AN: So here we are. Odd Sunday, and what does odd Sunday mean? Anyone? Another chapter of the Strange duet. As always, I do not own NGE, or else Misato would be getting a big damn pay rise and a better car. The next chapter, Intermezzo No.3 Shopping, Swimming and Sharing is well underway and should be no trouble to release on schedule.
Major thanks to Cheerful Clatter for just being an all-around amazing friend both to me and the story. It is not an overstatement to say that without her the Strange Duet might have died a plot idea or several hundred words into the first chapter.
Marduk-Report, thank you for a beautiful comment and I am very glad that you liked the chapter that much. But I want to remind everyone that CC is also wanted. Also, what are your ideas on what kind of music would the pilot trio and their friends enjoy?
Lastly from now on, diving into pilots past is a fair game more so than before, so please make sure you are in a good place both physically and mentally before reading and preferably have some chocolate on hand.
Suite No.3,04 You can (not) Ignore
Misato suppressed a yawn as she crossed the threshold of her apartment. True, she got a good night of sleep on the cot in the back room of her office. But maybe she was getting a bit too old for that kind of sleeping arrangement - especially with only the NERV issue coffee and vending machine breakfast to look forward to. 'You are not even thirty, get a hold of yourself woman!' she mused.
Then she smelled it: 'Real damn coffee, tea, fresh bread, Shinji's Saturday Breakfast!' She tossed off her jacket and gun holster and almost barged into the kitchen.
"Tadaima, Shinji, Asuka… Rei?" Misato looked in surprise. Sure, she knew that Rei had something like a life outside of NERV and Unit 00, but it never occurred to her to think about it and the bluenette looked like she was content to be left alone in the first place.
"Okaeri, Misato," said Shinji, as Asuka shot her a smile and waved before going back to munching on her salami toast.
Rei gave her a long look almost as if she was unsure what to do, then she barely noticeably relaxed and said: "Okaeri, Katsuragi-San." Misato did not know what to say, so she decided she could just as well get her food while she thought about what to do.
Outside it started raining, and by the look of the sky, it would rain for most of the day. For four different reasons, none of the people at the table cared. There was food and good company and that was all that mattered.
Misato almost thought to scurry off to her king-sized and oh-so-comfy bed to get two or three hours of sleep when Shinji put a can of Yebisu on the table.
"Hmm, Shinji? You know I won't turn down a beer, but I thought you don't like it when I drink at breakfast," she said and made no move to grab the can, even though it was tempting.
"We have a lot of bad news, so you get to drink," said the teen in response.
"What kind of bad news?" asked Misato, shifting her gaze between the three pilots.
"Nobody is dead, hurt, or pregnant," assured Asuka. Misato relaxed slightly, though Asuka wore the kind of expression that promised that someone would get hurt yet - and Shinji had matched it.
"Uh, Misato, do you know where Rei lives?" asked Shinji. When she nodded, because of course, she knew, he went on: "You were never there, though?"
Misato shook her head. She had not been there, but she knew enough to get there if she ever needed to. Ritsuko had pointed the place out on the map and Misato had memorised it, but she had never had a reason to actually go there.
"Is there something wrong with the place?" she asked. Rei remained silent. Shinji nodded resolutely and was about to say something when Asuka cut him off: "Oh nothing really, I mean the walls have all kinds of fungi, most windows are planked over, the lift does not work, some of the railings in the stairwell are missing, there is tons of trash everywhere and there is not a one working lock between the street and the cave Wundergirl is squatting in..." - she finally had to stop and draw breath - "But, yeah, apart from that, the place is just fine! If I had a worst enemy, I might lock them up in there!"
Misato looked at her, aghast. "Asuka, are you sure you are not exaggerating?" she asked. But she did not think so. The redhead went from fairly content as she was at breakfast, to a hair short of white-hot fury.
"If anything, she is not telling you everything," said Shinji, "We also saw used needles and places where someone lit a fire. Rei is not safe there at all, Misato."
Asuka opened the folder with the pictures she took at Rei's place and placed her phone in front of Misato. "If you think we may be exaggerating, have a look for yourself, or get in the car and have a look in person, but take your gun with you if you do that," she said. Their guardian opened the beer and had a few solid gulps before turning to Rei: "Why haven't you told anything? To me, to Doctor Akagi, to Commander Ikari?" she asked.
"I did not believe that I had a reason to complain. I was sufficiently sheltered from the elements, and had plenty of room to store my property," said the bluenette by way of explanation.
Shinji shifted his look from Rei to Misato. When he thought about the whole thing yesterday, he got angry at her. It took some self-control to be his usual self at breakfast. But now, seeing how genuinely surprised and appalled she was, he felt sorry for her. And they weren't even halfway down the bad news list yet.
"Misato, she hasn't told you anything, because the Commander asshole and your best pal raised her into thinking that this..." - Asuka stabbed her phone - "and having two sets of school uniforms and a plugsuit to your name is normal!" she ended.
Misato took another look at Rei, and she realised why she thought that the black pullover she wore was familiar: it was Asuka's. Once again she was not sure if she was more distraught, or proud of the kids, or pissed at Gendo Ikari and Ritsuko Akagi. 'Why, Rits? I know you aren't the warmest person in the galaxy, but this is cold even for you.'
She briefly wondered why she was so willing to side with two teenagers over her supposed best friend of ten years. 'Because they never ever knowingly and maliciously lied to you, Misato, and because Rits very definitely did at least a few times by now.'
She looked over at the teens. For some reason, it looked like the worst was yet to drop. But Misato could not fantom anything worse: that which they told her was already an open-and-shut case of child abuse as it was. 'Yes, just remember that when you send her to fight and risk her life the next time,' supplied her conscience.
She needed another beer, bad, and an Ibuprofen. But before that, she had one more thing to settle.
"So you took Rei in to stay with us?" She could not help letting some of her worries seep into her voice. It was hard enough to feed herself, two teens and a penguin on her paycheck.
"Yes, I came at Shinji-Kun's invitation. You can not refuse an invite from your best friend, right?" said the bluenette.
Misato did not think it worked quite like that. But under the circumstances, she decided not to argue the point.
She got up and walked to the fridge to get her beer…
"Shinji, what are these?!"
"Oh, nothing, just the prescriptions your best friend issues to Rei. What for? We don't know. What are they? We don't know. Are they dangerous? We don't know," said Asuka with enough poison to kill the city three times over and still have some left.
Misato was about a second away from snapping back and protecting her supposed friend, but then she looked at the assortment of the doses and bottles. There was no way a healthy person should need THAT much medication. Asuka might have put it with her usual tact (or lack thereof)... 'But she has a point, Misato,' the major finished to herself. 'Rits is drugging your pilot - you don't know why, but she is.'
She got back to the table and popped the beer can open. She honestly did not know what to do. 'Talk to Kaji and then make a plan,' she thought. She was about to announce that she would go to bed for a while, but then she took a look at Asuka and Shinji both wearing similar looks of determination. Misato realised that the "Council of War" was still in session. They had a plan and Misato was impressed by that alone.
"Alright, you two, spill it," she said, drinking the rest of her coffee.
"Well, the first thing we need to know to help Rei is what are the meds she is taking, why and who ordered it - right, Misato?" asked Shinji.
She nodded: "Makes sense. Though I am not sure if Ritsuko can, or will tell me." Misato frowned; in fact, she was pretty positive that Ritsuko wouldn't be willing to tell her.
"We thought of that, Misato, and we have a plan," said Asuka, grinning at her guardian.
Misato nodded again and asked: "What kind of plan and do I want to know the details?" She would definitely want to know the detail before the kids embarked on something stupid.
Asuka smiled, except not really. 'That "smile" has no place on the face of a fourteen-year-old kid,' thought Misato.
Shinji spoke up this time: "We talk to Lieutenant Ibuki and see if she would be willing to look into Rei's file and get us the medical part, while you ask Doctor Akagi for the medical reports on all three of us just call it a routine check or something like that." The latter part was his addition. That way, they would learn whether Doctor Akagi would tell them the truth, keep some of it hidden, or outright lie to them.
Misato nodded and sat silent for a while before speaking: "That sounds like a lot of risk for Maya, hacking MAGI for us. I am not sure we can ask that or that she would do it." She certainly knew that she would not do that herself. That would be risking her job, and Misato had her father to avenge, and the kids to protect.
"Not hacking: as a SysOp, Maya has complete access to everything inside. Until she starts changing things, the system does not even register her, or at least that's the way I know SysOp access worked with MAGI in the German Branch. You know, I took a few IT lessons on top of requirements," explained Asuka. Misato felt floored. That kind of understanding of MAGI was something she did not worry herself with.
'But then again, I only ever worried about how to use it to kill angels - I probably don't even know half of what MAGI actually does,' she realised.
Asuka and Shinji looked at her expectantly. 'Damn, and to think that all I wanted was some company,' Misato thought. She wanted to say that they would think about it a bit, or that this smelled of trouble...
'But you can not let Rei take Ritsuko's who-knows-what medicine, for who knows how long, and live in a dump - you just CAN'T!'
She realised she crushed the beer can in her hand, but luckily it was near enough empty that she did not spill beer on the table.
Misato nodded: "We are doing it. And if you three can do with the space and not murder each other, Rei can stay for now," she said and had to grin when she saw her charges light up like Christmas trees.
Shinji stared at the now not-so-unfamiliar ceiling. The dim light given by his alarm clock just about allowed him to see it. He put down his SDAT. It no longer contained the mixtape he always retreated to. Now he listened to a selection of Haydn he picked in a store weeks ago but had put in the drawer basically on day one.
'That's the part, but I'll have to rewrite it for cello,' he mused, wondering if he had any notepaper left. He rewound the tape, looking at the clock. 'Half-past one already? Alright, one more go and then I'll sleep.' He hit the play button and focused on the music.
He was so lost he did not hear the door open and close. The only thing he noticed was a brief flash of light: 'probably Misato checking on me,' he thought. Even after months with her, that still felt slightly odd. Nobody used to do that in ten years, if not longer.
"Scoot over, Third!" This was not Misato's voice, Shinji realised as he did as the voice told before thinking about it.
"Asuka?" Shinji knew the redhead was prone to sleepwalking, but sleepwalkers don't talk, do they?
Asuka sat on the bed cross-legged. "Yeah, it's me, Baka, I couldn't sleep," she said, stifling a yawn.
Shinji nodded. "Neither could I - are you thinking about the evening?"
"That, too. Shinji, this comes under a 'tell anyone and I'll make your life into hell for a good long while' level of secret," she said and then fell silent. She could hear him gulp. It amused Asuka that he still took her threats this seriously - 'As If I could carry them out nowadays without punishing myself.'
Shinji shuddered: he had no illusion that if she set her mind to it, Asuka could do just what she said. But that was not it. 'The "make your life into Hell" and "speak about that and you are dead to me" always signified Asuka dropping either something dark or embarrassing,' he thought and hoped against the odds that it was the latter.
Asuka jolted when Shinji squeezed her hand. 'His way of saying "Yes, I do",' she thought, drawing a breath. "You recall the question about nightmares?"
He only nodded.
Shinji frowned. It was his time to come with a question. The three pilots were sitting on the couch in front of a long forgotten-about TV. The game that Asuka suggested started well enough: "Let's learn about each other's interests" sounded fun and it would be if they hadn't found that Rei had no interests other than reading and piloting that she would speak of. But that was not so bad as the question "Where are you from?" to which she answered "Tokyo-3, always Tokyo-3," and not a word more.
Shinji gulped: he knew what he wanted to ask, but he was afraid to. 'What if they will laugh me off, they are the trained professionals, I am the amateur,' his mind readily supplied and he gulped down some cola.
"Come on, Baka, let's have a question and make it a good one!"
His thinking time was thus over, and he shot his question before he could think it over and choose another.
"Do you guys have nightmares from fighting?"
By the rules, he was to answer first. "I. I do have them, Often it is either us losing a battle - or just one or both of you being lost," he cut himself off.
"I would be found again," responded Rei with almost a smile. Asuka shot her a glare.
"Idiot, he means lost as in killed in action, anyway answer the question!" She was a bit curter than she had been so far in the evening. She also brushed her hand against Shinji's.
Rei looked at them for a moment before answering with, "I don't have nightmares - in fact, I don't have very many dreams at all."
Shinji forced a smile and said, "That is great!" before busying himself grabbing some peanuts. But it was a facade, he had to admit to himself. 'It is not great. it is scary,' he thought: having very few dreams at all was not normal.
But he focused on Asuka mostly to push his worries away over just what NERV had done to Rei until they knew what to do about it.
Asuka took a sip of her drink and started speaking…
"Well, I was not exactly lying when I said I have only a few here and there," Asuka said, leaning against the wall. Shinji almost thought to smile, but did not. He could see that there was more to the story.
"What do you mean by not exactly lying, Asuka?" he kept his hold on her.
She gave a bitter smile. "Well, I do have Angel-related nightmares once or twice a month. Thing is, I have my own fucked-up-past-related nightmares seven nights a week, it's either that or take sleeping pills, and I have accidentally near enough ODed on those before I turned thirteen. So since then, I just take my chances with nightmares."
Shinji did not say a thing; a few weeks earlier, that would have pissed Asuka out of her mind, but by now she understood him better: he would not cut into her speech unless he had something to say. 'And until the last couple weeks, you would not have thought to share one per cent of this with him.'
"So most nights, I get a fucking hit parade of the best ones, and maybe five hours of sleep. Then a cup dissolving coffee, and off I go saving the world," she chuckled. They sat in silence for a few minutes. Asuka felt… not exactly better, but somewhat freer.
"Asuka… Why tell me? And why did you decide to tell me now?" said Shinji thoughtfully.
'Billion yen questions, each, Baka,' she thought and tried to form an answer; it came to her surprisingly easy.
"Why you? Because I trust two people in the world enough to ever talk about this to them, three at a stretch. You, Kaji, and Hikari," she smiled wistfully. "Kaji has not been exactly around lately. And I am not offloading my troubles on Hikari, she has enough of her own. And as for Rei… well, she just happens to be in the room, but I suppose I can trust her just because she hardly ever says anything to anybody. But as we are helping her, I can't let her see the mess I am, can I?"
Shinji nodded, taking it in. "Not Misato?" He could feel Asuka tense up.
"No, not Misato. We have fixed things, and there is nothing wrong with her, but she is still my commander: I can't talk to her about things that might disqualify me from piloting, I just can't." That was easy enough to understand, and Shinji nodded, letting that subject go. "Why now, then?"
"Because you gave me the whole truth and I gave you a technically correct lie," she shook her head. "You do not deserve that." She shuddered, "And because if I have to room with someone, I could never keep the front that I have no nightmares to speak of."
They sat in silence holding hands and watching the ceiling together for a while. They were both surprised when it was Shinji who broke the silence.
"You talked about rooming with someone? I thought you would set up Rei in the living room." He almost recoiled when he got hit by a strand of red hair.
Asuka was positively glaring now. "Baka, I would do that if she was to stay for a day or two. But if she is staying for maybe weeks, I'm not crazy about her. But I won't treat her as an unwanted package either..." - her expression softened at the end - "Nobody deserves that."
"But you are not letting her know about your nightmares? And not Misato either?" Shinji could see only one solution that solved both problems. "You want to take my room? I could sleep on the couch for..." He was cut off by a slap and Asuka was staring at him from maybe half an inch away.
"Don't you dare! Have you no spine?! I kicked you out of your room once, now you think I am about to do it the second time and you are FINE with it? Where is your fucking anger? You would let me walk all over you and do as I please no matter what. You piss me off. You are bloody worth being treated as a PERSON!" She stabbed him in the chest with her finger, then slumped back against the wall.
"And that includes being treated as a person by me - which I made a piss-poor job of for months. And yeah, I know Misato allowed me to take the room, but I asked for it. So don't you dare say it is alright if I do it again to save my face from Wundergirl!"
When Shinji stopped winking from the slap he had taken, he saw the redhead was barely holding together. He wanted to run away. He wanted to hug her, kiss her and hold her until she calmed down, telling her everything was going to be alright. He wanted that more than to run away.
But she was right: where was his fucking anger? At her and Misato? He could imagine that Touji would have none of that.
Shinji was perfectly sure he had the capacity for it. More than one angel had felt it already.
When he realised the answer, it was beautifully simple.
"You are trying to change," he said. "You are trying pretty damn hard." Shinji squeezed her hand and Asuka did not know whether to frown or smile.
She realised she was fighting back tears. Asuka waited to see if Shinji would say anything else.
Shinji drew a breath and went on: "I was not enraged back then, because I just took it as another of the things that only just happens to me. People would just put me away when they lost the use of me. And this is still better than my old room at my uncle's: he lives in a very small place, so my room was about two-thirds of this one, but it had a window," he could feel Asuka's grip tightened.
She was crying, she was crying silently, something she had ample practice at for years. She thought that Shinji had a normal upbringing - because he had said so. 'But Baka was pulled through the meat grinder too, he just dealt with it by believing that nothing matters, himself least of all, while you decided to be the best so people can NOT ignore you.'
"So, me treating you well now is enough to make up for me bullying you for months? Shinji, you should not forgive this easily."
"No, but it is a start. You made me believe that I might be worth something independent of me being a pilot and I might be worth something to people who do not have a duty to care about me," he said with a smile.
To say that Asuka was floored would be the understatement of the century. "How did I do that?"
"You listen to my music and you appreciate it when you have no duty to do either. You told me to start doing things just because I want to do them. And that, if I put work to it, I can be loved for who I am. So yes, the bad stuff you did hurt, some of it still hurts. But you saved me at least as much as I did save you in that volcano. Thank you, Asuka."
She wanted to tell him that that should be natural and that she did not deserve to be thanked for that. But she stopped herself. Was she any better at that? 'If I do not pilot, what worth do I have?' True, she might make a good IT engineer one day, but that would be nowhere near the same.
Who did like her for who she was rather than what she was? "Kaji, Hikari, maybe Misato and the Baka." She blushed ferociously when she realised she spoke the names aloud.
"Huh?" asked Shinji. Well, the horses were out of the barn, so she bit her lip and said: "You four value me for being myself and not for being a pilot, a genius or looking smoking hot," she ended with a grin that she did not really feel. 'I could not lay myself barer in here if I stripped down naked,' she thought. It still amazed her that she had even considered telling Shinji that much, let alone actually did it.
"Of course I do. You are the most 'alive' person I know, Asuka," he smiled and kissed her lightly on the cheek. Then he realised that if Asuka was not planning to evict him again, was not planning to sleep in the living room herself, and was not going back to her room because she would not have Rei learning of her nightmares… Well, that left only one possibility. He turned bright red.
"You want to room with me?" He tried hard - and almost succeeded - to suppress the disbelief.
"Took you long enough to understand, Baka," she replied with a grin. Shinji started getting up. "You can keep the bed, I know you hate bedrolls, so I will take one..." Then he stopped. Asuka was not letting go of him and was glaring at him again. "Just in case that had not gotten through that armoured skull of yours, 'Not tossing you out of your room' also means not tossing you out of your bed, Baka." That might as well have frozen Shinji solid.
'But Baka Shinji is right, I hate bedrolls. But I would hate letting either Misato or Rei know how bad my nightmares are even more, so there is no other option, is there?' Asuka thought. Then she felt a flush of heat. Of course, there was another option.
She looked at Shinji as she thought: 'Well, it is not like we never held each other, so what is the difference if we do that while sleeping? And maybe, no, no way that could make the nightmares go away, but he would wake me up sooner than if I had to toss around for as long as my damn brain pleases before I wake up. And I do want to be held...'
She must have spent some time thinking about that last part, because after a moment she realised Shinji was talking to her.
She smiled: "Shinji, I want to sleep with you." She just could not resist the impulse to check his heartbeat again when he froze up. "Hmm, you do appear alive…"
"Asuka!" he croaked.
"Not like that, Baka," she suppressed laughter. "But I want to sleep here with you, and I want to be held." Asuka smiled, but she looked a good deal braver than she felt.
'NOT happening! Asuka is NOT asking to sleep in my bed! NOT happening!' ran through Shinji's mind before he muttered: "Pinch me."
A moment later he let out a surprised "Ouch!" Yes, it was happening alright, and Shinji made a mental note to never again say "pinch me" within two arm reaches of Asuka.
She was still looking at him and smiling. He asked the last thing that came to mind: "What if Misato found us, wouldn't we be in trouble?"
"If she does, I tell her, it is all my idea, which is true, that nothing Hentai happened, which better be true and that I needed company after a bloody bad nightmare, and that would be true if I went to bed before coming here. So if she wants to lay the law on someone it better be me," she finished.
The last reason did it. Shinji nodded. "Alright, it is late, let's go to sleep," said Asuka, not looking up to it, exactly, since she had no illusions that her nightmares would simply go away, but not dreading them either.
A few minutes later…
"You know, you are supposed to hold me, as in, put your hands around me!" she exclaimed, half-amused, half-irritated. Shinji looked at her with an uncertain expression for a moment. Then she realised it. "Baka, there is nothing Hentai about holding me when I want to be held!" she said with a smile.
Asuka could feel her muscles relaxing when Shinji pulled her into a hug. 'Maybe the world does not have to be all crap,' she thought as she drifted to sleep.
"Good night, Baka Shinji, sleep well, I..." She did not finish the dreaded pirate impression, nor did she hear Shinji quietly saying "Good night, Asuka," into her hair...