Chapter Text
Till stumbles through the door as soon as Ivan unlocks the knob, toeing his kicks off. The light switch meets his fingertips with the ease of a memorized second home.
Ivan leaves his keys on a hook near the corkboard, and makes his way towards the kitchen cupboards. He deals with the food while Till makes his way up to Ivan’s room, still playing the role of a guest to be respected because it's hard not to take advantage of Ivan’s learned mannerisms. It's especially funny when he's trying to make a good impression on someone with authority, and Till can subtly drive his fingers into Ivan’s ticklish flanks.
Till is situated on a wheeled office chair that he dragged over to the foot of Ivan’s bed, when Ivan swings open the door while carrying three baggies.
“Do you want cheese or caramel? Actually, there's barbeque flavor here too.”
“You know I don't like popcorn.”
“Yeah, but it'd be hard to get fresh corn on the cob. They're all at the market at this hour.”
“Cheese it is.” Till says, muffled into the pillow he picked from Ivan’s bed. It was filled with feathers as if it were from a cartoon. “Or just go to the market and buy me some.”
“Not a chance.” Ivan throws a bag of popcorn into his lap, it's one of those air contained ones in plastic packaging. “You'll try and read my diary again, won't you?”
An involuntary shudder crawls up Till’s spine. “Like hell. It was a mistake ever even trying to take a peek at what goes on in that fucked up head of yours.”
Ivan shrugs, dragging an extra pillow to Till’s feet and rests the back of his head on his knee when he sits between his legs. “We all learn our lessons somehow.”
“I still don't understand what a person has to go through to be as much of a creep as you are. That thought process you have should be a crime in itself enough to have you locked up for half your lifespan. It's far from a regular human being’s.”
“Are you saying I'm special?”
Till rips into the plastic bag. The scent of artificial cheese makes his mouth water. “More like abnormal.”
Ivan laughs like he thought Till wasn't a 100% serious, knocking his head between his knees as he produced the remote and clicks open the television. Because of course Ivan had a TV in his room as if he'd watch anything but Hell’s Kitchen and K-Pop music videos on his own. It's even Till’s account logged into the TV’s YouTube, so his Watch For Later playlist is just filled with Ivan’s trash commentary videos. When Till opens up his youtube, he'll see the most random shit. From PoopaPalooza: the Reddit user that changed r/feetloversclub forever to ASMR clay cracking Plants vs. Zombies 5 HOURS COMPILATION
Till’s too lazy to go through the motions of pressing buttons on the remote to remove his account from Ivan’s TV. He goes through his history sometimes just to see what else Ivan watches, and it's mostly just single person choreography tutorials of trending songs and holy shit how did Till not realize Ivan was gay all along? What straight guy would practice choreo to Megan Thee Stallion?
Is Till stupid? He might be stupid. The popcorn tastes bitter on his tongue, and he suddenly wants to take out his frustation on the tiny flyaway in Ivan’s hair and yank it out. That's exactly what he does.
“Yeowch.” Ivan says, rubbing the top of his head. Score!
Till hooks his socked feet into the give of Ivan’s stomach, sinking into it and gently rubbing at the area for warmth. For some reason, there were no further quips from Ivan at this point. Silent as he clicked on the remote.
The movie begins to play out Garfield’s origins. A kitten seemingly abandoned by what is supposedly his father in the pelting rain. Garfield meets Jon, gives him trouble, and ends up coming home with him. Two lonely souls found one another that night. Till nearly tears up over baby Garfield 2024. Horror movies rarely get any reaction out of him, but a 7+ age rating kids movie having a dramatic scene touches his soft heart with ease.
Ivan’s query breaks him out of Garfield’s magnetic focus. “Do you think Garfield’s backstory as a poor, stray kitten justifies him?”
Till raises his brow. “Justifies his what?”
“His slothfulness, gluttony for lasagna, general ungratefulness to Jon and Odie despite them being his family.”
“Were you even watching the movie? Literally one of the first scenes is Garfield taking care of Jon by putting him in bed when he fell asleep.”
Ivan hums, low and quiet. His features are lit up by the dancing light of the television, surely. Till would know if he'd just turn his neck. He doesn't. Though, he's not quite sure why that is. Maybe Ivan was, like, testing him or some shit. Not just on Garfield.
“I agree,” Till watches the colorful hint of a vein underneath Ivan’s pearly wrist when he reaches over to nab popcorn out of his lap. “It's those aspects of him that make him spoiled, but undeniably lovable and relatable. He's a fat, round cat with a hatred for Mondays. He's got a bit of a tsundere streak. The general audience mirrors Garfield, so maybe that's why he's so loved.”
Impatience licks into his emotions. Till’s had just about enough of Ivan’s weirdo behavior and riddled way of conversing, when he snapped his neck to glare at him—Ivan was already looking straight at him by craning his neck to look above. His squinted, calculating expression directed right at Till, making him feel bare to his soul.
With his pulsating heart stuck in the constriction of his throat, Till barely manages to choke it out. “What's with you and Garfield today, anyway?”
And this guy must really be a fan of Garfield, because his cheeks pinken under the soft light framing his jaw.
“Because I lied,” Ivan’s pupils are dilated as fuck. “Jon isn't my favorite. It's Garfield who is. I like how he's loving in his own, cat-like way, where he'll deny affection but give it on his own terms as if it embrassess him.”
Till had no idea Ivan was such a super fan. He moves his feet to kick against the plane of his back. Ivan takes this and moves to crawl onto his bed, now seeing him eye to eye. “I didn't realize you were that serious about Garfield.”
“Ever since we—uh, I was young. I just really like him.” Then Ivan does something weird; he reaches over and puts his hand over Till’s one at rest on the armchair. Fingers dancing along the spaces in between while the thumb caresses the knuckles. Like he's hinting at something that Till has yet to realize. Ivan’s muddled, half-wit riddles strike at the randomest times through their lives together.
Till feels his own face warm, ticklish. There's a lot of things he doesn't understand about Ivan, like the shit he does that makes Till feel confused. “Quit it. You're getting butter on my hand.”
“But earlier, you were putting your feet on my stomach just because you felt cold. You're unfair, Till.” Ivan’s hand flies away, and Till misses the warmth. He's got that smile on his face that almost looks vulnerable under the right light, the correct angle, the perfect slope of shadows across his face. Looking for cracks in Ivan’s perfected face is a losing battle, but it's fine when Till knows it all in the shape of his soul.
He doesn't really understand where Ivan is coming from. So, Till stands up and bridges the gap between them, settling his weight on the bed. The dip takes Ivan with him. Till used to think his watchful, red pupils were creepy. But it was actually Ivan himself who was creepy and hard to understand.
“What the hell do you want from me, Ivan?”
Till doesn't see so much of Ivan’s hands or expression, as he felt his touch. His long fingers curled into the hair from his nape that desperately needed a trim. His heartbeat thunders underneath every single one of his pulse points, so Till squeezes his eyes shut, afraid of seeing Ivan’s reaction on the off chance he'd feel it. Yet, with the bloodsucking predator he was, he could probably hear it in Till’s veins.
Was Till reading the room right?
Was this it? His big breakthrough? For all the nights he spent after his first time with his fingers snug deep inside himself, where he continued to flourish under Naughty Teen’s careful tutelage for weeks?
Ivan’s voice is reminiscent of bell chimes, alerting and cutting through the silence. “I don't want anything from you, Till. Nothing more than you to keep playing unfair, and doing what you want with me.”
Now what the hell was that supposed to mean?
Till’s hand presses into his face, the way it does when he's feeling some big, all consuming emotion he couldn't quite word in anything but musical notes on staff paper. There are far more sounds and beats that the body can make without the use of languages of the tongue.
An easy example would be the tune of Till’s beating heart, both quick or too slow and heavy but light—all things of many can be interpreted in a single sound; in the song it can create, within a harmonious cataclysm. In this way, it could also be considered as part of the arts.
Yet, Till has never felt so out of his element.
With his palms pressed against the hot blood under the skin of his face, Till shuts his eyes and groans.
“... I dunno what you're even saying half the time.”
If Till couldn't see him, maybe Ivan can just crawl into a hole and disappear. If Till can't see him, neither can Ivan. Except, Ivan is more of a Weeping Angel than a newborn that Till is trying to entertain by becoming invisible by hiding his face in his palms.
“Really?” He can feel his heartbeat in his throat when Ivan pipes up. “But, it seems like you wanted something from me. You’re acting like it.”
Ivan strikes. Till couldn't have been more vulnerable than he was now. His hands gently wrap around Till’s wrists and pries them apart. If Till lets him, would be information he'd bring with him to the afterlife.
An ounce of confidence eases Till into opening his eyes, but he can't quite look into Ivan’s own yet, looking far off into the side and anything but him. He fumbles his wrist out of one of Ivan’s hold and gently cradles it, pulling it up to feel the burning skin of his cheek. Ivan’s hand twitches, but Till’s own keeps it locked in place.
Still avoiding his gaze, Till does what is possibly the most embarrassing thing in his life, and places a kiss on Ivan’s thumb.
“Let's do… Like that. But with yours, too.”
Somehow, saying the word kiss felt even more mortifying than the action alone. Till hopes that what he did translated this to Ivan: I'm not lost! I totally know what I'm doing!
He hears Ivan huff, sounding nearly strained. And within the space of the fourth skip of his heartbeat and the seventh, Ivan kisses him.
Till feels the embers burn molten underneath his skin. All of his shy glances and hand written love letters through song and prose in middle school; everything he knew of love and flesh—smeared away with the press of Ivan’s lips against his. He learns that the stomach could never beat the heart when it comes to gluttony. It consumed him, wholly, down and lower and even further. Ivan’s tongue introduces itself between the teeth of Till’s panting mouth, channeling sparks of pleasure up his skull and making his face tingle with it.
The cavity in his chest beats a tune in his bloodstream, ears ringing in his empty head. It hurts, so he blindly grips for purchase at Ivan’s shirt and reels him closer. Hot against and all over him. Body heat, tongues and teeth; a delectable aphrodisiac.
Ivan’s hands, veins and calluses and the press of bone where the blanket of flesh thinned out, wandered up inside the shirt of his lower back. He scratches lightly, and Till feels so ticklish that he rocks his head back. Momentarily, Ivan’s single tooth caught on his plush bottom lip.
He looks down at him. The cooling sun shines its last few orange lights on the darkness of Ivan’s hair. He's almost pretty. His gaze is a little shy, pink in the cheeks until Till initiates the second kiss.
Clumsy and messy, teeth and spit; but Ivan rejoices in it all the same.
Yet—Till refuses to forget. He wants Ivan to ask for it. Blearily, he pushes himself away from Ivan’s caging hands and spit-slicked lips, and sits in front of him on the edge of the office chair he sat on earlier.
Labored breath, his skin sweating through the thin fabric of his uniform. Till can't even make fun of Ivan because it's a mix of his own and Ivan’s saliva in his mouth and he doesn't know if his thundering heart can take his tongue moving even the slightest inch, just to be assaulted with Ivan’s taste.
Ivan suddenly makes a move and leaps, ready to push his whole weight on him and cage Till on the imbalanced chair. Till’s instincts are crafted and honed for defense against Ivan’s natural predatory habits through the course of their juvenile lives, so, he lands a sharp kick on Ivan’s stomach that sends him back on his bed. The short distance between them is restored.
Ivan coughs from the pain, but he wipes the back of his hand over Till’s spit leaking from the corner of his lips and licks it up. Till would've found it more gross than he already did if Ivan hadn't had a phase where he insisted on dressing Till’s wounds just so he could keep the band-aids when Till was done using them.
But fuck that, honestly, because Till and Ivan just kissed. Twice. With tongue, too.
“... Where did you even learn that?” Till asks, genuine. His body is lightly slumped against the chair so he could bring his hips up and put his feet to the edges of the chair. A warning against Ivan's gaze that threatened to eat him alive.
“I looked it up. I read books. I watch porn—ones between males. But you must already know that, Till. Because you kissed me. You wouldn't have kissed me if you didn't know.”
Till pointedly ignores the last bit. His hands have started flicking at each other's nails, nervous. “I did know. But so did everyone else. They weren't even shocked about it while I thought of it like the world just exploded. Why's that?”
Ivan stares at him, humor in his eyes that doesn't quite reach the cruelty of his smile. “I wasn't trying to hide it. You just hadn't noticed, since you're stupid.”
“I'm not fucking stu—”
“Honestly, I never would've thought you'd find out at this point.” Ivan cuts him off. “So, what comes after this? You found out I'm gay which almost everyone at school and our neighbors know, I kissed you and you kissed me back. What now, Till?”
His voice was cool and detached in that practiced way he is, back straight and tall despite the sweat on his neck. Till would've had to be tied up and blindfolded to not notice the way his hands shook and toes curled in on themselves.
Ivan was giving him a choice, even when he was clearly barely holding it together himself. For what reason was beyond Till, but he could recognize any sort of rare kindness directed towards him. Especially from Ivan, who’s goodwill was as rare as sunshowers.
Till decides to spare him. He'll say what Ivan’s itching to say, because never once has Ivan struggled with his words on that silvered tongue of his. Not anymore.
He takes a deep breath, and spits out the damning sentence before his overworked embarrassment gets the better of him.
“Let's have gay sex.”
It isn't too common for Till to witness Ivan to turn sheepish. For just a moment, his practiced grin twists into something resembling a sneeze. Then, he stares at him concerningly, nose scrunched and lips tight—it then returns to Ivan’s default smile, if a little wonky. The most real emotion he's seen Ivan express for over five years.
Till wants him dead on fucking ground.
“You don't have to specifically say gay, since we're both men, it's implied well enough.”
“Shut up,” Till yells, “you don't even know anything!”
“Me?” Ivan chortles. “I think you mean you.”
“You assuming fuck. I've been researching! I know all about that anal shit.”
“Is it a competition you want to take the trophy in—anal sex, I mean? You couldn't possibly know—”
“Shut up,” Till repeats, smartly.
Obviously, Ivan doubles down. “So, the conclusion is that you want to use me to explore your bicuriousity.”
“Bicurious—what?” He sputters. “No, that's not it at all. What the hell? We're exploring your bicuriousity, not mine! And I'm not using you, I'm just suggesting because I know you wanna do it! You've just been too scared to say it.”
Ivan smiles. “I’m not bicurious, Till. I'm gay.”
“Then we're exploring your homosexuality, damn, who gives a shit? Go and get bricked up already.”
Ivan’s voice shakes. “Sure. Yes.”
A beat passes. The low whir of the air conditioner floats by.
“I don't see a tent, Ivan.”
“It's not as if I can do it on command. And this isn't exactly the sexiest situation.” Ivan gestures vaguely, at everything that's all around. At himself, then the paused screen of a fattened up Garfield and a distraught Jon. Not at Till, though.
“What do you want me to do about it? Should I strip—”
“Yes.”
“—And if you say yes, It’s a fucking joke. Ever heard of those before from whatever planet you came from?”
Ivan looks excited. “Since we'll be having… Doing this, you'll be naked before you know it.”
“Is that a threat?” Till snarls, pulling on the blazer top of his uniform and slamming it on the floor. He never typically wore the blazer of his uniform, but it's a cold February morning. He's only in his slacks, white button up, and gaudy tie dye shirt, now. Nothing Ivan’s never seen before. “There.”
Ivan’s eyes followed the discarded clothing, lingering. A visible tent grows between his thighs.
“Sexual implications.” He says, a little dazed.
As it always is with Ivan, Till feels like he's missing the focal point. “You get turned on by… Concepts?”
“Concepts that you masterfully turned into implications. The idea of your clothes on my bedroom floor brings many possibilities, oftentimes risque. In this case, it is.”
Till throws his sock at him. It hits Ivan square on the face, falling to his lap and near his erection. Suddenly, Till’s stomach twists with growing anxiety.
“Don't even think about it,” he warns. “Keep it a fucking concept.”
Ivan’s foot slams onto the edge of the chair between Till’s open thighs. Till does not shriek.
“Then, enough with this.” Ivan smiles despite the red staining his ear. “Give into me, please.”
And Till knows want. He's familiar with it like the pressure of chords cutting his fingertips. A human being’s true purpose is to want and to chase after it, the subject or the feeling itself. What Ivan wanted…
Yet, for Till, this was something else in its entirety. Bigger and larger, stretching over and under him—was a deep-seated desire. Guttural, coiling, viva voce in the confines of his flesh. Making itself home and known within every crack and foible.
A desire so felt, gentle but capable of being so much more if Till’s heart allows it. If Ivan were to push, prod a little more at his soul. He was the fix; an undeniable cure to the longing so ingrained in Till that he could feel it in his bones. Marked by the burn, melted and broken down in it, created malleable and rejuvenated.
He's barely able to get the jumble of words through the thickness of his tongue. “Come at me.”
Ivan does, never needing to be told twice to mess with Till. His body would react as if it were second nature when Till asks him so sweetly, eyes glazed over in wetness as it so often did if he were teased enough. Ivan loves it all, basks in Till’s open emotion, leeches off of him like some bloodsucking creature. He'd sink his teeth in him and make him sing.
Till never stopped being a bit of a crybaby, so a cry falls from his lips when Ivan pulls the collar of his shirt to the side and takes his skin in his mouth. He wanted to take it all in; the taste of his skin, his heartbeat throbbing in his throat, wanting to snag his jugular on the sharpness of his tooth and split it open and fill his palate with iron. But of course, he'll be the one to pinch it together after he's had his fill. He'll always be there to be Till’s lifeline, no matter who's fault it was that he was driven to such an edge. Till would sputter, and Ivan would tell him not to choke on his own blood and kiss his cheeks.
Till's hands fly to his back, digs his fingers like he's trying to break a bone. Ivan laughs against his neck, breathy and saccharine sweet. The position he's holding to stay on his feet but leaned over in Till’s ever-magnetic pull as he sits in his chair is awkward, but Ivan can barely care when he's unbuttoning Till’s uniform.
His nails pull a little too harshly on the second button. But Till’s too light headed at from Ivan branding his dental history into the story of the skin on his collarbones to notice, so Ivan puts it in his pocket as remembrance.
It's a most special day after all. Because they're going to have sex. Make love. Fuck eachother. Whatever it is that Till insists on calling it once the blood stops pounding in their head. Whatever Till wants him to be.
Ivan drags his erection over the curve of Till’s inner thigh. He can just barely feel the heat of him through the cotton.
“Fucking animal,” Till sneers. But he doesn't stop Ivan when his hands wander to the back of his knees and hike his legs up to the armchairs and keeps bucking his hips against him.
In fact, he even adjusts his hips so every so often Ivan’s bulge will grind against his. And isn't that just so perfect? He melts in Ivan’s hands like hot sugar. Sticky and clinging his hands on the back of his shoulders as if Ivan would ever dare to pull away from his skin.
Till’s hips buckle, grinding up and chasing after the roll of Ivan’s own. Till could call him whatever variation of perverted he'd like but it's Till that's flushed over feeling another man’s bulge against his own, so naturally, Ivan swaps his ministrations and keeps their hips locked as he ruts his dick on his. The straining fabric is almost painful, but Ivan humps like a dog in heat and Till can't get the words out so he pinches and yanks on Ivan’s ear and kisses him once more.
He's searching for comfort in the kiss, something stable and easy to latch onto because he feels like he's losing his mind having his legs spread and bent by his best friend, eagerly grinding their erections together. Till is wanton in his mouth because Ivan, as he annoyingly is with anything else, has expertise in multitasking—he doesn't stop humping and erratically thrusting his hips even when he's got his tongue in Till’s mouth.
But he goes as soon as he comes. “Till, do you know why kissing feels so good?”
Till doesn't respond because Ivan will just say and do whatever he wants to anyway. He clutches his grip on Ivan’s shoulder instead.
“The mouth has a lot of erogenous zones, that's why. Fondling the tongue, even the teeth, and generally any part of the mouth serves as good foreplay.”
One of Ivan’s hands stops pulling his knees up, suspended in the air as Till stares at the intimidating fingers pointed at his face.
“Say ‘ah’!”