fandomtownies | Pick Your Poison, Monday

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Pick Your Poison, Monday

Ino wasn't alone when she came in to open her store today. She was accompanied by a teenage boy who looked unfairly like both her and Tseng and who was far too chipper for what he'd been doing last night if radio was anything to go by.

She caught him eyeing the back room speculatively. "No."

Kueng laughed. "I didn't even say anything yet, Mom!"

"You didn't need to," Ino said dryly, as they set up shop. "But no, you may not pick a poison."

"But Dads--"

"Wouldn't want you to have them either," she said, knowing this was true. "Especially when you don't know near enough about them to use them responsibly."

Kueng leaned against the counter. "You could teach me."

The very way he said it, both hopeful and like it didn't matter at all, made her want to sigh.

"All right," Ino said, since how was she supposed to resist that? "I'll show you a few things."

Pick Your Poison is Open!

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If you'd like!

Or to Kueng, who is squinting at his mom's notes and unable to make heads or tails of them.

A small, maybe eight, maybe nine-year-old girl wandered in, eyes wide.

If it looked like she was casing the place, that's because she was. But she wasn't going to steal anything without her mom there.

Yeah, casing the place wasn't going to work so well with a mind-reader in the shop, but the kid was cute and Ino was feeling tolerant.

"Hey, tiny person, what's up?"

Purple blinked, then smiled. "Sky. The stock market." She paused, thinking, then offered, "Some neat pink birds at the pond thing." She paused and asked, "Do you really sell poison here?"

Kueng snorted from where he was reading. He was smiling.

"You deserved that answer, Mom."

"Hush, you," Ino said, though she kinda had, yeah. "Those pink birds are called flamingos. As for poisons... well, not really." Liar, liar, pants on fire.

A beat.

"Besides, at your age, tripwires are more fun."

Ino, no.

Ino yes!!

Purple lit up; there was no other word for it, as she bounced on her toes to beam at the woman behind the counter. "They are! So fun! And getting over them with cartwheels!" Ahem. Well. "I mean. You know. If my mom let me do that kind of thing."

Sometimes pretending to be normal was so hard.

"If your mom likes fun, then she'd totally let you do that," Ino said encouragingly. Come oooon, small child, admit that you liked real fun. "All good moms do."

"What's your name, tiny? I'm Iris."

Purple rocked from side to side, amused, then looked at the other kid there with a small grin too. "My name's not Iris. Or Violet. But it's kinda like both." She paused and said, "My mom's got lotsa names, but mostly she's Mom." Or Mommy, but hey. She was getting old for that. "Do you like trapezes?" Said to both of them.

"I do," Kueng volunteered. "Do you?"

Ino rolled her eyes. "I'm calling you Catmint from now on, tiny. But yes, trapezes are awesome."

That was a lot better guess than lavender or larkspur! And the boy liked things Purple liked, so she smiled even more. "We have some at home, that Grampa Archie gave us, and a net hammock, and sometimes we sleep in it with Bunny and Ellie. Is Catmint a flower?" She leaned over to examine one of the bottles, and said, "These are prettttty even if they're not poison."

Right around noon, Zack arrived at the shop with... well... with far too many bags of Chinese food in his arms.

He had no idea how much food people generally ate when they weren't SOLDIER, so he'd just sort of erred on the side of leftovers.

"Hey, anybody want some lunch?"

Portion control was something he was never going to figure out.

How is it Monday already???

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Pick Your Poison, Monday

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OOC