003. text + action.

[astrobleme]

[network.]

[Shinji isn't mincing words today:]

This is totally outrageous.

I got a ticket from the local police for going 'too fast,' even though it was only - only!!! - by an infinitesimal amount. Literally a couple zeroes after the decimal point right here. I'm not a great pilot, I'll just say that, but there's no way I should be getting ticketed for this freaking crap. [Freaking crap. That's how you know he's really annoyed.]

So the other pilots should be aware that these so-called police are more interested in filling quotas for speeding tickets instead of actually protecting people. Whatever.


[action, aboard various ships in the Fleet.]

[Shinji and his bad mood can be found on the Red Fish, standing outside Asuka's room; on the Vanquish, in search of Kaworu; and on the Heron, his home ship, where he's trying to nurse a bruised ego with the coffee maker in the kitchen.]

Comments

[mortalcoil]

[the muscles in Coil's jaw work as he clenches his teeth, like he actually has words to bite back. and while he might have begrudgingly written out something he'd wanted to communicate on any other day, "normal" really did lose its hold on either one of them some time ago.

so, he defies the instruction and steps forward--right into Shinji's chest if he has to--and throws his arm out to the side to point back down the hall, toward the door.

hopefully Shinji can figure out the meaning of that one.]

[astrobleme]

[Awkward. Shinji is refusing to go anywhere, so when Coil gets up close and personal, the disparity between their heights becomes even more apparent. Shinji has to be nearly half a foot shorter than Coil, so he's left staring at clothing instead of a disapproving face. All the same, he doesn't move at all other than to say,] Can you get off of me? [And he says that like he just stepped in a pile of dog shit.

Any half-baked ideas Shinji had about requesting a transfer to this ship--well, they're all but obliterated now. He prefers the Heron's resident would-be mass killer to this undeserved, inexplicable mess.]

[mortalcoil]

[undeserved and inexplicable it might be, but it apparently makes enough sense in Coil's head to keep him from backing down. if he steps away now, what would that make him? he'd trip over his own lack of logic if he stopped to think about it for more than a second, but like hell he's going to do that now.

he's already too high on the rush of maybe venting some of the poison he's been carrying around lately. Shinji's too soft a target to not want to hurt.

still, he's exercising a considerable amount of restraint when he goes to grab the other boy's collar with one hand, tugging up and shaking him a little, trying to get him to look up at his face. look him in his one angry eye and get the message that he needs to leave.

he points again with his free arm, tries to turn Shinji that way like he's going to escort a petulant toddler.]

[astrobleme]

[Here, finally, Shinji does something different: he turns his head to the side and averts his gaze. But it isn't out of shame. It isn't fearfulness, or whatever borders on a crying fit. He's doing this on purpose to prevent a bully from getting any satisfaction out of harassing him. Needless to say, he's having flashbacks to the kids at school who were ten times more menacing and equally pathetic. A testament to humanity's ugliness.

Any twisting and turning on Coil's part is mildly successful, but that's because Shinji shows no signs of fighting back. If anything, he's hanging more loosely, even closing his eyes. He won't walk anywhere under his own power.]

Mm, you people are all the same, [he mutters.] I don't know why I expected any better.

[mortalcoil]

[something clicks while Shinji hangs there without fight. Coil gets a good, close look at someone suffering without argument, detached while some other bigger, stronger force batters them around.

it's strikingly familiar. but he's not usually on this side of it.

something in him twists and curls up away from the thought, and his mouth tastes bitter. it's suddenly hard to shake the image of what would happen if the other boy's throat was struck hard enough with something, in just the right way. it would be easy--a broken hyoid bone, flattened windpipe--that would really get him squirming.

"you people," Shinji says. the phrase is a deep, insulting cut. it doesn't matter who or what Shinji is talking about, Coil is nothing like them.

he's standing tall on ego that isn't his, looming over something too familiar--and just as deserving of what it gets--that it's hard not to so something worse. the urge is right there, so when he drags Shinji to the side to start bodily walking him toward the exit, he's not only just kicking someone off of his ship. he's outrunning quite a few things before he has the chance to recognize himself even less than he already does.]

[astrobleme]

[In truth, Shinji has a tolerance for pain so high that it might seem unrealistic for someone as frail and unremarkable as him. Strangulation can't really compare to being incinerated by an Angel's laser beam... or the other unrelenting horrors of being an Eva pilot. There's something comfortingly mundane about this ungainly escort down the hallway, presumably towards the shuttle bay. He goes limp and lifeless, from his scalp to his toes; he could be playing dead; he's more of a rag doll than Asuka's recently reclaimed friend. (He's reminded of when he was under arrest for defying his father.)

There's so much that Shinji could say, too, about this, but he doesn't bother. He just laughs. Off-kilter, barely audible, he has laughter trickling out through his teeth.]

[mortalcoil]

[he hates it. he hates that sound.

this whole thing is backwards, and some part of him is horrified at his own anger. he'd let it get so far under his skin, it's out of control now, and he wants Shinji off the ship as much for his own peace of mind as he does out of fear that someone might see him fallen so far out of character.

hate. that's the only word to sum it all up.

hate. hate. hate.

Coil punches the controls to open the hatch when he drags the other boy's lifeless corpse that far. he can't eject him from this space fast enough.]