Jonquil had been living in her own flat for about three months now, but to look at the place, you'd think she'd been there for three hours. She hadn't made much of an effort to make the place homey, and she didn't seem at all bothered by that. She'd been living with Louis for the better part of the past four years, but he'd put in most of the effort when it came to furnishing, because he was the only one of the two who actually used furniture. Thus, when he left her, he'd taken the majority of it with him. She hadn't missed it then, and she didn't miss it now. It wasn't anything she thought about, really. When she came home, all she looked for was her bed and her nightstand. So what if she had to walk through two vacant rooms before she reached it? That just meant fewer things to clean!

Thus, when people asked to come over – even well meaning people who she genuinely liked, like Nona – she often cocked her head and asked 'why?' She was happy to socialize at other people's homes, but her own flat was more like a holding cell. It was hooked up to the floo network, and it had electric lights, but that was the best that could be said for the place. When Nona came through, Jonquil was sitting on the floor with her back to the wall, resting a hefty psychology textbook atop her lap. She did not own a couch. She used to have a nice chair to use when she wanted to read for school. It was now in Louis's new flat, and of no use to her.

“I'm nearly to the end of the chapter,” she mused wryly, “And it still hasn't told me what might compel a deranged person to break into my flat and move things around.” In the empty space, her already loud, playful voice seemed to echo. She peered up at her ginger-haired friend over the edge of the book and rolled her eyes. “Will you please explain to me again what you're trying to accomplish?”

Nona arched an eyebrow at her friend, lips pursed to one side as she rummaged through drawers looking for a corkscrew, "First of all, has anyone ever told you it's exceedingly rude to read while you have company"? This wasn't a genuine inquiry of course, because she already knew the answer. Joni only acted like she'd been raised by wolves. "Secondly, I am not deranged. I have a proper adult flat, with furniature and pots and a bloody corkscrew," she huffed a little and stuck her tongue out at the other woman before giving up and taking out her wand, to do away with the offending stopper.

The point of this little decorating party was actually to make Joni face whatever lingering emotions she had about the breakup. Nona felt reasonably sure that while Joni would never be a cozy homemaker, she simply stored everything away to avoid thinking about it. She'd always been that way, but in this particular case Nona felt she was doing a real detriment to herself. It'd been months since Louis had left and all JoJo did was work and sleep. Maybe if they unboxed the apartment she could get the other woman to unbox some of her baggage.

To help with this, she had brought over two bottles of wine, as well as everything one would need to prepare and eat a homecooked meal - which she was also sure the other witch hadn't had in ages. Stovies bubbled away in a pot, filling the echoing empty space with cozy smells. She was setting the mood for a conversation she was sure the other woman didn't want to have - which was why Nona poured two full glasses of wine, "Alright, books down. Supper will be finished soon, we're going to have a drink and then a little later I have a surprise for you. Tell me about work, like a normal person," well that was a stretch.

“No,” Jonquil informed Nona immediately, before her friend's question had even had time to sit. She knew that she didn't want an answer, but that didn't mean she didn't have one, or that she'd fail to provide it. “I have never been told that. However,” she went on, “I wonder if anyone has told you that it's rude to invite yourself over when someone's doing schoolwork and then proceed to touch everything they own,” she countered, both of her own brows jumping high on her forehead. Her next question, however, was a bit more perplexing, and warranted a look around.

“Looks like a flat to me,” she observed, “And the reason I don't have a corkscrew, darling, is because I am a witch.” She had a wand. It was an excellent wand. It did all sorts of neat tricks, such as removing corks from bottles and saving human lives. She had to wonder what exactly Nona used hers for. “Do you remember that time we did have a corkscrew?” she asked after a moment, “And you got drunk and decided to use the corkscrew? And then there was blood everywhere and you were crying? And it wasn't even your blood?” She left it at that and went back to the book.

She hadn't been lying when she'd said that she was nearly at the end of the chapter... and she didn't intend to stop now. “I'm very good at multitasking,” she informed her, “I read and drink all of the time. And I have class tomorrow night, and you're in my flat.” She was just stating the facts. “If you're that lonely, I'll happily read to you about the efficacy of exposure based treatments on anxiety patients in non-residential mental health care settings.” Two more pages and she wasn't going to get to the end of this. Was there anything more frustrating? At least it was non-fiction, so no cliffhangers. She shut the book, and set it down, and leaned back into the wall behind her.

“I don't work like a normal person,” she reminded her friend, “Never have.” What was there to say about work to someone who had a normal job? She felt like there was much more to say when it was all new and exciting. “I closed a facial laceration – beautifully. Those are the hardest for me, I think, because there's a lot of pressure to make sure there's no scarring. It's someone's face.” She looked askance at her book, half inclined to open it up again now that she'd done the requested trick. “Corkscrews are dangerous.”

The thing about Jonquil Enright was, well, she was hilarious. Only, the other thing was, maybe, that she didn't always mean to be - Nona could never be completely sure. Of course this was their shtick, Nona scolded Jojo's people skills Jojo countered with a personality critique of her own, they drank wine and laughed at one another. There was no better friend to be had, Nona was sure, "I haven't touched everything you own. Haven't gone near your pants drawer. Also it isn't rude when it's for your own good".

She did remember the corkscrew incident. She also remembered it was not entirely her own fault, "to be fair," she paused offering Joni a glass, "I was not the only one who was drunk, and the person who happened to be bleeding did so all over a very very expensive rug in my mother's sitting room, on a weekend when I was not supposed to have visitors when we were too young to legally use magic". She could be a smarty-pants know-it-all, just look at that!

Carefully she sat herself down in front of Joni, legs crisscrossing themselves into the lotus position as she took a healthy gulp of wine, wincing slightly at the dry bite. It was not an excellent vintage but it would get the job done (despite excellent breeding, Nona had a fondness for cheap wine. Living on a budget was a thing, even for Pureblood Princesses who worked for the Ministry and had just recently received a raise. She frowned at Jojo's tone, of course she was going to be difficult.

"That's nice," her tone was dry as she fought a very strong urge to make a face at the other woman. Of course she didn't work like a normal person. Her next move was, of course, to snatch the text book up off the floor and thumb through it. Sometimes she wondered about her healer friends, well mostly just about Joni, It was mostly obvious what was wrong with Flynn. She sometimes got the feeling Jonquil didn't actually have any idea what it was she did for a living, or how they both approached the world in such vastly different ways in general. Odds were she didn't, sighing Nona glanced up,  "Anything is dangerous in the right hands with enough time".

“You haven't touched my pants drawer yet,” Jonquil corrected her friend pointedly, sticking her index finger in the air as only a true, fairly self aware nerd might. “Or perhaps not. 'Drawer' implies furniture, and you're only interested in the lack thereof,” she snarked. Her bedroom was, in fact, furnished... for the most part. She needed somewhere to sleep and somewhere to dress and somewhere to store her clothing. That, she'd decided, was essential.  Everything else was heavy and optional and required frequent dusting. Plus, it required money that she preferred to spend on.... anything else, really.

She could hear it in Nona's voice that she recalled the evening of the corkscrew massacre – registering it in the slight halting of her friend's defensive windup - and she smiled slow, like a cat. The memories of their youth were precious, and Jonquil sighed nostalgically. “All could have been avoided if we'd just foregone the corkscrew. And that's all I have to say about that.” They knew better now, of course – that the home of a pureblooded family was about the safest possible place to employ underage magic if you didn't want the ministry to know. It was fun, grownup trivia that only the initiated knew, much like the truth about Father Christmas – exciting when you learn it, but highly disappointing in hindsight.

She accepted the glass of wine and, instinctively, took a sip off of the top so it wouldn't slosh over. In another situation, that may have been a very obvious sign that her visitor was trying to get her drunk. In this instance, however, it wasn't so obvious, as her visitor was a lush. Plus, one sip and she was well informed as to the quality of the vino – Nona could afford to be liberal. She eyed her friend as she flipped through the textbook, blinking. “So you're allowed to sit and read, but I can't,” she observed, craning her neck to see what exactly her friend was glancing at, “I sense a double standard!”

“You should consider taking a course,” she suggested, “It's very fulfilling. The best way to enrich your life is to deliberately seek enrichment. I truly believe that.” It was easy for Jonquil to say, because Jonquil loved school more than she loved any institution on earth – it was a magical place where they required you to buy books, and encouraged you to think about things you wouldn't have even known to think about before. If Wizarding Britain had a university, there was a very good chance that Jonquil would not even be a healer – she'd be homeless, living in the university broom closet, and auditing lectures 24 hours a day.

"I've no interest in your pants drawer," she waved her hand dismissively, thumbing through the textbook. She was stating a true fact, of course it didn't mean that she didn't think Jojo's room could use some sprucing, a few vases of flowers along with a couple throw pillows. The mention of her bedroom might have been a nice segue for touching on Jo's lack of interest in romantic interests since Louis left... but it felt a little rough and they were both still too sober for that conversation.

"Without the corkscrew," she paused to take another sip of wine, tone very matter of fact, "we would not have had anything to drink, as my mother was far less likely to notice one of her bottles missing than my father was to overlook his Ogden's vanishing while he was off helping to birth Hippogriffs". Pausing she narrowed her eyes in thought before lifting her head, "Actually if memory serves, I was not even supposed to be in charge of acquiring libations for that particular party as I had provided the empty house to gather in".

Glancing back down at the book, she rolled her eyes and shook her head, "I am simply trying to understand what could possibly be more interesting than I am. I have yet to find a single thing in here," with that she snapped the text shut and dropped it back in Joquil's lap, feathers ruffling slightly at the notion her life needed enrichment. "Ah, yes, let me get right on that with the extra hours in the day not spent trying to help the people our society has cast aside rebuild their lives or trying to have an actual life of my own," the last bit of the statement was meant to jab just a little at her friend, but was mostly defensive because it seemed like Joni thought what she did was.... better or more important than anything anyone else did with their lives. Annoying.

“It's apples to oranges,” Jo spoke, not wanting to insult her friend or her book, since she had great affection for both. “The book isn't more interesting. It's differently interesting. But it's also finite, and that makes getting to the end of a chapter satisfying, and you are trying to deny me that satisfaction, and that annoys me,” she declared matter-of-factly. Jonquil was fairly sure that Nona knew that already, but it bore repeating. There was no ill will in the sentiment, and she'd punctuated it with a crisp snort of a giggle, grabbing her book from the other witch's hands the moment it was shoved at her. She was happy to have her book back, and she nestled it right beside her, giving it a loving, rhythmic tap with her fingernails. Maybe she could finish those two pages before the night was through. She always read something before bed.

She'd put the book away. She wasn't going to feel bad when Nona proceeded to jump on the sarcasm train, though – trying to convince Jonquil Enright of all people that there weren't enough hours in the day was, frankly, futile. “What is an actual life, though?” she asked, her tone even – the question was only partially rhetorical. She took up her wine glass and stole a sip. “Is going to school not part of an actual life? Because it's part of my actual life, and I enjoy it immensely, and I thought you might like it, too.” That, of course, was an understatement. Why shouldn't she do something that made her happy and also happened to make her better? And why was suggesting that her friend do the same somehow offensive? She legitimately didn't understand. If something was genuinely worthwhile, you found time.

And right now, sitting on the floor of her flat and drinking bad wine, she was getting anxious due to lack of active productivity. If it were up to her, she wouldn't even be at home. If it were up to her, she wouldn't ever be at home. But tonight it wasn't up to her. She had to drink the wine and eat the nice-smelling food and put the book down and contemplate the definition of an actual life. She had, at last, accepted her fate.

“Alright,” she said, sitting up a little straighter, “If you're more interesting than five hundred pages of peer reviewed scholarship, talk to me,” she encouraged, officially giving up on returning to her  reading.

Nona considered all the incredibly snarky things she could snark at the Healer. It would be an endless cycle if they got started and frankly she had bigger fish to fry. She just didn't know how to bring it up. How could you tell your best friend you'd seen her ex-fiance out on the town with a very pretty looking blonde? It had been the most awkward encounter of Nona's life - and that was saying something considering what Nona could get up to some nights.

Obviously there was no good way to bring it up, so instead Nona got herself off the floor in a hurry, handing Jojo her wineglass to keep from knocking it over, "Supper's done"! Bad news was always better on a full stomach, wasn't it? Well, maybe not if Joni decided the best way to react to Louis getting on with his life was to throw up. Still, throwing up something was better than acid. For someone who routinely delivered bad news to people Nona not only hated it, she felt like she was terrible at it.

Ladling the stew into mismatched bowls she glanced back at Jonqui, "Bread and lots'a butter yes"? She could feel Joni's eyes on her and knew she wouldn't be able to push the subject off for much longer, but she could try a little. Carrying everything back into the living room with a tray she carefully lowered herself to the floor. Arranging everything very carefully, she finally shifted her eyes up at Jojo, "Okay, so. Maybe I have some information I think you need to know, and maybe that is the reason I decided we needed to have a girl's night in. Hypothetically if I had run into Louis how much would you want to know"?

Just when Jonquil felt resigned to her fate and had actually come to accept that she might just be sitting there and chatting for a while, Nona was springing up and declaring that the food was finished cooking, having contributed nothing but thinly veiled insults. “Oh,” she called after her, her tone droll, “Oh, thank you so much for that riveting conversation! Now I truly know what I was missing out on! I'll never pick up a book again!” The sarcasm was more than palpable, and Jonquil leaned back into the wall behind her with a soft thud as her head met the paneling. She would have definitely been through those two pages in the time it took for Nona to convince her to put the book down. She held both wine glasses out, one in each hand, and briefly contemplated whether it actually might be wise to invest in a small table. While her mind wandered, her eyes traced the movements of the red haired figure bumbling around her kitchen.

“Nona?” she called, genuinely this time, “You're not planning on...?” she trailed off, as she answered her own question, watching the other witch bringing the meal she'd prepared back to the sitting room with her. “I suppose it's a picnic, then,” she observed with a sigh and a little smile, setting the glasses back down. She may not have kept much in her flat, but on the rare occasion when she was home for a meal, she usually ate at the counter. Nona seemed to really, genuinely want to impress upon her the importance of acquiring furniture. In fact, she was convinced that it was the purpose of her visit. It was awkwardly quiet for a moment as things were arranged, the only sound the soft clinking of the bowls against the wooden floor. “It's absurd, I know,” she remarked at last, desperate to break the tension, “But I never have guests, so your point is moot.” Now they could move on, right?

Right?

Needless to say, her assumptions about the purpose for this visit were more than a little bit off, and when the real truth came out, it took the healer a moment to adjust... but just a moment. She froze. “When?” she asked immediately, her tone pressing. Her eyes looked ready to pop out of her head, and a tiny, vertical crease was forming in between her eyebrows.  “Where did you see him? How did he look?” she pressed, her tone desperate and almost clinical – a big shift from the sarcastic know-it-all tone she'd been using just moments earlier.

She knew that Lou still existed. He was still a person with free will who lived out in the world, and she was sure she'd bump into him again before long... but it still felt very soon, and her curiosity felt very personal. He may have been her ex-fiance, but he was her ex-fiance – hers. She still felt ownership over what they'd had. Even if Nona had seen him, which she believed she had, why bring it up unless something was wrong? Her affect was tense, waiting – she didn't know what to think yet. “Did you talk to him?”

Nona bit her bottom lip, trying to decide if she should be vague or if she should just tell Joni everything upfront and to the point. "He looked, you know, how he looks," she felt wretched, but she was pretty sure telling her best friend her ex-fiance looked amazing and happy seemed cruel. It could have been Nona's sole feeling on the situation but she felt he deserved to be wasting away and miserable. How matter how much she could understand his reasoning, how acutely aware she could be of Jonquil's infuriating tendencies... the woman was her best friend. She loved her because of all that she was, not despite it, and she saw things in Joni that were worth loving, more worth loving than worth losing. No one was perfect, and it wasn't as though Lou was blindsided by the myopically-driven-to-the-point-of-destruction way Jojo could be. It was all part and parcel of loving her, and that wasn't bad or wrong.

Lou was bad and wrong. He'd hurt her best friend, even in Jojo acted like she was over it. If she weren't going to be angry, Nona would be angry and judgmental for both of them. When she finally stopped fussing with her napkin and shifted her eyes up to the other woman's face, all she could do was sigh, "I was at dinner with the twins, sort of a we-miss-you-since-you-moved-out thing... and there he was," she paused biting her lip, "Joni, he was with someone. Not anyone we know, but someone. The looks Finn was shooting them, I'm surprised neither just up and burst into flames. Maybe the back of his head started to feel hot because he looked right at us".

Twisting the ring on her middle finger, the redhead chewed in the inside of her lip before continuing, "Then of course he felt the need to come over and ask about everything under the sun, including how the griff breeding inititive my father had wanted to start was going. I was, as in all things, tempted to be terribly shitty to him. I thought the whole ordeal was over but then he brought her to meet us, because apparently he is under the mistaken impression he got custody of my friendship in the break up. Her name is Shelby. She works at Trollhouse publishing, her teeth were obviously capped and someone must have engorgio'd her chest before the start of the evening," Nona sounded down right catty, which was very much unlike her. She was usually of the mind women needed to lift one another up rather than dismantling them for flaws they had no control over. It all just bothered her.

"He seemed happy Jo, and I just..." reaching out she took the other witch's hand between hers, "I know that you say you're happy working and going to school and just being busy all the time... but when I think about the time you have to spend in this empty apartment, even if it isn't a lot, it makes my heart so sad. I worry some part of you is just waiting for him to come back, to realize he can't live without you..." she trailed off, unsure if she should put her next words into the universe, worried she was pushing Joni away instead of pulling her closer as she intended, "he's not coming back Love, and I don't want you to spend time looking for something that won't happen. You need to...have a safe place to just stop and process everything that's happened. I worry".

It was funny how simply saying 'he looked how he looks' could bring to mind such a vivid mental picture of a person. She could see him: Louis reading in his armchair, Lou in bed telling her she's beautiful, Lou kissing her goodbye in the morning before shaving, tickling her with his whiskers. She'd conjured his image so clearly that he could have been in the room.

But he wasn't. She forgot, sometimes, that he wouldn't be there when she got home, or that the bed would be cold when she finally crawled under the covers at the end of the day – mostly because it was that consistency that had once made her feel so sure that this was going to be forever. Apparently nothing was forever, though, because Nona's admission that she'd seen him at a public place was enough to convince her that, truly, anything could change. Jonquil actually laughed – a single, dry sort of laugh, but still a laugh. “Now he goes out to dinner?” she remarked, giving her head a shake. Getting Lou to do something social had been like getting a hibernating bear to leave the cave – yet he'd done it for her. She used to brag about how they still went on dates, but the truth was, if she didn't drag him, they probably wouldn't have.

It took Jo a moment to register just what Nona meant by 'he was with someone'. She was thinking a friend, maybe. Just a person. But Nona went on and, somehow, Jonquil kept her mouth shut and listened. She was still and tense, much like a dog waiting for instructions from its master before pouncing on a treat – focused and betraying nothing. She ran her tongue over her front teeth when she heard that name, Shelby, trying to place it. Her expression didn't change at all, and her body didn't move, but she could feel everything under the mask that was her face starting to shift in its invisible way – her tear ducts expanding, the knot in her throat growing. She swallowed it all back. She'd decided a long time ago that she wasn't upset about this. She'd decided.

She didn't like Nona touching her hand like that, because it implied that she needed support, which she didn't. Subtly, tactfully, she pulled it back and reclaimed it, hiding both of her hands out of sight so that it wouldn't happen again.

“He can live without me. We've established that. That's why he left. And I can live without him – but he wanted someone who can't. That's how we got here.” Her tone was instructional, and lacked any trace of the emotion that was, in fact, lurking underneath – she was just like a teacher trying to explain logic to a slow student. It made her feel like she had some power in this. She more or less ignored everything else that Nona had to say. She didn't want sympathy and she didn't want to hear it.

“He must've been seeing her while he was still with me,” she insisted, “That must be why he left. He couldn't possibly have met someone this quickly.” She wanted to believe that – that there was some other reason why he'd broken things off other than her. And she was thoroughly in denial regarding exactly how much time had passed since he left. It couldn't have been enough time to meet another girl. It just didn't compute. She exhaled slowly through her nose.

 “Nona," she began, speaking to the other witch in the same way she was being spoken to - she hated feeling like a child. It put her teeth on edge. "What has changed? Am I doing a single thing differently than when I lived with Lou? No,” she spoke, answering her own question, “So why all of the sudden are you convinced I'm damaged? If anything, I'm more productive than I was before! I lost my dead weight! I don't have to drag him with me!” She smiled, dimples and all. “I've been taking psychology courses. If I was irreparably damaged, I'm sure I'd know by now!”

Nona just sort of let things unfold before her. This was not entirely unexpected, Jojo's reaction. Nona forgot that most people didn't just spark to anger or fall apart and then piece themselves back together. She thought of her spat with Balfour and once again felt very uncomfortable in her skin. She knew all of this was bothering Jo more than she was letting on. She knew it because when you'd been friends with someone as long as they'd been friends you learned to see what the other was hiding in the ways they tried to hide it. You could learn to hear all the things they weren't saying... and Jojo was not saying a whole hell of a lot.

And then she was saying something that totally baffled Nona and she found herself doing a double take, "You think he was cheating on you"? Her tone was not actually incredulous, just surprised. She knew Jonquil could make some mental leaps but this was like jumping the blood Ministry! "Joni..." her voice trailed off for a moment as she chewed her bottom lip. Louis was a lot of things, some of them not very nice in Nona's opinion but he wouldn't have cheated would he? She'd never thought it ended because he stopped loving Jojo, he just didn't know how to make her hear him and was tired of trying.

It was a valid reason for a breakup. Nona hated him anyway, because frankly, if she were going to take sides Jonquil Enright would win her loyalty hands down first and forever. She was her ride and die, her person, even when they made one another absolutely mad they never quit on one another. No one knew her better, and she was pretty sure she knew Joni better than Joni knew herself. They'd been together through everything from magical dentistry and training bras to the lost-ness and pregnancy scares your twenties could bring.

"Maybe that's the point. You're living your life in the same fog that pushed him out. You and I both know that Louis wouldn't exert the effort it would take to cheat. Four months it's a long short time." the comment about damage twisted her stomach up a little bit, eyebrows bunching together in the middle, "Joni, we're all damaged. It's part of the human condition. We hurt and we get hurt, it's a fact of life and it's just useless pretending like that's not how it is. The pain is part of the happiness, and with Lou that happiness was a promise he broke. You had a whole life together and you haven't let yourself grieve for what's gone. It's like you're denying that you thought you'd spend the rest of your life with him, like you were just with him because it was easy - which we both know it wasn't. The longer you deny the death of this dream the more twisted up and gummy your emotions are going to get until you have a massive meltdown. I'm doing this because I love you Jo, and I want your life to be more than work and school and pretending life's just fine".

Jonquil had loved Lou – not because she had to, and not because she didn't have any other options. He was a massive nerd. He wasn't nerdy in the same way that she was nerdy, but their nerdiness was still very much compatible. She'd spent ages leading him along when they were young because she didn't understand just how much he'd fancied her – that his bashful flirtations were genuine - but he'd been so patient and he'd waited for the moment when she wasn't too occupied by something else to see him, and she'd realized that he was for her. His affection was quiet – subtle, like only the rarest things. Sometimes he reminded her of her father, and that wasn't an entirely off-putting thought. He could slow her down. He was a good friend. And none of that might have mattered if he wasn't a great lover, but he was. Knowing all she did about him, she never thought he'd leave. Who ever thought their fiance would leave? She was still processing it.

Which was why the idea that he was cheating wasn't entirely implausible. If they lived in a world where Lou could call things off, why couldn't they live in a world where he could cheat? So did she think he was cheating? “He could have been,” she responded to Nona's question, defending her position, “Someone had to have convinced him to leave, yes? I can't imagine he came up with the idea all on his own.” Even as she said those words, she didn't really seem to believe them – there was the slightest lack of conviction in her typical know-it-all tone. She did not take it back, however. It was comforting to cling to possibilities other than 'he left because I'm horrible.'

Which was, maybe, why the idea of being damaged affected her so. She listened to Nona's words with the same stoic expression she'd been wearing earlier, the smile having slid right off of her face like the false, rubber thing that it was. “You're 'doing this,'” Jo repeated her friend's expression, screwing up her brows, “What are you doing?” She shut her eyes, leaning back against the wall behind her again, sighing profoundly. Maybe if she could blend into the wall, Nona wouldn't see that she was feeling something – and if eyes were the windows to the soul, then shutting those could only help. “What are you doing?” she repeated. She could feel the sheen of unshed tears forming beneath her eyelids. “Of course I miss him. We've been over this. We did this already, didn't we?” Her tone was more sad than agitated, heavy with the burden she wished she didn't have to bear. There had   been so much crying when this was new, but that just didn't seem appropriate anymore. The other witch was right – it had been a long short time. Far too short, and far too long.

She opened her eyes, and though she wasn't actually crying, the rims were decidedly pink – her body wasn't as good at hiding her emotions as she was. “Can't I miss him and be happy with my life?” she pleaded, giving her head a sad shake, “Because I am happy, and I do miss him – I miss being with him, and I'm horny as all hell, Nona, but what am I supposed to do? I'm not going to sit around the house and cry. It's not productive.” She honestly, really, truly wasn't sure what she was being criticized for – for continuing to live her life? For not breaking down and sobbing in socially inappropriate situations? For not getting any when Lou clearly was?

Hm. The last one held some weight.

Nona was almost sorry she had told her, almost sorry she had started this "project", but only almost. The thing was, Joni would never face these things on her own, she would bury them, she would bury herself and Nona simply couldn't stand it. She couldn't watch it happen. She cared too much, and maybe she cared in the wrong way, maybe it was awkward and clumsy because she didn't know how to help Jonquil fee the things she was hiding from. Feeling things just came naturally to Nona. She felt them until the feeling was gone and she put herself back together. It was something that just came naturally to her, she didn't think of it in terms of productivity because she'd always believed it was just how the body worked sometimes.

Sliding across the floor she sat beside her best friend, not looking at her because she knew it would make everything harder for the other witch. Instead she rested her head against Joni's shoulder and reached out to wrap her pinky around Jojo's, "Not every single thing we do has to be productive," she actually snorted a little when Jonquil used the word horny. It seemed so... unlike her, or maybe not really. Jojo was a very blunt person after all. Bumping her shoulder against the other woman's she sighed, "Well. I can't exactly help you out with the last one. But I might know a few people," her tone was teasing, little smirk twitching at the corners of her mouth.

"I guess I don't see happy when I look at you, not all the way happy," her voice was soft. She knew telling Jojo how she thought she felt wasn't really going to help things. Joni would just argue and argue she was fine until Nona threw her hands up in the air and said bugger it. Still, there were things that needed to be said or they were just going to twist Nona's stomach up, "It's like you're going through the motions of what you think life is supposed to be, not really...living it, I guess is what I mean, like you're holding all this stuff back because you don't think anyone will understand that you're still hurting," tilting her head to actually look at the dark haired woman she dabbed the corner of Jo's eye with her thumb, "I know you hate to hear it, but it's completely natural and, you know, human to still be torn up. He was this huge part of your world, our world. Those feelings don't just stop because he leaves, and you have to face them and talk about them to get past them".

Nona's head was not entirely unwelcome on Jonquil's shoulder, and she permitted it to stay there, linking her little finger with her friend's – that was the maximum amount of physical comfort she could accept without feeling completely condescended to. “It's the sex I miss,” she explained, her voice laced with a sad brand of frustration, “Because I don't need a friend. I don't need a boyfriend. I have friends, and they do fine. The only thing I don't have is sex.” She shut her eyes again, tipping her head down toward where Nona's sat atop her shoulder, sighing deeply. “It was good with him.” She sounded pitiful – desperately miserable, but still trying in vain to maintain a conversational tone so that she could be taken seriously. Unfortunately, it seemed that ship had long sailed. Nona may have been all snorts and smirks, but Jonquil was entirely, painfully serious. A great deal of the relationship, at least on her end, had been about the physical component. That was what she'd wanted out of it, and that's what she'd got. More than anything, that was what she was mourning. Was that strange? Was it wrong? This was exactly why she didn't talk about her feelings.

And yet Nona just kept right on digging, trying to pry something out of her that wasn't there. She let her talk – she even let her dab at her face – but nothing that she was saying was connecting. She wasn't having an aha moment, or a revelation. Opening her eyes, she sat back up, gently untangling herself from her friend. “What do you want me to say?” she asked. Her voice, as declarative as ever, sounded tired, not angry. “Tell me what you want me to say to you and I will say it. You're waiting to hear something and I don't know what it is.” She was ready for this intervention to be over. Nona had already assumed far too much, and trying to placate her and deal with her own emotions was exhausting.

Jonquil glanced across at the food, still laid out for them on the floor. She'd never been less hungry in her life. She had the strongest urge to stand up and move so she wouldn't feel like a butterfly pinned to the wall any longer, but she didn't know where she'd go if she did, except maybe into the bedroom so that she could shut the door and pretend she wasn't home. She felt utterly useless sitting here, without answers. For a witch like Jonquil, there was really no worse feeling than that.