Room 504, Saturday Evening

[intraspective]

It had been the sort of day where all she'd wanted to do was hide away and not talk to any one (Zack was the sole exception to that) and Ino was feeling quietly pleased with the fact that her day had gone exactly as planned.

She wasn't exactly in a good mood, no, but it had settled into something vaguely… calm. Calm was a good word. She would go with that.

Now, after showering and changing into her jammies even though Ino didn't think she'd be going to sleep any time soon, she curled up on her bed with a book and devoted herself to reading it just to pass the time.

That was all right, wasn't it? She thought so.

[For one and SP, la.]

Comments

[furnaceface]

Well, in all fairness, they were the same bandages that he always wore. They were just rearranged somewhat.

He accepted the towel with one hand, and idly started patting himself down. It was something to do. He didn't even have to worry about pesky things like making eye contact, this way.

He decided that he rather liked towels, actually.

//I hear that yer a bit of a healer...//

[intraspective]

The only good thing about hearing that was, at the very least, he wasn't dying. He was walking around, talking, sounding perfectly usual for himself aside from the needing-a-favour bit.

Ino shoved her insecurities about dealing with anything important, healing anything important to the back of her mind and locked them there.

"A bit of one, yeah," she said, shutting the door behind him and craning her neck to get a better look at... his bandaged shoulder. "Clinic minion for, like, two years."

Which was weird, when she stopped to think about it.

"Just your shoulder?"

[furnaceface]

//Just my shoulder. I should've had it looked at days ago, but it's been... one of those weeks.//

And he didn't trust most of the clinic staff as far as he could throw them. He didn't know them. Hell, he was wary enough about Ino, right now. By all rights, he should have been on the floor, writhing in pain over a wound left on its own for days like this one, particularly when it was wrapped in leather bandages, of all things. They were excellent for flames. Not so much for gaping shoulder wounds.

But Jono didn't exactly feel much of anything, anymore.

[intraspective]

Days.

Leather bandages. He was soaked--had probably been out in that rain she heard pattering against her window.

"All right," she said, frowning. "Get rid of that jacket so I can see."

The lecture was coming, it was. But she didn't want him to bolt with his shoulder unhealed.

[furnaceface]

He closed his eyes for a moment, at that. Balled his hands into fists in the towel and then loosened his grip again. This was as close to a deep breath as he could get.

//Just th'shoulder,// he said again, carefully, as though he was trying to ease her into the idea that he was about to take off his jacket.

The reason for that was probably obvious as he peeled his way out of the ragged, soggy leather. After all, in order to wrap up his shoulder, he'd had to use bandages that would have otherwise covered up parts of his torso that were quite undeniably on fire.

He wasn't going to take his eyes from the floor. Not for a long time.

[intraspective]

If he wasn't looking, then she had no problems with, well, doing a bit of staring. It was shocking.

But she didn't recoil, even if she did gently nudge a few of her plants a little further away from him. Ino wasn't worried about her safety, not at all, but the health of her plants was another thing entirely.

"Taking the bandages off might hurt a bit," she said, voice absolutely level and leaving out any thing along the lines of 'your chest is on fire, did you know?', as a warning. "Leaving them on for a few days ain't really a good idea."

Bandages had a distressing tendency to get rather, well, attached to their injuries.

[furnaceface]

Jono nodded a little, numbly. He knew better than to leave them on for so long. Really, he knew better than to dress his wounds that way in the first place. You'd think he hadn't paid any attention at all to Hawkeye's first aid course last term.

But he shrugged.

//I can handle a bit of pain.//

He was on fire, for Christ's sake.

[intraspective]

Ino's peeling (and it was peeling, sadly) back of the wet bandages that had begun becoming one with his skin wasn't steady. She didn't rip them off (that would risk making the injuries themselves worse), but she didn't inch along so slow that they'd be there all night.

"I can see that," she said mildly. "Want to tell me how you got hurt?"

[furnaceface]

//Found myself on th'wrong end of a pair of claws I should have seen coming,// Jono admitted, turning his gaze to his shoulder, watching her work.

His toes curled a little in his boots. There was a hurt there, a searing pain as flesh and bandage were pried apart, but it seemed as though it wasn't entirely his, as though it was floating a million miles away, and he'd have to actually focus to bring that pain back to himself. That was something that he wasn't in any hurry to do, really. Not when the mess of it looked like that.

//Bloody thing could've taken my arm off, so I suppose I ought to be thankful that I toppled backward and landed on my arse like a complete plonker.//

[intraspective]

She was more interested in the injury itself--red, angry looking, it didn't take medic to know that he had some sort of infection incubating.

"Anything that means you walked 'way alive is something you should be grateful," Ino said quietly, letting the bandages fall to the ground. "Dying solves nothing."

[furnaceface]

//Dying solves living,// Jono said simply, his eyes following his bandages down to the floor and resting there.

He was going to have to replace those. They were nasty. Brilliant.

//Fortunately, I'm in no great hurry to clear up that particular condition just yet.//

[intraspective]

Nasty and if he'd even thought of using them again she'd have Had Words to say.

"Good," she said tightly, peeling off the last few bandages a little more swiftly. Because Ino? Ino had a few issues with that after--yeah. Yeah.

They too fell to the ground.

"My hands are going to glow green," she said, because moving on was better if she didn't stop and think about the trainwreck. "It'll tingle a bit, but it won't hurt."

[furnaceface]

//I'm not particularly concerned about more pain,// Jono noted, glancing at her hand, and then looking back down toward the floor. //Thank you. For doin' this, I mean. I shouldn't have interrupted you in yer room like this.//

[intraspective]

As he spoke, her hands went a pale glowing green.

These, she placed over his shoulder.

"Don't be stupid," she said, sounding distracted as most of her attention was busy tracking her chakra as it sank into his skin, into his injury. "You needed a healer. I am one. It's not a bother."

It was something that made her feel useful. Ino appreciated that.

[furnaceface]

He nodded at that, feeling more than a little awkward. Feeling naked, his bandages shucked away and his chest bare as a result. He was trying not to think about it, neatly filing this away under 'unimportant.' She certainly didn't seem to take issue with it, hadn't shied away when he'd peeled off his jacket. It wasn't a problem. Wasn't the end of the world.

Okay.

//What, no lecture about not dragging myself directly to the clinic, instead?//

The flames were a nonissue, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to be at least a little self-depreciating for a bit, first.

[intraspective]

"Didn't want you to bolt," she said, eyes not moving away from her work as she ruthlessly burned infection out of the wounds with her chakra--leaving no actual burns, mind--and carefully repairing cells, muscle and nerves.

[furnaceface]

//I'm hardly in any state to bolt,// Jonothon pointed out. That ache that had been floating away from him was slowly becoming sharper, more real, and ebbing away all at the same time. Watching was an almost eerie process, his injury illuminated in shades of green and flickering orange as sinew wove itself back into place.

He closed his eyes.

//Nearly did. Before. Not so much, now.//

[intraspective]

"I would chase you if you bolted now," she said, almost amused. "And how would that look to everyone?"

Really. A shirtless Jono and Ino wearing nothing but an over-sized shirt chasing after him. Seriously.

Skin knitted back together. Muscles healing. Pain dissipating as her chakra took the work of weeks and compressed it into a few moments.

[furnaceface]

//It would look something like a dishrag chasing a birthday candle,// Jono replied, dryly. He hesitated a moment, and then risked opening one eye to look, now.

It looked rather like a shoulder, to him.

[intraspective]

Even as he looked, the last of the redness faded, leaving smooth skin behind.

Ino stepped back, letting the glow fade. "I am way cuter than a dishrag."

[furnaceface]

//Well, I wasn't about to call you a fluffy towel,// Jono reasoned, giving his arm a swing, and then lifting it up in the air as he tested his shoulder. //I'm too tall to be a birthday candle, anyway.//

He'd look very stupid, standing in a cake.

[intraspective]

"Not for a giant," she retorting, smiling slightly. "Take it easy for the next day or so on that shoulder--give it a bit of a break, yeah?"

[furnaceface]

//That much, I can do,// Jono agreed, crouching down to collect his bandages and wincing a little as he looked them over.

//Lovely.//

This was going to be a 'wet leather coat, head down, hugging his own face and making a mad dash down one floor' sort of evening, yet.

[intraspective]

She didn't bother hiding her grin as she offered him a towel. "Wrap 'em in this," Ino suggested. "That way you're not touching any of that directly."

[furnaceface]

Quietly, Jono held his had out to accept the towel, and then gave his bandages another look. And then the towel. And then the bandages.

//Hands can be washed,// he said, after a moment. //But I can't use these again. Not like this.//