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Where am I?
It's so, very cold.
Shinji blinks to adjust to his surroundings, but his various attempts lead to confusion. Fright of what may lie within this dark abyss. He is already fidgeting, he assumes — a token of anxiety he has grown used to when dealing with the unknown — however, when he peers down, his hands have not moved from his lap. They are still neatly folded.
He is sitting in that damned chair, it's the only thing he recognizes because he has been here so much. Disturbance when he shuffles his feet in the slightest. Shinji leans forward to observe the source. Water. It's shallow, it laps at his feet.
Where are his shoes? Why's it so cold?
He searches, and they are not far. They are just up ahead — but most strangely of all, they are on him. But not him, another one of him. It is Shinji, and also not.
"Why are you wearing my shoes?" He questions, voice cracking blearily and he curses himself for always sounding so meek. His mind doesn't feel right. His body doesn't feel like it is his. So numb, yet stone in the chair he sits in. He is planted, doomed to accept the chaos that awaits him.
Yet he will not run, not physically anyway. He will not protest. Shinji will shiver and shake until it is all over. He will take what he needs to, just to escape more trouble. Endure the hardship until there is none left to give. Until he is nothing.
It's cold.
His question is ignored. He is not surprised, yet something deep down inside him resonates with disappointment. Disappointment. My father.
He is disappointed in you, the voice confirms. You are right. It's not just any voice anymore. No, it was Ayanami's voice. So distorted against his ears.
His brows furrow. It stung to hear the words he never thought would be spoken. It echoed throughout the shadowy void, and the words still lingered after all had been said. There's water distantly dripping onto the floor from a boundless ceiling, collecting against his ankles.
Where was the boundary for the sky and where he existed? Was there any sky at all? Where was he?
Who was he, really?
Shinji's breath hitched, feeling himself slip- spiral into his usual state of panic. He cannot move. Frozen to his seat as his environment morphs. The darkness he had grown comforted from flashed before him. He is sitting before a forest.
There is commotion, he notes. He looks up, and seemingly breaking the sky — he sees what used to be his Eva. To say the scene was horrifying? An understatement.
He could do nothing but watch the scene unfold. The rippling of flashing armor as the Eva ran at impressive speed towards Zeruel. It happened so fast. Arms lifted, one regenerated using parts from the Angel itself. They brought down once, with a sickening slam — a tune of squelching and bones breaking. Slam. Again. Slam. Again.
It began a broken melody, that seemed to fade as Shinji found himself dissociating. His skin felt hot, even on the darkest of nights. His pulse, he could feel it in his legs. How he wanted to run. Wanted the will to move away from all of this.
The slamming now is muffled in his ears, replaced with the blood rushing through his system. He is trembling, eyes stuck on the scene as it unfolds. Helpless.
Was that me? Did this all happen? How could I forget?
Someone help me, please.
Calm. I need to calm down. I need to remember what Kaworu told me whenever I find myself back here. He scolds himself, but despite how easily he could have searched his memory to recall what his lover had said, there is nothing. Shinji's eyes clamp shut. They strain to remember. That silky voice, Kaworu's angelic smile, hands that glazed over his own in intimate moments only they shared.
A gentle embrace, promising the two of them tied by the strings of fate for eternity. They live — coexist for the affinity of love.
He feels warm. His skin stings against the shy cold air. It's refreshing. Chilling, even. Shinji feels a smile barely touch his lips. A chair tips. It is his.
Backward he plummets, breaks the shallow water's surface, and suddenly is submerged within deep waters. It's dark and freezes him over once more. His tender heart is flushed with frigid alarm, arms swaying in forward motions fighting against the strong current toward freedom.
But further he sinks as if his heart was a heavyweight in his chest. It dragged him down, and he covers his mouth to hold the air inside of his lungs. He can see, though just barely. As if he is in water, but floating within. He sees, and he sees, and he sees.
Shinji...
Oh, that voice. That voice struck him in the heart and dragged him down further to the depths below. His neck grew with flame. Everything felt so numb. Loud. Miss Misato, he finally addresses. If he wasn't in the water, maybe he'd be crying. The child within him wanted to break free of the nightmare's clutches and cry in her arms. She wasn't far. Just a few minutes away, yet Shinji was trapped in this neverending nightmare with no way out.
I'm so useless.
His eyes sting, his body hurts, and he is so cold again. Kaworu seems so distant. Shinji whips his body around, hand threatening to push her away as she drifted towards him, yet it stayed.
Shinji, why are you acting shy again? I thought you were out of that shell.
"I'm not shy. This isn't you. You are not real."
Not real? But I'm right here, aren't I? Don't be silly.
"Stop! Stop it!" He shakes his head. Closes his eyes to escape. To try and escape the ghost of touches against his arms — his shoulders — they cup his face. "Get out of my head!"
She does. There is a deafening quiet save for the ticking of a clock in the distance. He reopens his eyes. The void welcomes him. The chair is comfortable where he sits. A grandfather clock towers a few feet away. There is a heart beating on the other side of the glass. Blood is dripping a steady rhythm from the core of the heart, and he watches as it fills the clock with rapid speed. The encasing won't hold on for much longer, and his throat constricts as the thought hits him. It's going to explode.
The chair falls as his body calls for action. Shinji pushes himself off and runs in the opposite direction. This isn't water, no, its blood. It stains his feet — it's working its way up, up, up, and it's restraining his full movement. As if he is drowning in sickly sweet syrup. He can barely move his legs.
"If you can't pilot the Eva, then I will."
"It's not that I can't. I just don't want to anymore."
A conversation. He remembers this. Waking up in a hospital bed — that ceiling, the lights that haunted him every time he entered that facility again. Ayanami always sitting by his side when he regained consciousness.
And why is that? Ayanami asks, and though she had never shown curiosity before, she did share some consideration that day towards himself. Pity, he thinks. If she's even capable of feeling that.
It's piling up against his elbows, the blood is scorching. Sticky and uncomfortable— stuck to his skin. His clothes are suffocating, but the smell is worse. He feels sick. He doesn't know where to run, yet his legs are so adamant about running away. It's all he's ever known.
"Someone, please," He calls out, desperation revealing itself if not in his eyes, his voice the most. He is crying. He can feel the tears on his cheek. "Kaworu!"
Shinji cries out, almost choking on the blood that reaches his neck, lifting his head just above the surface. He reaches an arm up. It meets solid. Ceiling. The hospital ceiling.
Hospital. Miss Misato's injury.
He had sat there for days, refusing to leave her side. Days passed by like a blur. Kaworu had to drag him away from Misato just to get him to take care of himself.
Shinji felt like throwing up. His mouth tasted sour. He swallowed the saliva that had built up in his throat as the blood ran up to his lips. He let out a sharp exhale, kicking his feet to keep him afloat, and reached up an arm to bang against the ceiling. Escape. Escape. Escape.
Please. Someone, anyone. Please help me, please.
"...nji?"
Save me. Help me. Not again.
"...Sh.....ji!"
I can't do this anymore. I need to run.
There's a hand on his face. It is cold, yet gentle as a thumb strokes across his cheek. He hadn't noticed it — his chest rising and falling with the intensity of thousands, heart pattering fearfully.
"Shinji, are you alright?"
He knows that voice. He knows it so well. He is safe. Kaworu. Kaworu. Kaworu.
His eyes open, and a tear falls from them as his arms reach around his neck, burying his head into Kaworu's shoulder. A weak sob escapes his lips. He doesn't want to think. Doesn't want to be anywhere but in Kaworu's arms.
"Another nightmare?" He asks, and Shinji nods, nuzzling into the nook of his neck. He smells like home. It pulls him a step closer back to reality.
He is not in the void, he is not drowning in blood, Miss Misato is healed now. A careful hand rubs against his scalp, soothing him with adoring strokes, placing a kiss against his forehead. "You're okay now," Kaworu says. And Shinji knows he is right. He always is. "It wasn't real. Just a simple trick of the mind."
Shinji intakes in another shaky breath, humming contently at his words, his arms dropping down in slowed motions to hug Kaworu's waist. Pulling his boyfriend impossibly closer to himself. Sometimes even this close was not enough, yet this would have to do. There is only Kaworu in his world at the moment, and he has no complaints about that. He only wishes to be with him. To melt into the loving touches, or the reassuring whispers bringing him back to Earth.
The windows are open again, he can tell by the cooling, occasional breeze that brushes against his sweaty skin. He can hear the nightlife outside — the people on the streets, cars revving to life, the train that bolted past.
Kaworu tells him to breathe with him. He does. It's all he needs to do. Listen to him, and everything will be okay. Kaworu always knows what to do when he does not.
Maybe love was special because they always made up for what one another lacked.
Shinji was tired again. His head pressed against his chest, though no recollection of when they switched to this position, his eyes were heavy with sleep. "Kaworu?" He calls out, a bit worried from the silence that filled the room.
"Shinji," Kaworu breathes into a response. He loved it when he said his name. He could never get bored of it. The sound of his voice, made his heart skip a beat, and he always said it so fondly. Shinji had never met anyone who said his name lovingly. "You should get some rest now."
"What.... what about you?" Kaworu's breathy chuckle. The night air. He thinks this is heaven on earth, for it is anywhere his lover is.
"I'm tired too, love. Let's both."
If Kaworu says, Shinji will do. He lifts his head and finds he cannot lift it enough to kiss his cheek. He pouts, and as if his boyfriend had sensed it, he smiles into the kiss he invites himself into.
When they pull away, Shinji's head goes to find its rightful place back onto his chest.
"Sweet dreams." Another kiss on his forehead. He is soaring. His heart swells.
"...night, Kaworu." is the only reply he can muster. The gentle beating of Kaworu's heart is what lulls him to dreams. He is saved. Kaworu always saves him. He cannot love any more than this.