driftfleet | (no subject)

[ He can't help but wiggle in his seat Winn :c he's so excited to see both of you!]

Um! Well--Bigby was a puppy and he got super-tired easy, so I looked after him! And then I stayed in Bigby's room a lot...until he went back to normal and got too big for me to stay in there all the time.

[ yeah, he's still working on...the whole "going out" thing. ]

But I bought a whole bunch of dead stuff for the first time! So this time I get to feed Bigby~

[Oh good, straight to the dead stuff topic.] I'm glad to see you're getting out a little, Sascha.

[ glad to see his bedside manners haven't improved. ]

Yeah, you shouldn't be cooped up here all the time. So how's Bigby doing? [ he still knows very little about the guy - by choice, he's still pretty uncomfortable with the idea of him and being on the same ship with him is not helping his nerves any - but glitching is hard, and it's someone who's important to sascha. so he asks. ]

He's sleeping. [ Sascha smiles when he says this, but the looks doesn't quite reach very far somehow. He's a little less adapt at pushing everything down after his time remembering, and Bigby's sudden slumber has hit him a little harder than he thought.

He's still there and Sascha sleeps next to him during the day, but he's not really...there.. ]

For a really long time now.

[It only takes a moment for it to click.] ...Sascha... [She squeezes Winn's hand, but then she lets go of it to cross the room and hug the man much, much older than her who she's so protective of.] Why didn't you tell me?

[ goddammit. that's his first thought.

it's unfair on so many levels and it's one more thing he wants to get back at the atroma for. one more thing in a very long list. he doesn't join them yet - both because he's not sure he can handle it, and because as is often the case with kitty and sascha - he feels like he'd be intruding. but unlike that time sascha found out about her death, he's no longer really comfortable with leaving them alone, either. so he just stands there, a little helpless and lost, trying to figure out something to say.

he can imagine why. it's his fault, isn't it. ]

How long has it been?

[ Sascha tries (and fails) to put on a brave face for all of half a second before he's hugging Kitty tight and burying his face in her shoulder. He feels guilty for not telling, but also incredibly lifted for having done it.

Still though. Sascha only mumbles his answers. ]

More than a week. [ He can't get into why he hasn't said anything yet, mostly because he spent the first few days? Literally unmoving from Bigby's side. ]

[She spent the first few days not leaving Winn's side too. She holds him, rubbing his back.] I'm sorry. [She should have known sooner because she should have checked on him. She's so used to him always finding her and that's not the way it is right now.]

I'm sorry too.

[ shuffling his way closer - because staying at a distance feels just as awkward now so he may as well do something - he gives sascha's shoulder a little pat. maybe he should have stayed in his corner of the kitchen. or left. he doesn't know, everything feels awkward now, but he knows how painful it is to lose people, he felt like he was losing his mind when jim was down, and when hank joined him? he was beside himself. he feels like he has to do something. ]

It's okay... [ It's not, but he's trying to not be completely gloomy about it. Bigby will wake up--he's sure of it. And it's not like he's entirely alone; Bigby hasn't left. He still gets to curl up against him every morning.

He still hugs Kitty tighter and peeks up at Winn over her shoulder. ]

I'm not lonely.

[ aka he's lonely. ]

[She looks up at Winn with sad eyes, but she also looks grateful that he's there. That he's close. It's hard thinking about Sascha so afraid to leave that room that he's been in there most of the time with his sleeping friend. The only one who really stayed at his side through all of this.]

I'll visit more. [She's pretty sure it was a silent "not" even if she heard it.]

[ he's pretty sure of that too. it's hard to be afraid of sascha when he's like this, but he still doesn't want to promise to come all on his own. ]

Me too. [ what is he getting himself into. he'll come with kitty, ok, or with kara. whichever k-named superhero he can drag along with him for protection. ]

You don't have to... [ He says, but he already sounds excite about it...or as much as he can in this situation anyway. That they would offer it to him at all means so much more to him--especially Winn. ]

We know that, but we care about you. And you can call anytime. [That will get her into trouble eventually when his confidence returns, won't it?]

That's what friends are for.

[ he'll go in for a hair ruffle because you're sad. how much did you miss those. ]

[ So much. Sascha's eyes go wide and he stares up at Winn in surprise, not having expected it after what had happened between them. It's so...nostalgic, the way he wants things to be. The way they were before.

His chest swells withe motion and if he possessed the ability to, he might've even gotten teary-eyed.

He doesn't so what he can do instead is hug Kitty tighter, to keep from trying to hug Winn. Because he wants to after that, and badly. ]

.....

[She rubs his back after seeing and feeling just how much Winn's gesture meant to him.] It's okay, Sascha.

[ he's not really sure what he should do here now, so he's just gonna take a small step back and stand here, looking almost as awkward as he feels. ]

I'm sorry... [ For being like this. Emotional? Being touched by their comfort? Having to depend on them like this. He feels bad for making them worry and not being his usually bubbly self, but that's been a hard thing to muster since remembering.

He never tries to remember. ]

Hey, no, you don't have anything to be sorry about, okay? You didn't do this. It's the Atroma. [Both things were.

She feels a torn seeing Winn looking so awkward and not knowing how to help him. She looks at him with questioning eyes to see if he knows.]

[ he has no idea. he feels helpless himself - torn between wanting to comfort sascha, to wanting to leave and let kitty handle it, to wanting to keep an eye on him, to feeling guilty that it's gone on this long to begin with, to...just too many things, he's torn apart. ]

You don't have to be happy around us, that's the beauty of friends.

[ hello pot, have you met kettle? I think you two will find you have much in common! ]

But I want to be happy... I wanna talk about good stuff with you and Winn and I don't wanna be sad that he won't wake up anymore. [ He wants to be able to hug Winn like he's hugging Kitty, or at the very least hold his hand or something. Anything like what the normal used to be between them. ]

It's just really hard when someone is in one of these comas and you want them to wake up more than anything. [She doesn't even like thinking about when Winn was out. It feels like those days didn't even pass for her and yet they felt so indescribably long too.]

We all wanna be happy.

[ what he wouldn't give for some simple uncomplicated happy, for even just a day. ]

But it's okay not to be, talking to your friends is how you get there.

[ he would let him hold his hand, if he tried. ]

[ Well in that case, Sascha might just let one hand leave Kitty's back to sort of hesitate in the air halfway towards Winn before he catches himself. ]

...He'll wake up right? 'Cause Winn woke up, and so did everyone else who went to sleep.