It's not uncommon for Dahlia to sleep in occasionally. On most days, she is awake like clockwork and ready for work, but every so often her sleep debt will catch up to her and she will be in bed well beyond the normal time. After all, there are many nights where Dahlia is up late reading or walking off a nightmare in a hidden corner of her strange old mansion or brooding at the cemetery. Ianto, having been welcomed into her home some months ago, is likely used to this routine by now.
However, on this particular morning, Dahlia remains in bed well into the afternoon. She sleeps until lunch and then cannot be bothered to rise from bed even after she wakes, and can still be found there while the sun begins to hang low in the sky. Comparatively, this is excessive.
Normally during "wellness breaks," Dahlia does not wish to be disturbed. However, this may be cause for Ianto to strong-arm his way into checking on her.
Ianto is well familiar with Dahlia’s routine, quirks, and peccadilloes. He’s more than willing to allow her a certain measure of hermitage when she deigns to stop on rare and precious occasions when she actually acknowledges her limitations. It can’t hurt, only help to allow her to lick her wounds in peace…and she always makes it worth his while to miss her a little.
But this isn’t a break. By the time late afternoon is flirting with evening, he’s well and truly concerned.
Still, he’s not unreasonable: rather than strong arm his way into her company, he makes good use of the kitchen’s limited resources and lets himself into her room with a tray of herbal tea and toast with some meager apricot preserves scrounged from the pantry and of only slightly questionable age.
“C’mon.” He instructs quietly, bringing the tray over and setting it on her bedside table. “We are sitting up in bed. Tea time, sweetheart. Boyfriend’s orders.”
"We're experiencing a severe food shortage, and you're very tiny." Ianto replies evenly, sitting on the mattress beside her. Reaching out, he takes her hand in his, then wraps his free hand around her wrist, fingertips touching, with room enough that he can move his hand most of the way up her forearm until the massive gap is filled.
"Adorable, delicate, lovely, and quite tough in spite of it...but of rather diminutive stature."
He pauses, leaning in to kiss her, then to kiss her forehead as he tries to mentally go through what precious little he knows of medical history...
"...have you ever seen the doctor about anemia, sweetheart?"
"I know I have anemia," she replies, rubbing her temple roughly and leaning into Ianto. "There's just not a whole lot to be done about it. Usually I eat a lot of meat to stave it off, but right now... Well. Hopefully Arthur will be by after he goes hunting, at least."
"Heard there's a couple of other hunters in town as well--blokes like me, came on the ferry." Ianto murmurs, pressing his lips to the crown of her head as she tucks herself into him. "Someone's got a communal potluck or some such in the works at the Oak & Iron--combining resources and all that."
There's also the matter of combining resources as well--namely, slipping his grocery allotment to the kitchens when Dahlia's not paying attention. He'll find a way to make do to ensure she's better fed.
"We'll need to get you more than just meat." he murmurs, half to himself and half to her as he wracks his brain for good dietary iron sources that he could find in a place like this. "More liver will help...some nuts, too, if we can find them. I'll speak to some of the fishermen as well, I've friends among them."
He leans back just enough to look into her face, running his fingers through her hair.
"Until then, I'd gently advise you to work from home. I'll bring you anything you like, if you'll stay in bed and sleep whenever possible. This is no longer a wellness day, you're properly sick. You need to see to that."
Dahlia's not hurting for money, she's just leaving as much as she can rather than buying up the markets. Being fair. The kitchen staff will inform Ianto of this, but they'll agree to make some adjustments on what they choose to stock to suit his directions. Turns out they listen to Ianto a lot more than Dahlia for this exact reason.
"Work from home...?" Not a common concept in this world, what with the lack of internet. "Mmm, that'll be a lot of running back and forth with paperwork for you... and with the snow picking up... Just make sure you take one of the horses, alright?"
Ianto is walking to his office within the house when he hears her voice.
He freezes, wracks his brain for what he could have done--and sighs, shutting his eyes.
"Well, that didn't take long." he mutters to himself, shutting the notebook in his hand and straightening his tie to gird himself for the tongue lashing to come as he navigates towards the sound of Dahlia's voice.
When she finds him, she looks angrier than she ever has. The kind of even keeled anger that seethes from her like a vapor. She holds Ianto's letter to her for Jean pinched between her fingers.
"Question for you," Dahlia begins. "Do I look like a bank? Or maybe a little shop you can write vouchers for because you know the owner?"
Ianto actually flinches at that, as if slapped--and it feels that way. He'd been certain he would be in trouble for doing what he did without speaking to her first, and he thought he would have more time...but that she might actually think he was taking advantage of his position...
"You need to figure out whose side you're on here, because if you don't know, you're not going to make it out of this alive."
"No." he replies simply, shock and something very close to horror flickering through his expression. "No, you don't. Not remotely."
"Then I'm confused. Is it just normal where you come from to treat your partner this way. Making promises on my behalf without asking me, taking advantage of my position. Or did you just think me so egotistical that I wouldn't help defend my hometown without blackmail?"
Ianto's mouth drops open as he flinches again at the word blackmail. For one terrible second, he's got a gun in his hand again, his world is falling apart around him, and he's forgotten everything he ever knew and learned working for Torchwood. Maybe on purpose, alone as he was against the world and Captain Jack bloody Harkness...
Visibly squaring his shoulders, the lines of his face are hard--but his eyes are nothing but filled with hollow grief, complete with the first bright shine of tears.
"For the record--not that it matters," he begins quietly, soft with a very genuine, very defeated gentleness, "Jean's role in the organization of the levy plan I gave you was obfuscated at their request. They came to me with a very noble idea to protect this community, and so well put together I was dazzled...and they absolutely refused to take credit for it. Refused to lead, refused any sort of--of merit for helping, and do you know why? They were the one fearful that their association with that tosser at the Occularum would prejudice you. They were making a sacrifice, one I understood, and I gave them that note knowing you would be cross with me for not asking permission. For imposing upon you with the request of a favor I asked for someone I owed a sacrifice to. I thought that sacrifice I was making was an imposition--not an accusation of exploiting the woman I love like she means nothing to me."
He pauses, and only then does the briefest flicker of anger rise in his eyes before dying again.
"I've done a lot of things for and to the people I love. I've killed, lied, and betrayed all I stand for to save them. I've been responsible for their deaths, not once but twice. But what you're accusing me of right now...I've never done that. Not now. Not ever."
And Ianto needs to find a way to get away from this, or he's going to hit the kind of spiral he hasn't touched since he first started seeing Jack--the one that had him at the Ferret on the regular, the kind that had him considering the unspeakable.
Dahlia is unmoved by the explanation. More than that, she almost seems angrier as he speaks, muddled with pain.
He doesn't get it. And the distance she worked so hard to close feels freshly wedged open.
"Oh, how noble of you." Her voice is cold with rage. "I'm so glad that you felt that sparing your little friend from the reprocussions of the reputation of the person THEY CHOSE to allign themself with was a good enough reason to undercut my feelings and my agency by doling out fucking coupons. You must think me incredibly childish, to think that I'd just let my feelings about Neil West cause me to leave my neighbors to suffer. I didn't even have to know it was them! You could have just respected me enough to come to me and say, 'Hey, Dahl, some people trying to protect the town need some financial aid, can you help?' But clearly you didn't think I'd do that for whatever reason and just started throwing around promises on my behalf without asking using half-baked bullshit like THIS."
Her voice echoes strangely through the empty halls of her home as she crescendos to a yell, ripping up the letter. The sound is almost otherworldly, and she doesn't sound like herself anymore. Tears stream down her face, bitter and hurt.
"And it would have been so easy for you to just listen to me, telling you that you’d hurt me and fucking apologizing, but goddess forbid you take accountability for this and tell me you're sorry you made me feel USED! No, no, you have to stand there looking like a FUCKING tin soldier telling me how you were RIGHT to do this to me, how this pain you've caused me is a kindness. Well I'm not your fucking bargaining chip, so if you trust Jean so much more than you trust me, then go stay with them."
She throws the paper fragments at Ianto, turns on her heel, and storms off into a room whose door she slams. Then she slumps against the door and weeps.
Ianto doesn't try to follow her. He can't. He can't move--he can barely breathe.
He has a thousand times a thousand words to say, to explain...he can't utter a one. He can't see the point, can't find any meaning in betraying queen, country, and friendship for Lisa--betraying the man he loved for the woman he loved.
He sold his soul so many times--it's not like he has one left to lose.
It's a good ten minutes, standing there, before he can muster the wherewithal to rip a page from his notebook and scribble a note, then stalk up to the door she slammed behind her. He crouches, can hear her tears...
He folds the note very deliberately, and raises his voice just loud enough to be heard.
"Jane. Japhet. Alice. Emily."
The names she'd rattled off that first night on the beach, as they remembered their dead together.
"Oscar. Violet. Henry. Jasper. Samuel."
"...I don't expect you to remember all of those names, but... It's nice to speak of them again."
"Adelaide. Esther. Abel. Harriet. Jonah."
"...I shall remember...It's important to know you'll be remembered--it's the only kind of true immortality."
He shoves the note under the door, then lays his hand against the wood.
"...Dahlia."
Because he's convinced that, to her, he's dead now--but she isn't. Not to him.
Not ever.
Ianto leaves without notifying anyone in the house. If she chooses to read the note, it simply says:
I never said I was right. I know I'm not right. All I gave was a reason. And I know that it doesn't matter, but I AM sorry.
This won't mean anything to you, but every one of them--I would steal them back from the universe for you if I could. And I shall spend the rest of time, tortured unto madness with the agony of a broken heart.
Dahlia does read the note, and she lets out a long sigh. He did apologize... But it's frustrating that it took this long. And she got much more heated than she would have liked, which is not only draining, but embarrassing.
She spends a long time wondering if he really understands why it hurt. But emotions are high... Maybe both of them need time to cool their heels. If he wants to leave a note and disappear, that's his prerogative. He knows Dahlia's too ill to go chasing him. So she'll wait. Or she'll attend another Merrymeet alone. Not like it matters.
Well, she told him she'd disappoint him eventually. Not like he wasn't warned.
Spent and numb, she peels herself off the floor and trudges off to bed.
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timeasmymeasure
At home
Date: 2024-01-20 08:43 pm (UTC)However, on this particular morning, Dahlia remains in bed well into the afternoon. She sleeps until lunch and then cannot be bothered to rise from bed even after she wakes, and can still be found there while the sun begins to hang low in the sky. Comparatively, this is excessive.
Normally during "wellness breaks," Dahlia does not wish to be disturbed. However, this may be cause for Ianto to strong-arm his way into checking on her.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-20 08:57 pm (UTC)But this isn’t a break. By the time late afternoon is flirting with evening, he’s well and truly concerned.
Still, he’s not unreasonable: rather than strong arm his way into her company, he makes good use of the kitchen’s limited resources and lets himself into her room with a tray of herbal tea and toast with some meager apricot preserves scrounged from the pantry and of only slightly questionable age.
“C’mon.” He instructs quietly, bringing the tray over and setting it on her bedside table. “We are sitting up in bed. Tea time, sweetheart. Boyfriend’s orders.”
no subject
Date: 2024-01-22 01:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-22 05:49 pm (UTC)"We're experiencing a severe food shortage, and you're very tiny." Ianto replies evenly, sitting on the mattress beside her. Reaching out, he takes her hand in his, then wraps his free hand around her wrist, fingertips touching, with room enough that he can move his hand most of the way up her forearm until the massive gap is filled.
"Adorable, delicate, lovely, and quite tough in spite of it...but of rather diminutive stature."
He pauses, leaning in to kiss her, then to kiss her forehead as he tries to mentally go through what precious little he knows of medical history...
"...have you ever seen the doctor about anemia, sweetheart?"
no subject
Date: 2024-01-24 01:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-24 06:32 pm (UTC)There's also the matter of combining resources as well--namely, slipping his grocery allotment to the kitchens when Dahlia's not paying attention. He'll find a way to make do to ensure she's better fed.
"We'll need to get you more than just meat." he murmurs, half to himself and half to her as he wracks his brain for good dietary iron sources that he could find in a place like this. "More liver will help...some nuts, too, if we can find them. I'll speak to some of the fishermen as well, I've friends among them."
He leans back just enough to look into her face, running his fingers through her hair.
"Until then, I'd gently advise you to work from home. I'll bring you anything you like, if you'll stay in bed and sleep whenever possible. This is no longer a wellness day, you're properly sick. You need to see to that."
no subject
Date: 2024-02-02 06:51 pm (UTC)"Work from home...?" Not a common concept in this world, what with the lack of internet. "Mmm, that'll be a lot of running back and forth with paperwork for you... and with the snow picking up... Just make sure you take one of the horses, alright?"
no subject
Date: 2024-02-04 06:04 am (UTC)"Ianto Jones."
Her tone is almost maternal with its anger. She is very clearly not pleased.
no subject
Date: 2024-02-05 06:01 pm (UTC)He freezes, wracks his brain for what he could have done--and sighs, shutting his eyes.
"Well, that didn't take long." he mutters to himself, shutting the notebook in his hand and straightening his tie to gird himself for the tongue lashing to come as he navigates towards the sound of Dahlia's voice.
"Coming!"
no subject
Date: 2024-02-05 06:31 pm (UTC)"Question for you," Dahlia begins. "Do I look like a bank? Or maybe a little shop you can write vouchers for because you know the owner?"
no subject
Date: 2024-02-05 07:04 pm (UTC)"You need to figure out whose side you're on here, because if you don't know, you're not going to make it out of this alive."
"No." he replies simply, shock and something very close to horror flickering through his expression. "No, you don't. Not remotely."
no subject
Date: 2024-02-05 07:17 pm (UTC)CW: nongraphic memories of suicidal ideation, nongraphic allusions to self harm
Date: 2024-02-05 08:33 pm (UTC)Visibly squaring his shoulders, the lines of his face are hard--but his eyes are nothing but filled with hollow grief, complete with the first bright shine of tears.
"For the record--not that it matters," he begins quietly, soft with a very genuine, very defeated gentleness, "Jean's role in the organization of the levy plan I gave you was obfuscated at their request. They came to me with a very noble idea to protect this community, and so well put together I was dazzled...and they absolutely refused to take credit for it. Refused to lead, refused any sort of--of merit for helping, and do you know why? They were the one fearful that their association with that tosser at the Occularum would prejudice you. They were making a sacrifice, one I understood, and I gave them that note knowing you would be cross with me for not asking permission. For imposing upon you with the request of a favor I asked for someone I owed a sacrifice to. I thought that sacrifice I was making was an imposition--not an accusation of exploiting the woman I love like she means nothing to me."
He pauses, and only then does the briefest flicker of anger rise in his eyes before dying again.
"I've done a lot of things for and to the people I love. I've killed, lied, and betrayed all I stand for to save them. I've been responsible for their deaths, not once but twice. But what you're accusing me of right now...I've never done that. Not now. Not ever."
And Ianto needs to find a way to get away from this, or he's going to hit the kind of spiral he hasn't touched since he first started seeing Jack--the one that had him at the Ferret on the regular, the kind that had him considering the unspeakable.
no subject
Date: 2024-02-05 09:54 pm (UTC)He doesn't get it. And the distance she worked so hard to close feels freshly wedged open.
"Oh, how noble of you." Her voice is cold with rage. "I'm so glad that you felt that sparing your little friend from the reprocussions of the reputation of the person THEY CHOSE to allign themself with was a good enough reason to undercut my feelings and my agency by doling out fucking coupons. You must think me incredibly childish, to think that I'd just let my feelings about Neil West cause me to leave my neighbors to suffer. I didn't even have to know it was them! You could have just respected me enough to come to me and say, 'Hey, Dahl, some people trying to protect the town need some financial aid, can you help?' But clearly you didn't think I'd do that for whatever reason and just started throwing around promises on my behalf without asking using half-baked bullshit like THIS."
Her voice echoes strangely through the empty halls of her home as she crescendos to a yell, ripping up the letter. The sound is almost otherworldly, and she doesn't sound like herself anymore. Tears stream down her face, bitter and hurt.
"And it would have been so easy for you to just listen to me, telling you that you’d hurt me and fucking apologizing, but goddess forbid you take accountability for this and tell me you're sorry you made me feel USED! No, no, you have to stand there looking like a FUCKING tin soldier telling me how you were RIGHT to do this to me, how this pain you've caused me is a kindness. Well I'm not your fucking bargaining chip, so if you trust Jean so much more than you trust me, then go stay with them."
She throws the paper fragments at Ianto, turns on her heel, and storms off into a room whose door she slams. Then she slumps against the door and weeps.
no subject
Date: 2024-02-05 10:42 pm (UTC)He has a thousand times a thousand words to say, to explain...he can't utter a one. He can't see the point, can't find any meaning in betraying queen, country, and friendship for Lisa--betraying the man he loved for the woman he loved.
He sold his soul so many times--it's not like he has one left to lose.
It's a good ten minutes, standing there, before he can muster the wherewithal to rip a page from his notebook and scribble a note, then stalk up to the door she slammed behind her. He crouches, can hear her tears...
He folds the note very deliberately, and raises his voice just loud enough to be heard.
"Jane. Japhet. Alice. Emily."
The names she'd rattled off that first night on the beach, as they remembered their dead together.
"Oscar. Violet. Henry. Jasper. Samuel."
"...I don't expect you to remember all of those names, but... It's nice to speak of them again."
"Adelaide. Esther. Abel. Harriet. Jonah."
"...I shall remember...It's important to know you'll be remembered--it's the only kind of true immortality."
He shoves the note under the door, then lays his hand against the wood.
"...Dahlia."
Because he's convinced that, to her, he's dead now--but she isn't. Not to him.
Not ever.
Ianto leaves without notifying anyone in the house. If she chooses to read the note, it simply says:
I never said I was right. I know I'm not right. All I gave was a reason. And I know that it doesn't matter, but I AM sorry.
This won't mean anything to you, but every one of them--I would steal them back from the universe for you if I could. And I shall spend the rest of time, tortured unto madness with the agony of a broken heart.
I love you.
If I don't belong to you, I belong to no one.
no subject
Date: 2024-02-06 12:05 am (UTC)She spends a long time wondering if he really understands why it hurt. But emotions are high... Maybe both of them need time to cool their heels. If he wants to leave a note and disappear, that's his prerogative. He knows Dahlia's too ill to go chasing him. So she'll wait. Or she'll attend another Merrymeet alone. Not like it matters.
Well, she told him she'd disappoint him eventually. Not like he wasn't warned.
Spent and numb, she peels herself off the floor and trudges off to bed.