ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
ㅤSomeday,
I'll toss all your presents
And bury
The letters left unsent
Cause it's bad to do what's easy
Just cause it's easy
And I wanna do what pleases me but I can't
-Gregory and the Hawk
intro scene
daffodils
.
Her stare took form in his mind: a glint. A lighter. Sunlight. Auburn hair rode desperately along her body, from the pearl of her skin down to the sullied, sanguine salvia-glazed shoulders of her suit, a mark of the beast. Emerald eyes, a juxtaposition to the boring mauve of her intestines. He was a witness of those colours; he was a testament to her pain. Unbidden.
And he thought in those moments. Her gore. This gore shore in which they both resided; he lacked the will to turn to meet her gaze. Her palpable scowl, owning such will and fire to set him alight. And why would he? The sand held less agony. The gravity of the earth now felt so much more brittle. So much more beautiful.
His maeve spoke. His drug moved further out of reach.
"Did you like being a monster?"
Flash, and he returned to sin. Crosses, owning no boundary in colour, shape, size or definition. Product of Rei. Product of him.
When his answer materialised, the seldom tinge of need cracked his voice once more.
"I loved it."
Reality leaked back into him, just a little bit. What once seemed a web of chaos now unwound back into a single lengthy thread of events; each remnant of his surroundings pertained a truth that, for some reason, he now could bear. Had he grown?
Assuming from the glare of red around his scapegoat's neck, he hadn't.
There were so many colours here, he noticed, stone eyes shifting lento from the moon-marked streaks of sand around him to the mass of red sea before him. Grass, red. Cliffs, red. Cities, red.
Nevermind, there weren't many colours here at all, he realised. It was all red.
The stars held no purpose now, even with their brilliance dying all around him. All he could see, all he managed, was one red loop. Another one of his results, planetary in scale.
She hadn't moved since their last interaction. Not one they cherished, but it was a marvel they had managed words at all. He didn't like words very much now, he surmised: all they seemed to do is cause him pain. That's all this beach was now. even when faced with a forget-me-not blue, this beach caused him the same puncture.
Pain.
He couldn't bear feeling comfortable with it any longer.
Unsound, his body creaked itself past the exhaustion that the shoreline infected him with. Crying felt wasteful. Though, it wouldn't halt him much, deciding to liberate his joints from any ache or stress upon it before. A stand was one movement. Swift, something he might not have been ready for. But he had to move, for if he didn't, he feared descent. And that, for him, was a hell beyond comprehension.
He shouldn't leave her here. He thought closely about that, the dried soak of his clothes now bearing recognition on his body.
He used to feel safe in these clothes.
Their pairing shared the dried crust of the ocean now, or at least, what was left of it. Oh, the plugsuit. It seemed she wasn't plagued by that issue. They needed to escape here, right? His eyes might not have held such aspirations to her, probably endowed with the same disturbed look as before. Although, her eye hadn't managed any better, the frost of her iris caving in on his ego.
She was staring at him. And he wasn't imagining it this time.
In the time he had risen, she had perched herself on the sand. And now, she was rising too, his tracking eyes mirroring her own mistful ones. Indifference filled them. Indifference aimed solely towards him. For some reason, it made his heart slack a beat. Open, and her visage served more dread than any hell ever could. No, hell seemed like a holiday. Blink, though, and reverie freed him from the vile fury he anticipated. Almost playfully, however, she didn't release any devil from her depths.
That felt worse though. A lot worse. A more unique sort of torture, the ostracisation of his being.
Instead of a roar, she took a step, her eye clamped shut against the boy's instinctive judgement. Puzzled, he matched her pace. One step forward, One step backwards. A cotillion. Although, eventually, her pace trumped his own, a purposeful stride towards the cherry grass of the shore's coast overtaking and overpowering his understanding.
A contrast to his thoughts of desertion, she seemed not to hold much consideration over him.
Almost typical.
Almost made him want to apologise, almost made him want to say anything at all, just to affirm some sort of connection between them.
Too many almosts.
As he followed, more out of a curious nature than one of the same purpose she seemed to own, there was no revolt. No words spat, no tinge of flame. Still, no comfort was found within the myriad of silence they found themselves belonging in.
Perturbation.
Stone body, fleeting eyes. A twig. A pavement. A fallen castle.
Behold the puzzle that never stopped solving;
Everything was red.
Be it the abused mesh of hair fronting him, obeying the wind's current with a calming violence that his hair couldn't dare to dance to, or the crimson kingdom in which they both used to call home. Or at least, maybe she could call it home. Home is where the heart is, and Tokyo-3 never managed to steal that from him.
A little longer and the blush of city street remnants was the only evil left to weigh him. That's all this was really, an evil memory of a city. The sky held no scrapes, no towers to mark humanity's abominable evolution. Now, these streets were primitive. Natural, if you could say that, with the enemy of greenery dominating over the planet's surface. Stained, ruined, a gross render of what should be.
There was so much negativity here. So much hatred. So many words that he feared to speak.
Mostly because of her.
Her shape was uncomfortable, with the tranquil control of her path lacking the characteristic ire he had come to accept. Not lacklustre though, not at all. It was almost relieving, the lack of words to fall from her mouth. Not comfortable, it wouldn't be for a while if she were to stay this silent. Still, relieving.
But the thought of the hereafter feasted on anxiety. Prudence wouldn't serve him well.
Another relief, the crumpled echo of routine helped him reminisce, was that he had realised where the duet was headed. Not a place that he had predicted; they could have headed to the remains of the geofront, if she wanted to spit on nerv's grave, ridding herself of any semblance of an attachment to the scum. Maybe a decaying store, owning enough resources to survive them, or at least her, a few weeks.
Or, maybe, if she hated him that much, the house was an option.
A house of connection. Words to words, heart to heart.
Hands to throat.
He guessed she must have hated him then.
There was a certain kind of dread in this. A peculiar trauma, one that seemed to enlarge the closer he would get. First, a splinter. Then, a stake.
Then, a cancer. Error of division.
Each step eked him, for some reason, the times he planted his shoe down onto the ground to walk becoming more arduous not to tear himself away from. His visionaries followed the pitter-patter of sunlight, a habit of escape.
But the gravity wasn't brittle now. It held no beauty. it just was.
Stairs, upwards. Hellish heaven. Heaven, angels, wrath. So, were they demons? Devils, onis, ungodly beings designed to strip god of his home. Because this was their home. Their heart, their knowledge, an eschewal of life. Bridge, hands, intertwined for them to cross.
He glanced west: red.
Everything, red.
She probably noticed. Colour recoiled from his face, an awestruck maw releasing shallow breaths against the stillness of the walkway. His heart swelled, and as such, his body paused. She did too, though not for what he had. And it wasn't long for her either, at most half a second. Just an obstacle.
It almost embarrassed him, his own vulnerability. He loved his past, didn't he? Toji, Kensuke- he wished for their happiness above all else. Or rather, he wished for theirs, as they supplemented his own.
Was that selfish?
No, it was human. That's what it was.
Memories of a penguin- silly fears of one too. The ichor of alcohol spreading through a bruised body. He missed her.
Misato.
A promise. Another connection. Something more physical than maternity.
Something he hated.
Though, for her, he would do anything. For the faux family they had built, he would do anything. After all, he missed it. Giggles, drunken cuddles as he fixed something other than a plastic supper. Anything was owed, of course.
These wild oats he had to sow. For a baggage far heavier than the earth itself, he would do anything. They kept him alive. Kept him breathing, kept him witnessing. It helped him walk.
So, he walked.
One more embrace. Before red overtook these beaches, he asked the sketch of his mind a question.
"Do I belong here?"
Only silence answered him. Though, for his present, he understood the answer. Tokyo-3 did steal his heart after all.
Following sunlight, he paused at the apartment's entrance. There was something that needed to be said. Even his partner had a face of expectation, maybe knowing of the epiphany that had brought him to this door. Though, maybe not. He could have confused expectation with disdain. He didn't care much though, as no more was the idea that this was an intrusion. This was somewhere he needed to be.
Warmth was fragile.
Verbatim to Rei, need cracked his voice once more.
"I'm home, Asuka."
Daffodils turned.
"Welcome home, monster."
AN: this will be something short for me to work on. recently, I managed to stick myself into the rabbit hole of Evangelion. I'm very thankful I did. the emotions this series has brought me, every single form of media to do with it, is breathtaking. I feel like this is owed. a response.
there's a lot of things that are going to be hard to write. but I think it's needed. something for me, but also something for you; I'm hoping that what I'm planning for this fic can resonate with you as much as me.
as I am mostly accustomed to writing formats like poems and songs, my writing style may come across as disjointed and messy. which, by all means, it's meant to be. It's a very raw fic, and I'm hoping I can actively include the elements I've taken from my songwriting to help convey my interpretation of the relationship between Asuka and Shinji.
btw, if you listen to oats we sow by Gregory and the hawk, most of the story is given away completely lmao, though I do recommend the song to listen to while reading this chapter.
alright, I won't waste your time any longer. thank you for reading, and I'm looking forward to continuing this story!