Chapter Text
Shinji was lying in bed next to Kaworu, comfortable but unable to fall asleep just yet. Unlike his snoring partner, the day’s earlier events were too fresh in his mind, too exciting to put on hold in favour of sleep.
Careful not to wake him, he caressed the back of Kaworu’s hand with his thumb, feeling the grooves and ridges of the heart-shaped blue topaz on his finger. Kaworu hadn’t requested anything expensive of him; he had simply told Shinji that he wanted something that was the same colour as his eyes. The shape had been Shinji’s choice — it seemed logical to him.
It had only taken Shinji a year and a half since moving in to finally build up the courage to propose. He had stammered and struggled to maintain eye contact as he stumbled over the words, but the patient smile on Kaworu’s face had helped him get through it.
“I-It wasn’t that I didn’t know for sure that I wanted to be with you before,” Shinji had said, trying to pretend like everyone walking past them at the park wasn’t staring at him down on one knee. “I was afraid of doing things too quickly and having something go wrong. But, um, I’m really sure about this now.”
Kaworu hadn’t said anything to interrupt Shinji’s train of thought; he hadn’t even released Shinji’s hands to wipe his own tears away. He had just stood there, smiling down at him, waiting for Shinji to reach his conclusion.
“I’m not afraid of anything anymore,” Shinji had promised, opening the box and showing Kaworu the ring housed inside.
Coming back to the present, Shinji ran his thumb over the much more tasteful diamond on his own ring finger, smiling at the memory of Kaworu presenting it to him. He had given enough time for the initial moment to settle, then revealed that he, too, had brought a ring with him, just in case. Shinji hadn’t been surprised to discover that he had been carrying it on him whenever they went out.
Before his mind could go spiralling with all the tasks involved with getting married, Shinji decided to turn his brain off as much as he could and drift off to slumber. He snuggled in closer, feeling comforted as Kaworu followed suit unconsciously, like a call being answered. Being close to people used to make Shinji claustrophobic, but he now found that Kaworu’s proximity made him feel balanced and content, making it easy for him to let his body relax. He felt the remaining tension in his muscles slip away, letting his eyelids grow weighty and soft as the warm embrace of sleep overtook him.
For the first time in a long time, he felt his mind clarify in a dreamscape. He worried for a moment that he was going to relive something disturbing, but as he felt the sand beneath his sockless feet, he realized that he was on a familiar beach. His eyes scanned the area, hearing the faint sounds of a train in the distance, though he knew there were no tracks nearby.
In addition to the fading hum of the train, he heard the melodic, somewhat unskilled humming of a boy a few feet away. Shinji turned and saw Kaworu, sitting on an oddly-shaped rock, looking off into the distance. It didn’t seem like he knew Shinji was there.
“Kaworu-kun,” he tried to call out to him, but no sound passed his lips. He lifted his hand, trying to catch his attention, but his bony wrist wouldn’t move fast enough. Kaworu wasn’t looking in his direction, anyway.
As he took a step towards him, the scene changed. The sand under his toes hardened, turning to cracked pavement. The buildings sprouting up around him were ruined, shredded by the destruction he had partially wrought.The sound of piano music played in the distance; the same song the last Kaworu had been humming.
Shinji followed the sound, trying to focus on it, but being distracted by a soft mewling at his feet. He turned behind him, seeing a small white kitten following him. He picked it up — he couldn’t take care of it, but he couldn’t stand to let it suffer.
Finally, he found the music’s source. He was unsurprised to find Kaworu, eyes closed peacefully, stroking the keys. Shinji almost didn’t want to disturb him. What was the point of getting closer, only to push him away?
He couldn’t resist the temptation to go in. He hoped the sound of his footsteps would make Kaworu look up, piercing him with his eyes. He wanted Kaworu to notice him, even if it was only for now.
As he went to step up to the elevated concrete, though, the scene changed again. And again, and again, and again, shifting from place to place, not making any progress. He went through countless scenes, some very similar to the others and some very different, with the only constant being Kaworu’s presence alongside his own. Each time, as he went to approach Kaworu, he slipped away from him, only to get tantalizingly close to another. It was endless. He wanted, desperately, to be seen!
Finally, he arrived at the rusty, corroded ruins of Nerv, feeling the weight of the choker suddenly around his neck. He had to have been reaching the end of this dream.
The sound of the piano was back, but this time, it echoed through the spacious area, reverberating off what little wall remained around them. He looked down from the walkway, nearly stumbling. He was caught by an invisible force, cradling him in its intangible arms as he was lowered to the ground.
He shut his eyes, hoping to see Kaworu’s face when he landed, but he felt the air around him shift once more. What would be next?
His feet hit the floor, and he found himself in the lecture hall, the place where they had met again. Even though he knew it wasn’t truly their first meeting place, it felt good to be where they had met under so little pressure; there had been nothing weighing on Shinji’s mind back then aside from the typical stresses of university life. It was a relief to end up here after revisiting all those places from his past, so heavy and laden with trauma, as pleasant of a reprieve as they may have been at the time.
He was standing in the back of the room, and he understood that he was to take his seat, but he couldn’t quite see where to go. The lights in the room were dimmed as dust swam through the glow of the projector, casting an imageless light on the screen down where Misato should have been standing. It took a moment for Shinji’s eyes to adjust to what was before him.
He had thought the room was empty, but it was full, although the students were not the classmates he may have vaguely recognized. Every seat, save for two, was occupied by a younger version of himself, each looking over their shoulder at him. Shinji’s eyes darted between them, petrified for a moment, until the projector’s beam suddenly swung around and honed in on the only empty seat in the room.
The edge of the light caught the person next to it in its halo, causing the ends of his hair to glint. It was Kaworu; of course it was. And, of course, he was the only one in the room not looking at Shinji.
“Look at me,” he said, voice coming out faintly despite having the power of a shout behind it. “Turn around and look at me!”
“Go to him,” one of the Shinjis said.
“Go on,” another said. “You know him, right?”
“Of course I know him,” Shinji said. “Why won’t he turn around? Why won’t he look at me?”
“He’s always looking for you,” a deeper voice said from behind him. “It’s your turn to find him.”
He felt hands on his shoulders. Looking behind himself, he saw an older man, but his eyes wouldn’t let themselves focus to see him clearly. Shinji couldn’t tell if he was really there or not. He wanted to ask who he was, but as much as he didn’t want to know, he also already understood. His instinct told him that even if he did ask, he wouldn’t get an answer.
“What are you waiting for?” The old man said. “Go to him.”
He nudged him, making him take a step down the stairs. Shinji winced, expecting the scene to dissolve around him again, but it stayed firmly put. The room brightened as his shaky foot took another step.
Kaworu looked over his shoulder; all the dust in the glow froze in place next to him. His sanguine gaze cut through the sea of Shinjis to make eye contact with the one dreaming. He smiled.
Shinji woke up, then, once again feeling the comforting weight of Kaworu’s arm across his middle. He looked over at him, barely able to make out the features of his face in the low lighting provided by the moonlit sky through the window.
He listened to him snore for a few minutes, refreshed by how imperfect he was. He felt remorseful that the other Shinjis never got to see him like this, but he corrected himself soon after — there weren’t any other Shinjis, really; just one Shinji with a lot of memories. He knew they were able to see this, now, because they were all here within him. More than that, they were him. He was each and every one of them. And this Kaworu in front of him was every Kaworu he had just seen.
He traced the curves and edges of Kaworu’s face with his index finger, gentle enough to not disturb him. He had always been beautiful, but there was something different about seeing him like this, with laugh lines around his eyes and a faint smattering of stubble on his chin.
Without warning, his body started to tremble with emotion as he understood that he was able to grow old with him, now; there would be no unconquerable obstacles preventing them from living peacefully. He looked at the ring on his own finger again and barely stifled the noise as he buried his face in Kaworu’s shoulder and let his tears flow.
At the sound of Shinji’s whimpers, Kaworu mumbled as he awoke, blinking his eyes open until they focused on the top of Shinji’s quivering head.
“Shinji-kun? Are you okay?”
Shinji climbed up from the little secluded alcove of Kaworu’s neck, nodding as he tried to steady his breathing. Kaworu sat up, becoming more alert to be of better comfort.
“Did you have a bad dream?” He asked as his hand rubbed soothing circles into Shinji’s back.
As Shinji looked into Kaworu’s wide eyes, he was grateful to see him worrying over something so simple. This was something they could easily get past. In the morning, it would be like nothing had been wrong in the first place.
“N-No, it wasn’t bad,” he assured him, although his still-erratic breaths contradicted him. “For once, it was nice.”
“It was nice?” Kaworu asked, unconvinced, as he wiped Shinji’s tears away with his thumb.
Shinji nodded, sniffling back the wetness in his nose. “Y-Yeah.” He swallowed, then continued despite the tremor he could feel in his voice. “Um, I-I’m just happy that I found you again. I’m happy that you’re here with me.”
Kaworu smiled in what seemed like understanding. “Ah, I see. It’s nice when the memories make you appreciate the present for reasons other than fear, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, that’s what it felt like. It made me realize that we’re gonna be okay. And I don’t just mean that we’ll be okay because we’re not in danger, or anything… I mean that we’ll be okay, because who matter what we do, we’ll be together. Even if we make mistakes, we’ll still be together. We’ll be together as long as we want to be.”
Kaworu pulled him in close, then, pressing their cheeks together and accepting Shinji’s obtuse optimism as fact for now. They were so still and the room was so silent that they could each discern the other’s heartbeat so clearly. Shinji knew that they wouldn’t beat forever, but that didn’t scare him, because they would beat with more purpose than either had ever done before. Rather than fearing the hands of time, Shinji was excited at what gifts they would bring him. He was excited to not only see the future, but to have one, and for it to be all his own.
As they fell asleep in each other’s arms once more, Shinji awaited the rays of dawn to cast their heat on his skin, knowing for sure that they would come.