for Ianto

[iwasmore]

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."

Comments

[tw3_ianto_jones]

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.