Author's Notes – I was on the far-side researching wacked-out stuff for one of my other stories, and since I'm not there very often, so I thought I'd make use of the occasion.
Chapter 2 – Corporeally-Bound Entities
Gravity. Three point two meters per second per second. Or in this case, the feeling of cold metal pressing against his back and buttocks. He was most reminded of gravity when he found himself sitting behind the plug seat. The plug wall (floor? ceiling?) curved upwards beneath him so that he constantly felt like he was going to slide to his right. Were it not for the protrusion coming down the back of the plug seat, he would find a happy medium sitting directly on what would be considered the 'floor' of the cylindrical world he inhabited. But were he sitting there, his back would be against a rather sharp-edged corner, so here he was a little to the left, nestled in the crack where the protrusion and the plug-seat met.
If his eyes were closed, which they were, he could almost imagine he was sitting back in a corner of the classroom during a break, as he usually did. Had done. Before he met Kensuke and Touji. After that, he had become a member of the 'three stooges,' and his life had gotten more interesting, complicated, and fraught with the peril friendships bring. Such as the ability to hurt, and in turn to be hurt. The ability to maim one beyond recognition, drive the other away by destroying his home, and eventually send them both into the oblivion of Third Impact-
His nails were biting into his flesh, and it hurt. Releasing a shuddering breath, he relaxed his hand. His position at this very moment could be considered the ultimate form of running away. The corner of his mouth twitched at the thought. He was leaving behind the ruined planet, and all the people he had consigned to purgatory. They were behind him, and receding at the speed of three point two meters per second per second. Some combination of the Eva's AT-field, its S2 engine, and the eerie power of the Lance of Longinus was propelling them through space at a steady one gee. Yui had been kind enough to orient the Eva so that the one gee was felt as if the Eva were standing upright in its usual spot in the Eva cages. A wave of homesickness hit him so strongly that it was all he could do to keep from ordering the plug to eject.
Everything's okay, he repeated to himself. I'm just in an extended activation test. Eventually it'll be over, and the plug'll eject. I'll be able to go home. I'll be able to walk under the sun, and feel the earth beneath my feel. Barefoot. I'll walk barefoot, and... Asuka was kind enough to burst his delusion with a sigh of utter and complete satisfaction.
"Third, you don't know how good this feels."
"Yes I do, Asuka," he muttered, leaning his head back against the cool metal of the seat.
"Is that jealousy?" Her voice was moving. "Maybe a little bit of wanting it?" She was probably turning around in the plug seat and standing up. "Don't worry, you'll get your turn again, eventually."
He opened an eye and was duly rewarded. Poking over the top of the plug seat was Asuka's head, and from it her hair flowed down, red locks falling over white shoulders. Of course she had stood just high enough that only a hint of curves showed over the top of the seat. He suppressed a sigh, closed his eyes, and waited for the usual explosion whenever she got around to noticing his 'reaction' to her alluring pose.
No-plug-suit-day. They took turns shedding the annoyingly-clingy suits, each time they emerged from their fantasy worlds for a needed dose of cold hard reality. Today was Asuka's turn, which meant he and Rei were banished to sit behind the plug seat while the German enjoyed her temporary freedom, sitting in the seat in which he normally sat. Red crept onto his cheeks at the thought of her naked form sitting in the same seat he so often occupied. He tried to settle down, but it was too late.
"Hey! No blushing, you perverted boy!"
He looked back up to see her stormy features, and despite himself, he smiled. It didn't matter whether she was happy or angry, she was human, and near enough to touch, and that was all that mattered.
"Hey, no getting sentimental either, I know that look...!" Unable to keep a hint of pink from coming to her face, she 'hmphed' and turned to sit back down, flipping her hair a little as she disappeared from his view.
"Why do you send Rei back here too?" he murmured aloud. "I've always wondered that." He knew the two of them had often changed in the same locker room before harmonics tests.
"The more I get to know her, the stronger I have this disturbing feeling." Asuka's voice was a bit reserved. "Look, this is my relaxing time, and I feel better alone. You know what I mean!" Annoyance/flamboyance had returned in force. "Until I know she doesn't swing that way, she stays back there whenever I'm au-naturale. Got it?" Her tone practically dared him to dispute her words.
He was about to let the matter drop, and go back into his own world when the albino statue beside him made her presence known for the first time in hours.
"Swing?" she wondered, confusion marring her delicate features.
"...um," he began, knowing he definitely did not want to have this conversation with her. He tried to turn away, but her questioning eyes worked him over like a veteran interrogator. You will talk, Ikari, they said. Eventually, you will talk. Why not make this easy on yourself? He caved. Leaning over hesitantly, he brought a hand up and whispered something into her ear. It would have been instructive and somewhat amusing to see her facial expression change ever so slightly as he explained, but he could not, his eyes being level with the side of her head. One eyebrow drew down a bit, then went up moments later. She almost cocked her head to the side, then remembered that his head was in the way, as he was whispering into her ear. He pulled away, his face a little red. She opened her mouth, then closed it. Then opened it again.
"But what purpose would that..." she stopped. Even Rei could sense that certain things just didn't need to be uttered aloud. He leaned in again and whispered another something into her ear. Both eyebrows drew down this time. Then her eyes widened. Shinji sat back, much redder than before.
"Perhaps I would do that, if... if ordered to." Rei was obviously flustered enough that she had fallen back into previous habits.
"WHAT??" Asuka shrieked. Apparently the red-head had been listening, and had put two and two together.
The embarrassed look on the First Child's face did him in, and he had to bring a hand to his mouth to keep from cracking up. Finally he lost it, and drew his knees up, burying his face between them to suppress the laughter. Rei sat and watched him fall apart into a pool of mirth as Asuka ranted in the background, and wondered for the second time in her life how to respond. When he cried, he told me I should smile. I wonder what he would tell me to do now? While she tried to decide whether to ask him, or slap him, Asuka was desperately scuffling back into her plug suit.
After Shinji nearly herniated himself with suppressed laughter and Asuka re-clothed, things calmed down for the most part. Rei was still somewhat confused, but the usual gloom in the atmosphere that was always slowly building up had been defused once again. The albino wondered briefly what would happen on the inevitable day when one of them finally snapped.
Shinji retook his chair, with Rei settling on his right and Asuka on his left. As they changed positions, Asuka spoke.
"How much longer?" She asked it, hesitating briefly before fully surrendering his seat, and, not for the first time, Rei noted with curiosity the strange barter system that had slowly come into being. Whenever they were together, a kind of shared tally was constantly being kept. Whether it be images, memories, or even physicalities, anything that was up for grabs and that could have a worth attached to it, usually did.
"I'm not sure," he admitted after a brief pause. Even if she didn't like the answer, Asuka gave him back his chair in return for the piece of information. "I haven't spoken..." Asuka turned in surprise as Shinji searched for words. "Yui hasn't appeared to me for a while now." The other two mulled over this strange piece of information. As Asuka's gaze grew distant, she slowly rubbed her hands over each other, back and front, perhaps unconscious of her movement. Shinji said nothing, knowing that he himself undoubtedly had foibles that the others chose not to mention. For the umpteenth time he wondered just why the three of them had been given physical forms inside his Eva.
My Eva. He nearly chuckled at how he had picked up Asuka's habit of claiming personal ownership over the giant machine she piloted.
"But it is mine!" she had yelled, when he had questioned her on it once. "You know anyone else who can make it move?" She had a point, but he had felt uncomfortable with it just the same. Now, however, things were somewhat different. At his mother's invitation, he had purloined the world's sole remaining human-pilotable Eva and had made off into space. And he had no idea what he was doing. Yui obviously had some destination in mind, he could feel it. But she never told him directly.
"Well?" Asuka's voice drew him off his musings. It took him a moment to realize that they had been having a conversation before his mind drifted.
"I don't know, Asuka." He suppressed a sense of frustration, not wanting to lash out at one of the two humans remaining to whom he could turn for comfort. "I just don't know." She had turned away from him, picking at some invisible thing under one of her fingernail, overtly ignoring him. "I can't know when we'll discorporate until I see my mother again."
My mother. And my Eva.
The utter finality of the situation of it all dawned on him, and as usual, it felt like it was the first time. He was alone, save for Rei and Asuka, and his ever-more-distant mother. Alone with the universe.
Now it really is my Eva.
