Notes: A mattress is a mattress, but hell, sometimes even I can tell the difference.

If Man Didn’t Dream

(there would be nothing at all left to question)

Kaworu's bed was small and comfortable and warm.

(And Shinji thought, it shouldn't have felt so drastically different. It shouldn't have had a particular softness. A foreign lull. It shouldn't have felt like something worn in and familiar. He shouldn't have felt like he belonged.)

Like he was meant to be there. (His arms tainted blue by the flickering lamplight, turned lowlowlow.)

It was all so stupid.

(He had left it on: "Just in case," Kaworu had murmured. As if waiting for something. His hand had unnecessarily rested itself against the curve of his shoulder. And Shinji, detached and frustrated and ultimately much too lethargic to even be bothered, had let it stay there. Had let his fingers smooth over the fabric of whatever shirt he had thrown on today, blue, before he had nudged him away.)

It was two in the morning.

(And he shouldn't have been counting the water-stained tiles that stayed (mostly aligned) in the ceiling in time with Kaworu's slow breaths. In time with each small shift that he made. His foot, cold, somehow brushing the skin of his ankle. And Shinji, regardless of the number of times he had jerked away, found his limbs somehow mixed in with his. A strange system of closeness and distance. Kaworu's hand near his forearm. Fingers reaching for something in the dark of whatever dream he was having. If he was dreaming, at all. And Shinji, just inches away.)

And Shinji knew that he shouldn't be feeling like that. (He was a boy. He didn't like him. He didn't like him. He didn't like---)

But, Kaworu was close. And Shinji felt needed. (Or wanted. Or, did Shinji want---)

There was no sense it. (Kaworu was intrusive. And pushy. And eccentric. And for a moment, he thought, All he wants is to be your friend, --- But he had silenced that. Shinji didn't need more to protect. To want to protect. To fail to protect, when the time came for whatever last battle there is. If there is one, and that was bitterness.)

But, Kaworu was close. And Shinji felt needed. (And when he glanced over to him, he wasn't asleep as he once thought, but rather half-aware. And quiet and---Oddly gentle, as he looked back at him. Absorbing what fragility that only Shinji would eventually comprehend.)

And Kaworu, dared to settle a little bit closer. His breath warm and barely stirring Shinji's dark hair. (Shinji knew he was pushing his boundaries. Just to see how---)

But, there was a small quirk to Kaworu's lips and Shinji forgot to protest.

Careful words (his pale face almost gray in the dim):
"You should sleep, Ikari."

(And despite Kaworu's infuriating manner. Despite Kaworu's strangely welcoming bed. Shinji turned away from him and slept better than he ever did.)

And when the last fingers of sleep quietly claimed him, he didn't bother to shove Kaworu's arm away as he hesitantly draped it over his side and murmured something like "stay."

(and at the very end, after central dogma, after kaworu's death --- he knew that he did like him. that he likely always did.)

And Kaworu, silently, had known it.