Relapse
Chapter 27: "…And night after night, we pretend it's alright…"
Shinji groaned as he opened his eyes to the empty room. He really didn't want to get up today.
Sitting up in bed the Third Children remarked at how good his back felt after sleeping on an actual bed.
Rubbing his eyes, he looked around for his nightly companion, but to no avail. The boy stretched, even with that full night of sleep he felt tired, even after only a night of mild terrors, he hoped he hadn't woken Asuka up with them.
Pushing himself to the side of the bed, his eyes instantly spotted the small note on the bedstand. Leaning over to it he picked it up and read it over.
'Shinji, I went with Misato today, we'll be back late, but we should talk tonight, I think we both need that.'
Why would she go with Misato?
Unit-03…
Shinji's mind raced and for the briefest of moments, Shinji's heart rate accelerated, until he remembered what she had said last night.
"…you're still a pilot."
He could only imagine how Asuka would have reacted in the moment, to her Evangelion being taken away. Perhaps Misato just took the girl with her to see Unit-03's activation, a small gesture to keep the Evangelions in her life.
It wasn't like Asuka could be piloting Unit-03, even if she were still a pilot, there's no way she'd be able to sync with it.
Shinji shook his head, there was no need to worry, even if it was dangerous for her to be near the initial activation, the risk involved was minor at best and no more than when she actually faced Bariel while piloting Unit-02.
Instead, he drifted to the other matter, if Misato was personally going there, it had to be activating today.
That meant he would face Unit-03 alone, no Asuka in Unit-02, and Rei unable to pilot the damaged Unit-00.
He'd be all alone.
But that was alright, he could do it… couldn't he?
There was no need to worry about it right now, instead, Shinji set the note back down as he stood up and stretched some more before quietly made his way to the door.
Sliding it open slowly, he peeked out just in case Misato was still here, he called out to either of the girls to see if one of them was still in the apartment for some reason, but he was only met with silence, or at least that was what anyone else would have heard.
"They're not here dummkopf,"
There she was, lounging at the kitchen table, her legs up on the table and hands folded in her lap.
Sighing, Shinji, tried to ignore the specter and went about preparing himself toast for the morning.
"You're getting quite the show this time around," She commented, "first the shower, then your field trip, and now last night?" she counted it out on her fingers.
"Did you enjoy it as much as the first time?"
Shinji refused to turn around, he refused to rise to the bait; he should've known that she'd want words about what had transpired last night.
Had she been watching? The idea of that made his skin crawl, though it wasn't like he could hide anything from her anyways.
"She really is nothing like me Third, since when did any one of my look-alikes throw themselves at you like that? She's not even really a look-alike."
"None of them did," He admitted, taking his food, and sitting down across from her, "but she did it for herself, not for me."
"So… you're just going to 'help' her like all the others hmm?"
"I want to." He said softly, taking a bite of his food.
"You know baka Shinji, I've been trying to help you this whole time, but you can't seem to stay away from them, can you?"
He looked at her, he looked at those wrappings, hiding the wounds he caused…
"No… I can't… because I owe it to you." Even to himself, he sounded so pathetic, so dejected.
She sat up in her seat, that eye narrowing "Don't pin this on me, you're the one who's doing it out of guilt."
He threw up his hands "Alright, would you like me to just ignore her, ignore you?! I think we found out how well that goes! So, tell me what you want!" He was fed up with this, he just spent the night keeping a version of her from going through something he knew she would regret and now his invisible companion was seemingly saying he shouldn't have!
Out of the corner of his eye, Shinji spotted a certain warm water penguin peek out from his home to see what all the noise was about. However, Pen Pen just shut the door again at the sight of only the Third Children seated there.
Asuka said nothing, just looked at the boy, not breaking their staring contest.
"Every time I see her, every time I see you, I remember how you all but begged me to help you, so why shouldn't I do it now Asuka?!" he wanted to know, he wanted to know why she didn't want him to save her. "Why should I help her?"
"Because you don't love her, you don't love any of them!" she yelled back at him.
"IT'S NOT ABOUT ME!" He roared, his hand slamming down over his heart. "I… I don't care if I do or don't… I don't care Asuka… as long as she's happy that's what matters!"
"Don't you get it…" he mumbled, deflating in that moment, "I don't deserve anything…"
"You're at least right about that." she sneered.
Soryu stood up and made her way to the other side of the table, her face leaning in towards his own.
With her… there was nothing, no flashes of a previous life, no panic attacks, nothing, not when even when she was this close.
Because she wasn't really there.
She couldn't really be there.
Could she?
"You're mine Third, you'll always be mine," She growled leaning in even further, "because I'm the only one who you can't run from!"
He could almost feel her breath on his face, just like he had with Shikinami last night, but it was just a fleeting shadow of a memory.
"Promise them they can have all of you, tell them they can take everything from you, but we both know that you'll never be able to give it to them, not when I'm here, not when you'll remember what you did to me for the rest of your life, besides… you told me all those things first."
"You told me I could have all of you."
"No, I didn't."
"Oh, really?"
She pulled away from the boy, now sitting down on the table in front of him just beyond his meal, that same old cocky grin on her lips.
He always hated that grin.
The Third Children just narrowed his eyes "Hit me."
She just raised her eyebrow at that comment, "What?"
"I said, hit me… like you used to." He said calmly.
The phantom said nothing, she didn't raise her hand either, they both knew exactly where this was going.
Shinji smiled sadly; they both knew why he asked that.
Reaching out his hand, he just pushed it through her abdomen. Fighting the reflex of actually touching something, nothing resisted him, there was nothing really there after all.
"If you could hit me, I'd apologize Asuka, but I can't hold you, I can't be there for you like I can be there for someone real."
"You can see me idiot." she countered with a hushed tone, "You can see me."
Shinji nodded "I can, but I'm the crazy one, aren't I?" he asked her.
"I'm Shinji Ikari, Third Children, Pilot of Evangelion Unit-01," the boy said in that almost robotic tone, "and I failed you, I hurt you, but I can help her Asuka, don't you want me to help her?"
"Oh, like you helped the one you were talking about last night?"
Shinji froze, that life… how it had changed everything, how he had taken so long to recover from it, and the consequences from it.
Well, he was looking right at the consequence…
"That was one bad day huh?" she said with a sickly smile, "I don't think I ever asked before, but which was worse, what you did to me or what you did to her?"
"Which day was worse?"
That… was her going nuclear.
The Third Children closed his eyes, wanting to just try and ignore her and like a thousand times before, it didn't work.
"Which was worse Shinji? When you let me die or when you purposefully pushed her away… pushed her to the edge?"
"That's not what I wanted." He said, his voice uneasy, his body shaking slightly.
"Oh, but it's what happened." She said still with that smile, "Face it, I'm the only one for you, you're stuck with me… besides, I know everything about you."
"Do you really think they could forgive you, accept you if they knew what you did, do you think they would approve of you?"
"Do you think…," he asked opening his eyes, he shouldn't say this, but he couldn't stop the words from leaving his lips, "your mother would approve of this?"
That… was him going nuclear.
Now it was her turn to shake, though mostly in anger at the mention of her mother.
"Do you think Kyoko would like you being miserable and angry at everyone?" he asked, he knew he shouldn't be saying those words, but a part of him felt good to hurt her back for once.
And that made him feel sick.
Standing up, Shinji met her face to face, "How do you think she would feel if she knew you tried to take the easy way out like her?" He growled, remembering how she had run away, how they had found her in that ruined building, just lying in that bathtub.
How she had given up on life.
" 'There's no reason for me to live', isn't that what you said?" he asked.
The girl pulled into herself, seemingly slinking away from him "That's rich, especially coming from you." She said quietly, averting her eyes.
"Idiot…"
That tone, he knew that tone, it was the one he had heard in her voice when she wanted to cry, when she wanted to finally show some emotion, though it rarely ever came.
Hikari was in front of him again.
"You just made a girl cry, go after her!"
He wanted to come up with a witty retort, thinking about every piece of her life he could bring up to twist that knife just a bit more, not that she wouldn't do the same right after that.
They could hurt each other so well, couldn't they?
They knew how to maim and tear away at each other like rabid dogs.
Wasn't it enough for their own lives, their own two screwed up lives, to have ripped away so many pieces already?
And it all just hit the boy so suddenly, how this had escalated, how they had gone for each other's throats so quickly, why? Why did they have to hurt each other so much?
He couldn't do it.
He just could do it anymore.
He was so damn tired.
"What are we doing Asuka?" he asked, collapsing into his seat again, that exhaustion taking him over, and his hand coming up over his face like he was trying to hide from her, "Are we just going to be gut each other over and over like this forever?"
The redhead remained silent, not looking at him. That moment seemed to drag on forever, seconds stretching into hours. Until she finally broke it.
"Did you mean it?" she asked quietly.
"What I just said?" he asked, a bit of shame creeping into his voice.
"No… last night, what you wanted to say to her… did you mean it?" she asked, those blue eyes watering, "How you were in love with me the first time we met and all that?"
Shinji stared at those blue eyes and only one thing came to his mind.
Why?
Why did she care if that was true or not? It wasn't like it would do her any good.
He nodded "It was all true, everything."
"Really?" she whispered, before getting up and walking away.
The dark-haired boy just looked down at his half-eaten toast and shook his head.
His appetite gone, he stood up and emptied his plate into the garbage, hopefully, Rei's cooking was good enough to fill his stomach after school.
Returning to his room to gather up all his things for school, he eyed the SDAT player currently on his dresser. Why wasn't it tucked in the drawer?
Shrugging he picked it up and put it in his backpack, if Soryu decided to come after him today he would rather drown her out with it than make a scene.
Calling a goodbye to Pen Pen he walked out the apartment door, the idea that he might not return didn't even cross his mind.
Three seconds to midnight… tick tock tick tock
Man, those two can really cut each other where it hurts, can't they? Bonus points if you get the title reference.
SHOUTOUTS! (Damn, twenty this time, looks like I got the reaction I wanted…)
Su Exodus – Hits the spot, doesn't it?
Berix – Maybe Shinji just needs a good therapeutic shouting match with a certain invisible redhead about how they really failed each other? Hmmm? I look forward to the day you can't find any grammar errors lol.
TalonEmpire – Thanks! Hopefully, I can get it to transcend a few more times lol.
K4153r – As for the moment you're talking about? I don't know if you're referring to the memory of her trying to get with Kaji in NGE or when she's on top of Shinji in the EOE 'pre-instrumentality' scene where she says "Just looking at you makes my blood boil", but either way we got flashbacks to both.
UltraSpink of Da USA – Thanks a lot, I'll do my best!
Luciano- Thank you, glad you enjoyed it!
RandomRelapseFan – Thank you! Deep down I think Shinji's really the same scared kid from NGE who killed the world, granted he's much braver and adapted to his situation, but it's still classic Shinji who bubbles up from time to time.
Guest (1) – Thank you!
Guest (2) – Both? Both. Both is good.
EvaPilotFair – Thanks! Looks like you caught onto the reversal of the night before Sachiel!
Iraki01 – Hope this keeps you excited! As for Bardiel…
Greg242 – Thank you! Hope you find the future chapters as enjoyable.
Akomis – Oh don't be picking favorites yet, we still have a long way to go haha, looks like you caught onto the final scene reversal as well!
skyf0x -Ah 'when?' is only half the question, afterall you must think that Shikinami will always feel the same as she does right now…
dyinglittelstar – Thanks!
jimothy – Shinji talking about a version of Asuka he pushed away was not in NGE post 3rd-impact. Instead it's another life, one that we'll get to see the memory of,
A Guy – Shinji having a crisis over Shikinami not being Soryu? I can't say that's a good thing, particularly because he's consumed by guilt, he should probably be thinking more about it. Re-take again… hmmm I'm going to have to read that one day.
guest – You'll have to read and find you *Insert evil laughter*
spartanman2 – Thank you! As for Soryu caring about Shinji's fragile mind and only knowing how to attack… *looks back up at chapter with sheepish face*. I'll admit, I didn't know what Steins Gate was until I looked it up, kinda like Thrice Upon a Time the book?
Duckz – Hope you enjoy the rest of it!
GeHirNunDherZ – Yes! Allow a Third and Fourth Impact to happen! Re-Take again… why does everyone think that?!
Alrighty, I might get another chapter to you guys next week, but not on Wednesday, after all, it's finals, so I'm screwed for the next week or so, I literally wrote this when I needed a break and my brain was fried so excuse anything that looks off lol.
Until Next Time!