candothat | IC Contact (Drift Fleet)

Are the words you would use nicer or meaner? [Yeah, she already knows.]

I could be wrong, but the name sounded Russian. I haven't met him either, but he's my crewmate, Yuri's, boyfriend.

Far nicer, of course.

I'm always happy to meet potential Russians... and anyone else, I'm not so selective.

Oh, I know you're not. How else did I get to be your friend?

[He snorts and gives her an affectionate elbow-nudge.] I won't sit here and tolerate you insulting both of us.

Would you rather stand? Lay down? [Teasing.]

No, not really. I suppose I can tolerate that insult.

I missed you, Kitty... which I know you can't reciprocate since your yesterday was two months ago, but. [Why is he even saying things, they were back to banter and that was nice. Maybe it was her teasing self-deprecation.] You're a good friend. Well worth missing.

[She brings him into another hug. It feels good to hear those things.] It does feel like it was just yesterday, but I do feel a little different too which should probably be concerning, but it's a good different.

[It feels good to have true things to say that won't hurt her.

Of course he hugs her back.] As long as the kind of different is good. It must be a well-rested kind of different, at least.

Yeah. I feel...more alive again. More inside myself instead of watching myself. Present. [Less directly and immediately heartbroken without Winn even if she still very much wants to be with him and misses him.]

Good. I'm glad for that. [Those things sound like symptoms of recovering from a broken heart... or at least of picking up the pieces and accepting what is.] And puzzled, and maybe slightly worried, but mostly glad.

Maybe my mind had some time to sort things out even if I don't remember it. [Or her heart.]

Or the Atroma decided I was a bummer and fixed me which is much more alarming. [She doesn't sound alarmed.]

Yes, the Atroma decided that you needed to be more entertaining. Clearly. [Nothing makes people more entertaining than an extended coma!]

You didn't need to be fixed, you realize. That implies that you were broken before and you haven't been broken in the entire time that I have known you.

[That touches her deeply—that he said it and that she believes he even means it.] Well, how am I going to feel broken when I have friends like you who say things like that?

[She's right to believe that he means it because he does. The real question: can she believe it?]

Only with a considerable amount of effort and self-deception. It would be simpler to agree me.

[She kisses his cheek again.] Then I'll agree. I know you're a worthy opponent.

Thank you. [For the agreeing and the teasing and the affection and the existing in general. He leans against her heavily even though sticking around her room is probably not what Kitty wants to do right now. She can always tell him to move.] I was afraid that I would need to fight you into accepting a compliment.

Probably the lingering fatigue making me weak to hearing nice things about me. [Fatigue aside, she keeps him supported and for what it's worth she's not that worried about her surroundings. She needs to retrain herself, but it can wait a little longer. And it's not like she remembers being confined to the room for two months in active memory.]

We can fight about something tomorrow though.

I should take advantage of that and say more nice things about you. [Or maybe not. He doesn't want to make her think that he's still in love with her (even if he is, maybe, at least a little); that could mess up this nice friendship thing that's going on.]

What would you like to fight about? I will start preparing my arguments tonight.

Okay, if you insist, but no poetry unless it rhymes. [It's so hard to romance the girl when she's hung up on someone else and hung up seems to be her main setting around Chekov. Not on purpose. So much not on purpose.]

Mmm...capybara.

Such discerning taste in compliments. [He is most definitely not trying to romance the girl! Or anyone! His success rate is much too low and also this specific girl was recently told that her friends died. So many reasons to not romance.]

Capybara? I know those. Large rodents, correct? They are nuisances to rural Russian farmers.

I'm just a discerning kind of girl. [Her difficulty level is just always turned up too high and he misses the moments when it's not.]

Those are the ones, but they're kind of adorable for large rodents. Get your arguments ready. Not afraid to come after you hard.

That I already knew. One with the best of taste in both friends and pizza.
[He's pretty sure that her difficulty level and his timing are not the only problems. He played his first relationship on easy mode and lost that game too.]

That was the extent of my knowledge, and even half of that was fabricated. Can we fight about something else? The existence or nonexistence of free will and fate, maybe? The structure of the multiverse?

You're just saying that because you're one of my best friends. [And everyone is different and a few relationships that don't work out doesn't mean he's bad at it. Hey, most of hers ended in death or attempted death. Okay, not most, but half and somehow the Reid one was right there with them in terms of terrible endings.]

Didn't want to go for the inconsequential? I feel like you're trying to take a solid run at winning here. But sure. Anything for you.

Not just. I like all of your other friends I have met.

[At least some of them loved her before the death/attempted death/whatever happened with Reid! ...Wait, horrible trade off, never mind. Kitty can win that one.]

The inconsequential is never worth fighting about. [Anything, she says?] Instead of arguing, we could spar. Natasha and Fenris have both been trying to teach me and you are two months out of practice, so I may have a chance.

Really? I usually make so many questionable choices. I guess you missed a few of them though.

Spar? With me? Oh, sweetie. [She smiles. She means it as teasing rather than condescension, but he can decide how it feels.] We can give it a try.

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