reforged sword

Kippei was restless and angry and bored. Also worried and tired and lonely as fuck, but mostly he was angry. And restless. And bored. He missed Shinji with a sharp, intense ache that only got worse as the weeks dragged by and what little news coming out of the station was never good. He hadn't seen Shinji for a month. An entire damn month, and the last time that had happened, he'd gone a little crazy. Hell, he was a little crazy now, and it wasn't entirely about Shinji.

He hated being stuck out here, away from the action, away from any possibility of doing anything, with a sentence of death if he tried anything. He'd try something anyway, but now he had more than one reason not to die and he'd never considered that it might not be a blessing before. Not that he would trade it for anything, but he was feeling the cramp of restraint biting into him and he hated it. A lot. Not having anyone or anything to care about, not having a reason, living damn near suicidal for as long as he had was a hard habit to break, and he almost wished he had that freedom back. He spent a whole week staring at it, the fact that this was what he'd been afraid of with Shinji, when he'd worried that getting involved might make it harder for him to do his job. Maybe he shouldn't be sitting out here waiting. Maybe if there wasn't Shinji to think about, he wouldn't be.

He wrestled it out with himself and finally decided that it didn't matter, because he was still that selfish and even if it was true, he still wanted Shinji more than anything else. He'd been ready once to leave his whole life behind and just go with it, and he would still do that in a heartbeat if it meant staying with Shinji. If he had to. In the meantime, he was caught in the middle, and the unclear choices bothered him more than the single, clear cut decision. He really, really needed to find Shinji, to make sure he was fine, or at least to see him. Talk to him. Failing that, he needed a distraction.

It took him awhile to get desperate enough to hail the one other ship that seemed to be skulking around out here, and ask Rokkaku's ambassador if he had any news. Knowing him, the old man probably had all kinds of inside sources.

It wasn't himself that Kippei was worried about. Once the tattoo was bandaged, it was like any other minor injury, something to be wrapped and forgotten--that is, ignored--until it healed. It didn't bother him and he didn't take particular notice of it, except to be reminded of it now and then when he moved and it flared briefly with a subtle burn to make him feel warm inside with knowing it was there.

Shinji, on the other hand, was going to have considerably more to deal with. Kippei didn't like that at all.

"You need to take the day off at least," he told Shinji the next morning. He'd made sure Shinji slept on his stomach that night, sleeping lightly and waking often to check on him, though he made sure that Shinji didn't know he did it. In the morning he knew Shinji was still in pain, no matter what he said, and it would be miserable as hell for him to try to work that way, especially when he got sweaty and it seeped beneath the bandage, it would sting like hell. Not acceptable. "You're staying home, even if I have to stay home to keep you here."

Kippei woke up early the next morning; it was too much of a habit, even though he was planning to take the day off. Shinji was curled up beside him with his face buried in the pillow, and Kippei took a minute to just watch him. When Shinji was sleeping and no one else was around, it was a little bit easier to just stop and feel things, let it show in a surprisingly unguarded expression.

It was a pretty amazing thing to wake up beside someone and think they were going to be there for the rest of your life. And while Kippei had known that, on some level, somehow today it was suddenly more real. It was a bit silly, and his faint smile showed he was laughing at himself, but still. He reached out to lay his hand on Shinji's back, just feeling him breathe, letting that sense of wonder fill him. "I love you," he whispered, just because no one could hear him.

He should get up, and call his office, and get dressed so they could go as soon as possible, but this kind of contentment was hard to disturb, even for such excellent reasons. Peace was rare enough and god knew, it probably wasn't going to last, but for the moment, they had all the time in the world.

Kippei had been carefully investigating the situation in Brown, and he didn't like at all the things he was finding out. Rikkai was up to something, and it wasn't going to be anything good. He was worried about Fudo people, since there had been fights breaking out with the overcrowding, and a lot of them were necessarily between the two races that had most reason to resent the other's presence. He was worried about the station as a whole and what Rikkai was planning, but most of all he was worried about Shinji, who still spent a great deal of his work time down in the troubled areas.

Shinji had been right, he did need to learn how to defend himself, and Kippei was relieved to have a suggestion for what to do about it. Shinji was frustrating the hell out of him still with his reactions to their fight the other night, but Kippei knew he'd screwed that up, and it was his own fault. It didn't change the fact that he need to teach Shinji how to fight. So in spite of the fact that he'd been working more hours every day than he ever had before on the station, he came home with the intent to find Shinji for a self defense lesson.

Apparently Shinji wanted to go for a walk. Kippei wasn't sure if that was all he had in mind, or if there was some kind of purpose behind it, but he figured it didn't matter much. A walk would be nice. It had been a long day, and a chance to relax and spend time with Shinji was always welcome--it didn't really matter where they went.

He paused for just a minute outside the door when he got home, because no matter how many times he did this, he never got over the fact that Shinji was actually waiting for him, there, every day. As soon as he went in. He couldn't help taking a moment just to realize how amazing that was before he actually opened the door, smiling as he went through.

Kippei had spent several days thinking about things after the day he'd stayed home from work with his hangover. Fighting with Shinji had bothered him on several levels, and not everything that had been stirred up by the events of that night had been resolved, or even addressed. Shinji was staying, good, that was first and most important. Shinji was not actively mad at him anymore, even better. Did they still have issues? They most certainly did.

Not the least of which was something that had been a small thing at first, barely noticeable, but becoming increasingly glaringly obvious and just as frustrating. Shinji seemed determined to keep some aspects of their relationship... disturbingly one-sided, and it was making Kippei want to shake him. Just stop, he wanted to say, just stop doing things, but that wasn't really what he meant. He liked, definitely liked very much when Shinji did things, wonderful amazing things with his hands and his mouth and his tongue, and it was very, very good, but what he did not like at all was the way Shinji resisted him every time Kippei tried to do the same things for him. It made him want to shout in frustration or hit something very hard, sometimes.

It was like before, all over again, like when Shinji randomly kissed him in the shuttle or dragged him onto a dance floor or held his hand a little too long and Kippei had always forced himself not to react, not to let go, not to give in, to pull away and not do anything himself. It was like Shinji thought he was still going to push him away at any time, and he was just going to do whatever Kippei would let him in the meantime, but he wasn't expecting, or seemingly even wanting anything back. Kippei hated it.

Eventually he decided enough was enough, he'd run out of patience and he was getting more frustrated by the day and Inanna wasn't an option anymore. Shouldn't need to be an option anymore. This had got to stop. How, he wasn't exactly sure, but it was going to stop. He waited until one night after dinner when neither he or Shinji had anywhere else to be to bring it up. Or try to bring it up. He was still working out what to say. But he said, come here, and pushed Shinji down on the couch, settled in beside him and trapped his hands so he couldn't start anything distracting, and frowned a little bit to himself as he searched for words. Stop trying so hard to love me and let me love you back was a little too... something.