Chapter Text
Frasier remembers the last time she was full. Her sister was there, laughing. Dimples deepening as she swiped a dollop of whipped cream off the tip of Frasier’s nose still unaware of the matching dab on hers. The sunlight dipped in and out of her sister’s eyes and left everything shining. Like a golden filter on a photograph, the kind that makes things look perfect.
It was perfect. Everything was perfect that day. In the café, they shared a plate of thick french toast with strawberries and whipped cream, the drinks cool and delicious. “Nothing fancy for you because you’re still just a little baby,” her sister said and pinched her cheek with a grin. Unmoved by Frasier’s pout but still paying for the extra dessert just for her. “Still growing, huh? You can have some of my strawberries too.”
It’s hard to remember how many times her sister smiled that day, the special smile, the one that curled her lips up like she had a secret tucked into the corners. She looked so happy. She said work was going well. She tucked Frasier’s hand into her elbow and showed her around town and took a million pictures. She talked about all the paintings in the museum and let Frasier try on her fancy lady’s hat, the one with pretty silk ribbons.
Frasier was walking on air, floating behind her sister while the world around them sparkled.
It was perfect.
She wasn’t even upset when the day ended. She just went back, fell into bed and had good dreams. Her sister’s gifts placed neatly on the desk with everything else shoved away to make space for them, summer homework and papers and pens all spilling off the sides. Shopping bags littered the floor. She went to sleep smiling about how she was going to open them all in the morning.
When she woke up there was an ache in her body. The growing pains, her parents called it but that day it felt different somehow. Wrong. When she shuffled to the kitchen and opened the fridge there was a jar there, homemade jam she’d made and meant to give to her sister. The pain flew away in an instant because she could go see her again to drop it off.
Her sister wouldn’t get mad. She never did, not at Frasier anyways. And hadn’t she been talking about how she was making a room in her apartment just for her? Not a guest room. A real room, set up special for Frasier so she could stay during breaks or…or even permanently. She’d be okay with her dropping by, just for a night. Just like a sleepover.
She got ready faster than normal that morning and did her chores in a hurry, left so early her pokemon were still half-asleep. Flabébé curled up on the field of crochet flowers at the bottom of her bag, snoozing away with her own flower held tight, all tuckered out from helping with the plants. Klefki spun around her for a second as she locked the door, waiting for the key. With it safely secured, he hid away in the bag too, the rest of his keys chiming melodically against the selection of her rings and bracelets he liked to carry.
It was nice out, the morning air cool and sweet. The journey to her sister's apartment had never felt shorter. But when she got to Lumoise City it felt dimmed somehow, like it had lost its sparkle without her sister there to make it shine. Frasier hurried along, feeling like an outsider.
The door to her sister’s place wasn’t open when she got there but something was wrong anyway. Later, when they asked her what it was, Frasier wouldn’t tell them. Couldn’t get the words out that as soon as Klefki gave her the door keys and she walked in, she already knew it was too late.
⊱✿⊰
It’s cold.
The hum of air conditioning is noisy and the room has an almost sterile smell to it. Frasier hates it in here. She rubs her fingers against the desk, following the corners. Above her is a glaring light, too harsh by far. People whisper. Her pokemon are scared but she can’t tell what she’s feeling. Empty mostly.
Numb.
The door opens. She kills the spell but keeps her hand there on the desk. The rough underside of it scrapes at her fingers. There’s still wood under all that paint. Soft new sprouts soothe the pain of splinters away as she looks up to see who’s there.
The first person to come in is a familiar, uniformed man, the one that had found her in the apartment on her knees and helped her stagger up. He’d given her a mug of hot cocoa and a blanket to keep her warm while she cried like the world was ending because it did. Now he gives her a cautious smile and Frasier can’t smile back.
The other one is a beautiful woman in white. She seems familiar. Her suit shimmers under the light and she doesn’t sit down even though the officer nervously pulls out a chair for her. Instead she stands and crosses her arms and looks. A gardevoir floats behind her, the sweep of her gown as deeply elegant as her trainer’s movements. Like art. Her entrance draws so much focus that Frasier almost doesn’t notice the other two taking up the corner. The men, one in a messy lab coat with dark circles under his eyes and the other with a mane of red hair, frowning.
She realizes she isn’t meant to, when they don’t say anything.
“Hello,” says the woman. “I’m sure you must be confused but we – I have some questions for you.” She steps a little closer and Frasier can feel the weight of her presence more clearly, like a soft touch at her temples. Looking for something. It slides right off but she blinks anyway. “Who are you?”
“Who are you?” Frasier replies.
There is an odd silence in the room. The woman doesn’t move back but her eyes flicker sideways. Frasier hunches in on herself. Wrong. She shouldn’t have asked that. She tries again, different.
“I’m Frasier. I think I’ve seen you somewhere before?” Her voice lilts up, uncertain, and then dips lower. “Sorry. Do you work with my sister?”
A visible confusion enters the woman’s face. “Your sister?”
“Yeah? She’s not. She wasn’t at home and the officer said - he said they would look for her but she wasn’t there and - “
The words run into each other like they did before and now the officer looks uncomfortable.
“I’m Diantha,” the woman says and pauses. Frasier blinks up at her. She doesn’t know what to do with this information. Diantha notes her reaction and continues, “Your sister? I didn’t know that she had…”
The pause stretches.
Oh.
Well. She didn’t finish the sentence but Frasier gets it.
She already knows her part. Diantha is looking at her and its like everyone’s eyes follow. She knows what they’re seeing even if they won’t say it. Her sister, polished and gleaming, untouchable. Her sister, with her sharp eyes and an unsmiling mouth, the long sway of her braids cuffed in gold. Her sister, gone. And Frasier in her place, washed out by the light with dirt on her overalls and chipped nails, with wide eyes still watery and rimmed in red. Her odd mismatched earrings and odd mismatched clothing and odd mismatched existence.
She knows they’re seeing her. They’re just not seeing her big sister there too.
She tries to keep her mouth from wobbling. From her bag, Flabébé peeks up and a sweet scent wafts through the room.
“Oh,” says Diantha, recovering. Her smile is quick as she leans forward. “You’re a trainer?”
Frasier shakes her head no. One hand tightens on the bag, the other still scraping against the desk. The gardevoir hovers closer. That soft touch at her temples now a gentle pulse that unravels the shakiness of her breaths and smooths her out. It’s okay. From her bag, a jingle of melodic metal. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.
“I’m not a trainer,” she says. “I haven’t gone on my journey yet.”
She’d been too nervous to start and right when she had worked up enough courage to go, she hit a growth spurt so painful that it made her not want to go anywhere or do anything but stay in bed or lie in the sun. The ache was so constant and she was always so hungry. That’s why her sister had taken her out. So she would feel better. So she could think about trying again. She wasn’t thinking about that now.
“I see. Were these pokemon given to you by your sister?”
Frasier looks up, eyebrows furrowed. “Um, no? They’re mine.”
Diantha raises her eyebrows and leans forward more. Another whisper of something against her mind. Searching. “You caught them?”
She presses her thumb against the desk, feels it dent the skin. She’s asking it so weird. Why? Frasier answers anyway, not looking at the desk, not looking at the men, not looking at the gardevoir. Her eyes stay just over Diantha’s, focused on the soft lavender shimmer dusted over her eyelids. Honestly, it looks like all of her is shining. The gardevoir hums at a frequency she shouldn’t be hearing.
“Yeah? They’re my friends. I got some heal balls and Fl-Flabébé um, she likes my garden a lot and Klefki - he likes -”
She fiddles with her earrings. Diantha’s expression softens. “I’m glad. Your friends seem to care about you very much.”
They do. They do care about her very much. She already knows that. “Your sister,” Diantha says, like she’s winding up for the actual statement. “She was very important to us. She was working on incredible things and - “
Frasier tries hard not to look impatient or upset. She already knows this too. She knows but Diantha goes on and keeps winding up and doesn’t say it. She doesn’t say the important part.
“ - well, now that she’s gone we’re all very worried about you. We want to make sure you’ll be okay.”
What.
“What?”
“We just want to make sure you’re safe,” Diantha is saying from very far away. “Your sister’s work was - well legendary would be putting it lightly.”
The man smiles. The man with red hair. It’s a grim ugly smile, its just a twitch at the corner of his mouth but its a smile and Frasier sees it. Her eyes go wider and wider as Diantha winds up and just keeps on going. On and on. It’s like a train wreck. It’s like some kind of awful movie scene and Frasier is stuck in this uncomfortable chair and can’t look away. There’s a grinding noise in her ears and she’s watching Diantha’s mouth move and only catching half of it.
“If she’s given you any indication that this was happening -”
No.
“ - if she told you anything, left you anything - “
No.
“ - please, tell us. Please. We’ll make sure you’re safe.”
“Can I leave?” says Frasier and hits her knees on the desk as she scrambles up, bag swaying. It wasn’t actually a question. Her knee hurts. She’s scraped it and its bleeding. Her head feels fuzzy and she doesn't understand. She doesn’t get it. Why is Diantha saying all this?
Diantha stops talking at once and Frasier slips away from her outstretched hand, shaking her head.
“My sister’s missing. She’s missing, why aren’t you trying to find her? Why are you telling me all this stuff about taking care of me - I’m okay, my sister’s missing .” She turns towards the officer, pleading. Her pupils have swallowed her eyes. She can feel herself gasping. “You said you would help - help find her.”
He looks at Diantha. Diantha looks away, her eyes flickering towards those people. Frasier can feel it welling up again and she blinks the tears from her eyes, stubbornly doesn’t follow Diantha’s eyes to the corner. She hates it in here, hates it in this room. If she tried hard enough she could hate these people too. Its okay.
“Its okay,” she says.
Diantha startles and whips back to look at her. Her expression turns worried, eyebrows furrowed and lips downturned but its too perfect somehow. Frasier doesn’t like it. She keeps moving backwards, towards the door.
“It’s okay,” she repeats. “You guys are adults so like - you’re probably busy or something and you can’t do it now. I can. I’ll do it. I can find her myself. It’s okay. I’ll find her. It’s okay.”
Diantha opens her mouth but Frasier turns away and doesn’t look. She’s out of the room fast before she can hear anything else. The gardevoir’s hum fades out of her ears and her head is still clear but her nose is stuffy and she can’t see anything. Nobody follows her.
Sniffling, she lets the concerned receptionist scan her trainer’s card on the way out. He gives her a round candy from the jar on his desk and a pack of napkins and several bandages. They have cheerful little audinos on them and it matches her hair. It doesn’t really help but its nice. The candy is cherry-flavored so Frasier doesn’t eat it. Its her sister’s favorite. She cries all the way back home.
⊱✿⊰
They call her parents.
They tell them she’s not supposed to be there at the apartment and they come to pick her up, walking over the tape and around the plants. Frasier feels bad about making them come all the way out here but its fine. She tells them she has a room here and its her room and they look so sad it hurts. They say she can’t stay.
Of course she can. They say her sister wouldn’t want her to. Frasier would roll her eyes if she could. But they’re adults and she’s a good kid. She listens. She goes back. And it’s okay.
It’s okay that they came to get her. She’s figured out how to do it now. How to find her sister. And when she comes back everything will be perfect instead of just okay.
Frasier doesn’t cry again.
Not in the backseat of the car, or in the shower, or in her bed with the nightlight flicking stars and shapes across the ceiling. She closes her eyes and goes to sleep and her eyes are dry. They don’t stay that way throughout the night. When she wakes up she doesn't remember what she dreamed about, only that she did.