-sama pushed the subject.

Stein was already gone to the next. "What if I severed the strings? No more dancing then." Laughter welled up from the scientist.

"You would never experiment again. You would never dissect another thing, and your soul would be gone." Shinigami-sama said, his voice deep and menacing. "I would utterly destroy you."

Stein's head snapped up, laughter welling from him.

"Call yourself what you will, you're a tyrant. God, Death, it's all the same in the end if you'd kill someone just for not dancing to your song." Hysterical laughter filled the closet again as Stein mimicked a marionette again. "But I have to dance, yes?"

"You have the right to choose, Stein-kun." Shinigami-sama's voice said sadly, and the Death God looked away from the mirror for a second.

"I…" Stein's hesitation made him look up again. "I will dance." The scientist blinked, the cigarette balanced precariously in his mouth. "Shinigami-sama?"

"Stein-kun?"

"Did you need something?"

Behind his mask, the Death God smiled. For all his talk of hating the ties that bound him to his sanity, Stein clung to it like a drowning man to a lifejacket.

"No, Stein-kun. Marie-nya should be returning soon, she's already entered the city. The key is in front of the door, correct?"

The silver-haired scientist turned the screw before nodding. "Yes, I remember now. It's right outside it."

"Stein-kun?"

"Yes, Shinigami-sama?" Stein turned his head away from the door and both could hear the click of Marie's heels on the lab's flooring.

"We all dance."

The mirror rippled, and the light from it was replaced when Marie opened the door. She held her hand out to the man and smiled. "Let's go eat, Stein."

Stein took her hand and, leaving his chair behind, walked into the light.