childrenoflilim | 41. video backdated to the 25.

[Asuka isn't expecting anything. But as the video starts and the whine and the static start in, she can feel a vague sense of familiarity. She's seen this before, she's felt this, this creeping sense of dread and invasion and wrongness and then it's there. Images and words and sounds blending together into one long cacophony of 'noise' that threatens to drown out everything else, forcing its way into her.

Into her head.

Mother, please-

Don't hate me.

Help me!

You won't even look at me.

You're disgusting

And then she's kissing Kaworu, but her eyes are locked on the boy on the other side of the room. Too young, but just as he exists her mind's eye and she can feel her hatred-

And she's watching Asuka kiss Kaworu and she can feel the hate rolling off of Asuka, see the glint in her eye as she glares-

It's all in her head, it's tearing down the walls she's spent so long building up and she remembers sitting in the cockpit of Unit 02, screaming while something strange and alien sifted through her memories and ripped it all out to show her what she was on the inside.

Stop

stop
stopstopstopstopstopgetout]

[OOC: Warning: thread will probably include references to death and suicide.]

Edited 2012-05-29 04:26 (UTC)

[he is kissing kaworu. he is tall with red hair and blue eyes, changed in body, and a heart that's remained the same. rejection, competition, fear, loneliness, doubt, all churn within as he while the interloper watches their happiness. good. let him suffer. it makes her satisfaction.

there is no joy in kissing kaworu.

shinji is thrust into the middle of her desperate pleas. remembers and does not remember helplessly watching asuka in the safety of his own cockpit, how it felt when that thing when through his (her? their?) mind at will and he can only respond i'm sorry i'm sorry i can't stop i don't know how

standing alone in a graveyard where 'kyoko langely zeppelin' is at eye level reminding yourself that crying is for children and that you're an adult now. you will live for yourself. watching your mother's body twirl by her neck from the ceiling. her smile of contentment. and you, as you are now, hanging beside her.

there is joy in death.

NO I DON'T WANT TO DIE I DON'T WANT TO DIE]

[The words and images and sensations, the flashes of another life, memories of a dead mother, a distant father (so similar, but there's a gulf between them, one she cannot or will not cross), piloting, fighting, dying, a lifetime of pain and sorrow and guilt and anger, or trying to be different or exactly like everyone else, of not understanding why people love you (why don't they love me), of trying to make people recognize that I am me.

And then it all.

Stops.

There is an orange light, a sickly evening glow and for some reason she's in a train car. She's in her old school uniform and she feels, suddenly, hideously vulnerable and naked despite her clothing. As if anyone could look right through her at this moment and see her whole life, her tangled emotions, laid out before them like a book to peruse.

She curls in on herself and stares at the boy across from her.]

Ikari-!

[Who is she, really? A confident pilot. A scared girl who wants someone, anyone to recognize her. A young woman on the cusp of adulthood. A reject from a dead world.

She hates herself.]

[shinji remembers sitting in this exact spot with his younger, caustic, truthful self as his only company. it had been awful. staring back at her now, she seems like the girl he once knew. the one who hated him without end near the end of it all, who placed blame and guilt on his shoulders so heavy that he was still broken. his companion on this train to somewhere once again.

hell was surely other people.]

Asuka.

[The only sound is the click-clack of the train on the tracks. She stares at him, tries to make out the details in strange shadows. She hated him for taking away what she was supposed to be the best at. For taking away the validation she needed. For leaving her to die.

But he was a coward. The flashes of his life, his own self-loathing - he was weak. And unlike her, he'd never bothered to try. She can't bring herself to move - she isn't sure if she can. So she stares at him. She watches him. They're riding a train to nowhere and at this last, terrible moment, she thinks she understands him, if only partially.

She hates that she does.]

Why are you here?

[She's bitter. Fourteen again and still resenting everything that he's taken from her. The shadows flicker and she's eighteen and she hates him for trying to take everything away from her again (but she knows it isn't what he wants and she knows that it's a product of her own mind).]

I'm never going to understand you, Shinji....

People aren't meant to understand each other.

[shinji thinks he sees ayanami sitting near the far end of the car. it's honestly hard to tell whether she's a trick of the light, a trick of the mind, neither, or both.]

But we might be here for the same reason.

Maybe you're just scared of understanding people.

[Asuka shoots back. It isn't much of a retort, though. She only has eyes for Shinji at the moment. When she speaks again, she sounds just as bitter and maybe a little sad.]

You're just like me. It's disgusting.

Do you remember?

[he speaks softly, and although he's looking straight at asuka, shinji doesn't see her or the twilight that brightens her hair.]

You said those things a long time ago.

[past the endless sea. past a blood halo on the moon.]

And instead of learning from it, all we've done is hurt each other. Do you think we'll ever stop?

What's there to learn?

[She can't shake the feeling of despair and unease. How does she move past this? Why does she keep coming back to her mother's death? And why does it make her feel so small?]

It's not like anyone is ever going to love me like I deserve. It's not like I'm worth it to them. And if they won't, what am I worth to anyone?

Edited 2012-06-01 22:10 (UTC)

Learning how to love ourselves.

[emphatically,] You're worth more than you think.

Why would you say something like that?

[Her gaze is harsh; accusing. She knows what he did to her (or what she thinks he did to her.]

It's not like you really care about me.

[Her grip on her legs tightens.]

And I can't love myself. There's nothing there for me to love. I-

If my own mother didn't want me, what good am I?

[shinji sags under a bout of sudden fatigue. many times, he's wished he could do everything all over from the very beginning. enter tokyo-3 with a sense of purpose, speak his mind, be assertive. or would he have to go back further to the day his father left him alone and crying on a stranger's doorstep? the day of his mother's "death"? his very conception?

life did not work that way for a reason. one grew from sadness and failure. strife and feelings of futility. they had to keep moving.]

How can I make you believe you're worth loving?

[Asuka shudders and her head goes down, buried against her legs. She doesn't want to talk about this. She feels naked and vulnerable and hideously exposed and she hates it. Just like she hated the last time. It makes her feel weak. And what good is Shinji going to do anyway?]

Go away.

[It isn't really an answer to his question. It's just a statement. A demand.]

[shinji--small, four years old, and smiling a victorious predator's smile--stands at her knee while shinji--still so small, nearly sixteen, and so, so tired--stares blankly at his double and tormentor.]

You're lying, [says the younger,] You'll hate yourself even more if he really left.

No I won't!

[Asuka snaps, screaming at the image.]

He doesn't actually care about me! All he's doing is trying to make himself feel better about running away again and again! I don't need him!

[shinji smiles wider than ever and speaks his words slow as if to relish them,] But does he need you?

Why should I care? He's just Shinji!

[She covers her ears with her hands, face buried against her knees.]

Leave me alone!

[they have arrived.

shinji goes from sitting in darkness to standing on a light-flooded stage in the blink of an eye. an audience of several hundred could fit the room, but there is only one chair set. only one could enjoy this performance of a lifetime.

[Why is she here? Why is this happening to her? It's like Third Impact all over again, it's like having that thing shatter her self-image and drag her secrets into to the light for all to see.

It's horrific and terrible and she cannot look away, because a part of her wants to see if Shinji Ikari is still the horrible little boy he used to be.]

I am the Shinji Ikari that lives in Asuka Langley Soryuu's mind, [he beings.] I am 14 and useless. I run from everything. People are tools to make me feel better about myself. And I will take everything Asuka loves because I can. She'll be alone and I'll be happy.

[a pause.]

Please, speak to me. Your voice is one that I've always known. Don't leave me here alone.

Please.

What do you want from me?

[Asuka screams in the mockery of the theater. The darkness seems to swallow up the sound, make it sound smaller than it should be. What does Shinji want from her? What does he want her to say? And what right does he have to do this to her?

She squeezes her eyes shut, hands balled into fists in her lap.]

Shinji? [ NOTHING ] You okay, hon?

[shinji looks into the camera, terrified.]

Roxy, don't, I'm not safe--!

[she'll likely feel a lot of anxiety and fear out of the blue.]

What a buncha self-sacrificin nonsense. [ she does, but she doesn't notice it's out of the ordinary; feeling anxious over her friends happens a lot ]

I'm serious! Please, you have to get out of here!

Where am I supposed to go? I'm not anywhere near you, so there's nothin you can actually do to me, got it? I'm fine.

[ it burns brightly, even in sleep.

in the outreaches of this form, he can hear the shape of his thoughts. can hear the sudden babble of uncertainty. the rearing of something deeper and darker than the lay of shinji's shadow. and he holds to it, even as he wakes. even as he comes into awareness. even when he processes the shriller pace of fear. of something that tastes bitter. a blooming understanding. a universal chiming of some shared knowledge. poured back into. (shinji's thoughts. shinji. something. something had gone wrong. something has gone wrong. something--)

it pulls him from bed without much commotion. pulls him from bed with the sharper interruption of thought. the silence of this place tattered toward the corners, and he curls his fingers into it. feels his voice as though he has always felt it. strange and flurried images. the words buried just beneath it.

and it comes without meaning to. it whispers back without meaning to. his feet finding the floor without consciously knowing the way to him. (i have known you and the softer rounding of oceans. it scatters into him and out of him like always had. a second calling in the static he sends now to no one. had continued to send to no one. until now. until-- a sickening pace of imagery, slowed. a single line of stillness. a kind of reassurance. that holds out to him with both hands. with the resonance of something that laid deeper than "kaworu nagisa". that held a title all its own:

shinji-kun

shaped rifled images. again and again and--)]

[every thing from every one from every where.

loneliness. misunderstanding. from house to house, world to world, the same state of affairs. fear. longing. it all flows into his mind without end and it hurts, dear god, it was splitting his skull; maybe it'd be easier to find an axe and finish the job, whatever it took--

shinji-kun

ikari shinji. that's him, isn't it? he who was himself. or rather one that saw a sliver of he who was himself. again, it reaches him. blessed quiet among the cacophony of man.

shinji-kun

like a heartbeat

shinji-kun

...hello?]

[it is like drowning, almost. the scent and shape of water. the small stirrings of feelings beyond the scope of his own emotions. the heavier weight of glass. a small and fragile thing, a human heart. the sharper edges held without gloves. it cuts in, but he smiles. and it is the curving of shorelines and the small beat of a foreign heart. it is a pulse and the thin rivers of veins. the sweeping undercurrent. (kaworu nagisa is not kaworu nagisa. he is one and everyone. he is here in the space beyond time and distance. there is ineffability and incoherence. there is the horizon of thought. it stretches endlessly. he knows this place, as much as he has always known it. as much as the knowledge of man has filtered down into the power of no creation. the singular immortality of beings contained within thought until the very end.)

he is no one. (he is a concept or an idea. a planar and absolute entity. divided by the web of reality. he exists because he echoes on the same wavelength. he exists because man told him to. he exists because the soul of one was shoved into the body of a boy. was shoved into the heart and fingers and eyes of a child who had nothing. who was created by those who wished to play god. and god they became. almost.)

he is no one, at all. (tabris or adam. the names that have been fed to him by mouths of men he still remembers. the tired hands of scientists. the artificiality of extended life. the endless surgeries and replacements that kept one alive, and what kept him whole. that murmur to him in sleep, though he cannot dream. the endless hibernations of the soul. the endless outside influence.)

but ikari shinji is a firm shape in the mind of the individual. ikari shinji is a heartbeat or a small sound. he is a lilim. "kaworu" is the words "i love you" within ikari shinji's heart. shinji is the words that murmur up everywhere. and he holds to the idea, having known this endlessly. having known this place, endlessly. have lived within its fractured realities. having lived within the space where mankind's thoughts did not exist. the soft shape of bodies and the angles of jaws. hands.

he thinks of him in small fragments. reconstructing life without power to grant it, impossible. but he he holds to the idea of him like he would breath. and he feels water smother him. (you are able to hear me.)

and it is warm. and it glows. radiates. (relief. relief. relief.)

(where do you happen to be?)]

[kaworu is not "no one". he is kindness and love. (ayanami is hope and humanity.)

kaworu is the light in the darkness.

i can't remember. everything is confused, please find me.]

[ there are slow tracks to him. there are footsteps he'd wandered in half-sleep. there are the flickering images of landscapes. new and not new. (there and always. he follows the sound of his voice. he follows the low pull of bow over strings. he follows the sound of sand and earth. he follows the steady pulse. (he knows his heart. as much as he might have. as much as may. and he sees vast grasslands and dried seas. he sees towns and villages. he sees them flicker and shudder like light past memory. past recesses of thought.

he sees him.)

and in the soft blur of language. in the soft blur of music. in the pull of his words heard and unheard - he comes to him. he comes to him. (in the steady blink of a mirror, inherited long ago. he finds him. he tracks his way to him. shadowing footfalls. shadowing -- whoever it is he remains with. wherever it is he is staying. they're kindly enough. they're calm enough. they let him go. they allow him to go. they permit him.)

and he does not know what path this is. but, his feet follow it. he does not know what path this is, but he finds himself in the dimness of some room. on some world. far and away. he sees him. (hears the wail and whine and electronics. feels it. and he calls to him. without voice. with voice. he calls to him, a voice that is his own. that is not his own:

shinji-kun.) ]

[shinji hears the rumble of voices before he sees him. lilim sound created for nothing more than beauty for beauty's sake, togetherness for togetherness' sake. the highest form of culture. the closest to Angels.

( wir betreten feuertrunken,
himmlische, dein heiligtum!)

underneath it all, he can make out the ocean. red waves forever rushing to meet the shoreline and running away just as quickly. familiar. calming.

( deine zauber binden wieder
was die mode streng geteilt; )

so kaworu towers above him.

i'm so glad you're here.

( alle menschen werden brüder,
Wo dein sanfter flügel weilt. )]

Edited 2012-06-07 04:27 (UTC)

[ yet, they had only mastered it for themselves. yet, they had never shared it. the way lilim had. the way lilim had, always. (they had never spread it for the whole world. it was man. it was the touch of hands. it was to embrace the millions. it was to bring together. a unity, only they had shared. a singularity, that only they had shared. angels, whose thoughts spun endlessly into another's. whose minds transferred knowledge. experience. whose voices were as distinct as the chiming of bells. the keening of strings. materialized. named. from them. from them.

humans.)

but, kaworu kneels before him now. but, kaworu's body moves without clear thought. knowing what he has come for. knowing what he would always come for. (and it is distinctly fluid. distinctly soft. that one movement. that one moment. it is slow.)

and he reaches for him, gently. in body and voice. in the words of ages, spooled. in the endless caverns of time and the endless stretches of strength. in the rumbled murmurs of immortality. in the thaws of ice. miles and miles. down. (and his fingers are light. are light. upon the curve of his shoulders. on the shoreline of his body. on the rush of waves. of some deep and slow relief. (happiness. happiness. gladness.)

he reaches for him, gently. in the endless, threaded memories. in the images that reflect neither him nor shinji. in the thrummed repetition of the human heart. a kind or crueler labyrinth. and he touches upon that dark. the throes of man's confusion. he ebbs it away, with the brush of thumbs. with the brush of nails. with the softer sound of breathing. he coaxes it back, as he looks upon him and looks through him. hears him louder. hears him clearer. (closer than he has ever known. and his mouth moves, for words. finds none. his lips quirk up. some warmer smile. a warmer smile. the smile he has worn for him. always.

always, always.)

then, i am glad, as well.

he feels the strings hum. ]

[and for the first time in months, he feels happiness unmarred by guilt or depression. someone in this world knows him inside and out. he fits in.

shinji springs forward and throws his arms around kaworu's neck, sobbing and laughing.

the strings sing.]

[ and there is something deep inside that pauses. something deep in side that sees the valley of some ineffable dark flee and flicker. there is something that bubbles up, like a slow song. and he knows his body's actions before he ever performs them. he knows his body's movements before he ever commits to them. (and his arms fall. gently. at ready.)

and there is the sharp closing of proximity. there is something deep within that folds. that crumbles. breaks. there is something deep within him that overflows. that spills forth over banks of thought. that rivers through body. that speaks with no voice, but sings with the soft swell of strings. the encircling arms. the warmth and heat and life of him. the weight of his body against his own. (and his arms are holding him gently (close) before he might begin to know. before he might ever know. what sound his heart is making. what sound that shinji's heart is making. muddled into comprehending. any lack of any absoluteness. and yet -- )

he listens. he listens to his laughter. he listens to the way of his sobs. he listens to the way his arm fit around his neck. the way his mind and heart feels so weightless and warm. and he holds to it. gently. he cradles it, gently. he protects it with the curve of fingers and the plains of palms.

he loves him. ]

[He can never make himself ignore Shinji's posts - even though that background whine and the words are grating to his new bat-like ears - and he hates it. He knows by now that he can't bring the boy into his style of life - and if he can't do that, then there is absolutely nothing else he can do.

As he watches, he feels a stirring of a long-discarded something in his chest.]

... Are you feeling quite alright? Do you need help?

The virus gave me powers...can hear everyone's thoughts so don't come near me.

... Ah.

[That... is a compelling argument for him to just stop replying right away. Shelly values his privacy, especially when dealing with people who make him feel so... unlike himself.]

[ there is something sharp and bitter in her as she watches the video, a kind of trepidation that will always be there whenever minatsuki is uncertain of something. she can adapt. but she built her own prison and she lived in it because it was comfortable and familiar and she was in control. the uncertainty makes her feel small. she hates it.

but she will not flee from shinji, not with him so much smaller than her, not when he's hurting. even with the whine that makes her skin crawl in some strange way, the static, the words that jump out at her (she must be going crazy, right?) - even with the voice that screams in the back of her mind somewhere, THIS IS WRONG. knowing something is wrong. ]

Shinji?

[shinji can see himself standing at the base of reinforced walls and steel bars that make up minatsuki's mind. all that space for one person. he briefly wonders if she gets lonely.]

No, no, no, no, no, no--

[he doesn't want to do this.]

[ she doesn't know what's happening, but something throws her off. feels out of place. it's like she's seeing double for a moment, but worse than that, it feels like something is inside of her that shouldn't be. places that should never be reached or seen are being invaded. she can't shake it. she doesn't know what it is. but it has something to do with shinji. ]

Talk to me, you idiot. Shinji, what's going on?

Virus has me hear thoughts, everybody's. Can't stop it.

[he passes through her mental defenses as if they were water. it's a curious sensation. no such barriers had existed during instrumentality. all minds were open for they were the same mind. entering the inner sanctum of one's self in this manner was unexplored territory shinji once hoped he'd never face.]

[the rush of concern she normally feels at seeing her friends in distress; the urge to make it better]

Shinji-kun? Shinji-kun, can you hear me?

[loud and clear. he nods, too tired to speak.]

[relief]

Good. Good; do you need any help?

[a headshake] It's the virus. Don't know if I can get help.

I'll do what I can, even so. Is there anything you need? Food, water? Company... or to be left alone?

41. video backdated to the 25.

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( ANGEL SCIENCE?? )

( STAND BACK WE'RE TRYING ANGEL SCIENCE )

( /ROLLS UP SLEEVES AND TAKES OUT SOME FANCY SCIENCE EQUIPMENT )

( PREPARE THE FANCY ANGEL LAB. )

( FANCINESS AT 30% AND RISING )

( GRAB THE MONOCLES. WE NEED MAXIMUM FANCINESS. )

( YES MA'AM. THE MONOCLES AND TOP HATS HAVE BEEN ACQUIRED. )

( WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? PUT THEM ON KITTENS IMMEDIATELY. )

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