Room 504, Saturday Late Morning

[intraspective]

Ino sat cross-legged on her bed, in one of Kabuto's shirts, grinning at the tortoises and making sure that they stayed far, far away from Kusanagi’s terrarium. Oh, Fandom. Silly silly Fandom.

She was very pointedly Not Thinking about last night’s discovery, or the fact that she’d woken earlier than normal thanks to weirdish dreams and something still was a bit off. Maybe she’d had too much sugar yesterday? Too much excitement?

Or something.

Either way, her door was wide open, and the tortoises were doing a good job at distracting her.

So. Cute.

[Door and post are open!]

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[intraspective]

"You can," she said smiling and glancing up at him, then back down at the wee tortoise that was trying to climb into her lap, "What's up?"

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

He walked as quickly as he could over to her and sat down beside her. He reached almost desperately to pull her into a one-armed hug.

"Nothing much. Quite a lot of tortoises. And such a peculiar shade."

[intraspective]

She squeaked at the hug, not having expected it quite so... desperately... but settled against him comfortably, and held a tortoise up for his inspection.

"They are cute, aren't they?" The one in her hands squirmed and she set it down on the bed. "What's wrong?"

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"There's some sort of noise, some wrongness about. I can't feel anything else but that if I leave myself open and so I've put my, well, my shields up for lack of a better term."

"I feel blind. I don't like it."

He shook his head and smiled at her.

"This makes it better," and he very distinctly meant sitting with her and having his arm around her.

[intraspective]

...

...

"...like everything's slightly off?" Ino asked, blinking up at him. "... I thought that was just me having too much sugar and excitement yesterday."

It should probably be noted that what Ino was picking up was far milder than what Liir was picking up in terms of sensitivity.

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

He nodded.

"I can't say. It might be all the stress I've been under. It could be a lot of things. I don't know. But the second I try and peel away the cloak--"

He shook his head.

[intraspective]

She reached up to touch his hair. "Then don't," she said, "leave the cloak for the day, and see how you feel tonight."

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

He leaned against her hand with a smile.

"That was about the plan. It's not torturous or anything, but it is terribly... disconcerting."

[intraspective]

"Anything I can do?" Of course she'd ask that.

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"You're doing it," he pointed out with a smile. Then he closed his eyes and breathed out a sigh.

"Have you seen what happens when you feed the tortoises?" he asked absently. Because of course he'd tried to feed them.

[intraspective]

She hadn't.

...

...

Ino glanced down at the tortoise on her. "...what happens when I feed them?"

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

He grinned and reached into his bag before throwing a bit of something to the tortoises.

"A man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never quite sure," came out of one of the tortoises.

Liir shrugged.

[intraspective]

...

...

"They talk!" she squeaked, delighted. "So. Cute."

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"But only if you feed them," he pointed out, "and it's all nonsense. More like a tik tok than an Animal."

[intraspective]

"Either way, it's still really really cute," she insisted, giggling.

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"I leave all matters of 'cute' to you," he said with a faint smirk.

[intraspective]

"Yeah, yeah, 'cause you're a boy, or whatever and it means you can't think things are cute."

She stuck her tongue out at him.

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"I don't care about being a boy," he said with a snort. "It's just not a word that comes to me very often."

[intraspective]

She rested her head against him. "Why not?"

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

He shrugged.

"I don't know. Maybe because no one ever used it around me. I couldn't tell you."

He leaned down to kiss the top of her head.

"How was yesterday, incidentally? Up to all your expectations?"

[intraspective]

She stiffened at the question, then forced herself to relax.

"It was good," Ino said, closing her eyes. "I met a lot of people. A guy named Cal, a girl named Alice, a Kaylee who let me kidnap some of her slang, a very nicely shirtless Toby too. I had fun."

Until, you know, the evening.

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"Except for whatever just made you tense like a hunted rabbit," he said quietly.

[intraspective]

She glanced moodily at the terrarium in her room and didn't answer him.

It had taken her a while last night to get it across the hall without disturbing Kusanagi, Kabuto's snake, too badly. And on her desk was a laptop, and a bunch of books that weren't hers.

Small differences. She shrugged.

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

Small differences he wouldn't notice as he was right now.

"Whenever you're ready," was all he said.

[intraspective]

She picked at her shirt, Kabuto's shirt really, but she was wearing it. "You'll be waiting a while."