2
AN: Am going to gloss over a few things, but they'll be gotten back to later.
Shinji pulled on the boxers provided, a utilitarian gray color, and the socks came on after that as he heard Misato drawl, "Well, why not start at the beginning?"
He shrugged to himself, "As good of place as any. Well, I remember warmth, the kind that you feel when you're sitting on the beach, or in a park, and … I remember something like the ocean." He pulled out the coveralls and stepped into them, pausing only for a moment, "And a voice. I remember a woman's voice."
Ritsuko's voice came through the screen, "Do you know whose voice, Shinji?"
Misato's wasn't far behind, "Yeah, was it your girlfriend's, Shin-chan?"
Shinji blushed and froze in place, stuttering, "W-what? G-g-g-girlfriend? I don't HAVE a girlfriend!"
Like a shark smelling blood in the water, Misato went for the kill, "Oh, really? Then why is it that almost EVERY female in your class called the house no less than three times in the past month to check up on you, Shinji?" She walked forwards and looked around the screen, an imaginary pair of devil horns poking out of her purple tresses, "Is there something you're not telling your Misato-chan, Shin-kun?"
Shinji sputtered for several seconds as he zipped up the coveralls, "They, they, they could have just been calling to check on me, nothing more!"
A purple eyebrow went up slightly, "So, that's your story and you're sticking to it, eh? Fine, I guess I can live with that… for now." Misato turned back around and walked back to where Ritsuko and Maya were, smirking at the dirty looks both females were giving her, "So, do you remember anything else, Shinji? Like who the woman's voice was?"
Shinji walked out from behind the screen with his boots in hand, "I… I think it was my mother's."
The playful mood that Misato had built up died a quick but very violent death as she stopped smiling, "I'm… I'm sorry, Shinji."
He shrugged, pulling on the boots, "It's not a problem, Misato, and it's just… odd. I don't remember anything else beyond that… and I'm not sure if there IS anything beyond that."
Ritsuko nodded as Maya scribbled down some notes, "Alright, Shinji. There's not a whole lot more we can do tonight, so I'm sending you home with strict orders for lots of sleep and to take it easy." She turned and pinned Misato with a glare, "THAT, Misato, means that he goes home by you getting him there in one piece, so no Formula 1 driving and, when you DO get there, he doesn't pick up that sty you and Asuka call an apartment."
Misato gave her old friend the most innocent look she was capable of, "Would I ever do that, Rits-chan?"
"Yes." Ritsuko, Misato and Shinji all looked at Maya, who turned the same exact color she had earlier, "Um… I'm… I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that…"
Misato sniffed in mock indignation even as her eyes twinkled with humor, "I'll have you know my driving is impeccable, Lt. Ibuki."
"For a demolition derby driver," Shinji stage whispered to Ritsuko, causing the doctor to cover her lips and smother a giggle as Misato wheeled around and pinned him with a glare. Shinji, however, didn't flinch and smirked, his own eyes twinkling with humor, "Hey, don't give me that look, Misato-chan. YOU are the one who plays those racing games at the home and you deliberately crash."
Misato gave a squeak of indignation even as Ritsuko nodded, "That explains so much." She looked at Shinji and frowned, "Are you sure you're alright, Shinji? You seem to be taking this rather… well."
Shinji shrugged, "It's probably the shock. When that wears off, I'm sure I'll be my normal, gibbering-in-fear and timid self."
'Damn,' all three ladies thought at once. They LIKED this Shinji… though for different reasons.
(Katsuragi / Ikari / Souryu Residence)
Shinji looked around the apartment again for the third time and Misato could see the look on his face – it was one part confusion, two parts worry and a healthy dash of revulsion tossed in for flavor, "Is something wrong, Shinji?"
He looked at her and shook his head, "No. Well, not really." He looked around and frowned, "Don't you and Asuka ever CLEAN?"
Misato blushed as she blatantly ignored the rather copious amount of laundry, garbage and miscellaneous items that littered every horizontal surface, not to mention a few of the vertical ones, too, "Um, well, we've kinda been busy."
Shinji was about to say something when Pen-Pen came waddling around the corner, his tray of toiletries in hand and a towel around his neck. The warm water penguin looked up at Shinji, frowned as much as a penguin could, and warked a, "Wark!"
Shinji smiled and knelt down, "Hey, Pen-Pen. It's me, Shinji."
The penguin appeared to arch an eyebrow, as if to say, 'Bullshit'.
Shinji looked at the mistrusting penguin and shrugged, "Fine, then I'll leave you to eat Misato's cooking instead of the sardines I prepare you every morning."
The turnaround was miraculous in the penguin as the pan of toiletries dropped and he appeared to bow several times to Shinji, warking incessantly before picking up the tray and waddling off to the bathroom. No, things had not changed too much in the house, but if either Misato or Shinji had been in the bathroom, they would have seen the never-before-seen Pen-Pen Dance of Victory and Joy, a small Shinji face printed on a flag that waved through the air quickly.
"Well, I guess he's glad you're back, Shin-kun," Misato said with a shrug. She looked over at him as he stood and smiled, "So, do you want to order out?"
Shinji shrugged as he made his way into his domain, the kitchen, and saw the warzone that it had become, "Let me guess – Hasenpfeffer?"
Misato nodded, "Yeah. Asuka wouldn't let me cook, so she tried." The Major's face scrunched up a bit, "I'm not sure what Hasenpfeffer is supposed to taste like, but I'm pretty sure what she served up wasn't it."
Shinji sighed and grabbed the apron nearby, "I'll wash, you dry, Misato, and don't tell Ritsuko."
Asuka found them still making a sizable dent in the collection of plates, pots and pans a few hours later, "Misato! Where's baka-Shiji? I heard he's out of that damned Eva."
"In here, Asuka," came back an unfamiliar voice, one that made Asuka's eyebrows knit together in confusion.
"Did you go and bring home some man-slut, Misato? Mein Gott! How can you do that with Shinji in the house? How pathetic are-" Asuka ranted as she stormed into the kitchen but stopped cold when she saw the man standing there and, more importantly, the glare he had leveled at her.
"Misato-san is NOT pathetic, Asuka," the man growled, his storm blue eyes blazing and his furry jaw clenched. "Apologize, now."
Asuka floundered for a minute before she found her voice and drew up to her rather unimpressive height, "Do you have ANY idea who I am? One call of 'rape' from me and the Section 2 people will-"
Asuka got no further as the man moved and had his hand wrapped around her throat, squeezing it tightly enough to cause her hands to go to his wrists and her eyes to bug out, "I know EXACTLY who you are, little girl, and if you do not stop annoying me I'm going to have to find another place to start hiding bodies."
Asuka tried to breathe but the hand around her throat was so strong that she didn't have a prayer, but Misato's hand on the man's shoulder stopped the squeezing, "Shin-chan, stop! She's confused, that's all."
"She's a spoiled pain in the ass, Misato," the man snarled back before he shoved her back into the table, sending her sprawling onto the surface and pain shooting into her legs and back. "How many other people has she threatened like that to get her own damned way?"
"I don't know, Shinji," Misato said, a little fear creeping into her voice at the sight of the angry man in front of her, "but trust me it's not going to happen. SHE instigated this fight, so if disciplinary actions are going to be taken, it'll be against her."
"But he tried to strangle me," Asuka rasped from the dinner table, her face red and a hand print on her pale throat. "And why did you call him 'Shin-chan'? Only the baka gets called that."
"And here I thought you had higher reasoning skills," Shinji sneered at Asuka before Misato steeped between them.
"This IS Shinji, Asuka," Misato explained quickly. "Something happened when we were trying to bring him back… and… well, this is him."
Asuka wiped the tears from her eyes as she looked at the man more closely – he looked like Commander Ikari, actually, far too much like him with the scruff on his jaw, "THAT is the wimpy, baka-Shinji? No way!"
Misato nodded but then smirked, "Not so wimpy now, eh?" She leaned back into Shinji and grinned, "He's ALL man, Asuka, and believe me when I say that."
Asuka alternately paled and flushed at the comment while Shinji just blushed, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means I came out of the Entry Plug as I entered the world, Asuka – wet, hungry, cold and naked." Shinji felt a rush of something through him as he slid his arms around Misato's waist as she started to slide off of his chest, "Now, apologize."
Misato saw Asuka go as red as her plugsuit as she raged, "WHAT!" That, though, was rivaling for attention as she felt Shinji's arms go around her waist – it felt reassuringly good for some reason…
"You heard me – apologize. You've insulted me enough times in the past, but now I'm your elder and you don't insult your elders and get away with it." Mmmm… Shin-chan… Misato only half-heard the entire argument going on as she turned around and hugged him, her head coming to rest on his shoulder. Yes, she could get used to this…
"I WILL NOT! You're not my elder, Shinji! You can't be! Tell him- MISATO! Stop letting that hentai molest you!"
Misato sighed and raised her head, "If anyone is molesting someone, Asuka, it's me molesting him, and he's right – YOU started this, so apologize or… no dinner."
Asuka snorted, "Oh, like that's supposed to be a threat with YOUR cooking?"
"It is when we're ordering out," Misato shot back, putting her head back down on Shinji's shoulder. "Apologize."
Asuka growled for several minutes before she bit out a, "Sorry," and stormed back to her room.
Shinji looked down the hall, "Somehow, I doubt you mean that!"
What Asuka shouted back is not re-printable.
(Later)
Shinji sat on his bed, rocking back and forth slightly as his emotions, hormones and mind warred with one another with what was going on – he'd been putting up a good front for Misato, to let her know that things would get to what passed for normal in Tokyo-3, but then Asuka had come in and blown that straight to hell.
Anger. A red, searing, boiling ANGER is all he'd felt when she had started threatening him and he was ashamed with the way he reacted – he didn't mean to wrap his hand around her throat and start choking her, he really hadn't, but at the same time he felt shame another part of him felt an almost perverse satisfaction. She'd tormented him so much… teasing, abusing him physically and mentally with her words and gestures, all because she had a massive superiority complex that made her be the best and, when she couldn't be the best, she made everyone miserable while she pushed herself too hard and ultimately failed. It wasn't rocket science – it was in her medical file's psychological report.
Content. He'd felt a level of content that had been strangely absent when he and Misato had been driving home (at a reasonable rate of speed, for once), while they had been talking and doing the dishes, and later when they had been eating the take out dinner they had ordered. She'd been good to him, taking him in as she had and trying to shield him from the horrors of what they really did at NERV, but at the same time she'd probably not been the best person for him to live with given her tendencies to drink. Sure, he'd heard her mumble in her alcohol-induced sleep names and events that caused her to whimper at night and not sleep well, so she had demons of her own to deal with, but Shinji hoped that, whatever the demons she had, they wouldn't consume her as he liked having fun with her.
Amusement. Pen Pen's suspicion and, later, acceptance of him had been pretty amusing – he'd missed the antics of the warm water penguin… though Shinji would be damned if he couldn't get the remote control from the bird. Yes, war had been declared…
Lust. Shinji's cheeks colored as he remembered the feel of Misato's body against him and did his best to control his body's physical reaction to it, but it was a lost cause. She was a beautiful woman, so it was no wonder that she made him harder, as the comedy line went, than Chinese Algebra – of course, at his age, thinking of anything female did that, so it probably shouldn't be that surprising. Still, while the lust was nothing new to it, there was now some kind of… need, force, there to act on it and it had taken a lot of his willpower that night to not react when he and Misato had been on the couch together, rather close, and she'd decided to sit in his lap and snuggle.
Shinji laid down on his bed and curled into a ball, clutching his pillow and doing his best to go to sleep… but sleep didn't come easily that night…
Shinji, however, wasn't the only one having trouble sleeping that night – Misato Katsuragi was a woman of definite tastes and people who knew her knew that under-aged men didn't fall into those tastes. WHY, though, she felt the unending need to go into Shinji's room and ride him cross-eyed until they both forgot their names was beyond her. Sure, he was her friend, someone she could vent to and had done so with several times in the past, but beyond the teasing glances and flashes of forbidden flesh to get him to loosen up, she'd had no real inclination to do ANY of the more mature things with him.
Until they'd gotten home, that was.
When Asuka had been ranting and she'd pressed herself against Shinji, she'd felt something she hadn't felt in a while, a feeling that had been reinforced when he'd slid his hands around her and, later, when he'd let her snuggle with him. Attraction. – a pure, simple, naked attraction.
She shivered under her blanket as she felt her body react as an image of Naked, Manly Shinji flashed in front of her mind's eye – damn it! She… she… she was lonely. Sure, Kaji had been fun back in college, but he'd been a fill-in, semi-serious, boyfriend. Now, though, she needed someone more permanent and she'd be double-dipped in beer-enhanced chocolate if it wasn't SHINJI she was attracted to.
She shook her head as she reached to her nightstand, "Dirty old woman. Pervert. Shinji would never have ANYTHING to do with you…" She hated using this thing… it was a poor substitute for the real one…
Soon, though, all thoughts of her attraction to Shinji melted away as the object did its thankless job and took her into the land of blissful thoughts.
In her bedroom, Asuka massaged her throat with one hand while her other hand clutched a bear she'd gotten some time back – she was attracted to powerful men… and Shinji had been able to overpower her. She'd been thinking about things that night and a single thought had occurred to her – Shinji would be hers…
In his room, Shinji shivered.
In her room, still quaking in post-orgasmic bliss, Misato growled.
AN: Alrighty, let's get a few things out in the open right now – first of all, I am NOT a real Asuka/Shinji fan. She's treated him like dirt for so long that any kind of relationship that forms between them just isn't one built on solid ground in my eyes. Secondly, yes, I'm going to tease Shinji mercilessly with femmes of all types and put him into situations where any normal male would run and cower in a deep, dark closet – Shinji, though, won't be smart enough to do that so bloodflow will be directed 'south'. Such is the life of Shinji when a psycho-writer is in control…
Lastly, there will be some dark-ish overtones at time, like with what Shinji did to Asuka. He's got a lot of repressed rage and it'll boil over, eventually – I know one victim already, but as for any others… well…
Reviews, please.