Prelude

Three days later.

You were just finishing up classes and had walked out into the hallway when you heard an excited "John!" behind you and felt the sudden impact of Nancy crashing into you and wrapping her arms around you. She laid on the "cutesy girlfriend" character pretty thick in public, and squeezed you tight, nuzzling her face into your shoulder and crying "I've missed you so much!"

"We have several classes together, Nancy, it's only been one period."

"Exactly! It's been so long since I've been able to look at you, or talk to you about movies, or hug you, or…" her tone dropped to a sultry whisper that scraped across your brain "you know~~." A torrent of images flashed before your eyes as you remembered your time together and relished in her closeness, her warmth, her scent. Lilies, as you now knew. Releasing you, she reached out and took your hand, moving forward to stand beside you and look into your eyes with her own ravishing pair. "I'm going to walk you home, John. I don't want you to get lonely or be tempted by any men… I want you to have eyes only for me!" she chirped, tilting her head and beaming a smile that was much too adorable. Not about to turn down a cute girl, you left school, walking home. You swore you could hear Peace Reigns in the Land by Shiro Sagisu and imagined the shojo roses around the edge of the frame.

It was a beautiful day out as you walked home together, cirrus clouds streaked across the mixed blues in the sky. You took in deep breaths of the fresh air. Your words caught in your throat, nervous as you tried to start conversation. As you were almost able to **** a sentence, Nancy asked casually "What's your favorite angel? From Evangelion. I've seen your shirt." The ice broken, your words spilled out through your smile as you began talking about the esoteric enemies from Hideaki Anno's masterpiece.

"...Ramiel is great because of how strange it is- it's just a blue diamond! It completely breaks from the assumed notion that the enemies have to be a giant monster and adds so much intrigue to the world…"

"...Sachiel from episode 1 is another good one. It's design is fantastic and the opening episodes provide a wonderful introduction to what is to come…"

"...but if I were to pick a favorite, I think it would be Zeruel from episode 19. The design is, in my opinion, the absolute coolest and the action is the best in the series, excluding the mass production Evas from End."

Nancy nodded dutifully as you blabbered on, offering brief interjections as you continued. Fuck, you were talking to a girl about Evangelion. You felt adrenaline and excitement flowing through you at someone, a very pretty someone at that, caring about your interests.

"Zeruel, that's a good one, I thought you would say Kaworu", she said, "speaking for myself I like… Arael, from episode 22, the hallelujah one. It's pretty."

You continued back to your house, idly chatting and getting to know each other better. Turns out she was the only person in the world to have listened to a song by Darude other than Sandstorm and liked 90's trance. Who knew? Arriving at your front door, you turn to Nancy, expecting her to say goodbye. "John, I… I want to see your room", she said demurely, crossing her hands behind her back. "I want to see the shelves that hold your comics. I want to see the TV you watch Eva on. I want to see your… bed you sleep on. The one you jerk off on while thinking about me." She said, batting her eyelashes. You are taken aback from the sudden lewdness of her last comment, visions of her in your room, of her on your bed, of her moaning your name, clouding your mind as you stutter and stammer. "O-oh ok. Sure, I can show you my room, Nancy." "Great!" She cried as she brought her hands to face level and did a little hop, then gave you a quick peck on the cheek.

You figure you could get her to do whatever you want anyway if you frame it correctly, but you have an idea and want to try something. "Nancy. As my girlfriend, I'd love it if you could try to get along with my sister again, ok?" "Alright, John. For you." You gently open the door, and welcome her inside. Dana is in the hallway and is not pleased to see Nancy, glaring daggers at her. "John. What the hell? Why is she here? This is ridiculous- you can't just let her into our home!" "Dana. It's alright. She's my girlfriend and I invited her. She said-" you cross your fingers internally as you hope it works and she goes along with it for the sake of her mission "-that she feels sorry for how things ended up between the two of you and wants to reconnect."

Dana squints her eyes suspiciously, waiting for the next eruption from Nancy. To her surprise, it never comes. Instead, she is greeted to the sight of Nancy in tears as she walks to Dana and grabs her hands. "Dana, I am so sorry for how I've treated you and John." Her voice trembled as she spoke, "I've said horrible things to you and I do not deserve your forgiveness, I'm just so sad over what I did to our friendship and I wanted to finally apologize." Dana stood, mouth wide open as the unthinkable happened. Nancy, the self-righteous bitch that had immediately cut ties with her for having questions about God, not rejection, not leaving the church, but questions, THAT Nancy was now crying and saying how remorseful she was?

"I, I just… being with your brother has made me see how wrong I've been about both of you. Someone that's so good to me can't be as bad as all the things I've said about him. Being with him… he's made me more… kind." She smiled as she looked towards you. "Please feel free to call me names or ignore me forever, but know that if you ever wanted to be friends again, like old times…" she trailed off.

Dana's face softened slightly as she stood, thinking. "I don't trust you. I think you're up to something or are trying to get me to lower my guard so you can get me even worse. And I don't like how you've attached yourself to my brother. He's gone through a lot of suffering at school, in no small part thanks to you, so if this is some scheme to hurt him I will NEVER forgive you. But… if you mean it, truly, then we'll see. I've missed you, Nancy. I'll see you later." The faint outline of a smile flickered on her face before she turned and walked away.

This spotlighted a new gray area of your powers: you were dating Nancy due to a reverse psychological command. Anyone who saw you together thought you were being painfully abused. However, as time had passed, less and less people seemed to notice, and Nancy had seemed genuinely sweeter in moment to moment conversation. Just now, Dana was suspicious of Nancy but didn't think you were being actively bullied. What were the implications of this? Were her feelings actually changing? Would she still count as a bully?

You did not have time to think on this long as you walked to your room and opened the door, showing Nancy in. Walking to your clothes drawers and examining the stack of movies next to your TV she said "Aha, Dr. Strangelove…" her eyes drifted up to the DOOM poster on your wall, "Doom. A good, Christian game. Excellent." She looked over your entire room and took it all in before saying "This is wonderful, John. It's all so you. I love it", her lips curling into a light smile as her hand brushed yours.

*SLAM!*

Suddenly, the door swung open as Sarah invaded. "What's going on? I thought I heard- you?! What the fuck are you doing here?"