damned_institute | Night 45: Main Hallway, 1-West

Shinji glanced up and froze at the sound of another familiar voice in this place. It was even insulting him. He glanced over and let out a breath he hadn't been aware he'd been holding as Asuka's features solidified out of the gloom. He slowly released Kaworu's hand (with some reluctance) and took a hesitant step forward. This place wasn't playing tricks on him, was it? He wasn't hallucinating? He tried to find some meaningful words to say. Instead, all he managed to do was stammer.

"A-asuka? I... is that you? I-"

He took another step, staring in disbelief. She was supposed to be confined to a hospital bed, comatose. His voice was a hoarse whisper, "...you're OK. You're really OK."

Her blase glower cracked slightly, blue eyes bugging, before her lips pinched into slight disdain. "Of course I'm okay!" Her hands sat on her hips in her usual defensive posture, arms and legs akimbo as she ignored the white-haired kid. Her silence was the only answer he would get for his mistake in identity.

"One stupid angel isn't enough to keep me bed-ridden..." But with Shinji back in NERV, the second child was pretty sure she knew how the battle had ended. And she couldn't help but stick her finger in Shinji's face with all the fervor she could muster. "What are you doing here? Last time I saw you, your crap was packed up and you were taking the train home, quitter! I can't believe they let you back in, and for a second time!" Asuka was rather sorry she hadn't been there for his first pity-party performance. "Standards these days..."

Addison felt uncomfortable. Simply being ignored was enough to make him feel unwelcome in the conversation. For what was not the first time that night, he missed the supernatural calm that came along with his delusions. Now, he also missed the mindset and the ability to be in sync with these people. Sean had called her Asuka, which she had responded to, and Addison knew that she had been part of their stories as well. He remembered that he had supposedly come to replace her.

He pulled his his newly empty hand into a light fist, and then slid it back in his pocket. For a moment he just listened to Lorelei berate Sean for events Addison couldn't place. Should he stop her? Should he defend Sean?

"What is she talking about?" he asked Sean, making no effort to mask his confusion. "Did she come back after I," he hesitated, "left?"

Shinji wilted under Asuka's tirade and he took a defensive step back, eyes lowered as he tried to figure out a way to explain to Asuka (who apparently didn't remember) that she'd ended up in the hospital. he really didn't relish that idea, but he had to tell her. Didn't he? And then Kaworu added to the mix. He needed to say something. He shrugged helplessly and glanced at Kaworu, then back to Asuka, "B-but Asuka, that... that was weeks ago! I... don't... I didn't... I did come back, but..."

You're comatose.

"...you... you got hurt. You were in the hospital the last time I saw you."

He glanced at Kaworu again, almost wishing he would step in and help, "...t-this is Kaworu, Asuka."

Your replacement.

Asuka glanced back at this 'Kaworu' with frosty eyes before waving him off a second time. "Don't try and change the subject. How could I have been out for weeks?! The attack happened just yesterday! ... Or... well maybe... another day before that--but..." This was impossible. Weeks? Wouldn't she feel lethargic and weak after days of laying in bed? "Where is Misato? Shouldn't she have been informed I woke up from all my days of sleeping and briefed me? They put me with a crazed civilian, you know?" God, she was so outraged!

Where was a real NERV official when you needed them? She wasn't going to get straight answers from wonder boy here. Folding her arms across her chest, she looked past Shinji to the white-haired kid. What was his name again?

He knew these names and these terms, and he could remember what had happened. Or rather, what supposedly happened. It would be strange to play along, but if he didn't she'd continue to yell at Sean, who was beginning to fold in on himself. He stepped forward, interjecting himself between Sean and the angry girl, who was now looking at him.

He quickly went over the facts in his head. Who Misato Katsuragi was, what had happened to Asuka, why she had been comatose, why she didn't know him, why Sean was so shocked to see her. But of course she was on her feet. With no Angels, there was no breakdown, no coma, and no reason for her to have been replaced by Kaworu. Maybe she had simply moved. Addison couldn't remember.

"You aren't in a NERV facility," he told her calmly, and he smiled at her simply because it was what he did. "This is a mental institution. Katsuragi does not have access to you. Se- Shinji is not responsible for your location, or condition, so being angry with him serves no purpose."

After all of that, he thought it was best to add, "I am the Fifth Child." His eyes flickered back to Sean, wordlessly seeking approval.

Shinji shrunk back instinctively, hiding behind Kaworu. He felt miserable for it. He hated himself for not being able to stand up to her. He hated himself for not being able to tell the truth. Most of all, he hated himself for letting Kaworu fight his battles for him. But that was all tempered by the soothing feeling of relief that Kaworu had stepped in. He looked away from the both of them, eyes on the floor. All he could do was no in agreement with Kaworu.

"K-kaworu is right. This isn't NERV. They... they told me that everything I remember is made up and in my head. That... that Tokyo-3 and the Angels and everything else are just..."

He looked up, pained, "That they're just delusions..."

He flinched instinctively. This might be bad.

It was Asuka's turn to take a step back, and when she did, she regretted showing such a weakness. She suddenly felt trapped and hounded by these two boys who were practically living out her worst nightmare as if they plucked it word from for word from her brain. Too much so soon, and Asuka felt like falling.

This...

This just didn't happen.

She must still be dreaming, right?

"And you believe them?" Whoever 'they' was. Her eyes moved from Shinji to Kaworu, hoping they understood what they were saying. All three of them couldn't make up the same coherent story! "Why would humanity's last hopes be in a mental institution?" Unless they had been replaced. "We're not--Well, maybe you two are, but I am not insane!"

Whatever shock had crippled her, now built her back up behind a wall of aggression. "I'm not some poor soul stuck in a bed. I'm so much stronger!" I'm not like my mom! "You two can stay and wallow in this hallway, but I'm getting out of here!"

Asuka turned the way the she came and began to storm down the hallway, happy the darkness concealed the wetness that dared to well up in her eyes.

This was all just a mistake. This can't just happen. Someone from NERV would realize what they had done or what they had allowed to happen.

Addison automatically moved to follow Asuka, but he made sure to grab Sean's elbow before taking off. They couldn't be separated. Addison couldn't allow her to wander off on her own, and he couldn't leave Sean there. Although it was not real, although he had never seen anything dangerous. Not here, at least. Danger was usually nothing more than a looming threat and vague mentions on the bulletin board.

Still, he could remember the town being overrun by moving dead bodies that reached blindly towards him with dirty hands and teeth. Addison knew it wasn't real, but he still hadn't made any effort to protect himself in his memory. Thoughts of that night still made him feel cold inside. That was one constant between his changes in mindset.

"It isn't what you think," he told her, following at a much more relaxed pace. He hoped she wouldn't run. "We go to school together. I can remember all of it now, but I was once convinced of these stories. We imagined everything while seeking escape, but we only became trapped again. NERV does not exist, there are no Evangelion Units, humanity was never in danger."

He knew he was speaking to Sean as much as her.

Shinji allowed himself to be steered, although after a few steps, he hesitantly sped up, trying to catch up to Asuka. He couldn't just let her suffer like that, even if she was just going to curse his name for it. For a moment, he reconsidered, then he set himself and reached out for her. She couldn't just wander around by herself. Not after she'd shown up safe and whole.

"Asuka, I don't..."

He glanced over at Kaworu, trying to puzzle it out. He didn't want to offend him or hurt him, but... if Asuka remembered, it had to be real. Didn't it?

"I don't believe them... I think what we did was real. Please, listen, this place... it's really odd!"

Asuka whirled around sharply when Kaworu bit off his last comments. Her eyes were red with unshed tears, but her face was twisted into something dangerous.

Her whole reason for being was NERV and her Unit 002 and, with poorly chosen words, this boy had turn them into a children's fantasy. "Get away from me..." Each word was slowly ground out through clenched teeth.

She began to walk away again when Shinji grabbed her by the arm. The second child looked back at him. She absorbed his words and chewed them over before glancing around their prison. It couldn't end like this. It just couldn't. Something was wrong in all of this. A mistake, she kept telling herself. "No shit, Shinji..."

The second child looked back to the white-haired boy, happy to have pulled her friend away from him. "Looks like you're the odd man out..."

Addison had stopped as soon as Sean had hurried after the girl. He stood some ways away from them, staring at them expressionless. He breathed in and out, proof the he was alive, but her words hit him.

He was not one of them. He was different. An outsider. He remembered these feelings well, but they weren't his own. Or they were, but now they had become confused and twisted, weighed down by baggage he had never felt before. It was his knowledge that he was separate from everyone, but with the added desperate fear of this truth. He didn't want to be cut out, left behind, categorized. He didn't want to be alone.

But he was. He always had been. Why did it matter now? Why did it hurt now? Being alone, he had never been hurt. He had never even thought of loneliness, until he imagined going on without Sean. False memories pushed down on him.

Something twisted painfully inside him when he saw the girl with Sean. Categorizing him. Drawing that line. She was asserting that Sean belonged to her world. Her world was reality to him, and Addison couldn't find his way there anymore.

"I am," he muttered, taking an unsteady step backwards. He didn't understand. These faces were familiar, but they were only saying things to distance themselves. He didn't understand them, or himself, or what was happening to him.

Who was he?

Edited 2009-11-24 06:21 (UTC)

Shinji glanced nervously between Asuka and Kaworu for a moment before he finally turned to Kaworu, voice nervous and trembling, "Kaworu... Please. Try to remember. I think... I think this place is doing something to you. I remember Asuka, I remember you, but I... I don't remember Addison. I'm sorry, Kaworu..."

Saying those words actually hurt him. He didn't want to make Kaworu feel bad, he didn't want to make him hurt. He just wanted him to be here, to remember, to think. To be Kaworu again, even if Kaworu had hurt him before.He took a couple of faltering steps, "Please... Kaworu..."

He glanced back at Asuka and murmured, "...I'm... glad you're here, though."

"Well, someone has to save your ass..." Her gruff words didn't hold much heat though, too distracted by the atmosphere of this place. Her flashlight panned across the hallway and across a few unlucky patients who were caught in the line of fire.

It was a better pass-time than watching the bum chums wiggle back to each other. "So, what you said about the rules of this place...." The second child looked back at Kaworu. "Was that true?" It was a legitimate and pressing question on Asuka's priority list, but it also gave her an excuse to interrupt their moment together. She couldn't have this kid leading Shinji back to his side.

Addison's eyes stayed on Shinji. Try to remember he had said, but nothing seemed as real as being raised by his grandfather. Being taken out of school. Living alone, but being happy, until he met Sean. Shinji. He had changed everything. Addison willed himself to think Shinji when he looked at the other boy's face.

He just couldn't believe on his own. He reached for it and fought, but when Asuka spoke it all flew away and he felt lost again. He needed to be near Shinji. He felt more like that person Shinji wanted when it was just the two of them. Now he was just scared and nameless.

But Shinji had called him Kaworu. He wanted it to feel like his name more than it actually did.

"Yes," he answered finally, rubbing his eye distractedly. "This happens every night. The doors open, and things decay. We are allowed to wander, but without any purpose. There is no way home. But this is not supposed to be real." When he thought of home, one side of his brain provided a warm brick house he had grown up in. He had to search for thin memories of a laboratory occupied distant researchers, always watching him.

"Before today, I was who you remember. Everything you said, I believed. Then this morning, I became someone else. Now, I..." He took a deep, shuddering breath and looked at Shinji pleadingly. "Please, Shinji. I don't know who I am."

Shinji shuddered and eyed the walls. This place was wrong. The smiling nurses, the clean, neatness of it all, was just a facade. And for a moment, Shinji was horrified as he remembered how close he'd come to accepting that. Still, he would have time to reflect on that later. He looked at Kaworu, expression pained. He wasn't used to this. He didn't know what to say or what to do to help him.

This wasn't right. Kaworu wasn't supposed to need his help. Kaworu wasn't supposed to plead with Shinji about this sort of thing. He looked helplessly at Asuka, hoping for a bit of guidance, before he turned back to Kaworu, trying to figure out what to say. He took a deep breath and shrugged awkwardly, hands dangling at his sides, "...y-you're Kaworu. I think you are, anyway. I remember you. You..."

He squeezed his eyes shut again, "You're my friend."

"Well, as much as I enjoy watching this male bonding episode, I would like to get the heck out of here..." Asuka tapped her flashlight impatiently against the back of her thigh, leaning down the hallway to keep an eye on the rest of the loons. Or perhaps they were all here under the wrong impression. But Asuka wasn't the benefit of the doubt kind of girl really.

Addison was calmed somewhat, and slowly began to gravitate towards Shinji again. He tried to return to him in small, subtle steps, hoping that the other two teenagers would think nothing of it.

His head was spinning. Somehow, it still seemed as though there was too much forced into too small of a space. But if he focused on what little he did know, it had to be alright. He could mange. Addison avoided looking at either of them for a moment, but he heard Asuka's impatience to get moving. He wasn't sure he wanted her listening to whatever else he might have had to say to Shinji.

He glanced towards his friend, but only at his hands, before facing Asuka. "We can try to leave," he said, as he attempted to find that calm that must have still been inside of him somewhere. "The doors that lead to the outside will all be unlocked at night. There is a town some ways away, called Doyleton."

Shinji was brought back to the present, as much as he would've liked to continue to reflect on how horrible his life has been in the past and probably would continue to be. He shrugged, glancing up and down the hallway. He noticed Kaworu moving closer, but he didn't say anything - that would probably just be more trouble. He offered the other boy a shaky smile and then glanced back at Asuka, "...I'm not sure. We don't know where we are or how far we are... from anything. What if we get lost or something?"

Shinji didn't exactly like the idea of wondering around outside in a t-shirt, sweatpants and slippers, "...besides, we don't even have anything except our clothes and these flashlights."

The second child did her best not to beat on Shinji with the butt of her flashlight. She settled on narrowing her eyes and sighing instead. "Where is your sense of adventure? We know what's out there! Reality, and that's better than anything in here, right? Right!"

But Shinji, surprisingly, was right about one thing. Three kids wandering outside with smiley face T-shirts wasn't going to encourage anyone to help them. But the longer they stayed in here... The quicker they would be forgotten inside these sterile walls. "We're fighters. Man is an adaptable and creative creature. We'll be fiiine!" With a triumphant smile, she turned around and placed her hands back on her hips, looking down the hallway. "...... So! Let's go forth!" Ehhh, but which way?

"There are coats and boots in all of the rooms," Addison stated. Naturally, he looked at Shinji as the one who had voiced concerns about the cold. "It is almost winter now."

With each passing moment, he felt more relaxed. It was becoming easier to simply put his worries and confusion out of his head. He remembered these people. They were real, regardless of what he called them. That was all that was important. That was all. It had to be.

"After that, the front exit is there," he gestured down the hall, "and the way to the courtyard and the woods is up that hall past the cafeteria."

Shinji wasn't so sure about the whole setting forth thing. Then again, trying to persuade Asuka was likely to be about as productive as smashing his head into a brick wall for a few hours (although he still had to smile; she was here and she wasn't hurt). He sighed in resignation, preparing to follow her.

As Kaworu explained the directions, he glanced up and down the hall nervously, "...I don't know. I don't want to get caught outside if it's really that cold out there. Don't you think...?"

That was about as far as he was willing to go, really. At least Kaworu seemed a bit more at ease.

"Alright, alright! Well! If you two are so concerned, our rooms aren't far off." She stepped back in front of her fellow pilot...s (she wasn't sure if she believed in the plural yet).

"Let's get our coats and whatever else and meet back here in ten minutes! Any complaints?" Leaning over, she scoured them both with critical eyes, especially this Kaworu who wasn't completely whipped yet.

"That's acceptable," Addison said with a nod. He smiled at Asuka, thinly and with little of the confidence Shinji had likely come to expect. He doubted that he'd be able to keep up with a personality like hers, but Shinji was fond of her. He could tell. She made Addison a little anxious, he supposed. A stranger that knew Shinji, but whom Addison didn't. He cast his eyes over at his friend.

"Should we go then?" he asked Shinji, lightening slightly. "Our rooms are near to each other, aren't they?" He moved his hand as if to offer it to Shinji, but thought better of it and cut the gesture short by putting it in his pocket. The last minute change was not entirely convincing, but Addison tried to smile as if his intentions had always been to make use of his pockets.

He had memories of feeling like this around Shinji (or Sean, rather): shy, uncomfortable, and desperately picking apart every decision to try and get the most positive reaction possible from him. It just seemed so far away.

Shinji shot another worried glance at Kaworu. He wasn't acting at all like the boy he remembered from just a day or two ago. It was distrubing, to say the least, but he wouldn't comment. It wouldn't end well, of that he was certain. He simply shrugged, glancing downwards as he tried to avoid looking at Kaworu's aborted hand movements, fingers flexing.

"...yeah. That sounds like a good plan. That's fine with me."

He glanced at Asuka, "...are you OK going back to your room alone?"

Of course, that was probably a stupid question and he was probably going to get yelled at for it, but Shinji had had to ask. He didn't want to see her get hurt, after all (although what Shinji would do to prevent that, he wasn't quite sure).

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