Work Text:
It was laughable how little each of them owned: Ivan’s single box of architecture tools, and Till’s of art supplies. Everything else in their apartment was theirs together. Till had come to realize that fact gradually over the past six months, and packing up everything they owned hammered the last nail of this realization in his head.
The apartment was shoebox-sized, all they could afford while paying tuition. A tiny entry space held their worn-out shoes, one pair each, and hung their tattered jackets, a parka and a bomber, that they wore interchangeably.
To the right was the bathroom door, and walking exactly three Ivan-steps farther was the living room: a little kitchenette on the left, and across from it the spot where a dining table could have been, if not for the drawing area that occupied it instead. There was a two-person couch and a cathode-ray TV in front of it, then a set of shelves separating the space from their bed and the closet missing one of its doors. The shelves came up to Till’s thighs.
Packing all their belongings would take two hours at most, with enough time left over for snacks if they could afford them.
If they were doing it together.
However, Till alone could take the whole day and he wouldn’t finish the task.
But he needed to.
The notice for the swaying building’s scheduled demolition had arrived a month ago, yet he had done nothing. Not until now, the night before he was due to evacuate.
He couldn’t.
Not without spending every remaining moment in this place where his days and nights had blurred together. Not without staying until the last possible second.
Maybe he should just let himself be buried beneath the ruins of where they had built their shared life together instead.
Till dragged himself off where he had been lying splayed on their bed, and began packing from the entryway. One pair of shoes, one jacket. And the rectangular whiteboard in there, ‘will bake us margarita pizza tonight, your fav ♡’ still written in his bubbly handwriting in red marker.
“You promised. You promised me you’d make my favorite, you big fat liar...”
He dreaded the bathroom, but opened its door nonetheless; it was already past midnight. The moment he stepped inside, Till caught his reflection in the cracked mirror in there: sunken eyes drowned beneath heavy black waves of eyebags with no light reflecting off them, dry pale skin, and chapped lips.
Slowly, the image morphed into a similar yet different one, instead of the swamp-green there was asphalt-black with a tinge of red sticking from under the field of snow that was his complexion, wet with droplets of water, and bloody lips.
Till couldn’t look away, he stared and stared, frozen in his place, until his head hurt from not blinking and his eyes forced him to. He hadn’t wanted to see that reflection, but like every single other time, once he saw it, he became terrified of losing it.
A deep, exhausted sigh escaped him as he pulled back their shower plastic curtain. There it greeted him, a memory of when Ivan slipped and broke his left hand, his dominant one, and Till insisted on washing Ivan’s hair instead of letting him cut it short; Till had loved combing and braiding Ivan’s hair every day, no matter how busy he was. He refused to lose that comfort.
So he washed Ivan’s hair for him, and even after the hand healed, he kept doing it.
He wanted to cry right there, but no tears were there anymore.
The empty oud-scented shampoo bottle they shared, the tiny piece of the green apple soap Till had stopped using so he could preserve it, the hairbrush tangled with both grey and black strands, two razors, one tube of toothpaste, and the twin toothbrushes, one with a thin yellow rubber band around it — Till’s. Didn’t even fill half a box.
Next was the kitchenette, nothing much.
An empty fridge that they didn’t own, neither the pots nor the plates belonged to them. Their only possessions in that corner were a packet-of-five-packets instant ramen and two mugs, the blank ones Ivan bought and Till painted over — black cats for Ivan, and grey cats for Till, both with yellow stars. And the opened bag of cherry lollipops that Ivan sucked on while sketching designs.
Till wrapped the two mugs in the dirty towel they used to stop water from leaking onto the floor whenever the broken faucet acted up during dishwashing, and packed them together with the bathroom items. Still not full.
Not their TV, neither were the receiver or the VHS player with no tapes to play anyway. Just a messy stack of their textbooks, that he took and put in a second box. Over them is the pillow Ivan loved so much, the one Till had sewn from the scraps left over from one of his projects, nothing special about it, yet he always hugged it whenever they ate together or found enough free time to watch a pirated movie.
Ivan had always made sure to keep his drafting table and architecture tools organized and stored away whenever he wasn't using them. They were barely holding together, second- or third-hand purchases, but he treasured them and took good care of them. So Ivan of him.
Till packed the tools into a separate box reserved for Ivan's belongings. Not that he ever refused to lend Till any, anyway. His own paints, brushes, and supplies were tossed into a fourth box.
Only the shelves, their closet, and the bedding remained. Till wondered how many boxes an entire shared life could fit into. Not many, if he was to be asked by no one.
First the shelves. Files upon files of sketches, some were Till’s dessins and studies, others were Ivan’s architectural designs. What was left of them anyway, the ones that were drawn on A4 sheets and left to yellow slowly on their shelves.
Ivan was the adopted son of the filthy-rich couple Unsha and Vaeris, a fact that did little to make his life easier. Till was the son of an asshole who was abusive at home, and a bootlicker at work, where he served as the driver for Ivan’s adoptive parents.
Childhood friends who relied on each other to survive their respective circumstances in whatever ways they could. Ones who found themselves homeless after Urak crashed the car with Unsha and Vaeris inside into their deaths.
Unsha’s brother arrived shortly afterward and claimed everything he had left behind, throwing the two teenagers onto the streets without a second thought. For better or for worse, Urak had already paid a year's lease in advance, as he always did, so Till and Ivan remained there together, attending their final year of high school during the day and working their asses off at nights.
When they graduated, they pooled their savings and moved to another city, renting their cramped and dilapidated apartment near a university whose tuition was cheaper than any of the others nearby. The education wouldn’t be the best, but tuition was affordable, even if barely, and it was still a chance to learn.
Till had originally planned to apply for a different program; art would suck the life out of their already-dead wallets, but Ivan had gone to all lengths arguing against it. Till eventually agreed, but only on the condition that Ivan would pursue architecture, the field he had always wanted. Since then, they had survived one day at a time. Life had never been easy for them, but whenever one stumbled, the other’s shoulder was there to lean on, and to cry on.
Ivan's housing designs were criticized more often than not. Too many corridors and doors, layouts that resembled mazes. Or, on the opposite end, designs that were too simple and plain. Till had a complicated relationship with them. He loved everything Ivan created and put his thoughts and efforts into, he watched him being absorbed and working hard. Yet he also hated them; they reflected their miserable life. Too many doors and corridors meant more ways to run and places to hide, while too few meant there was no escape at all, easier to have when escape had never really existed for them.
These were the designs filling the shelves along with Till’s sketches, the unapproved and looked-down upon ones. The rejected ones. His beginnings. Meanwhile the ones that got forced away from between Till’s fingers were the ones that Ivan came up with after endless sleepless nights, after book upon book, after his eyebags carried eyebags. After his battered body slipped down a staircase and broke his hand.
Those were taken away by Unsha’s brother without any mercy, every last one. All of Till’s screaming, thrashing, and even pleading amounted to nothing. Taken away to be displayed and squeezed off worth to profit from.
As if he had any right to Ivan’s efforts, to his creations.
As if he had any right to touch anything that belonged to them.
He couldn’t stop anything, he had been just... powerless. In the cruel world that never stopped taking from them, until it finally snatched his heart away from inside his chest, leaving him to bleed his soul away.
He would have rather it took them both away, Ivan should never be subjected to the torments of being left all alone behind.
Till carefully packed them into their respective boxes, his treasures that Ivan left behind, traces of his life. Of their life.
The bedding could wait until morning, packed just before he left, so he started with the last place. Their closet, nothing inside belonged exclusively to either of them; what Ivan had Till wore, and since Till liked baggy clothes, whatever he had Ivan wore too.
Worn-out jeans, paint-stained shirts, tattered underwear, and socks full of holes. One by one, Till folded everything away.
With these finally done, everything their home had was now contained in six boxes.
That was all.
He could try sleeping now, though it would be a futile endeavor if he tracked his records until now. Still, he moved toward the bed, but as he did so his gaze caught on the top of the closet; he hadn't checked above it. He doubted there would be anything there, yet something urged him to look. Till dragged over the small wooden ladder they used and climbed its three short steps.
Nothing except a single teal folder.
For a moment, he wondered whether it even belonged to them, but he took it down with him anyway.
He sat on the bed.
And opened it.
It was Ivan’s.
His precious handwriting over everything in there.
Sketches and planners, design drafts Till had never seen before. Every sheet depicted a different detail of the same architectural project, at the top of the first page was a title: ‘Our home: for if life allowed us a breather.’
Till's breath caught in his throat, he frantically flipped through the neatly organized pages, each carrying a creation date, as was Ivan’s habit. Page after page of Ivan thinking about them together, of him thinking of a far-fetched future, yet one where Till was still beside him. Still there.
‘Till’s Atelier,’ was the title of one planner, where every detail there screamed utmost care of Till; Ivan had designed the space around Till’s habits, preferences, and workflow, attached notes explained every decision.
‘Till sketches while sitting on the floor. A low couch would be more comfortable for him.’
‘Till needs many shelves for his supplies. Drawers may help organize smaller tools.
‘Till throws away a lot of paper. A large trash bin is important.’
‘Note: It’s Till’s own room, so his inputs are to be prioritized when the time comes.’
The pages trembled in his hands. There were more rooms, more plans: a bedroom designed for two, a kitchen far larger than any they had ever known, a reading nook by a window, storage spaces carefully labeled. Every corner seemed to contain evidence that Ivan had thought about this for years.
Thought about them. Not just surviving, but living.
There were notes scattered throughout the margins, some practical and some silly, while others were so painfully Ivan that Till felt his chest crack wider with every page he turned.
‘Need enough counter space for Till to spread out ingredients when cooking.’
‘Better lighting here. Till strains his eyes when drawing.’
‘A wider doorway in case we move furniture around, Till might want a change.’
‘Maybe a skylight? Need to ask Till if he likes skylights.’
Till laughed, a broken sound, as the notes continued on.
‘A corner for plants if Till ever decides to stop accidentally killing them.’
‘Large couch. Till always falls asleep during movies.’
‘Extra blankets; Till steals mine. not that I mind anyway.’
A shaky breath escaped him as the room around him blurred. For years they had lived from paycheck to paycheck, and disaster to disaster. Yet, somehow, Ivan had still found time to dream. To imagine a future, growing old, a home.
A home with Till.
The realization hollowed him out, because Till had dreamed too, quietly and secretly. Sharing meals together for decades, growing old beside Ivan, watching grey overtake black hair and making fun of it, “My hair is already grey so no difference, but look at you!” Yet still never stopping the comfort of braiding his wavy strands.
Listening to him complain about impossible clients. Falling asleep next to him every night.
He had imagined all of it, but it seemed like Ivan had been the one brave enough to put those dreams on paper.
And now he was gone.
Till bent forward until his forehead touched the folder, he thought the tears would never come again, yet here he was, vision blurry with tears flooding his eyes and a stuffy nose.
His body felt wrung dry. The grief remained, vast and endless, stretching through every corner of him, and he hated it.
He hated it, yet Till treasured it.
Because grief was all he had left, everything hurt, yet each ache was proof that Ivan had existed. Proof that they had existed.
And Till was terrified of the day those memories might fade, of waking up one morning and struggling to remember the exact shape of Ivan's smile, the way his snaggletooth caught onto his lower-lip, the sound of his laugh, how light reflected off his captivating eyes, the way he dragged his feet when exhausted, the way his hair smelled after washing it, and how he always reached for Till in his sleep.
So he held on. To every scrap, and sketch, and note, and memory, even when it cut him open.
The folder eventually slipped from his hands and settled on the bed beside him, the room was silent as the building groaned softly around him, old pipes rattling somewhere in the walls.
Tomorrow, the demolition crews would arrive.
Tomorrow, this apartment would cease to exist.
The entryway.
The bathroom.
The kitchenette.
The couch.
The shelves.
The bed.
All of it reduced to rubble, and yet the life they had built here felt larger than the room itself, than the building, and than anything that could be destroyed by wrecking machines and collapsing concrete.
Till looked around one more time, the six boxes stood stacked against the wall. A ridiculous amount of space for two entire lives. Not enough to contain everything, to hold every conversation, every shared meal, every exhausted evening spent studying side by side, and never enough to hold the years they had spent surviving together, the years they had spent loving each other.
He closed the folder carefully, as though it was fragile, as if Ivan himself might be sleeping inside it, and drew it against his chest. Till lied down, the folder clutched in his arms.
The last gift Ivan had left behind.
Unfair.
It is Unfair.
How could he leave me alone like this?
How could Ivan...
How could you die before me?
It hurts.
“It hurt so much, you unfair dumbass.”
don’t leave me alone.
“you promised me my pizza.”
you promised.
Ivan. Ivan Ivan.
Is it alright to hold onto this grief forever?
I want to.
I'll carry it for the rest of my life, the single life we both share.
I’ll carry you within me. Ivan.
Ivan. Ivan. My light.
My everything.
Sleep never came, but he stayed there anyway, listening to the apartment breathe around him.
Waiting for morning.
Waiting for the end.
It was one such night, when Ivan went to the abandoned ten-story building he frequented whenever he wanted to sketch the whole town.
Till stayed behind to study for his upcoming exam. He was reading the last page when harsh, frantic knocking threatened to break down their door.
“Ivan was found dead,” the man said as he grabbed Till by the hand and broke into a run.
And there he was, splayed in a blotch of red against the white snow.
It was an accident, they said.
A courage test.
One frightened participant had tried to pull Ivan away from his usual spot by the edge, but when Ivan tried to pry the person's hand off him and the participant struggled against him, Ivan fell.
And he was dead.
Leaving Till all alone behind.
Years and years later, an artist opened an exhibition of a series of paintings titled ‘Our Home: For If Life Allowed Us a Breather.’
It was said that every place depicted in the paintings was a room from a design his precious someone had created before his passing. Each painting was an ‘if he were here’ scene, each and every one screaming, ‘I love you,’ and ‘I, too, wanted us to be together.’