Chapter One: Bearings

It was early morning when Shinji awoke. The sun had just begun to appear over the horizon, its light painting the sky in more colors than the young man could name. In one place, a streak of red bisected the display--a low-earth-orbit river of blood, frozen by space into a glittering ring of red ice. Or so Shinji supposed--and he would have kept on supposing, if he hadn't rolled over, and suddenly become aware that his head was nestled between… between…

A soft squeak of pure, unadulterated horror escaped the Third Child. Oh god I'm lying on Asuka and oh god oh god my head is between her God Almighty I am going to die please oh please don't let her wake up now I don't wanna die a virgin I don't wanna die period I can't move I can't move I can't move somebody please help meeeee… Hey, wait, this is nice. And she still seems to be asleep. Maybe I can stay here a little--

"Oh, Shinji?"

The strained, icy tone of Asuka's voice made it clear she was very much awake. "Oh, Shinji, my dear friend? Oh, boon companion of mine? May I ask what, pray tell, your nose is doing in my cleavage?

Oh, God, she's back to normal! Shinji tried to scramble up and away from the no-doubt murderous Asuka, but she had always been faster than him. She grabbed the front of his shirt, and he quickly found himself inches from her face, staring into eyes ('shimmering azure pools?') that gleamed with evident bloodlust. This girl is going to strangle me. I just lived through the apocalypse, and now I'm going to be throttled by a fourteen-year-old in a red vinyl catsuit. God, my life is messed up…

Asuka interrupted his train of thought again, her voice laden with the sort of quiet, smoldering fury that usually culminates with neighbors being interviewed by newsmen and saying that he was such a nice, quiet man, and really we can't imagine why he would dismember all those people. "Third Child, you have ten seconds to explain what I'm doing here, where those giant whale-headed things went, and why I woke up with your head between my boobs." She stood, dragging him to his feet. "Starting… now."

"Er… I…" For what seemed the hundredth time in the past few months, abject terror spurred him into action. "You ran out of power and the EVA series tore you up and I went out in Unit-01 and I tried to fight them, really I tried, but they grabbed my wings and then there was this giant, naked Rei who turned into Kaworu and--"

Asuka hoisted him to his tiptoes. "The short version. And slowly."

"But... but, you said--"

"Just. Talk."

His cleared his throat. "Um, basically the world just ended, and we're the only ones left."

"And this is why you chose to use my chest as a pillow?"

"No…" How could he explain this? For that matter, why did he need to? Didn't Asuka remember the previous night? "It's… complicated."

"I'm sure it is, Ikari." Asuka narrowed her eyes at him, relaxing her grip on him slightly. "But it's also lucky on your part--if you hadn't tried that, I'd have fingered you for a ganslein…"

"A what?"

A grin crept over the Second's face. "I admit, I was a bit worried about you after that Nagisa boy passed through--but this makes things much simpler."

"Asuka, what are you talking about?"

She drew him close again. Then a little closer. Then a little too close. Then he felt their lips meet. Then he was sure he felt Asuka's tongue probing at his mouth, trying to pry it open. Then he remembered he was supposed to try to stop her.

Planting his hand squarely on her chest, he pushed, and found himself sprawled in the sand, Asuka leering down at him. "What's wrong, Third? Don't have the guts? Or maybe I was right about you and Kaworu…"

"I… wait, what?" Shinji scrambled back, eyes finally finding the time to widen in shock. "Kaworu was my friend--my best friend…" Until I murdered him…

Asuka's leer turned into a satisfied sort of grin, like a velociraptor that's stumbled on a nest of retarded baby protoceratops that have adopted a bottle of steak sauce as a brother. "Good--then you won't have any problem with screwing my brains out right here and right now."

Shinji didn't respond--he just sat there, blinking occasionally. His train of thought, you see, had hit a penny on the rail, flew off the track at 200 miles per hour, and crashed in an awe-inspiring pyrotechnic display, leaving behind a smoking, half-melted wreck that would be used as shelter by deranged homeless persons for generations to come.

--

A little note--Asuka's behavior is supposed to be somewhat erratic here, and we won't find out why she's acting so strangely for some time. And ganslein is a very old German phrase that literally means "little goose," but was also slang at one point for a passive homosexual (i.e. the one on the bottom)--it's the closest thing any western language has to the concept of an uke.