'Lo, the massively revamped Meet Me at the End of the World chapter. I figured Asuka's dilemma would have been far too dry to account in full detail, so I took used the anime as a loophole. Sorry, Asuka. D:
Notably, we're going to be seeing a lot of Rei, though. I forecast this. 100% chance of Rei, following this chapter.
With that said:
Title: Meet Me at the End of the World
Series: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Pairing: Eventual Kaworu/Shinji.
Rating: R this chapter for disturbing imagery (ex: blood, et cetera) and general underlying details on a particular psychosis.
Genre: AU. Ikari Shinji, the last angel, cannot find it within himself to kill the Third Child, Nagisa Kaworu.
Chapter: 2/?
Notes: From here on out, the beginning is going to be reserved for random memories from one Ikari Shinji. I need to shed some light on the boy, after all. Also? Oh, lord. Instruments. ♥
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xx (child 005, age VII, memory.)
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I am not afraid of you.
He closes his eyes and listens. Sheets and blankets. Pulled up over his head. Stillness. His breathing unsteady and his body cocooned.
He has never felt like this. Wrapped in silence, outside his mother's voice. Like all humans secretly desire, there is no compulsion to return to walls of another's body. No longing to return to the womb.
You don't even act like you're human.
His mother is singing. He can hear pots and pans and the soft clang of metal on the edge of the stove. It is all music, here in this tiny room. On this small bed. With his knees pulled in close to his chest. It all music. The gentle rush of rain outside his window. Lulling him to sleep. Slow.
Do you even have a soul?
His mother had found him an hour ago. Out near the road. Crouched quiet and calm next to some animal. Dying on the side of the road. He hadn't asked questions. Hadn't made a sound. His expression serene. Open. His fingers sticky with spit and fur and drying clumps of blood.
And his mother had stared when he asked her, soft:
"Can you hear it?"
Shuddering inhales. Shuddering exhales. The slow twitch of its small paws. A rabbit. The pink inside of its thin ears rubbed raw. Nose marred. Against the gravel. Unnatural. And Shinji's small fingers on its spine. Almost touching, but not quite. Cars. And the press of birds on telephone wires, cooing. An unheard response.
Shinji's lips parting. A half-smile. The first one. The last one. Her hands roughly grabbing the curve of his tiny shoulders. Turning him to face her, expression blank and eyes wide. All the words she had wanted, gone in the wake of his fingers touching her pant leg. Smearing dirt and matted fur and gore.
You're disgusting.
Once caged somewhere behind her teeth. Passing her lips. Silence's bones, snapped. Like the rabbit. The blaring of horns. And the disgruntled flight of flocking birds. Screeching. Naked telephone wires. An audible hum.
What is wrong with you?!
Shinji relaxed in her grasp. His breathing uneven. The rabbit's last, startled exhale. Stolen. The deceptive face of a child. Flushed. Something sparking behind his eyes. Too blue.
His blood is blue. Blue, blue, blue. Does he even know warmth, then? Blue!
And he wheezed, his small frame curving in on itself. Panicked breaths.
"You made him this way. It isn't his fault." His mother's voice then. In the dark outside his room. The sixth month living in her home. A man's voice:
"No, you are a poor educator."
And his mother froze then, listening. Listening. Half-crazed. What am I supposed to be hearing? Shinji's body shivering in her arms. Breath falling rising falling rising fallingrisingfallingrising. He's hyperventilating--
A high pitched whine. Cicadas. And Shinji was too light and too heavy as she picked him up. Struggled inside. And urged him all the while:
"Breathe, Shinji-kun. Breathe. Breathe for me."
Rushed hands. Placing him down in the living room. Quick footsteps. A bag? Something. Anything. The whine getting shriller. Shriller. Shriller. And---
"I am perfectly capable of educating him." Hurt. Clean, sharp, bright.
The shifting of bodies. The light dancing on the far wall of his bedroom. Blocked and unblocked by work shoes. Gruff:
"...We will see at a later date, for now, your abilities to handle this boy are undecided." Pause. "Have a good evening." The closing of a door and something being thrown after it. Breaking. Glass.
When she came back with the bag--
He had passed out.
---
Shinji opened his eyes. Dark under blankets and sheets. Sleepy limbs in the midst of the warmth. And he could hear his mother by his bedroom door. Quiet. The soft sliding of the door. Light pooling on the floors. He could see it.
"I'm sorry, Shinji-kun." Stillness. He had no words for her. A moment more. "I had no right to say such an ugly thing." Stillness. A shaky sigh lost behind the closing of the door.
And Shinji heard the lows of violins in her retreat. The music of unfinished symphonies in her form. And the deep, rich sound of the oboe in her silence. Like the rabbit. Muted.
And Shinji had listened to it, until one morning he had woken up to find the rabbit's body gone, and his mother along with it.
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(end sequence)
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2.2
[NERV is a complex facility. Think of it like the human body. There are hundreds of arteries. Thousands of veins. Millions of capillaries. Countless manners in which you can and will get caught, should you become foolish.]
His SDAT felt heavy in his pocket. Ear buds wrapped hastily. And Nagisa's low murmurs in the dim halls like the beginning notes of a flickering song. Fuzzy and eerie and static.
But, he held himself effortlessly. There was no weight to his shoulders. His head held high. But, his eyes?
Shinji stole a look at him.
They're distant.
And as if Nagisa noted, he smiled. Simply. Easily. Slowly. His fingers curling and uncurling, as if capturing the sound of each word that rose from his throat. Snagging them and gluing them together with each movement to form his own symphony. A disjointed melody. Similar to earlier:
"You've nothing to lose, Shinji-kun. Take a walk with me. Misato will have to forgive you. Becoming familiar with the grounds now will be of much use later on." Pause. Nagisa's eyes level with his own. And he had thoughtlessly touched his shoulder then, and Shinji couldn't summon the strength to pull away. Nagisa knew it, intuitively. And he flexed his fingers. As if to hold him in place. "It is not as though she hasn't been peeved by me, before."
And somehow, he had failed to notice that Nagisa had stopped walking. That he was ten feet behind him as he turned around. The faint look of amusement upon his face barely discernible in the dark.
Shinji didn't move. But, then again, neither did Nagisa. And Shinji remembered the warning that was repeated to him. Over and over and over, again:
[The Third Child is very intelligent. He will see through you in an instant if you allow it.]
And suddenly Shinji regretted ever coming in the first place. Even though if he had said no, it would have been equally suspicious. It would have been --
Nagisa's words, a little closer. Five feet away.
"You remind me of her."
Shinji glanced off to his left. An empty room. The infirmary? And something in him shifted. Squirmed.
There is one Child who is on the verge of being useless. You will be taking her place as the pilot of Unit 02.
He wanted to ask who, but Nagisa was already speaking. His voice perfectly level. His words carelessly chosen. Blunt.
"Not of the one you've come to replace," A bit closer. Three feet. Shinji forced himself to meet Nagisa's inquisitive gaze. Discomforting. Nagisa offered a faint shrug of his shoulder. His pale skin nearly the color of ash. "Though, she can wake up whenever she wants to."
Quiet.
[The Second Child is unstable. We suspect she will be removed from her position post-haste.]
Shinji had nothing to say. (What was there, really? A grave situation already reported to him, said again with complete nonchalance.)
But, surprisingly, it was Shinji who cleared his throat. Who broke the uneven gaze. His eyes flickering down to Nagisa's shoes. (Black. Scuffed. He was mussed, a bit. And he hadn't noticed it.)
And for a moment, Shinji could have sworn he felt the awkwardness of his silence pressing like a weight against his shoulder, but it was Nagisa's voice that cleared the stillness for him, like the lazy drag of bows on strings.
"Misato told me to tell you will be part of the testing, tomorrow." He shifted his weight. Right foot to left foot. And when Shinji told himself to finally look up, Nagisa was attempting to tame the mess of his silvery hair with his hand. The other curiously flexed, as if --
Chords.
"You play an instrument?" The question had surfaced despite himself, and Shinji felt almost embarrassed when he realized he had so suddenly blurted it out.
But, Nagisa seemed unoffended. In fact, he made a pleased sound as he lowered his hands. Expression open with faint surprise and his seemingly characteristic amusement. As if he was thankful for the deviation. The distraction from such conversation,
"I do."
And for it, he stilled his hands. Allowed Shinji to note the callouses that had built up on his fingertips. Years and years of practice. (And Shinji had the urge to feel them, then. To wonder over how skin that looked so much like marble was not cold or smooth. And it was something in the way Nagisa spoke, that Shinji knew instinctively what instrument he possessed the ability to play.)
But, Shinji weighed the words on his tongue. Uncertain. It would be strange of me to state it. However, Nagisa was one step ahead of him. Two feet away, now. And when Shinji met his eyes once again, Nagisa's gaze was imploring. (Playful?) As if to say: Take a guess.
And Shinji, strangely, relented. The warm look that Nagisa gave him somehow a better reward than the low, affirmative noise he made when he queried:
"Violin?"
Correct.
(It didn't come as a shock to know it. Nagisa's laugh was an even hum. His movements were timed and precise. Everything about him, echoed the instrument of choice. The strange, light presence. The faint extension of his words, long after they had passed. The soft trill that seemed to seep through Shinji as he once, twice, three times while walking barely missed brushing his arm. His elbow. His hand.)
And the faint thrill that flickered over his skin when Nagisa after a moment, gave him one, searching look before starting to walk, again. His shoulder barely grazing his. His fingers curled invitingly. A silent suggestion, and the smile in his voice evident even through the dark:
"We should play together, sometime." His words laced with a faint note of satisfaction as Shinji trailed after him, content to let him lead. To read line of his shoulders. His body language. (Open, honest. Miraculously blunt.) "Cellos and violins do tend to mix."
[Do exercise caution around him.]
But Shinji found, somehow, the curve of Nagisa's lips made up for the shock.
(And despite his better judgment, Shinji would consider it.)
03.
When Nagisa Kaworu had not come home until well after 3AM, Katsuragi Misato could only guess where he had been.
Urgh, that boy. Constantly disobedient. For once, could I deal with someone more compliant?
Though, Katsuragi decided, the effect of her words were likely ruined by her fuzzy bathrobe as she caught the boy in the kitchen. (Seated at the kitchen table under the dim-orange glow of the ceiling light, flicking through one of her old magazines. Which was odd, by any stretch. What business did a boy have reading gossip of all things? It was unnerving.)
"I told you explicitly not to coax Ikari from his room," She settled her hands on her hips, but Nagisa made no move to look up. Instead, she was greeted with an indifferent hum. Still focused on reading something or other about a fashion faux pas, looking for all the world incredibly bemused. Katsuragi (only barely) resisted the urge the stomp over and rip the magazine out from under his nose. I have to be the adult. But, if it was one weakness she had, it was having her orders ignored.
A few moments passed, and her stare seemed to have absolutely no effect on the boy as he continued reading. Pausing to rest his chin against the heel of his palm. Covering a yawn. Lowering his eyelashes. (And something in Katsuragi was at least relieved to see him act sleepy. Act human.)
However, it was not herself that spoke, but rather Nagisa. Idly flipping the magazine shut. His eyes on the far wall for a moment, before turning to her (unsettling), his eyebrows raised:
"I apologize," He murmured, sounding completely unrepentant, "I just assumed it beneficial to show him the facility before an emergency."
And unspoken: (He's interesting.)
But, Katsuragi knew what he left unsaid. That same expression had shown up time and again. That same, childish look. The same look he had worn when first laying his eyes on PenPen, his Eva, NERV. That same damn look that made her feel disgusted. Made her question: How is it that someone use can use that same expression in the face of mankind's future, and when meeting another Child? Even a war-model penguin?
But, Katsuragi had no time left to question it, because Nagisa was already past her and half-way to his room when he added, like an afterthought:
"Good night, Misato."
And it was only with the sliding open and shut of his door and the sudden silence that allowed Katsuragi to wonder how the hell he had gotten passed her, denying for all it was worth that she wasn't always that distracted. Feeling somewhat disgruntled, she kicked one of the many empty beer cans, which rattled and skipped and bounced back from the table's leg to hit her ankle.
And over her cursing, as if on cue, she heard Nagisa laugh.
---
A/N: I'm one of those strange people that are able to relate people/sounds to color (as if this wasn't evident, by now). Lately, I have taken up an actual habit, as opposed to a natural inclination, of relating people to instruments. Classical music has done wonders for my brain, and is very lulling to those who rely on almost math-oriented beats to calm themselves down during a difficult period of their day. So, many thanks to Beethoven and Pachelabel for being geniuses.
Outside this? I can see Misato being irritated with Kaworu's ultimate indifference. I decided to stick with canon here and make Misato still shelter the Third Child. I also did it for my personal amusement. [x
vibe;: 
calm
calmmusic;: an die freude | beethoven
12 caged | cage a butterfly
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