she builds hope - slowly, carefully, meticulously. the burner phone snuck under a false board in her hotel room's dresser contains messages with her beloved, a relationship she thought she'd broken for the very man she glimpses at the bar. 

it's not an unusual sight, someone from the league's office a mere hop-skip away at a chance for some reprieve, but him, of all people? the man who is content to let his last eye burn and shrivel up to the blue screen of a computer is here when the league needs him most. 

enough to give her pause, she glances back down the street, and then sighs. 

"whiskey please, liv," she says as she pulls up in a seat next to him. she considers his face in his hands and says, "in the zone again?"

FERNANDO SILPH

☉

as is always the case, he questions her desire to be close to him. she doesn't give him an answer immediately, though her wry smile and the wrinkle of her nose may be answer enough. liv pours her a maker's and adds a dash of bitters and she lifts a finger in thanks as she takes the tumbler. 

"a drink," she says, "and some company.

"you'll do, i guess." she exhales. "didn't know you came by here this early. or at all."

FERNANDO SILPH

☉

"you like to say that, you know," she says and takes her own to her lips. it doesn't bother her so much anymore, his continued animosity. there are still moments, no matter how brief, where she trips on her doubts, but he is alive and he is well.

and that is enough. 

"you've been to two hundred and six bars in hoenn?" she asks. "damn, maybe i don't know you."

he imbibes, really imbibes, and she sips on her own. the orange bitters spread nicely over her tongue. it goes smooth down her throat. 

"you still have that place in lilycove?" the one that was hers. 

FERNANDO SILPH

☉

"mm, didn't know there were that many bars in hoenn," she muses. granted, they probably have more than enough business nowadays. she can count on both hands how many separate bars she's been to. 

her finger taps against the glass. 

"no," she says, too quickly. the thought of going back to that place, following the ghost of a shell of a woman around sends a shudder down her spine. "hotel ever grande treats me just fine."

FERNANDO SILPH

☉

"that's not why i - " she starts while making a face, too late not to rise to the occasion. it amuses her most of the time, how caught up on intimacy so many of her peers are. touch has never been an easy language for her, not that she would admit to fernando in so many words.

"it's easier, being so close to the office." but that's not why. home is somewhere else. home is in slateport and pretending it isn't always seemed worse than signing a damn lease.

"if Hyakkaryōran Tsubaki let me have my way, odds are i'd sleep there most nights." a pause, another small sip. "you've always made your composure look so easy. i hate you for that."

FERNANDO SILPH

☉

she's grown all too used to annoying the anxieties when it comes to her relationship. that's not to say she isn't careful, but for every time she tells king she doesn't want to bring danger to his door, he reminds her with fire that he welcomes the fight. that he can handle it. that she doesn't have to do this alone.

"yeah, well, for me, it is," she admits, "but you know that." every argument met with anger, flame licking on the heels of her words. 

she frowns when he guzzles his second drink.

"we're down two elite four. we're down in avatars. some of our gym leaders don't trust us. you must feel like sisyphus after all this time."

FERNANDO SILPH

☉

it's almost a blessing, hearing him say that, and it nearly catches her off guard. she thinks back to the words behind the mask - you don't deserve me, freya - and she thinks that maybe she really has done it. maybe she has atoned. maybe, in his own twisted way, he cares.

whiskey tilts up the side of the glass when they clink. she takes the rest of it and looks critically at the four slid in front of them, snagging at least one for herself. 

"second, actually," she says dryly, "but doing better than the first, in my opinion, even if the world's gone to shit. we're still accomplishing things, fernando. we're still making lives better. slowly, almost imperceptibly, but i see it. i feel it."

she knocks it back a bit harder and it burns nicely going down.

FERNANDO SILPH

☉