Room 504, Saturday Evening

[intraspective]

Getting back from visiting her dad was—nice. Mostly because Ino was dead tired and being back on Fandom meant that her dad couldn't train her at the moment.

Not that the training had been a bad thing, she thought, unlocking their door (Zack wasn't back yet? That was weird; he'd said he'd only be gone a day or two) and making it far enough inside to flop facedown on the bed.

Okay. So she probably had to, like, sit up and go find food and change into her jammies and everything and would totally do so.

Just… give her, like, fifteen minutes. Of laying here. Maybe more.

Training had even been kinda awesome with what he'd been covering. But at the moment? Mmmmmmm rest.

[Oooopen, sure!]

Comments

[puppy_fair]

Awww. She was the best ever. Zack gave her a small, kind of twitchy little smile before pulling himself to his feet and making his way to the desk.

Yep. There was totally a letter there, just for him.

...

"Do you want to open it?"

He was now going to proceed to be a big sissy about this.

[intraspective]

Ino pulled her legs up to her chest and rested her chin on her knees.

She shook her head, and patiently watched him.

Sorry Zack. Not getting out of it that easily.

[puppy_fair]

Which left Zack to stand there like an awkward, terrified lump, before picking up the letter and making his way back to the bed with it.

Where he was going to sit.

And stare at it. And not actually open it, now. Maybe if he stared at it long enough, it would read itself?

[intraspective]

Ino wasn't going to give into the rising exasperation she felt. Maybe it was the fact that she'd never worried about her parents' love, that she'd never done anything like what he'd done, that had her not... really understanding, on an emotional level, why he was so scared of this.

She wriggled over to squirm her way under his arm so she could rest her head against his chest.

"I'm right here," she said, knowing better, somehow, than to express her confusion with his reactions. "I'll--be your backup."

[puppy_fair]

"Right..." Backup. Backup was good. Backup meant that he could read this letter, he could be completely defeated by it, and it wouldn't do him in. Backup was good. And he trusted Ino with this.

She was the best backup he could ask for.

Which was why he was opening the letter now, shaking hands or none.

[intraspective]

She knew that he wanted her to do more and maybe if she'd been a different person, Ino would have agreed to read the letter for him, to open it first and check it, but she wasn't that other person and this was something that made her insides squirm at the idea of reading his mail.

It was something she wanted him to face. But she could, and would, support him for it. Be his strength, if it gave out.

But it would have to give out, first, before she helped more than that.

So when Zack began opening the letter, Ino snuggled closer and wrapped her arms around him and closed her eyes so that she wouldn't accidentally read any of it until he got to read it first.

And then she hoped really really hard that it was a good letter and that she wouldn't be picking the pieces of him up because it was a bad letter.

[puppy_fair]

The letter that Zack was faced with was short, written in his mother's hand. But it was shakier than he remembered it. And there were spots on the paper, where droplets had fallen onto and blurred the ink.

He hadn't even read the words yet, and Zack had come to the sickening realization that he'd made his mother cry.

He gave a ragged little exhale and squeezed his eyes shut tight.

[intraspective]

Her arms tightened around him in response.

Ino didn't blink her eyes open--there was no way he'd read the letter yet, not at all. But he was hurting and she was here.

She was right there and going nowhere. No matter what the letter said.

[puppy_fair]

Okay. Reading. Reading words. His mother's words.

Words like, it's been so long, and we were so worried, and when are you coming home?

Words like we miss you, and we love you, and please don't fall out of touch again.

And, in a PS that he hadn't been expecting at all, We're proud of you, son.

Zack wasn't even pretending not to be crying, now.

[intraspective]

And now Ino moved, shifting to hug him more securely, as she glanced at the letter and saw in a blink of an eye that it wasn't bad--thank Shiva, right?--and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

"It's okay," she murmured softly. "In this, it's okay."

[puppy_fair]

Zack nodded a little. It was okay. This was okay, and it wasn't an angry letter or anything. But it still managed to make him feel as though he couldn't breathe.

"I'll write back in the morning," he murmured, leaning toward her a little, feeling, for all the world, like a big baby all over again.

[intraspective]

If he was a big baby, then he was her big baby and she was going to protect him with everything she had.

She pressed another kiss to his hair. "Did you want help tomorrow?"

[puppy_fair]

He nodded. He sniffled a bit.

"My last letter kind of sucked," he admitted. "I think I could use the help."

[intraspective]

Her lips twitched, though her eyes were very soft, and Ino hummed thoughtfully.

"I'll help," she said softly. "So that this foundation of a fix ain't going to go to waste."

[puppy_fair]

"Thank you," Zack murmured, and then he set the letter on the nightstand and turned to snuggle right on in.

It had been a long, full day, and he was more tired now than he had been before.

[intraspective]

"Anytime," she murmured, meaning it.

And that was all that needed to be said, wasn't it?