Dual Plug Experiment #3 - Pilots Soryu and Ikari, Evangelion Unit 02

"You're late baka. Is there a reason you went all the way home and delayed the test and this afternoon's training?"

"Laundry," he responded somewhat out of breath, without any hint of remorse and no apology in sight.

"Laundry? Couldn't that have waited? You'll have plenty of time this afternoon."

Hopefully the pile of laundry she'd left him would keep him occupied in a feeling-useful way rather than reminding him of their fight. She didn't want him running out of things to do and brooding. At least with sleeping under the living room air conditioner, he wouldn't have to wash the sheets again too.

"I had to make sure it was dry."

"Whatever. Go get changed so we can get this over with."

Shinji vanished into the changing rooms, leaving Asuka alone with her thoughts. As alone as she was going to get anyway.

How turned around had she gotten since the last time they had both been in her Eva together, which somehow managed to feel like both yesterday and years ago?

Of course then she'd been showing off both her own superior skills and the fact that she had a real Eva, confident she could protect the world all on her own. Shinji was just an unimpressive, perverted little boy who'd looked up her dress and gotten lucky fighting angels. Obviously she had to show him what a properly trained pilot could do.

She'd been so angry when he put his arms around her to help fight the stupid fish. Now because of the way her Production Unit 02 was built, the newly configured and improved dual plug seats meant he was going to be sitting between her legs again. In his own seat, which she'd have loved to have keeping her away from him then, and hated that it would be keeping him away from her now. That he'd actually looked better in her spare plugsuit than his own should have told her something. Perhaps about plugsuit design, perhaps just that she enjoyed embarrassing her Shinji. She briefly wondered if he'd look even better in her plugsuit now he wasn't quite so scrawny after all the swimming she'd made him do. She shoved that thought in a mental closet, there's no way that qualified for Rei's "Just Ask".

At least if anything weird happened, which of course it wouldn't with her superior production unit, he'd be in front of her where she could see him. Hopefully everything would go smoothly, Akagi wouldn't come up with any bullshit reasons to extend the test even later, and she could get on to the training exercise with Rei. Not that she necessarily wanted to spend time with Rei, but she needed to. She was still worried about making sure he didn't screw up their date for Rei, but now she was also worried about Rei doing the wrong thing and hurting her baka Shinji. Hikari had said she didn't notice things about him, but it was hard not to notice the last two days. She couldn't lose him. If what she needed to do to keep Shinji was to give him to Rei, that's what she'd have to do. The absurd logic of that didn't quite distract her from the sensation of Shinji pulling his plugsuit on.

Rei was already sitting in a fully activated Unit 00 when Shinji and Asuka walked out to Unit 02.

00 was subdued, almost as if it was asleep. Which was another strange thing. It did mean that she could watch her friends without any distractions. This was pleasing.

Asuka had expressed concern about Shinji that morning. Whatever crisis had occurred its immediate effects seemed to have passed. If anything it seemed to have brought them closer. She was watching intently through multiple camera angles for the moment she anticipated. She would know when it occurred anyway. She just wanted to see their faces when they realised they had been holding hands all the way out.

As Shinji settled in the seat with his head between her knees, Asuka was being highly amused at his expense.

He'd yelped when he realised they were holding hands when they reached the entry plug and had to let go. Somehow that embarrassed him far more than the fact that they could feel intimately how closely the plugsuits fit each other. Which she had demonstrated by quite accidentally waving her arse in front of his face as she climbed into the plug. He was actually flustered, which she hadn't managed in a long time. That the synchronisation was close enough that she was able to literally force him to smile during some of his unpredictable drops into depression was entertaining in a way it probably should not be. Not that it was a real smile of course, but it had distracted him a couple of times now and being glared at by Shinji once he realised what she was doing was an interesting sensation.

Which was going to make it interesting when they came to activate the Eva as they had no way to break the synchronisation deliberately.

"If you are quite done flirting with your boyfriend, Zwetschgenknoedel, do you think we can start the test?"

"Yes. He'sI'm not myher boyfriend."

"And can you stop doing that?"

"Hai!"

Then Asuka bursts out laughing as she realises that was three simultaneous voices.

Akagi just sighs, "Please don't encourage them Ayanami."

Ibuki turns out to be the serious one, "Asuka, we'll bring you online first then Shinji. Initiating now."

"Sempai, did you do something?"

"What is it this time?"

"Nothing wrong exactly. Except half a second after Asuka started to synchronise, Shinji's sequence started without anything triggering it. And look at that curve."

Ibuki addressed the pilots, "Well that was an impressively smooth synchronisation, how are you two doing?"

"I'm fine," Asuka says by herself.

"No problems, except it tastes like Asuka smells in here."

"Are you saying I smell?"

"That's unexpected. Synesthesia is not an effect we've seen before and the LCL should be clear anyway."

Before she can be asked, Ibuki pipes up, "Already rechecking the LCL, sempai."

"No, I'm not saying you smell, and if we're talking about smells it smells more like... like Nozomi?"

Akagi demands, "Who or what the hell is a Nozomi?"

"Hikari's little sister, she's what 6? 8? 9?"

"That's a pretty wide range there Shinji," teases Asuka.

"It's not as if I spend any time around young children. Anyway it doesn't smell like you, Ayanami or Misato."

Ibuki interrupts the exchange, "It shouldn't smell like anyone, the LCL tests perfectly clear, you shouldn't even be able to smell each other."

"Well if it's small children, you'll have another comparison when you cook for Sakura's welcome home party. Just don't go around sniffing her to find out."

"She's well enough to come home finally? That's great. I'm not sure why they'd want me to cook though."

"Are you ever going to get over that, baka? Toji forgave you months ago and his sister thinks you're a hero for saving her. And you'll be freeing up Hikari from cooking, which will be good for everyone."

Shinji protests belatedly, "I didn't go around sniffing Nozomi either - I just didn't dodge one of her high velocity hugs. Even if I am her least favourite pilot, there's no escape."

Asuka laughs, "Well that's your own fault for showing her a picture of Ayanami. You might have been her second favourite without tempting her with blue hair."

They are interrupted again by an annoyed Akagi, "As fascinating as this conversation is, could you please focus on the test."

Five minutes later...

Akagi sighs, "Asuka, please take your foot off Shinji's shoulder, it's throwing off the readings."

Asuka blinks away the mental image of being draped around Shinji like a cloak with her arms around him and his back against her.

She hadn't even noticed they were even touching. How was that even possible?

"Sorry," Shinji apologises as she quickly moves her foot away.

They are starting in on the movement tests, almost absentmindedly going through them in perfect precision when Asuka picks up the conversation as if they hadn't been interrupted.

"and if you want to smell infants, you'll have to wait until Hikari and Toji get around to it in a few years, we're not going to the maternity ward so you can sniff some - Hikari would have a field day with that one."

Shinji grumbles, "All I said was the closest it smelled to something I recognised was Nozomi. It might have been whatever she'd gotten into that day. For all I know, it might be how you taste as it tastes how you smell."

"Well you're not licking me to find out!"

There is a smothered snicker from the bridge crew as someone fails to mute their microphone fast enough.

"Anyway when's this party? Why didn't Toji invite me himself?"

"He was bit preoccupied, and he didn't know - he was off to see her and probably find out when I saw him at Hikari's that day. So give it a few days and I'm sure he'll let you know."

"Are we allowed to bring Ayanami? I don't think she's ever been to a party. It'll probably be quite loud though, if Nozomi is anything to go by."

"If you are preparing a meal to meet my nutritional requirements, I may go to the location it is in if you are too otherwise occupied to bring it to me. If the environment is unpleasant, I will leave once I have acquired sufficient sustenance"

Ritsuko suddenly missed Misato, wherever her absent possibly-still-friend actually was. Misato's antics were often unprofessional, but at least she could cope with the Children better than she-herself could. She'd also find this a hilarious reminder of the joke that had been passing around after the Section 2 report "accidentally" leaked, that her next crazy idea for fighting an angel would involve sending Shinji to the cafeteria and catapulting Unit 00 to the far side of the angel - because nothing survived getting between Ayanami and Shinji's food.

Thankfully by the time they were done, the synchronisation had faded to the point while they were still acutely aware of where each other were they weren't feeling everything each other did. So Asuka managed once more to shower alone. Or as alone as she was going to get with a naked Rei in the next shower cube. Which is probably why she was thinking about how to bribe Shinji into washing her hair, somehow that seemed like the less dangerous option. She was carefully not thinking why.

Asuka turned her face into the shower and the temperature down to not-quite-freezing. Between the heat, flashbacks to high temperature angel attacks, volcanoes, how warm Shinji's face gets when he's embarrassed, and the reason she has her face in a spray of cold water, maybe they should acquire a box of of emergency cold packs. She thought about the last couple of days. A large box.

"Maya, please tell me you recorded something more interesting than that fascinating discussion of the pilots' social life."

"Yes, but I'm not sure you're going to like it, sempai."

Ibuki brings up what's supposed to be the same set of visualisations.

"We're back to cat vomit again?"

"It's not quite that bad, there's some interesting points in the data. It just took quite a bit of analysis to find them. You might find something I missed of course, sempai."

"Out with it Maya, what are you avoiding telling me?"

"Their synchronisation dropped ten percent when you interrupted them."

Akagi snorts, "You know better than that, that sort of thing doesn't affect synchronisation rates."

"Alright, they only dropped two percent relative to the Eva, the ten percent was relative to each other."

Akagi rolls her eyes, "You can't be serious."

"I have pictures, sempai!" exclaims Ibuki gleefully.

"Here's Ayanami, the usual mostly random points near the attractor, except it's the new shape of the attractor up until around when the Unit 02 synchronisations started, then her data points are all closer to the old shape. There's still enough similarity between the shapes that it's not clear exactly when."

"Here's Shinji and Asuka, the individual data points are all over the place as usual. But they are almost precisely on the attractor, except when something distracts them - like you talking to them. Then their sync rates don't actually change much but their approximation to the attractor decreases significantly and their sync differential jumps - not always the same way either. There was even a brief period where Shinji had a higher rate than Asuka."

"I'm glad you didn't mention that earlier, I'm not sure my ears would have survived Asuka's reaction."

Ibuki switches one of the segments of the display.

"I'm sure there's a reason for you including a video of our lovebirds, but for the life of me I cannot imagine what it is."

"You don't dance, do you sempai?"

"Exactly when would I have time to do that, Maya?"

"As soon as they start moving, Shinji's stride gets slightly longer, just enough that his feet hit the ground at exact the same time and spacing as Asuka's. There's professional dancers who would sell their souls to be that precise."

Fortunately Maya is watching the screen and not Ritsuko's suddenly pale face.

After she recovers, Akagi expresses her other concern, "You think it's contamination from the dual plug experiments?"

"If it is, I think it's just exacerbated something. I had to search for this one from a couple of months ago. There's no audio, but going by their body language Asuka was angry about something and Shinji looks like he's sulking. Then they start to walk to their Evas for the test that day, they aren't anywhere near as precise but they are still better than I could do."

"That could be explained by their training for Israfel."

"62 seconds and they fell over. They didn't spend half an hour doing precision motion tests accurate to ten centimetres. Neither of them are that good on their own."

Akagi sighs, "Go home Maya, you're going to need your rest. Starting early tomorrow we're going over all those systems together to check for sources of contamination. I want to be certain what you're seeing is real before we try to work out what on earth is going on."

Yes, the apartment building had an elevator. Their's even worked. But a tiny metal box in this heat where they might accidentally touch each other? They just automatically took the stairs. Even if they were taking them a few steps apart in perfect unison.

"Hey Shinji?"

Shinji paused on the landing, wondering what couldn't wait until they were inside.

"Rei said she'd never heard you play. If you get bored, maybe you could practice a bit. Not that I want a concert or anything, but you haven't played since you got back, you might be a bit rusty."

Shinji nodded and continued on up the stairs, Asuka behind him by the couple of steps that made a safe distance. That was about as blatant as Asuka got. Something he was good at, it was one of the first things she'd actively praised him for, one of the only things she directly had before last night. Good enough to play for Rei, which she'd all but demanded. But check he still had the muscle memory. Do it while she was out so she didn't have to hear him messing it up over and over again until he got it right. He didn't remember her mentioning it last night, maybe she forgot and told him the moment she thought of it, even if it meant standing in the stairwell in the heat. That would be just like normal-Asuka.

At least he'd have time while the seemingly endless piles of laundry Asuka had generated were running through the wash.

Shinji decided to unpack his cello while Asuka got changed. He may as well put what she was currently wearing in with the rest of the laundry, and he could do that once she'd left. Rei would be there shortly, then once they had gone out he could get on with the afternoon's chores and possibly even be done by the time they returned.

"Hey Pervert! What were you doing in my underwear drawer?"

Shinji doesn't need to look up to know what Asuka is holding. He's going to be quite uncomfortable when she puts them on too, they are in enough sync for that, but she's going to know that he feels her doing so, and apparently he's capable of both setting things up for her not-a-date-don't-call-it-that with Rei and petty revenge at the same time.

"Doing what you asked. Look what they were resting on."

"I didn't ask you to go through my knickers!"

Shinji closes his eyes. He really isn't comfortable thinking about Rei that way, but the alternatives right now are playing Russian Roulette with a choice of painful flashbacks or the sensation of the dress he'd washed for her sliding over Asuka's bare skin. As embarrassing as it is, and of course Asuka had actually managed to make it more so by checking on him because his face was red for no other apparent reason, at least she'd come up with something. Maybe he'd actually learn something useful during the training if she really was trying to help. Hopefully it would be less embarrassing, but knowing Asuka it probably wouldn't.

"Hmph!" Asuka attempted to appear irritated rather than embarrassed at what she knew Shinji could feel.

"Why didn't you think of this yesterday?" she demanded.

"Rei."

Asuka tapped her foot impatiently waiting for a better explanation.

"She insisted she was going home to change. Something about not wanting her dress to smell like LCL. I figured it would be the same dress and she mentioned that it created a cool breeze around her legs when she moved. I thought that might be better than the shorts you were looking at last night."

Shinji fervently hoped that would be a sufficient explanation. He really didn't want to explain that the train of thought that led him to remember that dress involved the underwear she had on, whatever the name for them was - he certainly wasn't going to ask, or have that show up in his search results at school. At least she was wearing them. Thankfully Asuka interrupted that thought.

"So you rushed home just to wash this dress? Baka!" Asuka's attempt at sounding irritated failed between sounding pleased and the affectionate tone she used for 'baka.'

Shinji noticed that despite the insult, Asuka was actually wearing the dress, and his embarrassment at feeling her in it was more than compensated for by seeing her look as beautiful as he remembered wearing it. More so with that slight, almost Rei-like, smile on her face.