eating something doesn't sound very good right now. not much sounds very good right now. her whole stint here has been somewhat of a haze and she had blinked owlishly at ana when she'd shown up, and is still kind of looking at her right now, almost like do i know you? and then a shock of recognition will go through her and she will nod to herself and that's that. 

all the pain is very far away, but she can't shake the thought that she is very, very, very lonely. and the place she has to go too is going to make her lonelier, because it's not where she wants to be. 

"casino sounds really, really good," she says with a dip of her head. a wince. "ana, where do you live?"

ana fell

☉

"around," she says, tasting the word's curves. ana touches her other hip and it's like she's balancing out the shock of pain in the other one. the cracked and splintered bone, put together again like some macabre humpty dumpty with the best doctors ever grande has to offer. the best healing. the best pokemon. only the best, best, best, for miss councilwoman morningstar.

"do i pay you enough?" she asks. 

and also: "yes, please."

ana fell

☉

freya is under the impression that they are going to ana's house, not a dusty garage. and so she is a little bit confused at the sudden change in surroundings. too many new things get caught in her vision and the shapes are kind of blurry and she can't quite hang onto all of it, but there is an oily taste in the back of her mouth and ana is very warm. 

she winces as she steps up, feeling like she's eighty years old.

they walk - well, ana walks, freya kind of shuffles. freya has the weirdest sensation that she's been displaced. or, no, rather that the house has been displaced - bisected by two different universes, one of the modern age and one made entirely of a future bent around its edges. like it wants to be something but it can't because its roots can't find purchase. 

"it's a house," she says, but she means a home. it's lived in. it's not a place being squatted in, even if it looks like ana's taken a hammer haphazardly to whatever section of the place the place gets unluckily electrocuted into being in her brain. it's not like the hotel, with her most memorable things tucked into sagging boxes, sheets thrown over them, littered with things that aren't hers. 

"it's beautiful out back," she adds, neck craning as ana leads her around the working construction site.

despite her mostly stoic face, she does not feel good. and when she's creaking into the bed, the relief is palpable by way of her shaking shoulders, the long exhale that leaves her as she lays down. 

"i feel like i fought off two gods hell-bent on destroying me," she says dryly. and with a shudder, "i'll take the pills please."

ana fell

☉

a tv would be nice. now that she's horizontal, she can tell just how exhausted she is. between this and the medicine, she's likely to lay comatose for a while now. good.

part of her feels bad for wanting to shut herself down into oblivion, but most of her has been yearning for this for weeks. a hard reset for her body maybe. (deep down, she knows she just wants to stop feeling.)

"mostly we just watched romcoms." she never cared much for tv. her parents likes their books in their leisure time, when they weren't spending it by being active. it wasn't until delta came along really -

the pills pass her lips and she drinks them down with the water. and decides to forget that for a time.

"i have books at my place. can you swing by next time? i have some research i could do." she rubs one eye with the palm of her hand. "and you're in charge of the dragons while i'm...recovering. i'll tell tsubaki."

her lids droop. she shifts so she's staring at the ceiling.

"you were wrong, by the way. about them understanding. my best friend cut me out, ana, and i don't know what i'm going to do. i don't know how much more i can lose."

ana fell

☉

ana's naming conventions of her pokemon don't make much sense to freya. so when she says banana phone, freya at first thinks maybe ana's trying to tell her she's going to put a children's show on for her. it makes her think of the time she put cocomelon on for twelve-year-old delta. she'd gotten a look of absolute disrespect and disbelief in return.

"okay," she says, even if she doesn't believe her. it should be enough, for now, that she wants to believe her. she leans into the light touch with a smile. but she's also thinking it wasn't okay for you. it hurt ana so bad she had to dig it all out of her brain.

"i saw your husband," she says with a yawn. "he told me i'd be okay too."

ana fell

☉

the drugs are doing her wonders, actually. turns out when you haven't had much else to eat but slim pickings of just-okay hospital food and a lot of jell-o cups, it helps the meds kick in quite quickly. 

"i don't feel my side anymore," she agrees and snuggles herself nice and neat under the tirtouga covers. 

"i think maybe he still loves you, the way he was talking. but of course he does. you're amazing." she looks approvingly over ana's frame, over the gleaming chrome of her arm. "and shiny."

ana fell

☉