Notes: In response to a prompt of my own on an anonymous meme. No one really needed to know, but my experimental styling gave it away, it seems. Please, when you get the chance, check out Jenniferplague's own spin on this prompt. It is absolutely brilliant (though tamer), and is worth taking a look at.

With that said, warnings include asphyxiation. Yes, there is a sexual spin on it. No, I am aware I am a little twisted to have even asked for it in the first place. Also, notably, my experimental style includes strange lack of capitalization at times and words that run purposefully together. Yes, I am capable of following the rules of grammar if I so please.

---

Hand for Hand

He can't fathom it.

(Between sheets and pillows and the scent of Shinji's skin. Between the hot, uneven breathing in his ear. Between the tentative hands around his neck---There is his voice. Kaworu's own.)

"Do it."

(He urges him. Insists. Ever since the last time Shinji appeared at his doorstep. Ever since the last time he breathed into him---Lulled what little breath he had left---Ever since he grabbed him so roughly the first time they met---His fingers straining and warm and terribly alive---)

And Shinji's eyes. (The slim ring of blue encompassing black. Kaworu wonders, for a moment, what his own look like, like this. Out of anticipation. Anxiety. The faintest inklings of---)

He can feel Shinji's weight shift. His feet are digging into thighs. His thumbs are resting against the hollow of his throat. (And the skin iswhitewhitewhite there, and utterly, utterly soft.)

He can feel his nails. Painfully short and blunt-edged.
(Like seashells. And it is an amusing thought, because Shinji had batted him away, then. Had rejected his offer of---)

Kaworu reaches up.
(And even in the dark, he is able to find the slim lines of Shinji's throat. Touch the sensitive skin. And---)

If this doesn't do it---, Kaworu thinks, I don't know what will.
(He can feel Shinji murmur. The vibration of words.)

"I can't---" (His expression is pained. Confused. Like a puzzled sea bird's. And he can see the way it morphs as Kaworu calmly tightens his grip. Bit by bit by---) Choked. "Kaworu---!"

He doesn't stop.
(He waits for him to make him. He waits for him to---)

The switch is instantaneous.
(And Kaworu's hands are numbed by force. Shinji pulls them off. Scared, he can tell, he could feel his heart racing. If only for a---)

Shinji's weight has shifted again. He can feel him leaning forward. His hands back at his neck and tightening---Labored breathing, both his end and Kaworu's own.

(And suddenly, Kaworu is hyperaware of every exhale Shinji makes. Every inhale he takes. The way his fingers are tingling. His back is arching. The way his sight goes static for the need of oxygen. Eventually. Eventually---)

And how Kaworu's own instinct is to grab onto his wrists. To almost struggle. To---
(God, Shinji's expression is darkdarkdark---God, he can feel that sharp, sticky coiling feeling behind his ribs. At his own heart---God, he can feel the swoop of something that makes his stomach lurch. That makes him want more.)

And suddenly, Shinji reels back. (His fingers are slack, but Kaworu has not relinquished his hold. He has not gained his breathing, back. There is barely enough air between them to pull into his lungs.)

Shinji's voice is frantic. It sounds as though underwater.
(His name. His name. His name. A question? His name and---)

Kaworu expels laughter from his lungs, and it is enough to answer his prayers.
(Because, when Shinji sits back again, startled by what he has done---)

Kaworu's hands keep him there. (Against him. And Shinji's face is at once flustered and embarrassed and --- Kaworu weakly shifts his hand. Brings it up to cup the back of his head. (soft hair. thick. and oddly unlike his.)

And in Shinji's sight, Kaworu's eyes are dark and hazy. And in what little light there is left in the room, as red as the blood of all Angels on the ever-sharp blade of---(No, it can't be.)---As red as---?

(Shinji can feel his humid breath. The sudden, paralyzed manner in which he could not respond as Kaworu pulled him down to meet him. Speak mere inches away from his lips, each word impossibly hoarse and full of purpose.)

"Did it feel like this?"

(and in his confusion, shinji can only shake his head---because, in that moment, kaworu is---)

"...Do it, again."

(and he listens)

And this time, Shinji knows, he is not imagining it.
(kaworu is not the only one who is responsive. he is not the only one who feels suddenly, unbearably warm. he is not the only one who moves against him. he is not the only one who has the sudden urge to---)

Remarkably, just before Shinji's hands return, Kaworu manages to press his lips against his own in the dark.

---

And when Kaworu tips his head back, later exposes the marks that Shinji's hands had left, he feels disgusted.

(because he, finds, kaworu tasted like sea and salt and time, like something so hideously effortless, something so much better than---)

And though Shinji's skin is slick with sweat, Kaworu presses his fingers against him. (Shaking and high off the sensation of too little oxygen---Shaking and sedated due to relief and---Fuck, he was a mess----) Presses his fingers against the rise of his hip bones, and murmurs:

"...Let me?"

And Shinji finds he cannot deny him.

---

The next time Shinji curls his fingers around Kaworu, it is by the hands of his Eva. Not his.

(echoing that same motion that made kaworu request from him breathlessness, again and again and---)

Echoing that same, exact motion---But this time, it was permanent.
(and since kaworu asked...)

Shinji could only listen.