driftfleet | Red Fishies

Because he's the one you hurt. Not me.

[There's no use in explaining it any further when he doesn't want to hear it. Stupid boy. He doesn't get what Shinji means to her. He doesn't get that the Fleet's the one place Shinji's ever felt almost safe in, sometimes. He thinks Shinji's weak, when Shinji's been through hell.]

[She rubs her fingers against her eyepatch, pushing right up against her iris beneath.]

Look, idiot. I told you. You can't hurt him and expect to be friends with me.

['didn't hurt him,' he snaps back in the silent way he does. and then he's right back in that place where he really needs to explain further, but he's running into the same block that he had the last time he'd tried to put this into words.

'I made him leave because he--' and he pauses while he searches, hands still halfway raised while he hangs on what to say. because there had been reasons at the time--he was sure of it.

'...He was being weird,' he finally signs. it's the only way he can put into words how Shinji was skulking around her room like a creep. it makes sense that he'd feel protective, right? he's the captain. and the other things that had happened, the other things that Shinji had said and done to make him angry, just come out as strung-together signs. '--Rude. Arrogant. Insulting.']

Shinji? [Asuka blinks, totally disbelieving, and then her eye narrows again. She chokes out a sound that's just a little bit like laughter, only it's too harsh and throaty. This has to be one of the stupider excuses she's ever heard in her life.] Shinji's a mouse! He'd apologize to a cockroach for stepping on it!

[he hates that sound--not because it's coming from her, but because it reminds him of the empty, derisive laughter that had come from Shinji that day. it reminds him of how he had sounded right before Coil had exorcised him from the ship.

so, his eye narrows to match hers, and he sets his jaw in defiance. Shinji may have been quiet and hadn't lifted a finger against him (or done much of anything but act as petulant, dead weight) but the condescending details burn much brighter than that in his memory.

how does he convey the small things like that? how does he describe body language that had meant more than words could?

he can't, really. he can't do much but stick to more tangible facts. with a tumble of fast-formed signs, 'Wouldn't say why he was there. Said it wasn't my concern. I wanted to know. He didn't care.' he huffs and hesitates, shrugs in frustration. '...Didn't like him. Didn't trust him.']

You knew why he was here! He was waiting for me! [Asuka's fist plunges into her mattress, the springs squeaking slightly at the force. It's not nearly as hard as she's hit that punching bag, but she can't afford to destroy any of her stuff, especially not during an unworthy outburst like this.]

He said he told you that! When the hell is that not good enough? I can see whoever I damn well please without you throwing him off the ship for liking me!

[his hands are beginning to tighten up into fists when he's not using them to talk--which, is more and more as he struggles to find the right words to use. he only gets through the signs for 'not it' about the very end of her statement, before he runs into another block. the frustrated gaps between stilted signs are getting longer.

communication, even in his own language, has never been something he's been very good at. 'if I don't like--' quickly changed to '--don't trust, I can do what I want.'

and he takes an unconscious step forward as he's getting worked up. he's unwittingly beginning to wade toward things that he's been more upset over than he ever lets himself realize, and her anger is contagious. 'this is my home. my people. and he didn't care.'

all three statements are pointed and distinct. all three points are sticking in his throat.]

Edited 2016-10-04 02:50 (UTC)

You're wrong!

[If Coil's worked up, Asuka's an inferno. Her eye's glowing through her patch, continuously, rather than the intermittent flickers it usually tends towards when she's upset.]

[His home-- yeah, maybe, but it's her home, too. His people-- Asuka's nobody's people, not in heritage or species or camaraderie. She's a misbegotten creature all the way around, and he doesn't understand, can't possibly get any of that from just holding her hand.]

[She reaches for the elastic holding her eyepatch against her eye, faltering before she can tug it away at first, though he's seen it before, in kinder circumstances. Then she yanks it off, tossing the patch on the bed.

Look! I got this way because of him! Everything's because of him! [It was an accident, a sickening, terrifying accident, but a binding one, too. One that kept her thinking about him for years and years after memories like that should've past their expiration date. Fixated on him. She'd cut her teeth on his pride, but Shinji's always had her heart.] Shinji's mine!

[that step forward that he'd taken is now shoved right back, as he slides back toward the wall again in the wake of her outburst.

it hits him. it all hits him, in separate, disorienting chunks. his anger is still there, but it's buffeted back as she bares things he'd only seen glimpses of in front of a tree in the forest. Shinji's role in her monstrousness, that bond, that horror. all of it. it's too raw, and it's far too honest.

his mouth parts in surprise as she roars.

and for the moment, that's all he can do. if he'd had trouble finding words before, they all fly uselessly out of his head now.]

[Asuka's rages aren't as easy to come by as they used to be, years and years ago, but they're just as volatile, just as damaging. Her damaged eye scopes him out half-blindly, her vision there not remotely human at all, the double images disconcerting and infuriating. She's panting, though she shouldn't need to, face violently red.]

[He's just sitting there, mouth hung open. Good, the savage part of her that might as well be all of her now thinks. Victory. He's finally shut up. No more halfassed excuses about Shinji being rude or imposing or taking what he thinks is his. That's what it all boils down to, isn't it? A stupid, stupid spat that he's too much of a child to man up about.]

You get it? You get it now? [Asuka doesn't put the patch back on. Let him stew on that for awhile, look at that inhuman eye that never can line up with the other. Let him wonder what it was that happened. A monster, yeah, but Shinji wasn't the monster. Never.] You can say and do whatever shit you want to me. But you can't touch him. Ever.

[in the wake of all that, he nods.

but, he's calm about it--extremely calm. almost numb. there is still anger stewing around somewhere, but it has absorbed back down into the earth. it's like her outburst was some kind of catharsis for him, like he could vent his own emotions by proxy.

and it's probably because he gets it, on some level. it's not exactly the same, but there is so much there that he can identify with, it's a little frightening. he knows what it's like to be so inexorably hung up on another person that the obsession matters more than anything. it certainly matters more than himself.

so, he just acknowledges it. he needed to see it from her, maybe. everything in his guts feels twisted and a little sick, but he thinks it's better now, somehow.

and he doesn't look like he's going anywhere.]

[That nod is sort of gratifying, but it doesn't make her relax. Asuka still looks for all the world like a rabid cat ready to pounce at the first sign of provocation. He won't touch Shinji again, but that's no guarantee he won't bother him again. Definitely no guarantee he'll apologize to him like she wants. Shinji won't set foot on her ship anymore, that's what Coil's deprived her of. He's taken one more place from Shinji's dwindling lists of spots he feels comfortable in. Asuka grits her teeth irritably, but says nothing for awhile.]

Well? What else do you want?

[he takes a minute to search once she speaks up again, like he hadn't quite realized that he was still standing there in silence.

eventually, he just signs, 'I didn't know.' which is a frustratingly tiny, vague statement for all of the different ways he means it. he didn't know if he could trust Shinji, he didn't know that fact didn't actually matter, he didn't know just how much the other boy was imbedded in everything--like broken bone shards in injured tissue. one little phrase can't possibly get all of that across, but the point is that if he had known, it would have gone differently. it's the closest thing to an apology to her that he can probably get.]

No, you didn't.

[She gets it. He regrets it, even, probably, but not for the right reasons. He ought to care more about what Shinji felt than what Asuka felt. But it's a grudging sort of start. Asuka lets the silence hang for a bit before putting her eyepatch back on, the slight snap of elastic almost like the close of a door, shutting him and everyone else out again. That eye's still gleaming slightly through the patch.]

Everybody's treated him like shit his whole life. [Even me. Especially me.] He was crying when he told me about it. He said he must've done something wrong. [Maybe it's too much to reveal-- Shinji would die if he knew she'd told Coil any of that, but she has to let it out.] He was just trying to visit me like normal. Now he won't come back at all.

[finally, tension that he hadn't noticed he'd been holding begins to hesitantly leave his shoulders. her eyepatch has been returned to its place; his fingers loosen out of fists.

yes, it's a start. and in respect of that, he tries his best to hide his surprise and disdain over the bits she's revealing. to picture the boy he'd met crying... his face wants to twist into the sneer that Shinji had showed him first. and he wants to say something about it, but he's smart enough not to touch it until this whole thing has had a long time to cool off. maybe not even then.

he also wants to fold his arms and pretend he doesn't have to respond to her last comment. but he's sure he doesn't actually have that option right now.

'Plenty of other places to visit.']

Asshole.

[God, he doesn't understand after all. He's being every bit the rude, insufferable brat he accused Shinji of being. Not letting him on the ship like a child refusing to let go of a toy. Fine. Asuka's got nothing else to do except dig her heels in.]

Don't expect to ever talk to me again until you've given him an apology. I'm done here.

[Coil is very good at being a hypocrite, and sometimes, he even knows it.

so, he takes a moment to lift his gaze toward the ceiling and sigh, but it's not to end in an eyeroll. he's steeling himself; biting the bullet and swallowing some of his pride. it takes him a minute. it's an effort he very rarely puts himself through--not that Asuka is in any place to feel flattered over it.

'That will even matter? Make a difference?' he asks, taking it slow while he picks out the signs that will actually get the meanings across. 'You would stop being angry?']

[Asuka's hands dig at the covers on her bed, her gaze dropping from his face and onto the wall beyond him.] I said I'm done here.

[he takes half a step forward, like he's trying to get into her line of vision again, even though she's still technically looking at him.

'Answer me,' he signs, because they were questions that he meant. he's not going to consider doing something so loathsome as apologizing if it's not actually going to make a difference. if she's not going to forgive him either way, there's no point.]

I wouldn't say it if it didn't matter. [She snaps the words out like little firecrackers. He's trying to get her attention again, but she's determined, focusing her eye on one particular, newly-dented part of the wall. He gets an agitated sigh, and then--]

I'll let it go then, all right?

[that will do. with her verbal confirmation, he steps forward across the little distance between them so he can shove his communicator in her direction, along with the sign for 'number.'

give him Shinji's number, and he will end this.]

[Asuka offers up a tight nod and types the number in for him. She's about to leave it at that, handing it back to him, but as soon as she's returned the communicator, with a little grudging hesitation, she makes the sign for thank you.]

Red Fishies

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