I'd left him dreaming [closed]

[deservesadaisy]

Who: Ivan and Ilde
What: He's making a habit of turning up on doorsteps.
Where: Villa Roassieux
When: Shortly after receiving this text
Notes: It's just a one-night stand. That kept happening. Exclusively. And then he took care of her dog. ...you are no longer fooling anyone, guys.
Warnings: None yet, but give it time.

Ivan is not going to dignify that text with a reply. Instead he turns up, very shortly afterward, on her doorstep, expression closed.

At least he brought her purse with him.

Comments

[rhinemaid]

"I don't know what I am." Good at or bad at or suited to or...Ivan is the first relationship she's had that she'd be sure qualifies as something other than 'morally suspect sneaking around'; she has nothing much to compare it to, just this. Casual was the intention, at the beginning, so maybe she is terrible at that.

[deservesadaisy]

"I think people get very wrapped up in dissecting things. Naming them. You've got more important things to work through." Her death. Whatever led up to it. And the trauma before that - their mistake with subspace, and back.

[rhinemaid]

"I like things to have names," she mutters - definitions that can be written down, pinned down where they can't twist and squirm into something more complicated and confusing. Words make ideas make sense, it's soothing, and it's...not always easy, so he's right, it's just irritating when he has a point.

[deservesadaisy]

"I gathered." It was almost funny, given how much she hadn't wanted to discuss their relationship in contrast to how she wants to define it neatly. "What would you like to call it, then?"

[rhinemaid]

"I don't know. Mine." Nicely simplistic, easy to remember, covering a multitude of sins.

[deservesadaisy]

"Greedy." A pause. "Alright." There were worse things, and it's likely true whether or not they say so.

[rhinemaid]

Ilde rolls onto her side, shifting until she's resettled and resting her foot against the side of his leg. "I'm not very good at this." At being with him, at whatever it is she's trying to work through now-- at working through anything at all, since that's not really been her style. Ever, but especially over the past year; it's been much easier just to box each experience up and try to keep moving, too fast for any of it to catch up to her.

She feels like she's been forcibly stopped, for a while, and supposes that's just what happened.

[deservesadaisy]

"We didn't really talk for a long time before you left," he points out, not accusing. "I'm just trying to find where we are, that's all." Without pushing. Their relationship is probably not the first of her worries right now.

[rhinemaid]

"I was there a lot, though." At his flat-- for a variety of reasons, not limited to 'expressly for the purpose of being near Ivan', but that was among them. Actions are supposed to speak louder than words, but she's never been entirely convinced of that, anyway.

[deservesadaisy]

"Yes, there was that." He'd half expected her to run away. He idly runs his finger up and down her arm, thoughtful. "You kept giving me the oddest looks."

[rhinemaid]

"You fussed. It was odd." Not bad, just strange; unexpected.

[deservesadaisy]

"I didn't know what you needed." So... sandwiches.

[rhinemaid]

"I don't know what I need." Still. Sandwiches are probably not going to do the trick, this time; she's twisted in knots and untangling, unraveling into something subtly other than what she was before she died, and she doesn't know if that's a good thing or not. If she's allowed.

[deservesadaisy]

They didn't do the trick last time, either, but motion makes him feel better. He's spent a long time watching things fall apart, but he's seldom tried to put any of them back together.

"You don't owe me an explanation of anything. Just as long as you know you can ask. If you want."

[rhinemaid]

"I have to talk to you about something," she says, eventually, folding her arms on his chest and resting her chin there, "but not yet." It's not exactly on-topic, but it's not exactly off-topic, either.

[deservesadaisy]

He's cautious, at that, though not disengaging. "When you're ready, then." He's not sure what it can be.

[rhinemaid]

"I was going to bring it up before I left, but..." Before she'd left it had been a vaguer thing; there are possibilities in front of her that weren't there before, and priorities that are rearranging themselves. It's a little more relevant than theoretical maybe-some-days, now, and she's not sure how that's going to go down.

(With anyone, actually, and she's still thinking about what Remy said and what it might mean. Where it might fit with her existing theories about what Baedal needs.)

[deservesadaisy]

"A lot's changed in a short time," he points out. "Time enough to pick back up."

[rhinemaid]

"I think that's just how things happen. Generally." ...changing abruptly in a short space of time; aside from Ivan, it's a fair point that most of Ilde's life has been that way the past year. She's only had a life of her own to speak of, as she sees it, for this past year. She feels as if she's been running quickly along unsteady, uneven ground and the momentary slowness isn't familiar and doesn't fit. Isn't something that she knows precisely what to do with when it's been so much easier to keep going. You can't fall down if you don't stop.

[deservesadaisy]

"I don't know. Sometimes." Ivan, on the other hand, has more experience with slow, gradual shifts (with some major exceptions). He supposes it's somewhat a matter of perspective, either way.

"It's a lot to hold up under." For her, he means.

[rhinemaid]

It's not being alone, it's holding down the fort; that's what Remy told her and that's what she's hanging onto, at least for now. It's barely been two days, and she needs to just...breathe, for a while. And she should let herself, she decides. There are all these people in her life here who are ready and willing to pick up the slack and she should let them because she's exhausted and she doesn't know what else she'd do, anyway. Her restless urgency has no direction.

"I'm okay," she says, resting her cheek against her arm.

[deservesadaisy]

"I'm glad." It was complicated, and he couldn't help suspecting it would be messy, but he liked her here, curled up against him. It was something he hadn't had in a long time - the easiness of the way they were together.

[rhinemaid]

"Why did you punch Mitchell in the face?"

...there's an abrupt subject change for you. In fairness, Ilde is probably right that there's likely going to be no better time than now to actually get an answer to that question, but it's still a little out of the blue.

[deservesadaisy]

He goes quiet at that. It's long enough it seems, at first, like he might not answer.

"He made a confession he probably shouldn't have, while he was drugged. I took it poorly." He considers leaving it there, but then he adds quieter, "He shagged Daisy, back home. I'd been dead, but not long."

[rhinemaid]

So. That explains that, and-- that sounds messy as hell. On any other day, her reaction here would be very different; their relationship is on uneasy ground already, and Ivan getting into a fight over the wife he assured her he doesn't still consider himself married to wouldn't help, but today there is so much else going on and he's just spent the past hour needing her and wanting her and she just splays her fingers, rests her cheek there, and says, "Okay."