fandomhigh | Library [12-8]

//Even tired people don't generally yell at shadows,// Jono noted, keeping his tone carefully neutral, for all the good it would do while the rest of him was roiling with concern. //Raven, talk to me.//

She wiped her hand across her eyes and lifted her head to look at him again, trying to think of an excuse to ease his worry. "I have felt uncomfortable since the dream of the masquerade," she said finally. "Karla...did something she should not have."

Jono... still really couldn't see what Karla could possibly have done to have Raven acting so...

... Something.

But he was willing to at least hear Raven out. He might not necessarily believe her, at this point. But he had two ears to listen with.

//Did she, now?//

It was as good excuse as any. "She touched me somewhere she should not have," Raven said. "I had not given her permission, but I know she was not herself. It is not her fault."

... And now the only thing keeping Jono from choking was the fact that he was simply physically unable to do so.

//She wot?//

GOD, KARLA!

Well, it was an effective distraction so far! But the admission was making her cheeks turn red. "Here," she said, bringing her hand up to almost, but not quite, touch her chakra with her fingertips.

Jono suddenly found himself in the middle of one of those moments where he had no idea whether he wanted to boggle more, or laugh, or maybe just facepalm and then stick his head in the sand like an ostrich.

//There?// Well, he'd figured that she didn't wear it all of the time as a fashion statement, but... //What is that all about, anyhow?//

Asking couldn't hurt, right?

"It is my chakra," she explained. "It helps me focus and control my gifts. And...." Her blush deepened. "It is very sensitive. It is part of me, a direct connection to my inner self."

//And she... touched it,// Jono replied, his voice a little on the echoey side.

Okay. He supposed that could... maybe cause Raven to go insane and start jerking about while talking to herself?

He was going to have to shake a stern finger at Karla for molesting Raven's forehead and making her crazy, apparently.

//And that's bothering you?//

"It was unexpected and intimate," she murmured. "It was something I was not prepared to share." She bit at her lip, embarrassed now. "It is something I would want share with you."

//Oh...// Jono wouldn't know what to do with a chakra, really, if his life depended on it. But he was flattered that she thought highly enough of him to want to let him poke the crazy button on her forehead someday?

//Do you think she knew what she was doing, at th'time?//

... That really seemed like a better path for the conversation to take.

One did not simply poke a chakra! One caressed it. Or, in Karla's case, licked it.

Raven shook her head. "She and the others are not acting of their own free will," she said. "Or else Karla would not have resisted when I tried to take her out of that place. She wanted to stay and convince me to stay. She was attempting to...seduce me."

And if Jono had known that there was licking involved, he would have had to feel thoroughly inadequate.

//That had to be interesting...//

This day just got weirder and weirder. Jonothon was going to just spend the next freakish invasion in bed. If the next freakish invasion would let him. The last one certainly hadn't.

"It was distressing," Raven corrected him. "Karla will be upset with what she did when we get her and the others back." Of course she cared more about how Karla would feel now. "And to be controlled in that way, to forget Fandom, to forget you -- it was awful." She twisted her hands, trying to calm her agitation, knowing it would only feed her father.

Jonothon watched her hands for a moment, before mustering up a little bit of comfort and letting it drift her way. He wasn't exactly a professional at that sort of thing on a whim, but every little bit counted, right?

//Yer back now,// he said, gently. //We won't let it happen again. And if Karla wasn't in control of herself, either, then she doesn't have anything to be ashamed of, either.//

Even if she had apparently pushed the crazy-button.

"I am sorry," Raven said, trying to relax and let her tension out with a sigh. "I do not want to worry you. I must seem very silly."

Sure, just let Jono have his chakra licked one day and see how he feels.

//Not silly,// Jono replied, shrugging. //Just... off, a bit.//

Only a touch. Maybe. Not much at all.

Okay, the red eyes thing was kind of freaky, coming from her.

"I will be fine once this is all over," Raven promised. She hoped she sounded reassuring. "Please believe me?" She didn't want to push him away; she was aching for comfort and closeness now, and she fretted that her behavior was going to put some sort of wedge between them.

Perhaps not a wedge, so much. But he was reserving the right to worry. And, at the rate this was going, to wonder what she was keeping from him.

//I'm holding you to it,// he decided, finally, reaching for her hand again. //Th'sooner this is over, then, th'better.//

She gratefully took his hand, lacing her fingers with his. From the tangle of emotions in her head she pulled something she knew was real, her affections for him, and sent him a warm, gentle pulse. "May I have a hug?" she asked shyly.

Jono ducked his head a little, almost smiling at that. The shyness was cute, at least. Much more Raven than the snarling and the jumping was.

//You may have a hug,// he agreed, though he did kind of slip a little sideways as he stepped forward to deliver. Really, he liked hugs, too. At least when he had a bit of warning about him.

[Bedtime for me! Night!]

She relaxed into the hug, grateful for the physical comfort and not wanting to let go any time soon. For a moment she longed to tell him everything, but she couldn't bring herself to form the words. It wasn't the right time. She was afraid of admitting the truth. She was certain she could find the strength to return herself to normal. Pick a reason.

She rested her head against his shoulder, fingers curling into the hair at the back of his neck. "Why do you turn away like that?" she asked quietly.

//Because I want it to be me hugging you.//

... Well, Jono didn't see anything wrong with his logic, at least.

Raven slipped one hand from his back to press it against the wrappings covering his chest. "This is still you," she murmured.

She sighed softly and closed her eyes for a moment. For the first time since Sunday night she felt like herself again. Even her father's voice had faded.

Jono looked down at her hand, and then nodded a little. Yes, he supposed that it was, no matter how much he resented as much. He straightened out a little bit, even if he was still leading into the hug with his shoulder more than the rest of him.

Still him or not, he was ashamed of it, he was afraid of it. And if you asked him, anybody who wasn't had clearly never been burned before.

Library [12-8]

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