Day 43: Waiting Room / Lobby 1

[arc_wrench]

Well, today was certainly turning out to be... interesting. A few things seemed to be going as planned, for once! Soon, he might not have to deal with so many actual meatbags quite so often! It made his personality core very nearly glow with excitement

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[moral_liberty]

A visitor. Someone had come to see him.

Kaworu was plainly surprised. He had envisioned parents and friends of the other patients, which was normal. He was satisfied with not receiving anyone, because that was what was normal for him. He'd heard there was a music room that he was planning to spend time in instead. But a nurse kindly informed him he could see the instruments later, after he went to greet his visitor. It was a good arrangement, and he offered no arguments.

He was shown to a table in a comfortable waiting room, where he sat with his arms resting lightly on the table. He extended his left hand out on the cool surface, and began to mimic the patterns to produce pitch. The other hand did not move, but he could imagine the slide of the bow, slow and steady. It wasn't the same without the physical objects moving beneath his fingers, but he could still imagine it perfectly. How it felt, how it sounded, even when he would have to shift his fingers carefully to avoid a misjudged note. He softly hummed the tune "Nearer, My God, To Thee" to match his fingers, and was pleased that it came to him easily.

He realized that the last time he had been able to play was five nights before his death. He hadn't thought about it recently, but with a weight lifted from his shoulders, Kaworu was looking forward to producing music again. It was the one thing he could create and participate in as Lilim did.

[damned_visitors]

The dark-haired boy paced nervously outside the lobby. What should I say? What is there to say? I...

He didn't hear the nurse saying it was time to go in. He was still too lost in thought; was his best friend really okay? What was going to happen when they had to be separated again? He replayed the phone call again, the one that had started this whole mess. "You're too close. It's not healthy for boys your age to be this...dependent on each other."

Then the next day, the phone rang again, and... Tears blurred his vision for a moment. The nurse came to him then, and said the words, "He's waiting for you. It's okay, Sean. It's really okay."

With a nervous nod, he entered the room and sat down next to his friend. "What are you playing?"

[moral_liberty]

The music in his head stopped. Before Kaworu looked up to see him, he knew who it would be, and his mind and heart had both started to race beyond his control. Memories flooded his head, with bits of advice meant for other people, or things he had been told about the future. He knew Shinji's destiny and its realization, and this was not a moment that was supposed to take place. Kaworu was not supposed to see him again. He hadn't even seen Shinji's face when he died, but he could hear his voice, demanding answers. He could remember how nothing Kaworu provided seemed to console him. For a second he was there again, or maybe he was in a dark bedroom, or a bath, or outside a terminal. He couldn't tell anymore.

But then it went quiet, and Kaworu didn't feel anything at all. There was nothing else.

"It is a hymn I have not played for some time." His hand had since stopped moving, and he couldn't hear anything but Shinji's question. "You are not supposed to be here," he said softly, but his smile was almost unsure.

[damned_visitors]

"I see...you - no. We always did love that kind of music." The boy's voice was shaky as he spoke. How many afternoons had they spent just listening together? The opening notes of another came to him, and he whistled those opening chords - Ode to Joy, better known as Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee without realizing he was doing so. That...yes. The first time they had met, hadn't Addison been humming that?

The questions began to come to him, then, one after the other. Why? The one word echoed in his head. It was the basis of so many questions - why am I not supposed to see you? why am I not supposed to be here? why did you...

"Why? I don't understand why you did that to yourself. We were friends, you understood me! And now..." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. "Now you're here." And I feel like my heart was ripped out of my chest.

[moral_liberty]

Kaworu had begun to smile more sincerely when Shinji whistled a handful of notes. He had never heard Shinji whistle a tune or hum or play an instrument, and he was entranced by it. It ended too soon, and with it his smile melted away.

Kaworu knew that question. He had thought he knew the answer as well, but Shinji had continued asking him, searching for something else. Why? What are you talking about? I don't understand what you're saying! And then his name. Over and over again, saying his name. Maybe he had hoped it would change something, to use a name that Lilim had given him.

"I had not wanted to leave you," Kaworu promised. "But life is all that I am able to give to you. You must be the one to inherit this existence, and protect the thread of hope for humanity. I cannot be witness to your life."

[damned_visitors]

"I don't..." The words wouldn't come out, and 'Sean' choked down a sob, swallowing hard. It wasn't supposed to be like this, not with his best friend in a place like this. Not with facing the stares from everyone around him, not with the expectations so heavy on his shoulders. Don't be like him. You can't run away. No matter what happens, you have to bear it. You're stronger than that.

There had been a time when it had all been a game - saving the world, the two of them the only ones able to do that. The game had become more and more serious, spiralling downward into...into beating his fists against the car windows as he was driven away. Into the phone that wouldn't ring anymore, except with news of an attempted suicide.

"I should be here with you. If you really wanted to die that badly, you know I would have died with you. I didn't want you as a witness to anything, I wanted you as my friend!" He slammed a fist into the table, the noise seeming to echo off the walls.

[moral_liberty]

Kaworu pulled back slightly at the outburst, which to him seemed louder than the background noises that he was beginning to register again. He stared at Shinji's fist. Letting all of those words and thoughts simply fall away hadn't worked. They were breaking the silence and denial, crawling back in and digging under his skin.

For a long moment, he stayed quiet as his body language slowly opened again. The tension left his muscles, but it still seemed to cling to his mind and weigh him down. Shinji was supposed to have gone on to find a world where pain was outweighed by the desire to connect. An existence where the human condition did not undo the need for free will. Had Otacon lied? Was his window into Shinji's destiny wrong? Or had Landel's tampering destroyed the purpose of Kaworu's choice, and only served to create this.

"I am your friend," he whispered. He extended a bony hand to lay it over Shinji's fist. He could not tell if he was shaking, or if Shinji was. "You have given me purpose in this life. You are the only thing I feel the absence of."

[damned_visitors]

The boy's eyes closed tightly, and he tensed for a moment, feeling both his hand and his dear friend's trembling in unison. He took a long, slow breath, then shifted position just enough to entwine his fingers with the other's. Another long moment of silence followed as he tried to let the anger go completely. As much as he wanted to demand answers until he heard the ones he wanted...would that solve anything at all?

The answer to that question came in a pair of whispers, one his own and the other Kaworu's. No. It wouldn't solve a thing. It would end in tears for the both of them, and hadn't they both had enough for a lifetime? This was temporary; the world would change soon enough, and once it did, everything would - even if it didn't go back to how it had been completely, there was the chance to make the world new again.

"I'm sorry," he said, almost inaudibly. "You're right. We're friends, and it's not fair for me to demand so much of you. You've given so much, and it's my turn now."

[moral_liberty]

What was it that Shinji believed Kaworu had given him here? If everything he thought was true had become irrelevant, had his death served any purpose? Wherever they were, nothing that he had hoped for had come to pass. Kaworu lived, yet humanity persisted. Here, Shinji was in pain and was looking for something Kaworu could not find or, he worried, could not begin to know.

Kaworu watched their intertwined hands. Shinji's skin looked like it had more warmth to it than his. No one would have thought Shinji had a healthy glow until they put him next to Kaworu, and seeing their skin in such direct contrast made it obvious. Kaworu was not like him. Far beyond his nature and the purpose he was supposed to fulfill, he had died, and was experiencing a stolen moment. His hand looked very much like he thought a corpse's might, but he knew blood moved through it, and the heat between their palms was a shared one. But aren't those potentially painful differences what makes it worth being in love? Otacon said in his memory. And if there's no differences between us, then there's no reason to remember anyone.

Kaworu held onto Shinji tighter. The muscles and bones he felt were exactly the same as the ones in his own hand, but they were incomparable. He looked up at Shinji and found his blue eyes. He had seen many Lilim with blue eyes since he had arrived here. At the time, he had thought they looked like Shinji's, but now he saw every way in which he was mistaken. He had forgotten so many things about him. Kaworu imagined a future where in his memory it could be anyone holding his hand, and he could not produce any details about a force in his life that was too strong to describe. His nose stung.

"You have done nothing wrong," he breathed. His voice was stronger, but still all feathers and soft tones, when he continued. "It is impossible to escape from pain once you have opened yourself to others. The closer you allow someone to your heart, the more deeply they are able to wound it. Is this why you are here?"

[damned_visitors]

The question stung through and through, and he was silent for a long moment, the pad of one callused thumb running over his friend's smooth skin lightly, tracing the dips and curves of his hand. With anyone else, that kind of gesture might have been - no. Would have been too intimate, too close. But it was almost as instinctive as breathing between the two of them, and it was a form of communication - of saying what he couldn't express in words.

The pain, and the knowledge that even though this conversation wasn't taking place in the right place - it should have been at Grandfather's house, we should still be this close - those thoughts were broadcast as loudly as if they had been shouted. Blue eyes met the red ones across from him, and he finally shook his head.

"No. That's not why I'm here," he said, quietly, hesitantly. "I came here because I wanted to see you. I miss you. I want you to come back. It's selfish and it's stupid and I'm not supposed to want anything except to do what my stupid father wants me to, but..."

His lower lip trembled as he took a deep breath. "I want things to go back to how they were before. I don't want a 'fixed' world, I want our world."

[moral_liberty]

"You are not afraid any longer," Kaworu said, mystified. "You would rather face pain than loneliness, although you may only find both in the end." He smiled sadly and looked down once again at their fingers. Kaworu had been wrong. Shinji was not a static being. He was greater than Kaworu's own existence; without Shinji, Kaworu had no definition. "I understand. It is the destiny you were meant to have. The path that you take does not matter, because this is the future you will always create."

Kaworu exhaled and shook his head. Pieces of gray hair fell in front of his eyes.

"This place will not let me go. I know this now." His gaze returned to Shinji's, and he spoke with absolute conviction. "Your world is gone, but I remain. Even here, I am meant to be near you."

[damned_visitors]

"I don't know what to say. I..." Blue eyes filled with tears, one falling right where the other had. "I don't know about the future. I don't even think I care about it. Destiny? It's..." He paused, biting his lower lip as he tried to think of what to say now, what would change things.

"If it's already been decided, then what's the use in fighting? All anyone has to do is sit back and let it happen. But...I don't know if it has. I don't want it to have been decided for me. Not anymore. I can't just let you be here like this. Not now, not ever."

Those last words shook him down to the core, and he tasted blood as he bit down harder. "That's wrong. Why are you saying that? You can't give up, we promised, didn't we? That the world wouldn't ever change, that we'd have it back again. I don't want to think of you here forever."

[moral_liberty]

Kaworu knew he could never be the person Shinji remembered. He had not said those things, and he had not lived that life. But Shinji didn't know this, or didn't seem to care. The way he held Kaworu's hand and continued to try and convince him that this was his life made it clear. Kaworu felt Shinji's will to fight and to survive, to make a choice. And he had chosen Kaworu.

"No. I do not remember," he insisted. His composure weakened, and he had begun to look visibly upset. Kaworu couldn't recall any promises because he had never made them, but he couldn't say he wouldn't have if Shinji had asked him. If the intentions were the same, it didn't matter whether or not he had said what Shinji remembered.

His other hand, which had been staying still on his knee until then, reached across to Shinji. "But I will promise you now. What would make you happy?"

[damned_visitors]

The dark-haired boy saw the nurses beginning to come in out of the corner of his eye, and frowned. It felt as if time had been far too short, and there was still too much left unsaid. That would have to wait, though, as much as that wasn't what he'd wanted. More than that, he couldn't leave his best friend like this. If he did, then there wasn't any way he'd be allowed to return, and that wasn't something he wanted to do.

"The thing that would make me happy, more than anything else, is you getting to come home. Promise me you'll try - that's all I ask."

[moral_liberty]

Kaworu hopelessly tightened his grip on Shinji as soon as he noticed the nurses. Their presence meant it was time. He felt as though he shouldn't be sad, considering that the time he had spent with Shinji wasn't his to have in the first place. But he could not reason himself out of the dull ache that was settling into his chest, or the uneasy feeling in his stomach.

Home was nothing but an idea, a term used to express where an individual felt safe and accepted. The location in and of itself meant nothing, and Kaworu had no physical place that he could summon into his mind, either to mourn or console himself with. Instead, Kaworu had Shinji.

"I will," he promised from deep within himself, just as the nurses began to close in. He stiffly forced himself to let go of Shinji's hand, and acknowledged that it was over.