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The wind whipped past him, ripping at his hair, his clothes, his thoughts. Every insecurity, anxiety, and concern was left behind until all that was left was him and the wind. It wasn't peaceful, the roaring wind saw to that, but as he stared into the endless blues and purples darkening the dusk sky, Shinji felt at home. The sky was a safe place for him, even when plummeting toward the ground in a freefall.
Taking a couple of deep breaths, Shinji spun to face the ground, squinting against the onslaught of direct wind against his face. Facing this direction, his world was considerably less endless. He hadn't hit the tree line yet but it was fast approaching. He shifted the angle of his descent slightly, aiming towards a small clearing in the trees that would give him an extra second or two of time before he hit anything.
Now he could make out individual trees and the layout of the clearing below. He just had to hold his nerve a little longer. Just another second.
Now.
Shinji fell below the treeline, making it all the way to about 20 feet above the ground before he spread his wings to slow his descent, angling his fall horizontally until he grazed the grass beneath him, and then arching back into the sky, smiling from the rush of wind now moving with him instead of against.
"Alright, alright, you've got more of a death wish than me, I'll admit it, very impressive," Asher conceded, laughing slightly from where he was already floating in the air on his glider. "I only made it to the tree line before I broke my fall."
Shinji glanced back down. The tree line was probably twice the height of when Shinji pulled out of his nose dive.
"Not bad," Shinji said graciously, "I mean, could've been better, but not bad."
"Fuck off" Asher laughed. "I am impressed, though, really. You didn't even watch the ground for most of the fall. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were trying to impress someone."
Shinji grinned shamelessly. "It's a good thing you know better, then. I’ve made that fall a million times, I might as well do it blindfolded at this point.”
“Uh-huh, that sounds like a reasonable risk, Mr. Boy-of-Brittle-Bones.”
Shinji raised a challenging eyebrow, placed his right hand firmly over his eyes, and simply dropped. He barely heard the beginning of Asher’s protest before it was drowned out by the wind. Smiling as he fell, he kept his back to the ground, so Asher could see that Shinji wasn’t cheating, and focused on the wind.
On a blind dive, there wasn’t a chance that he could fall as low as he did earlier, but maybe, if he listened carefully enough, there.
The feel of the wind shifted around him as it had to accommodate for the trees Shinji came level with and Shinji let his wings expand again. It was more of an awkward movement with his wings beneath him, but with about forty feet still before the ground, Shinji knew it wouldn't be difficult to keep his balance.
He opened his eyes as his descent slowed to see Asher only five feet above him, eyes wide with shock and moving quickly closer.
Shinji grunted as Asher collided with him, unable to pull his glider out of a nosedive as quickly as Shinji. Thanks to his training, Shinji was strong enough to not break anything from the impact, but Asher lost his grip on his glider and for one terrible moment, he was the one in freefall.
In two strokes of his wings, Shinji caught up to Asher, grabbed him, and gently guided them both down to the ground. The glider hit the ground beside them hard, the wood splintering.
Shinji winced. “You should really take better care of your gliders. I can’t believe I let you fly me on one of those, it’s practically a flying death trap.”
Asher took a shaky breath as his feet touched the ground, though he didn’t let go of Shinji’s shoulders. “Would you believe I’d never broken one before I met you? Maybe if you and your friends needed less saving, my glider could stay in one piece.”
Shinji said nothing, just glanced between Asher and the broken glider.
“Are you really going you mock me for trying to catch you when you were falling with your eyes shut?”
Shinji laughed. “Absolutely, but I’ll at least wait until after you stop shaking,” he conceded. “Let’s head back to camp before the others wonder where we are.” Asher glanced up to the sky, his brow furrowed. “By foot,” Shinji corrected, bending over to pick up the damaged glider and hoisting it onto his shoulder.
Asher smiled sheepishly. “That might be for the best, thanks”
Shinji knew that there were so many things wrong in their lives: The Old Man in the Sky, Joan and the SCU hunting them, Samar’s death, and the Baron, just to name a few. There were times when Shinji felt like absolutely everything was going horribly wrong, but Asher’s smile reminded him that not everything was bad. Maybe, just maybe, everything was going to turn out okay.