Belated birthday giftfic for MarshmallowCheshireCat, who I have been talking to on tumblr for ages but I couldn't get a prompt out of until now. It ended up horribly dark, but apparently they were expecting that…
I'm going to fill that request with a snippet of the 'verse I've had in my head for ages but haven't been able to come up with an endgame for: the 'verse where, since earth-humans are Lilim, and Lilith gave birth to monsters...
…Or really, it's more like I had two different reasons for the conflict with the angels/how it could go, and two different alt-forms for Kaworu: one the form I go with here, one an actual human, because of SEELE's thing with how the angels that show up in the series are the 'true successors,' the rightful inhabitants of the planet.
Soft lips nuzzling his cheek, frail arms wrapping around him, wanting him to stay, so willing for him to stay, but the magic that let him and his victim feel touch in dreams was already fading away.
Trying to cook for everyone was very difficult.
Asuka wanted her meat well-done and seared on the outside. There were things he could do with sage and other herbs that smelled good when burnt, but although Misato appreciated woodsmoke, Rei didn't like it.
Rei and Misato both needed theirs rare, although Misato was willing to accept a little searing on the outside and marinating in a wine sauce: he was thinking about attempting to caramelize the outside.
Rei didn't seem to be a pure carnivore (or nearly-pure, like Misato) – she would consume whatever was put in front of her, but she only seemed to enjoy even meat if it was as tender as possible. At least taking a mallet to it made him feel like he was doing something to contribute to her meal instead of just not mucking it up. Shinji had made her a few things like miso soup, but since he didn't know what Rei was, it worried him to serve anything she didn't like because he didn't know what she could digest and get actual nutrition from. If she craved meat that was soft and partially broken down by natural enzymes, maybe she was a carnivorous bird?
Mari wandered around plopping herself down on people's laps and being cute to extort bites of their food out of them – everyone except Kaworu, since Mari was an obligate carnivore like Asuka.
Then there was Kaworu. At least he had a little more variety in his diet, but he was an obligate herbivore who lost his appetite at the smell of blood and burning flesh, so he couldn't even eat with the others. Shinji had started assembling his lunches out on the balcony.
Kaji, Kaworu's bodyguard, didn't eat solid food at all, and wasn't allowed to accept food while he was on the job anyway, even from a pilot like Shinji. Too many people had tried to drug him along with Kaworu. He carried around sealed bottles of wine everywhere, like Misato.
Shinji could eat anything, although he was getting less and less nutrition out of it. He was lucky that everyone was willing to put up with him, and Misato had taken him in even knowing what his parents were and what that meant about what kind of creature he was likely to become.
Barricading himself in Kaji's suite with Kaworu during the full moon so Misato didn't decide she was hungry for manflesh instead of going down to the municipal park and tearing apart a goat was a small price to pay, really. He just wished Kaji would lock himself in there with them. Yes, Misato might not want to kill Kaji permanently and bacchae might get along with maenads well, but it wasn't just other maenads at the park on full moons.
Thinking of who would be there made Shinji wince, because he'd expected that one of those people would be him. His parents might both have been lucky, but incubi and succubi fed on life force, and Shinji wasn't lucky. Everyone knew that the ones who didn't have enough money to buy food went to the park, hoping that someone would take them while they were too crazed to think about the consequences instead of taking them apart.
Hiding in his room kept him from smelling Misato when she got home, before she had a chance to bathe. He didn't want to know if she or some other maenad had dragged a body to their fire.
Eva piloting was painful and terrifying, but if his father hadn't called him here to do this? His teacher hadn't signed up to feed a Lilim every night when he took Shinji in, and Lilim couldn't keep themselves from going after others in their dreams. It would be better if he was an incubus like his father: at least that way people could lock their doors and believe that would work. No one would keep a Lilim under their roof, once that Lilim started dreamwalking. Feeding.
Here, Shinji could feed almost every night he got hungry: Misato had insisted on it, since he was a pilot, and he was saving the world, even though Asuka had complained that she didn't need Shinji to watch her back, and since there was no way he'd ever save her life she didn't owe him any fragments of it.
Then, a week after Asuka arrived, Kaji finally managed to find Kaworu and rescue him from the most recent group that had kidnapped him. Misato had given up on the Fifth Child: it was a miracle he'd made it to fifteen, since that breed showed early, their horns growing in at the same age Asuka's had.
That was why Shinji had to make lunches for Kaworu, he thought, brushing some leaves off his apron as he knelt out on the balcony. Since Kaji told Kaworu about the other pilots, the pale boy had taken Shinji's hand when they met and insisted that Shinji feed from him as much as he liked, so Shinji could build up as much strength as he could.
Because here was someone that Shinji could feed from without hurting anyone.
Because he had to feed from Kaworu as much as he could, because Kaworu wouldn't be around forever.
Even if nothing happened to him while they were fighting the angels, everyone knew that unicorns didn't live very long.
Incubi and succubi that were born with money could live into their twenties, like Shinji's mother. Incubi and succubi that had power over others, acquired with magic or not, could live even after they started showing signs of aging that let their victims know that they were draining even more energy now, trying to preserve the illusion of youth. Like Shinji's father. Lilim like Shinji could go to the parks, drug themselves to fall asleep there despite the fear and hope they woke up.
Unicorns… They weren't predators, they were prey. There were too many things that wanted to eat them. When Misato was in a room with Kaworu, she couldn't take her eyes off him, and if the group that kidnapped Kaworu hadn't been making money selling his blood, if they hadn't wanted to wait for him to reach full growth because a fully grown unicorn's horn was so incredibly valuable? For the rarity. Because they almost never lasted that long.
He looked across to the other balcony, but of course Kaworu wouldn't be other there in the sun, where people could see him, even here in Tokyo-3, surrounded by NERV's forces. He was so pale not just because of what he was, but because he wasn't allowed outside except in transit from location to location. Kaji was starting to pale too, since he had to spend the day shift with Kaworu.
The Eva program only had a unicorn at all because Kaworu was purchased from his parents when his horn started to come in by one of the people associated with the German branch, but word had leaked from the Eva design teams, tactics, someone and soon everyone knew about Kaworu, the way they knew Asuka's Lamia mother had tried to kill Asuka and then hung herself. The way it was an open secret that Shinji's father was allowed to mind-control most of the NERV staff, so it would be harder for the angels to take control of them.
The doors to the other suite's balcony were opaque, and bulletproof, because if Kaworu saw a window… Unicorns weren't exactly migratory, but they needed large ranges, they needed to run. Kaworu's instincts said he had to run, because a unicorn that didn't run, that stayed in one place, was someone's meal.
But this was Japan, these were modern times: there weren't any forests here large enough for a unicorn to get lost in, not with werewolves and maenads and all the other things that craved tender young flesh and a good chase to hunt him. Especially not after Second Impact
So Shinji had to cook for him, had to try to coax him to eat, since otherwise he would waste away, dreaming of forests and a sky he couldn't have.
"He won't stay useful much past the new year, if that," and he could just see Ritsuko saying those words, the gorgon carelessly brushing back her snakes as she said it.
Shinji would have liked to tell himself that Asuka was lying when she told Shinji what she overheard. She was jealous of Kaworu's sync rate just as much as Shinji's performance. Her dragon's ego couldn't bear anyone seeming greater and grander than her.
Except… except Kaworu seemed made of spun glass from the moment Shinji saw him, so easy to shatter. A beautiful thing, a precious thing, someone kind, and that wasn't Shinji's fate. Shinji had always known, from the moment his teacher had sat him down and explained biology and how an incubus and succubus really should not have reproduced together since that made it very close to certain that the child would be another life-drainer, since they'd have to have some defense against life-draining just to survive long enough to be born.
Then that double-dose of mind control abilities had manifested as dreamwalking, instead of the ability to make people love him.
Incubi and succubi were never going to go extinct, since they had so much control over what laws were passed and they knew about safety in numbers, but unicorns… If parents had to be paid just to bring one to term, if no responsible parent were going to bring a unicorn into a world where they would die young and painfully the same way good parents shouldn't have had a Lilim?
Unicorns were considered extinct outside captivity already, and they couldn't live in captivity, not that long, just like Shinji wouldn't live past sixteen if he hadn't started feeding.
Asuka didn't see it, but Shinji could. How Misato always ordered Kaworu into the most dangerous positions. And Asuka thought it was Kaworu being a glory hog, instead of Misato looking at him and seeing someone already dead! No, seeing prey, something whose life only existed to be sacrificed for the sake of her hunting pack.
Of course Asuka didn't see that was odd, didn't see anything wrong with Kaworu being treated that way, when she was another predator. It was 'just the way things were' to her, she didn't have to care. She was a dragon, the system was set up to make sure people like her didn't starve, while people who had needs that weren't like hers, or Mari's… Or Shinji's father's…
If Shinji hadn't spent so long thinking that his fate was to be someone's prey, then would he think it was just his right, to take what he needed from Kaworu? After all, someone was going to take that life away. Someone was going to kill Kaworu, or he'd just waste away, and that would be a waste said the instincts that saw him as a hunk of meat. The same way Asuka saw him and Kaworu, the same way Misato saw them. Even Mari saw Kaworu as something to chase, even if she had no intention of going for the kill. She just wanted to terrify him, and she pouted when he just smiled and didn't scare easily for her pleasure. Because Kaworu was no longer scared of the inevitable.
It was so brave of him, so strong of him, and he was so much better than Shinji. Shinji at least had a chance to live, if he survived fighting the angels, if he was clever, and cruel… No, Kaworu wouldn't live if he was the one born in Shinji's shoes. He wasn't cruel, the way a part of Shinji was.
A world that wouldn't let people like Kaworu live and be happy, where only the cruel could prosper…
Why was Shinji defending a world like that?
Only so people would praise him? Only so he could have a roof over his head, and someone to eat?
His stomach growled as he closed up the box and began to walk over to the other apartment to deliver it.
Misato was finally allowed to claim Kaji's body at the morgue. She wondered how invasive the searches to see if he was carrying secret messages had been. Served him right, forcing her to pretend to cry and need to stay home from work because of an ex, of all things.
She had to shove a protesting Asuka out the door before she opened up the body bag: what did Asuka mean she deserved a share because she loved him, she was fourteen! Aargh, greedy dragons, always after 'their' pound of flesh, the lion's share of the prey and glory no matter who made the kill!
After unzipping it, she grabbed a bottle of Sekhmet from her specialty fridge, uncorked it and waved it in front of his nose.
"One of these days," she said when he grabbed her wrist and chugged, ears visibly perking up, "someone's going to figure out that you're a vampire."
"You'd be surprised," he said when the bottle of wine mixed with a blood supplement to keep maenads from ripping into coworkers around lunchtime was gone. It wasn't like he'd needed to come up for air.
Being a maenad meant that Misato was the only one of the command staff exempt from the commander's feeding rotation. Maenad magic made them deadly even when unarmed: too much risk that she'd get out of restraints and bite his cock off. When she'd thought he was just doing what had to be done, and had the guts to save humanity no matter the cost, she'd regretted that. Now, she regretted it because an incubus that was no longer able to feed was a dead incubus. It would be nice if the Commander had an accident, and even better if she got to be the one to give him that accident.
"So, now are you going to go into hiding?" she asked him.
"What? No."
"They're going to know that something's up after you came back to life!"
"Just claim that you wanted to let the mourners see my body, and Kaworu will 'resurrect' me. It's not like anyone knows the full extent of what unicorns are capable of," since unicorns had been rare for over a millennium, long before the rise of the scientific method, "and he's covered for my ability to recover from wounds before, he knows how to fake using his healing powers on me."
"That might have worked a little better before I told Asuka that I was going to eat you raw right away!"
"Well, it wasn't like I could signal you from inside the bag without a dragon noticing movement!" Kaji shook his head. "There's not much time left, Misato."
"You deserve to continue living, Shinji," and every word that falls from his lips is always beautiful, and kind, and incomprehensible because of it.
He could recite a shopping list, and Shinji would be so enthralled he'd need Kaworu to repeat it a few times over, on the phone. Especially since, if Kaworu wanted him to make something! If he liked Shinji's cooking! If Shinji was paying him back, just a little, for Kaworu letting him live!
Giving him his life.
Giving his life up so Shinji could live.
He'd been doing that all along.
He remembered, just that last night, Kaworu laying his head in Shinji's lap, and he should have thought of what that meant! Instead of being so flattered, his cheeks must have been red, and Kaworu wanted to be close to him, wanted Shinji to run his hands through Kaworu's hair.
Just because Shinji was still physically a virgin. That was what he'd thought. But unicorns put their heads in a maiden's lap, drawn to purity, to that moment of solace from the exhaustion of being hunted…
And then they were killed, while they knelt there.
The way Kaworu knelt now, alighting so gracefully on Shinji's hand. He'd always shone, but now, he looked like he was made of glass.
Shinji's heart was made of glass, he'd said the first time they met, when they went to NERV's baths with Kaji waiting around outside, because Kaworu wasn't safe even in the heart of NERV.
Like he wasn't safe now.
Shinji's heart wasn't safe.
Killing other people, in a vicious night or inch by inch, so you could live. That was the way of the world, how Misato lived and Shinji's father lived. What Asuka had offered him, the chance to stay locked up on her estate for the rest of his life, one of a dragon's captives, in exchange for taking his food from the others she kept. So she could have dominion over another Eva pilot.
"But this isn't my world, Kaworu," he said. "No matter what you do, I'm not going to live. Either." He was already his father's unloved pawn: he didn't want to spend the rest of his life that way. He couldn't, not when he'd tasted love. No matter how much Kaworu wanted him to live. "Your death won't save me. Killing you, just so a world full of monsters can survive… I can't do it." A world that ate people alive, where Touji was already dead, by his father's order, and even Misato didn't care. The way she'd be happy that another angel was dead, want to celebrate Shinji taking him down with a feast. Since that was what you did when you brought down prey.
Someday someone was going to kill Shinji, and celebrate, and they hadn't cared about that at all when they brought him into the world, they just wanted a pilot for Unit 01.
"A world made by Kaworu could only be kinder."
Above them, flying on silent wings, Rei watched with a serpent's eyes. If this world was a place where she could not have freedom, and the one-like-her couldn't survive? If both the Ikari above and the Ikari below thought this world was a place where there was no happiness for them?
Then, she thought, swooping down past the purple giant and the light in its grasp, the world she had created was utterly unsatisfactory. She would have to do better next time. Maybe if she gave them less power to hurt each other they wouldn't do it so enthusiastically.
A clawed hand reached out towards the white giant maimed by her monstrous children. "I'm home."
Kaworu isn't just speaking to Shinji in his death scene in the anime: Rei is there, and he's trying to convince Shinji to live and her rebel against Gendo the way he did against SEELE and not destroy the Lilim. Rei apparently finds it unconvincing since she triggers Third Impact anyway.
After all, creator gods are notorious for deciding to erase the project/slaughter the ungrateful and start over.
Mari's a nekomata, and there's something of a spectrum between vampire and werewolf traits in the mythology. The ability to grow fur on part of his body and ears that look foxlike, sunlight resistance and not losing the ability to ingest food that isn't blood are what let Kaji pass: the bacchae diet contains enough blood and flesh of recently slain animals that it's perfectly fine for him. There are quite a lot of subtypes that mimic each other except for some important differences, and of course a lot of people try to pass as whatever type'll give them the longer life expectancy and more rights.
Asuka's mother was mistaken for a naga up until she tried to kill her daughter. Child services would not allow a Lamia to keep a child. Well, SEELE and NERV have the bribe money, but…
Kaworu is actually an especially deerlike single-horned qilin/ki-rin, not a unicorn. One is a pure child of god whose purity can be stolen to purify others' souls, hence SEELE's assumption the other appears to the one meant to have dominion over the earth.
Rei is Lilith, of course. She could have snakelike features and owl wings, or resemble a tree, or any number of other forms, since all the forms taken by humanity here are potential forms of hers. She's been ordered to stay strictly in human form.