12 Days of Fanfic: "Neon Genesis Evangelion" -- "Winter Wine Cups"
At long last, I return to the infamous Neon Enoch Evangelion series with today's offering. I had every intention of posting this just after midnight on December 31st, 2009, since this is a New Year's fic, but I had to turn in early due to work the next morning. Let's hope I can catch up later today, since I'm now behind a fic or two.
EDITED due to a hiccup in either LJ or my 'Net connection...
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On the Seventh Day of Christmas, the Matrix Refugee fanficced for ye:
A drunken Evangelion New Year's party,
Redpills stealing a Christmas tree,
Harry Dresden for the holidays,
Frank Sweitz adopting a David unit,
One Chateau Christmas party,
One Christmas spirit in the American Gods 'verse,
and An A.I. fic with David decorating his first Christmas tree.
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"Winter Wine-Cup"
by "Matrix Refugee"
Disclaimer: I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion, it's characters, concepts or other indicia, which are the property of Hideaki Anno, Project Eva-Gainax/khara, et al.
Author's Note: Inspired in part by a hysterical discussion on (yep!) the EvaGeeks forum, in which some of us speculated what Professor Fuyutsuki would be like on a gaudy night, up to and including him getting into a drunken argument with Gendo -- over Yui, of course. This is set in my ambitious and infamous Neon Enoch Evangelion series in which I speculated that the Grigori, a race of Angels in human form, might be hiding behind the scenes, pulling the strings of SEELE; one of these Grigori, Penemue, who knew herself only as Sabia Valiant, was sent to NERV headquarters to serve as an interpreter, in the process crossing paths with NERV's vice Commander Kozou Fuyutsuki. The two begin a somewhat at-arms-length relationship, neither one really sure what to make of each other or their growing fondness for each other, until after Third Impact and the failure of Instrumentality. On emerging from Instrumentality, along with several other NERV employees, they manage to slowly start to rebuild the world.
Considering that Third Impact went down on New Year's Eve (what a time for the apocalypse to take place and so much for the world ending in 2012...), no one was in any state to celebrate, but that doesn't stop them, a week after the date, from gathering in the bar of an abandoned hotel, with what scraps they can pull together, to celebrate new beginnings...
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The candles along the shelf behind the bar now seemed to have fuzzy halos about them and Huyuuga had left their company, lugging an inert Misato to her room. Fuyutsuki stared at the cocktail napkin beside his glass, trying to figure out the haiku he'd scrawled on it.
"Try another one in English," Sabia suggested.
"I'm drunk enough that I might go for seconds," Fuyutsuki said. He cleared his throat " 'Winter moon on trees/Cast crooked shadows below/ .... Refrigerator."
"That's the second one you've ended in 'Refigerator', Professor," Kajii said, his eyes a little too shiny. "What's with that anyway?"
"'Refrigerator' has five syllables, couldn't think of another line with five syllables," Fuyutsuki replied.
"And what does a refrigerator have to do with winter haiku anyway?" Gendo asked, from his perch at the far end of the bar. The only sign that he'd been partaking in the evening's round of good cheer was the hard light in his eye and a tendency to slur his s's.
"Winter is cold and so is a refrigerator?" Sabia offered.
"I like her logic," Kajii said, giggling tipsily and jabbing a thumb at her.
"She makes sense out of nonsense, better 'n some humans who make nonsense out of sense," Fuyutsuki observed.
"Nah, I just like your poetry," Sabia said, putting her hand on his thigh. Normally he would discreetly push her hand aside, but tonight he let it linger. "Particularly those little verses I find tucked under my pillow on certain mornings," she added with a suggestive lilt.
Kajii cocked an eye at Fuyutsuki. "You're certainly old-fashioned. When was that a customary courtship ritual? The Tokugawa era?"
"Even further back: Heian era," Fuyutsuki said.
"Damn, I knew you were old-fashioned, but how the hell old are you?" Aoba said, dryly, still sober; the level on his glass had hardly dropped all night.
"Shut it, embryos," Fuyutsuki said, with a crooked smile.
"I imagine you were looking forward to doing the same for Yui, if she ever s-saw what you hid from her," Gendo said, without raising his eyes from his glass.
Fuyutsuki turned to Gendo, forcing his eyes to focus. "It's a gesture I would have made to whatever woman fate had sent me and whose heart I won."
"But you clearly didn't have the impetus to win Yui's heart," Gendo said, calmly.
"I was waiting for her t' make her move in my direction. Last thing I wanted to do wass t' come 'cross as the pervert -- proverbial lecherous older professor stalking his young assistant," Fuyutsuki replied."
"You still could have used your alpha male status to your advantage," Gendo observed. "I always wondered how much you really wanted her."
"Desire verssuss duty and this case -- hic -- duty got th' upper hand. You came along."
"Like the younger, more viable sperm outdistancing the older and less motile sperm."
"Taking a jab at my age: that's low, even f'r you."
"A metaphor," Gendo said. "Merely a metaphor. But I think I hit a nerve: you were afraid of dying before her and abandoning her. How thoughtful." His sarcasm could have been squeezed from his words like water from a sponge.
"My age, or hers... had nothing to do with it," Fuyutsuki said. "Dammit, Gendo, why do you think I chose to work with you, the last man I wanted to live and breathe the same recycled air with? Wasn't for the retirement package."
"Don't think I wasn't aware of how you felt about her, even after she married me," Gendo replied, suspicion added to his sarcasm. "One would have to be blind, deaf, and severely autistic not to notice it. If this is the part where you say you did this because of your love for her --
Fuyutsuki banged his fist on the bar, rattling the bottles and glasses on it. "Damn you, Gendo. Coming from your lips... you poison it. Poison everything you touch," Fuyutsuki snarled. "I saw through you. Maybe you cared about her at some point, but she was ultimately just a tool to you, just like everyone else. Even your own son. Even me, dammit."
"So why did you give her up if you distrusted me with her?"
Fuyutsuki felt his fist clenching at his side. "Because I respected her wishes. Because I cared about her and how she felt. Respected her enough to let her go."
"But did you let her go after her death?" Gendo said, raising his gaze from his glass and looking Fuyutsuki in the eye.
"You're one to throw stones," Fuyutsuki snarled. "Since you're the one who used her work to destroy the world just so you could be with her again." He pulled himself to his feet and forced his blurred vision to focus. Before Gendo could make another cutting remark, Fuyutsuki threw a punch at his jaw; Gendo ducked, clearly used to this sort of reaction.
"And you're one to throw punches, Professor Fuyutsuki," Gendo replied. He started to raise his injured right arm to return the blow, but quickly corrected himself, aiming his left -- and remaining fist at Fuyutsuki's throat. The time he took to correct himself bought Fuyutsuki enough time to throw another punch, this time connecting with Gendo's cheekbone, throwing him over backwards, hitting the floor and skidding across the tiles. In the same process, Fuyutsuki lost his balance and sprawled on his side.
"You waited fifteen years to do that," Gendo muttered, and his eyes rolled back in his head, out cold.
"Heh, guess you showed him who the alpha male is," Sabia said.
"I hope you didn't just pop the stitches in what's left of his right arm," Aoba said.
"Arm's healed. Th' transfusion from Sabia took care of that," Fuyutsuki muttered, examining his bruised knuckles.
"Remind me never to speak ill of your beloved when you're in your cups, Professor," Kajiis said. He gave Sabia a significant look. "Shall we take this old brawler upstairs and put him to bed where he belongs?"
"The very thought I had," Sabia said, getting down from her stool and putting her shoulder under her lover's arm.
"Um fine, um fine, jus' los' m' footing," Fuyutsuki muttered, trying to pull himself upright. The floor seemed to rock under him and he slipped, falling on top of Sabia.
"Not on the floor, professor," Kajii said.
"Not that I mind, just not in front of everyone," Sabia said, laughing and pushing him off her before helping him to his feet. She glanced over her shoulder at Gendo's prone form. "Guess you dethroned him. That one time I saw the two of you on the bridge in Central Dogma, I couldn't help thinking, 'Get up and give the sixty-year old gent behind you the damn chair.'"
"Fifty-nine," Fuyutsuki growled, good-naturedly. "Don't make me any older than I am, wench."
"If that's the case, what are you doing with someone so you, you cradle-robber?" Kajii teased.
"Hones'ly... didn't know she wass a day less 'n three billion," Fuyutsuki said. "He's righ' though... I did pass her up... for somethin' better..." He bowed his head, closing his eyes and slipping out of consciousness.
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To say that Fuyutsuki awoke with a hangover the next morning would be an understatement. As he stuck his head out from under the bed covers, the light from the window scalded his squinting eyes and his head felt as though someone were beating on the lining of his skull with a rubber hammer full of needles.
"What happened last night?" he muttered, crawling back under the covers.
From somewhere at the bottom of the bed, near his feet, Sabia spoke, "I'm the one with the Grigori eiditic memory, and I'm hazy about some the details. But if I remember what exactly happened, I'll let you know: I wouldn't mind doing it again."
"I'll take a rain check," he muttered, closing his eyes.
"Refrigerator," she murmured.
"Whut?" he asked, not opening his eyes.
"Nothing, except for the bad haiku you were spouting," she said.
"Ugh, did I make an ass of myself doing that?"
"Not at all: you were funny for once, you old codger," she teased.
EDITED due to a hiccup in either LJ or my 'Net connection...
--------------------------------------------------------------------
On the Seventh Day of Christmas, the Matrix Refugee fanficced for ye:
A drunken Evangelion New Year's party,
Redpills stealing a Christmas tree,
Harry Dresden for the holidays,
Frank Sweitz adopting a David unit,
One Chateau Christmas party,
One Christmas spirit in the American Gods 'verse,
and An A.I. fic with David decorating his first Christmas tree.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"Winter Wine-Cup"
by "Matrix Refugee"
Disclaimer: I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion, it's characters, concepts or other indicia, which are the property of Hideaki Anno, Project Eva-Gainax/khara, et al.
Author's Note: Inspired in part by a hysterical discussion on (yep!) the EvaGeeks forum, in which some of us speculated what Professor Fuyutsuki would be like on a gaudy night, up to and including him getting into a drunken argument with Gendo -- over Yui, of course. This is set in my ambitious and infamous Neon Enoch Evangelion series in which I speculated that the Grigori, a race of Angels in human form, might be hiding behind the scenes, pulling the strings of SEELE; one of these Grigori, Penemue, who knew herself only as Sabia Valiant, was sent to NERV headquarters to serve as an interpreter, in the process crossing paths with NERV's vice Commander Kozou Fuyutsuki. The two begin a somewhat at-arms-length relationship, neither one really sure what to make of each other or their growing fondness for each other, until after Third Impact and the failure of Instrumentality. On emerging from Instrumentality, along with several other NERV employees, they manage to slowly start to rebuild the world.
Considering that Third Impact went down on New Year's Eve (what a time for the apocalypse to take place and so much for the world ending in 2012...), no one was in any state to celebrate, but that doesn't stop them, a week after the date, from gathering in the bar of an abandoned hotel, with what scraps they can pull together, to celebrate new beginnings...
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The candles along the shelf behind the bar now seemed to have fuzzy halos about them and Huyuuga had left their company, lugging an inert Misato to her room. Fuyutsuki stared at the cocktail napkin beside his glass, trying to figure out the haiku he'd scrawled on it.
"Try another one in English," Sabia suggested.
"I'm drunk enough that I might go for seconds," Fuyutsuki said. He cleared his throat " 'Winter moon on trees/Cast crooked shadows below/ .... Refrigerator."
"That's the second one you've ended in 'Refigerator', Professor," Kajii said, his eyes a little too shiny. "What's with that anyway?"
"'Refrigerator' has five syllables, couldn't think of another line with five syllables," Fuyutsuki replied.
"And what does a refrigerator have to do with winter haiku anyway?" Gendo asked, from his perch at the far end of the bar. The only sign that he'd been partaking in the evening's round of good cheer was the hard light in his eye and a tendency to slur his s's.
"Winter is cold and so is a refrigerator?" Sabia offered.
"I like her logic," Kajii said, giggling tipsily and jabbing a thumb at her.
"She makes sense out of nonsense, better 'n some humans who make nonsense out of sense," Fuyutsuki observed.
"Nah, I just like your poetry," Sabia said, putting her hand on his thigh. Normally he would discreetly push her hand aside, but tonight he let it linger. "Particularly those little verses I find tucked under my pillow on certain mornings," she added with a suggestive lilt.
Kajii cocked an eye at Fuyutsuki. "You're certainly old-fashioned. When was that a customary courtship ritual? The Tokugawa era?"
"Even further back: Heian era," Fuyutsuki said.
"Damn, I knew you were old-fashioned, but how the hell old are you?" Aoba said, dryly, still sober; the level on his glass had hardly dropped all night.
"Shut it, embryos," Fuyutsuki said, with a crooked smile.
"I imagine you were looking forward to doing the same for Yui, if she ever s-saw what you hid from her," Gendo said, without raising his eyes from his glass.
Fuyutsuki turned to Gendo, forcing his eyes to focus. "It's a gesture I would have made to whatever woman fate had sent me and whose heart I won."
"But you clearly didn't have the impetus to win Yui's heart," Gendo said, calmly.
"I was waiting for her t' make her move in my direction. Last thing I wanted to do wass t' come 'cross as the pervert -- proverbial lecherous older professor stalking his young assistant," Fuyutsuki replied."
"You still could have used your alpha male status to your advantage," Gendo observed. "I always wondered how much you really wanted her."
"Desire verssuss duty and this case -- hic -- duty got th' upper hand. You came along."
"Like the younger, more viable sperm outdistancing the older and less motile sperm."
"Taking a jab at my age: that's low, even f'r you."
"A metaphor," Gendo said. "Merely a metaphor. But I think I hit a nerve: you were afraid of dying before her and abandoning her. How thoughtful." His sarcasm could have been squeezed from his words like water from a sponge.
"My age, or hers... had nothing to do with it," Fuyutsuki said. "Dammit, Gendo, why do you think I chose to work with you, the last man I wanted to live and breathe the same recycled air with? Wasn't for the retirement package."
"Don't think I wasn't aware of how you felt about her, even after she married me," Gendo replied, suspicion added to his sarcasm. "One would have to be blind, deaf, and severely autistic not to notice it. If this is the part where you say you did this because of your love for her --
Fuyutsuki banged his fist on the bar, rattling the bottles and glasses on it. "Damn you, Gendo. Coming from your lips... you poison it. Poison everything you touch," Fuyutsuki snarled. "I saw through you. Maybe you cared about her at some point, but she was ultimately just a tool to you, just like everyone else. Even your own son. Even me, dammit."
"So why did you give her up if you distrusted me with her?"
Fuyutsuki felt his fist clenching at his side. "Because I respected her wishes. Because I cared about her and how she felt. Respected her enough to let her go."
"But did you let her go after her death?" Gendo said, raising his gaze from his glass and looking Fuyutsuki in the eye.
"You're one to throw stones," Fuyutsuki snarled. "Since you're the one who used her work to destroy the world just so you could be with her again." He pulled himself to his feet and forced his blurred vision to focus. Before Gendo could make another cutting remark, Fuyutsuki threw a punch at his jaw; Gendo ducked, clearly used to this sort of reaction.
"And you're one to throw punches, Professor Fuyutsuki," Gendo replied. He started to raise his injured right arm to return the blow, but quickly corrected himself, aiming his left -- and remaining fist at Fuyutsuki's throat. The time he took to correct himself bought Fuyutsuki enough time to throw another punch, this time connecting with Gendo's cheekbone, throwing him over backwards, hitting the floor and skidding across the tiles. In the same process, Fuyutsuki lost his balance and sprawled on his side.
"You waited fifteen years to do that," Gendo muttered, and his eyes rolled back in his head, out cold.
"Heh, guess you showed him who the alpha male is," Sabia said.
"I hope you didn't just pop the stitches in what's left of his right arm," Aoba said.
"Arm's healed. Th' transfusion from Sabia took care of that," Fuyutsuki muttered, examining his bruised knuckles.
"Remind me never to speak ill of your beloved when you're in your cups, Professor," Kajiis said. He gave Sabia a significant look. "Shall we take this old brawler upstairs and put him to bed where he belongs?"
"The very thought I had," Sabia said, getting down from her stool and putting her shoulder under her lover's arm.
"Um fine, um fine, jus' los' m' footing," Fuyutsuki muttered, trying to pull himself upright. The floor seemed to rock under him and he slipped, falling on top of Sabia.
"Not on the floor, professor," Kajii said.
"Not that I mind, just not in front of everyone," Sabia said, laughing and pushing him off her before helping him to his feet. She glanced over her shoulder at Gendo's prone form. "Guess you dethroned him. That one time I saw the two of you on the bridge in Central Dogma, I couldn't help thinking, 'Get up and give the sixty-year old gent behind you the damn chair.'"
"Fifty-nine," Fuyutsuki growled, good-naturedly. "Don't make me any older than I am, wench."
"If that's the case, what are you doing with someone so you, you cradle-robber?" Kajii teased.
"Hones'ly... didn't know she wass a day less 'n three billion," Fuyutsuki said. "He's righ' though... I did pass her up... for somethin' better..." He bowed his head, closing his eyes and slipping out of consciousness.
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To say that Fuyutsuki awoke with a hangover the next morning would be an understatement. As he stuck his head out from under the bed covers, the light from the window scalded his squinting eyes and his head felt as though someone were beating on the lining of his skull with a rubber hammer full of needles.
"What happened last night?" he muttered, crawling back under the covers.
From somewhere at the bottom of the bed, near his feet, Sabia spoke, "I'm the one with the Grigori eiditic memory, and I'm hazy about some the details. But if I remember what exactly happened, I'll let you know: I wouldn't mind doing it again."
"I'll take a rain check," he muttered, closing his eyes.
"Refrigerator," she murmured.
"Whut?" he asked, not opening his eyes.
"Nothing, except for the bad haiku you were spouting," she said.
"Ugh, did I make an ass of myself doing that?"
"Not at all: you were funny for once, you old codger," she teased.