Room 504, Monday Evening

[intraspective]

Ino had made it through the day. Between getting back, going to class, and talking to Tyler-sensei, she’d figured that whatever Hinata-chan said that she’d totally done her quota of being around and putting her schedule back on normal sort of tracks.

Of course, that’s when she made it back to her room, showered and wriggled into her jammies that Ino realized, depressingly, that she wasn’t sleepy. Making a phone call killed all of thirty seconds, and then she pulled out several gardening magazines and tried to start planning for Tyler-sensei’s flowers. Maybe she would go the love note route, just to make him facepalm.

Her door was left open, as a matter of course.

[Door and post are open! ETA: Anything mission related, beyond it happening, is NFB please!]

Comments

[intraspective]

She glanced up at him, and shook her head ruefully.

"I'm not mad at you," she promised. "I don't like it, but whatever. I was out on a mission, actually. Come in if you've the time. Sit."

So she could hug him. Ino could totally hand out hugs like candy today. She didn't get what had happened, but that people were off and out of it was totally obvious.

[withoutverona]

"I have some time," he said, edging in to take a seat. "I don't like leaving Yurika alone for long. She was -- has anyone told you what happened? How was your mission?"

[intraspective]

"My mission went well enough," she said with a shrug, because this was Romeo she was talking to. "We got through it without anyone getting hurt."

There'd been a whole lot of dead on the other side though.

"All I know is, um," she made an apologetic face, "I'm quoting here 'zombies tried to kill us all' and that they bit people and tried to eat them." So he was getting a hug. "Dojima-san was...?"

[withoutverona]

He'd take that hug, and cling for an extra beat. "A zombie," he said quietly. "She tried to attack me, but someone saved me. She recovered yesterday. They all did; a lifted curse."

[intraspective]

She stayed close by, even while leaning over to grab a chocolate bar that she dropped in his lap. "It's good for you," Ino informed him. "And Dojima-san. Is she okay? I mean, not a zombie, that's a good start but like..."

Okay okay. Because he didn't seem to be exactly there either.

[withoutverona]

Mmm, chocolate. He unwrapped the bar slowly. "She's getting better," he said. "She doesn't want to talk about it. We're just ..."

They were in bed, not talking, which Ino could probably put together from the length of his pause.

[intraspective]

Ino smiled slightly.

"Together," she said, nodding. "That's good at least. Can't blame her for, you know, not wanting to talk 'bout that..."

[withoutverona]

"It's not as though there's anything to say. It was awful, Ino, all of it."

A pause.

"They took Reno, too."

[intraspective]

She chewed on her lip for a minute.

"That does explain a bit," she admitted. "He stopped by earlier. Was jittery."

So she'd nonsensed at him 'til he'd seemed better.

[withoutverona]

"He was at the shop but wouldn't say much," Romeo said. "He's to buy me a drink tomorrow."

Romeo ran a hand back through his hair. "If I tell you something, will you think even less of me?"

[intraspective]

"Said a lot, but little 'bout the week," she shared. Bad week had about summed it up. "But he ate my chocolate and looked steadier when he left."

Ino took a deep breath. "I don't know. It depends what it is, will you tell me anyway?"

[withoutverona]

Romeo smiled weakly. "He probably wasn't eating." Romeo hadn't been, and Reno was even worse about such things.

Taking a breath, he said, "They came after me on the beach, Reno and Yurika. I was out alone. I was stupid. I would have let them eat me if a woman, I suppose she's a police officer, hadn't come along to shoot them and make a trooper take me home. I couldn't see the people I love dead, again."

[intraspective]

Lover not a fighter. Dreamer not a killer. Ino couldn't understand that.

She bit back a sigh. "I don't understand that," Ino said honestly, "I can't imagine giving up like that, though I can sorta see the trail of thought that'd lead down that path." But it was weak. It was losing. "Were you thinking at all?"

It wasn't asked sarcastically.

[withoutverona]

Romeo shrugged a little. "I wasn't not thinking," he claimed. The chocolate was almost too sweet as it melted in his mouth. "I tried before, when my friend and Juliet died back in Verona. I've never claimed to be strong enough to stand alone."

[intraspective]

She sighed.

"And without those two, you were all alone?" Ino asked, pulling her knees to her chest. "No doubt they're the most important to you, but does that mean no one else matters at all? I mean, what 'bout your other friends 'round here, and I'm not even talking 'bout me, since I was away and seriously don't count in this situation 'cause of that."

[withoutverona]

Romeo just looked at her for a moment, seeming half ashamed and half put out. "I thought we had already decided I'm no good at logic, or at impulse control."

[intraspective]

"I know," she said, with a patience she didn't really feel, but dammit she could not lose her temper at him right here and now. "I know. I'm just saying, that if you focus all your life so much on one or two people, that you can't think, don't think, of the rest of your friends when they go away..."

Ino shrugged. "It's... depressing. Not just for you, for the people you leave behind, who thought they mattered, and then it turns out they do and yet not enough because they couldn't help pick up the pieces. Do you see what I'm saying? I'm not insulting you."

[withoutverona]

"I'm not insulted," Romeo said quickly. "And that is what kept me here. It's why I fought the zombies. But in moments ..." He shrugged. "Has anyone you really love ever died?"

[intraspective]

"No," she admitted. "People I've admired have died. People I've cared about have disappeared and never come back. But dying... I've been lucky so far."

[withoutverona]

"You are lucky, or blessed," Romeo said quietly, envy tinting his voice. "Mercutio died in my lap after a fight I should have fought. Juliet killed herself. My mother died half of grief and shock from it all. Then to think I'd lost Reno and Dojima too ... death finds me too often, yet it always stings."

[intraspective]

She went to brush his arm with her fingertips.

"What sort of counselling do they offer people in your world? For when people die?" It wasn't exactly an idle question. "It stings 'cause you care. There's no shame in that, only in what you do in caring after."

[withoutverona]

"I'm not insane, Ino." That was offered sulkily.

No, he hadn't gotten any counseling. Ever. He'd gone to church a lot.

[intraspective]

Ino was afraid of that, really.

"You're not insane," she said soothingly. "I never said you were, how did you get that from what I said? Grief counselling is really important, you know."

[withoutverona]

"Is it?" Romeo asked. "I talked to my priest until I was sent here. He helped a bit." Not much, though. "I never thought to do more."

[Sleeeeeep, but SP please? NIGHT!]

[intraspective]

Ino took a moment to call everyone in his world a bunch of idiots. Honestly, she was fifteen and she knew this.

...of course, her world had a lot of death, starting from when they were really young and expected to learn how to kill people.

"It is," she said firmly, settling herself so she was a bit more comfortable. "It's not something that should be neglected either, though that's no fault of yours. Grief is... hard. Individualized. But there's... patterns, and once you've got the pattern, you can see how it fits different people. Do you know how many stages there are of it?"

[SLEEP WELL! And SP for the win!]