Like You Mean It

Title:  Like You Mean It
Author:  WallofIllusion
Fandom:  Soul Eater
Characters:  Stein and a Medusa-shaped figment of his imagination.  
Misc. Notes:  Slight (very slight) language.  Has a slight MedusaxStein bent, or is that SteinxMedusa since he's the one hallucinating it...?

She is a constant.  Whispering, cajoling, taunting.  Sympathizing.  She is at his shoulder while he teaches, voicing his scorn for his less productive students; she is there whenever his mind wanders, ready to remind him of every contradiction he contains, lest he forget.  It's the pity in her voice that gets to him sometimes, because her pity means there's something better for him out there and that he knows it.  She asks him why, seriously why the hell are you on that side and sometimes her voice breaks a little when she says it, and he wishes she'd stop because he doesn't have a worthwhile answer.  Because otherwise the monster will eat me from the inside.  But she reminds him, softly, when he fears losing himself (which is always) that the monster is himself, and that his fear is only the result of a false shell trying to preserve itself.   He doesn't need reminding.  
He wants to know how the hell she can speak so lovingly when it's his destruction she has on her lips.  Her gilded and forked tongue makes sin sound beautiful, and that's a problem because in the end it's his own mind telling him these truths.
When no one else is around, he scowls at her and glares and pretends that he can offend her with his anger.  "Go away."
But the pretense never lasts, because her eyes shine and she laughs.  She draws closer and wraps her arms around his neck, hanging on him like a lover in an old movie as she murmurs, "Say that like you mean it, just once, and I'll be gone forever."