Chapter Text
Shinji always made Kaworu breathless, whether by his beauty or his hands around his neck.
Kaworu knew this timeline was coming to a close for him- he'd made peace with it when he failed to achieve Shinji's trust- but he couldn't stop the struggled noises coming from his dying body. He tried to swallow but the grip of merciless fingers kept him from it. He touched those fingers with his own trembling ones, head pounding.
"How many times-" Shinji's voice is the raw anger of a hurt child as tears overflow his face and soak into Kaworu's shirt, "How many times will it take for you to finally stop loving me?!"
Kaworu opens his mouth for monumental answers but Shinji still refuses him air. If he could speak he'd say; all the times, every single second, down to the last universe in the infinite time loop. With his last remaining will he reaches out for Shinji's face. The tips of his fingers get to ghost his jawline before his arm drops and he can't feel himself anymore. He closes his eyes.
Shinji feels sickened and sanctified by the caress- his body seizes him in adrenaline, in shame, in everything unholy that has already been forgiven- He presses down harder. He screams. He lets go.
Just as Kaworu thought his soul was slipping out of this realm he was torn, crumpled back into this painful broken shell of skin. Every vein burned as he wretched his first breath and spluttered blood through the exhale. The next breath and blood was in his lungs- coughing, choking, hacking, the metallic taste bubbles out his nose and drips off his lips as he desperately rises to meet his crying offender.
Kaworu collapses onto Shinji with a terrible, shaking hug that burns his skin with kindness, and all Shinji can do to reconcile is catch him when his limbs start slipping off Shinji's shoulders, Kaworu's body giving into the state of his injuries.
Kaworu lies limp in Shinji's arms for the rest of the night and he will fumble for answers on how to live with himself.
(And as the sun broke the sky he realized the answer was to not live with himself at all. Shinji carries Kaworu's body into the blood-thickened ocean and tucks them both under the waves to sleep forever.)