Ok... I'm sleepy. Plot update tomorrow. Good Dreams tonight.
Rebuttal of WAFF, GOOOOOOO! 1960 words of WAFF!
This is an update, right?
Art!
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Asuka jolted awake again. Nightmares. Again. Damn Misato's little prohibition. The creepy thing of shadow and fire that mocked her again, this time.
She shivered. It scared her because it had just enough sting to hit deep. Shinji loved her, sure... but was that just because she'd gotten to him first, gotten him to bed first? She was all too aware of the literature that said 'young men often become enamored of their first sexual partner, no matter the appropriateness'. Was she just... the one he'd grow tired of?
'You're just like me.'
Her heartbeat slowed, and a small smile spread on her face. No... she wasn't just 'the first one'. Even Rei didn't have the same past, the same fears. For as much as they both could admit they both loved Rei now, it... wasn't the same. If... if he had this kind of grip on her heart, then she had to have the same on his, right?
Right...?
She pulled the blankets closer and huddled. She couldn't get to sleep next to him again soon enough. Sleep in the now evaded her, though. That...
thing's words kept haunting her.
She sighed and sat up. Time for emergency measures. She rose from her bed and padded over to her wardrobe. Deep in the back, behind two layers of 'winter' jackets she probably would never wear in Japan, was a secret. One even Shinji didn't know about. Not that she wouldn't tell him, it was just embarrassing. In fact, she
would tell him tomorrow, when she told him about the rest of this.
She settled back into bed with her prize, and let the fact that she
could tell him chase the last of the shadows of that dream away. She pressed her little hidden treasure to her face, and took a deep breath. The world got a little better.
'He never even said a word about one of his sleep-shirts going 'missing',' she thought.
'He does the laundry, he has to know it's missing.'
His scent... she couldn't have him next to her right now, but she could still fall asleep with his smell there. Maybe that would extend a little of its protective power. And tomorrow, she'd... she'd get to tell him. Tell him her fears and secrets and everything. He was just like her. And she wasn't leaving him for
anything.
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Shinji's eyes bugged out and his arms wrapped tighter around her. "I... gods, Asuka, we... we should tell Misato you're having nightmares this bad. She'd have to let us-..."
"She'd have to let nothing, Shinji," Asuka rebutted. "We already told her we both have nightmares bad enough to wake up to without each other now. And she's still saying we have to wait." She nevertheless burrowed into his embrace. Just because Misato said they couldn't go to bed together and
sleep, it didn't mean they couldn't spend entire afternoons when she was still at work cuddled up to each other before she came home in their bed in Asuka's room. Having to get up and get dressed before Misato came home was annoying, but the time they did steal was worth it.
"Still... this creepy thing of fire and smoke... and... you having dreams of... that?" He shivered himself.
"Not going to say anything about my having stolen one of your shirts before we got together, just to pretend I had a boyfriend's shirt to sniff at night?" Asuka queried, blushing at the revelation.
He blushed too. "Gods, I was oblivious. I thought the wind must have blown it away when I had them drying outside one day or something. The idea you were... that you thought I smelled nice would have been... If you'd told me, I'd have been
sure you were teasing me."
He kissed her cheek and continued. "But... the rest. You... never waking up, and me and Rei... I... just..."
"Would you?" she asked, not even trying to hide her worry. "I'm not... judging. I just... I mean, we love Rei, but..."
"Y-you... want an honest answer, don't you?" Shinji seemed to shrink into himself a little.
Asuka just swallowed and nodded.
He was silent for a while. "...yes."
She stiffened.
"But no."
She very slowly untensed. "I... think that's good, but... explain?"
"I love Rei. She's calming, beautiful, understands what it's like to be... used and abused by my father... but she's not you. You're just like me. Rei... can't understand me like you do. If... something happened to you..." He swallowed. "A-Asuka... I'd... I'd kind of want to... I guess, take comfort with Rei, but... at the same time I wouldn't? I'd... I'd... I'm afraid I'd want to be with you that I'd be like my father."
It was Asuka's turn to hold him tight as an all too familiar note of self-loathing returned to his voice, plus the deep, snarling anger that came up any time his father was mentioned these days.
"He... he's let himself become something... horrible, and
evil since Mother.. went away. Because... he can't live without her. I'm... I kind of hope I wouldn't be just the same way, but... I can kind of feel it. The idea of... not being with you scares me. Not... not just the being alone part, but... but anyone else, even Rei, is just
not you. I'd... I'm afraid... I'd...just refuse to let go of you, sit next to your bed all the time, talk to you like you were awake... until people drag me away or think I've gone mad without you." He took a breath, and tried to calm his shaking. "I think I'd eventually let Rei drag me away just so they wouldn't decide I
was crazy, and keep me from seeing you."
His head rose slowly until he could meet her eyes again. "How pathetic is that? That I'm... so nothing that I go crazy without you, or that I'm so like
him?"
She kissed him, slow and firm. "You're not. You're not him. I know my Shinji, and you're nothing like Commander Asshole. But... I appreciate the honesty, Shinji. I..." Asuka took her own deep breath. "If something does happen, you make Rei happy, you got it?"
His eyes widened. "Asuka, no! I won't le-"
"I mean it," she cut him off with a finger to his lips. "You... that's an order. You don't turn into your dad. You make Rei happy, you name daughters after me, you do all that. Because... I know you'd be right back next to me if I ever did wake up, wouldn't you?"
He nodded, a little sheepishly. "...I love Rei. But... you're my Asuka. You're not my first. You're my
only. That's... why I'm afraid I'd do that, just haunt your bedside. Or do that to Rei if you woke up, just leave her for you. I... I worry that I'm like that, sometimes, Asuka. Like I could go as crazy as my father over you, and... I hate that part of me."
She kissed him again. "'Unhealthily codependent' is us, yeah. But... we're getting better. That's why those nightmares bite, baka mine. We're both still... wounded. But I'm getting better and stronger while we're together... And one day we'll be strong enough we won't
need to lean on each other like this... but we're still going to walk together anyway, because... right next to each other is where we want to be."
She grinned, and leaned forward again... to nip the tip of his nose with her teeth. "And I mean all that: You make Rei happy, and... keep my memory. Because I know you're not your father, and that you'll never forget me."
Shinji nodded... then suddenly smiled. "You're just like me. You too."
"Huh?"
"If anything happens to me, you make Rei happy, understand?"
She looked at him incredulously. "I... you... you idiot!"
"I know you and Rei couldn't have
babies, but..."
Any further ideas from the Third Child were muffled as she hit him over the head with a pillow.
"Mmuuprphl mmhpphmm could figure out somemmpphmhm, mmaybe adopt a cute little boy and mmpphms him Shinji!" he got out in bursts.
His smile faded. "I mean it too, Asuka."
His more serious tone got her to stop trying to beat his head in with a pillow. "Huh?"
"If anything happens, you and Rei... be happy. That means more than... just waiting for me to never wake up. And... you won't have to worry about it, anyhow."
"How's that?"
"Nothing's going to happen to you. Any Angel that might put you in a coma or kill you is going to have to go through me first. You're not going to have to watch me sleep forever... unless it's right with you."
Asuka closed her eyes and pushed the tears back. "Sh-shut up, you i-idiot. I told you, you're not allowed to die. Not ever."
"Together, forever and always. I promised, Asuka..." He held her tight. Sleep was too easy, this way...
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"Ohh...back again already, little scared girl?" the creature grinned lazily at her. The tattered parody of her bedroom was cold as it snaked it's way back and forth in front of her.
She tried to shoot back. "Y-you can't scare me. Shinji knows about you now. Knows about your lies."
It laughed. "The spineless brat who will leave you as soon as you're both in college? You think
you can keep him interested? Once he learns how good having sex with someone
attractive feels, he'll leave you as soon as she says she loves him."
"No, he won't!" Asuka tried. "He... he promised!"
The thing sneered, it's terrible grin stretching wide. "Words. Pretty words. How many men have said things like that before? He's just like them."
The creature's eyes widened into blazing furnaces as two feet of sword blade suddenly erupted from its chest. "Whuggglllre?!" it tried to say, but only bubbling noises emerged. Somehow, the thing of smoke and fire began to bleed.
"No," Asuka's smile was huge and triumphant. "He's just like
me. And I don't like you." She looked up at the dream-image of her beloved. "Shinji.... kill."
The apparition of Shinji Ikari was oddly dressed like a knight, in shining white armor no less. "As you wish," he said, withdrawing the sword from the things back. Ichorous black blood dribbled off, becoming a streak across the walls as he snapped the blade in a short cut to whip the blood off.
"You... you're just... a stupid dream... You can't keep her heart's fears away from me..." the thing gurgled at him. "You'll never escape your doubts, stupid girl!"
Shinji's blade whirled around in a silvery crescent, cleanly beheading the thing. Before the head could fall to the floor, a second blade caught it.
Asuka pulled the head with the still moving eyes darting around to face her. "Maybe once that might have been true... but I'm not alone now. I'll never be alone again. You'll never get my heart,
thing..."
Asuka's blade turned on its side, letting the head fall to the floor next to its body. Asuka raised her blade up high, and with a single thrust, pinned the head to the floor.
"Because my heart is
his now. And his is mine. And neither of us will fail in that guard."
The thing's eyes stilled. Asuka gave it a kick for good measure. "Because he's just like me. And I remembered when I woke up... he and I already
killed you.
Together."
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Curled up under a blanket in a solitary room in Tokyo-3, a redheaded young woman slowly uncurled from her defensive hunch, and slept peacefully. The new shirt wrapped around her pillow was still warm, too.
In her sleep, she smiled.
Don't worry, everyone. Strype has a plan.
