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Ivan can feel them coming long before they’ll become a problem. When you’ve been living like this for longer than you haven’t, you come to recognize your body’s symptoms with terrible intimacy.
One cough and it’s over.
Till is right in front of him, and Ivan can’t afford his pity.
His heart, frankly, can’t afford Till not pitying him either, so he swallows down the tickling in his lungs and focuses on what matters:
Till is with him. They’re alone. To anyone looking on from the outside they could be on a date.
“Do you think Mizi would like this for her birthday? I wanted to get another opinion, and you know more about music than anyone else I know who isn’t Sua.”
Ivan leans in when he doesn’t have to, just so he can be closer to Till. Close enough to hear Till’s voice spill from his phone, wrapping Ivan in the fantasy of what it’d be like to be loved.
“It’s good,” he says.
“But like, do you think it’s good enough for her?”
It’s good enough for Ivan. Ivan would be happy with even less than this, an original personalized song packed with Till’s feelings. Ivan is happy when Till simply turns his way.
Then Ivan’s chest throbs. It’s not his heart metaphorically hurting; what horrible luck. He hates having to cut a meeting with Till short.
“Sorry, I have to go,” he says, covering his mouth as he stands and strides towards the exit, ignoring Till’s shouts behind him.
Ivan makes it all the way to his apartment, distance from Till making it easier to bear. But he knows once he’s home, he won’t be able to hold it in.
The reason for that greets him at the door.
“Welcome home,” Luka croons. He doesn’t give Ivan any space to even enter—he pushes Ivan against the back of the door, leaving no room to escape. “You met him today, didn’t you?”
Ivan refuses to answer, because he knows Luka can feel it. He refuses to give this demon more than he’s already taken.
“So stubborn, as always,” Luka tsks. Then the playful light in his eyes disappears. He grabs Ivan’s jaw. “Cough them up. I’m hungry.”
Ivan grits his teeth. “No.”
“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think? I always get what I want, whether you resist or not. I’m trying to make it easier for you.”
Like hell. Nothing Luka ever does is for Ivan’s sake.
“Open up.”
Then Luka punches him in the gut, making Ivan cry out in pain. The demon wastes no time shoving his fingers into his opened mouth, and all the efforts Ivan expended to keep it down work against him as finally, everything starts to come up.
He gags around Luka’s fingers, and then his chest squeezes as petals flutter from his lips with every cough.
Luka holds his hand under Ivan’s chin, catching the light blue flowers that Ivan starts spitting up. Then, he plucks one with his fingers and holds it up—
“Thanks for the meal.”
—before swallowing it whole.
“What the hell are you?” Ivan had asked, the first time he met Luka.
Luka, smiling from his perch, snapped his fingers. The invisible force that had held Ivan down on his knees disappeared, but this time he wasn’t inclined to call the police or otherwise attack Luka. Either option seemed reasonable when faced with what he was sure was a normal human intruder approximately five minutes ago.
“Humans seem to like calling me a demon, if that means anything to you.”
It made sense, so Ivan had accepted it without thinking much.
Now, months into unwilling cohabitation, there are little inconsistencies that he can’t help questioning. Luka is definitely inhuman, but would a demon sleep and lounge around Ivan’s apartment? Would they watch reruns of old dramas? Maybe the scariest thing about Luka isn’t the inhuman abilities he possesses, but all the qualities of his that are terrifyingly human.
That’s why to prove to himself that Luka is an incomprehensible creature from… wherever he’s from, Ivan started asking him questions.
If Luka has a family—Not that I remember—if he eats anything besides the flowers from people’s chest—Yeah, but it isn’t satisfying—how old he is—I wouldn’t know how humans measure that, but I’ve lived longer than you, and longer than you probably ever will—until Ivan was able successfully separate Luka from an ordinary human.
He’s become more of an unwelcomed pest, or on good days, a stray cat that Ivan always expects to paw at his door.
Today, Luka is a pest. He’s always more insufferable when he’s hungry.
“What does it taste like?” Ivan asks, as Luka licks his fingers. What’s so good about the hopeless thing that’s been growing in him for years?
“Hm,” Luka hums. “There’s no human food to compare it to. But if I had to compare it to the other ones I’ve eaten…” Luka smiles, then reaches towards Ivan’s collar. A stray petal had landed there. Luka places it on his tongue. “Your feelings are the sweetest.”
Maybe he shouldn’t have asked after all. An uncomfortable resentment starts bubbling under Ivan’s skin.
(His feelings are sweet enough for a demon to eat, but not for Till to like him back.)
“Don’t touch me,” he mumbles, with no real aggression. He finally trudges into his apartment after stepping out of his shoes, and only as he moves to take off his jacket does he remember the weight in his pocket.
Pausing, he debates even doing anything about it, then ultimately concludes he’s accepted living with this thing so there’s no harm in it.
Digging out some hand warmers he picked up on his way home, he holds them out to Luka.
“Here. Your hands are cold. Use these if you’re going to touch me.”
Luka accepts them with a stupid expression on his face, almost comically puzzled, and Ivan smiles despite himself.
“Don’t know how to use them?”
“I do!” Luka protests, probably feeling how Ivan wants to make fun of him. “And I won’t thank you.”
Ivan shrugs, still entertained by the thought of some measly hand warmers catching a demon off guard. “I didn’t expect you to.”
Then he goes towards the kitchen to start deciding what to cook for dinner, unconsciously planning a portion for two.
A while ago, towards the start of their cohabitation, Ivan had asked this: “Why do you like these so much?”
He looked at the bundle of flowers he’d just coughed up, and could only feel the same detached resignation for what they’d come to represent.
“Dunno,” Luka replied, crawling over to Ivan’s spot on the couch. “Some have said it’s because we can’t love, so we like the taste of it from humans.” He grabbed Ivan’s wrist, then dipped his head down to lick the petals from his palm.
That was the first time Ivan thought of him as a cat. His tongue was gentle, lapping like all of Ivan’s sorrow was rich, warm milk.
Then he’d ruffled Luka’s hair, like he’d pet a cat’s head, and Luka scowled before batting his hand away.
Just like a cat. He’d been soft like one too.
: ̗̀➛
“Ivan.”
The human looks at him, like a fool. Like a human would. He looks Luka in the eye, just like people of old were instructed specifically not to do.
“Sleep.”
Ivan’s head drops to the table, right in the middle of setting it for dinner. There’s two plates. Luka looks down at the scene blankly, then turns and walks away.
He shuts the door of the bathroom behind him, even though Ivan is asleep and no one will walk in on him. It’s a risk he just can’t afford to take.
Staring at himself in the mirror, bracing himself before the sink, Luka remarks to himself how wretched he looks.
Your hands are cold. Use these if you’re going to touch me.
And Ivan had produced the hand warmers as if he’d bought them specifically for this, to give to Luka because he runs cold. It doesn’t matter if it had nothing to do with Luka’s well-being; Ivan thought of him and bought something on his way back.
With a face devoid of feeling, Luka sticks his fingers down his own throat, and his body begins to seize. An awful, broken hacking sound rips from his throat, but he keeps his fingers in his mouth until he feels them coming up.
Out from his lungs, Luka starts pulling a slimy, rotted bundle of weeds. It plops sickeningly into the sink, and it’s not until another full minute of coughing fits that Luka thinks he’s gotten it all cleared, for now.
Staring down dispassionately at his feelings piled up in the porcelain sink, Luka wipes his mouth before grabbing what he can of the browning leaves and tossing them in the trash, washing the rest down the drain.
How ugly. They taste disgusting on the way up too.
No wonder it’s said that his kind can’t love. These will never be as beautiful as Ivan’s flowers.
Luka returns, and takes a seat at the table.
“Sit up,” he instructs, and Ivan sits up, his eyes still empty. Like a doll, Luka could make him do anything. He could make Ivan confess his love to his childhood crush, or he could even make him say he wants nothing more to do with Till.
(He could make Ivan love him.)
But it wouldn’t be in a way that would make the weeds go away.
“I hope that boy never loves you,” he says, with none of the sway that makes his words manifest in reality. This is just his selfish wish that he can’t bring himself to force into being.
Ivan doesn’t react, staring at him with nothing reflected in his gaze.
“I’d like to eat from you for a little longer.”
Then, already bored of this Ivan, “Wake up.”
Ivan blinks back into consciousness, and immediately furrows his brows.
“What do you want?”
The last thing Ivan should remember is Luka calling his name.
Smiling, Luka leans forward, elbows propped on the table. “I’m looking forward to the meal.”