Work Text:
After, Till flops over on Ivan’s bed and stares up at the ceiling, contemplating every single life decision he has ever made up until now, because what the fuck.
For some reason, he’d assumed Ivan would be a demanding lover. Not that he thinks about what Ivan would be like in bed! But, like, with how much he seemed to take delight in pushing all of Till’s buttons and annoying him until Till either hit him or walked away, somewhere in the back of Till’s mind had decided that Ivan would be like that; greedy, demanding, the dominant type or whatever from that time Mizi made all of them take the BDSM test. (Till still refuses to admit that his second bar was 86% submissive. He also forgot that Ivan’s first bar was 90% submissive).
But Ivan had pressed him up against his apartment door the moment Till stepped inside and kissed him with such tenderness that Till almost wanted to cry. Just a little bit. The rest of the night was much like that: Ivan tracing his hands over Till’s skin, branding him with his touch, or staring up at Till from in between his legs like he was about to be served his last meal or something. Although considering the amount of bite marks that are now on Till’s body, that metaphor isn’t too far off either…
To be fair, Till hadn’t expected to send the booty call text to Ivan by accident. He also hadn’t expected Ivan to actually accept. For all that Ivan is touchy and irritating and likes getting in Till’s personal space, he also knows where to draw the line. Till makes it very apparent, after all. (They’ve both sent each other to the emergency room more than once for brawling).
Till throws an arm over his face and tries not to think about how he is also a guilty party here, because, well, he was the one who’d made his way over to Ivan’s apartment at ass o’clock in the morning. And then actually let himself in when Ivan opened the door. It takes two to tango—or in this case have really incredible sex— after all.
He feels the bed dip next to him and cracks open an eye to see Ivan sitting there, still shirtless but with his pants back on. He’s holding out a glass of water.
Till awkwardly sits up (and oh, his back is not happy with that movement) and takes the glass, grateful for the cool sensation in his parched throat. He puts the glass back down on the nightstand and turns to see Ivan just… watching him, something indecipherable in his dark eyes.
Looking at Ivan just makes his brain replay the last few hours in all its 4kHD mindblowing glory. Because holy shit, Ivan fucks. He’d looked at Till with such reverence and then proceeded to wring out five orgasms from him. Till didn’t even know he could come that many times in one night. When did Ivan even learn how to do this stuff?
Till voices this question aloud, because he is genuinely curious but also, the thought of Ivan having casual sex causes a little twinge in Till’s chest that he doesn’t want to think about. “Do you do this often?”
“No,” Ivan says. He doesn’t elaborate.
“Why did you say yes to me then?”
“Why did you ask me?”
Till debates whether or not he should say that he’d sent the booty call text to Ivan by mistake. He quickly decides not to, because what the fuck, if he’d known this was an option he’d have asked a lot sooner.
Ivan lays down and closes his eyes, seeming content to leave the conversation at that.
Of the two of them, Ivan has always been the popular one. Ever since they hit puberty there’s been a long string of admirers, confessions given shyly after school, drunken propositions. But every time, without fail, Ivan turned them down.
Till, on the other hand, was definitely not the most… personable when he was younger. He’s mellowed out quite a bit now that he’s older and in uni, which means he can at least pull game at parties, and the occasional confession outside of that.
Till would not have been surprised if Ivan had more experience than him given the sheer amount of people who were interested in him. But Ivan isn’t the playboy type either. Now that he thinks about it, outside of their mutual friend group, Till has never really seen Ivan hanging out with anyone.
They fall back into awkward silence after that. Till feels like he should say something, but his mind is drawing a complete blank. Like, what is he even supposed to say after having the most insane sex he’s ever had in his life with his childhood friend turned… whatever this is?
Before Till can properly organize his thoughts into a coherent sentence, Ivan surprisingly talks first. “I wanted to. Just once.” He mutters this so quietly that Till isn’t even sure if he was supposed to hear that. But now he’s really curious because what the fuck is that supposed to mean?
“What do you mean, just once?”
Ivan startles a bit, glances away but obediently repeats himself. “I wanted to say yes. I wanted to sleep with you at least once, if this was the only chance I’d ever get.”
Till squints at him, mulling the words over in his head and registering the slight tremble in his voice, the deeper longing. That sounds suspiciously like… “Ivan, do you—”
“Yes.” Ivan interrupts him before Till can even finish his question.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say,” Till says shakily.
Ivan props himself up on his elbow so that he can look at Till properly. He closes his eyes for a moment before opening them again, pinning Till under that dark, intense stare. “I still like you,” he declares, like this is just an universal truth. The grass is green, the sky is blue, and Ivan likes Till.
“… still?” Till echoes. “What do you mean by still?”
“Haven’t stopped since high school.”
What.
“What.”
Ivan scoffs. “Do you really not know? I told you, and I even kissed you, and then the next day you acted like nothing happened. I took the hint.”
“When did you ever kiss me?!” Till yelps, head spinning with this deluge of new information. “Why didn’t I know about this?”
“It was at Hyuna’s graduation party,” Ivan murmurs.
“Hyuna… graduation…” Till mutters, struggling to place the memory. He thinks back to the end of their senior year of high school, the various parties and celebrations he’d been dragged to. Hyuna, by virtue (if it could be called a virtue) of knowing Luka, had hosted a party in one of his family’s mansions or something. There’d been alcohol involved. They’d played stupid party games and challenged each other to drunken dares. Till vaguely remembers one of them involving a blindfold.
And then suddenly, a new memory surfaces with crystal clarity. He remembers standing near a wall, still blindfolded, and then suddenly a hand had cupped his face, the warmth of another body stronger than even the alcohol haze. A hot, insistent mouth pressed up against his own, a whispered confession against his lips. He remembers feeling dizzy later, asking for a cup of water, then being hoisted over someone's shoulders. And then after that, waking up in his own bed in the morning and hungover as hell.
“Wait… that was you?!” Till screeches. “That time, when I was blindfolded…”
“I told you that I loved you, that I wanted to always be by your side…” Ivan quietly scoffs, bitterness laced through his words, “You don’t even remember.”
Till shakes his head. “I was so drunk that night, Ivan. I really don’t remember much of what happened, I didn’t even know who had kissed me!”
“You didn’t… you didn’t know?” Ivan whispers, disbelieving.
Till nods, a bit frantic. “I didn’t know you were at that party, Ivan. You weren’t there at the beginning, and I never knew when you arrived. I would have answered if I had known it was you… I wouldn’t have left you hanging like that, Ivan, you know I wouldn’t! I just– I really didn’t know…”
There is a long pause. Ivan looks away. Till feels like his heart is going to beat out of his chest.
Finally, Ivan breaks the silence. “If… if you had known at the time, what would you have said?”
“What?” This is too much emotional damage for Till’s poor heart to handle. His brain is working overtime trying to keep up. At this rate, Till’s going to implode from speedrunning the entire spectrum of human emotions about his best friend before he even gets to answer said best friend.
Ivan finally looks at him again, eyes intense. “If you had known it was me, what would you have said in response? For… for closure.” The last word comes out hoarse, like Ivan is already bracing himself for a rejection that he thinks is coming. Till’s heart hurts.
Till thinks back to when Ivan had started pulling away in the last two weeks of the semester, ignoring him in the hallways and not responding to his texts. In hindsight, the timeline checks out. He remembers the confusion and hurt he’d felt at being shut out suddenly with no apparent reason, the desire to hang out with Ivan again. Then the summer months he’d spent moping in Mizi’s living room, the sudden increase in sad love ballads in the songs that he composed. Now, it’s easy to pinpoint that as his first heartbreak.
He thinks about them now, in university. All the library study sessions, the late night phone calls, the way that they just know each other’s schedules. Till became an RA for the extra money and so he could save on rent costs, but he had basically an open invitation to Ivan’s very fancy, very expensive apartment. More often than not he would end up falling asleep on Ivan’s couch, or facedown on the coffee table on top of his half-finished compositions. He thinks about how he breathes easier with Ivan around, how Ivan is the almost always the first person he thinks of when he needs support, how over the course of these past twenty-one years, Ivan has become the one constant in his life.
Till thinks about then and now, and how he can’t imagine a life without Ivan in it anymore, and closes his eyes. “I would have said… Me too.”
“What?” Ivan’s voice is no more than a rasp of breath, but Till can hear all his pain and longing and hope in just that single word.
Till finally looks back at Ivan again, eyes watery. “Me too. I would have said, me too.”
Ivan stares at him, eyes wide. “You– you can’t. You never showed any interest in me– in guys.”
Till shakes his head, a wry smile curling his lips upwards. “Mizi could tell you all about that summer and how much time I spent moping around because you weren’t there. Or show you all the embarrassing, lovesick songs I wrote. Ivan, I liked you back then. Still do. I’m sorry it took me so long to get here, but please…”
He’s barely finished his sentence before Ivan is on him again, pressing him into the bed and kissing him fiercely. Till wraps his arms around Ivan’s neck and holds him close, kissing him back with just as much fervor. He laughs when Ivan breaks away to pepper kisses all over his face, murmuring “I like you” in between every kiss. But there’s something very important he has to do first…
On the next kiss, Till pushes Ivan’s face away, to his (vocal) displeasure, and says, “Ivan, I have something really important to tell you.”
Ivan smiles against Till’s palm and murmurs, “What?”
“I like you.”