Shinji looked back and forth between the two of them. He'd already dismissed the idea that they were planning to attack him when they'd confronted him in the hallway. They didn't seem to be armed (not that he was going to count on it, he'd been raised better than that) and while both of them were tense it was a nervous sort of tenseness instead of a ready to attack (or expecting attack) kind. Both of them had been trained at NERV's piloting academy, and Shinji knew the style the academy's instructors taught.

The style he himself used was a little different, since the NERV style was designed to be easily transferrable to Eva piloting, but attending those lessons meant he was confident he knew how the two of them would be placing their weight and positioning themselves if combat was even on the menu. So, "What?" he wondered, shifting the bag to his other hand. He'd got the juices they asked for from the coffee room's minifridge, but he was pretty sure they'd be going for the bag if that was what this was about.

"We just want to talk to you," Kensuke finally said.

"Since we're friends and all," Touji said, clearing his throat.

Friends? Shinji stopped himself from saying, 'I guess we're friends,' or anything along those lines, even though this was kind of news to him. They were people from the piloting academy who had invited themselves over to his house repeatedly. He guessed that he was willing to spend time with them, although most of that was because being under semi-house arrest left him a little bored and the two of them were staying over anyway. Neither of them played any instruments, although letting them into his music room would probably have ended in Asuka maiming Touji when she found out, Hikari or no Hikari.

Kaworu could fix him up again anyway.

"Say something," Touji said, looking a little annoyed that Shinji was just looking at him with slightly widened eyes and prolonging the awkwardness.

"Sorry." He gave them an apologetic smile. "I just never really thought that friends were something that would happen to me." Not when his parents were who they were. "I mean, Kaworu, but Kaworu was my music partner." Shinji hadn't really thought of him as a friend until someone had called Kaworu 'Shinji's friend,' and he'd realized that oh yeah, they kind of were friends. Except what Naoko said later, about how only people who didn't know a lot about love or friendship would mistake that for friendship when Kaworu's feelings were obviously love? "I mean, sure you are my friends," he said hurriedly, since they looked like they didn't know how to react to that and might decide on feeling insulted. "I guess that makes you my first friend-friends?" As opposed to either family or Kaworu.

Kensuke still looked a little surprised. "What about Rei and Asuka?"

Now Shinji was the one who wasn't sure if he should feel insulted or not, although he wasn't sure on whose behalf. "They're my nieces." Family. "And Kaji was my brother-in-law. I don't think that's really the same thing, but unless you want to stand out in the middle of the hall and talk about me not really knowing how to get along with people…" at least not people his own age who weren't involved in politics?

"Right," Kensuke said, looking around, and pulled them into the TV room.

Shinji sat down on the couch and opened a juice can: he'd volunteered to go look for them because he was thirsty. He had to push the bag in Touji's direction a second time before he took the hint and the bag from Shinji. "So what's this about?"

"Well, you don't really have any friends besides us, you said it yourself, so…" Touji looked at Kensuke for support.

"Tabris. Kaworu," Kensuke amended himself, or was he watching Shinji for his reactions to those two names?

"It's not like either of us has ever seriously dated anyone, but…"

"Is that what this is about?" Shinji was mystified. "Guys, I've got Misato for this, and she was married for years. If anything, I think you guys are the ones who need relationship advice." Blue eyes stared down Touji, who still hadn't made it official with the lieutenant. After two and a half weeks under the same roof, and that was only counting after Touji was cured and could be sure he had a future to spend with her. He couldn't really make plans when he wasn't sure if he'd ever be allowed out of a hospital bed. "And before you say that Misato's a woman or anything, I had Kaji for guy talk up until a few months ago. It's not that I don't appreciate the thought, I just don't know what the thought is. Help me out here, will you?"

"I don't mean any disrespect," Kensuke said, which was as good as saying 'with all due respect,' "but it's pretty clear to us that your family is thinking about the future. That's their jobs," so Kensuke didn't mean to imply that they were being irresponsible towards Shinji, "but Touji's right: you said it yourself that you don't have any other friends. It's not like we're not part of the Eva program, but I really don't think that there's really anyone neutral on the planet you can talk to. Not about this." Not when this was Tabris and Shinji was an Eva pilot, in addition to who he was and what else he was.

"You're offering to be on my side?" Shinji was touched, but even his heart knew to take that with a grain of salt. Like Kensuke had just said about Shinji's family, everyone here had a job.

"You're making it too complicated, Kensuke," Touji objected. "We're just worried about you. Hearing about what he had to do to fix my legs: I mean, tendrils inside my body, and hooking up to the nerves to make the new nerves hook up right, and he basically admitted that to make my body stop trying to fix itself and make crazy cancers he had to… do something else, right?" Touji couldn't come out and say 'connect to my subconscious' much less 'tamper with my mind.' That was too taboo, disgusting: an abomination doing that?

Contaminating him like that?

Just like Bardiel.

"I can say he's not doing anything like that to me," Shinji said, "but let's skip the part where you ask 'how can you be sure.' Because I trust him, alright?"

"He's not doing anything weird to you, is he?" Touji asked, glancing in the direction of the TV screen since there weren't any windows, hoping for a distraction. Unfortunately, it was off.

"The weirdest thing about him in bed is that he doesn't need to breathe," Shinji said bluntly. That was a lie (not that Kaworu didn't need to breathe, but that it was the weirdest thing), but from the startled blushing as the two of them realized the implications of that he probably had managed to make them stop asking about that sort of thing. "Why are you two asking about that? Are you curious about Rei?" he wondered, looking at Kensuke.

Kensuke looked alarmed.

"Oh, so you don't like her? The daughter of Dr. Akagi, who does your physicals and maintains, or doesn't maintain, your Evas. And has all the needles. And the knives. Really sharp knives, I've gotten to play with some of them." Thanks to Kaji.

"That is half an argument for professing my undying affection for Rei Fuyutsuki and half an argument for staying as far away from her as humanly possible," Kensuke pointed out after managing to calm down.

"Do you have a preference?"

"Other than for you to make up your mind?" Kensuke removed his glasses to clean them, mostly as an excuse to look down at his hands instead of at people. Shinji was sure that Kensuke was thinking longingly of his guns and other military hardware right now. So much easier to deal with. Shinji knew the feeling.

"Would it help you make up yours if I got my hands on some of the specs of that baby?" Shinji wondered, grinning.

Touji's eyes widened now, because he had a little sister, Rei was Shinji's niece and some things were not cool, but it was Kensuke's reaction Shinji was watching hopefully. Unfortunately he was too stunned that Shinji would even say that to show any other expression.

"How far she can punch through sheet steel, how many rounds per second she can fire with the telekinesis, what kind of blasts she can deflect," Shinji elaborated, since he didn't really want them thinking he was willing to just hand out Rei's other measurements.

Kensuke looked like he didn't know whether to be relieved or intrigued, which was pretty good. With the possible exception of the Evas, Rei was the third most powerful war machine on the planet: Tabris was more powerful because he was a Seed of Life while Armisael was more powerful because her soul wasn't exhausted by supporting a planet's life for eons. Rei could still go through conventional military forces like used tissue paper, not that NERV's PR tried to emphasize this. Unless you counted the fact that with her as the pilot of Unit 00, Naoko no longer needed a cord or a battery pack. So Kensuke's thing for military hardware might help Rei's odds a little?

Shinji frowned when he realized that actually, he might owe destiny. For Kaworu. Fate and destiny were supposed to be terrible things that people should fight against since, well, Second Impact just to start with.

The Rapture had certainly started things off with a bang.

Still, his parents had him in the first place to do nasty things to him so that they could use him for the stuff it was his destiny to do and what it could get him, but apparently his cursed fate also came with a Kaworu.

For someone who had grown up with the knowledge that yes, the universe actively did have it in for him, and fate really was working to screw him over, this was a bit of a revelation.

Maybe there actually was some sort of fairness in the universe.

Or maybe he should stop whining, because there were plenty of other people in the world born to horrible families and none of them got Kaworu. Only a tiny fraction of them had any chance of getting replacement families as wonderful as his too, but still, he got a Kaworu. That made up for a hell of a lot.

Actually, in the grand scheme of things… Maybe he had a lot to be thankful for, on the whole. Not that he was going to thank his parents for bringing him into this world, since it was really more 'in spite of' than 'because of,' and if there was a God other than Tabris then Shinji really did owe him a prog knife to the gut for all those other people who experienced horrible suffering thanks to the bullshit that was the Secret Dead Sea Scrolls and weren't given their very own Kaworu as compensation, but still.

He was actually incredibly lucky, wasn't he.

He couldn't stop smiling like a fool.

"You okay, man?" Touji asked, because seeing a smile like that on the face of the senior Eva pilot? That just didn't happen.

"I'm okay. I'm a lot more than okay. I mean, literally the only thing I could possibly complain about in our relationship is that he has a lot more stamina than I do." To be fair to Shinji, part of that was that Tabris couldn't, well, until they merged, and he wasn't going to do that until Shinji was satisfied too.

He did have a lot of problems, like what he was going to do about Rei and Armisael and how he was going to take care of this without his family finding out that he and Tabris were merging, but his relationship with Kaworu wasn't one of them.

Too much information. "It's our fault for asking," Touji said, groaning. "We just thought that, well, somebody should ask, right?"

"Trust me, I have plenty of overprotective parents and siblings." Even with Kaji gone. "It's Tabris one of you should be worried about."

"What, he won't like us asking questions?"

"No, because Rei is the little sister he would have gotten to keep if he wasn't worried the old men would have her killed so she didn't disrupt their scenario." The first person Tabris ever met who was like him: he must have hoped that she would be his friend, and he could teach her all the wonderful things he'd found.

Kensuke looked at Touji, since he was the one who knew about little sisters.

Touji clasped his hands together and bowed at Kensuke over them. "It's been an honor serving with you." You dead man walking, you. "I've heard that people in love try to make other people hook up, but if he's even half-human, there's no way that applies to little sisters."

"He just wants her to be happy," Shinji said, annoyed on Kaworu's behalf. "I mean, I'm the one that grew up with her," well, more, since Rei was at NERV for the first few years, "and I don't mind her dating. Her or Asuka."

"Who would date Asuka?" Touji wanted to know. "You'd have to be crazier than us pilots!"

"You're just saying that because of Hikari." Kensuke rolled his eyes.

Touji tried to ignore that. "Anyway, Asuka's gay, isn't she?"

"She was at least half-serious about Kaji so she had to at least be bi… Wait, you thought she was after Hikari?" Shinji blinked at the realization: at first the idea was stunningly wrong, but in hindsight it explained so much.

"How was I supposed to compete with that?" Touji protested. "And it's not like plenty of the sergeants weren't," doing stuff with the lower-ranked beta-type pilots. "Hikari and I were friends for years, and then Asuka just swoops in and…"

"Around the time rank assignments were given." Around when Hikari would have started distancing herself from Touji. "Look, the people Asuka was attracted to besides Kaji were me and Rei, if that's any help. That's why she went berserk about us until she finally managed to start getting along with Rei after one of the abomination battles. If she'd been attracted to Hikari, they wouldn't have gotten along so well." Since Asuka wasn't handling the new feelings very well: she hated anything outside her control, anything that disrupted her mental state and thus her performance, and her anger at the disruption just disrupted her more and thus made her more pissed off. "I think she's over Rei now, though: they're getting along too well." For Asuka to still be interested in her as anything other than a sort of cousin. Alternatively she might have just grown up: it wasn't like Shinji'd been paying attention.

Touji and Asuka, rivals over Hikari at least in Touji's mind: how had he missed that? Possibly because he was avoiding everything to do with Asuka, but still… Yeah, Shinji thought, he was still no Kaji.

"I told him that Hikari wasn't interested in her like that," Kensuke said, sighing.

"Well, Asuka's damn hot, man! Don't you have eyes?" Touji demanded. "Back me up here, Shinji: some people are just that hot, right? Like, you know," he finished awkwardly, scratching the back of his head.

No, Shinji didn't… Wait, was he talking about Kaworu?

In theory, Shinji knew that people being attracted to Kaworu was natural, no, inevitable. Humanity was the angel Lilim, and angels were attracted to seeds, so any human who claimed to feel no attraction to Kaworu whatsoever was obviously lying. But someone that he actually knew, someone that Kaworu was in irregular contact with (although always with Shinji there) admitting that they were attracted to Kaworu? His Kaworu?

It was making part of him want to remind Touji that Shinji had a gun, access to Ritsuko's knives and the dark caverns of NERV's echoing interior structure were an excellent place to hide bodies.

"After the concert at the cultural festival, all of us thought you were tapping that," Kensuke said bluntly. "And that was why you weren't even looking at any of the girls in our class."

"But…" Wait, people…

Shinji realized that people must have assumed that he and Kaworu were an item for years, in that cute little childhood sweethearts sense. After all, they did everything together: until he was sent to school Shinji was never out of the house without either his family or Kaworu, so the people he knew through music wouldn't have seen him without Kaworu there.

He felt a little cheated, somehow. If someone had pointed out to him that he and Kaworu made a cute couple, then maybe they could have… Well, no, they were only barely old enough now, but how often had Shinji wished there was some way he could make sure to keep Kaworu forever? "I thought the people in our class weren't… I mean, I am who I am."

"Aren't you the one who keeps insisting that you're not their son, you're the Commander's? And you're Misato Katsuragi's little brother?" Now Touji was the one looking at him as though he was insane. "Didn't you figure out that we didn't take that as seriously as you did? Come on, man, everyone there got some of that kind of hate." For their contamination level. "Not as bad as you sure, but you're one of the Numbered Series Pilots, you're a Fuyutsuki, you're rich and you're not bad looking."

"First you say that about Kaworu, now about me…"

"Sorry to break it to you," Kensuke told him, "but Shinji, and I say this as your friend… You look like a girl. I've got enough footage of you and Rei: if it weren't for her coloring and the fact you're a guy, you'd be identical twins. A lot of people thought it explained a lot when you showed up to that thing with Kaworu."

"I do not look like a girl!" Shinji protested, blushing.

"Man… You do. You really do," Touji said, trying to give Shinji a consoling look, but no, there wasn't any getting out of this. "At least you're a hot one, not like my ugly mug? Between you and Asuka, half the class was questioning their sexuality. Everyone in your family is hot. Even your dad has that distinguished look going for him." He coughed. "According to Hikari, anyway."

"There are people who didn't have crushes on Misato Katsuragi growing up?" Kensuke asked rhetorically. "Practically every girl I knew, before," before his contamination level was tested and he was brought here, "was in her fan club."

"Not that you'd have the courage to talk to a girl unless it was about military hardware or Eva specs," Touji said, clapping him on the shoulder. Kensuke quickly retaliated with an elbow to the solar plexus, and Shinji realized that they'd never tried that with him. Good, because while he was used to contact from his family, and Kaworu, he still hadn't quite adjusted to the fact these people were apparently his friends. He didn't want to knife anyone on reflex.

It still made him feel a little sad, and really unappreciative that he hadn't really noticed that he had friends.

He really had been out of it, failing to watch his back or much of anything after Kaworu left, hadn't he? No wonder Kaworu was so worried in that letter.

"But you two keep cuddling in front of people, and do you know what that looks like?" Touji said when he got his breath back. "If you really wanted me to get with Hikari, then you'd stop being so hot like that right in front of her. How am I supposed to compete with that?"

"Well, I guess." It was kind of unfair to expect anyone to pay attention to someone who was only human when Kaworu was in the room. Well, Shinji could pay attention to music, but he remembered how often the Maestro had to scold the other students to focus on their music. Back then, Shinji thought that was his fault for being distracting and a celebrity, but since Kaworu always sat next to him, maybe Shinji was mistaken about just who they were glancing at.

…Wait a minute. Asuka got upset easily at people she was attracted to, so what did it mean that she'd practically become rivals with Kaworu? It was Asuka barging in when Shinji was trying to practice with Kaworu that finally made him go to his dad and get her kicked out of his music room. Was it really Shinji that she'd been interested in the way Misato and Kaji hoped (for the sake of producing the next generation of their badass trio)? Had she viewed Kaworu as her rival for Shinji, Shinji as her rival for Kaworu, or both?

She might not even have thought it that far through herself, Shinji knew, especially when most of her thoughts were for someone else.

Why hadn't he realized this before? Noticed how much potential competition for Kaworu he had?

Judging from the panic trying to rise inside him, because he hadn't wanted to notice it.

Kaworu was his music partner, and they would perform and sink into comfortable obscurity together. Provided Shinji survived. The thought of Shinji getting married had never really even crossed his mind, because relationships like that weren't something he was going to have, but the possibility that Kaworu might fall in love with someone and get married, because Kaworu was someone people would fall in love with: that hadn't occurred to him either, and it should have.

That Kaworu could find someone better. There were lots of better people in the world than the son of two monsters.

That wasn't going to happen, right? Shinji thought almost frantically. Kaworu wouldn't just leave him (not like his parents, Kaworu was nothing like them), right?

He and Kaworu were always going to be together, weren't they?

Oh.

Right.

Destiny.

Kaworu was supposed to fall in love with him, not anyone else.

That was a relief, and maybe he should be a little thankful to that prophet (Kaworu's father, huh?), but now, Shinji realized, he needed to make sure that if he ever did kill Kaworu, it wouldn't be because he'd fallen into some kind of jealous rage.

Because just the thought of losing Kaworu to anyone else?