WHO Sasha & Tim WHERE The Last Resort / Tim's room WHEN Valentine's Day (backdated) WHAT Just an overdue talk STATUS Complete WARNINGS Language? General angst?
There was something to be said for the fact that finally admitting to Tim how she’d felt all this time didn’t scare her. It might’ve been a little nerve wracking when she was considering leaving the note for him, but during and after the fact she felt strangely calm. So what if he knew now? As she’d mentioned, she doubted it would really be a surprise, anyway.
At Georgie’s offer, Sasha had taken advantage of the fact that there was going to be a movie marathon of horribly campy Valentine’s day themed horror movies going on in their flatmate’s room and had grabbed her duvet, some snacks, and a bottle of whatever there was in the kitchen that they could split while enjoying the day and amusing themselves. Though she didn’t really care for horror movies much anymore, especially if jump scares were involved, campy ones like these didn’t bother her that much.
But it was break time! So Sasha excused herself and made her way back to her room for a moment of quiet while Georgie fixed some lunch, grabbing her mobile to skim through it and see if she’d missed anything on the network.
There really was something less than stealthy about trying to sneak a teddy bear that was nearly as tall as he was into Jon and Martin’s room on one of the few occasions that they weren’t using it. Tim was well aware that it was kind of a dick move to give your friends something that would ultimately end up being more of an inconvenience than something they were grateful for, but honestly, it was just in his nature to be something of a jerk while still trying to be thoughtful. Besides, he’d definitely played himself with this one because he’d almost certainly pulled something trying to jam that bear in next to the bed. Two down… Quite a few more to go. Of course, coming back to his room and seeing a little gift left outside his own door sidetracked Tim for a moment as he grinned to himself at the opportunity for a multitude of bad decisions had been provided to him in the form of candy. Which honestly narrowed down the possibility of who it could be from since Jon and Martin would never encourage his self-destructive tendencies like that. And Georgie wouldn’t have known enough about him yet to be able to.
Slipping back into his room and flopping down on the bed, Tim cracked open the note that was included with the candy and stopped cold. That was… Okay. Huh. That was… a lot for his brain to process in the moment and even more for him to be able to sort out how to handle. No. Handle wasn’t the right word. That was too clinical, too detached, too… Fuck. Impersonal. And there was nothing about this that was going to be impersonal in the least. And as much as the shitty part of Tim kind of wanted to… pretend like he hadn’t seen it and have a panic attack and then do something once the panic subsided, he knew that that wouldn’t be fair.
So instead, Tim rolled over, snatching his phone off the bedside table and sighed, furrowing his brow as he tried to come up with the right thing to say.
It was probably nearly ten minutes before a simple ‘Hey’ popped into Sasha’s texts.
Sasha liked to think she knew Tim well enough that either he’d immediately come talk to her about the note or avoid it altogether -- there was nothing easy about what she’d had to say and she knew that, to an extent, maybe she was dumping something on him that he didn’t want. Which she’d toiled over before finally writing the note.
When her phone buzzed in her hand and she saw the text come through, a smile pulled at her lips before she glanced back toward her bedroom door. Tim was… definitely home, right? She’d heard noise coming from down the hall and it wasn’t Georgie, she knew that much, and Morgan was almost like a creepy alien ninja. So unless Jon and Martin were shuffling around out there.
Her nose scrunched a bit as she tucked her mobile into the side pocket of the leggings she was wearing, making her way out of the small room and peeking out into the hall. Mm. Okay. But then she saw the gift in front of Tim’s door had disappeared and the door was open a bit, so she made her way over and knocked gently on the frame before peeking her head in with a smile. “Hey, you didn’t have to text me yo--” Except her words were cut off when she saw what exactly was in his room and she brought a hand up to cover her mouth, and an amused look on her face despite her wide eyes. “Oh, I... didn’t realize you had a small eldritch sort of horror teddy bear village living in here with you, Tim.”
Welp. Tim really should have expected that they were going to be doing this face to face. He’d been hoping for maybe a small bit of a reprieve, trying to get through part of it with sort suitable distance, but nope. He was going to have to face the full brunt of his emotions head-on. Just the way he hated. Of course, her sudden amusement shifted things away from the issue at hand, prompting Tim to be briefly confused before looking around himself. OH. Yeah. Those. He’d forgotten for a moment that he hadn’t managed to deliver most of the menagerie that he’d procured for the holiday since Martin and Jon’s had given him so much grief. Still. It wasn’t quite as bad as some horror show.
“You mean a whole boatload of adorableness,” Tim protested, offering Sasha a slight smile before scooping one of the larger, 3 feet large bears off of his bed, fumbling a bit to keep the giant heart pillow it was holding in place. It wasn’t nearly as big as the six foot monstrosity that he’d crammed into Martin and Jon’s room, but it was still a certain level of extra that just screamed Tim. “Haven’t managed to get around to really deliver most of them yet. But since you’re here, here,” He said, holding it out to her. “Saves me the trouble of waiting until you’re not in your room.”
“Oh, right, a whole boatload of adorableness… or something.” She snorted softly and made her way further into the room as he shifted to scoop up one of the bears, a curious look on her face, though she was clearly still quite entertained by the whole thing. When he held the bear out to her, Sasha’s face softened a bit and she stepped forward to take it, admiring it for a moment and then wrapping her arms around it in a bit of a snuggle.
“Aww, that’s sweet, thank you.” She paused for a moment, smiling at the stuffed animal before looking at him with a grin. “At least it’s small enough that I won’t feel like it’s taking up half the room.” She looked down at the bear again, reveling in how soft it was, when her eyes caught sight of the basket of candy next to him… as well as the card and unfolded note.
That made the grin falter a bit, but she pushed through it either way. “I hope you like all of the candy,” she said, nodding toward the basket a bit in a quiet gesture. “Even if it is going to completely destroy the roof of your mouth. Just don’t tell Jon.”
Tim couldn’t help but chuckle to himself, already mentally anticipating the fit that Jon and/or Martin was going to throw upon discovering that he’d crammed a massive teddy bear into their room, “That was the point, really. Big enough for a decent hug and snuggle, not too big to get in the way. Sometimes I’m thoughtful like that,” Tim said, offering her a smile before laughing outright at her mention of not telling Jon. “Do I ever tell him when I’m about to do something that could potentially be harmful for me? Generally, no. And I’m sure he’ll have more to worry about tonight than how I’m wrecking my oral health,” He said, his smile faltering a bit as he looked down at the basket and the note laying open next to it.
“I…. So. Um…” Tim stammered, not really liking that he couldn’t really joke or try and be less than serious about this. That was all of his anxiety coping mechanisms just right out the window in one foul swoop. “About… the other thing that was in there,” He said, glancing over at Sasha with a thoughtful look. “Are you… Was… Did you… FUCK,” Tim said, dropping his head into his hands with a laugh. “Sorry. Shit. I really… I don’t even know where to start with this.”
Well, it was thoughtful and Sasha held onto the bear happily as she shifted to sit on the edge of the bed beside him. It was soft and smelled nice and honestly, she knew it would be a good coping mechanism for her on the nights she struggled to sleep. “You’d like to think he has more to worry about, but he also has a tendency to worry about things he shouldn’t sometimes.”
But it was the stammering that made the smile on her face fade a bit, her heart sinking slightly. Oh hell. She pulled the bear up enough to hide the lower part of her face, hoping he wouldn’t quite see the sudden bit of anxiousness that had come on. It’s fine, Sash. You told him it didn’t matter if he didn’t feel the same. She took a slow breath in and let it out quietly into the fur of the stuffed toy she held. “It’s all right, Tim,” she replied, her voice soft and genuine. “It’s not something we need to talk about if you’d rather not, yeah? I didn’t…” She paused then and closed her eyes for a moment to get her wits about her. “I didn’t write that to freak you out or… or anything.” I just wanted you to know.
“Hey. Hey, just breathe, okay?” Tim said, the anxiety that he could see on Sasha’s face almost immediately clearing away his own panic. Well, not so much clearing it away as suppressing it for a moment, telling him that there were way more important things at the moment than his own inability to sort out his feelings into words. “It’s not bad. It’s just… It’s complicated, you know? Like… everything in our goddamn lives ended up being,” Tim said, a tinge of bitterness in the words even as he sighed and leaned over, nudging Sasha’s shoulder lightly. “And I’m not just going to ignore it. As much as I kind of wish that I could, you deserve more than that. You at least… Deserve some sort of… rundown of what makes it so complicated. Because it’s really not for you, is it?” Tim asked, a sad expression crossing his features.
As much as he hated that she had died so early on, there was a tiny part of him, a part that he never really admitted to, that envied her the simplicity of things, of not having to completely resort her understanding of reality and only having a few lingering nightmare situations to contend with. Because he couldn’t just do that. And he hated how much they all had to carry now.
“I’m still me. You’re still you. No hang-ups or complications or… having to constantly remind yourself that the face in front of you is real and what you remember isn’t.”
The tone in his voice and the nudge to her shoulder helped ease the sudden bit of nervousness that had come on, but the more he talked, the more she couldn’t help feeling a little guilty for writing that note at all. Because she had a tendency to forget that the Sasha that lived with them wasn’t the Sasha that any of them remembered, despite all of her memories being the same as before.
Sometimes, when it snuck up on her like it did now, it felt like she was being completely gaslit by a memory of herself that didn’t exist. You aren’t real to them.
It was a struggle trying to deal with that, but she imagined it tended to be even harder for Jon, Martin, and especially Tim. She looked over at him, resting her cheek against the top of the bear, her brows furrowed a little in sadness. “I know it’s complicated. I’m sorry, yeah?” Part of her just wanted to suggest forgetting the note existed at all, but that was childish and frankly impossible to do at this point. “I just… I don’t know. I needed to tell you in case I didn’t get another chance to.” Then she frowned at herself, face screwing up into a hint of a grimace. “That sounded way more morbid coming out of my mouth than I meant it to.”
Tim couldn’t help but smile at the comment about the words sounding morbid. Yeah, maybe they did, but that was how they had ultimately ended up having to think, at least, how Tim had ended up having to wrap his head around things. The shit that they dealt with was going to kill them, had killed him, and all of this situation was just temporary, transitory, because eventually, both he and Sasha were going to leave and just... go right back to being dead. Martin, Georgie, and Jon all had the benefit of still being alive, of still having somewhere to go back to even if it wasn’t a preferential option, but the two of them… Once this was over, that was it.
“I didn’t know,” Tim said, frowning at his hand for a moment before he glanced back up at her. “After you… After it… When it took your place, it erased you, overprinted itself on top of your image, so I didn’t know. I didn’t have any idea that you were gone, so it was just like… suddenly you’d changed into a different person overnight. You had, literally, but to me, it was a 180 degree personality flip. Suddenly you were cold and distant and hurtful,” He said, worrying a thumb over his hand. Sasha had always been a little closed off, but it had been playfully so before. She was someone who had liked her privacy, and he’d respected that. But she’d still been able to let him in when it counted. But the… Not!Sasha had been… something else entirely.
“Thinking about it now, I think she was doing it on purpose,” Tim said, laughing to himself. “Make Jon paranoid by just existing, make me defensive and isolated by pulling away and lashing out, leave Martin floundering to try and figure out what was going on with each of us and why it had suddenly become a warzone in the office. Chaos. Just… chaos. So I had to realign my thinking. Honestly, I had to realign my thinking on everyone because Jon had gone nuts and you… it had pulled away, and the only person I had left was Martin, and I barely knew him at that point. So it was like trying not to drown while the people I thought I could trust were basically pushing me under. And then… Fuck. Then that thing chased me and Martin, was actively trying to kill us, and then we thought Jon had killed someone and….”
“It’s been a long few years for me, Sash,” Tim said, smiling sadly at her. “And I’m trying. And I love you. I do. I love all of you guys. But there are days where I feel like burning everything to the ground and being done with it. And you deserve someone who isn’t carrying around that sort of darkness.”
She’d heard aspects of all of this before, after she’d first arrived without any idea of what all had happened, but it never made it any easier. Hearing how she’d been replaced, erased completely from the memory of everyone, how so much shit had happened afterward. Things that broke her heart in ways she didn’t know it could, all because she was gone. Or at least that seemed to be the catalyst for a lot of it; Elias was truly to blame.
There was a small nod and she squeezed the stuffed bear in her lap a little closer, trying to figure out the words she wanted to say. She’d had a feeling that the conversation would go something like this, but there was also a sort of urge to not just give up, which part of her honestly wanted to do.
“We all have darkness, Tim,” she finally said after a moment, looking over at him with a sad smile of her own. “Mine is different from yours, but it’s still there, yeah? I know I didn’t go through any of the horribly fucked things you and the others did, but I still…” Sasha let out a small sigh then. “I guess maybe I can’t compare apples and oranges on something like this. All of our trauma is what it is and it, um, it makes sense that you don’t… feel like you can pursue anything, I suppose. And I’m not going to try and convince you otherwise, though I’d like it if you’d at least consider it?” She paused then and pulled her lower lip between her teeth, looking down at the bear again. Her emotions were starting to bubble up, she could feel it in her throat. “I just… I know I’m not who you remember as Sasha, but um, it’s hard, because you’re still Tim to me.”
“You’re not who I remember,” Tim said, smiling as he leaned over and nudged her shoulder again. “But that’s not a bad thing. That thing corrupted all of my memories, turned a lot of them… sour. It’s nice to have an idea of what they were supposed to be like again. Of having some actual base to try and rework them back into what they were, even if it’s only in my imagination,” Tim said, leaning his shoulder against hers.
Tim wished that he could really elaborate on how he wasn’t the same, how he was painfully and markedly different, even if he did his best to act like he wasn’t, did his best to try and set aside everything that didn’t matter here since he couldn’t deal with it in the way that he wanted to, but instead, he just smiled at Sasha, flopping his head down on her shoulder and trying to ignore the way his neck was protesting at having to crank itself that far down. Discomfort wasn’t really his major concern right now.
“I just don’t want to hurt you. In any way,” Tim said, frowning to himself. “You know? And I don’t entirely trust myself not to do that.”
A brief flash of rage went through her when he discussed the Not Her and what it had done to him, to all of them, when it came to her in their memories. She’d never experienced hurt like she had when she found out what it had done after, but there was quite literally nothing she could do about it either except go on as if things weren’t completely different. As if she wasn’t a total and utter stranger to them.
Jon seemed to have known she was who she was despite also having no real memory of her anymore, and that had been a comfort, but the others? Martin and Tim? Sasha let out a quiet sigh and turned her head briefly to press a soft kiss to the top of his head before turning it back to rest her cheek there, her hand closest to him loosening its grip on the bear and seeking out his hand to thread their fingers together. She gave his hand a squeeze and sat there quiet for a moment, letting the warmth of his touch soothe her.
“Why don’t you trust yourself?” she finally asked after a few long beats, her voice hushed. “Do you think you’ll burn me or is it something else?”
“I mean, that’s part of it,” Tim said, not entirely sure how to explain. It was more than just the physical manifestation of what he could do now, it was what it had changed in him, the way that he felt and the underlying desire to maim, kill, and destroy that he was working so, so hard to suppress since his connection to the Desolation had really kicked in. Tim was always on edge anymore and really just struggling to try and hold onto what little of himself was really left. Jon might have professed to be some sort of monster, but he wasn’t capable of hurting people. Not maliciously, not with intent and an aim to actually enjoy it. It simply wasn’t the same for Tim.
“But it’s more than that,” Tim said, sighing to himself as he closed his eyes. “It’s more what that… represents, you know? More than what I can do, but that I… might actually want to at some point, if I get pissed off enough, if I lose control. I can’t really trust myself with anyone. Except maybe Jon because the bastard apparently can’t die now. Otherwise, if I end up losing control… I mean, shit, you’ve seen what one of them did to Jon’s hand just cause she could. I’m not really keen on accidentally melting someone just because I get too irritated. God knows I was never the best at dealing with my emotions. And now they’re potentially deadly? Thank you, no.”
It wasn’t exactly news to her that he felt this way. She’d known that his connection to that entity, he’d not just had a physical change, but an emotional one, too. But he was still Tim to her, even if there was more darkness to him now than there had been when she’d last seen him in her timeline.
“Maybe you’ve not been amazing at handling your emotions sometimes, but you’ve never actually lashed out, you know.” Her voice was still soft, just wanting to be gentle with him because she knew, even if he hadn’t said it in so many words, that he didn’t really like himself now. Which was a strange thing for her -- Tim Stoker, the self-assured playboy of the Archives. Sasha remained where she was, cheek still pressed to his head, hand still holding his. Other than the gentle stroke of her thumb over the side of his finger and her steady breaths, she was still.
“Do you actually think you’d hurt me?” she asked after another brief pause. “I’m not asking because I want to try and convince you of anything, but I feel like even if you were irritated or pissed off, you wouldn’t hurt me. Despite your connection with that total arsehole of an entity, even if it wanted you to hurt me, I trust you.” And maybe that was stupid of her, trusting him when he wasn’t even sure he could trust himself, but there wasn’t a single part of her that felt like she needed to be wary of Tim. That would never be an option for her. “I just want you to know that you should have a chance at some sort of… happiness, whatever that looks like. You’re still a good man.”
Tim knew what he wanted to protest, that he wasn’t even really a man anymore and that his own self-control wasn’t so much of a factor when he became overwhelmed. But he didn’t say that, just allowed himself to relax as much as he could in the moment and tried his best not to do anything to ruin it. At least, no more than he was already doing.
“I don’t know, Sash. And that’s the problem,” Tim said, his voice soft and a little confused. “I know I haven’t lashed out before. God, even when I wanted to hurt Jon, strangle him, beat his head in to make him realize just how much of a moron he was being, I didn’t. I’d scream and yell and rage in his presence, but I never actually did anything. But now… Now, I’m worried that just screaming and yelling and raging would be enough to hurt all of you. I’m… I’m constantly holding it back, Sash. Just to be able to touch you guys, I’m constantly holding it back. And I’m worried that if I have another thing happen, something that makes the connection deeper, that’s not going to even be an option anymore.”
That was always his biggest concern, what would happen once things got so strong that he couldn’t control them, couldn’t stem the tide. Kate had been helping him figure out how to manage the basics, but just like with Jon, there wasn’t going to just be one step with this. And just what was going to happen when he reached his equivalent of consuming fear to eat?
Sasha knew that the Desolation was always lurking, quite literally, under the surface for him, but she’d always tried to push away the knowledge that one day there was a good chance it would consume him entirely. That he’d become one of those avatars, like Michael had been, and Helen. His words brought that thought to the forefront and she felt her throat tighten again as the idea of it swirled in her mind briefly.
“I, um.” She started to speak, tried, but felt her voice crack a little so she fell quiet to give herself a moment to regain her composure. Emotions. Ugh. “D’you, uh-- do you think you’re going to… just, um, be... gone one day? Turned by it completely?” The question barely escaped her before she had to set the bear aside to lift her free hand, trying to sneak a swipe at her cheeks where a stray tear or two had fallen, because she just couldn’t stand the thought of actually losing him to this fucking thing. He’d already lost her and look what happened.
Though there was a sick irony to the idea of it, she had to admit.
“I don’t know,” Tim said, a soft sadness in the words. He wanted to lie to her, to tell her that there was no chance, that he’d never let himself get to that point, but frankly, he wasn’t sure how much choice he had in the matter. It really didn’t seem like Jon had been entirely conscious of anything that had happened to him until it had been far, far outside of his control. “I want to think that it would be like what happened with Jon, where I’d basically still be myself but just a little bit different with different needs. But we read about the Lightless Flame, what this did to them if they got too deep into it. I don’t think it’s going to be as simple as snacking on people’s dream fears for me.”
“Wouldn’t it just be the perfect kick in the arse if I lost you here after fucking everything that happened back home?” She was able to get that question out somehow, even with a hint of amusement behind it, before a choked whimper escaped her and she felt her control on her emotions start to crumble. Nope. Keep it together, James. Squeezing his hand, she turned her head again to hide her face in his hair, and closed her eyes.
It was clear this was something she still struggled with, the idea of it. Overall the acceptance of his and Martin’s conditions (for lack of a better word), along with Jon’s, had been something she’d been able to handle well enough… if only because they all seemed mostly normal still. Well, except for Jon and his need to eat fear to sustain himself. That had taken a few days to really comprehend. But this? Tim definitely not being Tim anymore and instead becoming something that serves the Desolation? Over her dead body -- literally; she’d do it again if it meant keeping him safe. Or at least she liked to think she would.
“Sorry,” she said after a moment, breathing out a bit of a shaky sigh as she pulled herself together as best as she could, lifting her head again. “I just… Christ, where’s Sims when I need him? I can make a statement for him about how much that fucking terrifies me.”
“There’s a certain irony to it, yeah,” Tim said with a sad laugh even as he squeezed her hand back. He wished that there was anything that he could say or do to make this better. But there wasn’t much in their lives that was a positive. The only real positive of anything was that they were here instead of back home because he rather liked not being dead. He rather liked both of them not being dead and having his friends back. Even if he had survived back home, Tim was certain that things might have been far too broken to put back together.
“I just want to hold onto you guys as long as I can,” Tim said, a heaviness in his voice. “And I don’t want to do anything that might… break that.”
“You know if I could stop that thing from doing this to you, I would.” Stop him from being afraid to do anything that might worsen it, stop it from actually getting worse, stop it from taking him from her. Her eyes lowered and fell to their hands, looking at them together like that and the contrast of her skin against his; the scars that dotted him now.
“Not that I’d be of much use. I tried to keep Prentiss from getting you and I couldn’t even manage that.” She sighed then, but leaned down as she brought their hands up so she could press a quick kiss to the back of his before letting her head rest against his again. Sasha liked having moments like this with him. Not necessarily the depressing bits, Lord no, but just getting to actually be with him.
There was another moment of quiet before she spoke again, needing to take the time to think of what she wanted to say. But all that came out was a small handful of quiet words. “I love you too, by the way.”
“Honestly, I would have rather we all ended up with worm scars,” Tim said, squeezing her hand gently and trying not to think too hard about that day. There was nothing that could be done to change it, not hopes that would alter where they were back home. All they could do was press forward here as much as they could. “I’m sure they would have looked just as dashing on you,” Tim teased, nudging her shoulder lightly before allowing himself to go quiet. It was hard for him. Tim didn’t take to silence well, often trying to fill it with inane chatter. But for once, he felt like there was nothing that he could say that wouldn’t spoil the atmosphere.
“You’re my best friend, Sash. Always have been.” Tim said, still holding onto her hand tightly as he sighed. “You know I would do anything for you, right? Anything, if I thought it would help.”
“Me too.” Obviously. Worm scars would mean not being dead back home and maybe not being dead would’ve made how things went completely different. Or maybe not; Elias would have just figured out another way to remove her from the picture, sacrifice her to whatever fear for the sake of The Eye. “Though I have the one on my arm from when a worm tried to get at me when Michael showed me the CO2 trick. Does that count?”
At the very least she was trying to match what little humor he was putting out, but she could tell it was a struggle for the both of them. It was hard for her to not feel at least a little bitter that, even though she knew he meant what he said, he couldn’t remember any of it. It’d all been tainted and -- fuck. But she nodded slightly instead, feeling a weight settle in her chest that she hadn’t anticipated, her words heavy when she responded. “I know you would, love. At least that feeling is mutual, eh?” Oh, that weak attempt at humor did not land well and she internally cringed at herself before murmuring an apology.
“Eh, close enough,” Tim said, a hint of teasing in his words even as he leaned into the contact. Honestly, the irony was in all of this that if she’d approached him like this their first year in the Archives, he would have jumped at it. Tim knew that all too well. He would have delighted in the possibilities and potentially never let her live down the fact that she’d been putting him off for so long just under some manufactured sense of propriety about their jobs. He’d been pushing boundaries to try and break through that exterior for a long time, basically since they’d still been in research, and he had to be honest, he hadn’t wholly given up until the Not!Sasha had magicked up that new boyfriend of hers, Tom, who, now that he had had time to think about it, had to have been another of whatever she had been. Both of them, laughing at all of them as they floundered in their uncertainty.
But now… Now. Carrying around this much trauma and baggage, the potential of harming someone and the weight of potentially being a burden to anyone he’d tie himself to, right now… He just needed his friends. And that? That was more than enough.
Besides, he was pretty sure Sasha wouldn’t have been on board with being a sloppy weekend relieve the tension fuck anyways. And he wouldn’t have wanted her in that position, either.
“Wanna help me inflict stuffed bears on everyone?” Tim asked, a half smile gracing his features as he nudged her shoulder again.
The absolute shit thing was she knew she’d come about telling him far too late, that in her heart she knew it wasn’t really going to make any difference, but she still needed him to know. From her. Because there was always the chance that she wouldn’t get that opportunity again hanging above her head. It still didn’t make it ache any less though. She just hoped she’d be able to avoid future incidents where she’d see him with that beautiful brown haired woman again that he’d disappeared off with at that one event. Kate, maybe? That seemed familiar.
When she felt his nudge to her shoulder, that pulled her from her thoughts and she turned her head to look at him for a moment, sadly. He seemed so tired and just done with everything; everyone did anymore, if she were being honest, and she couldn’t really blame them after what they’d all been through.
Sasha inhaled a slow breath then and leaned forward to close the distance between them, brushing a sweet and loving kiss over his lips, even if it was more on the heartbreaking side for her than she cared to admit. But it was a brief kiss and she broke it after a moment, letting her forehead rest against his. She leaned back after a moment to look at him, the corner of her mouth pulled in a weak smile, and gave him a small shake of her head. Normally she would’ve jumped at the chance to spend more alone time with him, but not right now.
“I need to get back to Georgie. We’re, uh, marathoning stupid Valentine’s themed horror films. I’m sure you can join us later if you want though?”
The kiss was… surprising but not at the same time. And it honestly wasn’t like it was the first time that it had happened. But still, Tim felt a tiny prick of sadness in his chest that he couldn’t give her what she wanted, couldn’t be what she wanted. Leaning forward, he pressed a return kiss to her forehead, raising a hand to brush a bit of her hair back out of her face, tucking it behind her ear.
“I’ll see if I can grab the other boys after I get done terrorizing everyone with their gifts,” Tim said, a teasing smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “I’m sure Jon would have a delightful color commentary for your movie selections that we’d all be remiss to not hear. And it would make me less jumpscare prone. You know I’m a wimp.”
Even if he couldn’t be what she wanted, Sasha knew that they’d at least always have this, whatever ‘this’ was. It really was enough for her and it would have to be, though she knew somewhere deep down she’d always hold out some sort of hope that maybe they’d get to have a proper shot at it.
She also knew that it was stupid to hold onto that hope. It wasn’t that Tim didn’t want her, as far as she could tell, it was just a matter of him not feeling like he was… safe, she supposed.
Still, the kiss to her forehead was met with a quiet, though she couldn’t help leaning into his touch just a little, her eyes drifting shut for just a second before she pulled back reluctantly. There was a hint of a nod and she returned the smile, though it wasn’t exactly cheerful. “Trust me, I’m the bigger wimp now. After what hap--” She cut herself off and glanced away, scrunching her nose. “Well, needless to say, I don’t do jumpscares either. These movies are stupid enough, though. It’ll be fine. Though I wouldn’t turn down the chance to hear Jon’s commentary.”
“I’ll make you a deal,” Tim said, mischief twinkling in his eyes as he struggled to try and do something to distract her from the thought of what had happened to them. Better to not think about that. Always better to not think about it. “Why don’t we protect each other? We can be wimps and cover our eyes and look away and cling to each other when things get tense. And whenever Jon snorts and makes his commentary about how CGI has degraded the craft, we can just turn and stick our tongues out at him. Sound good?”
She appreciated that he seemed to be able to bounce back so easily around her, even if she knew that it was probably just a cover for whatever he was actually feeling. Though a part of her wished he wouldn’t, on some level, though she knew that he was doing it to make her feel better.
Sasha gave him a small nod though, amused at the idea of all of them crammed in Georgie’s room watching horrible Valentine themed horror films and listening to Jon complain about them. Which honestly may just end with Jon getting hit with an oversized stuffed bear or two. “You’ve got yourself a deal. Though I can’t promise I won’t just be cuddling the bear the entire time, too,” she confessed with a quiet snort.
But then she paused and leaned in again to wrap her arms around his middle, hugging herself to him, tucking herself into his side and letting out another sigh. “Not that the bear can replace you where cuddles are concerned,” she added after a moment, her voice hushed.
Tim smiled to himself, moving to wrap his arms back around her in return, leaning over and pressing a kiss to the top of her head with a vague smile, “I’m honestly pretty bony in comparison. But if you prefer to be poked with overly sharp elbows to a bunch of snuggly fluff, who am I to deny you?”
Sasha rolled her eyes a little and then closed them, sitting there like that for a long moment as she just held onto him. “You can’t deny me that. I’d pout and be just completely miserable if you did.” There was a hint of sarcasm to her tone, but still, there was maybe some truth to it, too. “Maybe I’ll just turn myself into a Sasha sandwich or something. Best of both worlds that way, eh?” Of course, that made her giggle a bit, amusing herself with the mental image of Tim spooning her while she spooned the bear.
“That will work. Then you only get poked on one side,” Tim teased before grinning and nudging her shoulder. “You go. Get back to Georgie. I’ll get rid of this tiny army and come join you later. Okay?”
“You know there’s some sort of ‘that’s what she said’ joke in there, right?” Sasha snorted again softly as she sat up at the nudge, giving him a small but amused smile. “Go deliver your pressies to people and I’ll see you in a bit.” She hesitated for a moment before reaching for his hand again, giving it a squeeze and then standing. With bear in tow, she made her way for the door and then paused briefly, almost wanting to say something again, before thinking better of it and continuing back toward Georgie’s room.