By the Garden, Thursday Evening

[intraspective]

Ino had spent a good while, today, contemplating the tickets she'd picked up and wondering if they were a good idea.

Because… really… Zack was dealing with quite a lot and in that light, wanting to go to the prom seemed like an almost stupid and childish idea. On the other hand, though, it might be a good distraction? Get him out and about a little more?

Thursday evening and now she was… pretty much out of extra time to make up her mind as to whether or not it was a good idea. Ino headed back to her garden, where they'd been sleeping for the week, with food from Ching Tai and when she spotted him practising with his—Angeal's—sword, took a moment to just admire the figure he cut before saying anything.

"You hungry?" she called. Food. Food was a good way to start things, right?

... Oh, who was she kidding? She'd rather ask and get it over with. Not being sure sucked.

[For the modded-with-permission puppy!]

Comments

[puppy_fair]

"A little," Zack admitted, looking her way and offering her a bit of a smile. He took a moment to press his forehead against the cool metal of the sword, and then onto his back it went. "You really didn't have to, though."

[intraspective]

"Didn't you ever learn that it's rude to eat 'round people if they're not eating?" Ino asked archly, steam-rolling right past that 'you didn't have to' of his. "I'm hungry and you happen to be sharing my space."

Totally all her idea. Really.

... okay, it was a bid to keep him from saying more 'you don't have to's' at her. Those grated her nerves. She did it because she wanted to.

"You look like you're adjusting pretty well to the increased weight," Ino added, stepping over and taking a seat on the grass.

[puppy_fair]

That earned a bit of a shrug. He knew better than to argue, and the shrug doubled quite handily as a response to her observation as well.

"It's not much of a stretch, really. It's less awkward than your bed was, anyhow."

Well... It was less creaky.

[intraspective]

"I will," she promised him, "make you carry me 'round the island on a bed one day. Just for that."

It was totally a fifty-fifty chance that she'd never get around to asking him.

"Sit?" Ino invited. "Keep me company?"

Have food forced at him. He needed to eat a lot more than she did, after all.

... It should be noted that Ino had the soul of a bully.

[puppy_fair]

"Sure," Zack replied, pulling the sword from his back again so that he could... well... sit down. Sticking it into the soft earth nearby would be good enough for it for the moment. "You're going to need a bed that isn't going to break in half, if you end up asking for that, you know."

[intraspective]

"I'll think of something," she said airily, oh so subtly sliding a carton of noodles over his way. "I always think of something."

That was true. As far as it went.

Ino gave him a considering look. "How're you?"

It was the world's stupidest question. She still had to ask.

[puppy_fair]

Reaching out to take the carton was a motion in the right direction, so far as Zack was aware. He was even going to see if he could figure out the chopsticks without looking like a total idiot.

"Better," he decided. Which wasn't to say that he was great. He was just... better. "Food and sleep and time, and all of that, right?"

And he'd had a conversation with Master Skywalker after class on Tuesday. It was crazy how talking to somebody who'd been there too could help. And how much having someone who cared around the way Ino had been could help. And a lot of things. See? Better.

[intraspective]

"You tell me," she said, pulling her knees up to her chin and offering him a tiny smile. "I'm just the one hanging 'round you."

And feverishly studying things whenever she got the chance. Changing things meant she first needed to know them inside and out.

[puppy_fair]

"And I'd be lying if I said that wasn't helping, too," Zack replied, offering her a small smile back. "Maybe we sleep inside soon, huh?"

... More for her sake than for his own, granted. There was that tiny bit of guilt eating at him for being the reason she'd been sleeping on the ground all week.

[intraspective]

"When you're ready," she answered, with a small bit of emphasis on that. She was a ninja, come on. Sleeping on the ground--in a nest of blankets and pillows, even--wasn't much of a hardship.

And yes, Ino neatly skipped over the idea that she was helping. Obviously she wasn't doing much. Ino's definitions of 'much' and 'not' were... special.

She fiddled with her chopsticks. "You been feelin' okay with dealing with a few more people? I saw you at reserves and in class..."

[puppy_fair]

Zack gave a small nod, prodding idly at his noodles with the chopsticks.

"I've been trying," he replied. "I can't just let everything grind to a halt because of a bad weekend, after all."

... Okay, Zack. It was a little more than just 'a bad weekend,' kiddo.

[intraspective]

Ino's expression went politely incredulous while she tried to find words there.

Words were sort of important.

"Do you... think that being around people helps?" she asked tentatively.

[puppy_fair]

"It beats being alone," Zack sighed, shrugging and winding the chopsticks around until he had achieved something that would hereby be dubbed a 'noodleball.' "It's way too easy to just... mope, when I'm on my own."

He glanced at the sword, and then pulled the noodleball from the container. There was no way that was going to fit into his mouth.

"Angeal wouldn't forgive me if I did that."

[intraspective]

Ino toyed with various answers to that.

"...you're going to make a mess of yourself if you try and eat that."

Well. Okay. That had little to do with her very important question but...

How could she resist?

"And moping is bad." She was pretty sure he already knew she thought that.

[puppy_fair]

Zack was totally going to do something wild and crazy, here. Are you watching, Ino?

Because right at that moment, Zack was going to crack a grin and offer you the noodleball.

"You don't want me to make a mess?"

[intraspective]

Ino blinked, automatically leaning away from the noodleball of doom. "So you want me to make a mess?"

Mean!

But she was smiling.

Still not going near the noodleball, though.

[puppy_fair]

"You're not worried about ruining the upholstery or something, are you?"

See Zack. See Zack wave the noodleball about. Go, Zack, go!

[intraspective]

"Zack!" Ino protested, laughing now. "Stop it! We're going to wind up picking noodles off of everything at this rate!"

[puppy_fair]

"Off the lawn?" Zack sobered up a little, though there was still a hint of a smile, twitching around the corners of his lips. "I'm certain there are pigeons or gulls or something that would be happy to help out with that, if we find ourselves in dire straits."

[intraspective]

"The last thing we need them to do is to get the idea that we'll supply them with free food," she said, fiddling with her chop sticks. "We'd never get peace then."

[puppy_fair]

"Point taken," Zack replied, depositing the noodleball back into the cardboard container with a schloop sound that had him wrinkling his nose a little. "And I'd still be hungry."

[intraspective]

"See?" she teased, shoving another carton over at him. "Then we'd never get any rest with your stomach growling."

And that would be sad.

[puppy_fair]

And now Zack had two containers! One full of noodleball, and the other with something not unlike chicken!

... He was going to peel off his gloves and just pick at his food with his fingers, now.

"And we can't have that, can we? It'd be all... Noisy."

And hungry.

[intraspective]

"And hungry," she added impishly, poking around her carton of noodles (but different ones than she'd shoved at Zack; for one, no noodleball for her) and wondering how much of his mood was manufactured for her sake.

"Also you'd eventually get dizzy and faint from lack of food and that's not very he-manly at all is it?"

Ino had been going to say heroic, but... no.

[puppy_fair]

"Are you saying I'm not a he-man?" Zack blinked, and then he grinned down at his noodleball while he broke it apart in his fingertips. "I guess I'm going to have to work on that."