2010-06-02 - Nothing Turns Out Like You Want It To

SOME TIME AGO

Rei Ayanami doesn't know if Johnny thought he'd never see her again. Either way, she didn't announce that she was returning to his quarters -- she simply showed up with a cut lip and a suitcase and that's how it went down. Every night it's been harder for her to get to sleep, but no one would ever guess from the way she lays there like a lump, on her side and facing away from Johnny, small body gently bent into a shallow curve. She doesn't talk anymore; the morning rituals are conducted in total silence, with a tacit understanding that what mattered was simply the time spent.

SOME TIME BEFORE NOW

Rei Ayanami, still silent, joins Johnny Domino in the shower. She doesn't ask; she doesn't see if it's okay; she doesn't offer to leave if he's uncomfortable. It just happens. The wash is fairly uneventful, except for a brief moment where Rei's hand slides around Johnny's body and begins to manipulate certain aspects of his anatomy until they are noticeably changed. The steamy atmosphere of the shower becomes awkward almost immediately after, though, and Rei's hand retracts.

No words are exchanged, and Rei washes her hair without looking at Johnny.

NOW

Everyone is dressed and PG-rated. It's a lonely scene in the corridor outside of the mess hall. The air is heavy and grey despite the Minerva's filtration systems -- it's an emotional thing, though, and the effect is clearly written across Rei's face. She struggles not to show it, but she's miserable.

That this is it -- the last one, the last last one -- is all but spelled out in neon lights on the wall.

Rei spends a long time simply looking at Johnny Domino. She's wearing a teal A-LAWS flight suit, helmet in hand -- her case is already stashed in the Galbaldy Beta she's been using to get around freely. Rei's mental degeneration hasn't claimed those skills yet. Otherwise, she would have been collected.

Rei leans forward, toward Johnny, pressing the padding of her flight suit against his body in perhaps the saddest hug any teenager has ever given a legal adult. Her eyes shut for a moment. "Johnny," she says, the first word she's spoken in days to the man.

"Aishite imasu."

Rei leans up and, whether Johnny likes it or not -- she's grown rather strong, hasn't she -- presses her lips to his in a kiss. It lasts a few moments, and while lips move and grow wetter, it's not anything driven by passion, so much as bittersweet melancholy. It is, after all, a kiss goodbye.

Rei pulls back from this, still touching Johnny with one hand. She lingers, not wanting to go, but knowing she has to. She says Johnny's name again, and turns and begins to float away. This is right outside the mess hall doors. It's a busy corridor. Anyone coming or going could see the whole thing.

Maybe at least one of them will realize, as Rei disappears into an elevator car, that her last word wasn't "Johnny."

It was "Ja-ne."

Johnny Domino, indeed, did not expect to see Rei again following their last meal. When she showed up at his quarters with a suitcase, it was as if someone had dumped a bucket of both hot and cold water on the Agent, soaking him in warmth and chill. One the one hand, she was still there - he could still be with her for a while longer! But on the other hand, the suitcase was taunting him, so very obvious, so very sad, so very final.

Lying next to Rei Ayanami at night, Domino didn't allow himself to fall asleep like usual -- he wanted to be conscious in these last hours. If only he knew Rei was similarly awake, perhaps the two would have spent the time physically closer. But no, Johnny was certain she was asleep, and did not wish to disturb her.

Funny how the next morning Rei had no qualms about disturbing Domino in the shower. Already used to Ayanami's shameless and somewhat erratic behavior, the Agent was not as shocked as he could have been. He did consider raising a protest... a weak and feeble protest. But being all too aware of the approaching nick of time, the Agent decided against it. He'd let Rei shower by his side. As long as she didn't try anything that was--

---

Domino was caught off guard by Rei's caress. This, the girl's decisive action, DID shock him. Breath hitching, body tense, the Agent actually broke the hours-long silence between them. "..R-Rei."

He should have stopped her -- tried to stop her -- told her to stop. But he didn't. Feeling her warm flesh against his own, vulnerable from sleep deprivation and the sudden grip of despair, Johnny Domino reached out to touch Ayanami as well. She was with him and he was with her, both trapped under the torrent of water, trapped in separate cages.

Johnny wouldn't get to feel her again. Rei wouldn't get to feel him.

Unless...

And then it was over.

Johnny Domino had not said a single word ever since speaking her name in the shower. He was too sad, too troubled, too disgusted and disappointed. Standing by the mess hall, all the Agent could do was return the girl's kiss - a flat, impassive gesture.

Watching her drift away, rooted in place, lost in his own little world, Domino doesn't care who saw them. The hell with everyone else. For him, they were all an ocean of teal, A-LAWS uniforms coming together in a great body. A body that was swallowing Ayanami out of sight, and the Agent, too, was feeling as if he was drowning in it.

In those last moments, Johnny Domino could not even say goodbye.

SOME TIME AGO

Leo Stenbuck and Brough Grabbs are sitting in Hangar 4 on the Shirogane. Currently, their conversation is in a lull, and both are sort of boredly people-watching.

Then Leo declares, abruptly, "I'm going to the Minerva in a little bit."

"Good luck with that," Brough says, without looking over.

Another stretch of silence, during which Leo fiddles awkwardly with one corner of his uniform's duster.

"So... I mean, did you want to-" he begins.

"I'm good."

"Oh," Leo says, with obvious disappointment.

More silence.

"It's just that, you know, the shuttle-"

"I'm not going with you."

"-the shuttle has, like, eight seats, and there's not- there's not eight of me, you know, so there'd be-"

"Dude! I'm not going with you!"

"-plenty of room and just, you know, it'd be cool if-"

The conversation rapidly devolves into both men speaking - loudly - at once, with Leo begging Brough to accompany him, and the Ensign vehemently refusing.

SOME TIME AGO

Leo Stenbuck and Brough Grabbs are standing in an elevator on the Minerva. With a *ding*, the doors slide open, granting access to the ship's barracks. Leo stands there staring at the open doorway, sucking on his teeth. He came here to talk to Sarah, again, to, to /double/-apologize, but...

"Nope," he says suddenly, reaching desperately for the elevator control panel. "Nope, nope, can't do it. Nope. We're leaving."

"Oh, you pussy!" Brough hisses, swatting at Leo's hand. "I didn't come all the way out here so you could lose your nerve!"

"uhhh, well, apparently you did," Leo observes, counter-swatting at the man's hand. In short order, the situation devolves into a half-hearted slapfight, again with both men shouting at each other to argue their respective points.

After about five seconds, the fight dies down, and both Leo and Brough stand in the still-open elevator, glowering.

Then Leo suggests, "Maybe if I had a drink first--"

Brough seizes upon it immediately. "Yes! Yes. A drink. Calm your nerves, it'd be- that's- that's a great idea."

Silence.

"But I don't know if there's any booze on the ship..." Leo observes, frowning thoughtfully.

Silence.

"They use alcohol in cooking, right?" Brough asks.

The two look at each other, and then, in unison, surge out of the elevator. This happens to involve them getting stuck in the closing elevator doors for several seconds.

SOME TIME AGO

Leo Stenbuck and Brough Grabbs are in the kitchen on the Minerva, digging through cabinets in search of alcohol. Leo comes up, after a few minutes of searching, with a bottle of cooking sherry, ferreted away by the chef despite the Federation's recent food troubles.

It is blessedly easy to get the top off. Leo takes a sniff of the contents of the bottle, scrunches up his nose, and then takes a long swig.

Immediately, he spits it out in obvious disgust. "Oh, God," he gags, wiping vigorously at his mouth with the sleeve of his uniform. "It's like drinking... dead pee."

Leo stands there grimacing for a moment, and then takes another, longer swig of the cooking sherry before offering the bottle to Brough Grabbs.

NOW

While Rei and Johnny are still kissing, the door to the mess hall slides open. It's just some asshole... but, for a few moments, the doors are open, providing a line of sight to the pair from damn near any corner of the room.

There is the sound of glass breaking, a second later. It's probably nothing; someone dropped something, is all. It happens pretty frequently, when pilots get rowdy, after all.

Rei floats off. About three seconds later, a hand settles itself on Johnny's shoulder from behind, fingers digging into the flesh in an uncomfortably - almost painfully - strong grip.

This is all the warning Johnny gets before Leo Stenbuck turns the Agent sharply to face him, and then punches him in the mouth.

Johnny Domino never saw it coming.

Feeling a hand on his shoulder -- a very firm grip, at that -- /too/ firm, in fact, what --

Domino's world turns upside. A burst of darkness overcomes the Agent's vision as he feels a potent blow impacting with his jaw. Staggering backwards, the young man very nearly falls over. He doesn't, steadying himself in time, bent to the side at an odd angle.

And then Domino looks up. A shrill ringing plays in his ears, vision clearing. Blood is already pushing out of the Agent's injured lip. He stares at Stenbuck -- everyone stare at Stenbuck -- wide eyes taking in the sight and processing the implications.

There was once a time Johnny wondered if Leo Stenbuck would come after him. It was during the time period in which Domino started growing closer to Ayanami. Knowing Leo, Johnny would not have been surprised to see him on the Minerva one day, out for blood. But no matter just HOW close the Agent got to the girl, and no matter how much gossip started spreading on the matter, Leo Stenbuck never materialized. Eventually Domino decided that perhaps Leo had indeed given up on Rei, to the point where he wasn't going to do anything.

How foolish.

Leo was there now, and Johnny Domino is not at all surprised. And while in the past, this punch would have been enough to incite the Agent into a rage, right now all Domino feels is the cold, steel-like kiss of a very serious vow: this was going to be the last time Johnny Domino was going to allow Leo Stenbuck to hit him.

Body tense and ready to jump into action should Leo push on the offensive, Johnny spits an acknowledgment: "Captain Stenbuck."

By the time Johnny gets himself steady, Leo is halfway through stripping off the greatcoat of his uniform, his arms moving in jerky, exaggerated motions. He's practically radiating fury. Within a few seconds, he finishes stripping off the coat and tosses it to the floor, leaving him in only an A-LAWS teal wifebeater (heh heh heh) undershirt, a pair of dogtags with another weird piece of metal lashed to them dangling on his chest.

Johnny may at least pretend at cordiality... but Leo definitely doesn't. "Don't 'Captain Stenbuck' me, you cocksucker," the young man sneers, shifting into a boxer's stance, raising his fists in front of his face and bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. "What are you, fucking stupid?! Or are you just an asshole?!"

"HUH?!" he demands, his voice raising into a roar. "ANSWER ME!!" Actually fulfilling that demand may prove difficult, because Leo suddenly shoots forwards and throws another punch, this time a right hook aimed at Johnny's jaw.

In the background, a soldier whose A-LAWS beret covers his eyes asks Brough Grabbs, "Shouldn't we stop them...?"

"Shut up," Brough hisses, fumbling at his phone in a desperate attempt to begin recording video. "/This will be amazing./"

This time Johnny Domino sees it coming.

A rush of adrenaline shoots through the Agent's already energized body, sending his brain into overdrive. Domino knows -- and Domino's body knows as well -- that he must make up for all the hours he spent awake last night. One wrong move here would cost him.

And as his body heats up on the inside, on the outside, Johnny Domino remains tranquil as a forest. Only his eyes, their gaze sharp, give any indication that the Agent hides much more underneath the surface.

Then Leo Stenbuck charges.

Even if he is a calm pillar standing in stark contrast to the Captain's fury, Johnny Domino has been waiting. Jumping into action, the young man deflects Leo's punch with his arm and moves in a swift half-circle around Stenbuck, trying to remain just out of arm's reach all the while. A crowd is already gathering by the time Domino speaks.

"You're upset about Rei Ayanami."

There really is no reason to play dumb or avoid the obvious.

Leo's attempt at going nuts on Johnny Domino's nuts is hampered by several factors. One is that, as a rule, boxing is not super effective against people who are just trying to stay the fuck away from you. Two is that he is overwhelmingly furious, which sort of ruins his form.

Three is that - although it's hard to distinguish the exact cause of the flush to his cheeks, thanks to his boiling blood - he is just a wee bit drunk.

"No shit, retard," the young man snarls, rounding angrily on Johnny before shifting back into his stance. "Did you even realize the feelings she had for you?! DID YOU?!"

"You're never going to see her again! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!" Leo screams, his voice almost cracking from the strain. "SHE'S GOING TO DIE FEELING LIKE NO ONE CARED ABOUT HER, BECAUSE /YOU/ COULD'T DO ONE SIMPLE THING! YOU SELFISH /FUCK!/"

Leo charges again... but this time, rather than attempting to actually punch Johnny, he just sort of flings himself at him. It's less of a shoulder tackle and more something out of Neo-NFL Neo-Blitz.

What the.

Johnny Domino can't help himself - he blinks. It's the barest flitter of the eyelids, as the Agent refuses to lose eye-contact with Stenbuck even for the timespan of a freaking blink -- and yet, as he hears the Captain's words, Domino finds himself stained with the shade of a surprise.

Johnny expected Leo to shriek at him that he shouldn't have touched Rei. Accuse him of being a motherfucker, threaten to put him in the medical ward, scream about how Domino's days were numbered because he never should have gotten close to Ayanami. Instead, Leo Stenbuck sounds... among the boiling pools of anger... he almost sounds...

Leo charges again. Deflecting a punch with one's arm is easy enough. Deflecting an entire body is in an entirely different league. Domino doesn't even bother to try and parry the incoming ball of violence, opting to simply leap out of the way at the last moment.

Nevertheless, a glancing hit manages to hit the Agent's shoulder, as Leo's own grazes against Johnny. It is, in the grand scheme of things, negligible.

And as for Stenbuck's words, how can Domino react to them? He could sneer and tell Leo that unlike him, Johnny doesn't fuck everything that moves. He could tell him that he has no place to talk, what with Rei dying once before, on Leo's watch. He could even take this opportunity -- this opening in Leo's less-than-optimal form -- and try to land a hit.

But the young man does none of these things. Hopping back, keeping the same distance from the Captain, Johnny Domino speaks, voice unnaturally steady.

"I knew about her feelings. I gave her all I could, but I couldn't be what she wanted. What about you? I know she's been visiting you at nights. Couldn't you have given her what she wanted?"

There's no verbal attack behind Domino's words. He simply asks them, neutral and without judgment.

Missing the tackle - even if it is a glancing hit - makes Leo's landing kind of clumsy, but the gravity on the Minerva isn't quite as high as on Earth, and even with Leo's minimal acrobatic experience he's able to turn his impact with the ground into an (awkward) roll and come up onto his feet without flopping around like a retard.

"What she /wanted/," Leo sneers, rounding on Johnny yet again, "Was /you./" Miraculously, he doesn't resume his fighting stance; perhaps he has seen fit to conduct this battle with words, not swords. Fists. Whatever. "Mind explaining how exactly I was supposed to give her that?!"

"And those visits were totally unrelated!!" Leo shouts, jabbing a finger at Johnny accusingly. "Don't try to change the subject! The subject being, /you're an asshole!/ You couldn't just bite the bullet, for her sake?! Fuck you!"

Johnny's eyes narrow, a slight tightening around the eyelids. Stenbuck may have ceased pushing the offensive, but his spirits, as his tongue, are still loose.

"With all due respect, sir," says Domino, the first signs of an irritable emotion invading his voice, "the only reason she turned to me was because YOU rejected her even before that. Or have you forgotten?"

Domino doesn't drop out of his defensive posture, glaring at Leo. But he does open his mouth wide and demand, loud enough for the entire audience within the mess hall to hear, "Have you forgotten what happened on the twenty-first of February?"

Johnny Domino already got a reprimand for digging around in the records of that one fight. Mentioning it like that among a crowd could get him in a whole lot more trouble besides. But for this one moment -- this one instant in time -- Johnny does not care.

Oh no.

Oh /no./

Oh /NO./

/OH NO YOU DIDN'T./

Leo's eyes widen at the mention of the twenty-first of February, and for a moment, his entire body stiffens... and then it relaxes, as if he'd suddenly become exhausted, his limbs dropping to hang at his side.

This lasts for about two seconds before he draws steal, calmly unholstering the golden revolver on his hip. He keeps the arm hanging at his side - he doesn't raise it towards Johnny, at least not yet - but even that is enough to make the slowly closing-in crowd of onlookers suddenly go silent, stopping their hushed chatter (and betting) in mid-sentence.

In the newfound silence, it is very easy to hear the click of Leo cocking the gun.

He doesn't say anything, or do anything; he just stares at Johnny, his eyes hard, his mouth twisted into a small sneer.

Johnny Domino doesn't even have the decency to look stunned. There is something absolutely abnormal about the manner in which the Agent remains standing where he is, not even batting an eyelash when the revolver is drawn.

Staring right back at Leo, Johnny hears the click. He knows what it means - the young man is no stranger to firearms.

How the fuck can he stand there as if nothing is happening?

After a pause that stretches for who knows how long, Johnny Domino takes a slow intake of breath. Filling his lungs to their peak capacity, he speaks, voice quiet. He doesn't have to raise it, not in the deafening silence all around.

"She came back," he offers. "Didn't she?"

"And now she's going away again."

"But," and here the Agent puts emphasis on each syllable. "She can come back, just like before."

It is doubtful anyone else but Leo will be able to comprehend the full meaning behind Domino's words.

It takes Leo several seconds to even move in response to Johnny's statement, and when he does, he merely slowly turns his head to survey the crowd in the hallway and the entrance to the mess hall. This... this definitely isn't safe to talk about here. There's way too many people for such a sensitive subject.

Oh well.

Leo turns his gaze onto Johnny, and hisses, just as quietly, "You think I want there to be a fourth? You think /she/ wants there to be a fourth? You're a dumber asshole than I thought."

"And how, exactly..." Leo's finger slips inside the trigger guard of his revolver; it's a small, barely noticable motion, but given how still everything else is, it sort of jumps out at you. "... do you know that?"

Johnny Domino hasn't blinked since the gun was introduced. His eyes are beginning to sting. It takes a tremendous amount of self-control to keep from shutting them.

Even more self-control goes into keeping from glancing at the gathered crowd. Like Leo, the Agent knows this is a terrible place to have a discussion of this sort. On the other hand, this entire crowd may very well save Domino's life. Leo Stenbuck can't possibly be insane enough to actually shoot him when there are so many witnesses around. Right? Right?

Unblinking, unmoving and unbelievable, Domino endures the situation for a while longer.

"She told me," he says in reply to one of Stenbuck's questions. "And what she didn't tell me, I found out on my own."

For instance, the fact that if Rei were to be cloned again, it would be the Fourth. Johnny didn't know that. How, and when, did Rei die before? But no, that isn't what is important right now.

"I have no interest in a Fourth," the Agent continues, a hard edge entering his tone. "I have an interest in the one that I know right now. Don't /you/ have an interest in the one you knew? Don't you want her back?! The same memories, the same emotions, the same opinions, the same. fucking. person."

For an instant, Domino's calm facade crumbles, revealing the emotions underneath. His expression betrays passion, determination, an almost wild desperation..!

And then nothing. The Agent is in control again. "There has to be a way. It just needs to be found."

Once again, Leo remains silent for a long stretch of time after Johnny speaks, simply staring at the Agent, his finger hovering over the trigger of his revolver. And then, suddenly and without warning, he lifts the pistol, and--

-- holsters it again, carefully uncocking the hammer as he does so. "Wishful thinking doesn't mean there 'has' to be anything," he says coldly, stooping down to pick up his discarded greatcoat. He straightens back up with the coat in tow and turns to go... but hesitates when only half turned away.

"But if you're so sure there is one," he says quietly, shooting one last look back at Johnny, "Then find it." He turns fully away, and calls back over his shoulder, "I'll be waiting."

And then he stomps off, pushing his way angrily through the crowd of teal uniforms.