driftfleet | Heron May mingle

[Shinji isn't incapable of greatness. At least, that's what every single school counselor told him. They just said he suffered from a crippling lack of ambition. And, yeah, obviously, Shinji didn't feel the need to stand above everyone else. He only really had (and still has) a passion for astronomy, which he both did and didn't want to pursue seriously...

But that's an anecdote for when he isn't staring at Asuka's nondescript right ear. It's a small trick he taught himself for when he can't avoid looking at someone but he doesn't want to make eye contact with them.]

Testing... I guess you could say I'm testing something.

[He starts searching around for empty glass vials, too.]

Do you know how to draw blood?

Edited 2016-05-16 16:02 (UTC)

[And with that, she's hit with the recoil of her and Nagisa's last conversation before the party. He found out about himself when his mask broke. Nagisa had tried to conceal the truth of it, like Shinji's biology could be some sort of Schrodinger's cat, but she'd figured it out. It was easy, too easy, to sift through what Nagisa refused to definitively answer.]

Yeah. I've watched Dr. Akagi do it enough times. [But she hasn't done it herself. He really shouldn't want her drawing anyone's blood, unless he's desperate. Asuka fingers a piece of gauze, guilty expression firm on her face-- for once, she's glad he's not looking her directly in the eye. In the face, sure, but not in the eye. Shinji's so self-conscious that maybe he won't even notice if she acts a little funny.] I thought you'd be scared of needles.

[Afraid of needles? Shinji laughs shortly, more of a spike of sound, while he opens up another drawer. He sifts through the contents and wonders if he should be doing this right now. If there's something wrong with him, he doesn't want Asuka to lose her mind over it...]

Needles don't bother me. It's like banging my elbow or something... It hurts, but I'm not going to freak out. I got my blood drawn almost every week when I was a little kid. If I didn't cry, I got a piece of candy. So, you know. Worth it. [His voice is about as dry as one of those cotton balls.]

Edited 2016-05-17 19:58 (UTC)

Every week? What was wrong with you?

[God. She knows exactly what was wrong with him. Is wrong with him. She hates feeling like a liar for not owning up to what she probably shouldn't know in the first place.]

[She puts down the gauze, sticking her hand in her pocket. There's nothing else to do but be upfront now.]

Do you want me to take your blood or what?

[It's a mouthful, but Shinji says it easily enough:] Idiopathic autoimmune hemolytic anemia. [He pushes the drawer shut, not finding anything else.] My body was killing off my red blood cells for no apparent reason. But it just... went away after a couple years of treatment.

[He glances up at Asuka, then slowly shakes his head.]

I can do it myself. Probably. If you want, you can wait in my room while I'm...

Are you sure? [Asuka's frown deepens. Anemia. Like hell that was it. Just a cover story. At least NERV and WILLE were upfront about the reasons they wanted her mutated blood, and at least she was at an age where she was mentally able, if not legally able, to consent to it. She'd been given that much dignity.]

I don't mind blood. I can help you.

[Oh. Down the counter, there's a small, unassuming stand with a number of test tubes. Shinji hopes no one's going to mind if he borrows one of those tubes for a while. He should keep a sample of his blood nearby in case he wants to get it tested in a real lab, or, uh... something. Even though it's nothing. It has to be nothing. He has to be fine.]

Hey, I'm sure, I'm sure. It's not a big deal, no matter how you look at-- [Too hasty, he ends up running out of breath. He sucks in a bit of air to make up the difference.] It'll only take a minute, Asuka.

Edited 2016-05-23 02:19 (UTC)

Okay.

[He's talking way too fast for it not to be a big deal, and Asuka can feel her eye narrow. Maybe she shouldn't let it go. It feels as if she's let a lot go lately with him.]

I'll be in your room.

[Shinji's room is still the same disorganized nightmare it has been for weeks now. He's got rolls of unused fabric propped up in the corners and stuffed under his bed. Sewing supplies are strewn all over the covers, some of them sharp and pointy; Asuka should take care when sitting down. Shinji just hasn't been able to concentrate on mundane things like cleaning. (At least he's taking showers regularly again.)

He comes in a few minutes later, his hands in his pockets. The blue long-sleeved shirt he's wearing doesn't make it clear if he went through with drawing his blood or not.]

I've been practicing, [he says, in trying to explain the mess.]

Edited 2016-05-25 02:07 (UTC)

[It's funny, maybe even a bit alarming, to see Shinji's room messy. He used to be so into feminine chores like cleaning and cooking. But the sewing maerials cluttering his room might not be so bad. They're signs he's found a hobby.]

[She still opens her closet every so often just to look at her own yukata, admire every careful stitch. When her self-doubt gets the best of her, when she's almost convinced that he doesn't really like her, she just buries her nose in the fabric, trying to detect his scent there. It helps.]

[By the time he returns, she's pushed aside a pile of supplies and is already half-lying on his bed, half-leaned over, in the middle of digging out one of those rolls of fabric from under his bed. She jolts a little when he comes in. The hand she's steadying herself with on the bed slides straight across a pair of open scissors, slicing a thin red line down her palm. Asuka jerks her hand up, nearly falling off the bed.] Shit!

[Shinji blinks and stiffens up, wondering if Asuka is going to cuss him out, before he notices that awful red line on her hand. His heart plummets into the soles of his feet. His breathing quickens, and he breaks out in a cold sweat, unable to think clearly for a few seconds. Ever since that day, the day of Kaworu's death, Shinji can't see blood without wanting to drown himself.

But he asks,] Are you okay? [and he's already crouching in front of her. He's already reaching for her hand with a sweaty, shaky hand of his own.] Let me see it. Hey, let me... [It's a scratch. Just a scratch. He cradles her hand like he's about to propose to her, telling himself that it's just a scratch. There's hardly enough blood to trickle down her palm, but he stares at the cut like he's expecting it to burst into a laceration. There are probably bandages in the medical bay. Antibiotic cream. That sort of thing. It'll be fine, but he stares even harder. Then he dips his head down and kisses the wound.

He can't explain why he's doing it.

It's just this strong--incredibly strong--impulse in his mind, goading him into mouthing away the blood. Like a mother tending the scraped knee of their child in the park that he saw countless times growing up and felt so jealous about and cried himself to sleep over. But it somehow goes deeper than that, like it's...]

Thank goodness, [he says weakly.] It's not a deep cut.

What are you--

[She stops though there isn't a reason to. He's licking the blood away. Her blood. There's not very much, not very much at all. Her fingers feel limp and useless, curling slightly. A weird, warm, peaceful feeling crops up, overtaking the confusion. He looks like a protector for those faint few moments his lips are on her hand. Like those stupid knights in shining armor that she's dismissed out of hand since she was four years old. Unbidden, unwelcome, her fingers begin to twitch and tremble as he cradles her hand.]

[She doesn't pull it back, although she probably should. Asuka's strangely entranced. It's more intimate than kissing her. Taking in a tiny part of her without hesitation.]

It'll... it'll heal really quickly. Don't get any bandages. [God, now her palm's starting to sweat, her face getting pink.] I'm okay.

[Awkwardly, disgustingly, Shinji feels kind of nostalgic at the faint flavor of Asuka's blood. It reminds him of the months he spent gargling LCL as an Eva pilot. But, judging by the look on her face, he's being a huge weirdo, maybe even a pervert, even though he's only doing what his instincts demand. He looks down at her bloody palm, less relieved, more mortified with himself.]

Really... quickly? Are you sure?

[Still stuck in his soles, his heart thuds like an out-of-tune piano.]

I'm so sorry, Asuka. I should've cleaned up...

[She was serious about healing really quickly. Like a reverse time-lapse, he watches as the skin pulls itself back together. He knows what that weirdness feels like--the heat, the throb, the tingle from adrenaline. He has seen his cuticles restored and his bruises erased in record time. Oh dear god.]

Edited 2016-05-31 04:18 (UTC)

[Asuka watches, too, stomach churning as if it's the first time she's seen it happen. It isn't by far, but his expression makes her feel ashamed and unnatural. He isn't natural, either, but that doesn't help her feel any better.]

I can't help it, okay? If I could stop it, I would. [Shinji doesn't like to face the truth about her. By the stricken tone in her voice, neither does she. She withdraws her hand, the cut already mended, and after several moments, reaches over to grab the scissors, offering them to him.] Forget it. Here.

Edited 2016-05-31 12:40 (UTC)

[Instead of taking the scissors, Shinji gently lays his hand on top of Asuka's. He didn't mean to make her feel bad. He's always making her feel bad. God, he sucks so much.] I didn't say it was a bad thing, [he replies, with the softening of his gaze.] I didn't say you had to stop it if you could. Why would I say that? I never want to see you hurt because of me--for any reason. If being stronger, if healing quickly can protect you, then... it's a good thing.

[He doesn't hate the Angels. At this point, he feels sorry for them, and he's starting to wonder if humans were worth defending anyway. That doesn't mean he wants to be an Angel. (Internalized prejudice.) But he simply doesn't resent Asuka for getting infected. He resents himself for not being able to save her. He...

He lifts his hand higher, touching her jaw, then the side of her face. The side with the ever-present eyepatch. His fingers trace around the fabric, under the straps leading to her ear, as intimate as a lover.]

I like you just the way you are.

[As long as she doesn't stop him, he is committed to tugging the eyepatch up and out of the way. He's been putting this off for long enough.]

[She's been unfair this whole time. Thinking that every time he saw her, he didn't really want to, because just her face was a reminder of his failure. She hadn't considered how sometimes, early on, she'd done the same thing. The exact same thing. He hurt her, fine, but he hadn't meant to. It hadn't been his fault. She's known that all along.]

[Asuka tenses up when his hand touches the side of her face. At first, she thinks he's about to kiss her, and tenses up slightly. He doesn't have to do that. Kiss her just to appease her stupid, shattered ego. But then his hand touches the eyepatch and she freezes up completely. And then he says those words and it's like she's fourteen all over again, gawky and blushing and pretending not to like him at all. It's like that, and her hand trembles, other eye wide, her mouth slightly open. He can't, he can't-- he said he wasn't ready--]

Shinji--

[She reaches for his arm weakly, and far too late. It's off. The pressure's gone, leaving her suddenly clenching that left eye tightly closed, half from the brightness of the florescent lights and half to hide herself again. There aren't any scars, no visible damage around her face, around the part that her eyepatch has always covered up. But the eye itself just isn't human. Black sclera, dilated pupil, and an electric blue iris that doesn't come close to matching the ordinary blue of her other eye. If he hasn't seen it in that first second before she shut her eye, he sees it now as she slowly cracks it open again, just the slightest slit, like sunlight through half-open blinds.] It's awful, Shinji, don't be stupid, it's awful...

[Shinji said he wasn't ready months ago. He's ready now. He has to be. If he isn't, then he's going to force himself to deal with it. There's no reason for Asuka to keep feeling bad about something she couldn't prevent. Shinji was the one who was called to her defense; Shinji was the one who failed her in every conceivable way.

That said, he has no idea of what to expect. A sparking blue orb, maybe. He has seen how her covered eye can shine with supernatural, blue-charged intensity. As for scars or gouges or pulsating skin lesions--he can't even begin to guess. He doesn't get a chance to brace himself for the worst before he gets a glimpse of the truth. There's blue, but also black, where there should have been white. Blinking a few times, he's more curious than baffled as he waits there for her to open her eye again. In the meantime, he removes the eyepatch entirely, deciding it's unwelcome and undeserved. She doesn't need to hide herself from him. Besides, the fabric feels... Strangely, it feels wrong...]

I'm not stupid. I told you before, I'd want to see all of you.

[Yeah, there she is. Black sclera, dilated pupil, and an electric blue iris. It's very weird, but it isn't the tooth-lined portal to hell that it could have been. The Ninth Angel's legacy is equivalent to a special tinted contact. He smiles without pretense, chiding himself for not being ready before now.]

You're beautiful, Asuka.

[Only that supposedly accursed eye has a chance of seeing the real Ikari Shinji. His aura--his soul--is the sunlight's endless shimmer on the surface of an endless ocean.]

Edited 2016-06-01 03:58 (UTC)

[It's a testament to how little use that eye has-- or how little she allows use of that eye-- that at first, she mistook the light of his soul for the florescent light onboard. Now that she recognizes it, she can't look away, opening her damaged eye all the wider as she puts her hand to her other.]

[It's all gone. The eyepatch, her shield from the world, is off her face entirely. More intimate than shedding her top, more intimate than anything is letting him see what's behind her patch. He and Kaworu are the only ones who know exactly what it conceals, what it means. It's not a battle scar as much as an infection. And Shinji's opinion of her is only the most important thing in the world.]

You can't mean that. [But the look on his face, the smile there, none of that is insincere. He's not backing away. He's not afraid or ashamed. That's something to focus on, even if she can't believe it. Even if she wants to believe it so dearly. Her voice is thin as a spiderweb, but inside she's warm.] I'm not, you can't...

[Now's a good time for Shinji to take the scissors and shove them under the bed. He'll clean them off later, when he's in a darker, more prosaic mood. For now, he's only thinking about nice things, warm things, when he studies Asuka's face with the intent to memorize it. He has never seen her so vulnerable before. So caught off-guard. Not even the Asuka he used to know had looked like this. Maybe she had a similar face on the night she invited herself onto his futon, but she didn't let him turn over...]

I mean it. Every word. Every single one. If you wanna deny it, I'll just have to remind you.

[His soul is especially brilliant when he's telling the truth, when he's being honest with himself and others. Newly risen from his crouch, he moves over and sits down beside her on the bed, closer than usual for him. He's still looking at her like she's the only star in the sky.]

It feels better, doesn't it? Not having to wear this old thing... [Not having to wear the only thing that has kept her infection in check. Shinji doesn't know that consciously, but he's rejecting it for that reason. An Angel shouldn't be fettered by the machinations of Lilin. He drops the glyph-covered eyepatch off to the side, discarding it like a piece of trash.]

Edited 2016-06-02 11:22 (UTC)

[Asuka feels so insanely vulnerable, like a snail without its shell, naked and soft and prime for attacking. But Shinji isn't going to hurt her with barbed words and cruel comments. He isn't going to chide her for being and not being the girl he went to middle school with. He isn't going to pity her forever. He just said she was beautiful.]

[She reaches for the patch seconds after he tosses it away, as if it's an afterthought. Her left eye isn't good for showcasing any emotion, eerie as it is, but her right looks surprised.] It doesn't feel so heavy. [The dull pressure is mostly gone. Hints of that unearthly gleam return to her iris, like tiny sparks. Her breath's never seemed more foreign until this moment as she leans in to kiss him, clasping his hand. It's the only way she knows to thank him without words.]

[Oh, wow. It feels so much better to kiss Asuka without the eyepatch getting in the way. The pressure is gone. There's no weird prickle to the air. A welling of heat is no less present and insistent, though. Her infected eye is responding to... him? Shinji feels a sudden yet harmless tugging sensation in his chest that he can't really explain. It succeeds in drawing him closer, his mouth mimicking hers, their fingers twisting together. He kisses her with the intent to kiss her some more.

But then he remembers himself, and he turns his head away, taking a deep breath. He doesn't want to seem too desperate.]

Spend the day with me?

[He has no plans to leave this room. In fact, he hasn't visited the polluted moon in a while, mostly out of protest. Everything about the moon is ugly and boring and depressing.]

Okay.

[A tiny, tiny smile. The gleam spreads across the entirety of her iris. She can tell, she can just tell that he wants to kiss her more. The yearning in her feels just crazy. Wonderful. He hasn't turned away from her, and for that, right now, he deserves everything.]

I'd like that a lot.

[She squeezes his hand, maybe too hard, as if to reassure herself that this has really happened. For the first time in fourteen years she doesn't feel so much like a freak. If he could say she was beautiful, then maybe someday she could feel as if she was.]

[Asuka is squeezing his hand too hard. Probably hard enough to leave a bruise. Wildly, out of nowhere, Shinji wants to confess something dire to her: he has the ability to heal really quickly, too. He wants to tell her about how he doesn't need to eat or drink or sleep anymore. He wants to tell her about how he's terrified of losing the last shreds of his humanity to whatever's happening to him.

She's smiling, though. She's squeezing his hand, and she's smiling at him. He won't say anything to ruin that. He won't make this about him and his inner pain. As ever, he's a selfish prick, but he won't ruin her happiness today.]

While you're here, you can... [He fidgets, all pink in the face. The glow of her eye is so captivating.] If you want, you can try on this, uhm... I made a dress. Using your measurements from before. So I guess it's a dress meant for you. But I don't know if it's any good, and, well... [A quiet sigh, then.] Do you want to see it?

You made me a dress?

[If he's pink in the face, she's positively red. Her eye feels so hot that she can't help but rub it. It only gets rid of some of the glow. He's made her something else, without a ball or a birthday or anything special. Just because he wanted to. Asuka's never had anyone but Shinji make something for her. Never.]

Of course I want to see it. [It's almost enough to merit another kiss, but then she forces herself to quit that. She hasn't even seen it yet, after all. But if it's anything like that yukata, so carefully stitched, so delicate... Her cheeks are starting to hurt from smiling, and she impulsively tosses a swatch of fabric at him.] You thought I'd say no? Show me.

Mm... [Shinji nods tentatively, but he already regrets bringing it up. He should have spent more time practicing, iterating on the idea of a dress. If she hates it-- If she hates it, he can abandon sewing as a hobby, that's for sure. It might even be a relief to go back to staring at the wall and not doing anything all day. It's the thought that counts, he thinks, brushing off the swatch and getting up from the bed. Or maybe that's what people tell themselves when they know they suck.

Inside Shinji's locker, carefully stored on a hanger at the back, is the dress he made for Asuka. It's designed to be a sundress--not a good look for the polluted moon, but hopefully the Fleet will be going somewhere with clear skies and sunshine. It's patterned with various overlapping sunflowers, so it's mostly white and yellow, more pastel than intense. He couldn't decide if the fabric is elegant or childish.

He cringes visibly, just holding out the dress and inspecting it now. So many little flaws. Too many. And the cut probably reveals too much skin for someone who used to wear her plugsuit religiously.]

If you like the fabric, I can try to make something better than this.

Edited 2016-06-06 00:21 (UTC)

Heron May mingle

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