I would really like feedback, both from people who have read the manga and people who haven't, on how well I'm getting across the personality of manga!Kaworu. Normally I have an easy time with inhuman characters, but really manga!Kaworu's problem is that he's too human. And raised by a crazy death cult, and... Well, he just got fucked over by the universe in general.
Am I getting across what he's like and the differences from the anime well? Is it too influenced by the anime, is it IC, am I doing the more tsundere manga!Shinji and their interactions well... I would really, really appreciate it.
What exactly was SEELE hoping to do by calling him to meet with them and let them interrogate him now? The Lance of Longinus was already in lunar orbit, out of their reach. All they could do was try to lock the barn door after the horse had already been stolen, or try to put the fear of them into him.
Gendo Ikari wasn't a man who scared easily.
One thing about the conversation did surprise him, though. While he was politely telling SEELE what amounted to "You can't do jack shit about what I do or my control over NERV, not at this stage of the scenario, so why don't you stop wasting all our time with this ridiculous posturing?" he heard a mewing sound that didn't have the distortion it should if it was coming from one of the monoliths.
He peered around him, but the darkness beyond the ring of monoliths was absolute. They could have had a dozen men with guns there for all he could tell. Or a stray cat could have taken up residence in the abandoned building SEELE had called him to for this meeting.
Commander Ikari wasn't fool enough to think it was anything so innocent, however, especially when SEELE's replacement pilot had arrived earlier today carrying a kitten.
The way the old men let him go faster than he would have anticipated after that just confirmed that theory: they wanted him out of here after the accidental and thus embarrassing reveal that there was another spectator present.
Indeed, once Gendo was out the door, another area of the room was lit up to reveal a young man in the local school uniform slouching in a chair with a white-furred kitten on his lap. The kitten was quite firmly attached to the rubber tip of a baby bottle, suckling hungrily.
"Tabris, can't you control that animal?" the first monolith asked, annoyed.
"I did: I put it to sleep before the meeting. It was woken up by the raised voices." Tabris was amused and "I'm sure Gendo Ikari was pleased to see some of you forget your composure."
"That aside," one of the members of SEELE said, after clearing his throat and trying to cover his guilt, "Why didn't you stop him from losing the lance? You were right there!"
"And how do you think I could have accomplished that?" the angel wondered. "It would have been inconvenient for me to reveal myself at that point. However, now that Gendo Ikari knows that I am one of your agents," there was a difference between sent by SEELE and loyal to SEELE: Ikari would know that well, "I should be able to restrain him more subtly in future."
"Ah," Keel said, placated by the reassurance that there was in fact strategy between the angel's seeming carelessness. "You've already learned to mimic the way teenagers sit: tell me, what did you observe of them and the Third Child today?"
"They're so curious about people other than themselves," Tabris said with a strange smile. Most of the Committee saw it as pity, with a light hint of mockery of the lesser beings, but it also might have been regret or backhanded admiration. "They get angry and flustered on behalf of others, worry about them and brood over it incessantly. It's fascinating to watch." He wanted to see more of it.
"Humans are like that," Keel said dismissively. "And once the plan is executed, it is from that which we shall be free."
Tabris carefully did not raise an eyebrow. Free from compassion? When lack of compassion for others was one of the reasons SEELE believed the Lilim should be destroyed by instrumentality?
"But why did Tabris acquire the animal?" another one wondered.
"Shinji Ikari intended to abandon it, and I couldn't let it starve to death needlessly." When he was an angel, after all, and they had taught him to end the painful existence of Lilith's creations. "It would have been more efficient to put it out of its misery, but that would hardly have given the Third Child a proper impression of me." And they did want him to observe that one especially, since Gendo Ikari would obviously use his own son as a critical part of whatever he had planned. The boy was more likely to let something slip than his cunning deceiver of a father.
"Indeed, having a small animal should make you more approachable, Tabris. That aside, report any more improper action on Ikari's part to us."
"Of course," he said, ducking his head partially to conceal a smirk.
"So, what do you think of the new pilot?" Misato asked, desperate for a topic of conversation that wasn't what happened to Asuka during today's battle.
"He's weird." Shinji took a bite of dinner and thought. "He got lost on his way to the school and was playing piano in an abandoned building when I found him, but after I took him there he came with me to NERV instead." Well, it wasn't like there was much point to being there, with almost everyone gone. And if they'd seen him come up to the building with Shinji, after Shinji killed Touji? He probably wouldn't have had a very good time of it anyway.
"He was going to take a kitten to school?" Misato asked.
"Well, the kitten was following me when I ran into him, and he said that if it had a mother, it would be fed, it was too young and weak to hunt and if we left without taking it with us…" Shinji didn't state the obvious conclusion. "So he just decided to keep it. Like I said, he's pretty weird."
"I guessed that from the way I found you two and Asuka in the girls' bathroom," Misato said.
Shinji groaned. "I asked him what he was thinking afterwards and he didn't know what the sign meant." Weren't those signs pretty universal? "So… yeah." Weird.
"Sounds like a real space cadet." What planet would you have to be from not to recognize those signs? And this was the young man Misato had just had to take into NERV as the Fifth Child and Asuka's replacement. Wonderful. "Well, Ritsuko likes him. Gave him a bottle and told him how to warm up milk and test it on his arm first." So the kitten's mouth didn't get burnt. Of course, despite the fact that she should have liked someone who volunteered to rescue a starving cat, much less a kitten, Ritsuko had been grumpier than usual at him, almost like she expected him to hurt or neglect it? No, if Ritsuko thought that she would have taken it away from him, surely. She must just have wanted to make it clear that neglect was unacceptable because he was a teenage boy, after all, Misato told herself.
Kaworu left the little pale fluffy thing with Ritsuko during the next day's sync test. She appeared somewhat mollified by how content it seemed, at least until Kaworu left and it became clear that the little thing was afraid of being left alone again to starve. Still, she told herself, at least that meant it wasn't afraid of him.
It, rather. Just like the other one.
The Fifth Child had even managed to give it a bath without …him being too traumatized, it seemed: the kitten's fur was soft now instead of matted. Of course, she didn't have the chance to give it a checkup until after the sync test, but it took the newbie enough time to shower and get dressed afterwards for her to verify that the kitten wasn't sick and that he hadn't done anything to it.
He looked somewhat puzzled and amused when he came to retrieve it, although not by her or the kitten. "Yen for your thoughts?" Ritsuko asked.
"My stall was almost out of soap, and Shinji's reaction was pretty funny," he said, shaking his head at the memory of how weird Shinji had been. "How is Suki?"
"You're naming a male kitten Suki?" Such a cutesy name, roughly meaning 'I like you?'
"It's short for Tsukiyomi." The Japanese word for moonlight that actually meant moonshadow, and also the name of the brother of Amaterasu and Susano-o. He smiled, admitting that was "Not very creative, I know," given the color of the kitten's fur.
"I've heard worse."
"How is he?" the red-eyed young man asked again, instead of wanting to hear some of those awful and hence funny cat names.
"Still half-starved, but better than yesterday. Keep feeding him, and I'll get you some formula."
"Thank you, Dr. Akagi," he said, still casually, picking up the sleeping kitten and putting him in one of his pants pockets, keeping his hand in that pocket where the kitten could lick at it. "By the way, how long would it take for him to be able to survive on his o-"
That was when the alarm sounded, heralding the attack of the next angel.
"Well, that was a stupid thing to do," Kaworu said afterwards as he buckled his red leather belt.
"What?" Shinji demanded, grabbing the front of Kaworu's shirt. "How could you… damn you! Say that again, I…"
That was when he fainted, and Kaworu had to grab him before he slid down Kaworu's chest to the ground.
"…" 'Humans,' was what Kaworu would have said if there weren't probably cameras in here. Well, he'd probably better get the Third Child to the infirmary.
"I'm sorry," Shinji said as he followed Kaworu back to his room afterwards, carrying the cat since contact was good for distressed humans and Shinji appeared not to be willing to touch people unless he was angry at them, which seemed the wrong way around to the angel.
"No, I think I understand why you reacted that way." Kaworu wasn't going to apologize for saying it, though, not when dying was a damn stupid thing for Rei to do. She had an AT field: yes, it would have meant revealing herself unless Gendo Ikari had already taken precautions, but it was better than dying and never being with Shinji. Better than leaving Shinji to mourn, when she loved him. Was she that afraid that he would reject her if he discovered she was an angel? Kaworu was disconnected from her when her Eva's AT field inverted, so he couldn't be sure what the hell she'd been thinking when she blew herself up.
Still, her death wasn't necessary, not when she could have shielded herself from the blast.
"I wish that I'd had more of a chance to save her too, but…" Shinji bowed his head. He'd been so useless out there. The angel would have just taken over his Eva too, like Rei and Asuk- The one that was now Kaworu's. "Can we not talk about her?" That was why he was going with Kaworu: Misato would try to comfort him and need comforting, and Shinji couldn't face that. Talking about it would make it real.
When they got there Shinji settled himself in front of the TV and started watching mindless romance movies, which piqued Kaworu's interest since they were clearly the kind of trash SEELE would never have let him watch and he had a sudden and rather pressing interest in this 'love' thing. Kaworu still had to get up to make warm milk every so often, and get Suki to the litterbox, although fortunately angel powers let him cheat by sensing the kitten's body in order to get him there in time so he didn't pee on either Shinji's lap or Kaworu's bed.
So much trouble, but having a distraction did seem to be making Shinji feel better, and was likely at least part of the reason he'd decided he wanted to come here and let Kaworu look after him after Rei's death.
Kaworu frowned because he would have to release the kitten in Tokyo-3 again before he died, unless he wanted it to be cut up in Dr. Akagi's labs, and he doubted he had more than one or two days before SEELE would order him to make his bid for instrumentality. It was a pity that all this was ultimately futile: Suki wouldn't be able to survive on his own after so little time. Everything Kaworu did to look after him now would just lengthen the time he spent starving to death.
Two doomed creatures, with no chance to survive: Kaworu had felt for the kitten and wanted to end its pain because of that, but maybe there wasn't any harm in letting Suki have a nice couple of days before the end? Having Shinji here (Kaworu glanced at the boy Rei loved out of the corner of his eyes) might be pleasant. It added a fluttery nervous feeling and happy sort-of-bubbles to the tightness of his chest.
Of course, Shinji still had feelings for Rei, or so the part of Kaworu that held Rei's feelings hoped. Then there was the Second Child, and how Shinji had been at her bedside waiting for her to wake up even though it distressed Rei.
How soon would Asuka wake up or Commander Ikari think up a reasonable explanation for Rei's survival, Kaworu wondered, kicking his feet idly as he watched Shinji watch the movie.
"You reminded me of her when I first met you," Shinji said out of nowhere. "You act pretty different," Kaworu was more expressive, did things like sprawl on a bed and get in people's personal space instead of Rei's formality, but they both acted weird. "You still kind of have the same… feel, or something. So while I'm here, it's like she's not gone."
"When the angel infested both of us, I could feel her," Kaworu said, thinking about what it would be safe to say. He found himself caring about Shinji's opinion much more now: it wasn't just a matter of being accepted among the humans of NERV, but there were these feelings, too. "We were the same even before that, though."
"What do you mean?" Shinji asked, turning to look at him, careful not to jar the stuffed kitten sleeping on his lap.
"If she didn't tell you herself, I shouldn't," was what Kaworu said, adding "Sorry." That apology was mostly false: he wanted Shinji to think of him as like Rei, to have the same feelings as he might have had for Rei, but he didn't want to reveal that he was an angel.
The Third Child looked at him with curious brown eyes. "What, are you related or something?"
"…In a sense," Kaworu said, and was glad when Shinji turned back to the movie and left it at that, probably because thinking of Rei right now was too painful. "I might need to get up in the night to feed Suki, so you can have the half of the bed that's against the wall," he told his guest. "Just climb over me."
"Thanks, Kaworu," Shinji said, nodding absently. Was he using the mindlessness of TV Kaworu had heard of in order to clear his mind of thoughts, specifically thoughts of Rei?
The second time Kaworu was woken up in the middle of that night was Shinji, thrashing and breathing harshly. Kaworu stared down at him, wondering where he was going to find a bag. He'd asked for some yesterday, but they were already in the trash full of kitty litter. Well, the point of having Shinji breathe into a bag would be that there was only so much oxygen in there, so it would keep him from getting enough to fall unconscious.
Kaworu learned over Shinji's face, closer and closer, remembering a maneuver he'd seen in those movies. If he opened his mouth, then Shinji could breathe into it, share the air in Kaworu's lungs. Kaworu hoped it would work, not just because he wanted more sleep but if it did work, then Kaworu would have an excuse for doing it again the next time Shinji got like this, he thought as he closed his mouth over Shinji's open one, hands on the other teenager's face.
Shinji's breath tasted terrible, since he hadn't gone home to get his toothbrush before coming to Kaworu's, but this was still… intimate. Sharing breath, sharing life. Their mouths together and neither of them biting. Better than holding Shinji's hand, Rei's memories whispered in his hindbrain.
It felt like an eternity before Shinji almost jumped, pushing Kaworu away as he bolted upright. "What was that?!" he demanded.
"Ah, it worked!" Kaworu said, delighted. "You aren't hyperventilating anymore."
"You kissed me because of that?" Shinji asked, wide-eyed. "Like CPR or something?" At Kaworu's nod Shinji said "Next time, get a bag! I mean, CPR's one thing, but guys don't kiss guys!"
"So if I was a girl, would you let me kiss you?"
"What?"
Kaworu only smiled briefly. "It's nothing, but… Remember how I said that I could feel Rei when the angel connected us? This feeling in my chest… I might have kissed you because of her," the angel said, putting his hand over his heart. "Because she wanted to kiss you."
"So the angel was in both of your heads? Like Asuka?" Shinji looked scared. "Are you okay?"
"I think so, but these emotions… They're very strong." He touched his lips briefly. "Wanting to touch someone, wanting to kiss, wanting them not to die… So this is what love feels like. What does it feel like to be loved?" he asked Shinji. "I wonder how I would feel if you loved me."
"Wouldn't that be weird?" Shinji asked Kaworu. "I mean, another guy?"
"Rei's feelings," Kaworu reminded him. "Wouldn't it be weird for her to be loved by another girl, if two guys is weird?"
"I'm not even sure Rei liked me. She didn't say how she felt after that time she asked me to hold her hand, and then she didn't want to be close after…" Touji, and what happened to Asuka.
"Humans don't always act on what they feel. For you, human contact is as much a need as food, water or oxygen, and yet you shrink back from it when it's offered because you're afraid of getting hurt. Damned if you do, damned if you don't: either way you'll be really sad, either because your body isn't getting what it needs or you might get heartbroken," Kaworu said, lying back on his side of the bed. "Are all of you really so afraid of living?" When Kaworu wanted to live, and couldn't. "That's pathetic," he said, and sighed, aggravated. "Cats are much more sensible, aren't they Suki?"
Curled up in a nest made of the orange shirt & white dress shirt Kaworu had worn that day, the kitten's breathing was the only response.
"He followed you because he wanted to be saved instead of dying painfully and alone," Kaworu reminded Shinji, leaning up again to poke Suki's little tummy. "You're lonely yourself, and yet you were just going to leave him there because it was too much trouble to look after him and you didn't want the guilt of putting him out of his misery. You're kind of a selfish bastard, aren't you?" he said, without much acrimony. In Kaworu's limited experience, basically all humans were. Even Ritsuko, who was helping him look after the cat, clearly knew he was an angel and was afraid he'd hurt the cat, but she cared about her own skin far more than about whatever an enemy of all life on this world must have planned for such a poor, helpless little creature. "And stupid, when by not reaching out to others you're hurting yourself. Do you want to end up a bitter, lonely old man?" Like SEELE? "Blaming everything on human nature when you're the one who didn't bother to try to get what you wanted? I despise people like that."
"Then why are you letting me stay here?" Shinji asked, with just a hint of rising anger on his own behalf, even though he couldn't argue with Kaworu's words.
"I'm not sure," Kaworu said as the kitten woke up enough to wriggle and sleepily lick his finger (in case it was a bottle). "I think it was a combination of Rei's feelings – wanting you to be okay, and happy, wanting to hold you – and that you were actually willing to come stay at the place of someone who you just met because it was what you needed. Reaching out for human contact instead of letting yourself starve because you're too scared to try." At least Suki, who had been on his last legs, had tried following Shinji, tried getting help with what energy the little thing had left. Instead of lying down and dying peacefully without having to suffer rejection from the uncaring humans.
As nice as the other option sounded to Kaworu. Falling asleep in the sun somewhere he could smell the sea, Suki on his lap… A pity Nerv would remove this Lilim body well before Suki was old enough to use it as a food source. It would be nice if someone would get some benefit out of this body being made out of meat.
The kitten provided companionship in exchange for food and actively sought out contact and company, unlike Shinji who had only grabbed Kaworu when pissed off. If he hadn't contacted the kitten's mind himself Kaworu would have wondered if Lilim really were the only sentient children of Lilith, because they certainly weren't the smartest species on the planet.
Kaworu picked up Suki and kissed his cute little nose. "See? He's not scared, and he's a lot smaller than you." Although from Kaworu's perspective, kittens and Lilim were equally easy to squash.
"I wasn't scared, it's just… Guys don't kiss guys!"
The angel frowned. "I don't like people lying to my face." Humans did it too often. When Shinji looked like he didn't understand, Kaworu explained, "At first you liked it, then when you realized that it was me you were scared a moment afterwards. When you started worrying about what other humans would think? Then you covered that fear up with anger, but the reason you reject my feelings, and Rei's feelings is that you're scared. Your body obviously doesn't care that I'm a guy."
Shinji blushed, remembering the flash of heat that had gone through him as his body, unlike his confused and dreaming mind, registered the feel of someone else's lips on his, of someone holding him like a precious thing. "S-Shut up."
Rei's emotions made Kaworu crave Shinji, but was that because he viewed Shinji as someone worth loving or was he just desperate to be loved? To have someone that cared whether he lived or died, some company in these final days now that he knew it was possible for a human to care for something like him?
Suki wouldn't care if he was an angel as long as the survival necessities and pettings kept coming, Kaworu knew. Simple, straightforward, sensible. Unlike Lilim with their lies and their desire to control everything: at least cats were honest. And actually held up their end of the bargain.
"You can lie to yourself, but that's no reason to be rude to me when you're a guest in my quarters."
"Sorry." At least Shinji did apologize about the 'Shut up' part. "You probably don't know about… It's really rude to call someone gay."
"…No, I definitely wasn't accusing you of being happy. Maybe if you were a little more honest with yourself…"
"No, um, gay means…"
"I know what it means," Kaworu said, interrupting Shinji's interruption of him. "While you were watching soap operas I looked up Lilim…" Lilim mating rituals wasn't the right phrase to use here. "How dating works." And apparently only getting to holding hands on purpose once was really pathetic. If it weren't for Shinji's feelings, Kaworu would repeat his assertion that Rei was stupid.
"You're not going to buy me flowers, are you?" Shinji joked, but he looked a little worried that Kaworu would, because Kaworu was weird.
"No. According to most sources, flowers and chocolates are for courting women. I'll buy you steak, though. I want to see if Suki could handle meat yet, if I cut it into small pieces."
"I don't think any restaurants here are still open, but if you bought steak, I guess I could cook it." For Kaworu and the kitten.
"Excellent." Kaworu grinned. First steak, then blowjobs: this might work out after all.
Of course, just because this world hated him, the next morning Misato called about Rei and Kaworu had to figure out how to avoid burning Suki's steak himself.
"This room is monitored, you know," was what Ritsuko said when she saw her visitor.
"Not anymore." Kaworu smiled, cat in his arms. "Working for the Committee does have some perks. We had an appointment, didn't we?" For Suki's next check-up.
She raised an eyebrow at him, but, "I'll see what I can do without my equipment."
"That won't be a problem either, as long as I'm back in," he checked his cell phone. It didn't get any signal down here, but it still had the time. "Four hours and twelve minutes. The Committee has no reason to be unhappy with you, so you'll be safe as long as you're out of Gendo Ikari's reach. Well, as safe as anyone is."
"You'd know more about that than I would."
"Only a little." He frowned, looking worriedly down at the cream-colored life in his arms, then back up at her. "Are you coming, or will I need to look for someone else to adopt my cat?"
"What?" she asked, startled enough to finally stand up, trying to make out the nuances of his expression in the dark room. But then, he was just an angel wearing a human mask: would that really tell her anything but what he wanted her to see?
"What I don't tell you, the Committee can't hold you responsible for," he said, shifting his weight from one leg to another impatiently. "But very soon I won't be in a position to look after anyone or anything. What you said when I brought Suki to NERV: were you just trying to get him away from me, or are you actually willing to take him in? And keep him off of dissection tables."
"Is this the price I'll have to pay for my freedom?"
"No, this is for helping me get Suki healthier." He pouted with a teenager's impatient annoyance. "It's alright if you say no, I'll just have to think of some other way to make sure he survives until he can manage on his own. Or at least has as much of a chance as the rest of you."
As the people who weren't Kaworu, Ritsuko wondered? Was the angel anticipating his defeat? "I'll think about it on my way out of here."
The lanky teenager shrugged with one shoulder, glancing down the hall. "Fine, let's just get moving. Today I have all day, but the old men want to meet with me tomorrow morning."
"Disgusting weakling," Asuka said scowling as Shinji walked the rest of the way up the slope. She was already scanning the horizon when he braced his hands on his upper legs, panting for breath.
There was the stupid giant Rei head – Asuka should have guessed that doll was an angel, she clearly hadn't been human – red waters and bare rock. Nothing else, not as far as Asuka could see, but she kept looking for some movement, some sign of life… "There!" After getting her bearings, noting landmarks so she could keep moving towards her target even once there were obstacles in her line of sight, she started running down the slope.
Oh thank God, she thought once she made it there and saw that it wasn't just something blowing in the wind but actual movement. Not only was there another human being in this hellish world but it was a boy, meaning Shinji wasn't the last man on Earth, not that Shinji was a man to begin with.
Telling the part of her mind that knew that unless more people showed up, attempting to have some excuse for genetic diversity would require her to bear Shinji's children anyway to shut up, she called, "Hey, you!"
Yes: that was definitely a male uniform, and no breasts under it. Asuka wasn't pleased by the red eyes, especially since his skin had enough healthy color to it to prove that he wasn't an albino and might be another like that doll, the one whose creepy angel face was on the horizon, but was he holding a cat?
He was. Fantastic. Meat! Asuka hadn't seen any other living things from the top of that hill, either: if all life on earth had returned to the primordial soup, repopulating the human race would be futile since none of them would last ten days without anything to eat. Still, if animals were returning, hopefully plants would too.
"Kaworu?" Shinji asked, surprised. "You disappeared: I thought you were dead!"
"Yes, I thought so too." The white-haired boy scowled, sitting cross-legged as the red surf washed around him. He was high enough up that only a centimeter or so of water reached him with each wave, but it was still odd that he hadn't gotten the rest of the way out. Shinji knew being this close to it made him worry about getting reabsorbed. "No such luck. My soul was trapped in one of the clones, and without my memories I wasn't anything more than a puppet to those damn old men…" The cat made a sound of protest when Kaworu's hands clenched in anger. "Sorry, Suki." Mollified by the pettings, the cat's purr resumed.
"Wha-You're the boy who was there with Shinji when I was…" When the angel was invading her mind.
He nodded. "And you're the Second Child, not that it matters now. I'm surprised to see you two here. The old men didn't think any humans would have the will to reject instrumentality." He snorted. "Didn't think I would, either." Yet here he was.
"Do you think more people will show up?" Shinji asked, looking up and down the shore.
"Who knows?" Kaworu shrugged offhand, clearly not giving a damn.
"Well, I don't have any genetic defects or bad recessives," Asuka knew, since she'd been created via sperm bank and selected ovum, "but Shinji here is pure defect. Fortunately there's you, and hopefully a few more people will show up, enough to give humanity a chance of surviving."
He stared at her. "What?" The hell? "Sorry, but I have no intention of helping repopulate the Lilim. For one thing, I'm what you call an angel: my children wouldn't be Lilim like you, even if I wanted them to, and for another there's another species I'd rather save. One that's far more worthy to inherit the earth." The eerie boy looked down at his pet. "I'm going to see if Dr. Akagi wants to live while I'm getting myself some more cats," he conceded. "But I don't think she'll want any part of it either." Not Ikari babies, not after what Shinji's father did to her.
The counter to Valentine's is Steak & Blowjob Day.
In which Kaworu decides that cats are infinitely preferable to closeted tsunderes who ditch him for clones and becomes a crazy cat angel. I think he lives with Ritsuko in the Petit Eva manga? Yeeeeeah. They shall bond over how kitties are great and Ikaris are jerks.