31_days fic: "Neon Genesis Evangelion: The Grigori Continuum" fragment
I'm on a roll here and this is something I wanted to write for a long time. I may take the next month's challenges and see if I can apply them to this project I've had shelved for too long:
Title: "Air in G"
Day/Theme: "It's the breathing, it's the breathing in and out and in and..."
Series: Neon Genesis Evanglion
Character/Pairing: Kozo Fuyutsuki/OFC
Rating: R (for post-love-making talk)
Author's Note: Okay... huge info-dump on the background for this piece, otherwise you'll get bloody lost reading it.
This fic is based on/a fragment of a rather ambitious three-part work I've been poking at for some time, a series I'd entitled "The Grigori Continuum". It wasn't quite a crossover with Storm Constantine's Grigori trilogy, but I did borrow some characters and elements from it as I formulated it.
The plot for this series, in a nutshell: Audio technicians at NERV find some EVP-like sounds while analyzing audio feed recorded during an Angel attack. Further analysis uncovers that the EVP appears to be a voice speaking in what sounds like a form of Enochian. A specialist in Enochian is called in to translate, a mysterious young woman known as Sabia Valiant, who may or may not be a Grigori, one of a class of Angels who chose to take on human forms and mingle freely with the humans. Kozo Fuyutsuki, the Vice-Commander of NERV, starts to delve into her background, mostly out of suspicion, but partly because he finds himself attracted to her; in doing so, he starts to uncover things about NERV and it's parent organization SEELE which could cost both of them their lives.
This fragment is set post-End of Evangelion, after Third Impact has failed and humanity is slowly starting to resume their true forms. The NERV survivors have started to move inland from the sea of LCL left in its wake and pull together some semblance of civilization, setting up a refuge in a derelict hotel building. (And yes, I *would* have to start off with a love scene. Fuyutsuki does not get the love the poor guy deserves, and he needs someone to help him get over Yui. :: Laughs:: )
Their coupling left him so dazed with pleasure that once they separated, he lay for a moment conscious of nothing but his own breathing: the lift of his rib cage under his skin, the wash of air flowing in through his nostrils down his pharynx, filling his lungs. He swore in that moment, he could sense the exchange of oxygen molecules with carbon dioxide molecules from his bloodstream, which in turn flowed out as he exhaled. His rational mind tried to rouse him from this post-coital state of contented shock, but he chose to ignore it for the moment. For all your wisdom, you still are a creature of your senses, he thought with a small smile. But that is partly what makes one human. We have the capacity to look upon something intended as a means for propagating our species and elevate it to something more than a mere exchange of body fluids. No wonder some mystical experiences bear a close resemblance to sexual bliss… He was certainly not a monk, but it had been years since he had last lain with a woman; perhaps prolonged abstinence had heightened his enjoyment. Or perhaps some of the legends of the Grigori were true. Perhaps her kind were capable of pleasuring a human more profoundly than a human lover could.
Or perhaps you’re simply an infatuated old fool who thinks himself young and virile again in the arms of a younger woman, he thought, mentally digging himself for their age difference. At least by appearances. He had to remind himself that Sabia was not what she seemed.
Slowly his awareness unfurled itself. The mattress rustled and creaked and he felt movement beside him. “Kozo?” she said, her soft voice breaking the stillness.
“Hm?” he managed to murmur. Now there’s an eloquent thing to say to her after your first night together…
“I sense that I may have worn you out,” she said, concern tightening her soft young voice.
He willed his eye lids to lift and he looked up at her. She sat beside him on the bed, looking down at him. She had pulled on his shirt to cover her thin torso, but she had not buttoned it, nor even pulled it closed. Her silver-grey hair hung loose over her chest, covering her breasts. Concern furrowed her soft brow and her wine-colored eyes found his. A younger man would likely feel aroused at the sight, perhaps enough for a second round, but his age left him content with looking at her.
“No, not exactly. It has been a while since the last time I slept with a woman,” he said, frankly.
“I hope I was not too awkward,” she said. “You were my first, at least in this form, if not before Enniel wiped my mind.” Her eyes grew distant, as if she spooled back her thoughts, looking into the past she had had taken from her. He realized that her breathing had timed itself to his. He reached out and put his hand on hers as her hands lay folded in her lap. Her gaze ticking back to his face, she unfurled her hands, closing her fingers over his.
“Not at all,” he said. “You left me so sated, it took a few moments for me to sense anything other than the air that I’m breathing.”
She managed a small smile. “We just passed through an apocalypse, but all either of us can think of is jumping each other’s bones, as the phrase goes, and leaving each other almost breathless.”
He hitched himself higher on the pillows, the better to look at her on a level. “We passed through the jaws of death and into rebirth. I think it’s only natural, if not something that transcends nature, for us to do something as life-affirming as coming together as man and woman…”
She laughed gently. “What?” he asked.
“This is why I am so drawn to you,” she said. “Another man would simply have fallen asleep after sating himself. You, on the other hand, are alert enough to start philosophizing.”
“I think I was trying to do something more productive than laying here focusing only on my breathing,” he said, with a self-deprecating smirk.
She looked at him, then withdrew her hand, looking away and shuddering. “During Instrumentality… That was one thing I missed the most, one thing I fought to hang onto as long as I could. Just feeling the air moving in and out of my lungs: I felt if I could hang onto it, I could hang onto what I am, the form I had.”
He sat up beside her, putting a hand on her shoulder and gently pulling her close to him, letting her feel the rise and fall of his chest against her back. He felt the tension slowly leave her as her breathing fell into the same rhythm as his own. “Sabia, love… We both have our forms again, we both share the same air. There may have been someone who meant more to me than life itself, but I found that what I chose would not bring her back. So I chose life, even if it meant the life I knew could not be restored.”
Voices made themselves heard in the hallway outside their room. She turned to look up at him. “Kozo, before someone barges in here wondering what’s going on, promise me one thing.”
“Anything.”
She turned in his arms and held him, pressing her face against his neck. “Promise me you’ll keep on breathing for me.”
He kissed the side of her head and speaking in her ear, breathed the words, “I promise you I will.”
Title: "Air in G"
Day/Theme: "It's the breathing, it's the breathing in and out and in and..."
Series: Neon Genesis Evanglion
Character/Pairing: Kozo Fuyutsuki/OFC
Rating: R (for post-love-making talk)
Author's Note: Okay... huge info-dump on the background for this piece, otherwise you'll get bloody lost reading it.
This fic is based on/a fragment of a rather ambitious three-part work I've been poking at for some time, a series I'd entitled "The Grigori Continuum". It wasn't quite a crossover with Storm Constantine's Grigori trilogy, but I did borrow some characters and elements from it as I formulated it.
The plot for this series, in a nutshell: Audio technicians at NERV find some EVP-like sounds while analyzing audio feed recorded during an Angel attack. Further analysis uncovers that the EVP appears to be a voice speaking in what sounds like a form of Enochian. A specialist in Enochian is called in to translate, a mysterious young woman known as Sabia Valiant, who may or may not be a Grigori, one of a class of Angels who chose to take on human forms and mingle freely with the humans. Kozo Fuyutsuki, the Vice-Commander of NERV, starts to delve into her background, mostly out of suspicion, but partly because he finds himself attracted to her; in doing so, he starts to uncover things about NERV and it's parent organization SEELE which could cost both of them their lives.
This fragment is set post-End of Evangelion, after Third Impact has failed and humanity is slowly starting to resume their true forms. The NERV survivors have started to move inland from the sea of LCL left in its wake and pull together some semblance of civilization, setting up a refuge in a derelict hotel building. (And yes, I *would* have to start off with a love scene. Fuyutsuki does not get the love the poor guy deserves, and he needs someone to help him get over Yui. :: Laughs:: )
Their coupling left him so dazed with pleasure that once they separated, he lay for a moment conscious of nothing but his own breathing: the lift of his rib cage under his skin, the wash of air flowing in through his nostrils down his pharynx, filling his lungs. He swore in that moment, he could sense the exchange of oxygen molecules with carbon dioxide molecules from his bloodstream, which in turn flowed out as he exhaled. His rational mind tried to rouse him from this post-coital state of contented shock, but he chose to ignore it for the moment. For all your wisdom, you still are a creature of your senses, he thought with a small smile. But that is partly what makes one human. We have the capacity to look upon something intended as a means for propagating our species and elevate it to something more than a mere exchange of body fluids. No wonder some mystical experiences bear a close resemblance to sexual bliss… He was certainly not a monk, but it had been years since he had last lain with a woman; perhaps prolonged abstinence had heightened his enjoyment. Or perhaps some of the legends of the Grigori were true. Perhaps her kind were capable of pleasuring a human more profoundly than a human lover could.
Or perhaps you’re simply an infatuated old fool who thinks himself young and virile again in the arms of a younger woman, he thought, mentally digging himself for their age difference. At least by appearances. He had to remind himself that Sabia was not what she seemed.
Slowly his awareness unfurled itself. The mattress rustled and creaked and he felt movement beside him. “Kozo?” she said, her soft voice breaking the stillness.
“Hm?” he managed to murmur. Now there’s an eloquent thing to say to her after your first night together…
“I sense that I may have worn you out,” she said, concern tightening her soft young voice.
He willed his eye lids to lift and he looked up at her. She sat beside him on the bed, looking down at him. She had pulled on his shirt to cover her thin torso, but she had not buttoned it, nor even pulled it closed. Her silver-grey hair hung loose over her chest, covering her breasts. Concern furrowed her soft brow and her wine-colored eyes found his. A younger man would likely feel aroused at the sight, perhaps enough for a second round, but his age left him content with looking at her.
“No, not exactly. It has been a while since the last time I slept with a woman,” he said, frankly.
“I hope I was not too awkward,” she said. “You were my first, at least in this form, if not before Enniel wiped my mind.” Her eyes grew distant, as if she spooled back her thoughts, looking into the past she had had taken from her. He realized that her breathing had timed itself to his. He reached out and put his hand on hers as her hands lay folded in her lap. Her gaze ticking back to his face, she unfurled her hands, closing her fingers over his.
“Not at all,” he said. “You left me so sated, it took a few moments for me to sense anything other than the air that I’m breathing.”
She managed a small smile. “We just passed through an apocalypse, but all either of us can think of is jumping each other’s bones, as the phrase goes, and leaving each other almost breathless.”
He hitched himself higher on the pillows, the better to look at her on a level. “We passed through the jaws of death and into rebirth. I think it’s only natural, if not something that transcends nature, for us to do something as life-affirming as coming together as man and woman…”
She laughed gently. “What?” he asked.
“This is why I am so drawn to you,” she said. “Another man would simply have fallen asleep after sating himself. You, on the other hand, are alert enough to start philosophizing.”
“I think I was trying to do something more productive than laying here focusing only on my breathing,” he said, with a self-deprecating smirk.
She looked at him, then withdrew her hand, looking away and shuddering. “During Instrumentality… That was one thing I missed the most, one thing I fought to hang onto as long as I could. Just feeling the air moving in and out of my lungs: I felt if I could hang onto it, I could hang onto what I am, the form I had.”
He sat up beside her, putting a hand on her shoulder and gently pulling her close to him, letting her feel the rise and fall of his chest against her back. He felt the tension slowly leave her as her breathing fell into the same rhythm as his own. “Sabia, love… We both have our forms again, we both share the same air. There may have been someone who meant more to me than life itself, but I found that what I chose would not bring her back. So I chose life, even if it meant the life I knew could not be restored.”
Voices made themselves heard in the hallway outside their room. She turned to look up at him. “Kozo, before someone barges in here wondering what’s going on, promise me one thing.”
“Anything.”
She turned in his arms and held him, pressing her face against his neck. “Promise me you’ll keep on breathing for me.”
He kissed the side of her head and speaking in her ear, breathed the words, “I promise you I will.”