"Welcome, monsieur! Sit yourself down, behold the best innkeeper in town!"
Kaji beamed at the strange man and bowed elaborately, but he could see that his baritone charms weren't working on this one. Still singing, he tried to avail the gentleman of his coat (and, hopefully, wallet... or at least his hat...)
Gendo Rokubungi, his coat lending his frame a severe look and his hat still firmly on his head, stared Kaji down. The younger man's grin was becoming strained. Kaji tried a different tack.
"And what can I do for you today, honourable monsieur? A carafe of hot sake to sooth your wearied brow? Bridal suite's occupied, but we have some lovely-"
"Yui's son. Where is he?"
Kaji had managed not to be intimidated by the man's evident wealth and class, which combined with his deep and commanding bass-baritone almost had Kaji shitting himself a bit. "I'll have him right here," he bubbled without missing a beat, giving the stranger his best and sauciest wink-lear. "SHINJIIII!"
The shout was directed upstairs. A moment later a small, dishevelled tuft of hair appeared over the balcony-banister. Gendo gasped; the boy was the spitting image of his mother. "Come here, boy!" Gendo didn't see Kaji's double-take as he added in calculatedly affectionate notes "Shinji my boy, I mean, Papa's prettiest little flower. Come to Papa's arms!"
"What's with the noise? Doesn't anybody know what time it is?" came a full-body husky voice. Gendo turned and saw someone with platinum blonde hair and dark eyebrows descending the stairs after the still-scuttling child. A bluish mop of hair also came into view above the banister, but the lady shooed the owner away with a terse word. "Good evening, monsieur. What can we do for you?"
"Your sister bade me come and..." he searched for the words as the scrawny boy and strangely classy - for this kind of establishment, with this kind of owner - woman came to stand before him. "Your sister, one of my employees, is dead. On her deathbed I swore to raise Shinji as my own."
Kaji tried to meet the lady's eye, but she was visibly unsettled, covering her mouth with her hands. Gendo looked Shinji square in the eye, and something - a big something - in his somewhat stony heart twinged; he really did look just like her, the poor little thing.
"He shall want for nothing," he said half to himself as if recalling the words from somewhere. He looked the adults in the eye, in turn. "I will compensate you for what he may have cost you, and would yet cost you by his absence."
Ritsuko, still ruffled but perked up a little at the stranger's words, finally met the landlord's eye and the two exchanged a meaningful glance. Kaji took on a look of pure outrage. "We couldn't possibly part with our dearest Shinji! He's a treasure to us, a treasure beyond price!" Even Kaji sensed he'd overdone it with that last one, but the show had to go on. "I won't haggle for-"
"I will compensate you, here and now." He dropped a wad of bills on the nearest table. "One million yen. No questions." He reached out his hand to the boy, who took it shyly and moved to go with him. But Kaji stopped Shinji by laying both his hands on the boy's wiry shoulders and interjected as like a doleful damsel crying "No, we couldn't possibly-!"
Gendo reached into a pocket and dropped another wad. "Two million." Kaji nearly relented but Ritsuko stepped in. "She's – sorry, he's been such a sickly little thing, he-"
"Three." One more wad, this one dropped as if it were a lump of steaming dog shit. The couple exchanged one last glance but Gendo pre-empted them. "I cannot afford to compensate you for any more. But I swore an oath."
Prompting Shinji to turn around to face his aunt and uncle with one hand, he opened his coat with the other. The pistol was deceptively small. "And I will uphold it, one way or another. Do we have a deal?"
Gendo walked away from the motel three million yen lighter, carrying his barefoot charge over the snow. His suspicions about the Shinji's upbringing were confirmed by his first and only question.
"Will you be like a papa to me?"
He stopped for a moment to look him up and down, then hurried on as he realised how threadbare Shinji's clothes were.
"Indeed."
It was still dark when the big, black vehicle thundered to a halt outside the run-down motel and a figure jumped out and strode inside. "Welcome monsieur, if you're looking to stay a while we have a special, discounted..."
His voice faltered a little as he recognised the figure's clothing, but he made an admirable save.
"Welcome, welcome most honourable sir! Please, make yourself at home!" He began to sweat as they marched right up to him at the bar. "We have a special serviceman's–" she halted before him "-er, and women's, service-women's discount for-"
"Where is the Ikari child?"
"Er, ah..." Thankfully Ritsuko chose that moment to appear from behind the bar. "Did someone say my name?"
"Yui's sister... where is her child?"
There was silence as both patrons visibly worked out how to avoid the lady's ire.
"Have you seen this man?"
She held up a picture of Gendo and saw recognition flare in Kaji's eyes.
"No..." he said, uncertain of himself.
"I am the law," she said very carefully "and the law is not mocked. If you'd prefer to avoid charges of Socialism and Disturbance Of Public Order... "
He remained silent, seemingly torn. Ritsuko spoke up, visibly distraught. "I'm sorry, we're still just so shocked... he took her away... he was armed, there was nothing we could do..."
The officer nodded. "I'm sorry for your loss. Do you know where he went?"
The couple shook their heads, sadly.
"If you hear anything more, tell us. Patriotic citizens are rewarded."
Army Police Corps Captain Katsuragi turned smartly on her heel and strode out.
"Kaworu, wake up! You okay? You look like you saw a ghost!" As Kensuke finished his contralto part Touji handed Kaworu a bowl of sake and Kaworu took it, but didn't drink.
"A ghost?" He half-sang, half-lisped in his high tenor "I suppose he was like a ghost, to me; one minute there, then...-"
"-OH MY GOSH. Kaworu... you're crushing on someone! Seriously?" The words, blared out in Touji's nigh-obnoxiously accented baritone, had reduced the room to silence and everyone was staring. Asuka trailed off as she realised no-one was paying attention to her, and gave Touji a look. Touji gave her a 'this one's too good to pass up' look of his own, and she glared back – but Touji had already turned back to Kaworu, who was quietly blushing hard. The entire non-verbal exchange had taken about two seconds.
"Dude, that's like... you could totally be his Romeo or something. Nah, you should! It'd be totally like an opera, but in real life!"
"What's a opera?" sang Hikari, genuinely curious and in a high quiet tremulo, but everybody except her little sister Nozomi – who went to whisper an answer in her ear – ignored her.
Asuka took centre-stage again in a plain but stolid alto line that was more like normal speech than singing. "Now is notthe time, comrade Kaworu. Here we talk of revolution, here we light the flame of rebellion in the souls of the people. There is love here, yes - love for the people, love that compels us to act and to struggle and even to martyr ourselves for them if we have to."
The mood was sombre again as she continued.
"We are the vanguard of the people. The friends of the people, the people's party. We will lead, and they will follow, to victory and to justice and to freedom!" She paused to catch her breath and sang quieter but firmly, with a touch of vibrato, "RED!"
"The blood of angry men!" they chorused in harmony.
Non-canon part
"There is nowhere I can turn, there is no way to go on..."
She sniffed, choking back tears. "Right, Pen-Pen?"
He cocked his head. "Wark?"
She smiled faintly, and nodded. "Yes, Pen-Pen. Let's die together, Pen-Pen."
She hoisted the squawking, struggling Penguin up into her arms and got up onto the railing. It looked high enough, and even if it wasn't she couldn't swim. Death was certain.
...waaaaitaminute...
"Oh. You can swim, can't you, Pen-Pen?"
"Waaark!?"
After a moment's thought, she snapped his neck and tucked him under one arm, then jumped.
'"Wheeee!"
The moment I hit upon the idea of Evangelion + Les Miserables I just had to write it, starting with this. Originally Gendo did Javert and Misato Valjean, but after a few paragraphs of that I switched their parts - partly because I wanted to see Misato as Javert, but largely because it's really hard to find fics of Gendo being anything even remotely approaching a decent father-figure, which made me want to give it a go. I confess lingering doubts as to whether I made the right call there, though.
There are a few more scenes I just have to see (Gendo/Valjean's Soliloquy, Misato/Javert's in Stars and Suicide, Rei/Eponine's On My Own). But I don't think any of us know Yui/Fantine well enough, or that I have the writing skill, to make 'I Dreamed a Dream' work. Ah, well.
Do kindly let me know your thoughts! I could really use some second-opinions on, and analysis of, this stuff. First attempt at a cross-over and all that.