Chapter One
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"Hey, fag."
Shinji swallowed hard, walking faster down the alley - a dark alley?! How on earth had he chosen to take /this/ path, a place so isolated, and alone -
-You wanted to. Easier this way. No blame. Not your fault.-
If he died tonight, no one would even hear him scream.
A hand grabbed him by the shoulder- he'd never heard the approach -slamming him hard against the wall...
"Hey fuckhead, you turn around when I'm talking to you..."
What to do? Pretend he knew no English, though he had become quite fluent over his many years in this foreign city? Offer his wallet, and try to confuse the man that way? Shinji could feel the hot breath on his face, the stink of alcohol, and saw the man's glowering stare from the corner of his eye. He knew then, /knew/ there was no getting out of this. Full grown, was slightly taller than the other man now, but still as skinny as he had been -
-Eva pilot. Give your life to the cause.-
- all the way back then, in Japan, before he'd come to find a new life. Of course, he'd always expected new problems would follow him...
The man shook him, nearly bringing Shinji off his feet with the effort.
"Too good to talk to me, you cocksucking sodomite?"
Shinji nearly smiled, the mix of such vulgar slang and very formal language bringing up a vague, husky laugh from the distant past, a pair of red-hazel eyes, mellowed from clinical coldness by a deep, loving warmth, always so amused, as if humanity in all its greatness and viciousness and anger was nothing but a trifle...
-why did you lie to me... you didn't /have/ to lie to me...-
-Kaworu-
The man shook him again, harder this time, and his head hit the back of the wall sharp enough to hurt, the sudden pain jolting him into action...
"No English... please, I speak no English..."
Shinji knew, as the fist came up even before he'd had a chance to reach for his wallet, that it wouldn't have mattered, whatever his action. He watched the knuckles approach with an abstract, detached curiosity, for a moment sure he'd come out of the bar knowing that this would happen...
Sound, flesh hitting flesh, and his own slight grunt. Jarring pain, the taste of metal. He would have fallen, had no need to appear brave, would have let the man walk away the victor... but the same arm that had shook him now held him aloft, as the man hit him again, and again, until he saw stars, and the world swam in light and dark patches before his eyes...
"I'll teach you... animals like you should be put out of their misery."
The hand still would not let him fall, and he felt a moment of sheer, instinctive panic, even before he realized he had caught a glimpse of something, flashing brightly in the man's hand...
He had been expecting the fist, but not the knife.
Shinji cried out, at the hot, sharp burst of pain, and this time he did fight back, struggling ineffectually to push the man's hands away. The strikes came fast, so fast that he couldn't even scream, try and pull some of the pain away from that central focus in his gut... two bursts, three, four, five... Finally the man let him fall, Shinji felt another, smaller burst of pain along his arm before he hit the ground... He tried to breathe, hand drifting down along his side, feeling a gushing warmth spill over his fingers, tried to remember whether-
-School lessons, but they never taught you. Never taught you why-
-Why father - why he-
-Kaworu-
-Why they hurt you why - so cold - why they lied-
-whether most people survived gut wounds or not, and all the complications that could arise from some-such horrible things... horrible horrible-
His legs kicked weakly against the pavement, like a dying rabbit, and he seemed to be breathing water now, instead of air, though he could see the glimmer on the nearest puddle, too distant for him to be lying in it...
-thirsty-
Did people who wanted to survive, who were going to survive get thirsty? He couldn't remember...
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Voices... high above... he tried to shrink away, succeeded in his mind, trying to pull the darkness around him, the man had brought friends, to make sure they finished him off...?
"So I was saying to him..."
The skid of tennis shoes on cinderblock. Silence.
"Jesus..."
"Holy /shit/... I-is he... still alive...?"
A touch, near his face, and his eyelids fluttered, he moved, though toward or away, even he couldn't tell anymore...
"Call an ambulance! Now!"
A strong hand took one of his bloody ones, as a sudden weight on his stomach, an attempt to slow the bleeding made him moan. The bare touch was warm, wonderful because it /was/ such a risk, in these still-halcyon days of AIDS, though Shinji was clean, as clean as anyone could hope to be...
He looked up, trying to focus through the darkness - the shine of dark eyes, darker skin - God it had taken him a long time to get used to that, here in this American city - and Shinji smiled weakly, at the matte of deep blue eye shadow over the man's lids, the slight press of artificial nails that had yet to be removed, laying smooth and soft against his palm...
Surprising, that it had taken him less time to get used to /that/, in this foreign city...
-hiding who you are finding safety being who you want to be-
-I know... I know what it's like, you don't have to be afraid of me-
"Hold on man, you're gonna be all right... An ambulance is coming... fucking gay bashers..."
He wanted to keep looking, but a sudden burst of pain, hot but surprisingly fuzzy, drained his strength... Shinji felt a burst of resentment, as his head fell to the side. Forgetting the lights, staining the sky a never-ending pale yellow, he wanted to see the stars... but could only see their pale reflection, in the cast of too-golden streetlight on pavement, shimmering in the small grottos of polluted water ever present on the city streets...
"Hey man... hey, you all right?"
The voice boomed close, and he roused from the sound, but the descent back into the still was almost immediate... he was drifting... it was very nice...
//Shinji...//
A whisper, nothing more... he blankly watched steam rise from a larger pool, further down the street, the cloud reaching up to caress the moon with stubby, claw like fingers, before being tossed into oblivion by the cold night wind...
//Shinji... I'm coming...//
"I can hear the sirens, kid... just hold on... it'll be all right."
The cold wind pulled, but the hot wind beckoned, and in the midst of the aching pain, he smiled...
//Shinji... will you wait for me?//
/Yes. Of course, yes.../
The smile grew, as the warm wind swirled around him, gently ruffling his hair, and the light, the /light/, that dusky, brilliant presence, always smiling...
//I'm coming Shinji... I'll be with you soon...//
Red-white, red-white, and the wind faded, the light faded into a flashing clamor high above, a too-loud shriek that filled his ears, like an EVA...
-not again, I don't want to do it again-
... but the feeling still whispered in the back of his mind, calming those fears, calming him...
"Kid! Stay with me! Don't go... not now, not now!"
He felt his hand go limp, his body relaxing completely against the cool concrete, and as sharper footsteps, louder voices approached, Shinji sank into darkness.