Her entire body shook in slight, yet annoying pain. Her muscles in all four limbs felt sore, her eye felt itchy, her eyelids felt light and couldn't stay close for too long, her thoughts were all cloudy and pressing hard against her forehead, her nose felt stuffed and made breathing difficult, her throat felt such a soreness that couldn't be fixed with a ice-cold glass of water…Ino felt like shit to be frank.
Another dreary night in the dreary house with the absolute dreary weather. Ino wanted the damned weather to end so she can finally escape this hovel. But until then, she would have to endure another long and uncomfortable night. Tossing and turning, flipping and flopping about, all to find that one comfy cool spot so she could relax her body and finally fall into a nice slumber. If she were lucky…she MIGHT get at least six hours of sleep.
Ino didn't want to discuss this with Tsunade. At this point, all her respect for the Hokage had been shot and left in the gutter to rot. Any advice she could offer to fix this situation would be worthless on Ino's ears. Ino's trust in Tsunade had fallen so far, even if the Hokage pulled out a magic potion to induce sleep, she wouldn't take it. After all, the last course of treatment that Tsunade did went SO well!
She laid on her back, her head laying on the edge of her pillow. The last bit of the coolness from that spot faded quickly, so she flipped the pillow over. Now feeling uncomfortable on her back, Ino flipped herself over to lie her face down on the pillow, making sure that her nose isn't pressed down to further block her breathing. This lasted a good minute before her body demanded to switch positions. So Ino went on her side…and this position became short-lived as she returned to lying on her back.
Not helping matters were the bedsprings. The bed itself had plenty of years on it already, but what Ino put it through would have done the same damage to even a new bed. They had been pushed to and beyond their limits by the person who laid in it absolute refusal to remain still. And whenever Ino got angry with her failure to fall asleep, she bounce up and down for a few seconds and let out a hoarse moan. And now the springs creaked and squeaked whenever Ino made a slight movement on top of it.
But as Ino got through the troublesome nights, she got used to the sounds. One less thing to worry about while trying to get some sleep. But while she was to this, Tsunade was not. The sounds penetrated right through the ceiling and it echoed throughout Tsunade's room and her ears. Given what happened a few days ago, Tsunade had been giving Ino plenty of room and space for her to try and calm down. She had been very patient with Ino's many outbursts and all of the noises coming from her room at night. That, and she had been using her powers to ease herself into slumber.
But things had to change. Tsunade was getting tired of this. She needed to clean the mess she made. Ino needed help and Tsunade had to actually provide it. Tsunade tossed aside the covers and danced out of her bed and ran downstairs to Ino's room. She slowed down once she got to the bottom floor as to not warn Ino of her approach. She instead let the barging through the guest room door do that.
"WHAT!" Ino screeched as she jumped up, letting her covers fall off the bed.
"Ino, this has got to stop!" Tsunade announced with her authoritative voice "You came here to get help and I have been negligent in my duties."
"And this is going to help me?" Ino screeched pointing to the clock. "It's eleven at night!"
"And we're both awake." Tsunade groaned as she stretched her back to clear the aches. "I don't think we're going to get much sleep until we try to resolve the matter at hand. That, and getting you to sleep in a different bed; aren't you annoyed with the springs?"
"I got used to it." Ino breathed out. "So, I'm being moved to the couch, huh?"
"No, my bed." Tsunade pointed up. "I'll take over the couch…or…" Tsunade scratched behind her head at the base of her skull as a new idea entered her head. "…this is going to sound really weird, but there might a easier solution to your nightmare issue…"
Tsunade paused and let the air settle before Ino interjected with, "What?"
"…we could share the bed." Tsunade managed to get out. Ino turned noticeably red with a awkward frown. "There's really no better way of phrasing that." Tsunade sighed as she sat down on Ino's bed. "This is nothing sexual. I'm just being your bunkmate so you won't feel alone."
"Yeah, that's causing my nightmares." Ino moaned out loud, once more looking at the clock. "Me being alone in bed." She threw up her hands in annoyance. With her vision clearing, she noticed that Tsunade dressed in a rather revealing way. Tiny t-shirt and panties? Maybe she's was dreaming this…no way would the Hokage dressed in such a scanty manner…
"It's not the cause, but at the same time it's also keeping the nightmares going." Tsunade shook her head. "You're isolated yourself. You need to be around someone, to remember that you're not alone." Ino pouted at the idea, silently calling it stupidly whimsical. "You need to feel comfortable with your surroundings again. Let me help you."
"Maybe you should just sleep on the floor while I sleep on the bed." Ino pointed out. "It's ridiculous to think that sharing a bed with you will make everything better…"
"Then I'll sleep on the floor." Tsunade outright admitted, actually surprising Ino. "As long as we're close, it should be fine."
Ino stared blankly at Tsunade for a few seconds, trying to get her thoughts together in her deluded state. She figured this had to be a last-ditch effort to 'fix' her or at least regain some trust. Or maybe Tsunade just didn't want Ino to go around and saying that the Hokage was bad at her job. Or even Tsunade was just sick of hearing the badsprings. Ino hung her head and said: "Sure."
"Come on then." Tsunade got up. "Tomorrow, I'll look at the guest bed and see if I can fix it up." Ino sighed as she got up and followed behind Tsunade up to her room with blurry eyes. Ino barely managed to get up the stairs in her state. Tsunade looked back as she got up the stairs, following Ino up to make sure she didn't fall down. Ino managed to get up and get to Tsunade's room without incident.
Tsunade opened her closet door and pulled out the spare pillow and blanket she usually kept for cold winter nights. She threw the pillow down, and laid down with the blanket on top of her. "Let's hope we can both have a good night's sleep." Tsunade yawned as she laid down and closed her eyes. While the floor weren't the most comfortable, Tsunade quickly got settled in.
Ino breathed out her nose as she walked over to Tsunade's bed. It looked comfy enough, if worn down looking and matted all over thanks to Tsunade's constant turning to try and get some sleep, bit still, more comfy looking than the guest bed. She climbed in and got into the middle, pulled the covers up and laid her head down on the pillow.
Indeed, the experience was far more better. It didn't trap so much heat and generally felt cool. Ino breathed in and out at a slow and relaxing pace, trying to keep herself comfortable. Soon she was able to go into a soft rest. But then the decaying arms came out of the darkness and crawling over to her from all sides. Ino's face scrunched up in pain as she could once more hear the cries of the damned and dying…
"Tsunade." Ino asked with her eyes still closed. Ino didn't wait for a response, only for the shuffling of the blanket. "If it would help, you can hop into the bed." Ino then rolled over to the right side of the bed.
"I'll stay to my side of the bed." Tsunade told as she rose up. Ino could feel the compressing of the still working bedsprings as Tsunade laid down on the other side of the bed. "Good night, Ino." She told as she stopped moving about and laid still.
Ino at first didn't care about Tsunade's presence on the bed. Just less room on the bed for the two of them, so hopefully Tsunade wasn't a roller. But as Ino went back into slumber, she did feel something. Even as the zombies came crawling after her, she thought to herself: "Tsunade is next to me. If anything happens, she can help me."
And so, for the first time in what seemed to be a very long time, Ino wandered off into a nice slumber. And without her thrashing about on the bed, Tsunade too got some sleep. While they did slumber on for the rest of the night and into the morning, their unconscious bodies did act without neither being made aware.
As Ino had guessed before, Tsunade was indeed a roller. Tsunade rolled across the invisible line separating the two halves of the bed, and bumped against Ino's body. As luck, and perverted writing, would have it, Tsunade's upper body was just in the right place for Ino's head to lay down on top of Tsunade's more-than-ample breasts. A very comfortable pillow indeed.
And in Ino's mind, she got taken away from the usual nightmarish place into…a very warm heaven. But unlike the bad warmness of the bed, this felt nice. Ino let out a deep sigh as her body finally relaxed all of the tension away as she imagined herself going to sleep between two giant fluffy pillows…