onemind: (Default)
THE N E S T ([personal profile] onemind) wrote in [community profile] station722017-05-07 07:56 am

[hatch log] everything happens so much

CHARACTERS: New Hosts & EVERYONE
WHERE: The Station
WHEN: DAY :039
SUMMARY: New faces and old losses - a hatch occurs and a number of older hosts go comatose. Coma'd hosts include all auto-piloted dropped characters to date.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. Need a warning added? PM this account please!








NEW HATCHES

YOU WAKE UP and suddenly you're a different person. No. That's not right. You're you and there's no suddenly about it. It's been a while, hasn't it? It feels like waking up from a very deep, extended sleep or like surfacing up from the darkness of the ocean and right there in your own head there's something both familiar and strange. You know intuitively that you've been unconscious for more than just a blink of the eye. While it’s impossible to tell exactly how long ago or how exactly you escaped the danger that had been breathing down your neck, you're certain it was more than a moment ago.

But here you are, a small miracle of the multiverse: lying in a small faintly hexagonal chamber, a gentle white light emanating from the surrounding walls. If you were injured during your escape, those injuries have been healed. If you were anxious or frightened or distraught, those feelings have been briefly calmed. There's something strangely peaceful about waking up here. That feeling persists even as you find the tube running from the base of your neck to the compartment's rear wall.

But once the tube's disconnected? Things get loud. A wave of emotion fills that peaceful void - fear, uncertainty, relief, a sense of purpose or loneliness or anxiety. Maybe some of these emotions are yours, but they can't all be. After the initial sensory overload, the mental buzz elongates: stretches out into a murmur like the sound of a party happening behind a closed door.

You can sit up - barely -, and shift out of the pod. There’s a ladder at your feet and a little cubby just before it with anything you brought with you as well as a set of crisp, loose-fitting white clothes; while your injuries are healed, whatever you’re wearing is in the exact state it was before. Maybe it's time for a change? Drop down the ladder to the floor of the Nesting Deck and you’ll find you’re not alone. The closer you are to these stranger, the louder the sound in your head becomes. --Actually they're not quite strangers either, are they? Something is wound about and between you and these people, whoever they are, are as familiar as this place you've never been is.

Welcome to Station 72. The air buzzes with activity. Somewhere deep in the Station, other minds call to yours. They are bright, brilliantly celebratory spots in your subconscious. They are sun-warm gentle, or they are fire and the taste of ash, or they are a vibrant frenetic whirl, or they are a tangled garden, or they are the feeling of flight through dense cirrus clouds. No two links are exactly the same, but you know for certain that you are connected to all of them in at least some small way.

Which is why it's easy to tell when something goes terribly wrong:



OLD HOSTS

THE ENDORPHIN RUSH of making it back to Station 72 (relatively) unharmed, having successfully acquired exactly what you'd set out to get your hands on can't be denied. Even if you're not necessarily the type to celebrate, there's no ignoring the thrumming celebratory sensation from those Hosts who are.

After a few hours of being back in the void, something else stirs in the air: the clear, prickling sensation of new hosts hatching on the Nesting Deck. They're a rush of mental information - as if someone's turned the volume on the radio all the way up -, a cacophony of sensation and emotional feedback for anyone unprepared to shield against it.

The swell of feeling might make it easy to miss what follows immediately after: the dull, gut-deep quiet as The Darkling, Chuuya Nakahara, and Nasu Rei go suddenly comatose.






((OOC Notes: This is the hatch log for all new hosts. Feel free to make your own logs and posts additional to this if you care do. You can find a more detailed overview of the hatching process HERE. You can find additional setting information about the Station HERE If you have any questions, please hit up either the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages!))






wille: (* charge)

[personal profile] wille 2017-05-09 02:29 pm (UTC)(link)
[ She lets go of Asuka's shoulder without protest, fingers curling into fists as she forces herself to swallow each revelation sent her way. Accept the facts and act according to them, wasn't that what she said? Denial has no place in her plans. The truth she seeks can't possibly be contained in a stack of files, when words can't explain what has never been experienced, and so here it is: the dissolution of souls, the roar of discontent in everyone's hearts laid to bare. You make me sick. Don't abandon me. I don't want you. Don't leave me. I hate you. Don't ignore me.

Misato doesn't deign to hide her tears when they overflow or hide the grief and the weight of guilt allocated to the one who survives. Her, again. So Shinji lives. That is enough for her to betray relief. But what about Ritsuko? And Hyuga and Ibuki. Pen Pen? What of all the innocents of the world who had no hand in this?

And you want to know what he did to me? It's enough to turn every muscle in her body tense, bracing for the worst injury yet. The truth is, Misato knows what the boy is capable of, when his darkness mirrors her own, and there lies the fear. The only warning to the oncoming assault is the sharpest inhale, before Misato rushes in with nothing but rage in her eyes. She reaches to grasp Asuka by the collar, as forcefully as one might grab a lifeless rag doll, and by then her hand is poised to strike the girl across the face. This is no warning shot. She strikes to wound, to bruise, to leave a hurt that lasts. Violence is so often used to silence the truth.

Stop it. Stop it, because you're not saying what I want to hear. ]
redheadcarrier: (I feel sick.)

cw: sexual assault

[personal profile] redheadcarrier 2017-05-09 03:43 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Misato's movement is sharp and sudden and the slap comes from her blind side. Asuka's not quite expecting it and her whole head turns with the force of the blow, snapping around as pain blossoms through her cheek. There's going to be a bruise there for a few days. A throbbing ache to remind her that she should never expect anything from Misato Katsuragi but quiet contempt and cold indifference. But at least in this moment Asuka has her attention and her anger and that gives her a cold sense of satisfaction. Asuka hangs there for a moment, feet dragging against the floor as Misato holds her by the collar.

Then her face turns back toward her, cheek already starting to darken. She can feel swelling under the empty eye socket and she fixes Misato with an accusatory stare as one hand comes up to grab at her wrist.
]

What's wrong? You don't like that I'm not going to be a blow-up doll for your precious Shin-chan anymore?

[ Her face twists from cold anger into something hurt and raw and wounded. ]

Maybe I should've just stayed in that hospital bed, right? Let him use me as his jerk-off material every day? That would've made you happy, right? Maybe you would've even helped. Because nothing else matters if Shinji is happy.

[ Her fingernails dig into Misato's wrist. ]

Let go of me.
Edited 2017-05-09 15:43 (UTC)
wille: (* liar)

[personal profile] wille 2017-05-09 04:24 pm (UTC)(link)
[ The moment the slap connects, a bitterness rises in the back of her throat, something like bile, like reproach. She has to swallow it back to meet Asuka's eye with contempt enough to match. Her hatred is misplaced, this she knows. She despises the girl for being the bearer of bad news, for telling her what she doesn't want to hear, for failing to fit into the mold she has prepared for her. Unlike Shinji, who fell right into the slot. How convenient, as convenient as it is for her to find an object to hate.

The girl's next words might as well have been said in a foreign language, with how intent Misato is on disregarding them, up until the very last. Let go of me.

She knows to shove the girl back and down, a firm palm against her sternum while her captive hand jerks back to release herself from the grip on her wrist. So Asuka's fingernails may have left red marks against her skin, but those will fade within minutes. A buzzing mosquito, a nuisance at worst, and hers is the palm that swats it dead. This was never an even match.

There may be tears in her eyes, staining her cheeks, but she has always been generous with those. Don't be fooled. There's a tremor in her hands, held tight in fists, but her voice steady, and it is utterly cold. ]


Stop saying things just to make others feel sorry for you.
redheadcarrier: (Slap)

[personal profile] redheadcarrier 2017-05-09 04:49 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Asuka stumbles back with the force of the shove and then rights herself, anger buzzing in her head, threatening to overwhelm everything else. It's not connecting and she feels a sense of disappointment that she's not seeing more of a reaction from Misato. This has never been fair. This has never even been a relationship. Misato took one look at her and shoved her aside to shower her attention on Shinji. Well, this is what she gets. Asuka straightens herself, anger starting to boil over and she launches herself forward, her own hand coming up and around in a vicious, open-handed slap. Tit-for-tat. And because she wants to knock that self-righteous look right off of Misato's face. ]

Shut up.

[ Her voice is low, not the higher shriek that she tends to get into when she's uncontrolled. ]

I'm not the one who kept trying to run away! I'm not the one who tried to make everyone feel sorry for him! I kept getting into my Eva and doing what we were supposed to do! But no one cared about that! None of you did! You just thought I was some disposable doll-

[ Hate hate hate hate ]

-that you could throw away after I stopped working! What made him so much more important than me? [ There's a rising taste of bile in her throat. She knows she fails and she hates it. She hates herself for it. She hates Commander Ikari for abandoning her when the Angel invaded her mind. She hates Misato for her quiet neglect. She hates Ikari for the way he looked at her and the way he tried to touch her and to use her to reassure himself. She hates Kaji for his benign neglect. She hates them all; every last one of them.

But it all leads back to her. She's regained her sense of self, but she's tottering, still struggling to deal with her own sense of self-loathing and how she's meant to live in a world with her old purpose.
She has to find one; make one. But right now she's angry with herself and with Misato. Misato for not understanding, for her indifference,
for the bruise on her cheek.
]
Edited 2017-05-09 20:14 (UTC)
lavelly: (lead a party)

wanders in with pizza

[personal profile] lavelly 2017-05-10 05:37 am (UTC)(link)
[Lavellan's usually content to let people sort out their shit on their own. He's had enough of having to manage other people's drama for one lifetime, and as far as he's concerned the rest of the world now has a blank check to tear itself apart if it wants. He did his time.

...The problem with that is he didn't anticipate... this. This morass of alien thoughts mixing in with his own, endlessly, constantly, so that even on the best days he feels like he's struggling not to drown. It's getting better with time and practice, but it's not stopping.

And that's just on the best days.

Something is happening with his new broodmate--the girl, Asuka. In a fight, he realizes, dimly. All he knows in the moment is a roiling, ugly, black mass of impulse, almost like a sickness, overlapping and confusing with his own thoughts and making him forget where he is. For a moment he's back home, months ago, reeling and in shock and grief as the entire structure of his life and--thoughts and memories that aren't his flit through his head and it isn't until the phantom sting of a slap on his own cheek, an echo reverberating through the link, brings him back to the presents that he realizes what's happening.

Hatred. That's what it is. Hatred. It's bleeding through from Asuka, through the bond, and it builds and builds until fuck this. Fuck this. He should be calm. It would be more productive to be calm, but he also can't care. He's sick of this and sick of feeling terrible and angry that other people have the gall to make it worse when he's trying to have a moment to his damn self.

He finds them easily enough; he hardly thinks about where he's going, just following through intuitively until he walks right into them mid-argument, and doesn't bother stopping to actually take in the scene. Instead he strides forward and grabs Asuka's raised arm by the wrist. He's prepared to drag her away if she resists.]


Shut. Up.
wille: (* disobedience)

[personal profile] wille 2017-05-10 06:52 am (UTC)(link)
[ Look at them: this trifecta of people seeking to silence one another in turn. Because the truth is more painful than a bullet wound and noise, a conspiracy of silence and comfortable falsehoods, is so often preferred. Misato can handle any harsh realities presented to her except for the very the ones she needs to hear the most, and isn't that true of everyone?

Her link to Lavellan is less substantial than the girl's connection to him, but it would be easy to sense the hurt dealt by each question, each challenge posed, each judgment delivered. All of it is true. The prodigal son and the faithful daughter's envy, her the grieving father left with half an inheritance. The lashing the girl delivers can't measure up to the realization that she has lost what she most treasures, and so it doesn't matter. Misato weathers the fury with cold scorn and apathy enough to douse Asuka's hatred. It doesn't escape her notice that the girl's words come from a place of need. Even now, she wants her attention, her love.

She has raised her hand to block Asuka's blow, which never comes. It's enough to prompt her to turn to the newcomer, fixing him with a glare most simply described as furious yet exhausted, the weight of the world on her shoulders. There's no gratitude. ]


That's enough.

[ There's no weakness in her voice, deeper than she has ever used it before. ]
redheadcarrier: (Yell.)

[personal profile] redheadcarrier 2017-05-10 04:11 pm (UTC)(link)
[ The apathy hurts the most. If Misato would express remorse or anger or even denial, it would make it better. It would show that Asuka mattered somehow. Instead all she gets is apathy and cold disregard. That's worse in a way. However, she doesn't have time to dwell on that. There's a hand on her wrist and she turns a glare on Lavellan, feeling his frustration. This isn't fair. None of this is fair. ]

Nobody asked you! Let go-!

[ She tries to tug her hand free, still seething. Why is he doing this? Doesn't he understand? There's a flood of memories, little flashes of the times that Misato as left her behind; neglected her. Replaced her. Favored Ikari over her.

The feeling of fingers against her throat. And over all of it, the sting and deep, bruising ache from the blow to her face. Misato gets some of it, too, of course. It's not nearly as strong or as insistent, though. Her attention is back on Misato now and she tugs against Lavellan's grip, mind roiling with emotion.
]

You didn't help me, you never even cared! You didn't even try! [ And that hurts. There's pain in her voice and broadcasting all over the Station. Her voice drops into something hoarse and venemous. ]

I hate you.
Edited 2017-05-10 16:12 (UTC)
lavelly: (get rejected)

[personal profile] lavelly 2017-05-10 11:38 pm (UTC)(link)
[So they're both angry with him now. Fine. Fine. He only steps further between them as his resentment builds.

Sorry for intervening in a fight that was quickly becoming physical. Sorry for wanting some damned peace and quiet in his own damned head. He wants to scream at them that they're not the only ones who have suffered and lost and the least they could do is keep it to themselves when he's spent the last several months practically drinking himself to oblivion to run away from those same feelings.

His hand is still on Asuka's wrist as he moves between them, shoving her back and away from Misato, and it'll wrench in a way that's probably painful if she doesn't get the picture and move with him. It's her he turns to first, his voice low and seething.]


I said shut up. You're sending me everything, and I don't fucking want it.

[Then he finally lets go, and turns on Misato.]

You, back off. Don't think I didn't feel that, either. [He gestures to his face, at the exact spot she struck Asuka.] If you two can't sort out whatever little problems you have with each other without it spilling all over me, then stay away from each other, for fuck's sake.
wille: (* no easy way out)

[personal profile] wille 2017-05-11 02:48 am (UTC)(link)
[ Misato is learning that to see one's anger brought to the surface by another is to see that same anger absolved in herself. Ah, so this is how. This is how all those others, Kaji, Ritsuko, Hyuga, the nameless techies whose lives have been sacrificed in the name of one man's selfish desires, can grant her such void looks in the face of her outbursts when they are losing just as much as her, if not more. This is how. To see one's emotions and their mirror-images laid out on the table is to know how despicable, how disgusting, how puny and meaningless they are.

There's a sense of herself folding in, an origami piece deliberately going through each step as if to create some sculptural masterpiece, only for the last step to be a disappearing act. Hora, was it ever there? The evidence of her fury is only in the absence it leaves behind.

Misato grips her fists so tight that she might shatter them, but then she releases them, and tips her chin high over the girl. There is no disdain or defeat or hurt, only apathy. She speaks, to Lavellan, just as she turns to leave. ]


She'll need your help to learn how to contain her own mind.
redheadcarrier: (Just let me die.)

[personal profile] redheadcarrier 2017-05-11 03:11 am (UTC)(link)
I don't care if you don't want it!

[ Asuka's anger is temporarily turned on Lavellan. He's getting in the way. He's taking her away from this confrontation that's been building for months. Misato and her stupid game of playing favorites helped push her to this point and she wants Misato to know that and to feel a fraction of the misery that she's put her through. She has to step back with Lavellan, though, and that puts her a bit further away from the target of her fury. Her cheek still smarts and aches, but Misato - Misato is withdrawing.

She's ignoring her and her words and everything about her and that wounds Asuka more than any blow ever could. She's being reduced to nothingness; a pinprick. Insignificance. Misato knows how to hurt her and that just makes Asuka lash out again, desperately trying to get some sort of recognition. For whatever reason, she can feel the way Misato's emotins fold away, piece by piece, until she's as still and cold as the surface of a pond.

Don't ignore me! Look at me!

It's a mental cry and it floods her link with all the fury and clawing desperation of someone who has been abandoned too many times.
]

You can't fucking do this to me!

[ Her voice rises into that high-pitched shriek as she loses control and she tries to shove past Lavellan so she can claw Misato's eyes out. ]

You can't act like I never even existed!

[ She was the spare all along. There to backstop Shinji. There to keep Ikari functioning.

She's going to be sick.
]
Edited 2017-05-11 03:11 (UTC)
lavelly: (suck a dude's dick)

[personal profile] lavelly 2017-05-11 04:15 am (UTC)(link)
[Asuka's fury bursts behind Lavellan's eyes and hits him like a punch to the gut, and he doesn't even hear what Misato says, can't even think. All he knows is Asuka's howling agony rising in his throat and crowding out his thoughts and reigniting his own, like he's back in those first few days after mired in grief. Fury and pain like screaming at a wall, clawing at yourself in desperation against your own powerlessness. Drowning and drowning and drowning, Asuka's and his and there isn't even a difference anymore, just one long howl.

It's overwhelming and the only thing he has to cling to is Asuka, so he does.

He wants her to stop he hates this he wants it to end she needs to shut up shut up shut up he needs to keep her from Misato so he wraps his one arm around her shoulder because the other one is gone it's fucking useless he hates this hates hates HATES SHUT UP and curls in on himself at the same time, curls in on her, it could be an embrace in another universe but here it's trying desperately to breathe. Through her struggling and clawing he yells shut up at her through the the link, then he mouths it into her hair where his face is buried in her neck, like a mantra, as he tightens his hold and rocks back and forth to soothe himself as much as her.

Be quiet. Please, please, please be quiet, he can't go back into this pit. Please.]
wille: (@ vengeance)

[personal profile] wille 2017-05-13 04:07 am (UTC)(link)
[ Asuka may be volatile, a firecracker, a formidable combatant, a force of nature, but when it comes down to it, she's only a girl whose manual Misato has read front to back multiple times. It's all there in her files. The buttons to press, the strings to pull and the rewards to dangle. She shuts off the tap and watches the girl flounder. Predictable. Asuka's anger is like a gust of hot air, near physical in form, but she can stand here and not let it harm her or influence her.

It occurs to her now that similar documents relating to herself must exist in the hands of Commander Ikari, the puppetmaster of the puppetmasters, and above him, the Committee. There's no time to concern herself with childish tantrums. Her other questions would have to wait.

She wears a dark expression, contempt just behind her eyes, but none of it is for Asuka or even for Lavellan. Then she walks away, steps measured, unhurried. ]
redheadcarrier: (Darkness)

[personal profile] redheadcarrier 2017-05-13 04:56 am (UTC)(link)
[ The feedback from her broodmate combined with Misato's attitude are enough to leave her stuck dead in her tracks. There's a loop of shut up hate shut up GO AWAY it's all gone in her head and she doesn't know which one is her and which one is Lavellan and she can't scream at Misato at anymore. There's no sound to make. She just slowly sinks under Lavellan's weight; there's no more strength in her legs. Instead she settles onto the floor, leaning against him like he's a rock in stormy seas.

In a way, he is.

She claps her hand over her good eye and tries not to let tears leak through. She's not going to let Misato see her cry.

She's a lonely child again, staring up at the swinging corpse of her mother.

She's at a funeral, promising she won't cry ever again.

She's in college, beating out kids twice her age.

She's a pilot.

Synch rate: zero.

It all swirls together into a mess and then collapses in on itself again. And finally her mind starts to still, easing back down to that low-level bubble and boil as she takes deep, gulping breaths of air and tries to fight the rage and anger and despair back down.

For some reason, the weight of Lavellan against her back doesn't disgust her.
]
Edited 2017-05-13 04:58 (UTC)
lavelly: (jump off the ramparts)

[personal profile] lavelly 2017-05-13 05:27 am (UTC)(link)
[Misato's footsteps fade and Asuka quiets, if not relaxes. Lavellan tightens his grip for a moment, both as encouragement and as gratitude.

He stays like that for several moments, almost forgetting where they are or what they were doing, until he realizes that the turmoil has smoothed and he's at something resembling peace. Almost. As close to it as he can get, nowadays, and it feels more like the numbness that comes after catharsis than true calm.

It's only then he extricates himself from Asuka, only enough to pull back slightly and look her in the eye. He's surprised to find his eye stings to mirror her good one, as if he's taking her tears for her. The pain reflected from her is still strong, still striking, but it's fading like an echo.]


Are you all right?
redheadcarrier: (eyes wide in shock)

[personal profile] redheadcarrier 2017-05-13 05:36 am (UTC)(link)
I'm fine.

[ Her voice is a croak. She's holding back the tears (or trying) and she feels a combination of angry, embarrassed, and incredibly sad. She doesn't know why this is happening to her.

I'm not fine and I never will be.

She takes a slow, deep, shuddering breath and relucantly lifts her head to stare at Lavellan. That exchange did feel, in a way, cathartic. She confronted Misato with things she has been wanting to say for too long. But there was no ultimate payoff. No forgiveness. Not even understanding. Just a painful slap and then cold indifference.

There's sympathy. She doesn't understand who for, until she figures out it's coming from Lavellan.
]

I just - I'll be fine.

[ She has to believe that, even if she doesn't. ]
lavelly: (jump off the ramparts)

[personal profile] lavelly 2017-05-13 05:57 am (UTC)(link)
[I'm not fine and I never will be. Kindred spirits they are after all. Appropriate that they're of the same "brood," then.

He laughs, more of hysteria than humor, and bends so that his forehead rests on her shoulder.]


Don't lie. I can tell.

[There is something comforting about this, the fringes of their thoughts entwining together like a tapestry. It's strange. Before now, he had found Misato a curiosity, possibly even someone he could relate to; someone else bitter, and tired, and looking for any kind of connection. Now, that doesn't seem as important.

Actually, he may hate her.

He doesn't know if it's bleed from Asuka, or his own opinion, born of his own experiences, what he's learned of her from this. (That seems an alien concept now, his own experiences. On some level, he doesn't care. It feels right, the way they're syncing. Correct. Like he'd been incomplete before.

He settles back into the embrace, taking her weight like a crutch. It's her who needs repairing, here, not him.

He switches to mental communication, barely even thinking of it, accepting their new intimacy as the mos natural thing in the world.]


( Show me what she did. )
redheadcarrier: (Flowing hair.)

cw: suicide

[personal profile] redheadcarrier 2017-05-13 06:46 am (UTC)(link)
[ She's not supposed to want other people in her head. She has sickening, horrific memories of the last time something alien tried. A part of her still feels filthy and tainted from that incident. But this? This feels different. It's support and bouyancy and acceptance. It isn't the primordial soup of Instrumentality. It's something wntirele different that she doesn't yet understand.

Asuka should pull away, storm off, shove Lavellan off of her, but he wants to understand. He offers an outlet. He wants to hate as much as she does, so she stays, slumped on the dining room floor, Lavellan curled against her back. It's horrifying in its intimacy and a part of her is screaming at it and recoiling.

But he knows. He can read her like a book. And he asks. He wants to know. She doesn't know how use the link yet, just that it is, but she can try. She has painful memories. And she'll share. It isn't neat or ordered, but rather a confusing mish-mash in roughly chronological order, scenes bleeding into one another, tainted by the echoes of emotions she felt at the time.

She meets Misato in Germany. An older woman she tries to look up to, who reads her file, who knows what's happened to her and the pain she carries in her heart. The next time she's on an aircraft carrier and Misato is the one who Kaji seems to care for; not Asuka. After that, it accelerates, days and weeks and months blurring into one another, with a few events standing out.

Misato demonstrates that Asuka is replaceable instead of Shinji; when he can't keep up with the synchronized dance, it's Asuka who gets pulled and replaced with Rei, as if she's the one who needs to learn a lesson. Misato pushes her to descend into molten lava, deeper than is safe and almost gets her killed.

It's Shinji who earns praise, who garners attention, who is the object of Misato's affection. Her attitude toward Asuka is, at best, benign indifference, which wounds Asuka. Shinji is "number one", despite his poor attitude and refusal to follow orders. Misato says she'll actually reprimand him, but is too busy being thankful over him to do so. Despite the blow to her morale and her ego, Asuka keeps going, even as her synch rate starts to nose-dive.

It's never any one thing. It's the fake front Misato tries to wear, a thousand little cuts of indifference and distance. The fake mother who doesn't even try to understand or help Asuka, even though she knows what's wrong, has every idea what makes Asuka hurt, but prefers inaction. There's the moment Asuka breaks down in the bathroom, Misato down the hallway and within hearing. She doesn't say a word. It's the way Misato cries over Shinji, fusses over him.

Misato makes Asuka second string against Arael and then it invades her mind, taints her, and Misato has nothing for her afterward. No words of comfort. Asuka flees to a friends house (Hikari) and Misato never so much as telephones to try and find her. She's thrown away like so much garbage when her synch rate finally bottoms out. And when Asuka finally teeters close enough to the edge to run away from home and try and end it in a bathtub in a ruined apartment, it takes a week for them to reel her in.

When she fights her final battle, Asuka is alone. Misato promises to find Shinji. To bring him back and help. She never does.

The stream will keep going until he tells her to stop. Months of resentment and quiet neglect and cold indifference hiding behind a cheerful smile.
]
Edited (spelling errors) 2017-05-13 18:52 (UTC)
lavelly: (remember name-days)

[personal profile] lavelly 2017-05-13 09:17 pm (UTC)(link)
[He doesn't ask her to stop. There are moments when he wants to, when the weight and depth of her memories threaten to be too much for him, but he focuses on keeping his own mind calm and letting her through, because he can tell she needs this. These feelings are something left to fester, and they need to be bled to be healed.

He doesn't know if she can be healed. He doesn't know if he can be, for that matter. But if he can offer this girl some release, some relief for a while, then that will have to be enough. At least it's something.

When she quiets he lets through a memory of his own--cautiously, careful not to overwhelm her. He's gotten a bit better at this over the past few months. It's not much, just an echo of his own lowest point, from just after the Exalted Council when he nearly drank himself to death out of raw grief and fury over Solas, his arm, everything.

It's not to hurt her, or wallow in his own self-pity. It's a mental hand on her shoulder, a way of saying me too.

He'll wait for her to pull away, decide when to sever their connection. Or not. Whatever she needs right now.]
redheadcarrier: (Darkness)

[personal profile] redheadcarrier 2017-05-13 10:46 pm (UTC)(link)
[ The memories slow to a trickle, until it's just a recurring pattern of neglect. Benign neglect at times, malicious at others, but still neglect. It permeates her relationship with Misato, along with contempt. From both of them. Asuka is disgusted with her, with her drunkenness, her sloppy living habits, the way she still manages to reel in Kaji. Contempt for everything and anything.

There are other memories mixed in now, memories from Lavellan and she wants to scream and push it all back and shrink back into herself, but she accepts them. Doesn't have a choice. Bitterness and pain and the sense of hurt and betrayal that radiates from him is comfortingly familiar and she savors the feel of it, uses it to fuel herself. Clings to the arm that's still wrapped around her.

For once, she takes comfort in the closeness of another. She's not sure if it's because of the thing in her head or because she finally learned something after being forced to look into the mirror of her soul.

She eventually tries to blow the flow of memories, because she doesn't want to feel hurt anymore. Instead she's exhausted and tired and out of tears. Burned out after the red-hot fire of her anger has burned through and consumed all of the fuel she has to offer.
]

...do you understand?

[ It's a terrifying question to ask. She's not sure she does or ever will when it comes to others. People cannot understand people. It is a fact of life. ]
lavelly: (suck a dude's dick)

[personal profile] lavelly 2017-05-15 04:17 am (UTC)(link)
[There's a numb sense of calm within him as well, even if it wasn't his catharsis. Maybe hers functioned as his own, in a way. He lies there floating in the exhausted buzz for he doesn't know how long, until she speaks, breaking the lull.

What a question. Can two people ever truly understand one another, even in circumstances as intimate as this? But then, this must be the closest they could ever get.]


Yes.

[He pulls back physically, just slightly, enough to give Asuka room to separate if she wants, but also still supporting her weight.]

What do you need now?
redheadcarrier: (facing down unit 02)

[personal profile] redheadcarrier 2017-05-15 10:15 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't know.

[ Does she need anything? Does she want anything? She doesn't want to go anywhere. Not yet. She just holds onto Lavellan and tries to figure out what to do. She wants to let go and push him away but she can't bring herself to do that. Not after the weird swirl of memories has settled over them both. ]

I thought she might actually understand for once.
lavelly: (jump off the ramparts)

[personal profile] lavelly 2017-05-16 05:01 am (UTC)(link)
Some people never do.

[He doesn't know what makes him say it. There's no one in particular he thinks of--no one he's willing to acknowledge, anyway--so much as a stream of faces he's encountered over the years, all too stubborn for their own good and who brought their own undoing because of it.

Now that his nerves have calmed and his mind has somewhat extricated from Misato's, he has to wonder if his first impression of her was all that incorrect, if she really is beyond being worth the attempt.

But, really, to Asuka, it doesn't matter if she is. The girl's had enough.]


Learning how to let go of that is a struggle for all of us, I think.
redheadcarrier: (Why don't you understand me?)

[personal profile] redheadcarrier 2017-05-16 04:31 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't want to let go!

[ Asuka's not wailing, but she is talking through gritted teeth. Funny; not more than a day or two ago, she wouldn't have even considered being this close to anyone or letting them touch her like this. It would've been unthinkable. But here she is, intertwined in body and soul and she doesn't know what to do about it or how she feels. ]

She understood Ikari; she tried for him.
lavelly: (suck a dude's dick)

[personal profile] lavelly 2017-05-17 05:23 am (UTC)(link)
[Lavellan takes a deep breath as Asuka wittingly gives voice to his own wants. I don't want to let go. If only that was enough.

This isn't really a pleasant thing to say, but he's never been interested in softening the truth. Even an unkind truth.]


There's only so much you can do, sometimes. You can't force someone's mind to change, no matter how much you exhaust yourself trying. [He doesn't think about Solas.] But you can choose to walk away instead.

Maybe Misato isn't worth your anger, Asuka. You deserve better than to throw yourself at a wall over and over.
redheadcarrier: (Sad.)

[personal profile] redheadcarrier 2017-05-17 06:19 am (UTC)(link)
[ Throwing herself at walls is what she knows how to do. She's good at it. She's good at removing obstacles, at smashing her way through whatever target she's pointed at. So why doesn't that work for people? ]

She'd like that too much.

[ Or Asuka is afraid to do that. To just leave and risk being forgotten. ]