Asuka's Morning (not) Alone

Asuka woke lying on a young girl. Her fingers were twisted through a shoulder strap that was obviously not something Shinji would be wearing. Her thigh was between her legs and she knew what Shinji felt like when she'd woken up like that and it was definitely a girl. Most of her weight was across whomever it was. It definitely wasn't Rei then. She knew how Rei felt pressed against her, she had more than enough hugs to know what that felt like. Besides, Rei had larger boobs than the one she was lying on. Which she absolutely did not want to be thinking about. What was she, a boy? Maybe it was Hikari? Why would she be in a bed with Hikari? Why would she be lying on anyone other than Shinji? This made no sense.

There was a slight ache in her shoulder, maybe she'd slept on it awkwardly before ending up in this position. She couldn't feel her hair against her neck, well that happened sometimes especially on the rare occasions Shinji had his hands in it and was holding it away from her skin. Not that she minded. Not that she wanted. She was getting distracted.

What she could feel was something between her legs that absolutely should not be there. Trapped between herself and the girl she was lying on, feeding her brain weird sensations. Strange-Asuka wanted to know, to explore the impossible sensation. Just-Asuka was disgusted. Male anatomy was sill stupid. How did boys even function if they had to feel that all the time. Maybe that's why they were so useless.

Great-Asuka forced her eyes open.

A strand of black hair tickled her nose. Her senses rearranged themselves in a brief moment of disorientation. She was the girl. Shinji was lying across her like he was protecting her from something unseen. As if she needed protecting from anything.

He felt much heavier from underneath.

It took a while to extricate herself from under him. She wasn't tired anymore, it shouldn't have been that difficult. She'd initially been concerned about waking him, but after she'd tried to move, then had to check he was still actually breathing, she gave up on that. So much for synchronised sleeping, he didn't even have the decency to wake up long enough to move.

Eventually she managed to get leverage to push him up and wiggle out from underneath. Which was the only point he showed any sign of movement as he tried to grab her and ended up holding her pillow instead.

She sat on the edge of the bed for a moment and resisted the urge to go back to him. The synchronisation didn't care about distance but he still felt too far away.

She ran her fingers through her long hair, it was still there, it was still slightly sticky with dried LCL. Her shower after the disastrous test had been brief. She could have had longer if she'd been willing to ask Shinji to come and wash her hair, but she couldn't do that. So she'd had only as long as it took him to wash his own hair to rinse the worst of the LCL out of hers.

She stood up carefully, watching his legs stretch out as she did so. His breathing didn't change. Hopefully that meant she could take a shower and get clean before he woke.

Asuka was very clean by the time the hot water ran out. She'd paused a couple of times to make sure she could still feel his shallow breathing but he had slept through the entire thing. Her skin was tinged pink from all the scrubbing any hint of LCL out of every possible spot and crevice and except for that one part of her back she was thoroughly exfoliated. It had taken an excessively large amount of shampoo to get every last remnant of LCL out of her hair and far too much of her imported conditioner to repair the damage. At least she had another bottle before she had to work out how to get more.

So she was sitting on the edge of the tub, trimming the odd split end to make sure her hair was as perfect as she could get it by herself and thinking.

What had her baka done this time? Her baka. Whatever that meant. Apparently it now meant waking up in his skin. Only Shinji could manage to take "getting under your skin" to this level of absolutely fucking ridiculous. She'd rather go back to waking every time he stirred to this. And it seemed that most of their height difference was in their legs because hers still felt weirdly too long. At least the rest of her now felt like herself and her brain had finished separating the echoes of synchronisation from her own body. It helped that he hadn't moved since she had stood up.

The gurgling noise emanating from her stomach pulled her out of her thoughts. She was fairly sure she hadn't eaten since the large bento she'd had for lunch yesterday. She still didn't remember how she got home though, so it's possible she ate before bed. She stood up to go and get something to eat before the twisting sensation from her digestive system reminded her too much of yesterday's nightmare. Rei was still in the hospital at the GeoFront. Presumably. She didn't actually know that. Did she?

Shinji was still asleep, and still breathing, if barely. So he wasn't going to be up for a while longer.

Which meant the only way she was getting any breakfast was if she made it herself. She was starving. Unlike PenPen who'd been lying on the couch with his flippers over a very full stomach, quite possibly because he couldn't fit back in his freezer. She had half wondered what he'd gotten into before deciding she didn't care. He looked content enough and there weren't enough of Misato's beer cans around for it to be alcohol poisoning. At least someone was happy. And her shower had been far more important.

She walked out to the spotlessly clean kitchen and opened the fridge, hoping to find some leftovers to tide her over while she made some real food. A precise row of colour coded containers greeted her. The red ones were labelled in kanji and what she guessed was supposed to be either german or english, "Japanese Breakfast", "German Breakfast", "Lunch", "Lunch", "Hungry Eat". That last one was probably supposed to be "eat if you are still hungry" but the terrible english-german was actually more understandable than the kanji scribbled onto the small label.

She pulled out the "German Breakfast" and hoped it was something edible, reheated eggs were not. There was another identical box behind it. How long had her baka been awake?!

Two "German Breakfast"s, one "Japanese Breakfast" which thankfully had not contained any fish and some serious thought as to what might be in a "Hungry Eat" later, Asuka realised she'd forgotten something important. Fortunately her conscious brain caught up with her panicked subconscious before she woke Shinji up by bursting into the room completely naked. Not that he'd notice her even if she did, but it was bad enough him knowing what she felt like, without him actually seeing it. She quietly crept off to the bathroom and wrapped herself in the biggest towel they had.

She stood in the doorway wrapped in a nice clean towel her baka had washed the day before, felt her breathing settling down to precisely twice the rate of her baka, filled with multiple meals made by her baka before he finally came to her bed and applied her genius level intellect to watching her baka sleep.

Apparently that was all it was good for.

It hadn't noticed that she was walking around the apartment completely naked, because her baka was still wearing the t-shirt and sleep shorts he was sleeping in.

It wasn't able to determine the meaning of the words coming out of her mouth and echoing around her mind.

Mine.

He had actually moved while she was eating. A few inches, just far enough to bring her pillow up under his nose. Baka. It probably smelled more of LCL than her hair at this point.

The urge to go back and curl up with him again returned. Possibly even without the towel she had wrapped around her. But she was clean and the bed was definitely not. There wouldn't be enough hot water to wash the scent of LCL off her again for a while.

Strange-Asuka noted that he looked rather cute lying like that, so far asleep that he actually looked peaceful rather than a moment away from some new nightmare. She wondered how long it had been since she'd seen him look this peaceful. It was a definite improvement over the distant look he got, or the despair she'd seen on the rooftop. He actually was cute like this. Not that she'd admit that to anyone, especially him. Just-Asuka made gagging noises. Asuka didn't care what her brain thought or how contradictory she was being. He was hers. She needed him. She hated that she needed him. She shouldn't need anyone. Whatever else Akagi's experiments had found, and there was probably going to be a mess this time - she still didn't know what he'd done but it seemed unlikely nothing had shown up on the enhanced sensors in the test plugs - they had proved that she needed them both. Whatever she wanted she was stuck with that.

With both of them unconscious, she was as alone as she was likely to get.

What did she want? She was supposed to be a genius, she should be able to work that much out.

She wanted him all to herself. For him to hold her because he wanted to. To touch her where she wanted and only where she wanted. For that to be enough. She wanted Rei to kiss her again. She wanted to hear him play something new. She wanted to not need anyone. She wanted to understand how she felt. She wanted to be alone. She wanted to not need him just to sleep through the night more than one day in a row. She wanted to know what it felt like for him to kiss Rei. She wanted this to make sense.

She wanted to know what she saw in him. Half her brain still insisted he was the scrawny little perverted boy that she first met who'd looked up her skirt and just gotten lucky piloting. Why did it have to be him? Would she still like the person every one else seemed to see if she wasn't forced to be connected to him? Yes! No! Eww! Mine! Did it matter? They didn't know how this happened, how it worked, if it might suddenly stop rather than getting worse. He was hers. She needed him. She wanted him. Just not for the things people usually meant when they said that. Dammit.

'I thought you wanted a real man like Kaji?' The voice in her head was snide and biting, the voice she used to put people in their place, the voice that recited her flaws and failings, the voice that reminded her how unwanted she was, the voice she hadn't heard since Shinji had come back.

'But you lost. You lost Kaji to Misato weeks ago and you didn't even put up a fight. The Great Asuka. Don't make me laugh. The Great Loser more like. And you're settling for this disgusting little boy. That you pretend cares about you. That you need to hold you at night to keep the nightmares away like a scared little girl. What is he? A replacement for Dad? You can't find a real man so you replaced him with someone who will do what you want and who isn't an arsehole for actually telling you no some times? Oh, I forgot, he's not even a real man, you picked a eunuch who does laundry. Maybe you're replacing Mummy-dearest instead. Maybe that's why you need her too? Between them they might make a whole person.'

Her brain was relentless.

'It's pathetic. A weakling eunuch with no spine and a girl with no emotions. That's what you chose? Those girls were right. You aren't even worthy of them. Just give up on them already. They are just dragging you down until you are even worse than them. Leave them to each other and grow up.'

"Stop it!" She didn't even notice she spoke out loud, or how desperate she sounded. Shinji didn't stir.

No spine, but he jumped into a volcano to save me.
'You going to bring that up again? What has he done for you lately?'
She noted the LCL stained bed she didn't recall how she'd gotten to, the lack of absence of Rei in whatever way it was she fit and patted her no longer quite so empty feeling stomach. Do I need to make a list?
I don't need to defend myself to my own stupid brain.

And she does have emotions, they're just as subtle as she is. She couldn't possibly have kissed me like that if she didn't.

'You going to fall for anyone who kisses you, is that it?'
It's not like that!
'So what is it like?', her not-as-sub-as-it-should-be-subconscious replies in Hikari's tone, which at least is better than her own.

If I knew that, I wouldn't be standing here wearing nothing but a towel, arguing with myself and watching an idiot who's gotten under my skin. Literally!

She wished Rei were there. It was always easier to think about him when she was. Which made no sense whatsoever. Shouldn't it be the opposite? Whatever it was she felt about Rei was confusing. The emotionless doll who wasn't. The girl who had kissed her so gently and thoroughly. The calm in her storm of emotions.

She shook her head trying to clear it. As soon as he was awake they'd work out how to get to Rei. How she felt about either of them could wait until she had them both safe. They were hers. Her pilots. Her friends. Her platonic lovers? Argh. This was going to even worse than trying to find a word for how she felt. She was a Pilot. The best pilot. Saving the world. Except somehow it now only seemed worth saving because they were in it.

If he were so much deeper entwined with her, had the same thing happened to Rei? Neither of them ever had any problems touching Rei. Shinji certainly didn't! He casually hugged her without even a thought that it might hurt. But Rei walked with them in perfect step, she had been with her moving as almost one entity when they got Shinji back, every movement coordinated without thought. Most obviously, Rei had fallen out of her awareness in a way that was all too similar but also utterly different than Shinji. But Rei was so comfortable she kept forgetting to ask. None of this made any sense at all.

She kept insisting he was hers, but if he could do this, did that mean the reverse was also true? He'd certainly kissed her back like he meant what he said about her being someone he wanted to kiss, he wanted. But he didn't act like it. He didn't look at her. He didn't touch her. He didn't react to her like a teenage boy should. Was she somehow so horrible she repelled him and the only reason he was there was because he couldn't get away from her? Was he broken in ways other than being suicidal if she didn't pay attention? Was he so weak minded that her sense of self overrode his the way his had briefly as she woke? No, that wasn't right, he might not show her his spine but he'd just worked out some way to fight an Eva from the inside without even being it in like she had needed to in order to get him back.

The more she thought about it, the more possibilities she could see and none of them made any sense.

She resisted the urge to drop her towel and go to him. To touch him. To claim him. To mark him as hers. What would that even take? She had literally bitten him and the mark had faded within a day. She didn't want something public. She wanted something to convince him. He was hers. He was good enough to be hers, whatever the stupid parts of her brain thought.

She was still watching him sleep as her brain ran in circles.

How was he so deeply asleep? What had he done that had kept him awake half the night but now so exhausted and so deeply asleep that she sometimes had to force her own breathing. The problem when that happened was that she was also forced to pay attention to how he felt and that came with overlapping echoes of Shinji impossibly holding her in the dual plug, holding Rei at the same time, while she also held Rei and felt them both in his arms. Maybe he was dreaming that. If she was picking up his dreams there was a whole new level of impossible things to deal with.

She wrapped the memory around herself. She needed to feel him holding her. Which was stupid. This whole thing was stupid.

She needed to get dressed before he woke. Not strip him down to the skin and wrap herself around him. Was this what drove people to have sex? There was no way such a tiny protrusion being a fraction of the way inside her could possibly make any difference to filling the need, a few inches of skin couldn't do that even if it wasn't repulsive. It wouldn't be enough. Hikari was right, in some ways they were already far closer than something as insignificant as sex could make them. It still wasn't enough. Nothing was ever enough.

Reluctantly she gave up and went over to the dresser to pick out what to wear. Once her idiot was awake they needed to work out how to get Rei back. And perhaps she could talk to Hikari. Between them she might be able to make some sense out of it all. Just not at the same time. She wasn't ready for what would happen if she did that.