xp log - kippei and shinji

[shattermelt]

Shinji wasn't blue anymore. At first, Kippei felt a bit guilty for being a little sorry about this, and then, as Shinji got more tense and restless by the day, he stopped feeling guilty but also stopped enjoying the idea quite so much, because it really sucked for Shinji all the way around. It was hard to appreciate any part of a situation that made your boyfriend miserable. At least while he'd been burnt out Shinji didn't have to worry about hearing too much, but now that the quiet room was under construction to repair the damage from Ryuhana's attack, he didn't have a place to go to get that bit of relief now that his powers were back.

Kippei didn't know what it was like to have to hear everything all the time, but it seemed to make Shinji tense and unhappy, and that was definitely bad.

"Come here," Kippei told him, holding out his hand. He'd been stretched out on the bed, attempting to read, but that wasn't working so well. He kept getting distracted by the restlessness and general air of moodiness that Shinji was wearing lately. Distraction time. Except distracting him was getting less and less effective, and Kippei was a little worried. Okay, more than a little.

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[ayretala.livejournal.com]

Shinji startled himself by laughing, delighted by the odd path of Kippei's thoughts. Kippei was always distracting, a fact Shinji found incredibly relieving, now moreso than ever. He gave in for a moment, just kissing Kippei and enjoying it, letting it take as much of his attention as possible.

"You gonna pack for me?" He asked at last with a smirk. One, he had no intention of getting off the bed until he absolutely had to. And two, he was curious what Kippei would choose to stick him in...though he was a little nervous he might end up going camping naked.

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

"Already did," Kippei told him, smirking right back. As a matter of fact he'd done it days ago, even before Shinji had gotten his powers back. He'd been pretty sure Shinji would want to get out of here sooner or later, and probably wouldn't want to waste time about it when he did, so Kippei had packed a bag for each of them and another with camping type food and a few other things they'd need, and stashed them in closet so they could just leave whenever Shinji wanted to.

Also, this way he got to make sure that Shinji had appropriate clothing for the trip, including some of his tougher pairs of denims and several jumpers for cold nights. And decent shoes, though Kippei had had some trouble finding what seemed to be the only pair of anything approximating good walking/climbing/hiking shoes that Shinji owned--which was very approximate indeed, but they were better than what he usually wore, and he'd need them for the place Kippei had in mind to go.

"It's a long walk," he warned Shinji, "and we'll have to do some climbing, but I promise it's worth it."

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

"You...you packed already?" Shinji just say there, blinking at him. Wow. Now see, that was cool. He had known; had already packed for them both, and packed food to boot. Kippei was...amazing. He broke out in a sunny grin, latching onto Kippei and kissing him hard, fast, delighted.

"I dont care I can walk with you, and climb and it's fine, just take me now. I want to go now." Shinji let go of Kippei and grabbed Kii, looking around for a bag, finding a spare backpack and snatching it up off the floor and telling Kii to be good while he shoved him in. Maybe not the best solution...hmm...he grabbed the small cat blanket and put that in too, satisfied when Kii grumpily burrowed into it and settled down.

"Did you pack cat food?"

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei gave him a sardonic look, raising one eyebrow from his place on the bed. "No." He'd actually been kind of hoping that they could leave the kitten with one of Shinji's friends for the few days they'd be gone, but he'd known that was a pretty long shot. Still, he couldn't quite bring himself to plan on the cat coming, like it was inevitable, so he hadn't. "But I did leave space in your pack for it, in case you wanted to take him."

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

"Oh...cool." Shinji reached under the bed and grabbed a few tins of cat food; enough to cover a week if they were really desperate, and shoved as many as he could in under the blanket and Kii. He held the remaining few tags a little nervously, but excited and looked at Kippei expectantly.

"So...where are the bags? You thought something about the closet? Why did you stash it all in the closet? If I was looking at it I woulda asked to go sooner."

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei looked amused, if slightly apologetic. "If you'd been looking at it you would have wanted to go right away, and it wouldn't have done you as much good then. I wanted to wait until you really needed it--it's still going to be a week or two before the quiet room is repaired."

He stood finally and went over to retrieve the bags from the closet, handing Shinji his with a faint smirk. "Change your shoes," he advised, grabbing the sturdier looking ones he'd set beside the bags and handing them over in turn, then reaching for his own boots so he could change too.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

"Shoes?" Shinji took them and stared at them for a long time. "I own these?" He cocked his head, eyeing them closely. He vaguely remembered...something...when he had needed shoes, that he hadn't needed ever again, just like he had told his parents he wouldn't. Still, if they were walking Shinji supposed Kippei was right and these would be better, so he kicked off his canvas sneakers and pulled on the vaguely bootish shoes, sitting back down on the bed to reassure Kii that it was okay, and watch Kippei change his shoes. He pushed the remaining cat tins into the top of his bag and made sure everything was done up, frowning, because even being this far off the bed wasn't helping at all.

"Hurry up, I wanna go." And Kippei was right; it wouldn't have done any good to have left earlier. Now was the right time, and it was reassuring, to know Kippei had known.

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei straightened, grinning as he shouldered his backpack and grabbed the other pack containing the necessary things like food and utensils and matches and a medkit just in case, and a couple of blankets. Just the basic things.

"Ready when you are," he announced, waiting for Shinji to get his pack, wondering absently how he was going to carry the cat, too. Wearing two backpacks at once didn't generally work all that well.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

Shinji stared, wide-eyed, at Kippei's two huge backpacks and felt a little guilty, but figured Kippei knew what he could handle. He looked at his own two bags and grinned, pulling his bag of clothes and the like onto his back, then putting Kii in his bag the other way around, against his front where he could cuddle the cat in its bag. He could see one lazy eye peeking out and hear a faint purr and he leant over to nuzzle a little, then stood and reached out, grabbing Kippei's hand.

"So, where are we going? You said we had to climb. Are there mountains?"

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

"There are," Kippei nodded as they left the room and headed out of the building. Small mountains, just foothills really, but they were mountains. Not heavy duty climbing, the kind you needed a rope for, but definite hiking climbing, where the trail went up and up and wound around trees and rocks and streams until you thought it was never going to end. Just the kind he loved, though he wasn't so sure that Shinji would enjoy it.

The actual getting there part was easier though, since he could make Shinji lighter and he shouldn't have any trouble with getting too tired walking. The reason he'd insisted on the change of shoes was that they'd be spending several days up there, and he didn't want to worry about Shinji losing his footing or falling or anything else drastic happening while they were there.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

Mmm...it sounded nice, the way Kippei thought about it, and he wasn't going to get tired which was a relief. He was already dead tired, the last thing he needed was to have to actually walk that far carrying two packs that were kind of heavy, but they were fine for now. He squeezed the fingers in his and skipped a step to catch up to Kippei, passing Yuushi's door and feeling a little guilty for not leaving a note, but Yuushi hadn't been there the last three times Shinji went to visit and he hadn't heard much from him either, so maybe Yuushi wouldn't really mind the oversight. Then they were outside and he really couldn't think about it, fingers tightening wildly around Kippei's as nothing stood between him and way too many brainwaves.

"Kippei..." he whimpered a little, clenching his eyes shut and moving closer. "Fly. Can we fly? Can we go fast?"

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei shot him a worried look and hesitated; they'd only practiced that once, and not over any very great distance, and.... Shinji looked very miserable.

"Yeah," he said softly, with a little half smile as he cut their gravity and pushed away from the ground, holding Shinji's hand and taking them straight up, high above the school. Easy. The next part, maybe not.

"Ready?" he asked unnecessarily, and somewhat absently, focusing as far ahead of them as he could and testing this 'flying' thing. He didn't know about fast, and it would be tricky to keep moving his focus farther ahead as they went. At least it was good practice.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

Oh thank god, they were flying. Shinji clung to Kippei with one arm while his other wrapped tight around the backpack on his chest with Kii in it. And the voices were softer, fading. Shinji sighed in relief and a recently rare smile turned up the corners of his mouth.

"Kippei is so cool, isnt he Kii?" He stroked Kii mentally and closed his eyes, feeling sleepy and relieved, as if someone had stopped hammering at his head with a mallet.

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei glanced over at Shinji once or twice, keeping an eye on him, but he looked fine, if sleepy, so he turned his full concentration on trying to keep their fall smooth and even as he kept changing the point they were falling to, farther and farther 'down' even though he knew it was ahead of them. He didn't bother telling Shinji that he didn't really have to hang on, because the field would catch him and pull him along anyway, but Kippei liked it when he did.

This way of travel was faster than walking, because they could go in a straight line. He took them all the way to the beginning of the trail that led up into the mountains, and then dropped them carefully at the head of it; he wasn't sure he could find the spot he was heading for from the air, and he was looking forward to walking this trail again--he hadn't been here for awhile.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

The ground came up and Shinji opened his eyes with a lazy smile as his feet touched the earth. He settled his bags again and checked Kii was okay, then squeezed Kippei's fingers again.

"It's quiet here. It's really quiet..." He marvelled at that small fact, reaching out and hearing only a muffled gibberish of wild animals and laughter creapt out of his throat. He reached up and kissed his cheek. "Thank you, beautiful."

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei muttered something that wasn't really words, shaking his head and trying to ignore the rising heat in his face. He wasn't going to object, he never did, but it was still the weirdest thing when Shinji called him that.

"You're welcome," he managed finally, shaking off his disconcertion, and the lingering disorientation from turning the world on it's edge again when down became sideways and sideways was down as his focus shifted back into alignment with Earth gravity.

He looked around, smiling a little in appreciation. This mountain was mostly forested, up to the timberline, and the trail led through it, shady and cool and green with the occasional stream or rocky patch. This was beautiful.

"Come on," he said, his smile growing wider in anticipation as he looked sideways at Shinji. "Let's go."

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

Shinji looked around and took a moment to just let it soak in. They were in the woods...on a mountain. It was green, and there were trees, and the air was clean and empty somehow and it was pretty and perfect. Shinji took a step forward, then another, tugging Kippei forward with him while he started to enjoy himself. This was just what he wanted. Just what he needed. And he got to have it, and be alone with Kippei and Kii, and that was just the best thing ever.

"Yeah."