Archive of Our Own ^beta

Something didn't match in the results of the calculations. Without taking off his glasses, Gendo rubbed his eyes just in case, but the text on the laptop screen didn't change.

“Why is the final rate of apoptosis one and a half times faster than the initial one?” he muttered slowly and softly under his breath.

He once more looked carefully at each line. There were no errors or typos. However, the computer simulations categorically stated that the modification designed to reduce the rate of apoptosis of Evangelion bodies had produced the opposite result.

He heard the rustling of papers and approaching footsteps from behind him. Fuyutsuki leaned a little closer to the screen.

“Because you ran the simulation on Unit-01, not Unit-00.” He pointed at the window, which clearly read, “Object – Evangelion-01.” Not 00, as he has clearly seen for several hours in a row.

What a ridiculous situation. Holding back his embarrassment, Gendo closed his eyes for a couple of seconds and hoped the professor wouldn't start his favorite speech right now.

“Ikari, the working day ended four hours ago,” he began anyway. In his most serious tone.

“Exactly. You should have gone home a long time ago.”

“You should have gone home a long time ago.”

“I'm not tired,” Gendo himself laughed at this statement, it was such an obvious lie.

“Yes, it's very noticeable,” Fuyutsuki continued with undisguised sarcasm, “Do you know what 'nervous exhaustion' is?”

Gendo looked up at him from under heavy, sore eyelids. How hasn't Fuyutsuki had enough of himself with these pesky conversations...?

Of course he knew very well what nervous exhaustion was. A couple of days before, he had even stopped convincing himself that he had enough strength to work all days long: sometimes his memory failed and it became more and more difficult to concentrate on something. Or, as now, he was thinking about one thing, but was doing something else.

That's not the point at all. It was Fuyutsuki who didn't know.

“I don't want to go home. Is that clear enough for you?” Gendo didn't take his eyes off him. Practice showed that under this influence Fuyutsuki moved a little faster.

He frowned slightly in response, just as he was supposed to, took the folder with the 00's genome map from in front of Gendo, and returned to the bookshelves against the back wall.

“Then maybe we should go for a drink?”

Now it was getting really funny. How far would the professor go in his quest to save him from 'nervous exhaustion'? Turning to Fuyutsuki, Gendo saw an expression of extreme concern on his face, and his sneer at the suggestion vanished in a second.

Does he really worry? Gendo wanted to believe it. He wanted to believe that Fuyutsuki worried about him and not just about the mistakes he made because of his overwork.

He would really like it.

“Do you know any good places?” Gendo finally conceded. Fuyutsuki perked up instantly.

“I haven't been there personally, but a couple of our guys recently discussed a decent place. You can’t even hear the construction work there.”

“I guess half the city must hide from the noise there.”

“In any case, it's worth checking out.”

Imagining the scale of the crowd, among which he was going to “rest”, Gendo let out a melancholy sigh and began to hastily close all the programs in the laptop. Perhaps this time he wouldn't remain alone among the crowd.

***

Everything turned out much nicer than expected. The bar was in the eastern part of the city, where unusual-looking fortifications had been built almost around the clock. It was not very full of people. The reason turned out to be simple: the high prices that ensured the sound comfort inside. Fortunately, for several years now, money hadn't been a problem for Gendo, even in current times. And Fuyutsuki, no matter how much he wanted to pretend to be a Buddhist monk, couldn't complain about being poor either, and Gendo just had to point it out.

“You know perfectly well, Ikari, that it's not me who sets my own salary,” he answered, a little annoyed. “Why do I have so much money if there is nothing at all to spend it on?”

“For cases like this, for example,” Gendo let go of his glass and rested his temple on his palm. “If it bothers you so much, what stops you from asking the accounting department for a pay cut?”

Fuyutsuki shook his head like a teacher. This man doesn't change at all, thought Gendo, or at least he stubbornly pretends not to.

“Seele stops me,” Fuyutsuki said in a much quieter voice.

A chill ran down Gendo's back. Even though they were sitting in a corner surrounded by high sofas, Gendo, with a stern look, still advised the professor not to say that name. Yes, Fuyutsuki definitely hasn't changed in his honesty.

“It's one of their guarantees and insurances for me. More precisely, from me,” he chuckled dryly.

“This is a sound materialistic approach. But it's wrong, because you're not a materialist at all, Fuyutsuki.” A paradox, but alcohol gave clarity to his thoughts. And, of course, it loosened his tongue. “That's always surprised me with you.”

He gave Gendo a curious and slightly drunken look. “How exactly?”

“You're a scientist. And also the most naive idealist I know.”

Fuyutsuki laughed lightly and briefly, unbuttoned the top button of his jacket, and leaned back on the sofa.

“Naive, then,” he suddenly became serious and fell silent, staring into an almost empty glass in front of him. “Maybe. From your point of view, maybe naive.”

“You don't consider yourself to be.”

“Not at all.”

Twice naive, twice an idealist. Gendo mentally marveled at how this man even survived in their merciless world, overflowing with political intrigues and anti-humanism. And with some kind of overbearing feeling, he remembered that it was he who, in fact, saved Fuyutsuki.

Ikari didn't want any gratitude from him. In the end, the final choice of defying no less than the most powerful people on the planet or living was up to him, and Fuyutsuki had wisely chosen the latter, apparently stepping on his own throat. And, even being on the side of Seele, he nevertheless continued to express and show extreme disapproval of their methods of doing business.

“Blessed man,” Gendo whispered, peering at the man seated beside him. Fuyutsuki didn't hear him.

A significant lack of rest and sleep turned thoughts into heavy lead balls pressing against his skull. The lighting in the bar was mercifully dim and beckoned his tired eyes to close. But the figure nearby didn't let him.

How many of these philanthropists died in wars, how many surrendered under the harsh onslaught of the catastrophic consequences, how many perverted their ideals beyond recognition in an attempt to build a world better than before? It was a sheer curiosity to watch it happen for everyone. How the patterns that couldn't push through the framework of their new morality cracked. They crumbled like styrofoam: light, fragile, worthless.

But not for the good old Professor Fuyutsuki. The one who had decided to personally plunge into the abyss of the Second Impact's results – certainly not the worst, but far from pleasant – and the one who was unwilling to accept the rules of the game. Unyielding with the stubbornness of a granite rock.

“So, you're going to keep staring at me?” Fuyutsuki broke the silence.

“I keep wondering, what is the source of your idealism?”

“Whatever it is, I won't introduce it to you,” Fuyutsuki sighed in disappointment.

That tone and the sentence itself... it was like a prick to the heart. Gendo lifted his hands off the table and moved a little farther away. “You think all I do is wait to mock you?”

“You seem to enjoy watching people become disillusioned with their ideals and lives.”

Ikari closed his eyelids for a second. Fuyutsuki still didn't understand him at all. “That's not true. I just want as many people as possible to accept life as it is.”

The professor's features softened again, but he asked: “And what's wrong with wanting a better life than what we have? I'm sure you're just as idealistic about that, Ikari.”

Fuyutsuki summed it up with a light smile that eased the pain in Gendo's chest. He's probably right. Deep down, Gendo was a hundred times more idealistic than the former teacher, only he didn't want to admit it. And, probably, he didn't want the professor to change after all. So that the reminder of the bright world that everyone deserves and needs wouldn't disappear.

His head was quite heavy. Almost sprawled half-sitting on the soft couch, Gendo tried not to fall asleep and to cope with the burden of his thoughts.

“Yeah, maybe,” he chuckled, putting his palm to his hot forehead.

Everyone dreams of an ideal world where it will be comfortable, peaceful and joyful. Crystal clear happiness without a drop of sorrow. Philosophers of all ages, together with ordinary dreamers, have proposed hundreds and thousands of options for the ideal, endlessly arguing with each other. There was only one truth, and it was, as always, cruel – none of these worlds could exist in reality. And it is high time to come to a simple consensus.

“Ever thought about oblivion, Fuyutsuki?” His voice became plainly hoarse.

The professor set his empty glass aside. “Oblivion?”

“Yes. Only peace and serenity. You know, like laminar flow.” Gendo smiled slightly at the analogy that came to his mind. “No worries, no arguements. Serenity.”

“I'm afraid there's no place for joy in such a flow.” Fuyutsuki was now gazing at him with incipient anxiety.

“If there is joy, then there is sadness. After all, why all these...”

Why should happiness exist, when it may be inaccessible? Why be disappointed because of its unattainability? Why cherish these dreams of joy and warmth again...?

“Does that look like life? You…” Fuyutsuki thought for a few seconds. “Is that what you want… in the end?”

Gendo, with the last of his strength, kept the professor's anxious gaze, which looked impossible, like dreams of an ideal world. His eyes must have been failing him again. “At least, I can't think of anything else lately.”

Fuyutsuki shook his head in displeasure. Of course, he didn't like that at all.

He slowly got up from the table and walked around it, buttoning his jacket back up.

“I think you're too tired,” he stopped next to Gendo and suddenly extended his hand. “Come on, I'll call a taxi.”

His body, soaked with fatigue, resisted, but as Gendo grabbed the outstretched hand, a powerful force pulled him upright. And everything seemed hazy in the half-asleep. His right temple collided with something soft, the distant smell of cigarettes hit his mind with a flash of memories of long ago, and he could hear Professor Fuyutsuki's voice as if through water.

“Rokubungi, stop following me everywhere, it's unnerving.”

“Don't sleep.” Gendo heard next more distinctly right above his ear. Someone else's hands fell on the shoulders and then moved him away. Fuyutsuki still looked worried, which was hard to believe.

The fresh air of night was surprisingly cool compared to daytime. Construction work had stopped for people’s sleep time, but only for a few hours. The rare light of the windows from the lower floors scattered the darkness near the ground, contrasting with the depth of the black sky, where the growing gigantic skyscrapers merged at their peaks. This strange city was filled with human hopes for salvation and a happy life.

Gendo’s exhausted consciousness perceived his surroundings only intermittently. Fuyutsuki stood a little further away, talking on the phone, then next to him and muttering something about work, after which his hands for some reason ended up on Gendo's shoulders again. It became cloudy and dark before his eyes, the tightness in the chest hampering the full inhale of fresh air.

The next glimpse of reality, if it was reality: fingers groping for glasses in his jacket pocket, and someone's presence nearby. Rolling his head over the back of the seat to the other side, Gendo recognizes Fuyutsuki in the bright figure. Didn't they say goodbye at the bar?

“What time is it?” Ikari asked for some reason, obviously not understanding the meaning of his actions.

Finding a watch under his sleeve, Fuyutsuki replied: “It's past two.”

Why was he here, literally half a meter away? Gendo knew full well that he could have made it home unaided, even in this state. It wouldn't have been the first time. Could he have accidentally asked...

The chilling realization of the possibility awoke his mind and body, no longer allowing them to slip out of control. No, he couldn't. He didn't betray himself.

Fuyutsuki is as calm and collected as always. This guaranted that nothing really happened, no matter how much Gendo would have liked the opposite.

Hope, held back by his failing strength, broke free and whispered that the professor himself volunteered to take him to the service apartment, because he cared. That he stayed in Gehirn, despite the never-ending moral dilemma, because he cared. This hope hurt so much that Gendo wanted to disincarnate. He was convinced once again that it was better for him to never stop working.

The professor silently followed him to the very threshold, although it really was high time for him to go home. One could just say so, but Ikari was no longer sure that he'd choose the right words and not utter the unnecessary ones. He just wanted this long day to end.

Gendo didn't turn on the genkan lighting so as not to irritate his eyes.

“Everything alright?” Fuyutsuki asked, taking a step inside. He cares.

“Yes,” Ikari turned around to finally say goodbye for now and take a break from everything. “Thanks for the company, Professor.”

In the darkness, barely penetrated by the corridor light through the half-open front door, he hardly distinguished Fuyutsuki's approach. Warm fingers and a palm rested on his neck, and Gendo shuddered belatedly in surprise and suddenly felt lips against his own. Hope transformed into consolation and spread through his heart in ticklish trickles. But evil fatigue didn't let him do anything in return.

“No need for oblivion, Ikari,” Fuyutsuki said from the darkness.

A desperate will to see his face, grab onto the sleeve of his jacket, stop for a while and get another drop of warmth. No, there's truly no need for oblivion.

Fingers slipped off the neck, and Fuyutsuki hurriedly turned around and left, closing the door. Gendo was left alone in the empty apartment, but for the first time in hundreds of days he felt alive in it.