Room 504, Monday Afternoon

[intraspective]

Ino got out of class, and it was one she was really going to have to reread her notes for and hope the handouts made sense because paying attention had kinda... failed her there, grabbed a quick sandwich from the common room (because, really, sandwiches were just about the easiest thing ever to make and she was hungry) and wandered back to her room with it in tow.

And the mirror. And the fact that, if she was going to make sure she was ready for things, then she ought to maybe make sure she had everything all set out. For the moment though, she was just sitting on her floor and staring at the mirror while she ate her sandwich.

[Open door, open post!]

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[intraspective]

"A great deal of useless staring," she said, picking at her sandwich. "So nothing important, I guess. You can come in."

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

He slipped into the room and closed the door a little.

"Something the matter?"

[intraspective]

"Stuff." She shrugged, glancing back at the mirror. "I'm back on active duty."

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"For your responsibilities at home? I... would almost think you'd be pleased."

[intraspective]

"Do you think I'm strong?" she asked, not looking at him. "Last time I went home, I learned I wasn't. If I mess up now, people could die."

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

He thought about that for a moment.

He didn't want to lie to her. And placating her, he had a feeling, was the last thing she was looking for. But neither did he want to destroy whatever confidence she had.

"I think you're strong in some ways. In others, you... don't react well.

"But I don't think you'd mess up. At least, not in a way that would harm others. Yourself, yes. But you're strongest for others.

"But I'm not exactly the person to ask."

[intraspective]

"I know," she said, flopping back on the ground and covering her face with one arm. "But you're the one here, and I couldn't go and bother Cable-san while he was being all Mayorly. How don't I react well? I want to know."

She did, and didn't. It was a curiosity that she wasn't sure she ought to have.

"Other people matter more to me. I'm no one's number one, so I don't get to matter as much when it comes down to the wire." Matter-of-factly.

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"I wouldn't say that," he pointed out carefully, "that you're no one's number one. I think that's being unfair."

He breathed out.

"As to not reacting well, you let your temper get the better of you sometimes, and..."

He wasn't sure if he wanted to say what he was thinking.

"Are you sure you won't be angry with me?"

[intraspective]

"I don't," she said. "I know I'm important to people, I do, but I'm not number one to them. So it's entirely fair."

Ino glanced up at him. "I'd rather hear the truth, than not. I don't know if I'll be angry, but I'll try not to be."

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"How do you know what anyone feels? How can you judge? Sometimes, the way people are towards others has nothing to do with you and everything to do with something entirely unrelated.

"And what's number one anyhow? What does that mean to you?"

Because when it came down to it, Amber and Fiyero and even Nor aside, no one could quite break him like Ino.

No one.

Which almost logically brought him to the second point.

He breathed out.

"Sometimes, only sometimes, and... not when it comes to how you treat me, mind, just..."

He didn't want to say this.

"You remind me of my mother."

[intraspective]

"I'm listening," she said, her voice gone blandly neutral.

She knew enough about his mother to know that wasn't a good thing.

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"Would you rather I stopped?"

He knew that tone.

[intraspective]

"No." Flatly. "I asked. I might not ask again."

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

He leaned against the wall.

"She let her work consume her," he said quietly, "not just her time or her energy, but she let it tear her apart from the inside. Frustration, anger, self-hatred... it burned beneath like an acid, inside, and I suppose a part of it gave her the kind of passion I can hardly understand, but it also, it also... it undermined her. The stubbornness, the claws always bared to a challenge...

"There was something in her that rotted, made her more curling scorpion than woman," he told her, no pity in his eyes. Simply... fatigue. Tiredness. He didn't want to say this, but he'd thrown in his kit already and best to go all the way.

"I see it sometimes, the beginnings of it in the sharpness of your eyes, the soulless tone you use," and that came with a pointed look.

"It's nothing like it was with her, not the same, but" and he shrugged, very slightly.

"I shouldn't have said anything."

[intraspective]

"I'd rather," she said, "that you say something, than just think it."

Ino didn't look at him. "That's what you think I'm doing?"

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

He shook his head.

"No. I think you're on the edge of it. I think you're, well, you're smarter than her. And you have more people around you to keep it from happening.

"As I said, only sometimes. Some touches."

[intraspective]

"Did you think her mad?" Ino wondered. "And, if so, is a touch of madness really so bad?"

Weird, weird mood.

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"I didn't. I thought of her as... uncontrolled. By the end of things, broken."

He watched her carefully.

"I don't think she'd have died if she really wanted to live."

[intraspective]

"Maybe she was tired," Ino said, and the ceiling was very interesting. "Always giving yourself, even if it's your choice, is tiring."

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"That's part of it.

"Though it wasn't giving. She never gave of herself. No one was ever allowed a piece of her, not even a scrap."

A pause.

"Except, perhaps my father. And I suppose, in a biological sense, myself. But even then, she never admitted to either of us, so what does that say?"

He shook his head.

"Tired. Worn. Worn away."

He worried for her.

[intraspective]

"It's a different kind of giving," Ino said. "In not giving at all. I can get it, a bit. I think she just got used to it, being like that."

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

"There's a difference between getting used to something and getting used to the fact that you'll never get used to something," he said.

"I think it was more the second one."

[intraspective]

"Not really," she disagreed mildly. "It's all the same, I think, in the giving up."

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

He shook his head.

"I don't think so. But that is, of course, my opinion. Never worth much."

He breathed out and closed his eyes.

"To think I came up to see how you were doing and tell you about the washers," he said with, well, a tired smile.

[intraspective]

"You're opinion is worth just as much as anyone else's," she said flatly.

A beat.

"...what 'bout the washers?"