Well, everyone else is getting in on this, I might as well take a shot...
(This is, of course, all StrypGia's fault.
)
...Five years or so later....
She woke up, as always, alone.
Refusing to open her eyes to cruel reality, Rei fisted her hands in the sheets in a vain effort to cling to the fraying remnants of the dream. This one had been wonderfully, cruelly, so much better and more real than the usual recurring fantasy....
Rei glanced at the clock as the end credits of tonight's movie-night film began scrolling, and decided the time was appropriate to leave Shinji and Asuka some alone time together. She stood, wished her (loves
) friends good night, and moved for the door of their small college apartment.
"Rei!"
She turned, and was surprised to see both Shinji and Asuka standing, and staring at her with nervous, almost guilty expressions. "Yes?"
"Well, Rei, you know," Asuka began awkwardly, twisting her fingers against each other with highly uncharacteristic nervousness. "You spent the afternoon helping us assemble that new bed... Did you, ahh...?"
Rei felt her eyebrows rise as Asuka trailed off uncertainly, and turned a quizzical look on Shinji, only to see him looking as discombobulated as Asuka.
"Did you notice, um..." Shinji seemed to stumble over his words momentarily before taking a deep breath and finishing in a nearly desperate rush: "Didyounoticethatit'sbigenoughforthree?"
Tears pooling behind tightly-shut eyelids, Rei wondered bitterly, not for the first time, why her subconscious took such sadistic delight in tortur--
"Good morning, sleepyhead."
Rei's eyes shot open to an unfamiliar-from-this-angle ceiling, and snapped sideways in disbelief.
Asuka, wearing a white terrycloth (
cuddlesome) robe and holding a toothbrush in one hand, looked affectionately amused, shading towards concerned as Rei stared at her. "Rei...? We would have woken you earlier, but you looked so peaceful we just couldn't. Um, Shinji's making breakfast, I'm sure you're hungry...?"
"Asuka," Rei forced out hoarsely. "Am I dreaming?"
The readhead's expression shifted to shock, then dismay, and finally determination in the space of a heartbeat. Setting her toothbrush on the end table, she cupped Rei's face in both hands and bent over her, so close that her unbound hair fell into a scarlet curtain framing both their faces alone together within its confines. Her brilliant blue eyes captivated Rei's, burning with conviction. "No, Rei. You are
not dreaming." She leaned in, even closer... and captured Rei's lips with a kiss that started at "butterfly", and smoothly, unhurriedly ascended to something Rei could find no words for, but reached all the way to her toes.
Some interminable time later, their lips parted ways and Rei opened her eyes (
when had she closed them?) to find Asuka looking like a cat that had just eaten an entire flock of canaries. "Well, Rei? Still think you're dreaming?"
"If I am, I'd rather die than wake up," Rei answered with absolute honesty.
She saw Asuka suppress a flinch. "Rei, I... Rei. I'm sorry. I'm so,
so sorry."
"For what?" Rei was honestly confused.
"For leaving you out in the cold for so long," Asuka said soberly. "Shinji and I... we had so many issues, so much baggage. And we were so wrapped up in each other -- in
ourselves... we ignored the one person whose happiness is as important to us as each other's." Asuka dove in for another kiss. "I can't apologize enough. But I promise, Rei --I
promise-- you never have to fear being alone again."
Whatever composure Rei had left didn't
crumble, so much as simply cease to exist. Rei's arms snaked out from under the covers and wrapped whatever parts of Asuka she could reach, and clung with no real intention of ever letting go, as Asuka gently kissed away her tears and murmured reassurances and endearments in Japanese and German.
Eventually, Rei found herself laying back against the pillow, feeling utterly spent, and yet somehow lighter, as if an enormous weight had been lifted. Asuka reached out and stroked her face lightly. "Better now, angel?"
"Better," Rei agreed. "Better than I have been in... a very long time. Ever, perhaps."
"Well, that's good. Because judging by the smell, breakfast is about to hit the table, and it'd be a shame to waste Shinji's cooking." Asuka winked saucily. "He makes
great morning-after food, and he already knows
all our favorite foods."
That made Rei aware that she
was, in fact, hungry -- even ravenous. Which lead to her finally noticing just how...
limp she felt. Not to mention, well, sore, in places and ways that had been purely theoretical before today.
"Um... I'm not sure I can get up," she admitted shame-facedly. "Breakfast in bed?" she added hopefully, doing her best to look winsome.
Asuka blinked, then threw her head back and laughed delightedly (
like a cool, soothing rain across the parched desert of her soul). "Minx!" she accused affectionately. "One night in bed, and you're expecting us to serve you hand and foot. Not that Shinji would hesitate, the wimp." She rolled her eyes in mock exasperation, then grinned and leaned down to whisper directly into Rei's ear. "But trust me, you
really want to get up, Rei."
Rei was momentarily distracted by the
fascinating sensation of Asuka's breath curling around and into her ear, sparking a detached portion of her mind to note that she now understood the meaning of the phrase "aural sex." "Ah..." she stammered, trying to focus on what Asuka was saying rather than how (
intimate/wonderful/sensuous) it felt. "Um... why?"
She felt Asuka's lips curl into an entirely
wicked smirk against her cheek. "Two words, angel," Asuka crooned sweetly. "
Naked Apron."
Asuka pulled back to get a good view and enjoyed the sight of Rei's overloaded mind slowly putting the pieces together. She knew the exact moment it succeeded: those lovely red eyes suddenly
bulging in shock, the brilliant flush overtaking that alabaster porcelain skin -- and suddenly Asuka found herself beneath a volcanic eruption of bedlclothes, listening to the sound of bare feet dashing out of the bedroom and towards the kitchen.
"Well," she remarked to no one as she pulled the sheets off her head, "
that was easy."
From the kitchen, there was a sudden yelp from Shinji, one she knew well: #17, "someone just grabbed my ass", and at roughly 4.7 on the pinch-o-meter, if she was any judge (and she certainly
was).
"Better not let them get
too far without me," Asuka decided firmly. She proceeded to sashay towards the kitchen, sparing a moment to doff her robe and toss it at the hook by the closet door. Breakfast was forecast to be
messy, after all. Followed by
cleanup, with a high probability of baths (the furo could fit three, if they were
very friendly, and creative)....
