Work Text:
The noise and pain is overwhelming. Till stares up at Mizi.
He’s so tired. She is crying. She’s holding his face so gently. His ears are ringing.
He tries to reach her hand.
And then the noise is gone. It is so, so very quiet now.
Till realises that he can breathe again.
He opens his eyes and makes a little choked gasping sound.
The sky is red, and meteors fall through it, little moving pinpricks of light but so many of them. Till has seen this sky before — he saw it a lifetime ago, with— with Ivan.
Till sits up, clutching his chest. How is he here? Is he dead? Why is this of all places where he’s ended up?
He’s sitting in a field dotted with red flowers. The grass is not long and sways gently in the breeze.
There is a figure in the distance.
Till stares. He stands up. He keeps staring.
He starts to run towards the figure because if he’s right— if he’s right—
“Ivan!” Till yells, and the figure— Ivan— turns around, and his mouth falls open in shock, and Till crashes into him, hugs him, knocks them both to the ground. “You idiot,” Till sobs.
“Till?” Ivan’s voice is so small. So confused. “What…? You—“
“How dare you?!” Till sits up and pulls Ivan with him by the front of his shirt. “You— you— you died!”
“You weren’t supposed to lose,” Ivan murmurs.
“Of course I lost! How was I supposed to beat Luka when you had just—?” Till cuts himself off trying to hold back another sob. He pulls Ivan back into a hug and he’s real he’s here.
Ivan freezes, goes completely still. Till can feel his hands shaking.
“Till,” he says. “Till, you weren’t supposed to care.”
“Then you really are an idiot,” Till says.
Ivan hugs him back, buries his face in the crook of Till’s neck. The movement feels almost familiar. “You shouldn’t be here,” he says quietly.
“Neither should you.”
They stay there like that for a long time. Till doesn’t know or care how long. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Ivan is here.
Till had been taking his presence for granted. Wherever he was, Ivan followed; that was just how it was. Till never needed to look to check because it was always true.
And yeah, Ivan was weird. Annoying sometimes. But Till realised, staring at Ivan’s lifeless body, that he would have given anything to be annoyed by Ivan again.
Till wishes he could think of something to say. Something to explain his feelings and how much it hurt to see Ivan smiling as he died. But he’s not good with words, and his feelings are a tangled-up ball at his sternum and unraveling them is hard. He just.
He can’t stop thinking about Ivan kissing him.
Till had been so shocked, and confused, and he wanted to ask what the hell Ivan was doing but then Ivan’s hands were around his neck. And it was so violent but somehow gentle. Ivan wasn’t strangling him, the hold wasn’t nearly tight enough. And that last kiss.
Till remembers opening his eyes and seeing Ivan fall to the ground and standing there for so long.
“Why?” Till asks quietly. “You could have beaten Luka. I know you could.”
“I couldn’t live without you,” Ivan says, like it’s the simplest thing in the universe. The most basic fact. “You weren’t meant to care. You were supposed to keep on living.”
“You don’t know me that well, then.”
Ivan laughs. “I guess I don’t.”
Till bites his lip. He pulls back from the hug, and looks at Ivan, really looks at him.
He’s beautiful, but anyone can see that. He has a charm to him.
But Till has grown up with him. He’s seen him at his best and worst and he knows that little tilt of the head and the way his tooth catches on his lips.
Till thinks about the kiss and how desperate it was.
He leans in, and presses his lips to Ivan’s.