Chapter Text
Tick tock. Tick tock.
Waking up has never been more painful.
Deep breaths, trying to calm himself.
And redo.
*
After the tenth cycle, Kaworu begins to wonder why. After the fiftieth, he thinks what is the point. After the hundredth, his past selves begin to blur into each other, and he wakes up each morning a little less certain than the previous.
This futility, this pointlessness, this ever repeating cycle – he finds no meaning, nothing gained, only his love remaining constant.
And the wind down of the clock until his time is up.
In This World And The Next, or Moments That Repeat.
Why.
Why.
Kaworu wants to rail at the stars, wants to know what keeps sending him back, forcing him to start again. And again. And again. He never finds an answer. In this world, or the next. There is only the faint, sinking sensation of disappointment. Failure.
Why am I doing this? What was I sent to achieve?
This time, he is born in a glass womb of LCL. The doctors of SEELE wait nervously; and why would they not? A monster floats before them, a monster that can never die, can never cease. He opens his eyes curiously, even as the sight before him registers familiarly in his mind.
He knows this beginning. He remembers the sucking feeling of LCL draining away, he remembers being brought outside, wetly naked, he remembers the questions: Tabris. Do you know why you are here?
So. What is different?
Kaworu plays a game with himself now, every time he returns. It is the source of his secret smiles and soft laughs, to look into the world as if through a distorted lens or a freakish mirror, and play spot the difference.
He allows himself to be moved, hot water rinsing away orange liquid. It’s strange, but – no matter how many times he comes back, Kaworu never fails to appreciate the small things. Hot showers and baths, warming the body and the soul. Music, Lilim’s finest achievement. Even a breath of fresh air, whipping at his clothes and hair. It is the one comfort that keeps him whole, stops him from unravelling into a stream of Kaworus, never ending Tabrises.
The day he stops appreciating blue sky and blue stars and blue smiles, Kaworu thinks, will be the day that he loses himself.
There is something familiar about this cycle. Kaworu feels something strange, instinctual. He is reminded of a time when a hand held him in its grasp, when he looked into inhuman, armoured eyes, and smiled.
A sudden bout of dizziness overtakes him. Kaworu stumbles, a lance of brief agony up his shoulder as he collides with the wall. In a flash, doctors are surrounding him, helping him up, babbling at each other over his head, but far away, far, far away.
That past is like a blow against his head. Kaworu struggles to his feet, shaking off concerned, grabby hands, lowering his head and launching into a fast stride.
No. That is one timeline that he will not repeat. He cannot, because he...
Divergence is what separates his realities.
A split, a pebble creating ripples in the water. That is what makes every life he lives unique.
Coming into the world earlier. Not having the foresight to understand.
Adam and Lilith never being born. No Angels, hence he was an anomaly. He couldn’t live.
Coming into the world later. Finding his love too late.
And Kaworu remembers.
More important than hot showers and baths, more important than music, more important than air.
A boy with dark hair and darker eyes, but not because of their colour. Kaworu is convinced that Ikari Shinji is the reason he returns every time, but for what reason he doesn’t know. All he understands is the gnawing in the pit of his stomach, the anxiousness, the butterflies before he meets the other boy, the helpless knowledge that he must do something – but what? – before the clock winds down.
And Kaworu doesn’t know what he is meant to do, but he tries anyway, aching behind his eyes every time he dies but putting on a brave smile for Shinji’s sake.
He is doomed. A helpless Angel who doesn’t know anything.
*
Kaworu is sent to New Tokyo-3 almost immediately. It’s expected, and he goes without a word of complaint, smiling his vague smile, letting discomfort stir through the minds of his keepers.
One thought only reverberates through his mind during the plane trip, and it is the only thought that matters.
I am going to see him again.
I am going to see him again.
Elation.
*
Kaworu thinks that, if he hadn’t been an Angel, then Shinji would have seemed to him to be one. Alone on the beach, a breeze stirring lazily at his hair, Shinji sits, unaware of the world around him. Clouds hang over him and Kaworu so desperately wants to reach out, comfort him in some way.
Funny, isn’t it, how some things can change beyond recognition, yet Kaworu can’t stop the slight quickening of his pulse, the light-headedness as he lays eyes on a boy who doesn’t know him. Yet.
He hops up onto a rock, knowing that can’t let Shinji continue thinking his dark thoughts for much longer.
Because Shinji is delicate, always is and has been, in This World and the Next, and if there is one thing Kaworu can do, it is drain the poison from him, place the shards of fractured glass together again, and love him when Shinji doesn’t have the strength to love himself.
Kaworu hums, old tunes coming back to him easily. Beethoven’s ninth, the melody rising past him like a soaring cloud. Shinji starts, head buried between legs rising sharply. Dark rings circle his eyes, eyes which are slightly rimmed with red. Kaworu wants nothing to do but swoop down and whisper sweet nothings into his ear, brush away fear and sadness and bring him happiness.
He does none of these things, and instead smiles down at Shinji. “Music is great,” he says, times and times of saying the words muddling them in his head. “Don’t you think so? Music is Lilim’s finest achievement.”
Shinji blinks up owlishly at him, confusion apparent, yet somehow sensing the warmth behind Kaworu’s words. “I suppose,” he says, soft, hesitating. Kaworu wants to draw him out of his shell.
He jumps down, landing cat-like on his feet. Shinji watches him with hawk eyes.
“Do you play an instrument?” Kaworu asks, biting off the Shinji-kun before he accidentally spits it out.
“Yes, cello.” Shinji looks out to sea, gaze distant. “I played – played – cello.” There are so many things left unsaid in that gaze, and Kaworu doesn’t know the entire story. It worries him.
So he sits down beside Shinji, white shoes scuffling in grainy sand. “I play piano,” he says lightly, smiling with his eyes. “We should play together sometime.”
Shinji squints at him, uncertainty in his expression. “I…um…” he stammers, and against the sand the fingers of his right hand twist agitatedly. “Who…who are you?”
“Kaworu. Nagisa Kaworu. I am the Fifth Child.” This is familiar. This never changes.
There is a hint of surprise, but it is gone a second later, accepted. “Thank you, Nagisa-san,” Shinji murmurs quietly. “I’d like to do that sometime.”
Then, after a moment: “I’m Shinji, by the way, Ikari Shinji.”
Laughing, Kaworu says, “I know, Ikari Shinji-kun. Call me Kaworu.”
“Only if you call me Shinji.” A slight lowering of the head. A barely noticeable blush. Warmth, spreading wildly in his chest.
*
Kaworu tries to recall snippets of past memory, through the blur of hundreds of Worlds and times gone by, by. In a world similar to this one, he tries to recall what he did wrong, how he can atone for his sin, and how he can change things.
Dismay. Horror. Free will. Love. A hand tightly embracing his body, shaking, squeezing.
He slams a balled fist into the ground, shaking.
He is the Angel of free will, so why can’t he do this one thing?
*
Kaworu is tired and angry and confused and running late the next day, so when it is time for the synch tests he purposefully lowers his synch rate, plunging past Shinji, just because he can. The technicians rewrite the Eva’s core for him, and he sits back, tightly controlled, gazing into the monitors around him.
Shinji’s face is pinched, a sickly pale cast to it that fills Kaworu with a foreboding sense of dread. He looks dead tired, and his brow is furrowed in a way that looks permanent. His breathing is shallow, and unconsciously Kaworu breathes for him, chest constricting tightly in sympathetic hurt.
He is the first one out of his plug, almost hopping from foot to foot in his impatience. Ayanami Rei exits second, and after a pause Shinji staggers down, slinking away quietly and without a backwards glance. Kaworu feels his throat tightening, and when he looks at Ayanami she stares after him too, a strange expression in her eyes.
“Ayanami Rei,” he calls softly, because it feels right. “We are the same.”
“No,” she replies. “We are not.”
Kaworu can’t shake off the feeling that something is wrong, hideously wrong and he doesn’t know what it is but it sits heavy in his stomach and he feels sick just thinking about it. Something tells him that something has happened, something that has never happened before. Something is wrong.
There are things that Kaworu can sense, a strange gift of his condition, if that is what it is. But he doesn’t need to be an Angel to register grim faces, stiff postures, forced smiles. The tension is hot butter, and he fears that he is to be the knife to cut it.
With Ayanami detached and unresponsive, and Shinji nowhere to be seen, Kaworu approaches the Major.
“What is wrong?” he breathes, and his stomach twists as Katsuragi looks up at him, death in her eyes. They are in a cold corridor, and Kaworu can feel the chill seeping into his bones.
“See for yourself,” she says lowly, and points down the corridor with a shaking hand.
He never thought he would succumb to a human emotion such as fear, not in This World or the Next.
But his breaths quicken, his strides become longer, and when he throws open the door –
Feet. Pale, dull flesh.
Curled in a rictus, centimetres off the ground. A wooden chair tilted to the side, sprawled to hard tiles.
Red hair already losing its lustre.
Kaworu can’t speak, can’t move.
Never, never, never, never!
Never, in any timeline, has he ever seen Soryu Asuka Langley die. He has seen her alive. He has seen her comatose. But never dead.
Kaworu’s thoughts race.
...Shinji!
He squeezes his eyes shut, pained. Shinji is already broken in so many ways, already hurting more than a mortal should. It’s – not – fair. It’s not.
Kaworu tears himself away from the sickening sight and flees down the hallway.
*
He finds Shinji curled up in the changing rooms, still as stone but wide awake, white fingers clutching painfully at his knees. Kaworu kneels down and pulls at them. Shinji flinches, but tension ebbs away as Kaworu lays his palms over his knuckles, soothing brushes of his thumbs leaving warm imprints on Shinji’s skin.
He’s still rigid though, and Kaworu swallows quietly. “Stay at my apartment tonight,” he says, suddenly assailed by past memories. Tufts of black hair sticking up over blankets, a thrown magazine. He shakes them away, just in time to see the barely noticeable nod.
*
“Come on, it’s time for dinner.”
Silence.
“Shinji-kun, you have to eat.”
“Not hungry.”
Kaworu takes in the sight before him. Shinji’s clothes are rumpled, his hair messy, his skin pasty white and his eyes sunken into black. He looks so tired that he might drop to the ground at any second, but more than that...Kaworu sees thinness.
Not Shinji’s natural slenderness. Has he been eating? Kaworu guides him to the dinner table and sits him down, pushing a plate in front of him. His cooking isn’t wonderful – he could never match Shinji, no matter how hard he tried – but it is passable, at least.
“I will not leave until you eat something.”
Shinji stares sullenly at the chopsticks.
“Please?”
The word sighs from his throat, almost cracking. Shinji finally – finally! – raises his head, looking a little startled. “Why do you care?” he whispers, and his eyes dart away again.
“Because you deserve my empathy,” Kaworu says readily. The words are well used, but no less sincere than the first time he spoke them.
Shinji says nothing, only the hint of red on his cheeks bringing hope to Kaworu. He presses on. “You are delicate, like glass. Your heart is so fragile. You are afraid to make connections, for fear of hurting your heart.”
He pauses, smiles wistfully. “But that is worth earning my regard.”
“Regard?”
Kaworu picks up Shinji’s chopsticks, his bowl, and raises them to the other boy’s mouth. “In other words, I love you,” he says softly.
Shinji opens his mouth. Small victories, Kaworu thinks, and delivers the rice.
*
Later, they retire for the night. Kaworu’s bed is big enough for the two of them, and he ushers Shinji in, underneath the blankets.
He can tell Shinji isn’t sleeping, or even making an attempt at sleeping. His breaths are uneven and fast, and he holds himself rigidly.
With a sigh, Kaworu rolls over, onto the edge of Shinji’s pillow. The arch of his nose presses against Shinji’s shoulder. “Not going to sleep?” he murmurs.
He almost expects Shinji to tense up at the proximity, but all he feels is a shrug of the shoulders, slight enough not to jab at his face. “I can’t sleep.”
Kaworu sits up. “Can’t sleep or won’t sleep?” he asks neutrally.
This, Shinji tenses at, one shoulder coming up defensively. “I don’t want to dream,” he mutters, and Kaworu feels his heart ache in empathy.
“Your spirit is safe,” Kaworu says, the only thing he can think of. “I will guard you while you sleep.”
Shinji smiles but scoffs, his expression a grimace. Kaworu thinks it’s the scoff of world-weariness.
They are silent for a few moments, just listening to each other’s breathing. Kaworu settles back down. Then, Shinji speaks again, out loud yet almost to himself.
“Touji. Rei. Asuka.”
Kaworu shifts his head, strands of hair against Shinji’s bare arm, to show that he is listening.
Shinji closes his eyes. “I killed Touji. I couldn’t save Rei. I might as well as killed her. I couldn’t save Asuka.”
“It is not your fault.”
It’s the wrong thing to say, because suddenly Shinji is sitting up, the sheets flung off, anger in his eyes. “Is it? Isn’t it?” he hisses, the words loud and harsh. “I can’t sleep. Do you know why? I already see Touji. I already see Rei.”
He twists away, a hand pressing against his eyes. Kaworu feels an answering hotness in his own.
“I’m – I’m so afraid to dream.” A choked, rattling gasp. Through the slits of light through the window, Kaworu sees glimmers of tears. “I – I promised Touji that everything would be okay. I promised him. Then I killed him!”
Shinji’s fists are tightly clenched. “I was making friends with Rei. I was – we were friends. But I – I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t protect her. She protected me.”
Kaworu rises, tries to speak, but Shinji merely turns to him and pushes him down, roughly. His eyes are wide. “So tell me. How can I live, knowing that I’ve killed the people I care about? How can I live with this guilt? How can I be so fucking useless, how could I let everyone die?”
He seizes Kaworu by the shoulders, fingers digging in painfully. “Tell me, Kaworu!”
Kaworu can’t say anything, doesn’t know any words of comfort for this broken boy. He realises, suddenly, that poison cannot be drained without a cure. Broken pieces of glass can never be whole again, and his love will mean nothing if Shinji can’t love himself. No words of comfort. He can only raise his arms, wrap fingers around too-thin wrists, begging.
Shinji swallows thickly, sitting back again. “I thought so,” he whispers, and lets go.
He closes his eyes, sinking back against the headboard, and tilts his head upwards.
“Kill me, Kaworu,” Shinji says softly, hoarsely. “I want to die.”