Chocolate-flavored Dessert Cream on the House

[thespaceopera]

[The bunks are filling up, but the new faces just keep appearing!

Are you a travel-weary passenger having trouble keeping your crew roster straight? Perhaps you are a fresh new recruit, finding themselves dumped into a new (and much less shiny) home. Or, maybe you've been around for a little bit and just haven't bothered meeting the other weirdos on this ship yet--what is their problem, anyway?

Well, this is the place for you!

All new passengers from the last few Shuffles, especially those who haven't met their crews yet, are welcome to post starter-comments here to invite those living on and visiting your ship to come and interact. Newbies could be just arriving on the ship, busying around where others can find them, or you can offering multiple options for interaction--however you'd like to set up your thread is fine. Just make sure to include the name of your ship in the header, so your crewmates can easily find you!

Everyone else-- go meet those newbies! Whether they are new to your own crew, or on ships you frequently visit, now is a great time to bump into them.]

Comments

[interstices]

Then you should. [Asuka looks almost alarmed when he actually takes a step forward. Nothing about Shinji is ever confrontational, but she's so used to him shrinking back that even the smallest inching forward is a surprise.]

That depends on you.

[He's even looking her in the eye. It's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable, because she knows he doesn't like doing it. That one eye is almost as bad as the patched one, isn't it? It's a reminder, too. Something else he can't face up to and doesn't want to see. He's just forcing himself, and that isn't any good.]

[His eyes are red from crying. Good, she thinks for a hateful moment, but then that dissipates.]

If you want me to leave, I'll go right now.

[astrobleme]

[Shinji can't fuck this up. He can't say something stupid, hurtful, or stupidly hurtful. Taking a deep breath, he looks at Asuka again; he focuses on what's familiar over what isn't. He says,] Eva only had five minutes of battery power. [That sounds like a weird non sequitur, but then he says,] Those five minutes could pass by in an instant. Sometimes, it could feel like even less than that.

[He swallows painfully. He's still looking at her.]

I don't want any more time limits. Do you? If you could stay... with me, if you could stay... as long as anything... would you do that?

[interstices]

That's not fair.

[It's her that's looking away now, staring first at his feet and then her own. The same, all the same as ever. Once she would've taken his words like some kind of romantic proposal, and some hateful part of her still sees seeds of attraction in his question, but now she mostly just feels flattened. It's not for her sake that he's asking. It's for his.]

You can't just push me away and then say things like that. It's not fair to me, Shinji.

[astrobleme]

[Shinji's lips quirk a little. He isn't smiling, but he's still looking at her. When have I ever been fair to you? he thinks. There's no upper bounds to how much of a bastard he can be.]

It's not an ultimatum. Do whatever you want. [His eyelids sink lower in thought.] Either way, you should know that Kaworu-kun is sticking around. [He says this quietly, with hardly any resolve. If he's learned anything in the past few days, it's that Asuka and Kaworu are not on good terms. They were on opposite sides of a war, after all...]

[interstices]

Don't pull that shit on me, Shinji.

[It's low. It's criminally low. The urge to backhand him just rises and rises until the only way she can overcome it, even a little, is to grab him by each shoulder and shove him up against the wall. She's picking him up before she realizes it, his toes dangling a full inch or more from the floor.]

[Beneath the patch, her eye's starting to glow blue.]

I'll stay if I want to. I'll go if I want to. You aren't hanging that Angel over my head. Got that?

[astrobleme]

[By the time Shinji is forced up the wall, his eyes just can't get any wider. They're warm, too, weirdly warm, but not from the threat of more tears.] As-- Asuka-- [Should he stay still? Should he struggle or call for help? He doesn't know what he's dealing with, even though some part of him knows exactly what this is. It's a colony of insects crawling under his skin. It's an endless song stuck inside his head. He can't look away from the glowing eyepatch. He can't. He can't. He can't.

He miraculously wrenches his eyes shut.] I said you can do whatever you want! [he exclaims, surprising himself.] You don't have to worry about me! You don't have to! That's what I'm trying to say!

[interstices]

Liar! I know you! I know all about you!

[Because they're alike. For all her rancid exterior and his helpless one, they're alike. They don't know how to be good to people. They'd smash up any offered kindness or love and crush it underfoot.]

I fed you and you're treating me like shit!

[The blue gleam doesn't disappear, but it does flicker as she finally lowers him back to the ground. Her hands, still on his shoulders, are shaking. She could have snapped his neck so easily, battered him against the wall until he was nothing but mangled, twisted pieces to decorate the ship with.]

I don't deserve that. Do you hear me? I don't deserve that!

[astrobleme]

[Again: there's no upper bounds to how much of a bastard he can be. Shinji is left a sniveling wreck in response, underscoring his renewed refusal to look at Asuka. He knows what makes her weak in the knees, and it's him. It's the idea of losing him. It's the source of the selfsame tension that existed between Asuka and Ayanami. And he's selfish. He wants all the attention he can possibly get. All of it. Just fucking all of it.

If he can't be good to her, he can at least be honest with her.]

I'm scared. That's-- Is that what you want to hear? I'm terrified. I don't know what's going on, or what's going to happen to me. So don't leave me alone. Please. Please, Asuka, don't go where I can't follow. [His voice gets smaller and smaller, until it's almost indiscernible from the ship's ambience.]

[interstices]

[That's not what she wants at all. Him admitting he just doesn't want her to go, not because he likes her company, wants her there, but because he's afraid. It could be anybody in her place and he'd still be begging. Asuka's certain of that.]

[He'd shut his eyes when her own had begun to glow, that uncontrollable freakshow, courtesy Bardiel. That was indication enough. He's only stomaching her because besides Kaworu, he has nobody else. He's never really going to be able to face her. Her hands drop from his shoulders and she steps back, staring at the floor. She wants an apology, but she doesn't want to lower herself to asking for one. Her voice sounds empty, like a glass of sour ale spilled on the ground.]

I can't help being like this. [An exhale. She knows she's not really answering his begging at all.] I can't help the patch. I can't help what's happened to me. You-- you act like I-- like it's my fault I'm not the same.

[astrobleme]

[A testament to his fears, Shinji's hand snaps outward, finding hers. He grabs Asuka by the wrist tightly, then firmly. He doesn't want her to go. It doesn't matter what she's contaminated with or what she might have changed into.] You couldn't be more wrong, [he murmurs, glancing at her face.] It's my fault. They... Asuka, they did tell you what happened, right? Someone had to have told you. Everything that happened to you is my fault. I couldn't save you from the Angel, so my father... my father...

[Emerging from the fear, there's so much anger: black, bleak, grinding his teeth into dust. His father did something to trick Kaworu, too. If there's one benefit to being Atroma's slave, it's that his father doesn't seem to be involved.]

You don't know how glad I was to see you again. In spite of me, you're alive. It means... I have a chance to... get to know you, as you are. If you let me. If you don't hate me too much.

[interstices]

They told me.

[If she hadn't been told, she would have probably murdered him herself. He'd sinned against her even though it hadn't been his fault. Necessary. It had been necessary to use the dummy plug system, otherwise the rampage would never have stopped-- otherwise--]

[Asuka twists her wrist too feebly to release his grip at all. Sickly, she realizes she doesn't want to break away from him. Touch is a good thing, a good thing she's been deprived up. Stop bringing it up. Stop bringing it up. Everything that happened to her is his fault. It ought to be Ayanami still suffering from mutations, not her, assuming the clone wouldn't have dissolved into sludge on contact with the Angel. It would have been Ayanami, except for Shinji.]

[It's all his fault and it's not his fault at all.]

I don't hate you, stupid. I never hated you.

[astrobleme]

[Even though Shinji insulted Asuka's eyepatch, even though she stormed away, she came back to him eventually. She helped him figure out where he was, and what he was doing aboard the Marsiva, along with Kaworu. If not for the both of them, he'd be in so much trouble right now. He'd probably be lying face down in a puddle of his own bodily fluids.

So, he's a complete and utter bastard, but she doesn't hate him. Which is pure nonsense. Girls can't seem to make an iota of sense.] I don't deserve you, [he mumbles, awash with fresh self-hatred. The angle of his fingers is starting to change--they're twining down, holding her hand properly now.] I'm the most useless human being. If you know what's good for you, you'll leave. Right now, you'll walk out of here... [Contrary to what he's saying, he's linking their fingers together, like true childhood sweethearts. They have never been sweet to each other. Just various levels of caustic and suffocating.]

[interstices]

I won't.

[He's wrong, anyway. They deserve each other. She's no better than him for all she's been better to him lately. He ought to know that by now. It feels like an eternity, her breath catching slightly, before she lets her fingers curve and close around his hand in a gesture over a decade too late. Pushing her away and then tugging her tighter all over again. Her gaze lifts to his face again, finally.]

You know I won't. So don't say that anymore.

[astrobleme]

[Shinji doesn't know what to do with an Asuka who's being nice to him. (Relatively nice.) (She hasn't killed him yet.) That's why he can't decide if he should drive her away or draw her back in. Neither option seems particularly safe to him. Appearances aside, she's fourteen years older than he is. She's an adult, and he's still a child. A stupid little boy who isn't worth her time. He shouldn't trust anything an adult is telling him, but...]

Okay, then... [He relaxes into a sigh, squeezing her fingers.] Stay with me until you get sick of me. Until you can't stand the sight of me. And then stay a little bit longer than that.

[interstices]

I'll stay.

[No qualifications. No anything. She doesn't dare squeeze his hand back, but she lets him hold it for a few seconds longer before pulling back, feeling weirdly, painfully nostalgic and impotent.]

Just get your act together.

[astrobleme]

[Shinji's hand goes back to hanging loosely at his side. Then, feeling restless, he tucks both hands into the pockets of his jacket. Other than this jacket, which he found discarded in one of Marsiva's supply closets, he only has an irrelevant plugsuit to call his own. And Asuka. And Kaworu, of course.

That's more than he had while staying with NERV. Kind of pathetic.]

Don't rush me, Asuka. It's a lot to deal with, and so suddenly. You can't tell me you've got it all figured out.

[interstices]

You need rushing. The Angel's just going to coddle you. [Like with those sheets. Really? This whole time, Asuka's been trying to ignore the welling of guilt for not bringing Shinji anything.]

[Like a never-pleased child, she wants his hand back as soon as it's stuffed in his pocket. More and more, she's wanting the real touch of somebody's hand, without the plugsuit material muffling the sensation. Her voice is a little croaky.]

If there's no time limits anymore, that means you can get better. [I'll get you better.]

[astrobleme]

Kaworu-kun isn't going to coddle me... [Well. Maybe he is, actually. Shinji has more or less demanded it through a series of promises and a constant presence. No one is obligated to take care of him, but it's kind of nice to stop thinking for himself as much. It would be really nice if he could spend the next month lying in his bunk with Kaworu telling him how wonderful he is. Asuka could stay with them, too. Yeah...

He zones out for a few seconds, stuck in the middle distance. Then,]

I don't know how to be better. Or what that even means for me.

[Let's be real: he was barely functional before he even became an Eva pilot.]

[interstices]

Better is eating on your own. Better is being independent.

[Independent. Shinji's never been independent. He'd just drift off aimlessly without someone guiding him. And she's not as much better as she'd like to be, scuttling around with nothing but grim determination and gritted teeth to help drive her forward. She's never been without the physical and monetary backup of someone else, whether it was NERV or WILLE.]

And he probably already has coddled you. He's too soft. [More than that, he's dangerously moronic and apt to get him killed. Asuka's well enough aware of the hold Nagisa has on him not to mention that, though, but it's clear in her expression.]

[astrobleme]

[Looking at the floor, Shinji says,] I don't need you to hold the spoon. [But that doesn't mean he's eating with any regularity. He hasn't been hungry--at least, not that he's noticed or is willing to listen to. Both Asuka and Kaworu have had to remind him to eat. Otherwise, he won't bother to do it.

Regarding independence, that's just laughable. He doesn't laugh, but it's really laughable. The last time he acted independently, he almost destroyed the fucking world. Again. As in, more than once. As in, he should be imprisoned inside another tesseract.]

Look, I know you guys have your differences, [which is putting it mildly,] but he's done a lot to help me. He's a good person. Much better than I am.

[interstices]

[Asuka doesn't know any good people. Not Shinji, not herself, and definitely not Nagisa. Why Shinji wastes breath defending him after the disaster the Angel led him to, Asuka doesn't know. She just knows that every time Shinji mentions him, she ends up balling her hand into a fist. He's never posited himself as competition, but he hasn't had to. Shinji's done it for him.]

How? You look like a worse wreck now than before.

[astrobleme]

[Shinji is trying not to think about how badly he wanted to crawl into Kaworu's blood and suffocate himself. (If he's being honest with himself, he still wants to.) At the same time, he says,] Did you know that Misato-san activated my choker? [His tone is so blasé that it's bizarre.

He can't be 100% sure that Misato pulled the trigger... but it's a safe assumption to make.]

Knowing that, why do you think I'm still alive?

[interstices]

[Asuka goes utterly, strangely silent. She doesn't answer his first question verbally, but her expression, the way her eye doesn't widen a bit in surprise, her mouth only moving a fraction of an inch, says everything for her.]

He took it off you. He bought your trust. [That choker was meant for Nagisa anyway. Asuka hesitates.] He had his own plans like everyone else.

[astrobleme]

He died for me. Not much of a plan if it gets him killed. [Shinji briefly makes eye contact with Asuka. Even though Kaworu died for him, did Shinji honestly survive? His eyes have that sunken, glassy quality of a corpse...] Ask yourself if you'd do the same for me.

[Instead of waiting for an answer, he looks away, down the hall.]

I'm going to get some food. You can come if you want.

[interstices]

[That's twice he's done this to her. Twice he's shoved her away under that dangerous, stupid, unattainable Angel. It's not fair. It's not fair how he can do it so coldly. As if she doesn't matter an iota. As if she hasn't done a damn thing for him this whole time.]

[She shuts both eyes and her left is glowing through her lid and patch both. She wants to ram him right up against the wall, scream bloody murder, get him to take it back, take it back because she doesn't deserve it, she doesn't deserve it--]

[Stricken, she forces herself to stare him straight in the face. It feels like she's staring straight into smoke, the way her eyes are burning and watering, but she doesn't cry. Her throat doesn't even constrict. In fourteen years, she's had better things to cry about than whether Ikari Shinji ever gave a fuck about her or not.]

You wouldn't do it for me. [He'd do it for Ayanami, but he wouldn't do it for her.] You bastard, it's easy to die. You don't need any guts to die. You need guts to live. He might've died for you, but you won't even live for me right now.