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(no subject)

Who; Ino (

ino) and Gale (

fanstheflame).
What; Nightmares suck :(
Where; Out in the Dead Zone, on the expedition.
When; Tonight.
Rating; ... PG-13 at most? I THINK?

Before the first night they'd camped out, Ino had been a little reluctant to share a tent. Naturally, it had nothing to do with the other potential occupant -- only her own issues, her own fear of waking up alone that made her hesitate. It was with a tremendous amount of effort before the trip that she'd coached herself silently to not think about it, to let it happen, to enjoy the time she had.

Funny, then, how easily she fell into the routine of falling asleep in a certain someone's arms. After a year and some of sleeping alone, it was a welcome change to have someone next to her, to listen to their heartbeat and let it lull her into a comfortable sleep. She'd even taken to removing all her weapons before she got under the blanket at night -- something that might have seemed like an obvious step, but really, it was a sign of how much she trusted him. (Of course, she still kept them nearby -- it'd be just plain stupid not to have them within reach when danger could find them at any moment.)

But it surprised even her how quickly she fell asleep with him holding her. There was something safe, something comforting about knowing he was there. But even Gale's (really really nice, toned, muscular ... okay, we're getting off topic here) arms couldn't ward off the nightmares that sometimes plagued her sleep. After years of living in the castle, Ino had racked up quite the list of traumatizing mental pictures and scenes that lurked quietly in the back of her mind. The Eclipse. Mundus. Bakura's Shadow Game. Shikamaru being crushed by a monster. Sakura's lifeless body in the hallway.

It's not much of a surprise, really, when the images become too much for her, and she awakes with a jolt. She manages not to scream, either out of consideration or out of pride, but she does violently shove Gale's arm out of the way to sit up, trembling and breathing hard as she tries to collect herself.

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For his part, Gale had taken a while longer to fall asleep than Ino - partly because of the unfamiliar surroundings and the sounds of the camp settling down for the night, and partly because he was still getting used to not sleeping alone, himself. Whereas Ino had at least had a few boyfriends serious enough to sleep next to, this whole thing - the expedition, the sleeping arrangements - was new to him. Not that he was complaining, of course - he still liked the way Ino seemed to fit perfectly in the crook of his arm, against his chest, despite their ridiculous height difference. The way her hair smelled, the little sigh she'd let out as she got comfortable: it was all a pretty nice deal, even if it was odd sleeping next to a woman who'd had to unload a veritable arsenal before she crawled in beside him.

He'd finally started to relax, and drifted off into the start of sleep, when she sat up, shoving him aside. Needless to say, after having finally gotten comfortable, it was a little bit of a shock - but at the sound of her breath, he rolled onto his side, struggling to sit up beside her.

"Hey ... hey, Ino..." He reached out and put a hand to her arm, carefully. "What is it?"

She almost flinches when he reaches out, but she's quick to control it. She smooths a hand over her face and runs it through her de-ponytailed hair, trying to get her breathing to slow, trying to relax. Trying to compose herself, so she can be around other people.

It takes her a few seconds to get the words out, but -- "... Sorry. It was just -- just a dream." A nightmare, if she's being honest, but that sounds stupid and childish to her. How embarrassing, for him to see her like this ...

She hasn't quite pulled herself together to look over at him just yet, though, so she stares listlessly at her knees instead, willing herself to stop shaking.

"It's okay," he said quietly, sitting up properly to reach up and rub his hand up and down her back. It's a strange instinct, and he almost doesn't realize he's doing it: just what his mother used to do when he was small, what she still did for Rory and Vick and Posy. He kept his voice low, looking around the tent so that she wouldn't feel his eyes on her and feel more embarrassed for it.

"I had a lot of those, when I first got here."

She'll just close her eyes when he does that. Any other time she might feel a little patronized by the action, but she is still a little shaken from the nightmare, and she knows he's trying to help. Still, she takes a few deep breaths, each less shaky than the last, and then finally leans into him a little.

She's glad that he can never have these nightmares -- that he missed all of those horrible events. That he can't see the things she can when she looks into other people's minds. Even if he's taller and bigger than her, even if he's more mature or more capable in some ways ... she still has the urge to protect him. To shield him from all the horrible things that could happen to him here.

"I didn't mean to wake you up."

After a moment, Gale stops and puts his arm properly around her shoulders, to hold her close. "Don't worry," he says, shaking his head. "I was only kind of half asleep anyway."

He stretches out his legs underneath the sleeping bag with a sigh. The bag, after all, wasn't really built with long-legged Seam miners named Gale in mind, and he had a few weeks of sleeping with his legs curled up to look forward to. Thankfully, there was a lot of walking during the day to keep him from worrying about his muscles tightening up.

"... It's kind of hard getting used to sleeping someplace different, again. Not as bad as it could be, though. Not with you here."

Ah, yes. Unrelated conversation as a distraction. She's appreciative, though, and she'll reach up to intertwine her fingers with his hand around her shoulders.

She's careful to focus on that -- the feel of his hand, the callouses and the warmth there -- while she glances down at his shifting legs.

"... You know, if you're uncomfortable, we can always unzip it and use it as a blanket instead." She knows that's not exactly what he means, but it isn't all that cold, and she doesn't want him to have any more trouble than he has to. Still, she'll move on to the actual topic. "We have to camp out all the time for missions ... I guess I'm just used to it. Not sleeping could be a detriment, you know?"

Hey, it's one of the few effective tactics he has, he's still kind of new at this whole Supportive Boyfriend thing, and on top of that, it's his first expedition. Go easy on him, Ino. He squeezes her hand, though the gesture's a little awkward due to the angle of his own.

"No, it's okay. I've slept in worse places. One time, the roof leaked over Vick's bed, and he had to come sleep in mine, so I got the floor for a month until we could afford to get it fixed and the mattress dried out..." He can't help but smile a little at the memory. "And, yeah, I know. We've got a lot of ground to cover, from what people have been saying. I guess I'm kind of excited."

Well, hey, it's her first time dealing with Supportive Boyfriend. The others tried, sort of, but -- not like this. Not with any measure of competency. And even before them, before Paradisa, she was used to dealing with things on her own. Sorting things out alone to remain competent enough for the field -- after all, one of the most important laws of the shinobi is to keep personal feelings and emotions out of the mission. If she was incapable of that much, she'd have been taken off duty a long time ago.

Sometimes, she wonders what her superiors would think of her now.

"You took the floor? That was nice of you." Though it's almost depressing that it had taken them a month to be able to afford fixing the roof. Often, talking to him reminds him how lucky she is. "Mm ... if it's anything like the painting we found of Lastlook, it should be amazing, when we get there."

If talking to him makes Ino feel lucky, then his telling her things reminds him just as much how cruel and unfair the Capitol is to them all - how wrong it is, every single part of it. The only good things that he has in his life at home are his family, and they keep themselves together through sheer perseverance. He's used to having to constantly think of other people before himself, to keeping others safe so that he'll have something good to bring his mind around to when things get rough. It's no small wonder, then, that he's working so hard to keep her happy...

"There's a painting? What's it look like?" He settles in against her a little more, getting comfortable. Art was a rare commodity in the Seam - at least, really, really nice art was. Good paints and brushes were the sorts of things only the richer people could afford, and the things they created got sold to the highest bidders to cover the cost of materials. "The only painting I ever saw was in the Town Hall, of the sunrise over the mountains back home."

Well, hey, if they're going to get comfy ... she'll just lean back a little, to indicate they can lay down again. She isn't quite comfortable enough or calm enough to go back to sleep or anything, but laying down will help a little.

"It's a sunset, I think ... but through the middle of the painting, there's this curvy looking river with a sailboat on it. There's barely any ground around the river, though -- just steep cliffs, down into lots of trees. Then, far away from the river, there's two cliffsides coming back up surrounding it, with these strange statues poking out of them." Okay, she isn't exactly the best at describing this stuff, but she hardly has anything to compare it to. It's nothing like any landscape in Konoha, and it's not much like anything she's seen in Paradisa, either. "According to the map, that place should lead to the ocean."

When Ino leans back, he takes the hint and lies down, pulling her carefully with him and ... curling his legs back up so he doesn't pull the sleeping bag off her with his stupid long legs. At her description of the painting, he closes his eyes, trying to visualize it all.

"Wow," he says quietly, once she's done. "That doesn't sound like anything I've seen back home in Panem, either. And the Seasons Room is the closest I've ever been to the ocean, too...."

She'll shift a little to cozy up next to him properly when he lays back down, resting her free hand on his chest. It's an almost protective motion, though she'll start idly tracing little shapes into his skin as she talks.

"I'd never been to the ocean until I came here, either. Konoha is land-locked, and I never went anywhere that was by the sea for a mission or anything." She pauses, thinking of Konoha. It was a little sad how long ago she'd stopped expecting to wake up in her own room, accepted that she'd probably never work in the Yamanaka Flower Shop for years to come ... that it'd be a long time before she could see her father again. She's gone out of her way to make sure she doesn't forget what it was like to be there, through photos and videos that she's gathered, no matter how long she has to stay.

"You'd probably like Konoha," she says. Well, mostly, she thinks. Knowing what she does about the council of Elders and their ordered assassination of the Uchiha, she isn't sure what to think of them now. But Gale doesn't know that, and it's sort of fun to imagine him there-- in a peaceful, happy Konoha -- instead of here. "Lots of forest, right next to some mountains ..."

Edited 2012-08-30 16:07 (UTC)

Keeping his eyes closed, he leans his head toward her slightly and lets out a soft sigh as she starts to trace her fingers over his chest. The closeness is still new to him, but he's getting used to it easily - how could he not? It isn't just the simple chemistry of lying down next to a cute girl, either - he knows that at least on some levels, they understand each other, and there's a security, there, something he can count on when everything else changes.

"Sounds a little like the Seam," he says quietly, images of the hillside where he used to sit and look down at the town floating across his closed eyes. "There were mountains there, too ... we were kind of tucked in the middle of them. What're your forests like...?"

She pauses at his question ... before shrugging a little bit, as well as one can shrug when you're curled up like they are. "The same as any forest, I guess. Shikamaru raises deer, in the bit behind his house. His family uses their antlers for medicine."

She takes in a breath, relaxing a little more, now. The combination of the peaceful, happy images from home, his little sigh, the arm around her -- it all adds up to a much calmer Ino, which she's thankful for. Whenever he does this sort of thing for her, she always remembers him saying he hadn't really done anything for her, and it sort of makes her laugh on the inside. He's done so much more than he'll ever know.

"Oh, but -- there is one that's gated off. It's too dangerous for people to go in normally, so it's only opened to people taking a promotion exam, after they've signed a waiver and all that."

"I think you started to tell me about that." The volume of his voice seems linked to how calm she is - as she starts to settle beside him, he grows quieter. "The exam, I mean. ... I'd never heard of using antlers in medicine before. I wish I'd known when I was hunting, back home. I would have brought them to Katniss' mother. ... What did Sh--" He wrestles for a moment with the foreign name - he's getting a little better at them all, Hagakure and Naruto and Sakura, harsh syllables in strings that they didn't seem to have back home. "-- Shik-a-maru's family use them for?" He lets out a little sigh once he's finished, as though he's quietly pleased that he was able to say it without stumbling too badly.

He can probably feel the little grin forming on her mouth against his skin, when he successfully pronounces his name. Her name is easy -- but she's glad that he tries the other ones, too, that he wants to be able to say them properly.

"A lot of things, actually. They have a big encyclopedia of medicines." But she isn't all too interested in elaborating what's in it, since it'd involve going into a lot of detail about chakra and chakra boosting and they'd be up all night. Instead, she'll let go of his hand, shifting a little to prop herself up on an elbow and look down at him. "Ya-ma-na-ka." She pronounces it slowly, indicating that he should repeat it.

He squints at her, confused. It's a word he hasn't heard before, after all, and he casts around, trying to figure out what it might mean - a medicine, maybe? But if she wants to tell him about this, whatever it is, it must be important to her, and that means he should take it seriously. So he still echoes her, dutifully, though it comes out more like a question.

"Yama ... na-ka?"

She'll let the hand that was on his chest move to his face, her knuckles tracing his jaw lightly. When he pronounces it right, she'll smile a little at him, and proceed to give him an explanation.

"It's my family name. It means "in the mountains"."

"In the mountains," he repeats, reaching up to put a hand to her cheek, too. "I like it. ... So what does 'Ino' mean, then? I don't think you ever told me."

That definitely gets a pause from her. She's biting her lip for a moment, looking to the side, before she looks back at him seriously.

"You have to promise not to tell anyone." A pause, before she adds: "And you can't laugh, either."

He frowns slightly, rolling onto his side to face her. "I promise....." He's not sure why she'd be acting this way over something like her name. Maybe it means something terrible, but he's having a hard time figuring out why someone as sensible-sounding as her father would name her something so bad that she'd act this way. But that isn't what matters: how she feels about it is.

"Tell me? Please?"

This is what happens when your girlfriend's darkest secret is her own dumb name, Gale. But she frowns and glances to the side, as if she's checking for eavesdroppers ... before sighing, and whispering:

"... It means 'boar'."

Yep. Her dad might be sensible most of the time, but she'll never understand that one.

He mouths it, silently, as if making sure he heard her right. Boar? Really, Mr. Yamanaka? You named her that why? He purses his lips, realizing what a hard name that must've been to grow up with - and then looks up at her.

"I don't know, I think ... it works. I mean - back home, a boar was one of the strongest animals in the woods. It took more than one person just to even think about taking one down. And ... well, you're one of the strongest people here that I know."

She just makes a face. She knows he's trying to make her feel better about it, but ... she'll just rest her cheek back on his shoulder with a sigh, and a little bit of a pout.

"Yeah, well. It's not ladylike at all."

"Maybe the meaning isn't?" He reaches up to put a hand to her hair. "But I always thought it sounded pretty... more like a bird."

Hmm ... she does like that a little better. She's silent for a moment, before she scoots a little closer to tuck her head under his chin.

"... Thanks."

"Tell you what," he murmurs, trying not to bash her head with his chin as he talks. "It can mean 'boar' in your home language and 'bird' in Panem. Then you're strong and ladylike."

That just gets a little amused scoff -- mostly because she's imagining flying pigs now, but also because he's trying so hard to make her feel better about it. But she really does appreciate it, so she'll press a kiss to his neck.

"I'm glad you're here."

"I'm glad we're both here." He sighs, settling back against the pillows. "... You should try and get back to sleep..."

"You, too," she agreed, letting a hand run over his arm and settle on his shoulder. It was amazing how much calmer and more relaxed she was already, thanks to the conversation with him being so distracting. "Okay?"

"Okay." He stifled a yawn, pulling the blankets back up over them. "No more nightmares, this time, alright?"

She was trying to avoid the use of the word nightmares -- it sounded so silly, after all -- but when he says that, she realizes that Gale is very good at that. Taking something that she doesn't want to talk about -- that she's trained not to talk about -- and bringing it out into the open, making it maybe not so bad after all.

So instead of her getting defensive or irritated, he'll just get a little breath of amusement against his skin as she moves to adjust the blankets. "No more, I promise."

Honestly, he's always thought calling them "bad dreams" was worse - it made them sound childish, simplified - the sort of thing that you should be ashamed of having. But he knows that they're nothing childish, at all - especially when you're not a child anymore, and know what it really is to be scared, that if something happens, you have to protect yourself. Nightmare, now, that's a much weightier word, it gives them the gravity that they usually have.

"Okay, good." With that, he reaches out and puts an arm around her, settling in before giving her a kiss.

"'Night. ... Again."

She'll just kiss him back, letting out a little giggle at the 'again' as she curls up next to him again.

"'Night, Gale."

And funnily enough, when she closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and relaxes -- it takes her almost no time at all to fall back asleep.

He stays awake long enough to make sure she sleeps, and then it's just a matter of listening to the wind through the grass and trees, and the sound of her breathing. A few moments later, he's out, too, the last few threads of their conversation running through his head as he falls asleep.

Maybe Ino could be Seam for "bird".

He starts to hear them, in his sleep: the birds he hasn't seen or heard in months. Cardinals, finches, sparrows, jays - blue and mocking. Their songs speak of clear blue skies and the bright green color of light through the leaves, and soon enough he's walking through the forest, his old hunting bag slung over his shoulder as he picks his way through the underbrush. There's a strip of birch bark hanging off a branch, near eye level, and curiously, he picks it off. In his hands, it turns to a thin slip of paper, with his name written on it in tiny black type ... and he knows what it means. That he'll have to fight, that he'll end up warped and changed and colder, like Katniss ... and he knows he has to run.

As he runs, the birds get louder, the mockingjays' songs drowning out the others, some tune in a minor key that only makes his heart hammer harder. He steps on a patch of moss, springy, and soft, and it gives way under his feet. For the briefest moment, he thinks he's already in an arena, that this is a trap, that any moment a career will come to kill him --

-- but he lands hard, hard on cold stone and rubble, and it's dark. Dark, and close, and hot, and there's the unmistakable smell of lantern oil and dirt and sweat.

Somewhere, far off down the mining tunnel, a canary sings.

He gets to his feet, stiffly, surprised and yet not to find that there are suddenly bulky miner's gloves on his hands, a pick at his hip. Time to work, time to dig, time to swallow everything down and keep moving. He heads toward the sound of the canary, knowing it means safe air, a place where he can at least try to work without the feeling of the tunnel pressing down on him.

The farther he goes, the stranger the tunnel gets, and the closer it becomes. Soon he's only just barely got enough width to maneuver in, and he has to duck, crouching. He puts his hand to the tunnel wall, and is surprised to feel that it's made of stone - smooth, uniform blocks of it. In his horror, he realizes two things: one, the tunnel's turned to castle walls.

Two: the canary stopped singing.

He jerks awake. To his credit, he doesn't scream.

Being a ninja, and considering where they are, it's not hard for her to wake up immediately when he moves so sharply. Her first instinct is to reach for a knife laying off to the side, but one quick look around reveals that there's no threat to be had. She stays still, listening for a moment, just in case. But there's nothing.

She'll let the knife stay where it is, bringing her arm back to his shoulder. 'No more nightmares', he'd said, but it looked like the same hadn't applied to him. She doesn't feel she needs to talk just yet, though -- if he wants to talk, he will. Instead, she just moves the hand on his shoulder to his neck, his cheek, in a more conscious movement. She'll press a soft kiss to his collarbone, too, in a silent declaration not too far from what she'd said to him when he arrived -- Wherever you were, it's not here. You're here with me, now.

His eyes are wide as he searches the tent, even in the darkness, looking for any sign that it wasn't real - that it really was just a dream, that he's not trapped and alone. When she touches him, it's like a bucket of cold water dropped on his head. As quickly as the fear came on him, it's gone, and he reaches up to put his hand to her hair and hold her close against his chest.

"... Thank you."

She's glad when she feels him relax a little. She shifts a little when he pulls her close, resting her forehead against his chest, and moves her fingers to run through the ends of his hair gently. Hopefully, it'll be reassuring enough to let him relax properly again.

"You okay?"

"I ..." He sighs, forcing himself to remember how to breathe properly. It takes all his focus for a moment or two, to keep his heart from feeling like it's going to jump out of his chest.

"Yeah. I ... I will be."

"Good."

A little wry smile appears on her face, though he can't see it. She'll just keep running her fingers through his hair for a few moments, silent, before she speaks up again.

"We can't even get a full night of sleep between us, huh ..." It's kind of sad, in reality, but it's said with a touch of humor.

"Yeah ..." He sighs, vaguely amused. "It's okay, though, we've got a lot of trip still ahead of us. Maybe we just need to get used to things."

She decides not to mention that having these kinds of nightmares isn't entirely uncommon for her, at least, no matter where she's sleeping. She figures if he sticks around, he'll figure it out.

If he sticks around. Thinking that way is still a habit.

"Maybe," she'll agree, moving her hand from his hair, now, to cover his heart. She's silent for a moment, searching for a different topic. "What do you dream about, normally?"

Thankfully, he's no mind-reader, or he might not fall back asleep - he'd feel compelled to watch over her and make sure she was okay. "Me? Uh ... usually I don't remember them. But sometimes ... home. My family. Back before everything changed."

Sorry, Gale! Her life is secretly depressing sometimes. But she doesn't want to worry him, and he's the one who woke up from the nightmare this time, not her. So it's much more important to her that she distract him and help him get back to sleep.

The first part of his response gets a soft snort. "No, not you, the other guy who's sleeping right next to me." But there's a small smile at his actual answer -- it's pretty close to what she would have answered. Her dad, the shop, Konoha before it'd become a giant crater ...

Her joking earns a short 'hmh' of laughter, and he smiles a little, too. It's surprisingly easy to forget how scared he was, just now, when they're talking like this. Trading stories about home, reminding each other that the present isn't as bad as it could be compared with parts of their past ... it's why he loves her: they keep each other strong.

He sighs, then turns to kiss her, softly. "Come on. Let's ... try and get back to sleep."

"Yeah, I guess we should ..." She knows they've got a long day of walking ahead tomorrow, too, so it's a good suggestion. She'll roll onto her back for a moment, reaching behind her to make sure that knife she tried to pull earlier is out of the way, in case she rolls over in her sleep. (Hazards of being a ninja: Accidentally sleeping on your own weapons, oops.)

Once she's got that settled, she leans up to kiss him on the forehead before cuddling up to him again. "Sweet dreams, Gale."

Edited 2012-09-21 17:27 (UTC)

Considering how many times he's stayed out in the woods to track things or watch his traps, Ino would probably be surprised how much he'd probably understand that particular hazard. Right now, though, it's cozy in the tent, and they're safe, and the nightmares - well, even if they come back, for either of them, they'll be here for each other. It's a level of security that he's still amazed to have, even now.

"... You too, Ino."

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