iwasmore | for Ianto

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noah doesn't understand boundaries

for Ianto

Noah's visiting Blue at Chelsea Cloisters. She seems to prefer switching back and forth between here and Hywel, and they'd had a fun evening just hanging out and catching up with each other. As he's leaving he hears a sound of distress and stops in the middle of the hallway. He gets a glimpse of someone being strangled. His mouth falls open and he disappears, reappearing where he feels the source of whatever's happening.

It's someone's bedroom, dark and cool and quiet. No one's being strangled, nothing's going on at all. The person in bed, a man, is tossing restlessly, but clearly asleep despite the little sounds he's making. Noah's reminded of Al, the way he'd had nightmares so awful he sometimes fell out of bed altogether.

He didn't know this person, but maybe it would be a favor to pull him out of his bad dreams.

Noah makes himself faded and ghostlike, the way he looked before the spell, and sits gingerly on the edge of the person's bed. He presses a cool hand to the man's forehead like a compress and whispers, "Shhh. It's okay."

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The dreams feel so real, like they're something that really happened to him, a suppressed memory. Ianto's had these nightmares several times since he's been in Darrow. Sometimes they're the same as they were before, girls he doesn't remember, faces that are too clear to be unreal, and sometimes, now, they're people from here, Molly, Nikita, Demelza, sometimes even men, people he won't name, even in his own head.

Tonight he sees one of the unnamed women from before. She's walking alone in the rain, hurrying under her umbrella. He's walking behind her, quiet, trench coat pulled up around his face. She stops beneath a street light, glancing behind her, and he steps into the shadows, creeping up until he's close enough to strike.

He catches her from behind and she screams, dropping her umbrella. He drive her back against the wet brick, his fingers squeezing around her throat, and she gasps, clawing at his arms uselessly. Her eyes are wide, begging him to stop, but he won't, he never does, watching her face as the skin goes blue, her lips pale. She's dying beneath his touch, and he watches, unable to stop himself, his heart pounding in his chest.

And then someone's touching him, a hand on his forehead, and he gasps and he comes awake suddenly. He's forgotten where he is, his eye wide and wild, and he looks up, seeing someone sitting at his bedside, not quite there, like an apparition.

"Wh-wha, who?" he asks, panicking a little, his breath rushing out of him.

Noah leans closer, looks down at the man, his wide, blue eyes unblinking. But his hand is gentle, and he smiles reassuringly.

"I won't hurt you," he says in the same hushed voice. "I could hear you dreaming. It's okay, now, it wasn't real."

He keeps himself pale and ghost-like for now; the idea of a ghost haunting him in the middle of the night might be easier to swallow than someone breaking into his apartment.

Ianto blinks, and he feels like he's awake, it really seems like he is, but he can't explain this etherial presence beside him, not really visible, but able to touch him. He swallows, his heart beat slowing.

"You could hear me?" he asks, and he wants to sit, but for now he stays laying down, looking up at the person (being?) next to him. "Am I awake now?"

"I think so," Noah said lightly, moving his palm from the man's forehead to touch the back of his hand from the man's cheek. He seemed to have calmed down some, so Noah moved his hand away entirely, but stayed perched on the bed.

"What's your name?"

The touches are nice, gentle, and they feel a lot more solid that Ianto's brain think they should. It's calming, even though he should be freaking out, having a spirit in his room. Maybe he's not sure he is awake now, or he's just seen enough in his life to take things at face value. Either way, he doesn't worry about how placid he feels.

"I'm Ianto," he says, his breathing easy and normal now, only the last strings of memories from the dreams remain. "Who are you?"

"Noah. I'm a ghost. I'm not haunting you or anything," he adds, not wanting to scare Ianto. He runs his fingers lightly through Ianto's hair, the way he knows soothes Krem. "I was visiting my friend."

Ianto can't help the way his eyes flutter closed when Noah runs his fingers through his hair, and it feels cool but warm at the same time, perfectly soothing. "I've never met a ghost," he murmurs as he opens his eyes again.

"I didn't think you'd be able to touch one," he says, a little curious as to why he's not afraid, having a ghost touching him. It's actually very pleasant, and Ianto sighs at how calm he feels.

"Not all ghosts are alike," Noah said. He hovered over Ianto, smiling down at him, and then disappeared, reappearing a moment later on the other side of his bed. When he reappeared, he made himself look solid and alive again, warm and flesh-colored. He was still pale, but that couldn't be helped.

"You can touch me," he offered, holding out his human looking hand. He made sure it was warm now, not cool.

Ianto watched, his mouth falling open softly, as Noah disappeared and reappeared, then became more opaque, looking almost human. When Noah offered his hand, Ianto reached out to touch it and it felt like touching anyone else, warm and soft.

"Does it hurt?" he found himself asking. "Being a ghost?"

"No," Noah said, smiling faintly. "It used to be scary, but not anymore."

It felt a little awkward, sitting over Ianto, so he moved to his stomach, laying down instead. He folded his legs, ankles crossed, and looked across the bed at Ianto.

"Do you want to talk about your dreams?"

The way Noah talks about it, Ianto wonders if he's been a ghost for a long time. He certainly seems resigned about his fate, and Ianto has a lot of questions he'd love to ask, about dying and what comes after, but that seems very rude. Especially considering Noah came here to help him.

He curls onto his side so he can see Noah better, blinking at his soft, kind face.

"I've had this nightmare a few times in the last few months," he says. "They started before I came here, but only just. And I... I don't know what they mean," he goes on , trying not too think too hard about the images in his head. They're so awful.

"I'm... Hurting people. Women, mostly, but sometimes others. And they're always helpless, and I'm just..." He takes a breath, his eyes moving away for a moment before he turns them back to Noah's face. "I want to hurt them. That's all I want."

That does sound awful, definitely not any dream Noah would want to have, either. He's far from a psychologist, and he doesn't know if dreams really do mean something, but it bothers Ianto and he doesn't seem like a malicious person at all.

"It's not something that happened in real life?" he asks, reaching out to touch Ianto's hand. "Or maybe something you saw? It could just have been from a movie. I snuck the Nightmare on Elm Street movies when I was a kid, and I had nightmares for months about Freddy chasing me."

"I don't remember seeing any movies like that," Ianto says, sighing at the comfort that comes with Noah's touch. "And I've never hurt anyone myself. Not that I remember," he adds, and he wishes that he could trust his own memory, but he knows he can't, not with the way Torchwood administers memory altering drugs. For all he knows he could have hurt those girls but he just doesn't remember it.

"I'm not a bad person," Ianto says after a moment, his voice quavering a little. "I know I'm not. But I feel like, like it's real."

Ianto seems to relax some from his touch, so Noah gently holds his hand. He tilts his head to the side. "What's Torchwood? If they did mess with your memories, it could be something you're suppressing. Maybe not something you did," he's quick to say, not wanting to upset Ianto further. "Maybe something you saw."

Ianto's confused at first how Noah knows Torchwood, but then he remembers that Noah had read his dreams before. He must have gotten Torchwood from Ianto's mind as well.

"Torchwood is where I worked," he tells Noah. "We investigated strange occurrences, aliens, people who ended up in the wrong time, demons," he tries to explain, never quite sure how to put it. "But not murderers," he adds softly. "Not regular human murderers."

He takes a breath. "Sometimes I wonder if there's a way to see if it is in my memory," he tells Noah, his voice shaking a little. "But then I'm afraid I'll learn something I don't want to remember."

Okay, so it was like The X-Files. A lot of shady and crazy stuff happened in that show, and Noah still doesn't want to think too hard about the whole fictional thing, but if it's an agency looking into weird things, memory tweaking didn't sound outside the realm of possibilities.

"Maybe it's your mind's way of processing things you have seen," Noah offers as another possibly explanation. "Isn't that what they say dreaming is about? Maybe you've seen so many things, that's how it's working through it."

"Maybe," Ianto replies, but it feels to real to be the kind of thing he was used to seeing, too human. Still, the only other explanation is that he did kill those girls, the ones he sees in his nightmares most of the time, and he can't believe he could do that. He's never wanted to hurt anyone in his life, even to the point of letting himself be hurt instead.

"You're probably right," he tells Noah, smiling softly. "I don't know why I can't have nice dreams sometimes," he goes on, fiddling with the hem of his blanket. "I can't remember the last good one I've had."

"I'm sorry," Noah says softly, giving Ianto's hand a squeeze. He seems to be surrounded by insomniacs and friends who struggle with things like this. Darrow seems to draw a lot of people who have lived hard lives to it. "I know too many people plagued by nightmares. I wish I had some kind of ghost trick to help."

"You have helped," Ianto replies, grateful in that moment to have Noah's hand in his, a grounding gesture. "You woke me from that nightmare, talked with me."

He takes a breath, giving Noah a soft smile. "I feel a lot better, actually," he says, and he means it. "I've not told anyone else about that dream before. It feels good to get it off my chest a little." He pauses, squeezing Noah's hand back. "Thank you, Noah."

"You're welcome," Noah says just as softly as before, smiling warmly like he's received the biggest compliment. Now that he's gotten a second chance at life, he's found he really likes to help people.

"Do you want to try to sleep again? I can stay, if you want."

"Would you mind?" Ianto asks, feeling a bit childish for wanting to take Noah up on his offer, but the idea of having someone here with him until he falls asleep again is too comforting to reject out of hand. "I don't want to keep you, and you've done so much already, but I think it would help, having you here."

"I wouldn't," Noah says with a gentle smile. He's done so for Al, and Ronan, and even for Krem (though, that's different). Even now, after the spell, he doesn't need as much sleep as humans, so he's okay to stay up and watch over someone having nightmares.

He tucks himself in next Ianto, snuggling instead of holding hands. "Just relax, close your eyes, and think of something nice."

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