fandom_clinic | FTEC -- Monday [March 22]

With the nurses!

Where Ino is first chattering at nurses about cherry blossoms and then reading a play.

So. See. The thing was, Zack hadn't spoken to Ino in weeks, now. He'd spoken to Alice, and that had gone well enough. He'd spoken to Jen, which... maybe hadn't gone as well as he'd liked, but possibly went better than he'd expected. He'd spoken to Elena, who had heard about this whole mess from Ino, and to Raven, who apparently just seemed to notice these things.

And he hadn't spoken to Ino at all.

With that point in mind, it hadn't taken very much negotiating with the dishes in order for Zack to wrangle a lengthened lunch break, so that he could swing by the clinic in the hopes of catching her at a slow point in her day. He'd been sent back by the nurses, who told him that she was working evening shift tonight, and, not to be deterred so easily, he'd come back as soon as his Fina shift ended. He was a stubborn bugger that way.

"... Ino?"

"I mean," she was saying to one of the nurses, "you really should have seen—"

Ino caught sight of Zack, heard him say her name, and fell abruptly silent with wide eyes. The nurse glanced over at Zack speculatively, tugged on Ino’s hair, laughed and said she could finish her story later.

Then the nurse left. Laughing.

Fiend! Fiend in nurse’s clothing! Ino’s mind babbled as she tried to find something—anything—to say to Zack.

Who was standing there.

... Words would be nice, she decided, almost peevishly. It wasn’t fair that all he had to do was stand there, like a... like a lump and she lost all power of speech.

Unfair.

He was kind of an awkward lump, at that. Wringing his hands together as he stepped a little further into the room, and all. Pretty much the picture of anxious puppy awkwardness.

"I... Uh." Deep breath, Zack. And then come words. "I've missed you."

Those were words. Yep.

Riiight. Words. That talking thing.

And now she had to say something. Because that—kinda needed an answer, right? Distantly, a tiny part of her was laughing over the hand wringing because she couldn’t not but most of her (99.999999% of her) was busy feeling rather like she’d, well...

Kicked a puppy. Or, more accurately, like the puppy had kicked her in the gut and she’d kicked it back and somehow it was all her fault.

Ino wrapped her arms around herself (movement! It was progress!) and glanced down. Her shoes were cute. They were also supremely unhelpful in the whole finding answers to give to him.

“I...”

Ino, don’t mumble.

She peeked up at him, one eye hidden by her hair, and tried again. The words caught in her throat—why did they hate her right now? This was like her usually—and she swallowed.

“I’m sorry.”

There. Not very loud. And not very much.

Ino loathed apologizing. She loathed the fact even more that she really did owe him that apology. She’d been avoiding him. Her fault.

She was saying she was sorry? But... But what did she have to be sorry for? Something big and horrifying had happened, and she was scared, and Zack understood, and so he was going to shake his head and when in the world had he managed to cross the room?

Or, for that matter, when had he decided that now was the time to tackle her for a hug?

Sorry about the squeezy glomp, Ino. He couldn't help it.

"Don't go away again?"

He was kind of begging. It was weird, even to him. But.

Words were... still problematic.

This time, though, it was because he’d wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight—when had that happened? She hadn’t seen him move—and Ino had responded by burying her face against his chest as her arms snaked around his waist.

Her shoulders shook. She wasn’t crying, not even close, but...

This was okay? For just a bit? She’d promise to answer him once she was done just breathing in the fact that he was here and he didn’t want her to go away. Ino had been around the island, yes, but she knew what he was talking about.

She hadn’t been around in the ways that had mattered.

This was okay. This was fine. This was awesome. This was her hugging back, which meant that she wasn't running away from him anymore, and maybe she wasn't crying, but damn it, he couldn't help that little sniffle, there, as he hugged her even more tightly to his chest.

See. Just one little sniffle. And now the sniffling was done, and he was fine. Clingy and fine and never, ever letting go. Ever, damn it.

“Sorry,” she said again. Helplessly. She was sorry.

Ino was also not letting go. He could keep clinging. It was—safe. She felt safe. She couldn’t quite remember why she’d been avoiding him, right that second, not when his arms and his heart beat and his breathing and the warmth of him all said that she was safe, here.

Breathing might become problematic, if he kept clinging for too long, but that was a problem to be addressed when it happened. Safe. Everything else could wait. Her problems weren’t going to go away. Her fear was very very real.

But he was safe. And he was here. And he mattered more than problems and fears.

She could relax.

He was shaking his head, now. And he was holding her so tightly that if he were to straighten up, she'd probably find herself dangling like a teddy bear. There was the downside to superhuman strength. Unless you kept tabs on what you were doing with it, it could sometimes get away from you.

"Nothing to be sorry for," he murmured. "You were scared."

He didn't have to see or speak to her these past two weeks to know that. He was the one that 'Mother' had pressed in against, after all. He could wager a guess as to how much that whole thing had affected Ino, if she was the one stuck in that body for a weekend, after all.

Edited 2010-03-22 20:09 (UTC)

It was on the tip of her tongue to protest that she hadn’t been, not really, but that was a lie. More than a lie. She’d admitted it to Reno. Who was Important to her. To Elena. Who might, one day, be.

She could admit it to Zack.

“Not of you,” Ino whispered. “Never of you.”

That was true.

Somewhere along the way he’d gotten her trust in a completely unreserved way that very few people got from her.

That was... more of a relief than Zack was actually able to let on. There was a sigh, and then he was burying his face in her hair and closing his eyes.

And still not letting go, no.

"I'm glad," he murmured. And then, with another squish, he added, "She can't come here."

That squish meant it took her a moment to find enough air to respond in anyway other than leaning against him and clinging.

“Everyone keeps saying that,” she said, closing her eyes. It didn’t really help her when she was still waking up from nightmares about being her. About what Jenova was capable of. She loved him for saying it anyway.

“We should sit down,” Ino added, before his arms could tighten again.

Breathing. Breathing was nice.

He could figure out how to seat them when she still wasn’t pulling away. Ino was just going to relax a bit. Sigh a little.

"We should?"

...

"Oh."

Yeah, Zack. You've got SOLDIER arms. It would be good to remember that when hugging somebody you care about to the point of asphyxiation.

He nodded, and then loosened his grip a little. And then decided that, no, he'd really rather not loosen his grip all that much at all, and actually, just carrying her in his arms to the nearest seat would be great right about now, wouldn't it?

You don't mind being whisked off of your feet, do you, Ino?

Edited 2010-03-22 20:53 (UTC)

She might've, if it had been another time and place and she hadn't been more interested in just making sure that he stayed right there, with her.

But today? Today being swept off her feet was just fine and that was almost a giggle as she rested her head against him and let him do all the work.

She weighed less than his sword. He could totally carry her with no problems.

And there went Zack, depositing his behind in one of the chairs in the waiting area, and setting Ino in his lap as he did so.

And still not letting go, no.

"I'm just gonna keep you, now," he said. He was only half joking.

Ino was sure that, at some point, that would be problematic.

For the moment she was just going to wriggle a bit until she was absolutely comfortable and then?

Then she was going to relax until she was practically boneless and he was all that was keeping her upright.

"Careful," she said, smiling very slightly. "I might take you seriously at that."

"Yeah?" And now he was smiling back. Because... Okay, wow, he'd missed that smile of hers. A lot. "No objections to me carrying you around the island all of the time, then?"

He certainly wouldn't have any.

"I'm sure I'd find objections," she said slowly, smiling a bit more at him since he was smiling and how could she not respond?

"But I can't think of any right now, you know? Funny how that works."

Of course, Ino wasn't really thinking a whole lot right now. She was more focused on the fact that she was safe, and comfy, and he wasn't mad at her.

Mad at her? Zack couldn't hold a grudge if somebody were to walk up to him and stab him in the face.

... No, really.

"Hilarious," he agreed, and then snuggled in a little bit so that he could rest his cheek against hers. Since they were getting comfortable, and all. "I think I could handle it if you didn't start looking for reasons not to, right away."

"It'd make practice difficult," she noted, because apparently him telling her not to look for reasons meant that she had to think of a few.

His cheek was nice, though. Against hers. "But we could work around that."

They probably could. Eventually.

"If I was in the water up to my knees, you'd still be totally above it," Zack mused. "So, really, nothing different there."

Except for how she'd be above the water because he was holding her there, instead of because she was actively standing on it, and all.

So tiiired.

Day Shift -- Mod Your Care

Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Re: Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Re: Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Re: Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Re: Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Re: Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Re: Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Re: Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Re: Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Re: Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Re: Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Re: Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Re: Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Re: Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Re: Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Re: Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Re: Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Re: Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Re: Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Re: Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Re: Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Re: Evening Shift -- Front Desk

Evening Shift -- Exam Rooms

OOC