Apartment Above the Boards, Wednesday Very Early Morning

[intraspective]

It was the middle of the night, closer to morning than evening, when Ino appeared in the apartment she and Zack shared in a near-silent puff of smoke.

She landed in the kitchen, which was good since that meant it was only a quick two steps to the side to stick her arm over the sink before blood hit the floor.

She hated cleaning blood off of things. It was bad enough that she was going to have to get her uniform repaired—Ino squinted at her arm in the near dark and then sighed, one long tendril of her hair reaching over to flip the lights on; yes, it was going to have to be repaired—but at least she could avoid extra mess.

Grimacing at the sight of her arm, and the blood oozing from the long, jagged edges torn into it, bone peeking out at her in the light, Ino resigned herself to the additional pain this was going to cause, turned on the tap, and stuck her arm under it.

At least it was just my arm! Ino thought optimistically, clenching her hand at the pain and absolutely refusing to make sad trumpet or dolphin noises. She didn’t want to wake Zack up. It could have been worse! And the Company will pay for the repairs to my clothes.

Now just to deal with the poison that wasn’t letting potions work…

[For the boy! Warning for blood and minor gore. Just to be safe, yo.]

Comments

[puppy_fair]

Good luck with that one, Ino. Zack could only sleep through the night these days when he was utterly exhausted, mostly as a result of sleepless nights like this one. He'd been up for hours already, jumping at the slightest sound. And while Ino's appearance in the kitchen had been quiet, the running water in the sink...

It took him a few moments before he sighed and gave up on sleep entirely, and then decided to head into the kitchen to...

He wasn't sure. Make certain she was okay? Make a cup of tea or something?

Either way, he was pulling on a shirt and dragging himself down the hall.

[intraspective]

Ino didn’t particularly notice his approach. Which, if it hadn't been Zack, would have bothered her a great deal more. But she still trusted him subconsciously to never hurt her.

Besides, her focus had turned inwards, her mind and her chakra alike looking for a way around the poison as icy water kept washing her blood away down the drain.

She wasn’t clotting. That was fun.

[puppy_fair]

Zack stood in the doorway for a moment once he found his way to the kitchen, and it took him a few seconds before he managed to process what was going on.

"... Out of potions?"

More like antidotes. But it wasn't like he had any way to know there was poison involved, just yet.

[intraspective]

She’d tried an antidote, honestly. Honestly, Zack. It wasn’t her fault she wasn’t Gaian and not everything worked on her quite the same way it worked on them.

Geez.

Okay, maybe blood-loss was making her cranky.

"Poison," she said shortly. "Nothin’ I got workin’ on it yet. Antidotes ain’t doing shit."

She’d figure it out. She would.

[puppy_fair]

Zack bit the inside of his cheek kind of hard at that one.

"Have you got remedies, then?"

He still had a few of the precious things on hand, though his reserves were running low and he couldn't exactly go back to restock or anything. If it would help, he'd give one up, easily. He was throwing himself into problem-solving mode, now.

It helped keep his mind off of why she was out getting hurt in the first place.

[intraspective]

“Don’t waste that,” Ino said, her voice tight. “Ain’t never tried one. Now ain’t the time to find out I’m allergic to it.”

It’d be really terrible to find that out now.

[puppy_fair]

Zack grimaced at that, sinking back into the doorway a little.

"Is there anything I can do to help, then?"

Or would she rather be left alone?

[intraspective]

And, you know, her first gut response was going to be something like that, except something about his voice and the tenor of his mind—she wasn’t reading his mind, but she was very attuned to the emotions of it—made her change her mind.

She didn’t have to deal with this alone. And there were an awful lot of nights where she’d had to do that.

Ino’s pride warred briefly with her loneliness and lost.

“Keep me from falling?” Ino asked. “It’ll give me one less thing to concentrate on?”

[puppy_fair]

The look on Zack's face at that said multitudes about how much he just hadn't been anticipating that answer. He paused for a second, blinking. And then he nodded and made his way across the room to slip a supporting arm around her waist.

"I can do that," he said, softly.

[intraspective]

It was really too bad that she was busy enough that she didn’t catch that look. Ino would have found it interesting.

She made a soft noise of surprise as he slid his arm around her waist. She hadn’t really expected him to agree, despite asking.

It was… nice.

Ino trusted him with her weight (not that her weight meant much against his strength) , and refocused her gaze on her arm, her free hand glowing softly green as she held it over the injured one.

“Thank you,” she said, just as softly.

[puppy_fair]

"Of course," Zack said quietly, eyes on the injury that she was holding into the sink. Oh, that was... it was bad, if it wasn't healing. Worse, if the poison in it was anything serious. "How'd you get that?"

The thought occurred to him a second after he'd asked it that maybe he didn't actually want the answer.

[intraspective]

Lucky for him, then, that the answer this time around wasn’t too inclined to hit either of their respective buttons.

"AVALANCHE," Ino said absently. "Lucky hit."

She’d been stupid.

[puppy_fair]

"Jerks," Zack muttered, because... hey. If there was one thing they could all agree on...

They were the reason he'd had to put down Essai and Sebastian. There was no love in his heart for AVALANCHE.

"I'm surprised they're still around."

[intraspective]

Ino made a noise of frustration in the back of her throat. Sweat beaded on her brow as she fought her chakra through the poison, bit by bit forcing the poison back out of her injury.

She didn’t answer him immediately.

"Second incarnation," she said, after a bit, sounding out of breath. Her entire body was beginning to shake, not that Ino noticed. "Not the same as you remember."

[puppy_fair]

There wasn't anything about any of that that didn't make Zack frown a little more deeply. Ino's pain, the possibility of another AVALANCHE... all of it.

He pulled in a little breath as he watched the poison ooze from the wound.

"Not the same? So no Ravens, then?"

The important part. Between them and Genesis copies, he'd seen far too many good people lose themselves entirely to... to something else.

[intraspective]

"There's always rumours but, nah, nothing like that," Ino said, barely paying attention to what she was saying. "No concerted force or nothing like it were before. Mostly just people with a grudge who ain't got the best sense."

Ino was maybe biased against them.

Given that poison was running down the drain from her arm thanks to them, she thought she was justified.

[puppy_fair]

"Violent people with a grudge and no sense," Zack sighed. "There are a lot of those around, these days."

He watched the poison drain, and his arm tightened around her waist just a little bit more. Reflexively, protectively. Maybe something about having their bodies this close was a comfort, even while it made his insides twist.

And on that poison, his gaze remained. Thinking about what she was wearing and her reason for being out there in the first place just made his heart hurt.

"You get them, at least?"

[intraspective]

It was a comfort, that was the damnedest thing about it.

"Yeah," she said, "I got 'em. They won't be doin' this to anyone else."

[puppy_fair]

"Good," Zack replied, voice going a little bit quieter. "... Do you get a lot of copycats?"

He couldn't imagine why anybody would want to pretend to be AVALANCHE, but the world took all types, he supposed.

[intraspective]

"Enough," she said, flinching. "Mostly--mostly splinter chapters of it, here and there. Ain't much of a central organization these days."

She felt dizzy and sick and weak but the poison was almost gone. She'd just have to hang on a little longer.

[puppy_fair]

Zack's grip tightened just that little bit more. Nobody was going to be hitting the floor on his watch tonight, no.

"Ah," he said, nodding a little. "A bit like the last few rebels in Wutai."

He'd been dealing with them for years by the time he'd... uh. Stopped.

[intraspective]

Which was good, because otherwise she'd be clinging to the edge of the counter with the smallest bit of chakra she had left and Ino knew how that story ended with her on the ground, passing out after healing herself.

It wasn't the first time she'd had to do something like this. This time was only notable for the fact that she wasn't alone.

"A bit like that," she agreed, breathlessly, as the last of the poison dripped from her wounds, followed just by clean blood. Her arm was still in agony, but now--now she'd be able to heal it.

[puppy_fair]

Zack's gaze was still on the blood in the sink, but now he wasn't holding his breath. There was something less unnatural about it now, something that made his own blood run less chill.

That blood was a familiar sight. He could handle normal blood. Especially when it meant that Ino could get back to healing herself properly from there.

"Then I hope they get taken care of quickly."

Especially if they had poisons that resisted antidotes.

[intraspective]

"Me too," she sighed, and grimaced, forcing her hand to unclench as her other, glowing green, began dealing with the actual damage to her arm.

Gods, but those claws had fucked it up. Ugh.

[puppy_fair]

Zack waited quietly after that, watching her heal her arm, not wanting to distract her any more than he already had. His hand twitched a little, but he wasn't wearing anything currently equipped with his Curaga materia, and so there wasn't much he'd be able to do anyway.

"Anything I can do now?"

He suspected he was getting annoying, now.