driftfleet | mk. 07 (text)

Entry tags:

mk. 07 (text)

Who: Kaworu Nagisa and anyone else
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: he's off on his own, for now.
When: afternoon

It's curious to call a place the way this place is called. "Solace" is a deeply personal concept to any creature, I believe. What brings you that measure of peace is going to be different from what brings it to me. So there's a lot of confidence in naming this space Solace, because how did they know whether this has what you or I are seeking?

But isn't it a little nice, too? The people who created this place must have found their solace in it themselves, and they truly believed it to be a provision of peace for the average heart. Those people have long since passed, I'm sure, now dead and having scattered past all these clouds. But what they believed to be vital, what nourished their well-being, remains here as a beacon of their hopes and endeavors. You know, it's always that way: when anyone leaves the world, their personal truths linger on, a landmark of reality. To the founders of Solace, this was solace. So it remains, whether or not you or I find our peace here.

Oh, anyway, hey, what do you think of this thing?

[attachment: nice72.jpg]

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You do?

[She hasn't relaxed the barest inch since he said it. I like you can run the gamut, after all. A person like Kaworu (when did he become a person instead of an Angel?) (when did he become someone she cared about for his own sake, and not just for Shinji's?) likes the eavesdropping lizard, bags of candy, probably even liquid soap dispensers. He treats what surrounds him as if it's all completely new and exciting. So it's not good enough just to be liked. Asuka craves precision. Definition.]

How? [She doesn't say it as though it's an impossible feat, to like her. It isn't, even as rotten as she is. She forces herself to look at his pale face, his red eyes, and keep on demanding, face florid.] What do you mean by that?

[He isn't surprised by her desire for clarification. It's familiar, and it's in line with what he's learned about her. He knows, then, how important it is that he chooses the most thoughtful answer. When Kaworu shuts his eyes, it's in deep consideration. He is poring over every aspect of her he's encountered.

Ah. He's finally found it. There's the spread of a smile over his face, which is tilted up toward her, a pigmentless sunflower.]

I like you like I like Beethoven's Appassionata.

[Asuka's silent as he turns that smile on her. It's warm. It's very, very warm. She didn't know how much she craved that, didn't know how it would make her feel so-- so-- light and wanted. She doesn't really feel like she deserves it, but that doesn't keep her from relishing it, or from starting to smile back.]

That's a lot. [That's a piece she sort of recognizes, or thinks she does. It's dramatic. And then, because that's not enough, fingers curving, feeling like the fourteen-year-old she isn't but she's always been--]

I like you a lot, too.

[Kaworu's eyes snap back open. Her words are the logical conclusion of this conversation, all they're sharing with each other, but that doesn't mean he anticipated them. She likes him, all right, he's still adjusting to that feeling. But now she's saying she likes him a lot.

Talk about being undeserving. Equally young for the moment, he's caught between wanting to grab her hand, to squeeze her fingers for security purposes, and wanting to ask her a hundred demanding questions about liking things. (Liking him, specifically.) He refuses to do either of those things. He's not that new and stupid anymore, he tells himself. Although he does wonder what she might think if he acted on youthful impulses.

Instead, he compromises. He rises from his spot on the ground, slow and steady in body but with fluid motion, and he dusts off his hands. First he glances down at the patient lizard. With a laugh crouched in the back of his voice, Kaworu says,] I think it fell asleep. It wanted to meet you, but I kept you all to myself once you came.

[Now he looks at her again. He's looking down at her only for a moment, before he makes certain to posture himself equally instead of above: he sits down on the bench beside her.]

This is a good thing. [He says it softly, gently. He's addressing his own doubts about deservedness just as much as hers.]

[She's glad that he's gotten up. Asuka's tried so hard for most of her life to position herself above anyone, as if by rising to the top she'd feel like she should be there. But sitting beside her as an equal is so much better. So much more natural and comfortable.]

[She rubs the back of her neck with her hand and starts to shift over. Not giving him more room, giving him less. Not trying to invade his personal space. Just trying to share in it.]

[She's a schoolgirl again. She's passing notes under the desk. Do-you-like-me-yes-or-no. But it doesn't feel bad. It doesn't feel juvenile. It just feels whole.]

Yeah.

[She reaches over, nervous but quick, grabbing his hand, fingers intertwining insistently with his.]

I'm glad. I'm really glad.

[Physical contact is such a wonderful thing that sometimes, privately, Kaworu feels like crying when he's alone in his bed. This past year—not a lot of time, but the most compounded part of his life so far—has given him more touch than he ever thought he would experience. But almost all of it has been one person, through predictable circumstances, and there's special novelty, a new wonder, in the specifics of Asuka's hand. Her wrist and palm and fingers are unique to her. The measure of her grip, too.

Kaworu, meanwhile, has his own special way of holding hands: his fingers lock into hers accordingly, but when Kaworu holds somebody's hand, it's like he's cradling them. Like his palm is full of their trust. He knows he is, in essence, holding a very young heart, along with that hand. His grasp is soft but grounded. He's careful about never squeezing too hard. He's cool to the touch but he's still emanating warmth. It radiates from his smile, his eyes, that real joy that's less than mellow.

He leans even closer to her—knocks his shoulder gently against hers. This is a gesture of affection he does frequently with Shinji, but also only ever with Shinji. Friendship reaches different points of elevation. Kaworu has called several people in the Fleet his friends. But now comes the rarity of his defined affection. He likes Asuka as an individual. A person in her own right, with qualities Kaworu finds desirable. Qualities Kaworu wants to spend time with. Whatever distinctions of friendship Kaworu hasn't quite learned, he at least knows that Asuka Shikinami Langley means more to him than a presence boiled down to the beauty of life. She exceeds such simplicity.]

I would like to play it for you, some day. Appassionata. Everyone plays it a little bit differently.

I'd like that. [Asuka's smile hasn't faded out yet. For a long time, too long a time, she thought she didn't have a reason to perk up at all, thought that life would always be a series of battles eroding her down to fragments. For a long time, even on the Fleet, she'd been prepared for the day she'd be back piloting Eva.]

[But now he's holding her hand like he's holding her heart instead. She's not so bitter anymore. Not so cynical. She thinks, right now, that no one could be cynical if they always had a hand to hold. His hand to hold, willing and gentle. She tries to chide herself for being so sentimental, but she can't dismiss her own thoughts. Kaworu's the kind of person that seems to see the could bes instead of the realities. That has to be why Shinji fell for him so.]

[Has to be why she is, too.]

[The brush of his shoulder feels like an affirmation. Asuka doesn't actively touch many people, either, for all that she tends to be alternately invasive and aloof. She's only held hands with two other people before, and, one foot tapping on the ground, she's already afraid she's getting greedy.]

It's all about the touch, isn't it?

It's all about how one wants to touch. [Not so much a correction as an elaboration. He watches the movement of her foot, notes her tempo.] A person's touch might be that of determination. Of fear. Or something confident. It could contain desire, too.

[The metaphor, or double meaning, isn't even subtle, and he doesn't intend for it to be. There are many ways to touch a piano, and many to touch another person. When he looks once more to Asuka's face, it's straightforward, eye to eye, nothing fearful.]

Often, when you listen to a person play music, you can hear that they are pouring everything in their hearts into their performance. Anger or desolation or deep and headstrong love. Whatever their hearts are yearning to say is what you hear in their song.

What does yours say?

[God. Stupid, stupid. Asuka's hand in his fumbles, but she doesn't let go. She's not this girl. She's not so easily won over that she'll start babbling, and she's definitely not like Shinji, who'd hang onto every word Kaworu said like it was scripture and verse, but she knows he's not really talking about the piano, or at least not entirely, and she can't help herself, even if she ends up embarrassed in the process.]

I'll tell you if you tell me first.

My own? All right. That's a fair deal. I'll keep yours a secret, if you want me to. I hope you'll keep mine secret, too.

[That's necessary groundwork, but he's stalling, too, feeling like he might not be ready to say it. She's gotten much of that from him, though. Things he was sure he'd take to whatever cosmic grave might someday catch him. Things he meant to keep shut up inside boxes on the moon.

He adjusts his hand in hers. Now it's a little less cradling and a little more of his selfish desire to be touched.

His selfish desire to be touched. He smiles at her.] I'm tired and I want to be hugged.

[...

Three creatures know that, now. The tree near Kaworu's piano, now obliterated for sure; the eavesdropping lizard, sunning here in artificial light; and Asuka Shikinami Langley, against whose hand his thumb is kneading gently. It's a little like a cat with a blanket. That sense of comfort. He's taking real comfort in her, finally, instead of feeling wrung out.] Shikinami-san, my eyes, they don't get tired. I could look at things for days, if I wanted. I've done that. But right now, when I'm looking at you, it's like I'm waking up in the morning, fresh and bleary. Like the dawn, a gift I can't entirely understand. Although I am tired, I don't want to miss out on it.

I make you tired?

[Asuka falters a little-- then she squeezes his hand back. She knows more about how worn out he really is than he'd like her to know. The repeats. Over and over. She can't imagine living even a single year more than once. Just day to day in Eva was a drain on her soul.]

[His poetic way of stringing words together doesn't go over her head, but it does make her silent and a little ashamed. She's about as lyrical as the sleeping lizard, maybe less so. About as earthy, too. She doesn't see the point in waxing on, even when what he says is (pretty) (lovely) nice.]

[But a fresh morning, a morning worth waking up for, is as pleasant a comparison as she's heard. So she lets go of his hand after another squeeze and turns to face him, putting her arms around him. She hasn't hugged anyone but Shinji, and the motion is a little awkward at first, but warm all the same. When she inhales, she can smell his distinct scent, clean and calming. Her heart's starting to pump, no, starting to pound out of its ribcage as her hold on him tightens and she says:]

This is mine.

[And then she turns her head to catch his lips in a kiss.]

[Kaworu is surprised when she kisses him only because he doesn't expect for people to want to kiss him. The exception to that was carefully cultivated. He feels carefully cultivated now, too, worried that she has misinterpreted him, that he has lied to her—not about how he likes her, that has been clearly communicated between the both of them, but if she wants to kiss him, she must be finding good things in him, and although that's what he wants, his constant posturing comes with guilt as well...

At least he's learning, if just pieces at a time, that a thing like this is fine for him. Kaworu had gone from demanding intimacy to basking in it to setting it off to the side, a tenuous hum in the back of his mind. His time with the Fleet has been ridiculous in too many ways to name, but he has at least grown nearer to accepting the desire for intimacy that is constantly itching at his brain stem. So, thankfully, he doesn't reject Asuka's kiss in an act of self-loathing. He stays still in one moment of hesitance, and then he kisses her in return, very gentle, but resembling a man who tries to drink a glass of water slowly.

He doesn't draw it out for too long. Kaworu is still invested in self-denial. But the fingers of one hand are feeling at the ends of her long hair.]

Very pretty, [he says at last, and he talks like she's the only person for whom these words are meant right now.] Your heart is very pretty. Asuka Shikinami Langley— [He says her full name just for his desire to call her "Asuka" at all.] You don't make me tired. You make me feel like I can be, without catastrophe. I'm not allowed that sort of safety, you know.

Don't worry about that right now.

[Asuka's heart is still jittering, still unpretty. Kaworu doesn't know what he's talking about. He... he'd probably say the same for anyone (but he didn't) (but he didn't; he said that for her). So it shouldn't make every fiber of her feel electrified. It shouldn't make her feel a lightening bolt of approval, singeing her insides to bliss.]

[But of course it does. She lets him play with her hair without argument, both her eyes shining. In the back of her head, she'd been terrified of a gentle rejection. Liking things a lot was plenty confusing enough, even for humans, leaving way too much room for interpretation-- and now that she's got some idea of his meaning, now that she thinks it aligns with hers, she's already demanding.]

Worry about kissing me again. Unless you're all done.

That's not much of a worry. It's too nice for that. [Speech like that is Kaworu's way of playing, plus the compliments he likes to pay. He's smiling with less placidity, and much more charm. It could be called flirtatious, just like the travel of his hand, up, up, up her hair, until he's arranging some of it behind her ear.

And yet he's wholly gentle throughout all of it. There's nothing smug about him; it's just that he's enjoying himself.]

Shikinami-san, your body is warm, as if from sunlight. I'm close enough to you now to know that your hair smells good. And your mouth is soft. [His fingers are still charting her locks of hair; he skirts her ear.] Kissing you is like kissing a beautiful flower.

[And when he does kiss her again, it's with the warmth and sturdiness of a gardener.]

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mk. 07 (text)

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