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Till is soft in the mornings.
He’s always soft, in Ivan’s opinion, but especially in moments like now. Fast asleep, lying flat on his back, chest rising and falling with every breath. It’s a rare position for Till to be in.
Usually, TIll is constantly moving in his sleep. Even with Ivan squeezed into Till’s twin bed, it wouldn’t have been a surprise to wake up to Till sprawled horizontally over Ivan’s stomach.
Till snores softly, mouth open as a line of drool falls down the side of his mouth and onto the pillow. His shirt had ridden up at some point in the middle of the night, high enough to expose his belly button, low enough to keep his nipples safely covered by worn-down cotton. A shame, really.
Ivan could pull Till’s shirt up to see for himself, but it’s always more of a treat when it happens organically.
His back aches and there’s a crick in his neck—a small price to pay for sleeping with Till—but he ignores it to curl his body around Till’s tighter. He presses his nose into Till’s collarbone. It puts his face fairly close to the impressive drool pile that’s started to collect in the divot of Till’s pillow, but it’s not like an excess of Till’s bodily fluids has ever turned Ivan away.
Till's neck is bare, all soft skin except for the faint, raised scar right where his jaw meets his neck. An unfortunate shaving incident at the age of twelve where Till had tried to shave his face without A. shaving cream and B. facial hair. Ivan licked the scar once in the name of healing, among other things.
He’s pulled back into the present by a hitch in Till’s breath.
“Ivan.” Till’s voice is hoarse, barely an octave higher than a whisper. “You. You...” His voice trails off. A quiet exhale. Till’s asleep, Ivan thinks. He bites back a smile. Mentally, he starts counting backward from seven. Just as he hits one, Till shifts again. “...Okay?”
“You forgot the rest of the sentence,” Ivan says.
“Mmgh,” Till says. “You said...you wouldn’t do this anymore.”
Ivan hums into Till’s neck. “Wouldn’t what?”
“Sleep in my bed,” Till grumbles. “You don’t fit.”
“I’m fitting right now,” Ivan says.
Till squirms. “And move your head. It tickles.”
“Nope.”
Till squirms again, but notably doesn’t object any further.
Ivan lifts his head to look at Till properly. Till’s eyes are half-opened. There’s a crease on his cheek from his pillow. The crick in Ivan’s neck twinges again but he ignores it to press their noses together.
He pats Till’s bare stomach. “You should start sleeping shirtless.”
Till flinches. “Stop that.”
Ivan pats it again.
Till breathes right into Ivan’s mouth. Ivan breathes it in at the same time. It’s like breathplay.
“Ugh,” Till says, nose scrunching up. “Your breath is gross.”
“Mm,” Ivan says. “Yours smells like flowers.”
“Fuck off.”
“And you’re vulgar,” Ivan admonishes. “First thing in the morning, too.”
“Ugh,” Till says emphatically. “What time is it? I was going to sleep until noon today.” His voice has an undercurrent of a whine to it.
“It’s 9:04,” Ivan says. “I let you sleep in.”
“How do you—” Till makes another noise. “Nevermind. How long have you been awake?”
“Three hours and nineteen minutes,” Ivan says promptly.
“Ugh,” Till says, whining again. “Why’d you come in here?” His eyebrows furrow. “Did you have a nightmare?”
Ivan nods, dropping his head back down, this time next to Till’s on the pillow. His chin grazes the drool pile. It’s a better reason than the truth: Ivan walking into Till’s room in the middle of the night, answering Till’s half-asleep mumbling of “Ngh, Ivan, I wanna—I wanna sleep, go away,” with a “Sure, Till,” and contorting himself into Till’s bed anyways.
“A bad one?” Till asks, voice soft like Till always is. Like it’ll soothe Ivan from whatever he had dreamt about.
“Very.”
Till reaches a hand up to Ivan’s hair, petting through the strands sluggishly. “Do you feel better now?”
Ivan’s chest throbs suddenly, a deep ache somewhere between ribs four and five.
“Much,” Ivan answers, throat dry.
-
Four years in and being Till’s roommate is one of the easiest things Ivan has ever coerced Till into. A simple promise to do Till’s most-disliked chores had him all but moved into Ivan’s second bedroom the very next day. Now, Ivan takes care of the cooking, dishes, laundry, sweeping, and vacuuming. Till takes care of the plants, takes out the trash, and makes sure the door is properly locked at night before he goes to bed. Simple division of labor and occasional invasions of Till’s privacy and Till has never once brought up moving out.
Weekend mornings are especially easy.
Ivan, whether he’s in Till’s bed or his own, will wake up first, get ready for the day, and start on breakfast. In the meantime, Till stumbles his way to their shared bathroom, bumping into approximately three different things in an effort to get to his toothbrush. He’ll come straight to the dining table after, water still dripping down his face. It was a futile effort to teach Till about the wonders of a multi-step skincare routine.
(On quieter mornings, Ivan lets his imagination run wild. If, instead of his pajamas, Till came downstairs in only a loose button-down or lingerie. A microkini with a tasteful animal print on it, even.
Though, when it comes down to it, Ivan prefers the reality: Till’s messy, uncombed hair, long enough now that catching slivers of Till’s nape is a rare luxury. Toothpaste stains on an oversized pajama shirt that used to belong to Ivan and hangs off of Till’s shoulders whenever he moves. Ivan’s old track pants slung low on Till’s waist, the ends of each leg rolled up to keep him from tripping.)
Till will collapse into his seat at the table—and like clockwork, there Till is, looking exactly as Ivan thought he would, face wet and brows furrowed—and dry his face on the inside of his (Ivan’s) shirt rather than one of the multiple towels hanging in their bathroom.
Ivan will arrange all their dishes at the table with Till’s preferred dishes carefully placed closer to Ivan so that Till will have to reach forward to get them. The potential for nipple flashes is as organic as they come.
Domestic, Mizi calls them.
Sickening, Sua calls them.
Till looks at him now, frowning slightly. Ivan knows this part of this routine, too. In a voice, still sleepy, though Till looks more awake now than he usually does for a Saturday morning, Till will say:
“Why the fuck are you eating chips on my bed?”
Ivan frowns. “You’re off-script.”
Till stares at him for a beat, and then shakes his head. “I just had to shake out my sheets into the sink. There were crumbs all over it.”
Ivan raises an eyebrow, taking the seat across from Till. “I’m not eating chips in your bed.”
“Yes you are,” Till says, indignant.
“If I was eating anything in your bed, it wouldn’t be chips,” Ivan says. He gives Till a long, pointed look, and slowly trails his eyes downwards.
Till makes a face. To Ivan’s delight, his cheeks turn a shade darker. “Gross,” Till says. “Stop trying to distract me.”
“I’m not distracting you,” Ivan says. “I’m defending myself. Do you think I brought chips into your bed and ate them while you were sleeping? Or maybe I decided to crunch on them in your bed and spit them out on your bed? Does that sound likely to you? You’re a messier eater than I am, Till. I suppose if I wanted to, I could have chewed them up in my mouth and dropped them off in your bed like the way mother birds do. It would have been likelier if I was a sleepwalker. Which I’m not, I’ll have you know. I slept in your bed of fully sound mind—”
“ALRIGHT,” Till says. “Just don’t do it again.” His shoulders relax. “If we get ants because of this, you’re paying the exterminator bill.”
“If we get ants, I’m going to buy a terrarium for them and put it in your room.”
Till squawks.
Unflattering noise as it is, Ivan likes the sound anyways. He smiles and starts eating.
-
In retrospect, there’s no catalyst to how it starts. No discernible point that Ivan can look back on or point to as the cause.
Instead, all that happens is this:
Ivan finishes eating before Till does, as always. Ivan likes to use the time to watch Till.
Till has a habit of putting more food in his mouth than he can reasonably chew at one time. Till blames Ivan for it. Something about how Ivan would steal his food if Till didn’t eat it fast enough. It’s a ridiculous accusation. The only parts of Till’s food Ivan had ever been interested in were the ones that were already in Till’s mouth.
All this habit does now is make Till take twice as long to eat any meal. And give him indigestion.
Till doesn’t bother to try and make conversation while he eats, either. Or compliment Ivan on a job well done.
All of Till’s attention is currently focused on forcing an entire runny egg into his mouth, already stuffed with rice. The egg barely fits, leaving behind a smudge of yolk on the corner of Till’s mouth. He might choke if he’s not careful.
Ivan’s eyes burn with the effort it takes to keep from blinking. He clenches his jaw.
It takes Till a full minute to chew the mouthful enough to take two large swallows. A pink tongue darts out to clean off the yolk.
Saliva pools in Ivan’s mouth. He swallows, rolling his neck. The crick still hasn't fully gone away.
Then, there’s a splintering sound, like the sound of glass snapping. At the same time, there’s a sharp pain in Ivan’s cheek, startling him enough to suck in a large breath through his teeth.
Till makes a high-pitched shrieking noise, the sound garbled through a new spoonful of rice he’s shoved past his lips.
Ivan looks down. On his plate, there’s a—
Hm.
There’s probably not another way to describe it.
There’s a shard. Of him, presumably, if the sudden odd weight distribution of his face means anything, as well as the particular lightness coming from his right cheek. There’s a foreign breeze entering his face. Literally. He feels the air brush his cheek and then go straight through.
On his plate, the shard itself is slightly curved. The same shade as Ivan’s skin.
All points leading towards a single conclusion.
Ivan looks at Till next.
If there was any tiredness or exhaustion in Till’s expression before, it’s completely gone now. He stares wide-eyed at Ivan’s plate, chewing furiously, faster than before. His spoon is frozen in place, halfway to his mouth. A piece of fish balanced on top of the spoon falls and lands on the table.
That’ll stain the wood, Ivan thinks.
Till swallows after forty-five seconds. Record-breaking time. “What the fuck,” Till says. “What the fuck, what the fuck, what the—”
-
They end up in the bathroom.
The bathroom itself is large enough to accommodate the both of them in there at once, but two’s a crowd in their bathroom mirror. Till stands slightly behind him, peering over his shoulder with a fist clenched tightly to the back of Ivan’s shirt.
Ivan’s cheek sits on the countertop.
It could be worse, Ivan muses.
It’s not like he can actually see any muscles or sinew in the space his cheek had left behind. He can’t even see where his own teeth are, though he can feel them inside his mouth just fine. Rather, the empty space is pitch black.
Ivan pokes a finger inside. There’s a weird pressure as he does, like a more intense version of holding a finger between his eyes. He frowns, taking the finger back out. The entire area stings lightly.
Till snaps, voice high-pitched, “Don’t do that!”
He yanks on the back of Ivan’s shirt so hard the collar digs into his neck.
Ivan examines the black hole in his face for another moment. It’s inside of his mouth, but not, as though it’s completely hollow inside him.
He reaches for the skin in the crook of his elbow and pinches himself as hard as he can—”STOP IT.”—and it’s strange. It hurts like skin should. Everything still feels like skin should. He flexes his muscles, assuming he still has them, and the rest of his body hasn’t been drained of its innards the way his face has. Even his face feels mostly normal.
Ivan places a hand on the left side of his face. From his ear to his cheek: skin, skin, skin. His nose and lips feel fine, too. But then, as he gets to the right side of his face, closer to where the break is, there’s a patch of skin that starts to feel strange. Hardened and leathery as opposed to soft. The skin hardens more the closer Ivan gets, until he hits the jagged edge of the break, then his skin turns completely hard. Ceramic, or porcelain, or something else altogether.
Till pipes up. “Well?”
“Well what?”
Till twitches. Like a little kitten sneezing for the first time. His voice wavers when he speaks. “Do. Do you feel okay?”
It’s a little belated to ask, but Ivan doesn’t keep Till around for his social skills. “I feel fine,” he responds. He picks up his cheek shard again and bites it.
Decidedly not skin-like in texture or taste.
Porcelain, most likely.
Till shrieks a second time.
“Till,” Ivan scolds, putting the shard on the countertop. “We have neighbors.”
Till runs his free hand over his face, which, now that Ivan notices, has taken on a green tint. Till takes a deep breath and says, “WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT.”
“Volume,” Ivan reminds him.
“Don’t lecture me about volume right now,” Till hisses. “Has this happened before?”
“No clue.” Ivan wasn’t breaking apart yesterday. He would have noticed.
“No clue,” Till repeats, slowly growing more hysterical. “Your face is cracking open like a, like an asteroid, and you have no clue how it happened?”
“Not your best simile,” Ivan replies. Till had authored better lines when he was writing anonymous love poems to put in Mizi’s desk back in high school. My heart has faced your direction ever since I met you—when dawn breaks through and touches skin, your warmth soothes me anew—and other such touching sentiments.
Till stares at him through the mirror. “Something is wrong with you.”
“Perhaps,” Ivan agrees.
Till runs a hand through his hair again, harsher this time. “Can you focus? Have you, have you done anything lately? Did you piss someone off? Did you—did you get cursed?!”
“Curses aren’t real, Till.”
The shade of green on Till’s face grows more prominent. “You are breaking into one million pieces. Don’t fucking tell me that curses aren’t real.”
“A million is a bit dramatic.”
“IVAN.”
“There, there,” Ivan says. “I’m not cursed.” Probably.
Till lets go of Ivan’s shirt to wring out his hands in front of him. “Are you breaking anywhere else? Is it just your face?”
Ivan wonders. He looks back in the mirror. “Hm,” he says, and takes off his shirt.
Immediately, Till gags, turning his head away.
Ivan can’t blame him. It’s not just his face. There are tiny fractures all over his chest, running from his collarbone all the way down to a spot just above his belly button. A twist to the side confirms that the cracks are spread all along his back, too. Upon closer look, there’s a barely-there fracture line right where the crick in his neck is originating from. Curious.
“You’re—you’re missing,” Till gasps.
“Thank you for noticing,” Ivan says primly.
Till isn’t wrong, necessarily. Along the fracture lines, there are gaps and tiny spaces along the way, like small shards of him had fallen off without him even realizing.
Till makes another strangled noise. “Ivan. Ivan.” His voice shakes. “The crumbs. From the bed. The ones I washed away in the sink. Do you think it could have been—” His eyes glance once at Ivan’s chest through the mirror, and quickly looks away again.
Ivan considers it. The empty spaces in his chest are small. If one felt them without knowing what they were, they could probably be mistaken for something else. “Yep,” he says. “Probably.”
Till swallows audibly. “You’re. You’re in the drains. I thought you were chips. I, I washed you away.” Till is wheezing slightly. “Oh god.”
Ivan thought Till had grown out of his childhood asthma. “We should vacuum,” he says. “In case you missed any pieces.”
Till looks like he’s going to pass out. “I’m not going to vacuum you.”
“I’d be the one vacuuming.”
“That’s not the issue.”
Ivan sighs. “At least wear slippers,” he says. “I have spares in the shoe cabinet.”
“I don’t want to,” Till says. So fussy at the oddest times, Ivan thinks. Like Ivan isn’t the one making the bigger sacrifice here. He likes that Till walks around the house barefoot. His toenails are painted cherry red now, a byproduct of the latest pedicure trip Mizi had taken him on. Till adds, “And your feet are too big.”
Ivan sees the low-hanging fruit about big feet. He does. But Till looks nauseated and frightened enough that Ivan is willing to take pity on him and not take it.
“What should we do?” Till asks, quiet and unsure.
Ivan shrugs. Till sometimes acts like Ivan has all the answers even though Ivan is the one who’s always followed behind Till. Funny how life turns out. “Buy glue?”
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m not trying to be funny.”
Till tugs on his hair. “You need to call off work until we can fix this. Medical leave.”
“Very pragmatic,” Ivan compliments. “And what do you think I should say? I’m falling apart?”
Till grits his teeth. “Can you not just. Take this seriously?”
“I am,” Ivan says. “Glue was a serious suggestion. It’ll probably be easy.” He picks up the shard again.
“Put that down,” Till says warily, like Ivan is a disobedient puppy.
“I want to check,” Ivan says. “I think it’ll fit evenly if we put some glue around the edges, and just.” He lines up the shard to his cheek, and slots it in.
“Ivan—!”
It stings as much as it did when the piece first fell out.
It’s fascinating, the way the shard stitches itself back together onto the rest of his face. A little more involved than the way magnets stick to each other, but not as graphic as actual stitches. Ivan runs a finger over the area once the movement stills on his face. Interesting. It feels like skin again.
There’s still a small piece missing, right at the highest point of his cheekbone. It could still be in his bowl of rice. Or he accidentally swallowed it when he bit the shard. Hardly noticeable.
Other than that, the only indication that a part of his cheek was even on the countertop a few moments ago is a faint outline, only there if one knew where to look. The sting fades somewhat the moment the porcelain turns back into skin but doesn’t go away completely.
“Look at that,” Ivan says. “We didn’t need glue at all.”
When Till speaks, his voice is calm. Feigned, Ivan can tell. But commendable. “Did you know that that would work?”
“Nope.”
“What if it fell through you?”
“I can do handstands, Till. I can just shake it back out.”
Till says, voice hoarse, “Ivan.”
“Till.”
“I’m going to throw up now.”
“Sure,” Ivan says. Till’s disgust is in line with expectations. It’s impressive how long he’s managed to last.
Till’s face twists. “Alone,” he stresses.
“Sure,” Ivan says again.
Till exhales loudly through his nose. “Get out of the bathroom.”
Ivan sighs. Always so fussy.
-
It doesn’t stop happening.
Ivan officially goes on medical leave at work. It’s easy enough. Ivan likes his boss; he doesn’t ask questions. As such, when Ivan requests a month off of work to deal with a rare, never-heard-of-or-documented disease, his boss signs off on it and wishes him well.
One month is an arbitrary guess. By then, he’ll either return to normal or adapt to his new life of putting himself together or... well.
The human body is amazing and all that.
He adjusts quickly regardless. The twinges in his body aren’t anything to fuss over. It’s easy not to react. It’s just as easy to reattach broken pieces to his person. It’ll eventually become muscle memory.
Ivan is not a stranger to physical body ailments.
Before his adoption, he would get sick on a weekly basis. The malnutrition and weakened immune system, one of the caretakers had said.
When he was nine, he broke his wrist. It was so long ago that Till probably only remembered the casts Ivan had to wear for a few weeks rather than the fight that caused it. Not the case for Ivan.
Ivan had come over to Till’s house to play while Till’s mother watched over them. He’d stolen Till’s drawing of a new girl who moved into the neighborhood—Mizi, Ivan would later learn—and refused to give it back. Ivan wanted to see it before Till was ready and in the ensuing scuffle, the drawing ripped in half. Till pushed Ivan to the ground. Ivan landed on his wrist with a loud snap. The noise shocked the both of them into silence, then Ivan lifted his arm to show Till his strangely bent wrist.
Till screamed, sobbing fully when his mother rushed over to see what was wrong. She had been the one to take him to the hospital and Till was the first one to sign the cast.
Till kissed it lightly, right over his signature. “Mama said that’s how things feel better.”
Till’s mother laughed and kissed both of them on the head.
Ivan has fractured other parts of himself since then, and on one memorable occasion, sprained his arm whilst teaching Till how to drive. Till still doesn’t have his license for a reason.
So.
Pieces of him falling off is...new, but Ivan has always been open to new experiences.
Till, on the other hand, can’t get used to it at all. It’s not a surprise. Till is sensitive at the best of times, so if he looks green whenever he looks at Ivan for longer than is strictly necessary, Ivan is nice enough to pretend he doesn’t see it. Till isn’t grossed out enough to leave just yet.
-
Several days in, Ivan adds new steps to his morning routine: Now, the first thing he does after waking up is assess the bed, put back any parts of him that had fallen off while he was sleep—the bigger ones that he can easily slot back in—and throw out any pieces of himself that are too small to place anywhere accurately. Ivan is never going to be a whole person again, considering the lost shards on the first day. A few more pieces lost don’t really matter.
He’s whisking batter for their breakfast by the time Till wakes up, earlier than their usual routine would dictate.
Till rushes to him quickly. “Should you be cooking right now?”
Ivan nods, whisking the batter harder. He ignores the cracks that start to grow on his forearm.
Till doesn’t. He pales when he sees them. “Stop,” he says sharply.
Ivan pauses. “Stop what?”
“You can’t cook anymore,” Till says frantically. “Let me do it. You—you just sit.”
Ivan frowns. He supposes there’s a health concern if Till ends up chewing on pieces of Ivan. It’s not that Ivan minds it, but he can see the conundrum. “Because of the cannibalism,” he says.
“What?”
“You’re a paragon of ethics,” Ivan continues.
Till’s brows furrow. “Just sit,” he says. He takes the whisk from Ivan. “I’ll finish it.”
“I didn’t realize you knew how to cook things other than rice and eggs.” Boiled eggs and instant rice, specifically. Till never did care for learning much else.
-
As it turns out, Till hasn’t learned how to cook despite his insistence upon taking over the process.
Ivan supposes it’s not the end of the world to eat the same thing for every meal. Eggs are a good source of protein.
-
Till’s next plan of action is to exile Ivan to his own room.
“Cruel,” Ivan pouts.
“You’ll fall off my bed,” Till insists, as though the likelier culprit for falling off of any bed isn’t Till. “I’m keeping you safe.”
The second part of ‘keeping Ivan safe’ includes lining the perimeter of Ivan’s bed with pillows. Forty-six of them and counting.
“There’s a structural integrity problem here,” Ivan says.
Till adds another pillow. “You’re so annoying.”
“Where did you buy these?” Some of the pillows have text on them. One says in black script, TOGETHER IS MY FAVORITE PLACE TO BE. Another says: WE’VE HAD SEX HERE.
“None of your business,” Till says, keeping his eyes firmly on the next pillow he’s placing.
“You know,” Ivan says. “You’re as soft as the pillows. You could just sleep in the bed with me instead of sleeping all the way over there.”
Till has a futon set up by the door in case Ivan really does fall off and Till needs to do something drastic. What that drastic thing could possibly be, Till doesn’t say.
Till glares. “Stop calling me fat.”
“I’m like your wife,” Ivan says thoughtfully. “You’re breadwinner-ing me. You work the job and I wait at home.”
“You’re delusional,” Till says, assessing the lining of pillows with a poke.
-
A noise in the middle of the night wakes Ivan up. He’s always been a lighter sleeper than Till, but lately it feels especially true. Ivan is used to getting very little sleep, but it’s gotten excessive lately.
Tonight, the noise is soft, like a thud. Like someone bumping into something while they were trying to walk in the dark.
Ivan blinks, squinting at the futon on the other side of the room. Once his eyes adjust to the dark, he realizes it’s empty.
Ivan stares at it for a while longer before closing his eyes.
He already assumed that Till sneaks back into his own room at night, so it’s not surprising. It probably scared Till to sleep in the same room and wake up to what must look like a cracked mannequin head peeking out from under the blankets. It must also be why Till had placed two additional blankets on him at some point in the middle of the night. The blankets were a precautionary measure to prevent Till from seeing any more of Ivan’s body than he had to.
But still, a small part of Ivan thinks it would have been nicer if he didn’t know for sure.
-
Ivan’s elbow falls off when he wakes up.
He takes a picture of it and sends it to Sua.
[18:45] sua: what am i looking at
[18:45] ivan: Elbow
[18:46] sua: ?
[18:46] ivan: Lol
-
Strangely enough, the whole breaking-apart-and-putting-himself-back-together lifestyle is starting to take a toll on his health. The breaks continue to occur at the same pace and in completely random places. The pain, though, has steadily become more present. Although it’s concentrated where the breaks are, it doesn’t matter when the breaks are all over his body. Ivan is also freezing now. He’s used to running cold, but the consistent breeze inside him means that even when he stays perfectly still, he starts shivering. They’ve raised the heat in the apartment to accommodate.
All of it has started to affect Ivan’s mood. The number of times he normally snaps at Till is zero. Most recently, he told Till off for trying to close doors softly, like sound waves would be enough to hurt him. Till looked like he was about to cry.
Ivan’s pain tolerance is next-to-gone.
“I’m out of Tylenol,” Till says one morning, two weeks in.
Unfortunate timing. Ivan has a headache.
”Because you took all of it,” Till continues. “Your head hurts a lot lately.” And after a beat, “It hurts right now, doesn’t it?”
Ivan hums in agreement. His head is pounding so hard that he’s dizzy, but he stares at Till and smiles. “You’ve noticed?”
“You never used to take pain meds.”
“I didn’t,” Ivan agrees.
Till’s voice is quiet. “But you’re taking them now.”
-
The next day, Till looks at him and says, “You need a bath.”
Ivan does, admittedly. The last time he showered was several days ago. It has become excessively difficult—now, Ivan struggles to raise his arms without the familiar sting of his body snapping. It’s getting worse, he notes idly, but there’s no need to bother Till with that revelation.
Till continues. “Our water pressure is too strong for a shower. I’ll,” he coughs. “I’ll help you.”
Ivan blinks. “You realize I won’t have any clothes on.”
Till has lost some weight lately, Ivan noticed. 1.9 kilograms. All the nausea from looking at Ivan, he presumes.
“I know that,” Till retorts. His face is red but he doesn’t back down. “I’ll keep my eyes closed.”
Ivan sighs. “If you insist,” he says, craning his head so that he can peer up at Till through his lashes. The image he’s trying to portray is offset by the seemingly permanent fracture lines running up his neck and underneath his eyes. “I won’t say no.”
Till looks away. Shocker. “Get naked,” he says.
Ivan blinks. “Here?”
-
In short:
There’s a sponge involved. A pot filled with cold tap water. Plastic lined up all over the living room floor because Till is paranoid about Ivan falling in the tub and shattering into nothing. Till’s toiletries next to him.
Till closes his eyes every time he has to sponge Ivan lower than his chest, which Ivan expects, and averts his eyes whenever he has to sponge over a crack, which Ivan also expects.
Normally, the thought of Till’s hands on him would be enough for Ivan to start salivating, but his dick is limp in the middle of his legs. Still whole, apparently, but useless. The broken shards had apparently taken his libido.
Till doesn’t even try to look.
Suddenly, the whole thing is irritating. The breaking and the shards and Till not looking at him and losing 1.9 kilograms and putting a futon in his room just to not sleep in it.
“I don’t want to use your cheap soap,” Ivan sniffs. “Stop putting it on me.”
The water continues to seep through the open cracks in his body, but doesn’t seem to go anywhere beyond that. Another foreign feeling.
“Suck it up,” Till says.
-
The latest chore division list isn’t much of a division at all.
Till has taken on most of Ivan’s responsibilities:
- Cooking (The usual egg-and-rice combination meal.)
- Taking out the trash (Every morning. The trash bags are closer to empty than they are full.)
- Doing the dishes (But Till doesn’t unload the dishwasher after he runs it. He’s actually not sure how Till manages to shove more plates into it. It’s impressive more than anything else.)
- Sweeping (Till forgoes the vacuum. The noise is too dangerous, he insists.)
- Dusting the bookshelf (With his hands.)
- Fluffing Ivan’s pillow fortress (Pats them.)
Ivan gets to fold clothes and taste-test eggs with different seasonings. It’s fine.
There are more ways to amuse himself than playing maid.
Like having Till play maid.
He presses the Confirm Order button on his laptop. “Anime French Maid Apron Lolita Fancy Dress Cosplay Costume Furry Cat Ear Gloves Sock Set (XS)” will be delivered to their front door by tomorrow.
-
Ivan is folding a pair of Till’s underwear on the sofa when he hears a crack, a familiar sound at this point, followed by a twist in his side. The shard falls in the middle of the fabric. The underwear itself is neon green with black writing on the back that reads: SEXY. Ivan bought it for him along with a bright red pair that said LOVE in white text.
(“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Cotton underwear is good for you,” Ivan says. “It’s breathable.”)
He pushes the piece into place.
In the next moment, he nearly keels over, letting go of his shirt and biting down harshly on his tongue to keep from shouting. He grips the edge of the sofa so hard, there’s an audible crack. The sofa? His fingers? Temporarily unclear. Suddenly, the additional layer of pain concentrated in his arm makes itself known. His eyes close instinctively, and when he opens them again, spots dance around in his vision.
He doesn’t remember just replacing the shards being this painful.
A harsh line runs up his palm to his elbow when Ivan turns his hand to look. The cracking noise from earlier.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
His side is a different matter. Ivan lifts his shirt up, shoving the end of it into his mouth to free up his hands.
The outline of the broken shard where it used to just fade into thin pale lines is now a fully realized scar. Not a well-healed one, either. The skin has turned gnarled, thick and corded, colored red and blue and purple. His skin doesn’t seem eager to heal anymore than that.
Till has eyeshadow in this color, he thinks, tentatively poking the scar. He hisses through his teeth. The pain is substantially worse than before, if he had to scale it.
Ivan lets his shirt fall from his mouth. The fabric rubs against his side. He tenses for a moment at the sensation, then forces himself to relax. It’ll be like having his nose in his field of vision at all times; only irritating when one takes the time to notice it.
-
That night, Till insists that they watch a movie together.
A desperate bid for normalcy, if Ivan had to guess, now that they can’t actually go out together.
Ivan doesn’t hear the title of the movie that they’re watching when Till explains it to him. Knowing him, it’s likely a romantic comedy. Rated T for swear words, nothing more. Ivan barely follows the plot, every word and scene filtered through honey before it reaches him properly.
At the very least, he does manage to convince Till to sit on the couch with him while they watch. Currently, he is pressed lightly against Ivan, but it would be a joke and a half to call it ‘touching.’
Till is relaxed for once, more than he has been in days, fully invested in a movie that Ivan’s sure they watched before. Till has always liked these sort of idealistic stories. His eyes are bright, mouthing the words along with the subtitles. There’s an unconscious smile on his face.
Ivan feels the crack about to happen before it does. Till stiffens next to him as a piece of Ivan’s cheek falls onto his lap.
Ivan picks it up and slots it back in instinctively, bracing himself for the sting of his skin warping itself around the shard.
The choking noise from next to him makes Ivan pause.
Right, he remembers. He didn’t tell Till about this particular stage of the degeneration process yet.
“Ivan. Ivan.” Till’s hand dances around the air next to him. “Your face—”
“I know,” Ivan says, cutting him off. He glances at Till from the corner of his eye. Till’s on-the-verge-of-throwing-up face has become a constant lately, clear even with the dim glow of the television.
Till splutters. “You—You know?!”
Ivan shrugs. “It started today.”
Till swallows. He stares at Ivan’s chest, like he can see the skin through the material of his shirt. “Where else?”
In addition to the piece on his side, there’s his left thigh in two separate places, his left ankle, and his right pec. “Here and there.”
“...Why didn’t you tell me?” Till asks weakly.
Ivan supposes he could have warned Till. “It’s okay, Till,” he says. He leans his head back against the coach. “I can wear a face mask.”
Till starts. “That’s not—” His fists clench into the bottom of his pajama pants. Another one of Ivan’s that wound up in Till’s closet.
“Let’s watch the movie,” Ivan offers.
Till grits his teeth. Upset with something. “Fine.”
-
Ivan lets the phone ring until the second to last possible ring before he picks up.
“Till says you’re dying,” Sua says. “Shocked I didn’t hear it from you.”
“Everyone’s dying, if you think about it.”
“I don’t, but I guess that explains your radio silence.”
Ivan examines his nails idly. His cells aren’t regenerating as quickly anymore. He used to have to cut his nails every week. He doesn’t think they’ve grown in the last two. “Did Till get scared and call Mizi?”
Sua barks out a laugh. “More or less. She had the phone on speaker, then Till came over and explained it all in person,” Sua says. “It was more useful than your gross elbow picture.”
Till didn’t mention that he went to their apartment. Then again, Ivan hasn’t seen much of Till in the last few days.
He says to Sua, “You’ll miss my elbows when I’m gone.”
“You think too highly of yourself.”
Ivan smiles. “You could stand to sound more upset.”
“Till is upset enough for all of us, I think.”
“He’s been doing admirably.”
“If that’s what you call admirable, I worry for you.”
“Even birds disgust him on a good day. He’s holding up fine,” Ivan says.
Sua pauses. “What are you talking about?”
Ivan waves a hand even though Sua can’t see him do it. “He can still look at me for an average of 3.6 seconds before he has to look away.” Till’s average for looking at birds is roughly 2.4. The feathers are gross, according to him.
“Disgust,” Sua says. “You think Till is disgusted with you.”
“With how I look,” Ivan corrects. “Do keep up.”
The silence that follows is heavy, an undertone of something Ivan can’t quite place. Sua’s own disgust, maybe, but that’s not something Ivan has ever been concerned with.
“Sometimes I wonder if there’s anyone on the planet dumber than you,” Sua tells him apropos of nothing. “Did you know that Till has been trying to brainstorm cures with Mizi?”
“Has he, now.”
Sua hums. “He refuses to let any of us come over in case we do anything that could make it worse,” she says. “He wants to keep you in a soft room with padded walls and padded furniture. Speaking of, I might just know of a place that fits those requirements.”
“Pass,” Ivan says. “Any other ideas?”
“Ha. You’ll see.”
-
“In conclusion,” Till says, clicking to the next slide. “If I don’t touch you anymore, we can, um, mitigate the risks of you falling apart as much as possible.” He stands with his chest puffed out, laptop balanced in one shaking hand and the other pointed at the screen.
“Very nice,” Ivan says. He claps once. It’s only polite. He’d have clapped more, if the action didn’t send a wave of something that felt akin to electricity up his arms. He leans back against the couch pillows. Compared to the days leading up to this, today has been rather pleasant. Ivan barely chipped at all. Till picked a good day to do his presentation. “Do you take constructive criticism?”
“No.”
“It was very nice of you to change the font size to seventy-two point so it would be readable; it increased your slide count quite substantially.” Four hundred and sixty-three slides including the title page and an appendix, which just reads:
REFERENCES
Sua (Friend)
Mizi (Friend)
Till (Roommate)
“And,” Ivan continues, “If you go back to slide two hundred and twelve, you misspelled ‘break.’ Really, Till. Spell check exists.” His throat hurts a little by the end of it. Well. He supposes it was only a matter of time before he started breaking from the inside, too.
Till’s cheeks have grown progressively ruddier throughout Ivan’s commentary, but he doesn’t interrupt. A testament to how much he wants Ivan to agree. Till closes the laptop and sets it on the floor. He looks bashful. “You didn’t tell me what you thought of the idea,” he says. “If you think it’ll work.”
Ivan doesn’t, but he can commend the effort. Till probably put as much effort into this presentation as he does his musical compositions. Ivan can tell. Slide six opened with a research plan (OBSERVATION: Ivan is breaking. QUESTION FOR RESEARCH: What is wrong with Ivan? HYPOTHESIS: Touch = Bad). Not a totally accurate one, but there was a valiant attempt.
More than that, Till has already tried this technique even if he didn’t realize that himself. Till is more tactile than he realizes. Someone with lesser intelligence would have realized that Till has been making an active effort to not touch Ivan as often lately.
He doesn’t begrudge Till any of this. Ivan is more hazardous to touch nowadays. Till’s fingers are soft. Fragile. If Till touches him, he’ll get cut. Ivan licks his lips. They’re drying out more often. “We can try,” he offers.
Till brightens. “Really?”
“Really.” Actually, that reminds him. “By the way, what happened to your hand?”
Till abruptly puts both of his hands behind his back. “W—what?”
“Is there a reason all of your fingers are bandaged?” It’s not his whole hand that’s wrapped, Ivan notes. Or rather, notes again. He’s been keeping tabs on it for a few days, but bringing it up kept escaping him.
Till’s blush, which had calmed somewhat, comes back in full. “I,” he starts. He clears his throat.
“You can do it.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
Ivan looks at him, expectant.
Till straightens, puffing his chest out. Ivan can see his nipples through his shirt. “I—I fought someone.”
This might have been a more believable reason a decade ago.
“Sure,” Ivan accepts. “You fought someone. When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Try again,” Ivan says. “You put the first bandage on your finger last week.”
Till stutters. “That was.” His eyes flicker across the room. Ivan sees the moment Till’s eyes lock onto the door to his own bedroom, to Ivan’s left. “That was my guitar. The strings snapped. On. My fingers,” he says, haltingly.
“Before or after the fight?”
“Um. After.”
“All of the strings snapped?”
Till nods, too eagerly to be truthful.
“And you hurt your fingers because of it?”
“Yes.”
“And you decided to fight someone the next day after that happened with the same hand?”
Till’s sweating. “Yes.”
“I haven’t heard you playing guitar recently.”
“Because the strings snapped,” Till insists.
Ivan is going to push more. His next question is already ready. It’s fun to watch Till lie to him, flailing around and digging a deeper hole for himself until Ivan finally sends the rescue ladder, but he’s interrupted by the force of his own yawn. Exhaustion runs through him.
Till looks down at his feet. “You should sleep.”
“Don’t be silly, Till. I don’t take naps,” Ivan responds.
To his dismay, the nap he takes right after saying this betrays his words, and when he wakes up, Till is already gone.
-
Till starts to give him a wide berth in all regards, at odds with his coinciding need to take care of everything for Ivan. He’s gone ahead with his plan of touch celibacy.
“You’re going to get hyperthermia,” Ivan comments.
“No I’m not,” Till insists. He’s layered up in winter clothing. Coat, gloves, and thick sweatpants. Slippers, still, but wool socks alongside them. Layers underneath those, most likely. He’s holding a spatula with a bunny plushie taped to the flat end so he can touch Ivan if necessary without actually needing to. It’s one of the bunny plushies Ivan won for him at a carnival. Till insisted he hated it at the time, but it sat on his bookshelf hidden away in the corner like Ivan wouldn’t be able to see it if he covered it with another book.
Ivan is going to swallow him whole.
A bead of sweat trails down Till’s face. “It’s a precaution. In case we bump into each other. I’m keeping you safe.”
The fondness and frustration eat at Ivan, like the world’s loveliest and most irritating termite.
-
Till starts coming home later. When Ivan asks, Till says something about being busy at work, but Ivan sees him come home at six, then eight, then closer to ten every night looking exhausted. Sometimes later than that, when Ivan’s already in his room, and Ivan jerks awake when Till makes bumps in the night.
It’s a pretty look on Till, the heavy eyebags and slumped shoulders and slightly sweaty body. All things that could come from a wonderful night of non-work things. Ivan’s imagination has a nice time with it.
Ivan can concede that part of Till’s reason for staying out so late is a way to avoid looking at him.
Ivan doesn’t have a particular reason to leave his bed at those hours. Though, sometimes moving to the couch for a change of scenery is quite nice. On the downside, he’s running out of things to do. He’s not a fan of watching movies or television shows when he can’t commentate to Till and there are only so many books they keep in their apartment.
So, idly scrolling on social media it is.
The first account he sees on Instagram is Mizi’s.
It’s an image of Mizi and Till from the club nearly a month ago, when they had all gone out to celebrate Mizi’s promotion at ANAKT. Ivan doesn’t remember seeing them take it, but it must have been early enough in the night that neither of them were quite as drunk as they were by the end. They’re clearly nowhere near sober, though, going by the loose smile on Till’s lips.
Till doesn’t get I-have-a-crush-on-you level of nervous around Mizi anymore, but Ivan can comfortably put him in the camp of being nervous around girls in general. It would be more pathetic if Ivan wasn’t into it. It’s probably partially Ivan’s fault anyways. When they were children, he once convinced TIll that girl cooties were a real, viral illness. Till had run with the belief for nearly two years. Ivan supposes Till just never recovered from it.
All of those nerves are completely absent in the picture. Till’s hands are around Mizi’s shoulder, head leaned into hers. Mizi is mid-laugh in the picture, eyes closed.
Her caption reads: celebrating my promotion with my best friends!!!!!!
There’s a handful of comments underneath, most congratulating her, another large handful commenting on her dramatic haircut from waist-length to just underneath her ears.
Ivan’s eyes catch on one of them.
THE GUY NEXT TO MIZI. ONE CHANCE. JUST ONE CHANCE.
There’s a reply right under it that says, WAIT STOP ATTACKING ME IM GAY I DON’T HATE MIZI OR LESBIANS. IM GAY
Ivan clicks the account that made the comments.
The account itself is locked, but Ivan can garner enough from the profile picture itself. A plain-faced male with a bowl cut. Supremely boring-looking.
Ivan considers the account. Then, he reports it for Violent Speech two hundred and thirteen times. It keeps him occupied until Till gets home.
-
Ivan isn’t the maudlin type. There are only two ways this can end. Either Ivan will live or he won’t. He accepted the worst-case scenario by day three. It’s not the end of the world. Not for him and not for anyone around him either.
There would be things to take care of, he supposes. Finding someone who would help Till pay the rent, for one. Though, he supposes he could just as well help Till find somewhere else to live. The only problem with that idea is that Till has the same problem as Ivan does: keeping friends close and everyone else so far away it would be an insult to count them. Mizi and Sua are already together, so they’re out. Hyuna is more of an irritating coworker than a friend. Luka isn’t even in the running.
There’s also the matter of Ivan’s belongings. Till could be trusted enough to take care of them. He might find a way to crease the satin in his efforts to pack everything up for donations, but he’d do it.
Ivan frowns, then stops when even that makes his face sting. Maybe he needs a will.
He doesn’t realize he’s fallen asleep until he wakes up to Till poking him with the bunny-spatula. Till looks at him warily several steps away.
Ivan raises an eyebrow, slowly getting up into a seating position. His back and shoulders protest the movement.
“It’s lunchtime, so,” Till says, voice trailing off as he speaks.
Which is when Ivan notices the bowl on the floor. “What’s in it?”
Till puts the spatula under his arm and picks up the bowl. “You know what’s in it.”
Ivan does. “Yum,” he says. “Are you feeding it to me?”
Till looks into the bowl and nods once.
It’s messy, mainly because Till refuses to come any closer while he does it. Till’s spoonfuls are also too big, grains spilling back into the bowl and onto the floor and Ivan’s face.
“I’ll clean up later,” Till says.
“Do whatever you want,” Ivan says.
-
Ivan called himself a wife, but it’s more like Till has become his caretaker.
Ivan has had a number of fantasies involving both, but this is not exactly how Ivan had imagined it. Usually there’s more lace involved, but it’s not like that actually bothers him.
Ivan never had any expectations to begin with.
His cheek cracks again as he thinks it, a piece falling onto the floor. Of all the areas on his body, this is where the cracks have been the most stubborn to the point where Ivan can put himself back together without looking.
He’s been trying not to look at a mirror as much. He doesn’t want to know what he’s been subjecting Till to for the past month.
Still, he accidentally caught a glance of himself yesterday without meaning to in the reflection of his phone screen. In short, he looks like shit. His bangs are overgrown and fall limply over his face. He’s more hairline fractures than actual skin, faint lines in areas where his skin healed and raised, gnarled scars where it didn’t. There are gaps where pieces of him had fallen out and hadn’t been found again. He looks tired.
He looks like he’s dying.
He picks his cheek up from his lap. The fragment is bigger than usual, a whole shard right along where his left cheekbone should be. He lines it up along his face and pushes it back in, only for it to fall right back out and onto the floor.
Hm, he thinks. That’s not good.
-
Till looks like he’s going to cry when Ivan tells him. He probably cried earlier.
Till’s eyes are red-rimmed constantly these days. He sniffs harshly. “What—what do you mean it’s not going back in?”
The piece of Ivan’s cheek sits between them on the dining table, Ivan on one side and Till on the other.
Ivan muses, “Do you think I’ll just turn into a pile of broken pieces in the end?” It’s almost poetic.
“Don’t talk like that,” Till says. He looks pale, as sickly as Ivan does.
“You could turn me into a mosaic,” Ivan says, “with the broken pieces. I saw someone do that online.”
“Ivan.” Till breathes heavily.
“It looked nice when they did it,” Ivan continues lightly. “We can frame it.”
“Ivan. Cut it out.”
“Or you could turn me into a vase.”
Till’s chair clatters to the floor when he stands. “Stop it. Shut the fuck up,” Till says darkly, fists clenched at his sides. Ivan had taken things too far, he realizes, watching Till’s shoulders tremble. “Seriously, what is wrong with you? Can you pretend to care about what’s happening? I’ve been—I can’t even fucking sleep at night and you’re—And you’re sitting here joking about it?!”
“Till.”
“No,” Till snaps. “You’re so fucking lucky I can’t knock your teeth out right now.”
It’s far from the first time Till has gotten mad at him. It’s not even the first time Till was this mad.
“Till,” Ivan tries again.
“Don’t talk to me right now,” Till says, then leaves the room.
Less than a minute later, Ivan hears the front door slam shut. Quietly.
-
[16:12] sua: till’s here
[16:12] sua: again
Ivan stares at the text for a moment, before responding:
[16:14] ivan: Lol
A piece of his finger falls off when he hits ‘Send.’
-
Till comes back late that night.
Ivan doesn’t know what time it is, exactly. He’d fallen asleep on the sofa at some point waiting for Till, opening his eyes when it was dark enough that he couldn’t make out his hands in front of him. Till doesn’t see him at first. The light from their hallway creates a backlight behind Till as he moves to the living room. It gives him a halo, like an angel. There’s a shopping bag in his hand.
The living room lights turn on then just as Till turns his head to face him. He jumps when they make eye contact, hand clutched over his chest. “Ivan, fuck. Why are you just sitting here in the dark?”
“I fell asleep,” Ivan says. There are more shards on his lap now, including the earlier one from his finger. One from the middle of his neck, one from his collarbone, and most of one ear. All of them reacted the same way as the cheek shard, refusing to stay in place when Ivan tried setting them back. “Did you bring dinner?” He asks, pointing his chin at the bag in Till’s hand.
Neither of them bring up their—fight? It lasted maybe three minutes. Could it really be called that?—from earlier. Till’s anger has washed off, at the very least.
“No,” Till says. He upends the bag in front of Ivan, albeit a healthy distance away and onto the floor. Knowing Till’s particular brand of spiraling concern, Ivan can tell that he’s paranoid that any closer will crack Ivan right open. There are three rolls of adhesive tape, epoxy, and liquid glue.
Ivan asks, “Wasn’t this my original suggestion?”
“Wait here,” Till says, ignoring him. “I’m coming back. Don’t move.”
He disappears into his room and comes back out with a bowl, setting it down next to the glue. Ivan raises his eyebrows, peering into it.
Then, he freezes.
Something nauseating starts to swirl in his stomach. In his veins. He bites his tongue as hard as he can. The tang of blood coats his mouth. Anything to offset the feeling of his nerves tying themselves into knots.
He manages to say, “I thought I told you to vacuum everything up.” There’s probably blood on his teeth.
In the bowl, there are shards. Dozens of them, size ranging from a fingernail to even smaller.
Till doesn’t look at him, choosing instead to organize everything on the floor in a straight line. “And I told you I wasn’t going to do that.”
Ivan’s mouth feels numb. He doesn’t know which question to ask first. “Did you—When did you have time to pick everything up?”
“It’s not everything,” Till says, voice frustrated. “I don’t know. Maybe it is. I didn’t look for that long.”
“That long,” Ivan repeats. Till’s eyebags are so deep that they look bruised. Till had told him plainly that he hadn’t been able to sleep.
“Yeah,” Till says, either not hearing the way Ivan’s voice sounds or doing his best to ignore it. “Sit here. I’m going to fix it.”
“I don’t know if you can fix it,” Ivan says. He’s trying for nonchalance. It doesn’t land, but Till doesn’t seem to notice.
There’s a smidge of dark red on one of the tiny shards in Till’s bowl. There’s an image blooming in Ivan’s mind: late in the night, stumbling around the floor without lights on because Ivan would have otherwise woken up to a light turning on, hands grasping the floor for any tiny pieces of Ivan’s skin. He would have bumped into things, making noise unintentionally. He must have gotten cuts on his fingers constantly. There’s a bandaid on nearly all of Till’s fingers.
Ivan feels off-balance, like he’s taken a step towards something he didn’t mean to.
“I can,” Till insists. “Mizi told me where to get the strong kind of epoxy. She said it’s good for porcelain.”
Ivan says, helpless, “Till.”
“Just come sit down here,” Till says, finally looking up at Ivan.
Ivan does, which is just about when Till notices the blood covering his mouth and starts whisper-yelling.
-
At first, it’s not a bad plan.
Till is an artist. This kind of thing is what he does best. Ivan is usually an onlooker during those moments when Till has tuned out everything but the sketches he’s making, so this is different. Much nicer, though, to have Till’s eyes trained on him instead. It must be easier for Till to distance himself from the nauseating despair of a living person breaking into pieces, treating him like an art piece instead.
Ivan feels drunk on it. Till hasn’t looked at Ivan for such a long period of time in weeks. If he didn’t think it would break Till, Ivan would have started cracking more of himself on purpose just to keep the process going. Ivan watches Till gingerly apply a line of epoxy on the edge of the shard to Till’s collarbone.
Then, “For good measure,” he mumbles, leaning in close enough to Ivan that his breath washes over him—Ivan inhales deeply at the same time—and applies another line of epoxy along the edge of Ivan’s collarbone.
“Don’t move,” Till says quietly, and there’s another fantasy overlaid on this, with Till whimpering and crying and telling him don’t, ah, don’t move. Ivan’s mind temporarily goes hazy. Less glue involved in those dreams.
Till gently presses down the shard against the empty space in Ivan’s neck, softly at first, and then harder. After a beat, he takes the pressure off.
There’s a beat of silence. The piece stays on.
Till exhales, mouth twisting up into a shaky smile. “Okay,” he says.
They keep going. A tiny piece right under his eye, gingerly put in so it doesn’t fall through. The upper half of his left palm. The outline of his left ear.
They haven’t touched the bowl yet, working through the larger shards, the obvious ones.
And then—
A soft crack. Till’s head snaps back up just as Ivan’s looks down. The first piece Till had glued on, the one on his collar, is back on the floor.
They both stare at it, a mockery of how this whole thing started.
Slowly, gingerly, Till picks the piece back up. His fingers are shaking. Ivan glances up at him in time to see Till’s eyes go glassy, liquid starting to pool at the rims. “Fuck. Fuck.”
Ivan sighs. “Don’t be scared. You said you could do it, right?” The delivery is wrong. Ivan never learned how to soften his voice, to make it sound gentle enough for Till to feel comforted by it. His best skill was doing the opposite.
“I can’t,” Till says again. His hands clutch Ivan’s collar bone shard so tightly that it’ll cut his hands if he holds it any harder. His shoulders are bunched up around his ears.
“Cheer up,” Ivan tries, like they’re children again trying to bring dead flowers back to life. Till’s face crumples even more.
“My hands keep—they won’t stop shaking,” Till says. He drops the piece onto the floor.
“Here,” Ivan says, reaching for Till’s hand but Till jerks back before he can.
“Don’t. What if it gets worse when you touch me?!”
“We already tried that, remember?”
Till’s shaking his head before Ivan finishes his sentence. ”No, no, no, no. Don’t touch me.”
Ivan considers poking him. Just to see what he’ll do.
“You can’t die,” Till says.
“I’m not dying,” Ivan placates.
“You’re lying.”
Maybe a little. The situation does look grim.
Till must read it on his face because his next exhale comes out as a sob. “You still can’t be honest with me? I’m trying to tell you, how, how important—”
“If you’re scared, I can glue it back on myself,” Ivan says, gesturing to Till’s hands.
“I’m not scared,” Till says. It makes Ivan’s ears—well, his remaining ear—ring. “I can do it. I just need to.” Till swallows, blinking rapidly. His voice breaks when he speaks. “I just need to focus. And you need to stop talking. You’re so.”
Till says something else, something about how Ivan is annoying and stupid and never learned when to be quiet. His breaths turn frantic the more he speaks. The consistent breeze inside Ivan is warm, suddenly. It feels like Till. The taste of blood lingers in Ivan’s mouth. Till’s fingers brush his shoulder but all Ivan can feel is the texture of the bandaid. “You should know that this isn’t sustainable,” Ivan says.
“Shut up,” Till says. “You can’t die. You're supposed to be here. You can’t—that doesn’t fucking make sense. Where would you even go?”
“Into a nice picture frame, preferably.” Ivan’s throat feels a bit dry. He feels a part of his cheek splinter.
“I’m not turning you into a mosaic.”
“Pity.”
Till’s mouth wobbles. “I. Ivan. You know. You know how I feel. You know by now, right? Stop acting like you don’t.” His voice is small.
Ivan blinks. Does he know how Till...feels? Well, obviously. But is Till feeling grossed out something to cry over? Unless Till is talking about something else. “I don’t know. What am I supposed to know?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Till says, swiping an arm over his eyes.
“You’re being stupid,” Ivan says automatically.
“I’m not,” Till says hotly.
Ivan stares at him. Till’s face is splotchy and red and puffy. His entire face is covered with fluids, snot and tears alike. Soft. Ivan lets himself indulge and pokes Till in the forehead.
It’s like Ivan presses a button. The moment he touches Till, Till slumps in on himself. He presses the palms of his hands harshly into his eyes, breathing shakily. “Fuck you,” Till says on an exhale. “This has been the worst month of my life and you’re acting like nothing happened.”
The worst month of his life.
“Till,” Ivan starts. “If you were so disgusted, I could have taken care of this myself.” No one can accuse him of not being professional when it counts.
Till’s entire body twitches. “What.”
“You don’t have to worry about it anymore,” Ivan says diplomatically.
That seems to anger Till further.
“You—what’s wrong with you?! Disgust? Where did you—What the fuck?! Where did you even get that from?”
“The vomiting, for one.”
“I only vomited once.”
“You’ve lost weight. 2.4 kilograms.”
“Are you fucking—from the stress.”
“You keep coming home late.”
Till runs a hand through his hair. The tears have stopped, but his face is still wet. “Because,” he says. He sniffs again. “Because I thought, if it really was touching that was making it worse, then I shouldn’t be home that often. And maybe you’d get better.” His voice is so quiet that Ivan can barely hear him.
But. “You’re disgusted with me,” Ivan reiterates. Because it’s true. All these excuses now are just that, excuses, and they don’t change the facts Ivan has known from the beginning.
Till splutters. His face is so red now that Ivan briefly wonders if he’s going to faint. “Who are you to say that?”
Ivan frowns. “You’re mixing your feelings up.”
Till straightens his shoulder, looking Ivan in the eye. “You’re such an ass. If you don’t l- l-,” he winces. “Like me back, say that. But don’t fucking put words in my mouth.”
Like.
Like.
“What?”
“You’re so stupid,” Till says. His eyes are shiny again. “I don’t care if you turn into glass.”
“Porcelain.”
Till continues like he doesn’t hear him. “You’re gross for a billion other reasons. This is...I don’t care. You’re not dying, so it doesn’t matter what you look like. I’ll glue you back together forever.”
And then Till kisses him.
Not on the lips. On his cheek, right over his cheekbone where Ivan knows a harsh crack is. Feather-light.
There’s a cracking sound.
Till jerks his head back. Instinctively, Ivan looks down to see what piece of him fell off.
And there’s... nothing.
He pauses. Now that he has registered it, it didn’t hurt at all. A rare occurrence these days, to not feel pain.
He looks back at Till. Till hasn’t even moved. He’s staring at the spot his lips were just on. “What the fuck.”
Ivan...What is Ivan supposed to do right now?
“What the fuck,” Till says again.
Ivan puts a finger on his cheekbone. Till’s bandaged ones are already there.
He doesn’t feel the crack anymore.
“It—No fucking way,” Till says, breathless. “What?”
“What?” Ivan repeats dumbly.
“You’re—you’re healing,” Till says. He breaks out into hysterical laughter. “What the fuck.”
“From,” Ivan says, voice dry.
Till picks up the collarbone piece again and holds it in place. He presses his lips against it.
Ivan bites back a shiver. Not from the cold this time.
Again, a cracking noise. No pain. And regular, uncracked skin at the end of it. Even the minuscule missing pieces seem to have healed, the ones Ivan had assumed were gone and missing forever. Like his skin stretched out to accommodate.
“Mizi was right,” Till breathes. “It was a love curse.”
A love curse, Ivan thinks. Mizi has always been a romantic. “And what does Mizi think caused it?”
Till shakes his head. “You have to confirm first.”
“Confirm what?”
“That you l—That you like someone.”
Ivan takes four deep breaths. “Yes,” he answers simply.
“Okay.” Till nods. “Okay. Okay. And...and who is it?”
“Knowing who it is is relevant to Mizi’s love curse?”
Till winces. “Yes.”
Ivan takes another deep breath. “Till.”
Till wilts. “Yes.”
“Do you think that I gave you that iguana when we were six as a joke?”
Till frowns. Ivan can read the confusion on his face. “You...you gave it to me because you thought it would be funny. Because I was scared of them.”
“That too. Obviously,” Ivan dismisses. “But it had a purple scale. That’s why I gave it to you.”
Till’s eye twitches. “What does that have to do with this?”
“I ate the only chocolate you ever got for Valentine’s day in middle school.”
“Ivan.”
“And I shaved too much of the back of your head when you wanted to get an undercut on purpose.”
“You did that on purpose?!”
“I also told you that I’d kiss you when Mizi started dating Sua.”
Till swallows. “You were making fun of me when you said that.”
“You should learn how to interpret subtext,” Ivan says. He feels—he doesn’t know. This conversation has flipped so many times he can’t even keep up. He can’t tell how Till is managing.
Something like realization has dawned for Till.
“Mizi’s theory,” Ivan reminds him.
Till nods. He starts to fan himself. “It’s—it was...”
Likely embarrassing for Till to admit, Ivan finishes in his head. A thread of humor he hasn’t felt in days comes back to him.
“Do you, um.” Till inhales. “Doyouthinkofmealot?”
Ivan searches Till’s expression. The genuine answer is that Ivan doesn’t think of anything else.
Till says, “Mizi thought that’s what the trigger was. And what was making it worse. Not, not touching, really. But thinking. Any thoughts, she said. She thought that, that you must have. I don’t know. Thought of someone too much. And it was too much for. For the universe, or something. Because you. Liked. Them,” he explains haltingly. “And every time you, um, thought about them, things got worse. Your...” He makes a vague gesture over his body.
Ivan manages to nod.
“But. But that doesn’t matter anymore,” Till dismisses. “Clearly, she was right. And. And we can talk about all of that later.” He picks up a shard and lines it up to Ivan’s chin. It’s curious that Till had known where it would go instinctively. Without having to check. “I’ll fix you, and then. And then we can. Talk. Eugh. And. And, you know. Properly.”
“Kiss,” Ivan supplies.
Till pointedly does not meet Ivan’s eyes. Instead, he presses his lips to Ivan’s chin.
-
After a while, Ivan says, “I should get naked.” He’s already in his boxers now. The tent in his pants is glaringly obvious.
I missed you, Ivan tells it.
Till kisses a crack in his knee. Miraculously, he hasn’t scratched his mouth yet. Ivan continues, “I have cracks everywhere, Till. Everywhere. You can’t miss a single spot.”
“I’m going to put you back together and then I’m going to hit you,” Till tells him. His lips are puffy. Ivan swallows a moan.
“That’s fair.” He reaches over and takes Till by the chin.
Till’s eyes are wide. The ugliest and prettiest crier Ivan has ever seen, he thinks fondly. His entire face is swollen. Ivan will have to make sure he drinks water later. Dried up tear tracks and snot bypass his mouth and dribble down his chin.
Ivan kisses Till on the mouth. Like he cares about dried mucus.
“I already healed your lips,” Till mumbles. “I still have to do your left leg.”
“My hero,” Ivan says, then kisses him again.