[FIN] Way of Life

[Suudonym]

"It's just kind of… sounds that sound good together? I'm sure there's an actual way to explain it, but I don't really understand the details." Things that sounded right and things that didn't sound right, that was about the depth of his understanding of the creation of music. Ceding that Kiss Kiss most likely knew the technicalities better than him - and sore, at any rate, from keeping his arms up - he withdrew from the keys to watch the pair.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Her frown persisted. Sounds that sounded good together - but thus far she'd only made sounds that sounded awful together. As Kiss tapped away at the keys, the girl dutifully tried to pay attention - though given she wasn't trying too hard to learn and was mostly attempting to keep Luke focused on something else, she wasn't exactly paying as much attention as she could've otherwise - and when prompted, she attempted to match the keys as best she could. The result was mediocre at best, as she'd accidentally hit several extra keys in the process, and still sounded rather unfortunate like her other attempts thus far.  

[Blood_Goddess]

Seeming pleased with herself, she then leaned over on the other side of Sera, perching her front paws on the handle of Luke's wheelchair. "Raaiii~" then looked at the keys, wondering why he stopped playing.

"Lop Lopunny Lop." A much more disgruntled voice spoke from between Sera and Luke, Pop stepping with with a light frown at Kiss, who replied by sticking her tongue out at the Lopunny and pushing herself further onto the arm of Luke's wheelchair.

Pop rolled her eyes, looking over to Luke instead and holding out what looked like a cough drop to him "Lop."  

[Suudonym]

"It's easier once you know what sounds to expect," he contributed unhelpfully. He could only assume that he had retained some reflexive memory of the notes from learning as a child; by all rights he in fact didn't know what sounds to expect, but his fingers seemed to.

Pop drew his attention with her sudden address to the Raichu, followed by an address to himself; he reached to accept the offered lozenge, "Thanks." The offer inherently felt like a reprimand - 'that coughing is annoying as all hell, do something about it' - but he brushed aside the feeling as much as he was able.

...

The days wore on this way, simply and slowly, and though the effects of the cold persisted, Luke gradually experienced less and less severe pain from his movements. A lot of things remained impossible, or at least unreasonably difficult, but by the time a week had passed since his discharge from the hospital, Luke was beyond all limits of his patience in needing the assistance of others to complete the most basic tasks. His mellow disposition had sharpened with the passing days, and smiles of submission had become plain grimaces; a persisting weariness and the dull throb of a headache certainly didn't help the sour mood.  

[Blood_Goddess]

This wasn't easy, and no one expected this to be easy, in fact they expected quite the opposite. This wasn't just going to be a way to help a friend out, this was a complete life style change. Least of all for Rosie, Rodney and Rosie's team, but mostly for Luke.

He was getting sick, he couldn't use his arms for anything but the most delicate of reasons, and his legs were no longer an option for him, ever.
He needed help to do everything, every little thing that people take for granted doing on their own with barely any thought at all, Luke could not do without another person, or a pokemon there to help him.
Rosie could not even begin to imagine what kind of stress that was putting on him, but she could start seeing it... in his face, in his day to day. He wasn't okay, an it worried Rosie.

Rodney and her discussed it a few times, but it generally came down to just understanding that this was going to get worse, before it could start getting better, They would not expect him to accept this kind of change over a short amount of time, and the only thing they could offer until then, was patience.

Rosie was going to get up early that morning, like she was trying to, go for a job, let her pokemon out for an hour of training before she went back home in time to shower, get changed and help get Luke out of his bed.
Only this morning when her alarm went off, she turned it off without waking up and rolled back over to sleep for the next couple of hours.
Thankfully she was not allowed to oversleep too much as Vahy'n had been paying attention to the time, and made sure to wake the girl up with time to at least get herself ready for the day.

A light song followed the young blond as she stepped out of the shower, tired, but starting to feel better after the hot water over her shoulders had helped to wake her up, at least marginally.

"I could wait a thousand hours,
Stay the same in sun and showers.
Pick apart a hundred flowers, Just to be quiet."

Holding the fold of her towel around her with one hand, she busied the other one by whipped down the fog from the mirror, clearing up a portion of it so she could get a reflection.

"Tell me when you feel ready,
I'm the one there's not too many
Hold my hand to keep me steady
Just to be quiet-"

Her song continued under her breath, knowing it so well she hummed it absently while brushing wet hair out of her face, and flicking water from her shoulders.
Her fingers moved over the faded coloring of a bruise she had reserved a couple of weeks ago.
Her humming faded into silence, her eyes moving over her shoulder before she turned a little look over the reflection of the back of her arms and shoulder, letting the towel fall a little down her back where she had been used to seeing one prior.

It was nearly gone, the once dark marks of bruising from when Luke had to be pried off of her after he had been hit by that van door, marks of his finger prints.
Rosie bunched her shoulders, pulling the towel back over herself and turning to face the mirror again.
She was reminded ever time she saw those bruises, of just what had happened, reliving how everything felt, since the scene at this point was constantly playing in her mind and in her sleep. it scared her,
but honestly... that's all she walked away with from that day, bruises that were nearly faded. And Luke could not walk at all.

Lifting her eyes to meet her reflection's gaze, unsure of what she should be telling herself, and why. There had never been anything to say, nothing she could think but the day to day encouragement, hoping that someday this could be okay, that he would be okay.
Just... get him through another day.

Hattie was already awake by the time Rosie had reached the bottom of the steps dressed and hair dried, rounding the corner into the living room where the gentle face of her Meganium was greeting her from the other room.
"Good morning Hattie." she said, folding her hands behind herself as she walked over to bump her head against the grass types
"Megeee" She greeted back closing her eyes as they made contact.

With a light twirl Rosie pivoted on her toed and made her way to the hall that lead into Luke's Room, pausing by the door Rosie knocked lightly on it, to see if Luke would reply if was awake yet.  

[Suudonym]

Another morning, another taunting ray of sunshine from beyond curtains he couldn't open if he wanted to. Granted, it would be easy to rig a line from the window to the bed to allow him to draw open the drapes from his distance, but it was the principle of the thing. Everything out of reach seemed as though it was mocking him, and he was sick of it. The worst of the pain had subsided, though, and it felt like as good a time as any to expand his boundaries. Everything couldn't be impossible forever. It couldn't.

The knock, soft as it was, cut through the thoughts of building resolve, and Luke replied to answer the unasked questions, "Yeah." Yes he was awake, yes they could come in.  

[Blood_Goddess]

The door opened quietly when he replied, Rosie stepping in to have her eyes automatically go to where she would find Luke each morning.
"Good morning." She said, walking across the room to the blinds that she opened.
"Did the medicine help with the coughing at all last night?"  

[Suudonym]

With a quiet exhale, he nodded, answering simply, "Yeah."  

[Blood_Goddess]

She turned to face him, now that there was some light being let into the room, noticing his simple replies.
"Good." she breathed, at least that was one good thing so far.
she walked back over to him, holding a hand out to offer to help him sit up.
"Rodney has an early class this morning, so I'm in charge of breakfast. Are you ready to get up for the day?"  

[Suudonym]

He only raised his hand slightly before drawing his fingers into a loose fist, his eyes falling on the end of the bed. "I can manage it," he said. "It's already been a week. I can at least handle this much by now."  

[Blood_Goddess]

When he didn't take her help like she had grown to expect after a week if helping Luke in and out of bed with Hattie's help, the blond blinked and hesitated.
"You're back isn't fully healed yet. Are you sure?"

It worried her to have him try it on his own so soon, not when she knew that his back still hadn't healed from the gashes, let alone the muscle damage that she knew he had.
But she knew she couldn't just shut him down, one of the things he had expressed very clearly was that he wanted to be able to try things on his own when he was ready to. She did not expect that he meant this soon.  

[Suudonym]

He nodded. "It's fine. It doesn't hurt all that much, and it's just sitting up and moving over a bit. I can handle it." There were doubts in his thoughts, of course, but he chased them away with what he found to be very sound logic. It wasn't even all that much moving. He could do it.  

[Blood_Goddess]

Again she hesitated, pausing before she straightened up a bit "okay... if you're sure."
If anything, she could let him try, and if he didn't manage it, she could just be there to help him.  

[Suudonym]

"You don't have to stay," he said when she remained, his tone implying more that he didn't want her to stay. Pain or not, he was sure it would be a struggle and not especially graceful to watch. "It'll probably be kind of a slow process, and I can just call if I need help…"  

[Blood_Goddess]

She caught the implication in his voice, he made it very clear even without words what he wanted, but still, the blond was left standing there hesitant. "I..."
She didn't want him to do this right now.