Work Text:
“Iago?”
Corrin did that thing where she entered the room, then knocked after she’d already entered, completely defeating the purpose of knocking in the first place. Iago had forced himself to get used to it, however; privacy was apparently a foreign concept to Corrin’s mismatched assembly of wayward soldiers and vagabonds.
“Yes, Corrin?” He supressed the urge to sigh like the most put-upon man in the world, though he often felt like it. Corrin would simply take it as a challenge upon herself to root out his problem and solve it, like she did with everyone else.
“It’s getting kind of late,” she said as she closed the door behind her. Most of the army slept in tents, and when on a march, Iago was known to do so as well, but in Corrin’s strange otherworldly palace—thing—there was thankfully enough room in the barracks for him to have his own private study. “I noticed a light under the door, and…”
“…and felt that instead of letting me get through the important work I obviously must do, you’d bother me about it instead?”
Corrin flinched as soon as he said it, and he flinched too. Once he wouldn’t have thought twice about being so snide with Corrin, but now he was… trying to do better. (With her, at least; everyone else could go rot for all he cared.)
“…my apologies. I didn’t mean that. I’m just—”
“Tired?”
She was practically right next to him now, and he hadn’t even noticed, which made him realize exactly how exhausted he was. He rubbed his eyes vigorously with the heels of his hands.
“You’ve hardly left your desk in three days. Only to eat and bathe, and even then, you’ve rushed those two things as much as possible.” Corrin carefully looked at his desk to make sure she wasn’t going to knock anything over, then sat on the edge. “You’re either sleeping in here, which is terrible for your body since you don’t even have a cot—or you haven’t slept at all. What kind of work could be so important?”
Iago tensed up, and his lip curled by reflex. If that had come from anyone else, he would have thought it was a dig—after all, he wasn’t a general or advisor or even a tactician any longer. He was just… Iago, a member of an army he didn’t approve of and which was filled with people who didn’t approve of him either. But Corrin wasn’t that sort of person. If she did want to say something nasty to someone, she was quite direct about saying it… and that was rare enough.
“Our foe is virtually unknown to any of us,” Iago replied, waving his quill about. “To give ourselves an advantage, or even to rid ourselves of our disadvantage, the enemy needs to be studied. And since most of your army interprets that as ‘swing a sword at enemy after enemy’, it falls to someone more intelligent to research possible origins, analyze strategies and equipment, and just generally study the enemy forces. Without doing so, we might as well all be charging into battle wearing blindfolds.”
Corrin was nodding as he spoke, and looking over his files. He’d been making notes and diagrams for days now, and as Corrin said, he’d hardly paused to eat, never mind sleep. Not that he was new to the practice; under King Garon’s employ, spending days at a time working without pause was common. He couldn’t say he found the practice enjoyable… especially when he wasn’t doing it for Garon’s sake… but he was used to it.
“You’ve done all of this?” Corrin sound awed. She reached for a stack of files, and glanced up at him looking for his permission to go through his things. He nodded, and she picked up the papers and started looking through them with a serious look on her face. If he didn’t know how much Xander, Gunter, and Leo had drilled her battlefield and tactical studies into her head, he would have never suspected she could understand it all.
She was silent with concentration as she made her way through most of his work. At first, he tried to get back to what he’d been doing, but having her sitting there on his desk was rather… distracting. So he fiddled, and pretended to work, and occasionally cast a glance at Corrin reading out of the corner of his eye.
(Well—occasionally might have been. Generous. Amazing how hard one woman could focus on a piece of parchment...)
When she was finished, she sat there for a moment with the papers in her lap, obviously processing the information.
“This is… really impressive. I can see why Fa—why King Garon kept you so close at hand.” She handed him back his papers, and he put them aside where they belonged, so as to not get them mixed up. “You’ve gotten all of that from the few times we’ve fought them?”
“I’ve spent a lifetime trying to adapt tactics and army movements from behind the lines. Some might call it cowardice, but no matter how intelligent you are, there are things you’ll always miss from the front lines.”
“I’m impressed! Though I probably shouldn’t be surprised. But…”
“But?” He raised an eyebrow at Corrin.
“But just because your work is really impressive, doesn’t mean you can go without sleep,” Corrin said, putting a hand on his shoulder. It felt heavy—and it was likely that was only proving Corrin’s point, whether he could admit it or not. “Come on. You’ll still be smart in the morning. Right now you need to relax and try to get some sleep.”
Her hand slid down from his shoulder and came to rest on top of his own. She intertwined her fingers with his and slid off the desk, tugging him by the arm towards the door.
He wanted to argue with her. He wanted to say he didn’t need the sleep more than the army needed his knowledge. But he knew Corrin well enough by this point to know she wasn’t going to take no for an answer—and frankly, he was too tired to argue.
“Corrin?”
He stepped into their room without knocking. Almost as an afterthought, he knocked on the back of the door after he had already shut it behind him.
“Mnn…?” Corrin raised her head from her ornate desk. Her hair was mussed and her crown was askew.
“If you’re going to fall asleep anyway, you’d be better off doing so in a bed, hm?” He strode right up to the desk and leaned his hip against the edge.
“Iago…?” Corrin turned to look at him, finally acknowledging his presence. Her eyes were glazed over and there was sleep crust around her tear ducts.
“Very observant, Your Majesty.” Either she chose to ignore his sarcastic comment, or she was too tired to have noticed it. It was hard to tell sometimes.
“Did I…?” She yawned, cutting herself off. Iago sighed.
He reached out and brushed his knuckles against her cheek. Her eyes slid shut and she leaned into his touch, making several indistinct sleepy noises.
“Go to bed, Corrin,” he said, brushing a stray curl out of her face. “There will still be a kingdom for you to resurrect when you wake up.”
“But there’s just—so much—” She gestured feebly to her desk, which was piled with paperwork. There were maps, city planning diagrams, and a wide variety of history and political texts. Her papers were scattered around from where she’d been lying on them while falling asleep. There were faint markings on her cheek, like some of the ink had rubbed off onto her skin. Even he had to find it adorable.
“I’ll take some of this off your hands,” he offered. “The rest of it can wait until morning. After all, a very wise woman once told me—just because your work is very impressive, doesn’t mean you can go without sleep.”
“…you think I’m wise?”
Damn. He’d been hoping she was too tired to really pick up on that. Oh well.
“Would I put up with you otherwise?”
“Dodging the question. But I’ll let it slide this time.” She yawned and stretched, slumping against her seat in a very unladylike fashion. “I really should finish a bit more of this before I go to bed…”
“You have that right. But I also have the right to let Lady Azura know what you’ve been up to.” He couldn’t help but smile, and not in a particularly nice way, as Corrin sat bolt upright like she’d been shocked.
“Bed! Right, bed. Have to get plenty of sleep so I can rule a kingdom!” She jumped up from her seat—too fast, apparently, because she swayed on her feet. Iago reached out and put an arm around her shoulders.
“Is Lady Azura really more terrifying than me?” he asked as he guided her towards the door. Thankfully walking was still a possibility, though it was more stumbling than anything.
“Much more,” Corrin replied, leaning against him. He would have stumbled if not for his many instances of practice. “You’re a big teddy bear.”
“Clearly you are sleep deprived.” He put an arm around her waist and ushered her towards the bedroom. He had trouble getting the door open, but wrangling Corrin into bed was much easier; he took off her crown and set it aside, but didn’t bother helping her out of her dress or into her night clothes; a rumpled dress would be a problem for the people who laundered her clothes, not for him.
He moved towards the door, only to hear Corrin sit up in bed behind him.
“You’re not coming to bed?”
“I told you I’d take some of that work off your hands,” Iago replied. “And I’ve slept these past few days. Relax and go to sleep, Corrin.”
He slipped into the hall and shut the door behind him, then made his way back to the office where he had found her.
Time for the King-Consort of Valla to pull his own weight, he supposed…