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Frontier Town Drungfield's Remedies

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Laura fumbled in her head for something quippy, and didn't find it. She'd run out of routes.

"Oh, yeah, I'm massively out of my depth," she admitted, blankly. Her tone wobbled on the border of sarcasm and despair. "If I get caught, and I can't bullshit well enough, I guess I'll be, uh, prosecuted or something. Or just be on the run, indefinitely. Dunno."

She blinked, and tried to breathe shallow and steady.

"It's kinda weird, you know. All the wild shit we've gotten stuck into here, even being here to begin with, seems almost easy compared to that stuff back home. It's objectively crazier and higher-stakes, but it's... different. Doing it as a team, on a level playing field. Back home, I'm not even playing the same kind of game as they are."
 
Dave watched her deflating in response. God. This poor fucking kid. Out there risking literally everything, no support from dickhead parents, trying to uncover some kind of petnapping conspiracy while dependent on the perpetrators for a living.

He sank back on the bed. "Yeah. I know what you mean. This place is a bit of a cartoon reality. Actual place where half the time you can just punch your problems and they go away. Meanwhile back home everything is soulcrushing systems and bureaucracies that an individual human being broadly can't do fucking anything about." His eyes slid back over to her. "If these people really are doing whatever illegal experiments on people's kidnapped pets, that's kind of a sign they've got a lot to lose and not a lot of moral compunctions."

He wanted to say the fucking cat was probably a lost cause, stop risking your sole livelihood for this. But giving up and quietly taking the money of a corrupt corporation to go on a happy fun Pokémon journey and ignore their abuses was kind of a grotesque option. As was giving up and going home to her dipshit parents.

"Try to be careful back there," he said instead. "You deserve better than all this bullshit."
 
Laura chuckled at 'cartoon reality'. Sure, if it was an edgy, adult cartoon maybe? There was an obituaries section in the Gazette...

And yet it still felt like she was playing on a more even field, somehow. Dave had a point. He also seemed to... care. Give a shit, about her and her stupid situation.

"Uh, thanks," she managed, ears dipping momentarily. "Um. For what it's worth, I could say the same of you. I really do hope things get better for you and the morph kids."

She cracked a tiny smile. "Shame I can't pen an opinion piece about that whole mess, turn the tide of public opinion," she joked.
 
Dave raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, if only. Wouldn't that be great, pen an opinion piece and suddenly everyone just gets it. Wave a magic wand, poof, solve bigotry." He flicked a paw at the air like an orchestra conductor.

"Anyway, uh, thanks for the food and the booze. It hit the spot. Feeling a little less like I got hit by a dozen trucks." He adjusted himself into a slightly more comfortable position on the bed. "Speaking of opinion pieces, did you read that batshit column the other day about the election?"

Having someone to talk to did improve hospital stays, it turned out.

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