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

[deservesadaisy]

He just holds her, at that. She's right, and he won't pretend she isn't.

Finally, though, he says, "I'm glad you came back." He says it like a secret.

[rhinemaid]

"So am I." It sounds more like something she's half-afraid of, the way she says it; something she might not have admitted if not for that timely opening. Is she allowed to be glad?

[deservesadaisy]

He kisses her neck, lightly. "That's nice to hear, under the circumstances."

[rhinemaid]

"I didn't want to never see you again." ...well, even death probably wasn't going to make her effusive in her sometimes-wary expressions of fondness in this accidental relationship. It's a step up from 'used to you', either way, and it's a little bit easier in the quiet room with steam rising and a hundred things that will still need her attention later but aren't quite anything she can think about now.

[deservesadaisy]

He presses his lips to her hair. "I wasn't ready to let you go." Which falsely suggests that he might ever be, except for the tone in which it's said.

[rhinemaid]

They really need to have that conversation, she thinks, vaguely; she doesn't have the energy right now to get into it, whether or not he's going to stay with her when she's ready to find a way to get pregnant. Not being ready to let go of her now maybe doesn't mean he's going to be interested in signing up for the life she wants to lead now her part in that siege is over--

A lot changed, the past few weeks. She needs to let herself catch up with it.

"If I could've warned you, I would have...I didn't know it was about to happen."

[deservesadaisy]

"I gathered. It wasn't your fault." Ivan knows better than most that people don't get a chance to warn you before they leave, more often than not.

[rhinemaid]

People keep saying that to her, since she got back. Sooner or later she's going to start believing them properly, she tells herself.

"I didn't know I would be coming back, either."

[deservesadaisy]

"No, I don't imagine." He shifts, a little, settling her against him once he stops. "I'd have managed, but I wouldn't have been pleased to."

[rhinemaid]

A little huff of air--

"Now does it qualify as a relationship by your completely arbitrary standards?"

[deservesadaisy]

He laughs, quietly, against her neck. "I don't know. I suppose. Would you like it to?"

[rhinemaid]

"...yes," she says, like she's deciding it on the spur of the moment and not entirely sure of what it might actually mean-- but everything is always complicated.

[deservesadaisy]

"I'm terrible at casual," he says, as if it's a confession even though she's likely gathered. "It's probably just as well."

[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.