Work Text:
he first time Ivory hears it is by accident. It’s the afternoon, just after lunch. It’s one of those fall days where the weather turns and it’s warm like summer again. She expects Pyro to be in the study with his siblings, like he normally is this time of day. She figures that since it’s warmer today, it would be good to open the windows in his room for a few hours.
Pyro’s constitution isn’t the best. He’s always falling ill with something or another, and sicknesses that last only a few days for the rest of the family have him laid up for a week. Clown said that trying to keep him well is an important part of her job. Fresh air will do him good.
She knocks before she enters, even though she expects the room to be empty. It’s the right thing to do. Nobody answers, so she lets herself in. His bed is made, the way he always does it when he wakes up. She’ll redo it anyway. Also, his bathroom door is closed. He normally keeps it open when not in use. It’s not important, though. She goes to the first window and flips the latch that holds it shut. It makes a clunk! sound. She pushes it open, pulls back the curtains, and ties them open.
She’s halfway to the second widow when she hears it. A soft choking sound. It’s so quiet that it might have been her imagination. She freezes, waiting to see if it happens again. There’s a cough, a splutter, and another heaving sound. It’s coming from behind the closed bathroom door.
Oh. So Pyro’s sick again.
Immediately, her muscles tense. She thought he wasn’t in here. She’s not supposed to disturb him when he’s in his room. Does that still apply if he’s sick? Does he want privacy or does he want her help? How is she supposed to know? Is she going to get in trouble for listening in on him like this?
Her heart pounds. She’s stuck, like a deer in headlights. She doesn’t know what to do, whether to knock on the door or not. Pyro heaves again and there’s a sickening wet sound. Still, she stands stock still, any words or action frozen in her chest. What should I do? What’s the right answer?
Then it comes to her. The window latch. She flipped it, and the noise it made definitely would have been audible to Pyro. He knows she’s here. That changes the calculations going on in her head. He’d probably be less mad if she announced herself. She shouldn’t just leave now that he knows she’s here. He might not like it, but that’s less likely than the other options. This eases some of the tension collected along her spine. At least she has an optimal path of action, at least she knows what she should do.
So she tries to calm the hammering in her chest, and knocks on the bathroom door. “Sir Pyro? Are you alright?” she asks behind the closed door. She hears him cough, sniff, and clear his throat.
“Yes, Ivory. I’m fine,” he says. His voice is hoarse, but she can tell he’s trying to sound better than he is. There’s a pause, then he adds: “Please leave me be.”
Oh. She got it wrong, he doesn’t want her here. “O-oh. Ok-okay,” she stammers. “Okay. I’m s-s-sorry.” She bites her lip. “I’ll g-go now, sir.” Her nerves spike again. She doesn’t know why she’s so nervous. She turns on her heel and exits, heart speeding and head spinning. As she’s shutting the bedroom door behind her, she realizes she never even opened the second window.
What a waste.
She huffs. It would be best to make herself useful. She hurries down the hallway, looking for something to busy herself with. She spends the rest of the afternoon doing things that need to be done around the estate. She does Pyro’s laundry, then Zombie’s, then her own. She has time to think, during these hours in the sweltering, humid, thrumming energy of the laundry room.
Eventually, someone knocks on the door frame. She looks up. It’s Serapter, standing in the doorway. “Dinner time,” he announces. She pulls her hands out of the wash tub where she’s been scrubbing her clothes. They are slick with laundry soap. Her clothes are… almost clean, anyway. It’s close enough. She’ll just hang them up for now and finish them later. She nods, dries her hands, hangs her clothes on the line, and follows Serapter to the servant’s kitchen.
She isn’t in the mood for dinner, but she’s required to attend, so there’s no point trying to avoid it. She and Serapter each take a plate from the cook. Ivory stands with it in her hands, anxiously. She never knows where to sit, at moments like these. Serapter sits down without a care. He catches her eye, and nods his head towards the seat next to him. She sits there, grateful to him for the reassurance. Serapter digs in, chattering to her about one thing or another.
She stares at her plate, half-listening to him. Fish and bread. Simple, exactly what she expects. She isn’t hungry. It’s not a problem. She’s never hungry. She just eats what is expected of her, when it is expected of her. That’s why she likes the maid gig. It’s predictable. People tell her what to do.
But tonight, she feels different. She doesn’t touch the food in front of her. She isn’t sure why. The thought of it makes her nerves jangle again. She doesn’t want to feel anxious. Eating would make her feel anxious. So it’s simple. She just won’t. She picks at it, nodding along to Serapter’s story. He doesn’t seem to notice. She’s glad. She doesn’t feel like explaining it to him. She can barely explain it to herself.
When dinner is over, she scrapes off her plate and prepares to go find Pyro. On her way to Pyro’s room, she quietly passes by the dining room. She doesn’t mean to spy, but she can’t help but peek in. She sees exactly what she expects. The family, eating dinner. The Hemlocke children laugh and chatter to each other. Sir Zombie is quiet. Pyro’s place is set, but he isn’t there. It is untouched. That isn’t particularly uncommon. He does this somewhat frequently. Ivory sighs. He must still not feel well.
When she reaches his room, she knocks. He bids her enter, and she goes about doing everything she normally does. Pyro doesn’t say a word. He’s lying on his side on his bed, reading a book. Ivory doesn’t say anything either. He looks like he isn’t in the mood to talk. She runs his bath per normal, and lays his pajamas over the back of his desk chair.
Pyro is ignoring her. She steps into his line of sight and clears her throat. “Do you need anything else?” she asks.
Pyro looks up from his book. He hasn’t turned the page the entire time she’s been in here. He shakes his head. “No. I’m alright.”
Ivory thinks for a moment. She ought to bring up what she saw. She doesn’t want to, because he seems to be in a mood, but she knows she has to. “I s-saw that you weren’t at dinner. If you are hungry later, I can- I can get you something to eat.”
Pyro casts his gaze out the window. He closed it while she was gone. “That won’t be necessary,” he mumbles.
“Sir, are you sick?” she asks.
He sighs, annoyed. “No, Ivory.”
Her instructions are in conflict again. He doesn’t want to talk about it, but Clown told her to look after his health. Which one is right? She decides she will give it one more try. “Were you throwing up earlier?” she asks meekly.
“I wasn’t,” he states. She doesn’t know what to do with that. She knows he is lying. She knows what she heard. But she can’t press him on it. He is her employer, after all.
She nervously looks at a spot just over his shoulder. “I-I thought I heard-”
She must have said something very wrong, because Pyro does something he’s never done before. His face twists in anger, and he scowls. She reels back. “Drop it, Ivory,” he growls. He glares up at her from where he sits on his bed. He looks almost small. Still, Ivory’s heart seizes in fear. “It’s none of your business,” he spits. She immediately regrets having pushed him. He’s normally so… lenient with her, and she’s using that leniency to invade his privacy.
Subconsciously, she trembles. “Okay. I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean t-t-to… pry. I’ll g-go now, Sir.” She ducks her head and steps back.
“Go,” Pyro says, as she hurriedly leaves. His voice is thready. She shuts the door and exhales, trying to get her breathing under control. She stumbles down the hallway, trying to get herself under control. She’s panicking. She hopes nobody sees her. She hyperventilates and pants, her vision starting to grey out at the edge. She can’t get enough air.
She isn’t sure how, but she finds herself back in her dorm, curled up in the bottom of her closet. She’s lightheaded and her eyes sting, but at least she can breathe again. The darkness is reassuring. She’s enclosed, and safe. She presses her hands into her eyes, telling herself that she’s alright. She- she shouldn’t have tried to press Pyro. That’s why he got mad at her. She just… won’t do it again. No problem. She’s fine.
What time is it? It was evening when she spoke to Pyro, so it must be later. She pushes open the closet door and looks around. Luckily, Serapter isn’t there. Thank god. She doesn’t think she could deal with explaining herself to him. She doesn’t bother to wonder where he is. Her eyelids are growing heavy. Whenever she panics, she always finds herself exhausted. She feels as heavy as a stone, as if it has magically been turned into a person. She shuffles to her bunk and falls in. She doesn’t notice that she’s still in her day uniform. All she thinks about is sleep.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
He isn’t sure why he does it. He knows it harms him.
His body is already weak. It doesn’t need the extra harm he does to it. Ever since his childhood, he’s been prone to illness. Once, he’d nearly died of scarlet fever, but none of his siblings even caught it. His whole life, he’s occasionally and unpredictably been taken up into fits of pain. He wakes with fire in his throat and a weight sitting on his chest. His joints stab with pain, as if he were a metal wire bent into the shape of a human being. He can’t bear any noise over a whisper, and anything he eats is seen again in a matter of hours. He spends these days sitting in the dark, in his room, shaking his way through hours spent alone.
Over the years, his constant illness had become a source of whispers in the household. Whispers between his siblings, telling each other to make sure they check on him. Whispers between the cooks, saying to make him something that would be gentle on his roiling stomach. Whispers between the servants, saying that they might need to fetch the doctor once again.
So no, he doesn’t need any more sickness in his life.
So why?
That’s the question he asks himself that evening, once Ivory has gone. He had listened to her rasping breath out in the hallway, as she left. He hadn’t meant to be so mean to her. He knows she’s sensitive.
She simply hasn’t yet figured out that he doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t talk about it to anyone. Not to his siblings, not to Mysti. It’s something best kept to himself. His siblings, against his will, have figured out that he doesn’t like to eat in front of other people. He says “against his will,” but really, there never was any chance of hiding that. Not when he keeps not showing up for meals, not when the servants know to have a snack ready for him if he can’t bring himself to attend.
They think he’s simply anxious about it.
And, if he plays his cards right, that is what they will continue to think.