Note on spoilers: Aside from obvious spoilers to the second movie this is based on, this story has a few very minor elements of Asuka's backstory that could be considered minor spoilers 3.0+1.0 in regard to Asuka's character. Nothing else from the movie is revealed.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from either of the works. This is a work of a pastiche.
The Second, the Third, and that one night
Late evening at the Katsuragi residence
"Though it's always been normal for me to be alone…" Asuka whispered to nobody in particular, "though being alone shouldn't bother me…"
She rolled to her back, trying that position for the fifth time this night. To her annoyance – and complete lack of surprise – it has worked about as well as the previous four attempts.
Her fists balled and she hit the mattress once, twice, thrice; each hit allowed her to bleed some of the frustration, but more just kept coming in, almost in waves.
"Wonderful. A victory, shitty as it was, but still a victory… and I can't even sleep", she growled silently, her tone bitter. "If only I managed to get there first… I'd have done far better than that stupid Daddy's boy… he just stood there holding it!" she rolled her eyes. "And they lauded him… particularly him!" she huffed. "Granted, without that, we'd all die… but really, it wasn't him who made the kill, but he got all the glory…"
She shook her head. Overthinking was never a good thing, she knew that all too well – and yet, shaking that particular habit off was impossible.
She turned to her stomach in yet another attempt to find a comfortable position on a bed that was perfectly fine just a few nights before. Now it felt too soft, too rough to the touch, too big…
Too empty.
She rolled to her back again, her jaw clenched, her fists balled. There was an obvious solution to that, of course.
A solution she hated to think of.
She jumped up, her feet dropping to the floor in one smooth move.
Maybe if she did not try to think of it, but just did it instead, she would hate it less.
Crossing the apartment quietly was trivial; one of the things she learned early in her training was to be agile and silent. She had used the latter quite often when sneaking around the facility she came from; watching things, learning things, surviving things. And now it got her straight to a certain door – a door that made her pause.
On one hand, she was going there to take something she had every right to; the boy would resist or refuse if he did not want her presence, after all. On the other, she was admitting to some degree of weakness; a small and unspecified one, but still a weakness.
She shoved those doubts away along with the door without bothering to knock. The boy she was about to grace with her presence was not really able to think at this level, after all.
She took a step in and carefully slid the door back. A few seconds later, she was already lying on the futon, back-to-back with Shinji Ikari, her only viable company for that night. And he was not that bad of a company; his steady breathing and the warmth of his body, radiating at her even from those few centimeters away were something of a comfort. 'He might be useless by day, perhaps except for his cooking, but he sure has some uses at night…' she realized and shifted a bit. 'Maybe I can–'
"Huh, wha–" sounded in a surprised, hushed voice of Shinji Ikari.
'Shit. There goes the peace. Oh well, he's a good boy, he'll obey', she decided. "Don't turn around", Asuka commanded.
"Ah… o-okay", he agreed, his voice unsure and confused.
"Let me stay here just a little, Daddy's boy", she requested, her voice softening a bit.
Shinji did not respond for a few long seconds; Asuka took a careful breath and relaxed a bit, her eyelids slowly closing, happy that the deed she worried about was accomplished successfully.
"Umm, Shikinami-san?" Shinji spoke up; his voice was not much above a whisper, but it sounded far louder in her mind.
'Right. He just couldn't let me stay in peace', she grumbled internally. 'Really… okay, you want to talk, let's talk', she decided as she adjusted her position. 'Hm, he's warm…' she noticed absentmindedly as her bottom brushed against his – and she quickly moved away. 'But soooo skittish…' she sighed softly with a tinge of annoyance. "During today's turmoil, you called me by my first name, didn't you?" she started. "As a treat, you can call me Asuka. I'll also call you Idiot Shinji", she declared.
"Asuka", he started again a few long seconds later, just as Asuka started to think he failed to hear her. "Why do you pilot EVA?"
"That's a stupid question", she huffed. 'What kind of question is that? What do you mean why?' she wanted to yell out in his face; only the fact that she was too tired and came here to rest stopped her. "Just… be quiet, Idiot Shinji."
"O-okay", he agreed meekly.
'Riiiight. He's a bloody doormat, and never lets me forget that', she reassured herself in her view on the boy. 'This feels like kicking a puppy! Okay, idiot, you want to talk, let's talk… but don't expect too much.'
"I pilot EVA for myself", she declared firmly. "What about you?"
"I don't really know", he mumbled out after a moment of thought.
'What? That's just… what?' rattled in her head. "Are you stupid?" got out of her mouth automatically as she turned her head to get a corner-of-her-eye look at him. "That's just running away from the truth. Why?"
"Maybe I want to be praised by my father", Shinji corrected himself carefully. "He praised me for the first time in my life today", he continued with a note of a smile creeping into his voice. "I believe it's the first time praise has made me happy… I wonder if my father finally approves of me. Maybe it's just like Misato-san said."
Asuka felt anger rising in her belly. "You…" she started, not sure how to continue that. She was tired and sleepy, but the annoyance at the boy made her want to keep talking. Something in her mind was telling her to just drop it, to ignore that idiot, but it was difficult to just disregard his words. 'It's a moronic motivation, but… what if he has nothing else?'
She rolled over and sat up. "You really are stupid", she declared to his back. "Or are you only playing dumb?"
"Asuka?" he turned his head to look at her – and that moment, she grabbed his arm turning him on his back in one swift move. Before he could react, her hands were planted on both sides of his body and a moment later, she was straddling him with her legs as well.
"Talk to me, Third", she spoke up as she loomed over him close enough for Shinji to feel the warmth of her breath on his face and smell the faint note of mint. "Are you that stupid, or is this something else?"
"A-Asuka?" he repeated, his voice and his expression both confused, bordering on shock.
Part of her wanted to slap this stupid face; another part of her wanted to grab and shake him so he became coherent again and maybe, maybe, give her a valid answer; yet another part wanted to just roll back and go to sleep, or even go back to her room, lonely or not, so just she did not have to deal with this. But there was a small part that suddenly felt pleased, unexpectedly felt warm.
Asuka paused in confusion. This was not a feeling she associated with that boy; anger, irritation, exasperation, aggression, yes – but not warmth. And yet, her legs straddling him, even through the covers, were almost burning. The warmth of his breath was pleasant despite her hating the sensation of the air from someone's lungs touching her face, hating it to the degree of once hitting a nurse that failed to heed her warning about that particular dislike. As she took a closer look at that small part of her mind, she realized she wanted to just lay down atop of him – and stay that way.
Another confusing aspect of the situation was her perfect awareness of how his body was reacting to her – she could feel that reaction against her body with every move – but her desire to pummel him to death was secondary, if not tertiary, to the need to just be close.
'Shit', she shook her head. 'What the fuck is wrong with me? I need nobody!'
"Asuka?" Shinji seemingly overwhelmed his shock and managed to speak. "Are you all right?"
"Why?" she asked far louder than she expected herself to.
"Um… you look troubled?" he replied carefully.
"No, damn it!" she exclaimed, her voice reduced to a safer level. "Why are you like this?" she asked, completely forgetting the previous, now irrelevant, subject of the conversation.
"Um… like what?" Shinji tried his best to comprehend. "Stupid? I… I don't know?"
"Argh", Asuka shook her head again, straining to keep her voice low. "Warm! Tempting! Pleasant!" she blurted out.
"Um… I don't know?" his eyes escaped to the side. "You're warm, too, it's normal, right? A warm night? We're both warm?" his way of speaking was quickly turning into babbling.
Asuka straightened abruptly, her hands parting her hair as she was pondering her options. Moving away from him, even just a bit, made that small part of her mind that wanted to cuddle him immediately a bit weaker – and the one that wanted to beat him to death for reacting to her stronger; she decided to ignore the latter for the moment, though. Her mind might have been an autocratic regime, but yielding to violence did not make her very happy the last time she had to deal with Shinji's behavior and while Asuka was often impulsive, she did her best to at least learn from her mistakes – when she had time and reason to think about her behavior, that is. And since hitting him was deemed a bad idea, all that was remained was either leaving without violence – or staying peacefully.
She pondered those for a moment; the thought of leaving made her suddenly feel very cold – but the idea of staying made her stomach twist. 'Shit. If only this idiot stayed silent!' she grumbled internally. 'I could have gone to sleep, he could have gone to sleep, we'd both be happy t–'
She jumped up, heedless of the risk such move carried in the confined spaces of Shinji's room; her head was spinning, and she could not tell whether it was from the sudden change of position or from the barely formed, completely absurd thought that lit up in her mind and vanished in a split second, but not before it left an afterimage that was impossible to ignore. "Never mind. I'm leaving", she declared and took a step towards the door.
Shinji Ikari understood very little from the world around him. Sure, he was educated and rather perceptive, making him quite able to work with things – but neither of those qualities made it easy to understand people. Those were… confusing and often difficult to deal with. Fortunately, in his short life, he managed to learn a few rules that allowed him to make people less angry, and if done really well, even somewhat happy with him. And those rules worked quite well – until he met Asuka.
Asuka Shikinami Langley – well, Captain Asuka Shikinami Langley, to be more exact; she was not touchy or insistent about that rank, but she sure seemed to be proud of it – was a girl that appeared in his life on the wings of a transport plane that dropped her Evangelion, almost killed him – and Misato-san – with her landing after her victory over an Angel, and made a rather bad first impression – from what he could tell, the feeling was mutual. The girl that, not long after, moved in with Misato and him, displaced him from his room without any thought, regret, or consideration, and made his life far more complicated and unpleasant than it already was.
And yet, he could not find it in himself to hate her. Dislike, of course. Be angry at, no doubt. Pay her back in small ways, yes – but he doubted she even noticed that he fine-tuned her bento based on her behavior towards him; she likely wrote it off as natural variety, his inadequate skills, or maybe even his lack of knowledge of her tastes. But this was not an expression of his hatred – just natural reactions to her abrasiveness.
But the girl that came to him tonight – despite wearing exactly the same face and speaking exactly the same voice – was anything but abrasive. She kept calling him 'idiot', sure, but this was something he was used to and – objectively speaking – she had some right to call him that since she was far smarter than he was. But aside from that form of address, the Asuka that same to him that night seemed soft, almost vulnerable.
He knew that it would be the best choice for everyone involved if he just let her leave. He knew this would be the safest thing, the most reasonable thing, the most sensible thing. It would have preserved the status quo: she would remain Asuka, he would remain Shinji, Misato-san would be still her usual drunk-but-fine self, and all would be right with the world. This was not the perfect world, especially with another Angel lurking somewhere in the future – but it was surely a better one than the unknown consequences he would surely have to accept for acting right now.
And yet he knew just letting her walk out was the wrong choice, the safe but cowardly choice. And just today, he showed initiative in combat for the first time – and for the first time, he received praise, praise – as he just explained to Asuka – mattered a lot to him; as much as that concept was alien and horrifying to him, it worked once – and it could work again.
"Stay", he spoke up before his doubts could silence that unexpected thought. "Please."
"I'm not a dog to be commanded, Third", Asuka snarled – but stopped nonetheless. "I just came here to–" she interrupted, unsure how to finish.
"Why, Asuka?" Shinji asked as a few seconds of silence passed without a follow-up. "Why did you come here? You don't do things 'just so', do you?" he continued and sat up, his gaze locked at the back of her head in an effort of will preventing it from sliding lower.
"How would you know?" she growled as she turned abruptly. "You don't know me!"
Shinji took a deep breath; his heart was pounding in his chest as he stood up slowly. He was painfully aware of several risks this entailed, not the least of which would be Asuka noticing the shape of his boxers and turning him into a serving of Pilot Tenderized Cut – but this felt only like a small step up in risk from holding a sky with his hands. "I don't. I'm the idiot here, right?" he chuckled nervously as his face found itself on her level, their gazes locking; he congratulated himself quietly on not backing down from the angry glare of the blue eyes. "But… I want you to stay. You're…" he pondered for a moment over the right word, aware that his life – or at least the integrity of his ribs – could very well depend on the choice he was about to make. Regrettably, his brain, happy to ignore the imminent danger of Shinji looking like components of Sunday dinner, refused to cooperate. "Warm. Right", he managed – and braced himself for an impact.
"This is what you want?" Asuka hissed in his face. "A cuddly, warm teddy bear to sleep better? That's what I am to you?!"
Shinji closed his eyes and took a deep breath, absolutely sure that the divine intervention that had protected him from the beatdown until now has come to its limits. But the death blow did not come, and a small thought appeared in his mind. "No, Asuka. You…" he paused, gathering his courage. "You let me call you by your first name. You know well what that means here, don't you? And I thought…" he paused again, expecting a 'think again' or some other retort – but nothing came. He opened his eyes – and for a short moment, he saw something weird in Asuka's gaze, something he refused to believe could exist there. "And I thought… you might feel better if you stay. And… I would. Feel better, that is. Please."
Asuka Shikinami Langley was used to being alone; this is how she was for most of her life. She built a wall around her soul and mind, a wall that served her quite well in most of her conscious life.
A wall that this damned boy was chipping at, step by step, word by word, deed by deed, gesture by gesture… Consciously or not, he was getting to her far too quickly for her comfort.
Her fists balled. It would be very easy to hit him; he would not fight back. It would be trivial to leave; nothing stopped her. It would be simple to tell him off, to call him an idiot again, to tell him he was delusional; the words were waiting at the edge of her mind.
But that would likely mean she would never feel that warmth again.
She did not need it. She spent nearly her whole life without anything like it.
But she wanted it. And she knew herself well enough to know that this want would not go away that easily anymore.
Seconds passed and her nails were digging into her own flesh, her eyes staring into Shinji's, and their breaths touching each other's faces. She could tell he was afraid of her, she could tell he was unsure of himself, and she could tell he was completely out of his element – going for a confrontation was never his approach. But, in spite of all that, he stood his ground; more than that – he demanded something of her – even if it was dressed as a request, it was a demand, and he had the audacity to make it. 'Maybe you're not that nobody I held you for', Asuka mused, aware that he must never hear her say that in his life.
"Lie down", she finally spoke, doing her best to keep her voice firm and nonchalant. "I'll stay. But don't get any funny thoughts."
"Thank you, Asuka", he smiled and slowly dropped back to the futon.
"Move", she demanded as she followed suit. "Make me some space!"
"Don't you want to…" Shinji asked in a confused voice. "I thought you–"
"What?" she hissed as she paused in her movements, her gaze locking on him. "What did I just say? What did you 'think'?"
"That you wanted to… stay close? You called me warm and–" he explained, his ears suddenly burning, his muscles tensing again after having relaxed the moment she agreed.
"This is close enough, pervy boy!" she narrowed her eyes and gestured to the few centimeters between them.
"Pervy?" he asked, his tone confused again, his brow furrowing.
"Why else you have tissues at your bed?" she pointed to the head of the futon with her thumb. "Perv!"
"Um… many reasons?" he shook his head, the confusion now visible on his face as well. "Sometimes I get runny nose? Sometimes I spill a drink? Why is this pervy?"
"…seriously?" Asuka shook her head and gave him a half-amused, half-annoyed look. "Never mind. Either you're as innocent as a meadow no cow ever shat on, or just a very good liar. No matter", she shook her head as she slid under the cover. "What makes you think I want to be close?"
"You told me?" he pointed out as he followed suit. "A few minutes ago?"
"You made me angry!" she retorted. "You can't hold words I said in anger against me!"
"Angry means you're honest, right?" Shinji countered. "Also… that leaves not many words to use", he added, once more pondering if this was not the call to be turned into mincemeat.
"Since when you're so cheeky?" she asked in a mildly annoyed tone, her gaze a mix of amusement, curiosity, and annoyance.
"Um… since always? You're just not paying much attention to me", he pointed out. "Outside my… functions, I guess."
'Ouch', lit up in Asuka's brain. 'One more remark like this and no amount of warmth is going to convince me not to leave… I hope you're aware of that, idiot boy. Pushing back is fine… but you better know your place and not overdo it', she pondered, completely at a loss how to explain it without saying too much or making him think too much; finally, she decided to keep it to herself and count on the boy's sense of tact. He was raised Japanese, after all; that should make him capable in that area.
"Okay", she let out a sigh. "Point taken, but I'm not discussing this now unless you want to fight instead of going to sleep. Come here… but try to fondle me and you're a dead guy."
"Is your back and… belly okay to… touch? Hold?" he asked, suddenly aware of how hot his face and ears were.
'Okay, this doesn't qualify as "cheeky", more like "bold". If you spring yet another surprise at me tonight, I might start to think I fell into some parallel reality designed to fix all the shit I had to suffer in the original one…' Asuka mused before refocusing on Shinji, aware he was still waiting for an answer. "...yes", she reluctantly replied, equally aware of her own blush.
"Come here, then. Please", he dropped his head on the pillow and extended his hands carefully. "Can I have one request?"
"As long as it's not something dumb", she agreed carefully. 'Or too cheeky. Or too bold. Or too insane. Or–'
"If I do something you… don't like, tell me before you hit me? Please?" he almost pleaded.
"Look who suddenly wants the Moon", Asuka scoffed – but not without a smile. "Okay, but only if it's a gray area. Obvious fondling will be punished with the adequate cruelty", she declared as she carefully rolled over to her back and settled her head on his hand; his other hand, very carefully moving to embrace her waist felt as burning as she expected it to be. 'Or not, if I fail to notice…'
"…you're not very good at convincing people to like you, are you?" Shinji chuckled.
'Cheeky!' a warning flashed in her mind – but the burning heat of his hands made it go away in spite of the previous declarations. 'But it's okay', she realized. 'It's… okay', she repeated to herself once more, tasting the thought, confusion rising in her mind.
"It's okay", she said aloud. It still tasted weird.
"Asuka?" Shinji spoke in a confused voice, trying to match her answer to his previous remark.
"It's okay", she repeated once more, ignoring how weird it was to say it all over again. She turned to face him and her legs grasped at him, pulling him into full body contact without a warning.
"Asuka!" he gasped as he became aware of how close that contact was – and what exactly was pressing against her.
"It's okay", she giggled as she settled her head against the skin of his arm, relishing in the newfound sensation. "Just don't do anything stupid… and it'll be fine. Just… hold me for a little while. Okay?"
"Okay", he agreed after a momentary confusion. "Thank you."
"For what?" she raised an eyebrow.
"For staying", he replied. "And for… well, not hitting me."
"That tab is still open, Idiot Shinji", she pointed out with a wry smile as she settled the rest of her body in the most comfortable position. "And don't get used to that. All that, I mean", she gestured vaguely.
"Don't worry, Asuka", he replied solemnly with a careful nod. "I won't."
'I bet you won't. You're too good a boy for that. No matter what your… reaction is saying', Asuka chuckled internally. 'But I will', she suddenly realized as the heat emanating from said good boy slowly surrounded her body, engulfed her soul, and washed the loneliness away. The boy she disregarded for so long was becoming her new addiction with every second she spent embracing him and accepting his unexpected but deeply desired hospitality.
But for some reason, that realization did not feel bitter at all.