[FIN] Way of Life

[Suudonym]

His whole posture tensed, his face buried and his shoulders raised, and he nodded once, stiffly and reluctantly, in response to Rosie's question. Seraphine's simple words similarly received no verbal reply, but his drawn shoulders shuddered, a quiet but sharp and sudden intake of breath betraying the bitter lament of a grief long left unaddressed.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"It's okay to cry," she said gently, a soft frown on her face, though she shifted it to glance at the wall beside the bed instead. "I cried a lot too, after the accident. It helps sometimes." A pause. "I'm gonna guess you don't wanna talk about it right now though," she hazarded, knowing full well that when she cried, she didn't like to talk - or even couldn't sometimes. But... "D'you want me to talk about it instead?"  

[Blood_Goddess]

She watched Luke for a few seconds glancing over to Sera when she spoke to him.
lowering herself to one knee next to him, the trainer reached out to touch his shoulder. "Put your arm around my shoulders." she told him gently looping her over one around his, trying her best to get in a position that would get him on the bed without hurting him too bad, she knew regardless it was going to cause him some discomfort, depending on how badly he might have already strained his wounds.
"This might be uncomfortable, I'm sorry." she said, ready to support his weight enough to get him onto the bed when he was ready.  

[Suudonym]

With some hesitation, he shook his head. He didn't really want to talk, or be talked to, or have his existence acknowledged or validated in any way. From any rational perspective, he'd acted like scum and deserved to be left to rot like it - though at least half of the sentiment was likely purely due to mortification.

He pulled his arm across his face before moving in any way that he would be seen, though his brow remained knit and eyes glassy. He moved gingerly to follow Rosie's instructions, a stark frown in his features.  

[Blood_Goddess]

She caught a glimpse of his face, but turned her eyes down to the mattress so she would not seem like she's staring.
For now she just focused on what she was doing, speaking in a gentle undertone to him.
"Hold on as tight as you can. and on three." she looped her arm around him, shifting her legs so that she could get the strength out of them that she needed when she stood "One- two- three-"
With and effort Rosie tried to get it over as quickly as she could, lifting Luke's weight up further on the bed, leaning over to try and not just drop him. letting her arm loosen from his shoulders to keep from hurting him anymore once he was down and straightening up.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Oh. "...all right," she responded, though she couldn't help but frown a little at his response. The frown persisted as Rosie helped him up, and Sera's gaze couldn't help but shift to where her left hand should've been. There were very few ways she could help her friends, she thought, but talking was one of those few, and she didn't want to be denied one of the only ways she felt she could help. The thought didn't sit well with her in the least - she wanted to help, but she didn't think she could do very much to actually do so.

"Well," she started a little hesitantly as she moved to sit up on the bed too, "I can talk to Rosie and you can just listen if you want to instead." That said, she shifted her focus to the blonde and asked, "Did I ever tell you how I felt after my accident?"  

[Suudonym]

Though he clenched his teeth and held his breath, he uttered no sound of protest or complaint at the movement. All things considered, the softness of the mattress and the stillness of his posture were welcome reliefs, though the persisting cough punctuated the comfort afforded.

Silent still, he turned his head from the pair in his company. It wasn't that he didn't want to hear what Sera had to say as much as it was that he felt he had deeply wronged Rosie in exposing her to all the emotions he didn't want her to know existed, and the presence of friends felt wholly undeserved.  

[Blood_Goddess]

With a light sigh after the effort, Rosie moved herself back, sitting down on the edge of the bed as well, moving her eyes from Luke to Seraphine as her friend said she would talk to Rosie instead, and asked her a question.
Arching her eyebrows Rosie shook her head "No."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Leaving Luke to his thoughts for the time being, Sera shifted her gaze to the floor instead, idly dragging her toes across the carpet. "That's because I didn't want to talk about it at all for so long," she admitted. "It was so awful and terrible, and probably the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with before, and I didn't have any idea how to deal with it to begin with, which just made it harder to deal with."

Her pale eyes drifted to her remaining hand and the space where her other hand used to be, the former with its fingers spread out. "It was like..." Her brows furrowed as she tried to think of how to word it right. "Like everything was fine before, and I thought everything would continue to be just fine like always - but suddenly something horrible happened because of two cars and I didn't even have a chance to realize at the time what had even happened. I didn't realize what happened until after, and I didn't know until after that because of what happened, suddenly everything was different. Everything. Nothing was the same anymore and it never would be ever again. Because of what happened, suddenly everything hurt and I couldn't do anything anymore." Her brow remained furrowed as she frowned down at her hand, remembering just how she'd tried to handle that whole thing. It hadn't been well - not at all. It was even still a difficult subject to speak of, and if she didn't think Luke would benefit from hearing it then there was no way she'd even be telling it to either of them right now. "I needed help with so many things because I couldn't do them by myself anymore - and they were all things I could do perfectly fine by myself before. Everything I ever did for myself I took for granted, I never even thought about any of that until suddenly I couldn't do any of it anymore. It was pretty much the worst feeling ever in my life," she admitted with a sigh, taking a couple moments to try and figure out how to phrase things, and also to try and quell the discomfort welling up in the pit of her stomach at remembering so horrible a thing that had taken her so long to deal with - and she hadn't even finished dealing with it yet.

"It was an awful feeling, especially because my right shoulder was still recovering from being shot, so even though that hand was fine, the shoulder and arm weren't, so I couldn't even use them anyway. Sometimes I felt like life was mocking me or something - throwing something so terrible at me when I hadn't even recovered from the last thing. I remember I'd always try to do everything myself, everything I could do just fine before, but I had so much trouble with practically all of it at first, and it was really, really depressing. That's why I didn't talk to you guys much, and why I started ignoring my phone and not charging it," she admitted, her hand moving to fidget with the hem of her jeans along her knee. s**t, why had she started telling all of this? God dammit. "It was just so depressing that I couldn't do anything I used to do just fine by myself - it made me feel like such s**t. I felt useless because I couldn't do anything by myself, I needed help with things and I just couldn't not be upset about it. It was just..." She trailed off and paused again to frown down at her knees, regretting starting to talk about this to begin with but also trying to figure out how to continue. She had started this, and as stubborn as she was she had every intention of finishing it.  

[Blood_Goddess]

Sera had never gone into this before, it was just... never brought up. It wasn't unusual, Sera was never really the kind of person to talk about what she was feeling, so Rosie made sure to listen as she did speak.
lowering her gaze only for a moment at the passing mention of her shoulder having been shot, before glancing back up at her, a bit speechless.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Rosie's look gave her even more pause, but she quickly returned her gaze to her knees once more, feeling even more uncomfortable about the whole thing. Talking about her feelings and emotions was something she did very rarely, mostly because it made her uncomfortable but also because some of the topics were just so painful or too recent to be able to talk about. Still, she'd started it, and relating a similar experience and a similar feeling honestly, to her, felt like the only way she could actually even help Luke in any way. In her mind, it was the least she could do, and a little discomfort now would mean little if it would help him at all. Except it was kind of more than just a little discomfort at this point. "Like... Right after it happened, I guess I kind of just didn't believe it. Like it had to have been a bad dream or something, a nightmare I guess," she said with a small shrug. "After I finally stopped hoping it was all some awful nightmare, it made me really angry and upset. Everything did, actually," she amended after a moment, then continued, "Everything did, no matter if it should've or not. Most things shouldn't have, but I was just so angry that it happened and that everything was so different and I couldn't do anything myself anymore, it just made me so frustrated and upset and just completely pissed off. I remember I yelled a lot, mostly at Mother or my pokemon," she admitted with some amount of guilt, though she neglected to add the screaming, crying fits she and her mother had had during that period of mourning. "I remember I tried not to look at that arm at all. If I could see it, then it made me remember everything and that just upset me even more, but if I couldn't see it then I could pretend that everything was fine, the way it was before. That's why I kept wearing hoodies at first, because I could hide it with long sleeves."

"After that, I still didn't use my phone much and I hardly saw anyone because I just... got so depressed," the girl admitted with another small shrug, her gaze wholly focused on her knees as her fingers continued to fidget with the fabric so she could at least have one neutral thing to concentrate on while expounding something that was quite the opposite of neutral. "I got really depressed and sad, I cried a lot, I did a hell of a lot of nothing. I even gave up trying to do things myself because my arm still hurt too much and everything was so hard, I thought it was impossible. There were some days I just wanted to lay in bed all day and not get up because I kept thinking 'what's the point? I can't do anything anyway, I just need help with everything and I'm a bother to everyone and it'd just be better for everyone if I just didn't get up in the first place.' It just felt really awful, like I felt like such a useless person... But Mother made me get up and go out sometimes anyway, and I saw a few people and some convinced me to go out even though I just wanted to do nothing," like Nate and all of his whining over his birthday, "and it.. actually helped a little. Not much at first, really, but I started feeling better after that."

After a brief pause to catch her breath and to feel a little better as she moved onto more positive things, she continued, "I didn't feel as indifferent and uhh..." What was the word? Oh, right. "Apathetic about everything anymore. I started trying to do things myself more and I found out that I had just needed to wait and be patient about doing things myself. Once my shoulder was healed and my arm didn't hurt as much, it was a lot easier to do more things myself that I thought I couldn't do anymore, like putting contacts in and opening jars and a few other things I can't remember off the top of my head. I mean, it was really frustrating at the time, trying to do some of them without any help because it's really hard to do things with just one hand, so it took a while to figure out how to do things differently than how I'd always done them before, with two hands. With everything I started being able to do by myself again, I think I finally realized that until then I'd only been thinking about the things I couldn't do, and not any of the things I could do, which was actually a lot more things than I thought I could. I mean, there's always gonna be things I can't do myself now, like do cartwheels or count on both hands or get heavy things down from high places, and other stuff like that, but that's okay," she went on with yet another shrug as she raised her gaze to Rosie and, briefly, to Luke. "I think I'm mostly used to it now and I don't mind it nearly as much. Sometimes I still get sad or depressed about it, but it usually doesn't last too long and then I'm fine again. It took a long time," read: more than a week, "to get back to doing as much as I could by myself again, and to feel better about everything and get used to how different everything is now. I mean... I don't think I'm completely better yet, but mostly? I dunno," another shrug, this one coupled with a slightly exasperated tone, "it's weird and hard to explain. But, uh, anyway, that's pretty much about it," she finished lamely. Holy hell that was a lot of talking; way more than she'd expected to. Maybe... ah. "Really freakin' long story short, it sucked for a long time but now things are mostly fine and I can do lots of stuff myself again, it just took a while." There.  

[Blood_Goddess]

It felt like Sera had been holding that in for a while. it surprised Rosie, but at the same time she was happy to her Sera talking about it, when for so long the mere thought of mentioning her hand was something of a taboo.
Reaching a hand out toward Sera.
"We knew you would make it,"  

[Suudonym]

It felt strangely cruel, as if he were hearing someone narrate straight from his head every thought and insecurity that he wanted to keep secret. More than that, though, it felt cruel that someone so close to him, who had been such a good friend for so long, had suffered so immensely.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

While her discomfort had lessened towards the end of her speech, it only magnified in the silence that followed. Rosie's comment did little to help that discomfort. "Well... yeah," she replied uncertainly. What, was she gonna just roll over and die or something because she couldn't handle her hand being gone? ...not to say she hadn't felt that way during part of that, but she wasn't about to mention that.  

[Blood_Goddess]

Rosie knew that despite what Sera had said, talking to Rosie herself, this had been meant for Luke to hear. Luke could relate to it, he had a reason to be told this, so while Sera was speaking, Rosie kept that in mind, while still just being amazed that Sera was being so open with this.
Rosie was proud of her.

Glancing over to Luke as an awkward silence fell over the room, Rosie reached her hand back and picked at the ends of her hair.
"You know Sera..." she said after a while, trying to find something to break the silence "you actually can do a one handed cartwheel." She offered with a light smile.