Liminal

Title: Liminal
Author: Rienna Hawkes
Summary: Shinji and Asuka are stuck in an elevator.
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Shinji/Asuka
Feedback: please
Beta: none

Dedication: For Logan

**Disclaimer: The characters and situations of Neon Genesis Evangelion depicted in this story are the legal property of Hideaki Anno, Gainax, Tatsunoko Productions, Production L.G., MOVIC, Star Child, ADV Films, Manga Entertainment, etc. No infringement is intended; no profit is being made.

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Liminal

The elevator had jammed an hour ago. Shinji thought. Though he couldn’t be absolutely certain, it felt like an hour. His eyes fell to his wristwatch, but it told him nothing. He hadn’t thought to look at it when the elevator first stalled, so 7:33 didn’t mean much.

He was huddled in a corner. If he hunched small with his knees against his chest, the space didn’t seem so cramped. And if he focused on the blinking numbered buttons across from him, the walls didn’t press in as vehemently. Besides, Asuka needed room to pace.

She was stalking back and forth, in and out of his blindered vision, her shrill ranting voice grating on the outskirts of his awareness. He didn’t even know what she was saying, but it was both irritating and comforting that she was saying it. Irritating because it was giving him a headache, comforting because the constant noise meant that she was there. He was not trapped here alone.

Asuka was like that. Rei was a quiet, submissive shadow that kept him company. She felt like home, a very deep dark place inside him that swallowed courage whole. And that those things were acceptable, viable. He felt like himself with Rei, and mostly that relaxation led to a place where it almost seemed as though he was alone. That there was no way someone else could be there and he feel so purely contained. But Asuka was loud.

Her personality was strident and wanton in expression, and was so abrasively separate from his that there was no way Shinji could ever mistake her presence for his own.

She had stopped in front of him and was tapping her foot forcefully. Slowly, he raised his head to meet eyes with her. It was obvious she had said something to him and was waiting impatiently for a response.

“I’m sorry?”

She rolled her eyes. “Idiot! Listen when I talk.”

He gazed up at her intently and she huffed in frustration. “They’re obviously not going to come to rescue us any time soon, or they would have been here already.”

Shinji could see some holes in that logic but decided it was best them keep to himself.

“We need to get ourselves out of here, and I think I know the way.” She pointed upwards to the emergency escape panel. The NERV logo was painted on it in red like a bloody smear on the ceiling. “You are going to lift me and I will push that open.”

This sounded like a bad idea. But then, most of Asuka’s ideas seemed like bad ones to him. And most failed. He considered that, his eyes flashing to her weak arms and then to the thick metal lever. He doubted very much that she had enough strength to open the panel. But just as he had moments ago, Shinji forwent a confrontation with Asuka that would only end with him following her orders anyway. “O-okay.”

He carefully rose to his feet and she pulled him into position. He stooped a bit and made his hand into a foothold for her as she rattled on. “Now don’t look up, no matter what. I’m wearing a skirt and if you look up it I will kick you in the face.”

Shinji nodded, his face reddening, an image of her kicking him in the face as he held her almost a meter off the ground and both of them tumbling painfully to the cement filling his head.

Asuka placed her sandaled foot in his hand and gripped his shoulders. The hoisting did not go successfully the first four or so times. He couldn’t seem to hold her up high enough and she couldn’t seem to keep herself steady enough for any real progress to be made. Shinji was struck by the irony of this—just seconds ago he had been thinking of how she looked too weak for this task, completely discounting his own pathetic thirteen-year-old muscles and how heavy she was.

“This isn’t working!” she declared about three tries after he had reached the same conclusion. His body sagged in relief, thinking only of returning to his little corner to resume his vigil of the flashing buttons. But Asuka was studying him with a thoughtful expression on her face that had his stomach clenched in apprehension.

She maneuvered him back beneath the panel. “Stand as tall as you can, tense all your muscles.”

No, this was definitely not going somewhere he liked.

“I’m going to climb up you,” she announced and Shinji felt the blood drain from his face.

Once again she placed her hands on his shoulders. “Give me a foothold at you hip. I used to climb trees all the time before I got called here, so I know what I’m doing. Oh, stop whimpering like a sissy, it can’t hurt that bad.”

But it did. She had no idea—she hadn’t ever put herself in the tree’s position, with her sandal’s sharp heel digging into her side, her weight threatening to topple them both. Of course, that was about when her breasts came into contact with his face. They were small, firm, and underdeveloped, but they were breasts and they were against his face—one pressing his left ear and the other becoming intimate with his nose.

“I know what you’re thinking, Shinji,” she pronounced. “And you shouldn’t be thinking about that. I’m saving your life you know. They’re not coming to get us and we could die in this elevator.”

Once again, Shinji doubted that. Very much. He and Asuka were two of NERV’s most precious commodities, he thought bitterly. Eva pilots were essential to the operation, and there weren’t pickled clones of Asuka or himself floating in stagnant sludge in a secret room to the best of his knowledge. They would not be left to rot in a broken down elevator.

She was puffing little feminine grunts as she pulled at the lever. “This emergency panel is not very well designed. Obviously they did not plan for the contingency that it would be two kids to get stuck. I doubt they considered anyone except giant wrestlers…or maybe robots.”

Shinji would rather not listen to her. She could ramble about the most inane things sometimes and he really had no desire to listen to it even under the best of circumstances, but focusing on what she was saying kept his mind off the nipples rubbing his face through the thin fabric of her dress and the leg that she had thrown over his shoulder for balance.

“There should just be a code and buttons to punch in or something. This lever is too big. I can barely get my hand around it and it’s slippery—I feel like I’m stroking it instead of pulling it.”

Shinji bit back an aggrieved groan at the picture in his head. So maybe listening to her wasn’t the best distraction, maybe it was just making things worse. She shifted her weight and used the lever to heave herself higher. They both startled when they heard the metal creaking in response.

Asuka looked down at him excitedly. “I have an idea. Let go of me and back away.”

“What if you fall?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes. “It’s less than a meter down.”

Oh. Right.

Shinji stepped back, her warm knee sliding from his shoulder, his airways becoming breast-bereft, and his hand blissfully free of her heeled shoe. She dangled, swinging like a doll from the ceiling, pale yellow dress hanging like a bell over her painted toes. She was making strained noises as she pulled the lever with the heft of all her weight, though except for her cheeks pink with exertion, it didn’t look much different than suspending limply.

“Shinji, don’t just stand there. Help!” she barked at him.

“How?”

“Pull on me, then it will be both our weight,” she supplied as though he were the simplest of cretins.

Tentatively, he walked forward. “Put your arms around my waist,” she commanded when he hesitated.

He obeyed, thinking to himself briefly that she smelled like peaches today. He liked the peach smell better than the strawberry or the orange soap she sometimes used. He took a foolish moment to breathe the scent in, his erection responding heartily. Then, realizing that she would be yelling at him any second, he yanked her downward with all the strength he had. This proved an unwise choice as they both crashed to the ground, Asuka screaming in pain and surprise as she was ripped from her perch. The cement was every bit as uncomfortable to land on as Shinji had imagined. It didn’t help that Asuka had landed on top of him, straddling his chest with his arms still around her waist. She really was so much heavier than she looked.

Then he was being hit. “Idiot, idiot, idiot!” she shrieked as she pelted him with her tiny fists. “You suck!” She pushed herself off of him and rose to her feet, kicking him once for good measure.

Red was pounding behind his eyelids like little fireworks of pain. He had landed on his butt so hard, he was certain it would be painful to sit for a week. Wow, just…that had really hurt.

His eyes slid open and fell on Asuka. Immediately he felt his chest tighten with guilt. Both her knees were trickling blood from scrapes and she was cradling her left hand, which was bleeding from one of the fingernails. Pulling himself into sitting position and groaning at the soreness, a merciless pounding in his temples, Shinji moved toward her.

“I’m so sorry. Are you all right?” he asked reaching toward her.

She snarled, “No. And it’s your fault.” Slapping his hand away, she added, “Don’t touch me.”

Shinji recoiled. He watched her for a moment before sliding back and propping himself against the wall. He looked at his watch. 8:02. It really was taking an awful long time for a technician to come get them out. He didn’t even want to consider the prospect of being stuck with Asuka in this elevator overnight.

The skin on the back of his neck jumped when Asuka sat next to him.

“That’s gross,” she said, pointing to the bulge in his jeans.

Shinji’s cheeks pinkened and he drew his knees up to hide it. “Sorry,” his voice was small. “I can’t really control it.”

“It’s gross.”

He nodded, unable to meet eyes with her.

There was a long uncomfortable pause before she asked, “Does it mean that you like me?”

Shinji’s eyes grew wide and his throat constricted, almost as though she had reached over with her delicate little hands and squeezed it. Excruciatingly, like she wanted to hurt him. His erection grew larger. It was uncomfortable in the confines of his jeans, even more so with his legs pulled close, but there was no way he was going to move.

“Does it?” she prompted impatiently and he realized that he had not answered her question.

Unable to speak, he nodded.

“Let me see it.”

Nothing could have prepared him for that. He shook his head wildly.

She scoffed contemptuously. “Shinji we’re going to die in here. Don’t you care about that at all? Here I am on the verge of becoming a woman, and I’m never going to get to do womanly things. You should be more sympathetic and helpful.”

Womanly things? If he had been pink before he was certainly red now.

“You’re just being selfish,” she continued.

He clenched his knees even closer.

She sighed dramatically. “Fine, if you let me see you, I’ll let you see me.”

Shinji didn’t remember sending out the command to his body, but with only the barest token of hesitation, his arms released their binding hold and his legs unfurled. He still couldn’t look at her.

She gasped softly. “It’s bigger.”

His eyes were fixed on the flashing numbered buttons. 1, 2, 3, 4—

“Well…take your pants off.”

Slowly, his sweaty hands rose to the button and zipper of his jeans, but they were so numb they might have been someone else’s. They were moving of their own accord, from memory, as his brain was too frozen with terror and shock to issue orders. He hooked his thumbs in the waistband and lowered his pants and his boxers to his knees, but not off. His eyes were fixed ahead, on the numbers. 5, 6, 7…

“It’s ugly,” she declared.

He nodded in agreement, not knowing what else to do. 8, 9, 10…

“Why is it red?”

He shrugged. 11, 12…

“Does it hurt?”

He shrugged again. 13, 14, 15, 16…

She made her musing thoughtful noise. “I’m going to touch it,” she declared of the curiosity before her.

Every muscle but the one in question clenched in panic. Finally, his eyes ripped from the blinking numbers and down to his lap. Her soft blood-smeared finger was extending toward the swollen head. She prodded it experimentally, pushing it one direction and then the other to watch it spring back into place.

“The skin on it feels funny.”

Shinji was concentrating fully on not groaning in pleasure. Something told him that would make Asuka stop.

“Are you sure it doesn’t hurt?” she looked up at him. When had her face gotten so close to her hand? “It looks like it hurts.”

He didn’t answer.

Asuka pulled back, her expression thoughtful. “Do boys really like it when girls suck on them?”

Shinji’s eyes flared wide. He finally found his voice. “Where did you hear that?”

She affected a casual shrug, but she was blushing. “Around. So is it true?”

“Yes,” he almost didn’t hear his own voice.

Asuka nodded, then glanced up at him sharply. “I’m not going to do it to you.”

“I-I didn’t think you would,” he replied innocently.

“I could though,” her jaw hardened, determined. “And you would like it.”

Oh God, would he ever. “I know you could. But you won’t, I understand. I-I wouldn’t want you to.” That would be humiliating—he would likely come before her lips got anywhere near him, like a squirt gun with a hair-trigger. Just the thought of her mouth on him was driving him crazy. He swallowed to keep from panting and looked away.

She seized his chin forcefully and turned him to face her again. “Are you calling me ugly?”

He tried to shake his head, but it was firm in her grasp. Ugly? He hadn’t said ugly—he’d never even thought ugly.

“I am not ugly,” she snapped defiantly. She gestured to his lap, “You like me.”

He nodded.

“Stop acting so patronizing,” she seethed. “I’ll prove it.”

And with that she ducked her head. The ecstatic pleasure, more intense than anything he had ever felt before, registered before the cognitive realization formed of what she was doing. It was so wet, so warm, and she was sucking so hard it almost hurt. Her thick hair was trailing across the skin of his inner thighs and one of her hands was gripping his knee for support. Shinji had never felt anything so good in his entire life—his body was screaming with bliss.

It was over too soon. He lasted longer than he had previously predicted, but not by much.

Asuka pulled back, choking and spitting. “What was that stuff?” she demanded after she was satisfied there was no more of the offensive substance in her mouth.

Shinji couldn’t answer, however. His post-orgasmic haze was overwhelming. He had one thought and one thought only: that Asuka’s mouth was very, very different from his hand. There was a part of him that was concerned that Asuka would start yelling at him if he didn’t answer soon, but it should have remembered that she hardly needed the other person’s participation for a discussion to take place.

Her little nose wrinkled disdainfully. “It was your boy stuff, wasn’t it?” She spit again. “That was revolting.”

Shinji had regained enough of his somatic equilibrium to focus on her coltish frame rising to stand before him.

“Put your pants back on,” she ordered.

“What?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m going to take my dress off, idiot, but I don’t want you to get funny ideas.”

He scrambled to obey, ignoring the semi-sticky spots that clung uncomfortably now and would so even worse once they dried. His eyes were involuntarily roving over the swell of the mounds on her chest and then lower to the juncture between her legs, a place that filled him both with feverish lust and tense apprehension. It was a strange thing, he thought. He had spent a sizable portion of the past year obsessed with pictures of naked females, but it was occurring to him now that he had never really considered the possibility of seeing one in person.

Asuka was gazing him with a kind of smug satisfaction at his eagerness, but Shinji was too excited to let himself be annoyed by it. She was going to take off her dress—he could forgive her almost anything right now.

With movements designed to appear sure to Shinji’s eyes (though he noticed her hands were trembling), Asuka very quickly untied the bows on the straps of her sundress. The bodice fell forward to reveal the perfection of her breasts.

A hideous noise, like that of a walrus being kicked in the stomach, echoed in the elevator and Shinji realized it had come from his throat. He had known from his earlier contact that Asuka had not been wearing a bra, so he should not have been so shocked at the sight, but he could vaguely feel his jaw slack. He supposed naked breasts weren’t really the sort of thing any amount of foreknowledge prepared you for.

Just like he had not fully removed his pants before, she left her dress on and Shinji couldn’t quite quash his disappointment. Instead she raised her skirt and hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her panties. The billowy fabric fell back into place before Shinji could catch a glimpse of what he knew lay beneath, and the cotton pastel-colored panties slid to the floor. She stepped out of them, then sat down beside him again.

“Okay,” she said.

“Okay what?” Shinji asked dumbly, not able to think in the strictest sense with her bare breasts so close.

Her eyes narrowed. “I did it to you, now you have to do it to me.”

He gaped at her. Did she mean…?

Asuka’s lips pursed in frustration and she turned her body slightly so that she was facing him, then took his and guided him to face her. What happened next resulted in a visual Shinji would never forget. Asuka reclined, pushing her loose bodice as far down on her hips as it would go. She lifted one of her legs over his head and rested it on the other side, so that she was straddling him, and then lifted her skirt to bare the flushed wetness of her pussy. Shinji knew that he would be picturing this every time he masturbated for a very, very long time.

“I did it to you, now you have to do it to me,” she repeated with far less patience.

The idea crossed Shinji’s mind that she may have only done “it” to him to have an excuse to demand that he do it to her. That her real curiosity lay, not in what his body looked like, but in what it would feel like if he played with hers. It was a highly probable possibility, but she was spread before him like something out of his many wet dreams and he couldn’t bring himself to really care why.

“Now, idiot!”

Her words spurred him to action and he found himself lowering his face to the dripping folds before him. It didn’t taste the way he thought it would. In fact, he didn’t think he liked it much, but he did enjoy very much the way Asuka was arching into his face already. She whimpered at almost every exploratory sweep of his tongue and Shinji couldn’t help but wonder just how turned on she had been herself to initiate this little game. She gripped his hair painfully, grinding herself into his face, and he found that he was hard again already. She was chanting a name softly, breathily, that sometimes sounded like Shinji and sometimes sounded like Kaji, but Shinji did his best to tune it out.

Her movements were becoming more frantic, her nails cutting into his scalp. The possibility that she might be coming had only just dawned on him when he felt the flesh beneath his tongue pulse and spasm. She didn’t scream like the women in the movies. There was a choked keening noise that sustained itself for almost five seconds before fading into silence.

Shinji gazed up at her, licking his lips to wipe up the last of her juices. Her unforgiving eyes were closed, and it seemed to him that she had never looked so soft. So welcoming. He had to remind himself that if he pulled her into his arms and nestled his face into her neck, that she would not react favorably.

Shinji just watched her. With her most fascinating parts exposed and her thick red hair splayed about her shoulders on the hard floor, she was much more interesting than the blinking numbered buttons.

It was only fifteen minutes before she woke, and less than an hour before the technician arrived to let them out, but the quiet and peace of those moments before she opened her eyes stayed with him. The walls didn’t press in at all if he never removed his gaze from her, and his headache faded in the absence of her chatter. The smell of peaches flitted in the air around her, and the transience of the moment didn’t matter. He had never been so content to be separate.