Author's note: In the previous chapter I wrote myself out of a corner by using a plot point that I thought came from the original series, about the three Eva pilots being forced to spend time together after the Sahaquiel fight. It turns out, I accidentally borrowed it permanently without asking from the Asuka/Shinji epic Advice and Trust by Strypgia aka Panther 2G. Whoops. So major credit to Strypgia, without whom you might not still be reading this.

Grommile, Taste Paradise Coconut Rei and QueemBy, thank you for the follows

Gridmangelion and Taste Paradise Coconut Rei, thank you for the favorites.

This chapter's for ChicaFenix88. I hope you enjoy their dynamic. ;)

Stricken

by Jungian Excuse

- Four -

Asuka vividly remembered her first trip to Rei's apartment. She and Shinji had gone there to pick her up so they could walk to school together as part of Dr. Akagi's new Evangelion Pilot Cooperation and Group Cohesion mandate, as it had been retroactively branded. It had been decided that one week Rei would meet Asuka and Shinji at Misato's place, and every alternate week Shinji and Asuka would go to her, turn and turn about.

This was the first day of the first week they would be picking up Rei. Asuka had to resist the urge to skip like an excitable child. If she'd been alone, she probably would have. She was finally going to see where her beloved lived.

There was no answer to their knocking, but Shinji confidently opened the unlocked door and walked inside. He'd been there before, apparently. Asuka wasn't sure how she felt about that. As they emerged from the abrupt excuse of a hallway, they could hear the faint sound of a running shower. Once they were inside, Shinji immediately busied himself with tidying up, since her beloved was apparently a bit of a slob. Meanwhile, Asuka stood in the middle of the tiny apartment, rotating slowly, her mouth hanging open.

How could she live like this? How could anyone? It looked literally like it was built from a bunch of concrete blocks stapled together. When her eyes had traveled over the bed next to the curtained window in one corner, the chest of drawers and the squat refrigerator, the recessed alcove containing a sink, the tiny closet of a bathroom, and the actual closet, she'd completed the grand tour. No books apart from a handful of school textbooks. No TV, video games, or music. Asuka's record collection back in Germany alone would have filled the entire place. No table, even; just a few cheap-looking folding chairs. She shook her head in amazement and disgust. Something would have to be done about this.

And the hits kept coming as Asuka slid open the door to the tiny closet and stared in disbelief.

It had always struck Asuka as strange that she only ever saw Rei in a plugsuit or a school uniform. Of course, she only ever saw her at school and at NERV, so it wasn't that strange. But even on free dress days at school, and when she would arrive at NERV on weekends and after hours, she wore the same ubiquitous white and blue outfit. Asuka vaguely remembered wondering once if she had a whole closet full of them. Well, now she knew that to be the literal truth; she was staring at a row of about a dozen identical white shirts and blue pinafores. At the end of the rack were a pair of shapeless white shifts that seemed to have come from the NERV infirmary. It was as though Rei had been created just to pilot Eva, go to school, and occasionally end up in hospital.

"What are you doing?"

Asuka gulped and colored violently as she realized she had just been caught prying. Her blush only deepened when she turned and saw Rei fresh from the shower, with a coarse brown towel draped – draped, not wrapped – over her that hid absolutely nothing.

"Rei! I, uh..." Asuka froze, and the circuitry in her brain sparked and fused as a naked Rei Ayanami brushed past her to shut her closet door. Suddenly remembering herself, Asuka stammered an apology and rushed to the entrance of the short hallway to face the front door while Rei got dressed. Shinji was already there.

When they were all on their way, Asuka trailed a little behind the others until she stopped glowing red, and so she could think about what she had just been witness to. As important as Rei seemed to be to NERV, the fact that they would dump her in such a crummy dive at the edge of town was truly shocking.

She mulled it over for the next few weeks, wondering where to start. NERV and their inscrutable motivations aside, Asuka had to triage. Prioritize. The apartment could wait, she decided. As far as she was concerned, clothes for a girl were at least as important as food and drink. Certainly more important than boys were. Asuka decided firmly that she was taking Rei shopping for some new clothes the second she got the chance.

After all, she wanted Rei to look her best for their date.

"I'll get it!" Asuka called out as the front door alarm blared in Misato's kitchen at precisely 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Nobody challenged her on it, as she moved quickly to the landing.

Knowing who was on the other side of the door gave Asuka a moment to prepare herself. While she had the 'casual friends' act all but down cold, the first Rei sighting of the day still had the power to make her forget how to think. And how to breathe.

"Good morning, Asuka." Rei greeted her with a faint smile and a slight bow.

Asuka returned the bow briefly, wondering how someone so young got to be so old-fashioned. She was actually calling her 'Asuka' these days without prompting, which was nice. She thought back to the agonizing weeks it had taken to sort out that 'pilot Soryu' nonsense. Keeping her expression neutral, she said, "Good morning, Rei," and moved aside to let her in.

As she led her into the kitchen, Misato, Shinji, and Tamiko were waiting at the table, chatting quietly among themselves. Asuka, Shinji, and Tamiko were dressed in street clothes, while Rei was wearing her ever-present school uniform. For Asuka, that would be the entire focus of this planned expedition.

They all trooped outside and piled into Misato's car. Asuka volunteered Rei for the front seat and wedged herself in the back with the other two, as she didn't want anyone else touching her, and she sure as hell didn't trust herself to be crushed up against her while in such close proximity to other people for the long car ride downtown.

They screeched to a halt out in front of the large underground mall, still mostly in one piece. The kids all piled out and listened as Misato told them she would be back in that spot at 3:00 p.m. and that they should call her if they planned to make their own way home. She pealed away in a cloud of white smoke, and they moved as a group through the large glass doors and down the long escalator.

The four of them had a brief meeting in the main food court. They split off into two pairs and agreed to regroup in that spot in two hours to discuss their next move. Tamiko and Shinji went off somewhere together, with Tamiko skipping excitedly ahead and dragging a protesting Shinji behind her. Asuka's number one priority today was clothes, and Tamiko tended to buy her clothes from places that also sold skull candles and dragon statues. Asuka was looking to get Rei to dress more like a human being, not less.

As she thought of Rei, Asuka suddenly realized that she was no longer by her side. She chided herself for being silly when she felt a brief flash of panic, like a parent who'd lost a child. She looked around, finally spotting her some dozen yards away, staring up at the sign on the awning of a large kiosk.

The words "VIDEO ARCADE" stood arrayed around the front of the awning in large English capital letters. As Asuka approached her, she could see Rei's lips moving as she attempted to sound out the words. Asuka stopped next to her, and Rei turned to her and pointed up at the sign. "What does that say, Asuka?"

"It says 'video arcade', Rei," Asuka translated for her.

Rei looked at her inquisitively. "What is that?"

Asuka stared back at her in shock. "You're kidding, right? You don't know what a video game arcade is." She was absolutely floored. To the best of her knowledge, the post-impact generation the world over lived in arcades, and Japanese kids in particular were practically born in them.

Rei shook her head, looking slightly embarrassed. "I'm sorry."

Asuka hated that word. "Hey, stop it. You sound just like Shinji," she said with a hint of annoyance. "It's not your fault you've never been to an arcade before." She nodded towards the door. "Wanna check it out?"

Rei considered for a moment, then said, "Yes."

"Well, let's go."

As they approached the entrance, Rei balked. She looked uncertainly and a little fearfully at all the brightly colored flashing lights with their accompanying cacophony of electronic beeps, chirps, and jingles.

"Oh, come on," Asuka huffed, grabbing Rei by the hand and pulling her over the threshold.

Acutely aware of where they were, whose hand she was holding, and how long she'd been holding it for, Asuka kept her face firmly forward as she towed Rei past the DDR machines, the games of chance, and the fighting and light-gun games with their colorful sprites.

In the furthest corner of the floor, there was an archway leading to a dimly lit anteroom where cabinets containing titles like Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, and Galaga lined the walls and clustered in the middle of the floor.

Asuka planted Rei in front of a Galaxian machine and went back to the counter to purchase a bucket of tokens. When she got back, Rei was standing exactly as she had left her, staring in rapt fascination at the silent game demonstration of the machine's attract mode. Something about her almost childlike wonder made Asuka's heart suddenly melt. She stopped short and bit her lip, losing herself for a moment in watching Rei watch the machine.

Asuka gave herself a mental shake, placed the tokens on top of the cabinet, and showed Rei how to feed them into the machine. She shunted her gently to one side and gave her a brief demonstration of the controls and the gameplay while Rei looked on attentively. When she figured that Rei had a decent enough grasp of the basics, she moved away from the front of the cabinet. "Alright, you try."

Rei stepped forward and took over the controls tentatively. "Like this?"

Asuka looked at her and hesitated. They were alone in the most remote room of the almost empty arcade and out of sight of the main floor. "No, like this." She moved to stand behind Rei, rested her chin on her shoulder, laid her hands softly over Rei's, and guided them to the correct positions.

This was physically the closest they'd ever been outside of Asuka's dreams and fantasies. Rei's cheek seemed to radiate heat next to hers, and she felt a familiar electric tingle at the touching of their hands. Asuka's chest pushed gently into Rei's back, and her hips just barely brushed against her rear. She had a vague, uneasy feeling that there was something inappropriate and exploitative about what she was doing. But Rei, focused intently on the game, didn't appear to find anything untoward.

As Asuka sensed Rei's rising joy and wonder at the experience of her first video game, the urge to wrap her arms around Rei's waist and bury her face in her neck became almost irresistible. That was when Asuka noted with alarm another familiar feeling: heat radiating from the pit of her stomach. She quickly pulled away. Rei, engrossed in chasing her own high score, didn't seem to notice.

Asuka gave herself a hard mental slap. "Control yourself, pilot Soryu," she warned herself sharply.

All told, they spent almost an hour at the arcade, so they needed to get a hustle on if they wanted to get some shopping done before their promised meeting with Shinji and Tamiko at the food court. Rei was soon totally lost as Asuka hurried them through the narrow promenades, with Rei holding a small plush koala that Asuka's best efforts at the claw machine had won for her. Rei looked down at it and wondered if there really was an animal that looked like that. She couldn't recall anyone giving her a gift before that wasn't food. She clutched it to her chest as they walked.

It seemed that they were finally at their destination when Asuka came to a sudden halt in front of a small boutique bearing another English word for a name that Rei couldn't read, and Asuka bustled them inside. Rei stayed right on her heels as she moved from rack to rack, sizing Rei up as she went.

Two or three decent outfits would do for a start, Asuka thought to herself. After date night, they could expand their options.

Asuka told herself furiously to stop using that word. There were no guarantees here, she reminded herself sharply, and in all likelihood, she was getting her hopes up for nothing.

It didn't work. 'Date night' it was and continued to be.

Finally, she bundled Rei and an armload of clothing and shoes into a changing room and stood outside to await the results. She declined to go in with her since, at that proximity, she doubted even Rei could fail to notice something not-quite-platonic in Asuka's lust-addled mugging.

Rei walked in and out of the stall several times in different articles of clothing worn in varying combinations, displaying herself each time for Asuka's approval and awaiting her judgment. Asuka rejected them all one-by-one. The minutes ticked by, and Rei began to wonder if maybe the problem was her and that she just didn't look good in anything.

Finally, they were down to the very last item. Rei walked out looking slightly nervous, and Asuka fought hard to keep from gasping out loud as the breath left her body.

It was a simple knee-length, long-sleeved cornflower blue dress with a scooped neckline that hugged Rei's figure ever so slightly. The arms and underskirt were white, with a white lace pattern emblazoned across the bodice. A modest red lace choker and a pair of red satin slippers completed the outfit.

The outfit may have been simple, but the effect on poor Asuka was devastating. Her heart raced and her fingers twitched as she used every shred of willpower at her command to keep herself from reaching out, gathering Rei into her arms, and smothering her with kisses.

Rei studied Asuka's inscrutable expression. Sounding uncertain and a little anxious, she asked, "How do I look?"

Devastating. Gorgeous. Sexy. Edible.

"You look good, Rei. I think you should get it," Asuka managed to say evenly. As Rei turned happily to admire herself in the full-length mirror on the wall, Asuka turned away and willed her raging hormones back under control.

They only had time to visit one more store before heading back to the food court, but they emerged with two pairs of slacks, two shirts, and a cute black short-sleeved bolero jacket. All at a hefty discount, Asuka noted with some satisfaction. Between that and the dress they had enough to be going on with, she decided, even if they didn't do any more shopping that day.

When they got back to the food court, they found Shinji alone. He was surrounded by shopping bags, and he looked frazzled.

"You've been busy," Asuka noted dryly.

Shinji looked up at them wearily. "Tamiko spent all of her allowance and half of mine too, I think. Hey, Rei, what's that?" He asked, pointing to the stuffed toy in her hand.

"It is a koala. Asuka gave it to me," she informed him.

Shinji held out a hand. "May I see it?"

Rei passed it to him, and he turned it over in his hands. "What's a koala?" he asked curiously.

Rei turned to Asuka. "It's a kind of bear. It's native to Australia, I think," Asuka said shortly.

"A bear?" Shinji stared in puzzlement at the fluffy toy and tried to imagine it scaled up to the size of a small car. He couldn't; it was too ridiculous. He passed it back to Rei, who clutched it to herself protectively. "Where's Australia?"

"It's a country in the southern hemisphere," Asuka replied a little impatiently as she looked around. "Where's Tamiko?"

Shinji looked puzzled. "Why did you buy Rei a toy koala?" He asked

"I didn't; I won it at the arcade," Asuka snapped. She turned her back on him, grabbed Rei by the arm, and towed her to an empty table.

Before Shinji could ponder on the matter any more deeply, Tamiko came skipping up to him, her hands filled with yet more bags, chirping happily to him about bargains. Shinji looked on ruefully as she added them to the pile, knowing he'd be the one who had to carry them to Misato's car or, god help him, the train and the bus home. As he watched her, Shinji tried to imagine what it would be like if they ever got married. He'd have to kill an awful lot of Angels to keep her in skull candles. He was wondering vaguely why he put up with it all when Tamiko suddenly plumped her shapely rear down on his lap, snaked her arm around his neck, and planted a fierce kiss on his mouth that took his breath away.

Oh, yeah. That was why.

"Thank you so much for today, Shinji. I'm so lucky to have a generous boyfriend like you," she sighed happily.

Shinji blushed and squirmed as she planted more kisses on the top of his head, then jumped up again to rifle through her bags. Shinji watched her lithe form with great appreciation for a few moments, then looked idly over at Rei and Asuka at the next table, where Asuka was whispering something into Rei's ear. Those two have been getting awfully friendly lately, he thought to himself. He wondered a little peevishly why Asuka couldn't be a bit more friendly to him. She'd certainly never given him anything.

I know, I know - the old 'Asuka and Rei go shopping for clothes' cliche. What can you do?