Well, hi to everyone...this is Alex writing... There's nothing I particularly want to add, just that I love the S/K pairing and it was my shounen ai addiction which drove me to write this...just be nice 'cause this is the first fic I find good enough to post. The song used is Understanding, by Evanescence. Japanese phrases used will be translated for you at the start of every chapter.

Spoken words: " "

'gomen nasai' (sorry)

Warning: Spoilers, Shounen Ai (meaning boy-boy relationship) and some Yaoi in later chapters. Also I may add my story starts after episode 24, so I disregarded the films.

Disclaimer: Shinji and Kaworu are still in Tokyo-3. That proves I don't own NGE, cuz if I did they will be mine! I don't own any of Evanescence's songs either.

Maybe I was born to love you endlessly

The pain that grips you

The fear that binds you

Releases life in me

The corpse-like form laying on the cold rocks twisted a bit. A weak moan escaped it's colorless lips, and it's entire body started shivering. To any onlookers it would seem that this…this creature was just cold. And it would seem a reasonable thought, given that it was laying in the cold ground completely naked. But, of course, that idea would mean they had not seen the look on it's red orbs.

In our mutual shame

We hide our eyes

To blind them from the truth

That finds a way for who we are

There weren't any witnesses to this creature's pain, though. Tabris, of Freewill was totally, helplessly alone.

Tabris had been gazing at the stone wall in front of him as thought he expected it to gave him a solution to his confinement. His red eyes wide opened, resembling those of the insane. His fists clenched so tight that, if he were still alive he would have hurt himself. What was left of his torn apart mind was now stuck in the only thought he had, the only one thing that remained pure, completely wholesome, totally uncontaminated in his awfully shattered soul. In the fragile condition he was, a solitary thought filled his ruined psyche, currently brought to pieces, like an old mirror, whose reflecting figure has been dusted and forgotten, nevertheless still lingers and longs for someone to take notice of it's useless self.

He had lost track of time since he was confined to this prison in the depths of Hell. Since he had been humiliated, rejected, and thrown into Hell by God. Tabris had also witnessed his siblings, the other Angels, declaring him a traitor and cursing his name for having failed on purpose. Since then the silver-haired teenage form he had occupied while on Earth had been restored to him as a reminder of the cause of his punishment. And there he lay, too scared to even try to stand yet too tired of just lying there, abandoned and cut off from any other soul.

Please don't be afraid

When the darkness fades away

The dawn will break the silence

Screaming in our hearts

He wasn't in any physical pain, though, because he owned no body. But the psychological torture was insufferable. He had been left alone in a never ending labyrinth, so huge that even if it wouldn't modify itself every minute it would have taken centuries to him to find the way out.

From time to time, his senses fooled him. Or maybe it was just the giant maze, that seemed to find new ways to torment Tabris at every single second. But that didn't matter, though. Whatever happened, nothing was worse than what he had put himself through, the fixation burying him into the most desperate state of misery.

Every now and then, while he ran through the labyrinth's dark corridors, he thought he heard somebody laughing. Not the terrible, scorning laughter one may have expected in such a situation, but a sweet happiness-filled laughter, a pure and liberated sound that made him feel so out of place. Then he would spent hours, even days, trying to find his way to the source of the sound, or to listen to it again, until he collapsed in hopelessness, to be left alone with his own reality, knees against chest, silver locks between the tight grip of clawed hands, dead red eyes overflowing with new sets of tears.

My love for you still grows

This I do for you

Before I try to fight the truth

My final time

Some other times, he saw pictures that belonged to the real world. While trying in futility to climb the maze's elevated walls, he had seen an image in his mind. The most disturbing thing that was ever shown to any living soul. It was ironical, though, that he was being bombarded with the most graphic images of the terrible pain that the only thing he ever laid his thoughts on was experiencing. A brown-haired teenager, laying in a bed, holding his pillow to his chest, maybe so he could feel there was still something to cling to, even if it was just a piece of unanimated cloth. Tabris could only just watch as the boy's midnight blue eyes flooded with tears and could only listen unable to do anything when the boy's fine lips voiced the only word they seemed capable of finding any significance within…"Kaworu-kun…" And then something that made Tabris' heart sank to new profundities. "Why?"

"We are supposed to try to be real

And I feel alone, and we're not together

And that is real"

The worst about those visions was that Tabris would never know whether they were real or just creations to make his suffering complete. They seemed so real, though, every single inch of Shinji's person was just as he remembered; his soft midnight blue eyes, a window that told the outside world about an infinite sadness, his chocolate brown fine hair, and the way it waved on the soft wind entering through his bedroom's window, his tender hands curled up on top of his bed's sheets, and how they stirred involuntarily with surprise when Tabris had rested his own on one of them. Whenever those images came to his mind, he couldn't help but to fall to his knees and scream. He screamed until he really felt it was useless to do so. He screamed his soul out, maybe in a foolish attempt to get Shinji to hear him from above.

Can't wash it all away

Can't wish it all away

Can't cry it all away

Can't scratch it all away

He found in screaming a good way to endure his agony. He found the eternal silence in his maze-prison only interrupted either by the sounds of joy and bliss coming from so far away that he could never reach them or by those disturbing images of Shinji's own soreness and loneliness. And even so, he had realized that those visions, if they were real, were the only way he had of watching Shinji. But he was also fearful that if he tried to enjoy them, then they would be taken away and he would lose all touch with Shinji's reality.

He wasn't even sure which he hated the most, the maddening delusions or the silence. A silence so deep that overwhelmed him, like he had to carry the heaviest of burdens on his back, like he was constricted more and more by only silence. By screaming, he found himself relieved from both distressing mirages and tormenting silence.

Can't fight it all away

Can't hope it all away

Can't scream it all away

It just won't fade away

The pale body he recognized as his own lifted from the ground and stared at the spot where he supposed his injured hands would be. Tears of desolation fell from his eyes to the ground. He could feel something in the tense atmosphere around him. Feel it, because the darkness was so total that it didn't allowed him to see anything. But still something had changed, and he sensed it. It was another vision coming. But now, he was prepared. He had found hope in a place where such thing shouldn't exist. If those visions were real, then they must had have some connection to the real world. To Shinji's world…

Lying beside you

Listening to you breathe

The life that flows inside of you

Burns inside of me

Tabris waited patiently for this vision to flow through his mind. A blinding light appeared in front of him, as always…

There was a bedroom he didn't recognize, and here and there lay some bags. The place seemed rather empty, like ready for a sudden runaway of it's occupant. And then, a boy entered the room. Shinji's full body was shaking violently as he left a small piece of paper on the bed Tabris assumed was his own. At that point, Tabris tried his best not to try to reach out to Shinji, but the loneliness in this kind heart made him lose control of himself. This was the worst thing of all, and he'd much preferred the heaviest of silences, being able to watch Shinji's misery and being unable to do a damn thing about it was definitely the worst he had experienced. Shinji was still shaking when he picked up the bags from the floor. He stopped at the bedroom's door, and Tabris saw how those midnight-blue eyes he loved the most were abruptly flooded by tears. He heard Shinji's voice echoing through him.

Hold and speak to me

Of love without a sound

Tell me you will live through this

And I will die for you

"Gomen nasai, Misato-san" the words left his mouth with a perpetual sorrow that seemed to devastate what was left of Tabris' soul. "But I can't do it anymore…not after wh-...I just can't!" and with that Shinji made his way out of his bedroom and out of Misato's apartment.

Cast me not away

Say you'll be with me

For I know I cannot

Bear it all alone

Then everything started to become white...light carrying the vision away just as it had took it. Then everything would be normal and a shuddering Tabris would be left behind. But...not this time. Now he was determined to help Shinji. To comeback. Tabris forced his mind and soul to come along with the light, doing his best to use this feeble link to the world above to escape. Everything went dark in a second, and he could remember no longer.

"You are not alone, honey

Never, never"

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