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

[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.

[astrobleme]

[If Asuka's cutting words do anything to eviscerate Shinji, there's no indication of it. He turns to the side, about as stilted as a scarecrow, and then walks away. He walks away from Asuka, down the hall, presumably in the direction of the kitchen.

However, less than ten paces ahead, he stops short. He turns again to face the wall. It looks like a perfectly blank, uninteresting wall. Crouching down, he feels along the surface of the wall, as if searching for something... What in the world is he doing? Guided by the pilot's augment, which has a detailed schematic of the Heron, he locates a near-invisible seam on the wall. His fingernails, even bitten ragged, manage to catch the panel's edge. Slack-jawed and glassy-eyed, he opens up a hidden compartment that other members of the crew might not know about. It's about the size of a small person. Useful for storing things better left unseen. Very deliberately, he climbs into the person-sized compartment. The panel slides shut behind him, shielding him from view.

This way, Asuka doesn't have to see him--or hear the worst of him, really--when he begins crying his eyes out.]

[interstices]

Shinji? Shinji!

[She scrambles to follow him. All her relative containment's dissolved at once. She's won, as much as she ever wins with Shinji, but it's no good. It's no good because instead of fighting to prove her wrong, he runs away. He runs away every time.]

[She hears a few choked, muffled sobs, and for a minute, not finding him, she wonders if he's somehow smothering himself. She's about to yank the eyepatch off, look for him with that thing that passes for an eye, but she doesn't have to, finding the seam as she feels around on her hands and knees. She has to pull off the gloves of her plugsuit to even hope to work her way toward opening the panel, and it's a pain. He can probably hear her on the other side before it finally bends to her hard-bitten will and she's able to slide it open.]

[For a minute, she thinks she's going to scream at him. Yank him out the way she'd yanked him from his entry plug, yanked him from his stars, yanked him from his hopeless, stupid fantasy world. Yank him until he sees he's got to pull through. Shake him like a rag doll until he's nodding at her bidding, no, willing to do what she wants, willing to act instead of react, thrive instead of survive. Asuka thinks she's going to do all that until she finds herself crawling into the compartment with him.]

[Dr. Akagi found out several years ago that her need for air was decreasing. The mutations never reached a state of stasis, never even slowed, just marched on. She'll be able to see in a couple minutes if she was right.]

[He's forced next to her now, up against her. This way, he can't flee. This way, he won't flee. Asuka looks at him silently, and then she pushes one glove against his knee to wipe his tears with.]

[astrobleme]

[There's enough room in the horizontal compartment to sit up, probably... Shinji has decided to stay lying on his side, tucked against the far wall, his hands plastered to his face. Each of his sobs is so physically painful that he's convinced he's going to throw up again. The compartment is too-warm and salty and humid by the time Asuka climbs inside after him, the level of oxygen dwindling rapidly. He doesn't care about breathing. He continues to bawl, helpless and searing, even when she offers him a glove.

In Misato's apartment, there were times when he would cry himself to sleep, but it was never like this. Less than a man, less than a boy, he's a squalid infant that doesn't know where he is or what's going on. He should be happy, right? He should be thriving instead of surviving, right? Kaworu isn't dead. Asuka doesn't hate him, has never hated him, and says she will stay with him. There's no Eva. No NERV. No Father. No WILLE and no DSS Choker. It's completely brand-new, and there's freedom in the unknown. He shouldn't be upset. He shouldn't be upset. He hates himself for being upset, which makes him even more upset.

He loses track of everything except for how close he is to passing out. His vision is blurring into darkness, but this hidden-away compartment was dark to begin with. Through the gaps in his fingers, he can only see the reminder of failure that is Asuka's glowing eye. The blue light splays over his face, highlighting his ugly tears, the sad spittle around his mouth. He's a rabid animal that she's going to have to put down. If not today, then someday in the future. Don't look at me. Don't look at me. Don't look at me. Don't LOOK at me don't LOOK AT ME DON'T LOOK AT ME DON'T LOOK AT ME DON'T]



Asuka.

[It's minutes later when Shinji has the strength to speak. More than that, he slides his hands down his face, smearing tears and snot, only to lift them up again. He's so much the parody of a lost child when he winds his arms around her neck. He hugs her as hard as he can. Like this, he can finally confirm she is real.]

[interstices]

[When she was little-- really little, not the fake-little Eva's condemned her to-- Asuka used to carry her doll around all the time. At university, it had been in her backpack. At Colonel Katsuragi's apartment, it had been there on the bed with her to greet her after school and after sorties. It wasn't big enough to hug or hold with any satisfaction, so she'd end up throwing it sometimes and wrapping her arms around herself instead.]

[She's holding Shinji before she's aware of it, arms tight around his waist. It feels almost like hugging herself, a rail-thin, shuddering frame with barely any substance and no maturity, desperate, desperate for a little warmth. She keeps on thinking about how this is the first time in a long, long, long time that she's touched anyone for more than a few seconds. She'll take those seconds. She'll take those tears, even if she doesn't know how to comfort him any more than she knows how to comfort herself. She'll take Shinji for all the hurt he's done to her and all the hurt she's piled on to him in return, because dismissing him is even worse than dismissing herself.]

Shinji.

[The light in her eye is getting less continuous, more like the flicker of a faltering ember, before it fades off entirely. She's pulling him in tighter, greedily, breathing in occasionally, just shallow, near-silent sounds in the dim compartment. This isn't the moment she wanted with him all that time ago, but it's a moment she'll accept. They can rip each other apart forever as long as they reunite in the end. There's a small shudder, a heaviness in her throat, but she manages to only stutter a bit when she finally speaks again.]

Shinji, you're running out of air here. We'll have to go.

cw: suicidal ideation.

[astrobleme]

[The compartment's enclosed shape reminds Shinji of the entry plug. When the internal battery did run out, he'd have to sit there in the darkness and wait for rescue. Sometimes, it could sometimes take hours to get back out, depending on the availability of resources. It never bothered him. He needed that time to unwind, to relax, processing what happened between him and Eva. The entry plug could be comforting, too, in a very weird way--probably something to do with the mother's womb or some other psychological bullshit. (Shinji avoided the staff therapist at NERV for a reason.)]

I... I don't want to. [There's no LCL, but it's plenty small in here, especially with Asuka offering herself as as someone to cling to. He doesn't want to leave, and he proves it by tightening his arms, even tangling his legs with hers. This would be intimate if it weren't so pathetic.] I don't want to leave, Asuka. Don't make me go back out there. [Even though Kaworu is waiting for him... That's terrifying, isn't it? Shinji has to wonder if that's really Kaworu, if it isn't just some trick of Atroma's. The ultimate plot twist. Something to boost the ratings when they're getting low.]

If we stay in here, [he pleads, so soft and sweet,] nothing will be able to hurt us anymore. [Oxygen deprivation definitely isn't the worst way to die.]

[interstices]

We've got to go.

[Live for me. Please live for me. He won't do it on his own. He won't do it for her and he might not do it for Nagisa Kaworu, either. Her breath, needless as it is, hitches slightly as he entwines himself with her. The warmth's unbearable. She's thinking of the entry plug, too. She's thinking of her own scream as it crushed. Even a womb could reject its spawn, abort its fetus, eject something smashed and pathetic like her.]

[One trembling hand reaches up to his hair, sliding down to the side of his cheek. Stupid. He's all soft and broken, face wet with snot and tears. It's always her that has to be strong. It isn't fair, that she's not allowed to capsize. Maybe she's not able to, either; maybe, like Nagisa, she's another damned soul. She strokes his cheek again and again.]

Come on. Come on, Shinji. We've got to go.

[astrobleme]

I'm scared.

[It's such a simple, obvious statement, but it contains all of his heartbreak. Despite Asuka's hand helping to steady him--Kaworu's hand has done the same thing--Shinji is also terrified of it. He doesn't know how to deal with the honesty of a caress. Kicking him, even punching him would be preferable to this. He can absorb a blow to the gut. He can wash away blood and apply ice to a black eye. But a gentle touch leaves an impression different from a bruise. Much deeper than a bruise. It doesn't stop at the level of skin or muscles.]

W-What if I end up hurting more people? [There's no Eva to pilot here, it's true, but he has a dense, dark feeling that he can be destructive all on his own.] I don't want to hurt them. I don't want to keep hurting them, Asuka. It's better to stay in here, just s-stay right here.