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]

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.

[interstices]

You're wrong. It's better to live.

[She's not Kaworu. She's not that perfect ideal he's tossed in front of her like the most impossible hurdle. But she isn't going to let him suffocate in a cramped compartment on a spaceship. She isn't going to let him give up, any more than she'd let herself give up.]

[Her heart, not lento and not even largo, usually more like an elephant's lumbering pumping, feels like it might be beating at a normal rate. Feels like it might be beating faster than that as she wipes his eyes off with her hand. Faster than that as she disentangles herself and manages to tug the compartment back open and crawl out, holding her hands in front of her, beckoning. She's not gentle and she's not good. She's not. But he needs her.]

Come on. Come on out.

[astrobleme]

[More so a frightened animal than a boy, Shinji looks like he's going to stay huddled in there until Asuka drags him back out. But then, more like a stray that's been offered food, he slowly begins scooting his way out of the compartment. Maybe it's the sound of her voice that's convincing him not to give up. He blinks owlishly at the light in the hallway, the light he genuinely thought he'd never see again.

The first thing he does is cling to Asuka's hands, then her arms, and then he's attaching himself to her like before, in another hug. He's now just a shitty parasite. He just wants to sit here and breathe for a while, absorbing her warmth and her charity. His mind is blank and quiet, all of his fears put on hold.

Finally, he has the strength, the willpower, to pull away and get back onto his feet. It's probably a good sign that his cheeks are pink from embarrassment. He's feeling more than existential despair.]

You didn't have to do that, [he says quietly. Following him. Holding him. Wiping his tears away, even. She didn't have to.]