backyardbbq | MORE MORE STUPID EXORCIST BULLSHIT

MORE MORE STUPID EXORCIST BULLSHIT

It was supposed to have been a quick infiltration mission. Get in, get information, and get back out again. Six months tops.

Shiro knew the details, because he was the one who had given Stein the job in the first place. Being Paladin meant sending people on dangerous missions, and for something as dangerous as 'infiltrate a shadow organization,' there was nobody he trusted more than Stein. They had been partners for decades, and Shiro even trusted Stein to help raise his children. Shiro knew that Stein was the best man for the job, which was why he had sent him.

But now it was nearly a year and a half since Stein was supposed to have returned, and Shiro just knew something was wrong. Delays could be expected, and Stein had gone deep undercover, so it wasn't like he could send a friendly "Hey, I'm okay, just got caught up on things" or anything. Shiro could go in and pull Stein out, but at the same time that could mean a loss of information. The Illuminati were dangerous, so much so that even their existence was highly classified, and any effort to go in and rescue Stein would result in the Order tipping their hand, revealing that they knew about the Illuminati.

That was why, when Shiro finally decided to go on this rescue mission, he did so out of uniform. Instead of his black exorcist coat and adornment of pins, he went in a cassock. Instead of as a Paladin, he went as a priest. The Order couldn't be held liable for the actions of one priest, right? And the Illuminati couldn't possibly know that this one priest was actually someone important.

As long as he didn't get caught, at least.

So, after leaving Rin and Yukio with a friend for a few nights, Shiro made the long journey to the secret location of the Illuminati, deep within a mountain village. He wordlessly walked up the hundreds of stairs, through the woods, and to the 'hidden' opening to the Illuminati headquarters. And it wasn't until he had neutralized the front guards that he finally summoned a small, rat-like demon that he spoke.]

Find Stein.

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Two solid years deep undercover. By the end of the first month Stein had managed to convince himself that he's gathering enough information to make an extended stay worthwhile. Data collection still continued, and he had gathered an incredible amount of information on the Illuminati, more than enough to justify staying.

So he stayed.

The Illuminati had made him an offer he couldn't refuse, the potential for research unfettered by moral standards or expectations. He's tried to bury these impulses for a lifetime, and now he has the opportunity to unleash them. Blades and blood and dismemberment and fear. Organs laid out like a painting under the high cathedral ceiling of a gasping ribcage. The sudden springing up of absolute terror in a specimen's expression when they suddenly realize that they cannot change the course of the experiments he designed.

He can't stop himself. All the self-imposed barriers have crashed down in a mess of rubble that stopped tripping him up months ago. He needs this, needs it in a way he's never needed anything else before in his life.

The lab he's currently in is mostly sterile, all petri dishes and incubation tubes. He's checking on some very specific blood agar plates, checking bacterial growth rates in different substrates to determine if human or half-breed blood will be best for feeding this particular strain he's developed.

And that was how the small rat demon had found Stein, busy at work testing some horrible thing. The demon did not quite understand what was going on, but it had found the person it had been sent to find, so as quickly as it had appeared it scurried away.

Within fifteen minutes, the sounds of a disturbance could be heard in the hall. Shiro is on his way, and guards are falling left and right.

No alarms have been raised yet, though. It's almost as if the guards are being knocked out before they can hit their radios.

Stein certainly wasn't expecting a rescue, wasn't thinking that Shiro was going to do something completely stupid like coming after him. Somehow, he'd forgotten, or chosen to ignore, everything he's known about Shiro, everything he's known about them as a unit. Of course Shiro's worried, after years with no word from Stein. But he didn't, still doesn't even consider it. He's too wrapped up in his research, in counting bacterial colonies and planning future experiments to even notice the commotion outside.

The commotion gradually draws closer and closer, as Shiro makes his way down the hall. And as he gets closer, he starts to get more and more reckless. He tries taking out two at once, and destroying the is headsets. He ducks around the obvious cameras, but is seen for a second on one of the hidden ones. The more he goes on, the more he focuses on Stein instead of on not getting caught.

Finally, he finds the right door, or so the rat tells him. Said door is promptly kicked open, in a complete disregard of keeping a low profile.

"Stein!"

He drops the plate, and the fragile glass shatters on the floor, accompanied by a string of angry German. Stein whirls around, ready to unleash his wrath on whatever idiot thought that he needed to be disturbed. There's a moment of confusion, a complete lack of recognition, then shock.

"Senpai." It's a hiss, an attempt at keeping his volume low even though he's suddenly hit with more emotions than he can accurately name. Mostly excitement, though lacking the predatory edge his voice tends to hold recently.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Something like amusement, confusion, reactions out of balance and out of control. This is the man the Illuminati know, all bloodthirst and quick changes of mood, a spree killer on a hair trigger.

"Oh, you know, just checking on you. I happened to be in the neighborhood, and I thought I'd stop by."

Shiro had planned on being angry. After so long without a word, he was furious. But somehow seeing that Stein was (relatively) okay, that anger seemed to melt away, leaving behind relief. Stein was fine. He wasn't hurt.

"You missed the rendezvous," he said, explaining himself, "We- I had no idea what had happened. Do you have any idea how worried we were?"

"I mean to contact you," he says, like that's good enough. "I've been busy here."

As if 'busy' explains away being a year and a half late. He knows it's not a good enough excuse, not for Shiro.

"Busy? Stein, it's been two years ! The boys have been asking for you! Do you have any idea how heartbroken they were when you missed their birthday? Twice? "

Yeah, busy wasn't going to cut it. A few weeks over, Shiro could understand. But this was too much.

Of course he'd known that. Two years means two birthdays. But hearing Shiro say that is like a punch in the gut, emotional attachment giving new weight to basic knowledge. Two birthdays. Two years that he will never get back, spent under florescent lights taking apart unwilling subjects, when he could have been with his family instead.

The worst part, the part that makes him suddenly queasy with guilt, is that he honestly does not know which he prefers.

"Shiro, I'm not done here." Shiro, not senpai. This is important, the work that he's doing, it needs to be done. It's worth the sacrifice. He needs to do this, for everyone.

"Is it more important than their first day of school? Their first teeth falling out? What about our 25th anniversary, or hell, your own 40th birthday? I sure hope it is, because those days won't be coming back."

If Shiro thought for a second that Stein was doing anything other than reveling in his own sick, twisted desire to dissect things, then he wouldn't be so harsh. But he knows Stein, and he knows that the Illuminati is especially talented at drawing out the worst habits in people. The moment Stein had missed the meetup, he had guessed at what had happened. This was just confirmation of what he already knew.

Maybe if Shiro had come looking for Stein a year and a half ago, this would go more easily. Maybe Stein would have packed up his data and left, followed Shiro home and everything would have been fine. But he didn't.

Stein laughs, a sharp, manic sound, and spreads his arms wide.

"Look around you, senpai! I can do everything I want here, without anyone trying to force their self-designed 'morality' on me. I don't need to ask for permission! There's no one looking over my shoulder to make sure that I don't hurt anyone! I have absolute freedom to live however I choose! Why would I want to go back?"

"Everything you want?"

Oh fuck no.

Shiro is going to assume that Stein is just not thinking clearly, and is overlooking the obvious. Because he's definitely a little unhinged.

So Shiro pulls out his wallet, and from that wallet he removes a picture, which he throws card-style towards Stein. It's one of the many pictures they took at Shiro's 40th birthday, of all four of them.

"Because I don't see everything here. I just see an empty lab with bare walls. Even your lab back home seemed more homely than this, and the only difference is that we never quite got the marker drawings off that one wall."

Stein catches the picture, crumples it in one hand without even looking.

"It was killing me." He hisses through clenched teeth. "You didn't even..." a mocking laugh. "You didn't even realize it because I've been so damn well behaved for my entire life. Like a fucking leash around my neck and you have no idea."

His expression is wild, a grin stretching at the corners of his mouth despite the near panic in his eyes. Very clearly more than a little unhinged.

Hey, that's their family!

Shiro's eyebrow twitches, but he doesn't react beyond that. He can get another copy, pictures don't worry him. What worries him is how much Stein has slipped.

"Yeah, well, you've had two years for it," Shiro says flatly, "And now it's time to go home."

One way or another, Stein is going home today. Shiro would prefer not to have to knock him out, but if it comes to that, he will do it. He's come all this way, and he's not leaving without Stein.

"I'm not going back." Stein drops the picture and his hand goes into a pocket of the labcoat, grabbing out a blade. Then he rushes Shiro. It's not a planned movement, but he has his size and experience with Shiro's style as advantages.

The image in his head is Shiro, sprawled out on the floor, bleeding out as Stein cuts into him. He wants it so badly.

Stein, did you forget that Shiro knows judo? Because it sure seems like you forgot he knows judo.

With such a straightforward attack, it is ridiculously easy to side-step and use Stein's own momentum to flip him. Which is exactly what he's going to do, unless Stein manages to slip out of his grip or stop him in some way.

Maybe he has forgotten. Maybe he just wanted the opportunity to slice at Shiro when the other man sidestepped. He's certainly attempting to stab the scalpel into Shiro's side, laughing as he hits the ground.

Stupid scalpels being stupidly sharp. If it had been a regular knife, it probably would have deflected harmlessly off of his cassock. But since it's a scalpel, it easily cuts into it, making Shiro flinch and quickly let go of Stein.

It's a shallow cut, thankfully, but Stein can still see some of that blood he's thirsting for.

It just makes Shiro grin.

"I don't think you've managed that since we were in school."

What a time to get nostalgic over getting stabbed in the hand.

But he's not going to attack again, instead waiting for Stein to get up. Shiro's defense is entirely based around using other's actions against themselves, and even if it wasn't, he doesn't want to hurt Stein. Just knock some sense into him.

"I've been practicing." He wants a fight. He wants bright red blood and pain and he doesn't care if it's his or Shiro's. He wants someone dead, and he has no intention of being taken alive. So he stands again, and steps forward. Slow, contained movements, very little momentum to use against him.

"I noticed." Oh right. They've been fighting alongside each other for years, of course Stein would remember how to counter-act his fighting style.

It probably doesn't help that Shiro's weapons are the one-hit-kill type, so he can't use them here. It doesn't matter if Stein has no intention of being taken alive, he's going to be.

Shiro moves over to the dissection table, putting it between him and Stein. His goal is to keep obstacles involved, with the hope that Stein will have to make more drastic movements to get to him, movements that Shiro will be able to exploit.

Shiro also has one hell of an endurance, so maybe he can tire Stein out first.

Stein tosses the scalpel at Shiro, a quick motion of his wrist. There's another in his pocket, and a razor blade. He has enough weapons for this fight.

He starts around the table, a slow sort of walk. He has time for this, no one's going to get in his way. Any guards that are coming will stop at the door rather than get between Stein and his prey.

Shiro ducks under the scalpel, and moves quickly, going around the opposite side of the table from Stein.

He's going to keep trying to reason with Stein, though. At some point he's bound to say something that will get through to him. "I know you're not all there right now," he says, "But you need to listen to me! This needs to stop, now!"

Even if Stein has gotten rid of that one scalpel, Shiro is sure he'll get another somehow. They're in a lab, there's probably plenty of them on the tables and in the drawers.

Stein sighs, the manic grin fading to a look of resignation. Acceptance.

But not, however, a decision to go back with Shiro.

"I'm not going back, senpai. I'll slit my own throat if I have to, but I'm not giving this up."

"You would kill yourself before going home?"

That...actually stings a little. He knows it's not really Stein saying that, but it still hurts. Was his life really so bad, that he would even think about not wanting to go back?

"I can't go back in a cage. I can't let them control me any more." Who 'they' are is rather up to debate. The entire moral system of the world is what Stein means at this moment, the world that says his natural desires are wrong. He wants a world where he is not contained by the rules made by others.

He reaches into his pocket, pulls out another blade. Either Shiro dies, or Stein will.

"You can leave, if you want. That way neither of us will have to die."

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