driftfleet | mk.05 (text)

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mk.05 (text)

Who: Kaworu Nagisa, anyone else!
Broadcast: fleetwide
Action: his bunk, the Vanquish
When: this afternoon

Need advice for when one's body is trying to kill oneself

[Shipmates may notice how he hasn't left his bunk but a couple of times in the entirety of this past week. This means he's been of no use as an engineer, which is bad news considering this mysterious bug business. Even without that, he should at least be tending to the ship's overhead lights, which have been flickering on occasion... (The particularly astute might note that this seems to coincide with the muffled sounds of what could be... sneezes?)

But, alas, he is dying. He's pretty sure of it.]

(augment glitch = baby's first flu!)

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[He is weak. He is this weak. But how can he not be afraid? They have scary similarities—he's an Angel, but there's too much about him that's human, enough that they thought they could do whatever they wanted to him; and people are right to be afraid of him. Even without that, she could... well, he's already ruined. But she could make it even worse, if she wanted to. She could...

...]

Why are you helping me?

[He just has to ask. He just has to. It's nothing she hasn't asked herself right from the start, and even now, she's not completely sure of the answer. It goes deeper than what she says, but she can't express how.]

Because you're not the only one who wants him happy.

[She's no martyr for the cause of Shinji. She couldn't possibly be like Nagisa, endlessly sacrificing for nothing. But some things might be worth giving up, at least in part.]

I know

[He lays a hand over his eyes. He's texting with his mind—his A.T. Field still obeys him even if his core won't—so he can rub at his forehead and at the bridge of his nose. His head hurts so bad. It's pounding behind his eyes, and it hurts up in his nose and his cheeks as well. This isn't exactly helping. The guilt, the shame, the worthlessness, they aren't helping.]

That's why I thought you could do better

[... She doesn't want to hear him martyr himself. That's not what he's trying to do (though on the other hand, when isn't it?), but he knows it probably comes across that way. Well...]

I know you don't want him to be unhappy. But I made him unhappy. That's the point.

So fix your mistake, asshole.

[She can't do better. Hasn't he been able to see that? She couldn't even tug him off that park bench in that first area they'd landed in. Shinji was such a wreck before he found Kaworu. Kaworu means far more to him than she ever will. Watching him try to give him up to her is sickening.]

I hate people like you. I hate people who make things so damn hard on themselves.

[She hates herself, is who she hates. God, he probably knows that, too.]

You're not a failure until you give up.

[At the end, there, they're good words. Better than he has any right to hear. It's something he would say himself, if he weren't thoroughly relishing his own misery.

He settles both hands over the center of his chest, just shy of his heart, pressing down with what strength he can muster. It's like he's trying to physically contain his A.T. Field—there's so much he's thinking that he doesn't want to text. I don't know what to do if things aren't hard for me. And, I don't hate any sort of person; so why do I hate myself so much? And, Just say you'll take care of him, won't you; just agree to do better than I ever could; just do it, I'm really, really tired. He deserves this headache and worse for even thinking that, but he refuses to say it to Asuka for real. She's heard enough out of him already.

...]

Do you think giving up is ever the right thing?

Idiot, you're looking for a way out! I'm not giving it to you!

[Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. All the stupid frailties of being human, the automatic responses that still force themselves to the surface under stress. Kaworu takes a lot out of her, but maybe she takes a lot out of him, too.]

It's so simple! I told you, he'd forgive you anything! So why are you being such a coward?!

That's not what I meant
I'm asking because

I want to know what you think

I think you're looking for an excuse to avoid him!

[He cringes. She's saying the exact thing he already knows, but he hasn't been honest enough with himself to admit it.]

What if he rejects me?

He won't, stupid! But if he does you just have to come back another day!

[Maddening. Absolutely maddening. Kaworu's sudden unwillingness to try is reminding her so much of Shinji at his worst that it's disgusting.]

What do you want? Do you want me to help you?

No, I don't want you to help me.

[I want to die. He only barely keeps from sending that. Instead...]

I want to do things over.

[He's been falling back on that for so long, after all.]

And you can't, now, that's it? God, that must be horrible. Everyone else on the planet only has one go! But you just did it over whenever you fucking felt like it!

[It's more rage than he deserves. But then again, he deserves it all, doesn't he? Telling-not-telling about Shinji's Angelic origins, admitting about all those redos, never succeeding, never gaining closure, and now, unfairly, she thinks she knows why.]

That's your whole problem! You pull out whenever you're tired of it! That's your mentality! [Despite herself, despite promising herself not to scare him, she slams her hand against the table. It splits with an awful noise.] The rest of us don't have that option! The rest of us have to deal with whatever fuckups we make!

[Yeah, he does deserve it. She's right about things he's refused to confront for a very long time. He's a coward. He keeps dying because he's a coward. He touts it to himself as a righteous cause: he wants to keep the Lilin alive. He wants to save them, save everybody, because that would mean saving Shinji. That's the only thing that matters. That's what he keeps telling himself: what Shinji wants is all that matters. Yet here he is, Nagisa Kaworu, crying about what he wants... Yet here is he, unable to be brave. His nerves are pinching while he listens to her angry breathing, to the swipe of her hand. It connects with the table and Kaworu squeezes his eyes shut.

It's several minutes before he answers her.]

Have you ever felt like he hated you? Not just that he didn't care about you. But that he hated you. Did you ever feel like that?

This is about more than just right now. I'm asking because I want to know.

[He doesn't hate you is almost on her lips. He loves you so much, it's sickening is next, but that doesn't come out either. Nothing comes out for several seconds as she stares at the mess that's left of the table and her throat feels like it's full of molten gold, burning her up from the inside.]

[Every time, every single time, talking to him gets her like this. Gets her to be every bit as disgusting a monster as she really is inside. Greedy, selfish, demanding everything. Violent. Hateful. And then, quietly, in a voice made ratchety from so much screaming, she says one dull word.]

Yes.

How did you get to be so strong?

I'm not.

No, you are. I didn't always know that, but I do now.

I'm not.

[That day, the day she'd felt that maybe, she was really growing up, that maybe friends weren't so bad-- that day ruined everything. Bardiel had infected her through her eye, ramming up directly to her brain. She'd been stunned, out of body, knowing that things had gone wrong, very wrong, but the pain hadn't really come in full, horrible force until Shinji had crushed her entry plug.]

[They'd told her afterwards about the dummy plug system. But when it first happened, it hadn't mattered. When she'd screamed, when she knew it wasn't an Angel at all but another Eva, his Eva, putting her down like a rabid dog-- then--]

Don't. Don't be nice to me.

[This isn't what he wants to hear from her. She asked what he wants; what does he want? What she says, it's familiar in a way opposite to what he's after from her. He'd prefer her aggression. This sounds more like self-loathing.]

Why? Is it weird?

[God, he's projecting. He's projecting an ages-old infatuation. He's disgusted with himself, but what's new there.]

I'm just being honest.

[She's silent. She wants to stay silent forever, as far as he's concerned. She's... she's said her piece to him, told him off, told him to go be with Shinji, everything; it's enough, isn't it enough? Isn't it?]

[Sitting at the broken table, staring at her own ruin, the communicator still somehow lying there, she can't find a word to say. Her throat is too tight for anything but a series of harsh, raspy sobs to come through in miserable response.]

[He can't be surprised that he's made her cry. That's how he operates, it seems. It's uncomfortable to listen but he sits through it anyway, staring at the ceiling of his room, understanding her anguish and even then knowing that it won't help for him to say so. He's given her so much extra weight. He's told he so many things she didn't need to hear. That she's strong, at least, is something he felt she really should hear. (Her sobbing, by the way, doesn't detract from that. He's still certain of her strength; he still looks up to the glamour of her rawness.)

It's another few minutes before he texts her again. Maybe it will be for the last time today, or for the last time ever, if Shinji wants nothing to do with him, or...

Well, he ought to at least try to make it count for something. She deserves something meaningful after everything else he's foisted upon her.]

All of this, me and him, it's not your fault. And whatever he does next, or whatever I do or choose not to do, neither are those things your fault. You're not a bad teacher. I'm just a bad student.

I haven't taught you anything.

[She sends it at least fifteen minutes after his text. By then, she's stuffed the broken table into a cargo hold, smudged snot all over her face with the back of her hand, and gone to her room. Once there, she pulls her patch off and crawls under the covers, communicator still in hand. Asuka doesn't know why she shouldn't want to end it there. Triumph complete, the race won, all that. He's heard her cry, so it's all over. She's nothing. Just a stupid little girl hung up over a boy and an accident half her life ago. No rival to anyone. No use to anyone, unable to do anything but spew hateful words. But Kaworu's still...]

Why don't you hate me?

[Even at first, he doesn't honestly expect her to respond; and as the minutes pass, they just confirm the end of their conversation (or whatever their exchange should be called). He's still, of course, lying in bed. He's feeling his consciousness spread scarcely through reality like a thin coat of paint. The paintbrush is too dry. The canvas barely shows a streak of color. Kaworu huddles in his bed with his hands over his face, marinating in all the truths she's told him. So he doesn't expect her text, but...

...]

There are many cases where I have more reason to love than to hate.

[Apparently he's at least functional enough to be vague again.]

I'm in the way.

No.

[...]

Just because he loves you doesn't mean he d[......]idn't love me, too.

I think you are better than I am, but it isn't you that makes me angry with.

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