"Talk. That thing with your mouth?" Asuka can just barely feel the muted sensation of his lips sucking on her gloved fingertips. Even dulled human contact is a precious commodity, honestly. She can't remember the last time anyone touched her on purpose.
She'll go crazy-- she has gone crazy-- if she has no one but herself to hear. The coma and the coffin were like that, nothing but the echoes of her own scream and her own frailties on endless repeat. She won't remotely blame herself for the mess that remains of Shinji. After all, she didn't kill Nagisa.
"At least tell me what I can do. What I need to bring. Got it?" Asuka's got a supply list in her head, but it's limited to clothes and shoes. A matchbook. A flashlight. She's put the doll aside, pushed it under the covers. She doesn't reach for his third cracker, instead reaching up to pull off her headset. She'll take it apart in a few minutes. Use the components to trade. Sure, they're still traceable as WILLE's property, but if they get dispersed, the better for her. "I can't read your mind, moron. I've got to know right now."
Oh. Supplies. That makes sense. Asuka doesn't really want to talk to him--who would do that?--other than Kaworu-kun--but she does want to know what he needs to survive. It makes Shinji consider what his life will be like from now on. They might as well be two strangers traveling together on an alien planet. Surely, she's going to get tired of him sooner or later. Ditch him in the first settlement like so much excess baggage. But if she's asking him what to bring along, then...
"Blanket." He says that with a shiver for punctuation. But a blanket is the first thing that comes to mind; he's drawing on a blank on anything else. For the time being, he's ruled by impulse, not careful planning ahead. He lapses into silence and waits for her to feed him or prompt him again. He would be able to understand her hatred of silence, though, if she told him about it. That's why he was always listening to his cassette player, drowning out the noise and silence both.
"Music," he adds, then, hesitantly. He knows how unreasonable that is. It's a luxury compared to necessities like food and water. "A player. To play music." He seems to have misplaced Father's precious SDAT... did he drop it at some point...? "Please, Asuka."
Asuka nods. Another blanket or two should be easy enough to come by. Asuka's not the most adept at sneaking around, but she's got an unfair and ridiculous advantage strength-wise. If anyone catches her swiping items, they'll end up with fragmented teeth and a broken jaw, and that's if they're lucky. She can handle herself.
The music player, though, might be impossible. For a second, she thinks he means a radio, but then she remembers, slowly-- his tape player. The one he used to listen to all those years ago, just another means to shut himself off from the world. She hadn't gotten that luxury. Why should he? He's severed himself from her with surgical precision already, barely speaking, just sitting limp, a marionette with cut strings. Even if by some stroke of luck, she was able to find it, an outdated antique older than he is, he doesn't deserve it. He hasn't earned anything but a kick in the face that she's not willing to give.
"I'll try." Asuka's long since turned her phone off and removed the battery, so Katsuragi won't be able to trace the signal. There's no easy way of knowing the time, but on automatic, she still says-- "I'll be back in about two hours. If I'm not back by morning, you leave without me. Understand? You get out of here."
Giving him water bottles when he was sick. Stuffing crackers into his mouth now. She's never been any good, and he knew that from the start. She can't summon up the will to tell him why she's doing this.
"And finish those crackers. You can have my water, too. And whatever else you want." She gets up from the bed, then, leaving her headset beside him and stalking off without another word, closing the door behind her, only to return an hour and a half later. There aren't any vendors out at night, of course, as if she'd expected there to be. Asuka had ended up raiding an abandoned house, carrying a plastic garbage bag behind her. It has three blankets, a dirty pillow, and several sun-faded, worn-out dresses, along with two pairs of sandals. A jacket. A pencil and a steno pad. All the electronics had been removed or looted before she'd ever arrived. Asuka brings the garbage bag to him, opening it so he can see what she's pilfered.
Shinji, too late, too delayed, can't stop Asuka from walking out of the room. His fingers close around thin air, and he stays that way, his arm stretched outward, awkwardly positioned like a model being painted by some art students. It takes more than a minute for his arm to fall back against his side. After that, he doesn't really remember what happens to him. He more or less stops existing until Asuka returns to the outpost with her garbage bag of scavenged goods.
He opens his eyes when he hears the distinct rattle of the door. He notices that he's lying horizontally. It seems that he's curled up on his side, on the bed, having given up and crumpled in on himself. The crackers are gone, too. He must have eaten them; he can taste the mush in his mouth, and there's an unsightly crust of saliva on his lips. His legs move weakly, less than an inch, proving that he can't sit himself back up. He exhales heavily. He has to wait for her to come closer. (Needless to say, there's no way he would have been able to leave by himself. If she hadn't come back, he would have stayed here until he starved to death, or something worse. Lawless, roaming raiders aren't known for being kind to young children.)
Stirringly a little more, he turns his head to look at the garbage bag. The verdict on the tape player isn't a surprise. Still disappointing. Not a surprise. Still disappointing. Truthfully, he would benefit more from a drink of water, but he's decided that screw caps were invented just to fuck with him. His fingers don't have the dexterity to deal with twists and turns.
"You... c-came back..." Maybe he sounds relieved to see her again. He's shivering more often now, the chill getting to him. He could have crawled beneath the ratty, filthy blanket on the bed, but he couldn't figure out how to do that, either.
It's not the most haunting image plastered in her brain, but it's close. Shinji is still on the exact same bed as earlier. The only change is that he's laying down now. Cold. He's cold. The idiot couldn't find the power of mind to get under the blanket. Asuka thinks uncharitably about the insane asylums hundreds of years ago. Relatives pawned off to the state like so much excess baggage, drooling, incontinent bags of bones. Shinji's not acting any better. He'll be a noose around her neck if he doesn't improve soon.
Since he doesn't look like he'll start rifling through the goods, she digs in herself, yanking blanket after blanket out. The dresses get piled beside him; the shoes are placed on the floor (she'd estimated his size-- at least if he gets blisters, he probably won't complain out loud), and what remains is shoved under the bed. It's a poor start, but people have built empires on less. Asuka's only ambition is making it for a month.
"Get under these. They should warm you up." Talk to me. Please, God, talk to me. I don't deserve this. I didn't do a damn thing to you. Her eye wanders from him to the bottle of water, still untouched since last she drank from it. At least he ate the crackers. The time without him hasn't done her any mental good, but at least as she was wandering back, she was able to construct more of a gameplan, however basic and laughable. "The Colonel's going to care more about getting you than me." Exhale. "That's why I got girl's clothes until we're farther away. If I find a knife, I'm cutting my hair." She's not sure why she says that last part. From the looks of it, it wouldn't make a difference to him if she'd decided to amputate both pinkies. "You mind?"
Shinji mutters something indistinct. Before she left, Asuka told him that he should set off on his own if she didn't return by morning, so he had to assume she wouldn't return. It was the least cruel way of saying goodbye, right? But she's here, she's here with him, softening some of his fears of abandonment. He actually finds the willpower to crawl under the blankets, which smell shockingly clean to him. Not like the LCL or the rust or the piles of rat droppings. The blankets are definitely warm, too. He relaxes into the warmth with a quiet, ephemeral noise that could be a sigh or a bird that's falling asleep. His shivering isn't so pronounced now.
Misato-san is going to hunt him down. Seriously, that's terrifying, but he's too exhausted to do anything about it. The only thing standing between him and oblivion is Shikinami Asuka Langley, who deserves better than to be his guardian. He still doesn't understand why she won't let him die. It would be better for everyone if he did. Especially Asuka. She lived without him for fourteen years, so she could live without him for many more. She could do that.
Besides, Shinji has the audacity to twist his lips and wrinkle his nose when Asuka asks about the state of her hair. "I like your hair the way it is," he says. That sentence is the most coherent thing he's said. Her hair is just that important to him--or, her hair not changing is that important. The eyepatch was bad enough. Shearing off all that familiar red hair will be too upsetting. He used to imagine running his fingers through it. Brushing it off of her shoulders, or away from her neck. He doesn't want her to look like a stranger on top of everything else.
But he can't do more than wiggle his foot in protest.
"You like my hair?" Now she's the one parroting in mild disbelief. She hadn't thought he'd care at all. Maybe a noncommittal chirp, maybe mild dismay in his body language, but that was it. Not actual protest. And he's not arguing about the girl's clothes, either, which is really weird, even in his condition. Shinji had never been much of a man, but his lack of concern is disturbing in its own right. It means she could do whatever she wanted to him.
Too bad he hadn't said that years ago. Asuka's kept her hair the exact same length and style for all this time-- though not for him-- the straight locks ending right at her bra strap. If her body wouldn't change, there was no reason to alter her hairstyle, make pretenses towards a maturity that wouldn't happen. She wonders, silently, if slicing her hair right in front of him would prompt a reaction. All she's looking for out of him is reactions now.
I like your hair. It might be the only compliment that's made her feel anything in half a decade. She glances away and twists a knob on her plugsuit, peeling off her gloves. Asuka's nose is hypersensitive enough to detect those trace cracker crumbs and concentrates still on the fingers. This plugsuit's more sleek than her old one, streamlined. Boring. After getting rid of the neckpiece, all she'd have left would be to depressurize the suit.
Asuka blearily remembers the last time he saw her naked. His face had turned crimson and she'd shrieked like a banshee for daring to peek. A Peeping Tom. A pervert. Then she'd been secretly pleased, wondering if he'd liked it. Deciding he had. Maybe the sight of skin might jar him a little more. It can't make him worse.
She sits down on the bed, removing the collar, looking at him. He'd probably close his eyes for her if she asked, but she doesn't ask before depressurizing the plugsuit and tugging it off her body, leaving it in a heap on the ground. Despite the chill, she's not shivering at all.
Well, Shinji hasn't realized some of the dresses are meant for him. They're in the same petite, cutesy style as the ones Asuka donned when she was an actual girl. Definitely inappropriate for him. Even in his addled state, he assumes that she has at least one pair of pants for him to wear. So, instead of lodging more protests, he sniffles and nods in reply. Her hair should stay right where it is, right as he remembers it.
His overall awareness is so muted that he doesn't think twice about Asuka's removal of her plugsuit. As soon as she tugs off the gloves, he knows what's coming next--she's going to get undressed--but he's expecting her to shuffle somewhere else. There's no way Asuka would disrobe in front of him... It's inconceivable, like a boy wearing a dress would be. It can't be happening. When she snaps open the collar, he doesn't avert his eyes; she should be stepping out of his line of sight soon. She wasn't the most modest girl back then--sometimes she allowed her bra straps to show--but she'd freak the fuck out if he saw too much of her skin. But, without warning, there's the milky reality of her neck and how it connects to her bare shoulders. There's an exposed clavicle and sternum. There's the meager swell of her breasts, capped with nipples that have hardened in the cold. He can't convince himself to look away, so he's treated to the slope of her stomach, her thin but still feminine hips, that dusting of red pubic hair. If she spread her legs any farther, he would be able to see her most private places.
Like a kettle that's slow to boil, Shinji's reaction is just the same. Pale pink embarrassment is leaking onto his face, and it cycles through shades, getting darker and darker. She stripped in front of him. She stripped! In front of him! In front of Ikari Shinji! He hiccups in what might be the fugue's version of a spluttering cough. His face is really warm, increasingly beet-red. It feels like he's swallowed a mouthful of hot water--it's traveling down, down, through his chest, into his stomach. The rush of blood through a body he can't feel the boundaries of is the strangest sensation in the world.
"Wh..."
Other than Ayanami, which was an accident, he has never been this close to a naked girl. His mind is unspooling like a broken cassette tape as he stares and stares and stares.
The thought doesn't come out of nowhere. Shinji's face is steadily darkening from pink to outright red. She doesn't meet his gaze for more than an instant at a time, but she can feel his eyes on her, eyes that haven't been on her in a long time, eyes that aren't wavering from her naked body. A part of her is sickly satisfied as he trails off, grateful. No. Satiated.
What is she doing? What is she thinking? But however long it lasts, this is the closest to the way he used to be that he's been in hours and hours. It's okay if she's had to use her body to do it. It has to be. Right?
Only it's not really about briefly snapping him back now. Her legs cross at the ankles instead of the knees, swinging nervously, childishly, as she sits on the edge of the bed. She's only looking at him in small, cowardly glances. She's unaccustomed to shame, buried as the feeling's been under all her layers of bitterness, but she is ashamed-- both of her immature body and for exposing herself like this, stripping down for a traumatized boy. No matter what her reasons, it's deplorable. Just awful. Asuka's head droops, strands of hair falling across her face. He's seen everything. He knows nothing's changed. She's still trying to get his attention, even under the most dire of circumstances. She hasn't grown up at all, just gotten older, too old for this selfishness--
She grabs the top dress without even looking at it, shoulders slumping, crumpling the material between warm fingers. She barely remembers what it feels like to really touch anything for more than the ten minutes she spends in the shower every day, as if she could wash away the lingering scent of LCL before stepping back into her custom-made prison of a plugsuit. It's nice. It's nice. She lets the dress drop into her lap, wishing she could coil up like a snake, tighter and tighter until she'd squeezed every awful particle of herself away. Do you like it and I'm sorry, I'm sorry compete on her tongue, but all she manages is a little, choked sound as she hangs her head.
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astrobleme) wrote2015-09-13 09:06 pm
no subject
She'll go crazy-- she has gone crazy-- if she has no one but herself to hear. The coma and the coffin were like that, nothing but the echoes of her own scream and her own frailties on endless repeat. She won't remotely blame herself for the mess that remains of Shinji. After all, she didn't kill Nagisa.
"At least tell me what I can do. What I need to bring. Got it?" Asuka's got a supply list in her head, but it's limited to clothes and shoes. A matchbook. A flashlight. She's put the doll aside, pushed it under the covers. She doesn't reach for his third cracker, instead reaching up to pull off her headset. She'll take it apart in a few minutes. Use the components to trade. Sure, they're still traceable as WILLE's property, but if they get dispersed, the better for her. "I can't read your mind, moron. I've got to know right now."
no subject
"Blanket." He says that with a shiver for punctuation. But a blanket is the first thing that comes to mind; he's drawing on a blank on anything else. For the time being, he's ruled by impulse, not careful planning ahead. He lapses into silence and waits for her to feed him or prompt him again. He would be able to understand her hatred of silence, though, if she told him about it. That's why he was always listening to his cassette player, drowning out the noise and silence both.
"Music," he adds, then, hesitantly. He knows how unreasonable that is. It's a luxury compared to necessities like food and water. "A player. To play music." He seems to have misplaced Father's precious SDAT... did he drop it at some point...? "Please, Asuka."
no subject
The music player, though, might be impossible. For a second, she thinks he means a radio, but then she remembers, slowly-- his tape player. The one he used to listen to all those years ago, just another means to shut himself off from the world. She hadn't gotten that luxury. Why should he? He's severed himself from her with surgical precision already, barely speaking, just sitting limp, a marionette with cut strings. Even if by some stroke of luck, she was able to find it, an outdated antique older than he is, he doesn't deserve it. He hasn't earned anything but a kick in the face that she's not willing to give.
"I'll try." Asuka's long since turned her phone off and removed the battery, so Katsuragi won't be able to trace the signal. There's no easy way of knowing the time, but on automatic, she still says-- "I'll be back in about two hours. If I'm not back by morning, you leave without me. Understand? You get out of here."
Giving him water bottles when he was sick. Stuffing crackers into his mouth now. She's never been any good, and he knew that from the start. She can't summon up the will to tell him why she's doing this.
"And finish those crackers. You can have my water, too. And whatever else you want." She gets up from the bed, then, leaving her headset beside him and stalking off without another word, closing the door behind her, only to return an hour and a half later. There aren't any vendors out at night, of course, as if she'd expected there to be. Asuka had ended up raiding an abandoned house, carrying a plastic garbage bag behind her. It has three blankets, a dirty pillow, and several sun-faded, worn-out dresses, along with two pairs of sandals. A jacket. A pencil and a steno pad. All the electronics had been removed or looted before she'd ever arrived. Asuka brings the garbage bag to him, opening it so he can see what she's pilfered.
"I couldn't find a player. Sorry."
no subject
He opens his eyes when he hears the distinct rattle of the door. He notices that he's lying horizontally. It seems that he's curled up on his side, on the bed, having given up and crumpled in on himself. The crackers are gone, too. He must have eaten them; he can taste the mush in his mouth, and there's an unsightly crust of saliva on his lips. His legs move weakly, less than an inch, proving that he can't sit himself back up. He exhales heavily. He has to wait for her to come closer. (Needless to say, there's no way he would have been able to leave by himself. If she hadn't come back, he would have stayed here until he starved to death, or something worse. Lawless, roaming raiders aren't known for being kind to young children.)
Stirringly a little more, he turns his head to look at the garbage bag. The verdict on the tape player isn't a surprise. Still disappointing. Not a surprise. Still disappointing. Truthfully, he would benefit more from a drink of water, but he's decided that screw caps were invented just to fuck with him. His fingers don't have the dexterity to deal with twists and turns.
"You... c-came back..." Maybe he sounds relieved to see her again. He's shivering more often now, the chill getting to him. He could have crawled beneath the ratty, filthy blanket on the bed, but he couldn't figure out how to do that, either.
no subject
It's not the most haunting image plastered in her brain, but it's close. Shinji is still on the exact same bed as earlier. The only change is that he's laying down now. Cold. He's cold. The idiot couldn't find the power of mind to get under the blanket. Asuka thinks uncharitably about the insane asylums hundreds of years ago. Relatives pawned off to the state like so much excess baggage, drooling, incontinent bags of bones. Shinji's not acting any better. He'll be a noose around her neck if he doesn't improve soon.
Since he doesn't look like he'll start rifling through the goods, she digs in herself, yanking blanket after blanket out. The dresses get piled beside him; the shoes are placed on the floor (she'd estimated his size-- at least if he gets blisters, he probably won't complain out loud), and what remains is shoved under the bed. It's a poor start, but people have built empires on less. Asuka's only ambition is making it for a month.
"Get under these. They should warm you up." Talk to me. Please, God, talk to me. I don't deserve this. I didn't do a damn thing to you. Her eye wanders from him to the bottle of water, still untouched since last she drank from it. At least he ate the crackers. The time without him hasn't done her any mental good, but at least as she was wandering back, she was able to construct more of a gameplan, however basic and laughable. "The Colonel's going to care more about getting you than me." Exhale. "That's why I got girl's clothes until we're farther away. If I find a knife, I'm cutting my hair." She's not sure why she says that last part. From the looks of it, it wouldn't make a difference to him if she'd decided to amputate both pinkies. "You mind?"
no subject
Misato-san is going to hunt him down. Seriously, that's terrifying, but he's too exhausted to do anything about it. The only thing standing between him and oblivion is Shikinami Asuka Langley, who deserves better than to be his guardian. He still doesn't understand why she won't let him die. It would be better for everyone if he did. Especially Asuka. She lived without him for fourteen years, so she could live without him for many more. She could do that.
Besides, Shinji has the audacity to twist his lips and wrinkle his nose when Asuka asks about the state of her hair. "I like your hair the way it is," he says. That sentence is the most coherent thing he's said. Her hair is just that important to him--or, her hair not changing is that important. The eyepatch was bad enough. Shearing off all that familiar red hair will be too upsetting. He used to imagine running his fingers through it. Brushing it off of her shoulders, or away from her neck. He doesn't want her to look like a stranger on top of everything else.
But he can't do more than wiggle his foot in protest.
no subject
Too bad he hadn't said that years ago. Asuka's kept her hair the exact same length and style for all this time-- though not for him-- the straight locks ending right at her bra strap. If her body wouldn't change, there was no reason to alter her hairstyle, make pretenses towards a maturity that wouldn't happen. She wonders, silently, if slicing her hair right in front of him would prompt a reaction. All she's looking for out of him is reactions now.
I like your hair. It might be the only compliment that's made her feel anything in half a decade. She glances away and twists a knob on her plugsuit, peeling off her gloves. Asuka's nose is hypersensitive enough to detect those trace cracker crumbs and concentrates still on the fingers. This plugsuit's more sleek than her old one, streamlined. Boring. After getting rid of the neckpiece, all she'd have left would be to depressurize the suit.
Asuka blearily remembers the last time he saw her naked. His face had turned crimson and she'd shrieked like a banshee for daring to peek. A Peeping Tom. A pervert. Then she'd been secretly pleased, wondering if he'd liked it. Deciding he had. Maybe the sight of skin might jar him a little more. It can't make him worse.
She sits down on the bed, removing the collar, looking at him. He'd probably close his eyes for her if she asked, but she doesn't ask before depressurizing the plugsuit and tugging it off her body, leaving it in a heap on the ground. Despite the chill, she's not shivering at all.
no subject
His overall awareness is so muted that he doesn't think twice about Asuka's removal of her plugsuit. As soon as she tugs off the gloves, he knows what's coming next--she's going to get undressed--but he's expecting her to shuffle somewhere else. There's no way Asuka would disrobe in front of him... It's inconceivable, like a boy wearing a dress would be. It can't be happening. When she snaps open the collar, he doesn't avert his eyes; she should be stepping out of his line of sight soon. She wasn't the most modest girl back then--sometimes she allowed her bra straps to show--but she'd freak the fuck out if he saw too much of her skin. But, without warning, there's the milky reality of her neck and how it connects to her bare shoulders. There's an exposed clavicle and sternum. There's the meager swell of her breasts, capped with nipples that have hardened in the cold. He can't convince himself to look away, so he's treated to the slope of her stomach, her thin but still feminine hips, that dusting of red pubic hair. If she spread her legs any farther, he would be able to see her most private places.
Like a kettle that's slow to boil, Shinji's reaction is just the same. Pale pink embarrassment is leaking onto his face, and it cycles through shades, getting darker and darker. She stripped in front of him. She stripped! In front of him! In front of Ikari Shinji! He hiccups in what might be the fugue's version of a spluttering cough. His face is really warm, increasingly beet-red. It feels like he's swallowed a mouthful of hot water--it's traveling down, down, through his chest, into his stomach. The rush of blood through a body he can't feel the boundaries of is the strangest sensation in the world.
"Wh..."
Other than Ayanami, which was an accident, he has never been this close to a naked girl. His mind is unspooling like a broken cassette tape as he stares and stares and stares.
no subject
The thought doesn't come out of nowhere. Shinji's face is steadily darkening from pink to outright red. She doesn't meet his gaze for more than an instant at a time, but she can feel his eyes on her, eyes that haven't been on her in a long time, eyes that aren't wavering from her naked body. A part of her is sickly satisfied as he trails off, grateful. No. Satiated.
What is she doing? What is she thinking? But however long it lasts, this is the closest to the way he used to be that he's been in hours and hours. It's okay if she's had to use her body to do it. It has to be. Right?
Only it's not really about briefly snapping him back now. Her legs cross at the ankles instead of the knees, swinging nervously, childishly, as she sits on the edge of the bed. She's only looking at him in small, cowardly glances. She's unaccustomed to shame, buried as the feeling's been under all her layers of bitterness, but she is ashamed-- both of her immature body and for exposing herself like this, stripping down for a traumatized boy. No matter what her reasons, it's deplorable. Just awful. Asuka's head droops, strands of hair falling across her face. He's seen everything. He knows nothing's changed. She's still trying to get his attention, even under the most dire of circumstances. She hasn't grown up at all, just gotten older, too old for this selfishness--
She grabs the top dress without even looking at it, shoulders slumping, crumpling the material between warm fingers. She barely remembers what it feels like to really touch anything for more than the ten minutes she spends in the shower every day, as if she could wash away the lingering scent of LCL before stepping back into her custom-made prison of a plugsuit. It's nice. It's nice. She lets the dress drop into her lap, wishing she could coil up like a snake, tighter and tighter until she'd squeezed every awful particle of herself away. Do you like it and I'm sorry, I'm sorry compete on her tongue, but all she manages is a little, choked sound as she hangs her head.