Having Asuka tend to his burns, which apparently he hadn't hidden well enough from her, was unexpectedly soothing. This was Asuka after all, gentle was not exactly something she was known for.
But she had been careful. Knowing precisely which parts hurt and how much pressure could be safely used to apply the cream had certainly helped. Now he was calmer they were starting to fade as well, except for the couple of burst blisters there would probably be no outward sign by morning.
Asuka calming him down.
He wasn't sure how to cope with that.
He obviously needed to apologise to Rei for the image Asuka had given him for staving off the flashbacks. She probably wouldn't mind, being Rei and clearly having told Asuka about the incident, but it still felt wrong. How he was going to manage to bring it up was something far beyond his current mental capacity however.
"Maybe I'll talk to Toji after all," he mused to himself.
Asuka's freshly washed hair was slightly damp against his cheek as she raised her head off his shoulder, "Huh? What about?"
He hadn't meant for her to hear, but this was a strange enough Asuka maybe she'd understand.
"Distracting myself from the flashbacks. I tried rating them. Points for novelty, points off for inconvenience. That sort of thing. I figured Toji would know some sort of sports thing that I could use."
Asuka hmmmd against the side of his neck, that was an oddly pleasant sensation. She stopped doing it as soon as he noticed.
"No, you want to talk to Chihiro."
Shinji groaned.
"I'm not suggesting you take her out on a date again, baka. She'll know gymnastics scoring, which is closer than whatever Jock-stooge does."
Shinji wondered just how many embarrassing things Asuka knew. Rei didn't know about that one, and the fragments he remembered from her long litany of positive, or at least entertaining to Asuka, things he'd done had to have come from somewhere else.
As they drifted off to sleep with Asuka curled up with her head on his chest, Shinji realised why Asuka had been so insistent on washing her hair even though they were synchronised enough for him to feel it...