Don’t Lick the Meteorite — It’s Probably Radioactive

by EynRhies

Summary:

Till snapped the sketchbook shut. "You're like a shitty magician. I can see you palming your pockets."

A beat. Ivan's smirk faltered. His hand, halfway to that pocket, twitched like a startled spider.

"Advil." He lied.

"For what? Your personality disorder?"

In which Till's great escape hits a snag in the Roswell desert: a broken bus, weird passengers, and Ivan—a boy who jokes about dying too much for it to be a joke. Now Till's mission to seek his mother's resting place includes keeping one infuriatingly pretty idiot alive.

Chapter 1: Don't Eat That Cacti, Dude (Seriously)

Notes:

Inspired by the 'Love you to the stars and back' film except instead of hitchhiking on a car with a chicken they pick up otw, they meet through a dingy bus tour in search of aliens with an eccentric bunch (of people, sadly).

+ it's Ivan and Till (they're gonna make it 10x harder somehow).

The bass from the living room speakers thumped like a dying heartbeat. Till’s fingers tightened around the doorframe, knuckles bleaching white against chipped black nail polish. Inside, his father swayed with her— his stepmother. It wasn't even the dancing that had upset him, had his stomach churning with rage.

 

It was the dancing at his mother, Io’s song. The one she’d hum while brushing softly over Till’s grey strands in an attempt to soothe his many whinings, her voice soft as worn velvet. "Someday, starlight," she’d whisper, "we’ll dance where the stars sing."

 

Now, his father spun that woman, her silk dress catching the light like oil on water. Till’s throat burned. He remembered his mothers, Io’s, skeletal hands clutching his, her teal eyes—his eyes—glazed with morphine dreams of "Star People" and cosmic oceans. "They’ll come for me, Till. Promise you’ll look to the sky."

 

But, it seemed he was the only one who couldn't move on. His father clearly had.

 

His father beamed, palm hovering over his stepmother’s stomach. "We’re pregnant, Till! You’ll have a sibling!"

 

The words hit like shrapnel. Till’s vision tunneled—the dancing figures blurred into a grotesque watercolor of betrayal.

 

Till had enough.

 

He fled to his room, boots sliding on. The kind that looked like they’d been stolen from a thrift store that resented losing them. Black leather, laces mismatched—one red, one black—and looped in messy knots that looked permanent. The soles were thick—three inches, maybe three and a half—heavy enough to make the floor to his room thunk with each step. Not so subtle for someone trying to run away, he supposes. 

 

On his desk's hidden compartment, he grabs Io’s obsidian necklace with deep red rubies in them, a map circled at White Sands, NM, and a half-packed bag.

 

No more ghosts here. No more.

 

Because as his mother had told him, she's with the Aliens. Whether that had meant Alien-heaven where all beings are equal or  a dingy burger joint with Bob the green slob, he didn't mind.

 

Anywhere but home.

 

 

 . ݁₊ ⊹ . 

 

 

Roswell’s bus depot reeked of diesel and cheap perfume. Till’s ripped jeans clung to his legs in the New Mexico heat, frayed flannel sleeves rolled up to reveal pale, fairly lean arms. He eyed the STARGAZER SHUTTLE—a vomit-green monstrosity plastered with peeling alien decals.

 

A tan and scarily muscular woman in a bomber jacket leaned against its door, dark shades hiding her eyes as she chewed a cherry lollipop like a cigar. Pins adorned her lapel; a UFO sucking up a fat cow, ROSWELL ‘47, and I ♥ NEW MEXICO.

 

"Name?" she drawled, clipboard in hand.

 

"Till."

 

"Last name?"

 

"Just Till."

 

She shrugged, scribbling. "Hyuna. Driver, mechanic, and your worst nightmare if you puke on my seats. Welcome aboard, Mysterious Guy #2." She jerked a thumb toward the bus. "Watch your head—the AC’s on life support."

 

Till ducked inside. Stale air, sticky vinyl seats, and the thrum of anxious energy. Only four passengers dotted the 10-seater bus (he didn’t count but it looked that way) and that included him, at the moment at least. Odd. Why so few when he was already late himself?

 

A girl with cotton-candy pink hair bounced in the third row, her star-shaped earrings waving. She was dazzling. Cheery, too cheery. It had sent a jolt up his spine just trying to catch a glimpse of her verdant eyes.

 

"I’m Mizi! You here for the aliens or the overpriced snacks?"

 

Till blinked. This too-bright girl, she was talking to him, right? Unable to respond, too star-struck, he attempts to say his name. 

 

"Ti-"

 

A shadow fell over him. "Mind if I sit?"

 

A fifth passenger. A really tall one.

 

Till looked up. A boy stood in the aisle—tall, shoulders broad beneath a too-crisp white shirt tucked into tailored slacks. Formal. Out of place. He thinks to himself at the man's too-hot-for-the-weather attire. There was also a faint lavender scent rising whenever he leaned forward to speak. Everything about him looked intentional, like he could step off the bus and straight into a photograph without fixing a thing.

 

Dark hair swept back from a sharp jaw, but it was the eyes that froze Till: pools of black ink, irises ringed with a thin, unsettling crimson. Like embers in a void.

 

"Yes, I mind." Till tore his eyes away from the man, said that as flatly as  he could mutter (Gods he hoped he didn't look too stiff from the judging gaze), turning to the window. Plenty of other seats anyway.

 

The boy slid in beside him anyway, long legs brushing against Till’s. This guy doesn't listen. "Ivan," he offered, extending a hand. Till ignored it.

 

Ivan’s smile didn’t waver. "Rough day? Or just allergic to company?"

 

"Try both." Till scowls, staring resolutely at the desert blurring past the glass.

 

Hyuna butts in. "His name's Till. No hard feelings, bud. As your responsible guide, I want all of us to get along and name-dropping is the first step to familiarity, no? Yes. Great. Let's all be friends. Hallelujah." She had supplied monotonal, hands still on the wheel, sunglasses reflecting the golden-colored roads basked by the sun.

 

Of course she heard them talking, to which Till can only groan at the flicker that escapes Ivan's dark orbs. 

 

"Got it, captain!" He sees Ivan playfully salute at Hyuna from the rearview mirror.

 

And what happens afterwards was mostly a blur to him in an attempt to tune out what he can hear as the man besides him starts asking the bus driver about the other passengers with them. He catches the other names. Luka, Hyunwoo, and of course, the sweet girl with cotton-candy hair, Mizi.

 

 

 . ݁₊ ⊹ . 

 

 

Hyuna revved the engine. The bus lurched forward, rattling like loose teeth. Mizi chattered up front, showing off glow-in-the-dark alien stickers to a stoic man with pale-blonde hair (who he’d pinpointed as Luka) and his companion, a sturdy guy in a denim shirt (Hyunwoo, always stuck close to the eccentric blonde) who also happens to be Hyuna’s twin apparently— he just hopes this ride wasn’t some sketchy scam to harvest organs with how little witnesses they’d have.

 

Ivan pulled a bag of BBQ chips from his backpack. "So. What drags a guy with boots like yours"—he nodded at Till’s scuffed leather-toes—"to Roswell? Ghost-hunting? Alien-kissing?"

 

Till traced Io’s necklace under his shirt. Fingers grasping and ungrasping in a way he’d hope wasn’t too obvious. "Just wanted to see the stars... You?"

 

"How poetic." Ivan crunched a chip, casually, he speaks.

 

"Me? I’m here ‘cause I’m dying."

 

The grey head snapped toward him. "What?" WHAT.

 

Ivan had only smiled at him. 

 

"Hey, you can't just drop something like that? What the hell man?"

 

"Why not?"

 

"You just can't!"

 

"Too weak-hearted?" Ivan burst out laughing, a hand pressed to his mouth as if he'd spill with more laughter if he didn't hide the way-too-white snaggle-tooth that catches Till's eyes. His laugh—a rich, rolling sound that felt too big for the cramped seat.

 

"Kidding! God, your face. It's practically all scrunched up."

 

What was that about? Till adjusts his posture, and if he leaned a bit closer to gauge the man's face, no, he didn't.

 

The dark-haired man wiped fake tears, pale fingers running across his long lower lashes. Huh, why was he staring at a guy's lashes?

 

"Nah, just killing time. Heard the UFO tours are… a spiritual experience for escapees like us." He winked at Till, who grumbled in response.

 

Everyone in this bus had a screw loose or two (Maybe not Mizi... She was alright. And Hyunwoo, slightly. That man was understanding Luka like he wasn't talking in Simlish or something), not to say Till himself doesn't. He does. After all, he had his father and stepmother's numbers muted and archived the moment he left home.

 

Hyuna was sprawled sideways in her seat, one long leg hooked over the aisle, sunglasses still on even though the bus’s tinted windows made it feel like dusk. Luka had his head leaned against the glass, pretending to nap, but his earbuds weren’t even plugged into anything.

 

“You guys don’t even know what’s waiting for you,” Hyuna said, her voice low and lazy, like she was narrating a fashion commercial.

 

Mizi perked up instantly. “The dunes?!”

 

“The white dunes,” Hyuna corrected. “Which, fun fact—aren’t really white. More of a washed-out eggshell. But ‘Eggshell Sands’ sounds like a breakfast menu item, so…” She flicked her fingers in a you get it gesture.

 

Hyunwoo frowned at his sister. “So they’re lying to us?”

 

“They’re marketing to you,” Hyuna said, not unkindly. “It’s gypsum, not quartz. Gypsum stays cool even when the sun’s trying to melt your skin off. Means you could walk barefoot at high noon and only burn from shame, not temperature.”

 

Luka cracked an eye open. “That’s not science.”

 

“It’s my science,” she shot back, smirking. “Anyway, the dunes shift every night. Wind moves them, sculpts them. Locals say the desert’s alive and watching you. Personally, I think it’s just bored and petty—like me.”

 

Mizi was already scribbling something in her travel notebook. “Ooooh, so if we get lost, the sand will guide us back?”

 

“Only if you’re cute,” Hyuna winked half-heartedly.

 

From the seat on Till's left, Ivan twisted around in his seat. “Is it true they fine you for stealing the sand?”

 

Hyuna leaned forward, resting her chin in her hand. “Mhm. You try to pocket it, they’ll know. Sand has memory.”

 

Till, without looking up from his phone: “No, it doesn’t.”

 

Hyuna’s smile was slow and dangerous. “Then I guess you’ll just have to test that theory.”

 

 

 . ݁₊ ⊹ . 

 

 

Ivan had his knees pulled up in his seat, chin resting on them like a bored cat. “Did you know,” he began, “that on Planet Xyphos—don’t check, it’s real—their moons are actually just giant frozen potatoes? Like, massive. Orbiting starch. They harvest them every century for the Great Potato Festival.”

 

What was this man in formal wear spouting?

 

Till didn’t even look up from his sketchpad. “That’s not —moons can’t be made of potatoes. Structurally, they’d collapse under their own weight.” He couldn’t believe he’d have something smart yet borderline common sense coming out his mouth.

 

Ivan blinked at him, mock-offended. “Wow. Okay. Professor Till over here. And how do you know that, huh? Maybe you’ve never been to Xyphos.”

 

“I don’t have to. Potatoes don’t have the tensile strength to survive gravitational forces. They’d just… mush.” He gestured vaguely in the air, like it was obvious.

 

“Fine,” Ivan huffed, leaning back. “Then they’re super potatoes. Mutant space potatoes with iron cores.”

 

“That would make them no longer potatoes,” Till said, pencil scratching across paper.

 

Ivan stared at him for a long beat, then grinned. “You ruin everything. And this is coming from me. A straight-A's student.”

 

Till scowled. Asshole. But as Ivan leaned back, Till noticed the sheen of sweat on his temple. The odd way his grip tightened around the chip bag when the bus hit a pothole.

 

"You okay?" Till asked grudgingly. This guy doesn't deserve his concern. As of now.

 

Ivan’s smile sharpened. "Peachy."

 

His eyes had then shifted upwards, a teasing smile on his face now that had Till regretting asking him in the first place. "Why? Worried about me, stranger?"

 

"No." Till looked away.

 

"Good." Ivan’s voice lightened, but his breath hitched—just slightly—as he rubbed his temples. "Just hate bumpy roads. Makes me feel… seasick."

 

"Seasick? Till raised an eyebrow. "In the middle of the desert? Sounds rough."

 

"Carsick." Ivan had corrected himself. "Do you have any paper bags?"

 

“Why are you looking at me like that…?”

 

“Hey.”

 

"Hey… Hey! Ivan! Dude, not on my new flannel!"

 

If Till was wearing slightly less layers than normal, he'd pretend it wasn't because it was hanging by the window, drying out due to some unidentified residue Ivan had spat out. He shuddered. Gross.

 

 

 . ݁₊ ⊹ . 

 

 

Hours bled into ochre desert. Till sketched in a notebook—jagged mountains, a bus with wings. Ivan had asked him about the strange blob? The dark-haired boy had put his pointy finger in the middle of his pale yet unchapped lips, his hand trembled faintly, slightly wobbling, if that was due to the unsteady roads or if he'd been freezing at the half-broken AC barely blowing what qualifies as air, Till pretended not to notice.

 

"A star alien." He'd murmured to satiate Ivan's curiosity.

 

Near the front, Luka pressed his palm to the window. "The stars are loud today," he murmured, cheeks still pressed against the not-so-sanitary glass adorned with what he can only surmise as dust from the outside and fingerprints of various passengers from atleast three years ago.

 

"What the hell does that even mean." Till had grumbled mid-sketch.

 

Hyunwoo nodded, a knowing grin, as if he knew exactly what the blonde meant. "Sounds like something good's 'bout to happen."

 

Mizi twisted in her seat. And Till looks over as she speaks. "Captain Hyuna! Any real UFO stories?"

 

Hyuna adjusted her shades. "Saw lights over Socorro once. Swore they were helicopters ‘til they shot straight up. Poof. Gone." She sucked her lollipop. "Course, I was three whiskeys deep."

 

The bus hit a rut.

 

Ivan jerked forward, a gasp escaping him. Till's eyes shifts towards him, the conversation from earlier dimming from his ears. Ivan's book that he had brought out earlier to read tumbled to the floor. Till picked it up, eyes briefly catching the title. When breathe becomes air.

 

"Thanks," Ivan muttered, snatching it back. His crimson-ringed eyes looked glassy.

 

"You sure you’re—"

 

"Fine." Ivan’s smile was sharp-edged in its perfection, like something he’d practiced in mirrors until it no longer looked like a lie. "Just need water." He dug through his bag, fingers jittery against the zipper until they found the bottle. Till noticed how white-knuckled the grip was, the tendons in his hand taut as wire.

 

"Can't open? Want me to try?"

 

"No thank you. I need a workout anyways."

 

Till arched a brow. "How’s that working out?"

 

"It’s twenty tons in weight to open this can!" Ivan grunted, clearly exaggerating as he twists the cap. The plastic gave a protesting squeal—then the bus coughed, the engine sputtering in a long, uneven wheeze that drowned out the rest. The whole frame shivered around them. Ivan’s eyes flicked toward the driver’s mirror, his fingers still clamped on the bottle, the knuckles pale against the dark plastic.

 

The engine sounds like it's giving on them. Hyuna had barely pulled to a corner (thank god no, one else needed the road behind them... or maybe not). 

 

A guttural cough shuddered through metal. The AC died with a wheeze. Hot, gritty air flooded the cabin.

 

"Ah, hell." Hyuna steered onto the shoulder, gravel crunching. "Everybody out! Engine’s throwing a tantrum."

 

 

 . ݁₊ ⊹ . 

 

 

Passengers spilled into the desert—a cracked mosaic of dirt and sagebrush. Heat rose in visible waves. Till stumbled, boots sinking into slightly soft and yet hard sand. Behind him, Ivan gripped the bus doorframe, his face leached of color.

 

"Need help?" Till asked.

 

Ivan straightened, forcing his shoulders back. "Nope. Just… appreciating the view." He took a step, swayed, then caught himself. Sweat dampened his collar.

 

Hyuna popped the hood. Steam hissed. "Tow truck’s six hours out! Don’t wander—coyotes think city folk are tasty."

 

Mizi groaned. "Six hours? But my phone’s dead!"

 

Luka stood apart, staring at the horizon where the sun bled. "It’s listening," he whispered.

 

Till watched Ivan lean against the bus, eyes closed. His breathing was shallow, lips pressed thin. Not carsick. Something worse.

 

"Hey." Till approached him. "You should sit. In the shade."

 

Ivan’s eyes flew open. That polished smile snapped back into place. "Worried again? Careful—I might assume you like me."

 

"Don't flatter yourself. I just don't want to drag your corpse out of the sun." Till huffed as turned away. But he didn’t walk far.

 

The desert stretched around them—vast, indifferent, and humming with secrets. Somewhere out there, White Sands waited.

 

But for now, they were stranded.

 

And Ivan was hiding something.

 

Mizi seemed the most approachable. Maybe he could speak to her, get her to nudge Ivan into opening up. That, and he actually wanted to talk to her himself. He’s excuse it as him just being too shy to approach the lightpost that is Mizi. That and he'd been too buried in his sketchbook—and in Ivan, as reluctantly as he’d admit it—to bother getting to know much about the others. Not that he was a social butterfly anyway. Mostly, he’d been a quiet, listening as Hyuna and Mizi chattered, Ivan tossing in the occasional not-so-fun fun fact about anything, really, Hyunwoo was speaking and Luka was responding with cryptic words in a language that felt half-code, half-glance. Till only threw a comment or two while his pencil moved.

 

The pencil lead snapped with a tiny tick. He stared at the broken point, remembering he hadn’t packed a sharpener. Great. Six more hours of staring at Ivan staring at a cactus.

 

Was he still dazed? He’d been holding his own with Mizi and the others earlier. Till drifted closer, murmuring, "Don’t eat that."

 

Ivan glanced up from where he crouched near a prickly pear. "Wasn’t planning to. Too spiky."

 

"Looked like you were."

 

"Was going to put it under your seat for a little surprise—and whoops, you caught me." Ivan shrugged, laughter threading through his voice. His mock-surrender pose was all raised hands and tilted grin.

 

The bus gave a low, uneven cough, the kind that makes you wonder if it’ll make it another mile. Hyuna said it should. It can, probably. Till’s eyes flicked toward the front. Beside him, Ivan’s smile lingered—but his hand brushed his side pocket, just briefly, like he was steadying himself against something unseen.

Notes:

I know nothing about American geography so if you're from the area please, please, please judge me not so harshly aha.

I have searched a bit on the Roswell Bus Tour but this one bus has to be rickety and sketchy (for plot convenience :D)

Chapter 2: Ivan’s Twenty-Ton Secret

Summary:

3 times Ivan gasps for air (literally) and the 1 time he leaves Till breathless.

That and Ivan's short little detour, away from their alien sight-seeing includes Till somehow. He doesn't take "No's." Not that Till can say no to him anyway.

The desert didn’t care about their broken bus.

 

It stretched around them—scorching and endless, a cracked mosaic of dirt and sagebrush under a sky too big for human problems. Heat rose in visible waves, distorting the horizon like a funhouse mirror. 

 

Till’s boots sank into sand that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be soft or concrete. Behind him, Ivan leaned against the Stargazer’s blistering metal frame, his crisp white shirt now translucent with sweat. If Till was caught staring, it wasn't intentional, not at all. Jeez, he should have worn something else. 

 

The grey-haired watched him now from the corner of his eye. Ivan’s fingers twitched toward his side pocket again— a tic? Till had counted seven times in the last hour. Whatever he kept there (pills? A flask? A tiny cartoon-y alien communicator?), it wasn’t helping. His breathing was shallow, lips pressed into a bloodless line.

 

Not carsick. They weren’t even in the bus.  Not even close.

 

 

. ݁₊ ⊹ . 

 

 

There's something about a broken down bus that just has a way of peeling people open.

 

It started with the little things - the way Mizi's star-shaped earrings lost their bounce after just hour one, dangling limp as overcooked noodles. How Hyunwoo's denim shirt darkened with sweat along his spine in a perfect Rorschach blot of misery. Even Luka's usual ethereal calm cracked slightly when he caught his reflection in a chrome hubcap and startled, as if surprised to find himself human.

 

Till watched it all from his perch on a sun-bleached boulder, sketching not the landscape but the slow unraveling of their group. He had sharpened said pencil with a ROCK , of all things. Like the proper neanderthal he is.

 

"You're like a shitty detective," Ivan's voice cut through the heat haze. He'd crept up silently. "All intense staring and zero subtlety."

 

Till snapped the sketchbook shut. "And you're like a shitty magician. I can see you palming your pockets."

 

A beat. Ivan's smirk faltered. His hand, halfway to that pocket, twitched like a startled spider.

 

"Advil," he lied.

 

"For what? Your personality disorder?"

 

"For the twenty-ton weight sitting on my sternum. Kidding . Aha." Ivan plucked a sprig of sagebrush, crushing it between fingers that trembled just slightly.

 

"Yeah, right."

 

“Hyuna says the tow truck's few hours out. You keeping a death tally on me or?"

 

Till's pencil had drawn Ivan's clavicle three times without permission. "Counting how long until you combust from irony."

 

"Give me 10 more minutes."

 

“Imagine, dying guy takes a death trap bus to the desert—poetic as hell."

 

Ivan's laugh turned into a cough that sounded wetter than it should. "Not dying. Just... negotiating with gravity. Everything feels heavier out here." He flicked the sagebrush at Till's boot. "What's your excuse, runaway ?"

 

The question hung between them, swollen as the afternoon heat. Till's thumb found Io's necklace under his shirt. "Not running. Walking with purpose in the opposite direction of bullshit."

 

And he looks. Looks at Till like he hadn't just blurted out nonsense. Like he understood.

 . ݁₊ ⊹ . 

Mizi, meanwhile, had declared the breakdown a "timeout for friendship!"

 

She’d herded the group once she got bored, into what you could call a lopsided circle near a skeletal juniper tree, its branches clawing at the air like a witch’s fingers. "We’ll manifest a rescue with vibes!" she announced, star-shaped earrings catching the sun. "Think shiny thoughts!"

 

Luka sat cross-legged in the dust, eyes closed. "The sand is singing," he murmured.

 

"That’s the heatstroke talking," Hyunwoo said, but he patted Luka’s droopy shoulder anyway. Hyuna’s sunglasses occasionally reflect the two, watching.

 

Till stayed apart, sketching jagged mountains in his notebook. Or trying to. His pencil kept drifting—drawing Ivan’s sharp jawline instead, the way his dark hair stuck to his forehead in damp curls.

 

"You’re staring, again. " Ivan said suddenly. He’d crept up like a shadow, though his steps were uneven.

 

Till snapped the notebook shut. "You’re hallucinating."

 

"Mmm. Wouldn’t be the first time." Ivan crouched beside him, wincing as his knees protested. He plucked a sprig of sagebrush, twirling it between trembling fingers. “Admit it, you like being stuck with each other."

 

"Tragic."

 

Ivan’s smile was all teeth. "Tell me, Till—if you could teleport one thing here right now, what would it be?"

 

"A working bus."

 

"Boring." Ivan flicked the sagebrush at him but he doesn't dodge. "I’d teleport a snowcone machine. Cherry flavor. Brain freeze optional."

 

Till snorted, teal eyes on the man. "You’d puke again."

 

"Worth it."

 

A silence settled, thick with heat and something else—something charged. Ivan’s gaze drifted to Till’s half-hidden sketch. "You drawing me?"

 

"No," Till lied, tucking the notebook away. "I just hate blank paper."

 . ݁₊ ⊹ . 

By hour three, even Mizi’s vibes were wilting.

 

The group had fractured—Hyuna and Hyunwoo tinkered with the engine, arguing in low tones. Luka wandered the perimeter, trailing his fingers over rocks like they were old friends. Mizi napped under the juniper, her pink hair fanned out like cotton candy. Till thought she looked cute.

 

And Ivan?

 

Ivan had gone very, very still.

 

“Earth to Ivan?”

 

Till found him slumped against the bus tire, eyes glassy. His skin was the color of spoiled milk. "Hey," Till said, kicking his shoe. "Don’t die here. It’d ruin the vibe."

 

Ivan’s laugh was a dry rasp. "Wouldn’t dream of it." But when he tried to stand, his legs buckled. Till caught him by the elbow, their faces suddenly too close. Teal eyes trying to distract itself with anything else but the loose button showing of Ivan's clavicle. Ivan’s breath hitched—not from pain, but surprise. His dark eyes flicked to Till’s mouth. 

 

"…Thanks."

 

Till dropped his arm like it burned. "Whatever. Just sit down before you faceplant into a cactus or something."

 

Ivan obeyed, finding himself over a big enough rock, his smirk was back. "Worried about me again?"

 

"Worried about your funeral expenses. Those shoes look expensive."

 

"They are." Ivan leaned his head back against the tire. "Santa Fe custom. My father’s tailor cried when I asked for loafers instead of wingtips."

 

Till froze. "Santa Fe? You're going there?"

 

A beat. Ivan’s expression shuttered. "Just a pit stop."

 

"For what?"

 

"Family business." Ivan’s voice went flat. "The unpleasant kind."

 

Till wanted to push. Instead, he sat beside him, their shoulders barely touching. The desert stretched before them, indifferent. 

 

"You’re a shitty liar," he muttered.

 

Ivan exhaled. "Yeah."

 

Above them, the sky deepened to bruised purple. Somewhere out there, the stars were waking.

 

And the Stargazer Shuttle was still very, very broken.

 

. ݁₊ ⊹ . 

By hour four, the desert had baked them into new versions of themselves:

 

Hyuna had shed her bomber jacket, revealing arms corded with muscle and a tattoo of the Milky Way spiraling down her bicep. She and Hyunwoo argued over the engine in a language that might've been Korean or pure mechanic's rage.

 

Mizi's "vibe circle" had devolved into her braiding Luka's hair while he stared at the horizon, murmuring about " the bones under the sand," as she yapped about how nice it would be if an angel came and saved them.

 

And Ivan?

 

Ivan had stopped pretending.

 

Till found him curled in the Stargazer's shadow, knees drawn up like a child hiding from thunder. His breathing came in shallow sips. Up close, Till could see the fever sheen on his skin, the way his pulse fluttered in his throat like a trapped moth.

 

"Medicate or perforate, your choice," Till said, tossing Ivan's own water bottle at him. It hit his chest with a hollow thunk.

 

Ivan's long dark lashes lifted slowly. "You're cute when you pretend not to care."

 

"You're pathetic when you pretend you're fine." Till crouched beside him, close enough to smell the lavender starch of his shirt undercut with something medicinal. 

 

"Santa Fe's not just a pit stop. You're going to see someone. Right?"

 

The tow truck arrived at dusk, a rusted beast belching diesel fumes.

 

The dark-haired man came to a pause. 

 

The desert held its breath.

 

"My father," Ivan admitted to his knees. "Last-ditch effort before..." His hand rose, fell. "Family duty."

 

Till thought of his own father spinning that woman in their living room. "Fuck family."

 

Ivan's eyes widened, a sliver of a smile, snaggle-tooth showing, much much different to the one he'd been showing everyone. "Exactly what I plan to tell him."

 

Cute. Till was now the one gasping for air.

 . ݁₊ ⊹ . 

Hyuna herded them aboard like a cowboy with particularly troublesome cattle. "Motel's got AC and questionable WiFi. Try not to get kidnapped by conspiracy theorists." She eyed Ivan's pallor. "Or your own bad decisions."

 

Roswell at night was a carnival of the bizarre - neon aliens winking from shop windows, sidewalks painted with UFOs, a diner called "The Crash Site" serving green pancakes. Till watched it all through the grimy tow truck window, Ivan's fever-warm shoulder pressed against his.

 

Hyuna kicked the Stargazer’s tire in farewell. "24-hour repair window, folks. You’re unleashed upon Roswell—try not to get probed."

 

She tossed them crumpled vouchers for a motel that boasted "ALIEN-FREE BEDS!" in peeling letters. “Don't get abducted by children.”

 

Mizi bounced on her toes. "UFO Museum time! They’ve got a real piece of the ’47 crash—or maybe it’s a fridge magnet. Either way, shiny!"

 

Luka drifted toward the motel without a word, Hyunwoo shadowing him like a silent guardian.

 

Till lingered near a giant fiberglass alien outside the museum, its bulbous head tilted in permanent confusion. He traced the cracks in its neon-green paint. Io would’ve loved this kitsch.

 

"So." 

 

He jolts as Ivan materialized beside him, hands in his pockets. "Hypothetically… if someone needed a quick detour to Santa Fe—say, a two-hour bus ride— could that someone bribe you with gas station tacos to tag along?"

 

Till side-eyed him. "Hypothetically?"

 

"Purely academic." Ivan’s smirk was razor-thin. "Also, I might’ve already bought the tickets." He flashed two slips of paper. "Back by or even before 3 PM. White Sands won’t miss us."

 

Till should’ve said no. Should’ve walked away. But Ivan’s eyes held something desperate—the same look Till had seen in the mirror for months.

 

"As I said, back by 3 PM," Ivan murmured as they passed a gift shop selling alien plushies. "Just a quick detour. I do my... thing. You get a front-row seat to… familial disintegration? Win-win."

 

Till studied the way Ivan's fingers worried the bus ticket edges. "Why me?"

 

"Because you'll let me pretend this isn't tragic." Ivan met his gaze, the red rings around his irises glowing in the neon.

 

"And because you've got the best 'fuck you' face I've ever seen." To that he snorts. 

 

“Gonna be your scary guard dog now?”

 

“You're like a head shorter than me.”

 

“Hey—!”

 

Mizi's shriek cut through the moment. "IS THAT A REAL ALIEN AUTOPSY VIDEO?!" She faceplanted against the truck window.

 

"There's lint." Luka, silent as ever, trailed behind the dark-haired man. He reached over and plucked something from Ivan's darker strands (unbeknownst to him)—a single white feather. He studied it, then let the wind carry it away, a smirk and knowing gaze falling on the teal eyes that watched his every move. 

 

That Luka. Till was practically burning holes on the blonde's shiny, poreless forehead.

 

Till took the ticket to Sante Fe.

 

Practically snatched it from Ivan's freezing hands.  

Notes:

Do you hear that sound...?

Chapter 3: The Aftermath (Or: Ivan’s Very Bad, No Good Day)

Summary:

That man is Ivan's father? Till recognized him instantly—not just from Ivan’s sharp jawline and dark eyes, but from the goddamn Forbes covers plastered in every airport.

Also, Sua finally appears! Well... in a phone call (to knock some sense into Ivan). And Till? He's just watching it all unfold.

The 6 AM bus to Santa Fe smelled like regret and ammonia.

 

Till slumped against the window, cheek pressed to cool glass, watching Roswell’s alien kitsch fade into scrubland. His sketchbook lay open on his lap—half-finished doodles of Ivan’s stupid face taking up too much space.

 

Ivan himself sat rigid beside him, fingers drumming an uneven rhythm on his knees. His crisp shirt from yesterday was wrinkled now, collar damp with sweat. The red rings around his pupils seemed darker in the dim light, like twin eclipses.

 

"You look like shit," Till said, because he did.

 

Ivan’s laugh came out as a wheeze. "Compliments before coffee? Bold."

 

He rubbed his sternum absently, fingers pressing into the space between his ribs like he was testing for cracks.

 

Till watched the movement. "You’re doing the thing again."

 

"What thing?"

 

"The ‘I’m fine’ thing. Where you pretend your bones aren’t trying to bail on you."

 

Ivan’s smile was a razor slice. "Ah, that thing."

 

He leaned his head back, throat bobbing as he swallowed. "Don’t worry, I’ll collapse dramatically after I tell my father to live up to his own impossible standards. Priorities."

 

The bus hit a pothole. Ivan jerked forward with a bitten-off gasp, hand flying to his side.

 

Till didn’t think. He just moved—catching Ivan’s wrist before it could retreat. The skin under his fingers was fever-hot, pulse fluttering like a dying moth.

 

"Jesus," Till muttered.

 

Ivan yanked his arm back. "Relax, nurse Ratched. It’s just—"

 

"Carsick. Yeah." Till rolled his eyes. "You’re a shitty liar."

 

A pause. Then Ivan sighed, long and slow. "Okay. Fine. Maybe I… skipped a med or three. To be clear-headed for this."

 

Till’s stomach dropped. "You what—?"

 

"Shh." Ivan pressed a finger to Till’s lips. "Your ‘disappointed mom’ voice is gonna make me puke for real."

 

Till smacked his hand away. "You’re an idiot."

 

"And you’re stuck with me." Ivan grinned, but it was strained at the edges. "Two hours to Santa Fe. Distract me?"

 

Till glared. Then, grudgingly, flipped his sketchbook around. "Drew you as a cactus. Prickly. Dying in the sun."

 

Ivan’s laugh was startled, real. "Accurate."

 

Outside, the desert unspooled—endless and indifferent.

   . ݁₊ ⊹ . 

 

Ivan’s father's house wasn’t a house. It was a monument to money.

 

A brutalist slab of black glass and steel, jutting from the Santa Fe hills like a middle finger to the desert. The kind of place that made Till’s punk instincts itch to throw a brick through a window or throw a rotten egg over at days that aren't Halloween.

 

Till whistled low. "Rich people are weird."

 

Ivan said nothing. He stood frozen at the gate, shoulders tight under his wrinkled shirt. His breathing had gone shallow again, lips pressed into a bloodless line.

 

Till nudged him. "You gonna knock or just glare it to death?"

 

Ivan’s fingers twitched toward his pocket—pills? A flask? Till never found out. The door swung open before they could move.

 

A man filled the doorway.

 

Unsha.

 

Till recognized him instantly—not just from Ivan’s sharp jawline and dark eyes, but from the goddamn Forbes covers plastered in every airport. Unsha Kogane. CEO of Kogane Aerospace.

 

The man who built satellites for governments and laughed when asked about ethics.

 

Up close, he was terrifying.

 

Taller than Ivan, broader, with a presence that sucked the air out of the room. His suit was blacker than black, tailored to military precision. No wrinkles. No flaws. His face was all hard angles, like someone had carved him from marble and forgotten to add warmth.

 

But his eyes—

 

Till shuddered. They were Ivan’s eyes, but wrong. No red rings. Just… empty. Like staring into the void of deep space.

 

"Ivan." Unsha’s voice was polished obsidian. "You’re late."

 

Ivan’s smile was all teeth. "Traffic. Also, my immune system’s committing mutiny."

 

Unsha’s expression didn’t flicker. "Come in."

 

Till hung back, looking awkwardly at the two clashing figures. "I’ll wait out—"

 

"No." Ivan grabbed his wrist, grip surprisingly strong. "You’re coming."

 

Till let himself be dragged inside, if only because Ivan’s hand was shaking.

  . ݁₊ ⊹ . 

The interior was sterile. White walls, white furniture, a single abstract painting that looked like a Rorschach test in chrome. No family photos. No clutter. Just a glass coffee table holding a single envelope.

 

Unsha didn’t sit. Didn’t offer drinks. Just slid the envelope toward Ivan.

 

"For the medical situation," he said, like discussing a stock dividend.

 

Ivan stared at it. Then laughed—a sound like shattering glass. "Wow. You even got an intern to sign it, huh? Wouldn’t want your precious signature touching my contamination."

 

Unsha adjusted his platinum cufflinks. "Sentimentality is a liability."

 

"And what’s this?" Ivan jabbed a finger at the envelope. "Guilt? Obligation? Or just checking the ‘failed heir’ box off your to-do list?"

 

Unsha had let out a huff of amusement. “Get better. Then, I’ll take you and your sister in.”

 

The dark haired boy almost finds himself laughing, but he doesn't want to exert any more effort for this man. “Just like that? Like some tax write-off?"

 

"Ivan. Stop being stubborn." The man looked at him, then his eyes landed back on the envelope. 

 

Till shifted uncomfortably. He shouldn’t be here. This was a private car crash. But Ivan’s fingers had found his sleeve again, clinging like an anchor.

 

Unsha’s gaze flicked to Till, eyes falling on the way Ivan clings to him like a lifeline. "Who’s this?"

 

"My emotional support anarchist," Ivan deadpanned, he instinctively put a space between Unsha and Till, pulling him back. "He’s really good at corporate sabotage."

 

Unsha ignored that, looked at him like he was spouting nonsense. "The treatment in Zurich has a sixty percent success rate now. Just take the money."

 

Ivan stood so fast his chair screeched. "Keep it." He flung the envelope back. Void eyes followed as it landed back on the glass table. 

 

"I didn’t come for your blood money."

 

"Then why did you come?" Unsha finally showed emotion—a flicker of impatience. His thick brows, same one Ivan has, had furrowed further. 

 

Ivan’s breath hitched. "I wanted—" His voice broke. "Fuck. I don’t know."

 

He was hoping. Hoped. 

 

For Something. Something that wasn’t there to begin with. 

 

Till saw it then—the moment Ivan shattered. His shoulders curled inward, hands fisting at his sides. The red rings around his pupils seemed to pulse.

 

Unsha sighed. "Dramatics don’t suit you, Ivan. Where’s Sua? She at least understands pragmatism."

 

"Sua’s home," Ivan whispered. "Where people care if she dies."

 

Unsha sipped some water from a chalice he pulled from God knows where. "Everyone dies. You'll just go sooner for being such a fool."

 

Ivan made a sound like a wounded animal, lips trembling.

 

Then he was moving—stumbling toward the door, shoulders hunched. Till couldn't even follow what his face had looked like. 

 

Was he crying?

 

No. He didn't really seem like the crier.

 

"Hey, Iva—" Till followed next to him, but stopped. Stopped to glare at Unsha.

 

"Best stay out of it, you man."

 

He raised a middle finger before huffing. "You’re a barely a father. You fucking monster. Good riddance."

 

Unsha didn’t spare him a glance, mind somewhere else. As if he’s late for something, the man only steals a glance at his watch, studded with what Till can call as nothing but phony rocks. 

 

"The world above is full of monsters, young man. Watch that boy."

. ݁₊ ⊹ . 

 

Till found Ivan vomiting in an alley two blocks from Unsha’s monstrosity of a house. The smell of bile and desert heat clung to the air, mixing with the distant hum of Santa Fe’s tourist crowds.

 

"Classy," Till said, thrusting a water bottle at him. It wasn't cold. Lukewarm even. 

 

Ivan spat into the dust, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His fingers trembled, badly. "Please leave."

 

"Make me." Till leaned against the alley wall, arms crossed.

 

 Ivan's really sick. 

 

He wanted to ask how sick. Wanted to shake him for skipping meds, for chasing a father who clearly gave zero fucks. Instead, he kicked Ivan’s shoe. "Unsha’s a dick. News at eleven."

 

Ivan huffed, wiping his mouth. "Yeah. Groundbreaking journalism."

 

“Ever considered doing an exposé?”

 

He was only  joking but then he sees the way the dak-haired man glare up at him—eyes too glossy, like he was two words away from a breakdown. Then his face crumpled. "He didn’t even care ."

 

"You should’ve taken the money, one last fuck you to the big man." Till muttered. Ivan smacked him lightly. No real bite to it. Was he trying to lighten or sour his mood?

 

"I’d rather die than owe him anything." Ivan’s voice was raw. 

 

"That’s stupid."

 

"Yeah." Ivan leaned into him, just slightly. "But it’s my stupid."

 

Till sat beside him on the sunbaked pavement, their shoulders brushing. "Guess some people just suck so bad you’d rather die than give them any leverage."

 

Ivan laughed, wet and broken. "Understatement. Sucks worse than my leukemia."

 

A pause. Lately he finds himself pausing a lot.

 

The sun beat down mercilessly.

 

Till studied Ivan’s profile—the sharp nose, the dark lashes clumped with sweat.

 

Leukemia.

 

It hit him like a truck . Oh. He’s really really sick .

 

Till’s chest tightened. He thought of Ivan’s trembling hands, the feverish skin, the too-hot-for-the-weather clothes, the way he’d joked about dying like it was nothing. That’s where the talk of percentages and chances to live with Unsha were rooted from. How did that go over his fucking head? 

 

Fucking Leukemia.

 

Fuck.

 

Till opened his mouth—

 

Ivan’s phone rang.

 

He fumbled it out, stared at the screen. "Sua." A beat. Then he answered, voice ragged. "Hey, do you mind? I’m on a date."

 

Till doesn't say anything.

 

A woman’s voice crackled through—sharp, furious, laced with worry. "Don’t ‘ hey’ me, and date? Lying ass. Did you see him?"

 

Ivan swallowed. "Yeah."

 

"And?"

 

"And… he’s exactly who we thought he was."

 

A pause. Then Sua’s voice softened. "Now do you get why I didn’t want you to go? You idolized that man when we were kids, but he’s nothing. Come home. We’ll get you treated. Without him. That man is dead to us. ”

 

The voice on the line waits for Ivan to speak. He doesn’t. So she does. “Come, or I swear to god, I’ll drag you back myself."

 

Ivan’s fingers tightened around the phone. "I’m not—"

 

"Ivan." Sua’s voice on the line cracked. "Please."

 

Ivan closed his eyes. "I’ll… think about it."

 

"Bullshit. But fine. Just… don’t die out there, idiot."

 

The line went dead.

 

Ivan slumped against the wall, phone slipping from his fingers.

 

Till picked it up. "She’s scary."

 

Ivan huffed a laugh. "Yeah. She’s the best."

 

A silence. Then—

 

"You should go with her," Till muttered.

 

Ivan didn’t answer. Just leaned into him, just slightly, his temple resting against Till’s shoulder. His breathing was uneven, his skin too warm through the wrinkled fabric of his shirt.

 

Till didn’t push. Just sat there, counting Ivan’s shaky breaths, until the sun dipped lower and the alley shadows stretched long across the pavement.

 

"We should go. The bus, I mean." Till said finally.

 

Ivan nodded. Didn’t move.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . 

The ride back to Roswell was quiet.

 

It was a sauna on wheels. Till slumped in his seat, sketching the back of Ivan’s head where he’d passed out against the window. His dark hair was a mess, sticking up in odd directions, and Till’s pencil kept catching the way the sunlight turned the strands bronze at the edges.

 

Ivan slept—or pretended to—head lolling against the window. Till can’t keep his eyes off the man— the curve of Ivan’s throat, the way his lashes cast shadows like spiderwebs.

 

Mizi was waiting at the depot like a pink-haired tornado. "You guys MISSED IT! Luka licked a meteorite on the museum display—we were kicked out, promptly—and nearly passed out on Hyuna’s shoulder… to which she kicked his shin and started yelling profanities.”

 

She flung herself at Ivan, who barely managed to stay upright. "Mizi," Ivan wheezed, peeling her off. 

“Ivan!”

 

"Can’t breathe."

 

"Oh! Right! Sorry!" She bounced back, star earrings jingling. Then her gaze landed on Till, and her grin turned knowing. "Sooo. How was Santa Fe?"

 

Till narrowed his eyes. "Total shit."

 

Hyuna eyed Ivan’s pallor. "You look like roadkill."

 

"Feel like it," Ivan croaked.

 

Hyuna’s gaze lingered—on Ivan’s shaking hands, the sweat-damp collar, the way his breath hitched when he straightened. Then she nodded, once, sharp. "White Sands is tonight. Don’t die before then."

 

Ivan blinked. "…Thanks?"

 

Hyuna snorted. "Kid, I’ve seen healthier corpses. But you’ve got that look."

 

"What look?"

 

"The ‘I’ve got something to prove’ look." She tossed him a water bottle. "Drink. Or I’ll tell Sua you’re being an idiot."

 

Ivan’s eyes widened. "You know Sua?"

 

Hyuna smirked. "Everyone knows Sua."

 

Mizi gasped, clapping her hands. "Oh! Oh! Show him the thing!"

 

Hyuna rolled her eyes but pulled out her phone, flipping it to reveal a lockscreen—Hyuna, Hyunwoo, and Sua at what looked like a bar, Sua mid-laugh with her arm slung around a beaming Mizi, who was pressing a kiss to her cheek.

 

Till’s brain stuttered.

 

Wait.

 

Hyuna knew Sua. Hyunwoo and Luka were with her. And Mizi was—

 

"Sua’s my girlfriend!" Mizi chirped, stars in her eyes. "Well, fiancée, but she hates that word. Says it sounds too ‘hetero’."

 

Ivan’s jaw dropped. "You—what?"

 

Till’s thoughts raced. Hyuna knows Sua. Mizi’s dating her. Luka and Hyunwoo are… what, like bodyguards?

 

A horrible realization dawned.

 

Then why the hell am I here?

 

Till stared at the group—Hyuna’s knowing smirk, Mizi’s oblivious glee, Luka’s eerie calm. Even Hyunwoo had paused his silent observation to watch Ivan’s reaction.

 

Were they all on this bus to watch over Ivan?

 

Am I the only accidental passenger?

 

Ivan seemed to be having the same crisis. "Did—did Sua send you?"

 

Hyuna pocketed her phone. "Nah. But she might’ve mentioned you were being a ‘self-sacrificing little shit’ and taking a UFO tour instead of going to the hospital." She shrugged. "We were headed to Roswell anyway. Figured we’d keep an eye out."

 

Ivan looked like he’d been slapped. "So this whole trip—"

 

"Was your disaster," Hyuna finished. "We just… nudged."

 

Mizi beamed. "And it worked! You made a friend! " She pointed at Till.

 

Friend? Till bristled. "I’m not a—"

 

"Oh my god," Ivan muttered, dragging a hand down his face.

 

Luka, silent as ever, plucked a white feather from seemingly nowhere and tucked it behind Ivan’s ear.

 

Hyunwoo nodded sagely.

 

Till gave up.

 

Ivan, despite everything, laughed—a real, startled sound. "Unbelievable."

 

Mizi hooked her arm through Till’s. "C’mon, grumpy! We’ve got aliens!"

 

Ivan straightened his wrinkled shirt, flashed a smile sharp enough to cut glass, and said, "This must be weird… Not gonna back out?”

 

And Till—

 

Till shook his head. No way.

Notes:

Unsha’s an absentee father but he’s not homophobic. A win?.... No?

Chapter 4: Blood On The Moon’s Bones

Summary:

Everything was fine, until it wasn't.

The dunes weren’t sand. They were ground bones.

 

Till stepped off the bus, and the gypsum sighed under his boots—a sound like crushed chalk, like the static between dying stars. The landscape wasn’t beautiful; it was unfinished. A sculptor’s abandoned block of marble under a sky hemorrhaging violet and bruise-purple. 

 

Io would’ve traced the horizon with skeletal fingers her soft voice whispering, "See? They left the door open."

 

Ivan stood frozen beside him. Not awed. Arrested. His dark eyes drank the alien whiteness, the red rings around his pupils dilating like wounds. Wind clawed at his too-thin shirt, plastering to his pale skin. "Christ. It’s like…" He trailed off, uncharacteristically wordless.

 

"Like walking on the moon’s bones?" Mizi supplied, already knee-deep in a dune. "Or God’s dandruff?"

 

Hyuna rolled her eyes, hefting a cooler onto her shoulder. "Save the energy, kids. We’re camping here tonight."

 

"Camping?" Ivan arched an eyebrow. "In this economy?"

 

Till snorted. "Rich boy’s never slept in a tent, huh?"

 

"I’ve glamped," The dark-haired ma corrected, nose in the air. "Which is camping but with caviar and Wi-Fi."

 

Hyunwoo dropped an armload of firewood with a thud. "No caviar. But I brought marshmallows."

 

"Sold," Ivan declared, then promptly sneezed.

 

Till watched him rub his nose, the way his fingers trembled just slightly. The way he leaned into the last rays of sunlight, as if trying to soak up every drop of warmth before nightfall.

 

He’s freezing, Till realized. Even in the desert.

 

Hyuna dropped another cooler (labeled with 'Totally not beer") with a thud that echoed in the stillness. "Camp’s here. Try not to wander off—people vanish in this shit."

 

Ivan arched a brow. "Is that a promise?"

 

Till shoved him lightly. "Shut up. Help unload."

 

"Unload?" Ivan clutched his chest in mock horror. "I was trained to pay people to move our luggage."

 

"Pay me in silence," Till shot back, tossing him a rolled-up tent.

 

Ivan fumbled the catch, the canvas slipping through trembling fingers. 

 

A beat of awkward silence hung. Mizi giggled. Hyunwoo tactfully looked away.

 

"…Or don’t," Ivan muttered, bending stiffly to retrieve it. Till saw the wince he tried to hide—the way his hand pressed briefly, protectively, against his lower ribs.

 

Like he’s holding himself together, Till thought.

 

 

  . ݁₊ ⊹ . 

 

 

Darkness didn’t fall—it crashed.

 

One moment, the dunes glowed molten gold; the next, they were monochrome sculptures under a black velvet sky stabbed with infinite stars. Their campfire was a defiant spark, snapping and spitting in the vast quiet.

 

Mizi distributed glow sticks like sacred relics. "For Till’s Star People to see us better!" She snapped hers, bathing her face in toxic green. 

 

Ivan examined with his best attempt at an academically disdained act, he cleared his throat. A hand over his mouth. "If advanced civilizations are lured by polycarbonate tubes filled with hydrogen peroxide and phenyl oxalate-er… then we, as a civilization, deserve mass extinction."

 

"Just say dollar-store chem-lights dooming us all." Till countered, snapping his own.

 

The sickly light turned Ivan’s pallor ghastly.

 

Luka sat apart, as usual, running his fingers through the sand like he was reading braille. Every so often, he’d tilt his head, as if listening to something beyond the crackle of the fire.

 

“Luka, come over! I'm gonna tell a little story.” Hyunwoo stirred a pot of chili over the flames, the scent of cumin and beans cutting the cold. “Let's see… Old desert tales speak of guiding spirits," he began, voice a low rumble that silenced even Mizi.

 

"Tell of the Kachinas—spirit messengers who travel the stars. Not gods. Not monsters. Guides."

 

"Like… tour guides?" Ivan asked, skepticism warring with something like hunger.

 

Hyunwoo shook his head. "They come when the heart is ready. Not to take, but to show." He ladled chili into bowls. "My grandmother saw one. Told us her story right before she died . Night like this. Right here. Said it had eyes like obsidian mirrors and a voice like wind through juniper."

 

Till’s spoon froze. Eyes like mirrors. Io’s words echoed: "They don’t speak, Till. They show you what you need to see."

 

"Did it abduct her?" Mizi breathed, eyes wide.

 

"It showed her the way home," Hyunwoo said simply. "She was lost. Dying of thirst. It pointed to a spring hidden under white rocks."

 

Ivan stared into his chili. "Convenient."

 

"Stop lying to them.” Hyuna grunted at her brother, a hand smacking at his forehead as she dipped next to him. “Sorry to say but our grandmother is very much still alive AND didn’t immigrate to America until she was 53 and divorced." 

 

“Fine. Fine… Maybe I should dial down on Luka’s history magazines.” Hyunwoo chuckled, poking the fire. Sparks flew upward, joining the stars.

 

A silence stretched, thick with the hiss of flame and the weight of the sky. Luka, from a foreseeable distance, traced patterns in the gypsum. He lifted a handful, let it trickle through his fingers like starlight, and hummed a single, low note that vibrated in Till’s bones.

 

Till shivered, hunching into his flannel.

 

Suddenly, scratchy wool draped over his shoulders. Ivan’s fancy cashmere-blend blanket, smelling faintly of lavender and antiseptic, was, and is, occupying his nostrils, permeating over them more so than when it had been just them sitting together at the bus.

 

This sick and shivering man put his blanket over him.

 

Over Till himself who was healthy and can regulate his body temperature just fine, mind him. "Think I'll fall for this shit?"

 

"Don’t flatter yourself," Ivan muttered, staring resolutely at the fire. "My altruism is purely thermoregulatory. You’re radiating cold like a fridge."

 

The grey haired pulled the blanket tighter. Ivan was freezing himself earlier, Till couldn’t gauge this man at all. "You’re stealing my heat. Parasite."

 

"Symbiosis," Ivan corrected softly.

 

 "I keep you from hypothermia. You keep me from…" He trailed off.

 

From what?

 

Till almost asked. But Ivan’s eyes were closed, his breathing shallow. The blanket held the fragile warmth of a shared secret.

 

Suddenly, Ivan lurched.

 

"You okay—"

 

"Air," he rasped. He looked like was struggling before he found the strength to fully stand up.

 

"Hey." Till stands himself. He was heaving.

 

What was he supposed to tell a man struggling for air?

 

Breathe?

 

"Ivan."

 

"Need some… air."

 

He stumbled away from the firelight, towards the deeper dark.

 

The group who was conversing amongst themselves had quieted, looking over to Till. He knew exactly what they meant.

 

He didn't need Mizi looking over at him with those glazed eyes and trembling lips to tell him what to do. He'd do it himself, un-bribed and shit. 

 

Till followed. 

 

 

  . ݁₊ ⊹ . 

 

 

The cold outside the fire’s reach was absolute.

 

Till found Ivan on the crest of a dune, hugging himself, shoulders hunched against the wind that moaned over the gypsum. The Milky Way blazed above, a river of what looks to be ice and fire. So this is how a place with no light pollution looks. 

 

"Running from the chili?" Till asked, voice rough. “Can’t handle your spice?”

 

Ivan didn’t turn. "Running from… everything."

 

"That sounds heavy." 

 

"You can just pretend I didn't go."

 

"And let you sit here, shivering and breathless?" Till frowned at him.

 

He couldn't see his face but he looked tired. Just watching his back turned with an invisible weight over them.

 

Another pause. The desert seemingly held its breath.

 

The air had shifted. The lighthearted atmosphere they shared earlier long gone.

 

"Fifty percent."

 

Fifty....? Ah. 

 

It's time. He knew they'd talk about it eventually. The conversation they should've had at Santa Fe. 

 

Till felt his knees weaken, as if someone was trying so hard to push him into a shallow well of ice cold water. He wasn't ready for this kind of talk and he doesn't think he'll ever be. He wasn't a doctor. He couldn't tell people it will be okay and it would be okay. He's not—

 

"Sixty, if the stars align." He laughed bitterly, his hand tracing over his jaw. "They never really do."

 

Fifty, Sixty... That was basically a coin flip.

 

How odd was it that a person's life can be determined by a stupid game of bets? He knew—had known since Santa Fe—but hearing it carved into the night made it real. What more for the one who was feeling every ache, every rattle... On his muscles. His bones. His insides fighting, tearing and screaming at him.

 

"The transplant," Ivan continued, voice flat, like he'd silently accepted what was to come. It was raspy, like someone had clawed over his throat and he just let them. "The chances I wake up. The chances I just… stop. To just..." 

 

Cease to be.

 

He finally turned, voice raising a pitch higher than normal. "It's scary."

 

Moonlight etched the hollows under his eyes, the sharpness of his jawline. The red rings around his pupils seemed to pulse with his heartbeat. "After today… after him. It feels like zero."

 

Till's fingers scratched over the sand. "Like I said, fuck that guy." 

 

"He's... still my father. My father who thinks I only came for his money." The dark-haired man had bit on his lower lip. "I know... It's dumb."

 

Till’s throat closed. He wanted to rage. To scream at the uncaring stars. To shake Ivan until sense fell out. Instead, he stepped closer, their shoulders almost touching. "Father or not, you've got so much other people here who care." 

 

They were both hunched over the sand now. 

 

"Speaking from experience?" Ivan had looked at him but he couldn't discern what was written on his face.

 

"Yeah."

 

Ivan found himself leaning on Till. Head dropping to his shoulder. 

 

"My father's a stupid fuckwad who replaced my mother the moment she..." Till couldn't bring himself to say it. His lips trembled. She was—

 

It was hard. Io had died. She was dead. 

 

And not even a year later, his father replaces her.

 

Ivan waited for him to speak. Eyes on Till. Those dark void of orbs sitting heavy on Till's teal ones. Like he was clinging to every word he has to say.

 

"Io, my mother." He hasn't told anyone about her. Doesn't believe anyone deserves to know her. And yet, just this one look from Ivan has him spilling. More than he had for anyone. "She believed the Star People took the worthy," Till said, the words ash in his mouth.

 

"To a place without pain."

 

Ivan’s laugh was a broken record. "Do you believe that?"

 

Till thought of his mother’s skeletal hand in his, her breath rattling like stones in a tin can. "Look for me in the lights, starlight."

 

"I believe she believed it," Till said it carefully. "That's all that mattered to me."

 

Ivan stared at the impossible sprawl of stars, voided eyes reflecting the lights. "What if… what if we asked them?" His voice dropped to a raw scrape.

 

"Right now. To take us. Both of us. No more waiting. No more… percentages."

 

Till’s heart stopped. This isn’t about aliens.

 

This is surrender. A white flag raised in the white sand.

 

He searched Ivan’s face—not for the smirk, the deflection, but for the terrifying relief he saw there. The exhaustion so deep it looked like peace.

 

Till’s hand found Ivan’s. It was ice-cold. "Okay."

 

 

  . ݁₊ ⊹ . 

 

 

They walked into the void.

 

The campfire became a distant ember, then vanished. Only the glow sticks around their necks pulsed like sickly green hearts, painting distorted shadows on the dunes. The Milky Way arched above, a frozen wave of light.

 

"Till," Ivan murmured, his breath puffing white. A single drop of moisture gleamed at the edge of his cheek in the green light."If this works… tell Sua, I—"

 

"Shut up," Till squeezed his hand. Hard. "You’ll tell her yourself."

 

Ivan’s laugh was a ghost. "Optimist."

 

“And why me—Ivan? "

 

Another step. 

 

Another.

 

"Ivan." 

 

There was no response. He was limp against Till. 

 

"Please... say something. You're scaring me."

 

The silence was deafening, pressed against Till’s eardrums. Ivan’s grip tightened suddenly, convulsively.

 

"'S cold," Ivan slurred. He stumbled. Till caught him, feeling the tremor wracking his frame.

 

"We should go back—"

 

"No." Ivan pulled away, took another step. "Almost…"

 

Then—

 

A wet, thick cough tore from Ivan’s throat. He doubled over, hand flying to his mouth. When he pulled it away, the green light glinted on dark streaks across his palm.

 

Blood. 

 

Till’s brain short-circuited. "Ivan!"

 

Ivan looked at his hand, bewildered. "Oh." A thin trickle of crimson escaped his nostril, vivid against his chalk-white skin. It dripped.

 

And dripped. And dripped.

 

A perfect, dark red pearl landed on the immaculate white gypsum between Till’s boots.

 

Time stopped.

 

Till's wide eyes stared at that single drop of blood—obscene against the pure, moonlit sand. A scream built in his chest, trapped behind ribs turned to stone. No. No no no—

 

Ivan couldn't even sit upright, he was gripping over Till's flannel with what little strength he probably had. His eyes, wide and terrified, met Till’s. "T-Till…?"

 

Then his knees buckled. Not a slow crumple, but a sudden, brutal collapse, like marionette strings slashed. He hit the ground with a soft thump, limbs splayed.

 

"IVAN!" Till crashed down beside him. Ivan convulsed, a gurgling rasp in his throat. Blood bubbled from his nose, painting his lips garish red.

 

Panic detonated in Till’s chest—he fumbled, hands fluttering uselessly over Ivan’s heaving chest. He pressed shaking fingers to Ivan’s neck. The pulse was there— thready, terrifying.

 

"HYUNA!" The scream tore from Till’s throat, raw and primal, shredding the desert silence. "HYUNA, HELP! NOW!"

  . ݁₊ ⊹ . 

Chaos, painted in strobes of hellish green.

 

Hyunwoo materialized first, fingers on Ivan’s carotid. "Fever spiking. Seizure?" His voice was clipped, terrifyingly professional.

 

"He just… collapsed… blood…" Till babbled, hands slick with Ivan’s sweat and blood.

 

Hyuna skidded into the green-lit circle, radio already crackling. "White Sands Medevac, priority one! Male, early twenties, acute medical distress—febrile, seizing , hemoptysis! GPS coordinates—" She rattled off numbers, her voice steel.

 

Mizi arrived, a blur of pink hair and neon green. "Oh god, oh god, Ivan—!" She recoiled at the blood, hands flying to her mouth.

 

"Mizi! Light!" Hyunwoo barked. "Hold the glow sticks over him!"

 

Mizi scrambled, snapping extra sticks, bathing the scene in a lurid, otherworldly glow. It illuminated the horror: Ivan’s ashen face, the dark blood smeared across his lips and jaw, the violent tremors wracking his frame. His breath hitched, wet and awful.

 

Luka appeared soundlessly. He didn’t speak but his pale yellow eyes said enough. He knelt, placed a single, impossibly white feather on Ivan’s shuddering chest. 

 

"Stay with me, rich boy," Till choked, gripping Ivan’s icy hand. "Stay! Do you hear me? Stay you goddamn idiot!"

 

Ivan’s eyelids fluttered. For a fractured second, his gaze focused only on Till. A flicker of recognition, of apology, maybe even relief? Then his eyes rolled back again, his body going frighteningly still.

 

"Ivan? IVAN!" Till shook him. Nothing.

 

"Don’t!" Hyunwoo snapped, his face drawing closer, focused, checking for breath. "He’s still breathing. Shallow. Very shallow. Hold his head. Prevent aspiration."

 

Till cradled Ivan’s head, his fingers were trembling, grip unsure if he wants to hold him tight as fragile as he is right now. He feels everything and anything all at once. The terrifying limpness, the sticky warmth of blood on his own fingers. The world narrowed to the shallow rise and fall of Ivan’s chest, the ghastly rattle in his throat, and the stain—a spreading Holtzman blot of crimson on the sacred white sand.

 

The distant wail of a siren pierced the night, growing louder, Doppler-shifting into a shriek. 

 

Red and blue lights strobed across the dunes, turning the blood black, the sand purple. It was blinding his peripheral. 

 

Park rangers burst into the green-lit circle. They carefully pried Ivan off of Till. Efficient hands lifting the man onto a stretcher. Hyunwoo shouted vitals. Hyuna snapped orders.

 

Till scrambled after them, tripping on the sand. "I’m coming! I’m— we’re coming with him!"

 

A ranger blocked him gently. "Family only, son."

 

Till had to stop himself from tearing through them, tears threatening to break free. He feels them simmering inside teal eyes, hot and furious.

 

Hyuna grabbed his arm. "Hey, hey …I’ll call Sua. For now, let them work. We’ll follow."

 

He couldn’t. Couldn’t do anything but watch as it all happens. 

 

Watch . 

 

That’s all he’s been doing. Watch and watch. Like how he’d watched his family fall apart, bit-by-fucking-bit, with his father mending the broken pieces with mismatched stones. 

 

The ambulance doors slammed. 

 

The siren screamed again, fading rapidly into the vast, indifferent dark, leaving only the echo, the cold, the smell of blood and chili, and the impossible red stain on the moon-white sand. He felt like he couldn’t breath.

 

His chest was pounding so hard at every single breath. What the fuck had Ivan done to him? 

As the medevac lights faded, he sank to his knees beside the blood-stained sand.

 

Hyuna hauled Till up, as distraught as she was herself. One glance at Till and she knew. How close the grey haired boy was to a complete cycle spiral. "Enough moping. We’re going to that hospital. Later. Promise. And he’ll still… be there."

 

Luka appeared beside him, holding out a matchbook from the various kitsch they sold at their pitstop. "For the fire," Luka said, his voice raspy. "When he returns."

 

Till stared. "You think he…?"

 

Luka pointed to the feather still clutched in Ivan’s abandoned handprint in the gypsum. "Coyote brings back what the night steals." 

 

He placed the matches in Till’s palm. "Light it here. He’ll see the smoke."

Till closed his fingers around the matches. The fallen glow sticks spread on the sand bathed his knuckles in toxic green.

Notes:

We're going 5 chapters hehe^^

Chapter 5: Till’s Transmission for the Shitty Liar

Summary:

Why did the survival of a dying boy he’d known for three days feel as vital as his own breath?

The Alamogordo ICU wasn't a place of healing. It was a factory for suspended animation. Fluorescent lights bleached the world into a sickly, buzzing grey, except for the relentless, accusing red dots of the monitors. The air tasted like something sterilized.

 

Sua arrived not like a visitor, but an occupying force. She didn't walk through the door; she claimed the space around Ivan's bed. 

 

Her eyes, deep purple, scanned the bank of monitors above her brother’s head–EKG lines, oxygen saturation, the relentless drip of the IV–like a general assessing a battlefield map. 

 

Ivan lay cocooned in the bed, smaller than he had any right to be for someone over 6 feet too tall. Tubes snaked into the pale parchment of his skin, feeding him, draining him, breathing for him. 

 

The machines beeped their monotonous, dread-laden code: CRITICAL. RELAPSE. IMMOBILE FOR TRANSFER.

 

His lips moved soundlessly, forming fractured words that reached the surface as thin, wet whispers the nurse strained to catch: "...sand... in the vents... Till..."

 

Sua’s hand hovered over the stack of consent forms on the bedside tray. "The transplant team scheduled sometime soon." 

 

She looks over to the lone visitor of the hour.  "Fifty percent chance. If his scorched  immune system doesn’t turn on the new marrow like a rabid dog. Moving him to a better facility? Guaranteed death. Staying here? Fucking Buckshot Roulette." 

 

Her gaze cut past the nervous resident, past the machines, and locked onto him.

 

"Till. He’d want you here. Probably wants you to be here more than me .” Her voice softened at the end. “Mizi… She, uh,... She's told me a lot about you… And I, thank you—really. For being there for that stupid idiot. At Santa Fe too.” 

 

Till can only nod at the dark-haired girl. She looked like him.

 

The necklace on his neck itched against his skin. The deep red rubies trapped in the black stone caught the fluorescent glare, flashing like Ivan’s fever-bright eyes the moment before he fell—pools of ink ringed with shattered garnet. 

 

He carried both now. Io’s cold, enduring faith, and Ivan’s desperate, fading light.

 

 

  . ݁₊ ⊹ . 

 

 

He came later, when the night shift’s footsteps echoed too loudly in the hollow quiet, and Sua had finally crumpled into an exhausted sleep in the plastic chair. Ivan’s breathing was a shallow, irregular tide, each inhale a struggle against the weight pressing down on his chest. 

 

Till pulled the rickety visitor’s stool closer, the scrape of metal on linoleum obscenely loud. He leaned in, his voice a low rasp, stripped bare.

 

"Hyuna’s under the Stargazer again," he murmured, his breath stirring the hair near Ivan’s ear. "Fuel line’s fucked. Jury-rigging it with baling wire and pure spite. Mizi smuggled her a six-pack of that cheap lager she likes. Hyunwoo’s trying to meditate in the parking lot, says the desert feels... restless. Luka..." Till paused, watching the slow blink of the pulse oximeter. 

 

"Luka just stares west. Says the stars are holding their fucking breath. Waiting for you."

 

His thumb found the obsidian pendant almost unconsciously, Io’s stone. 

 

Her anchor—his now. The rubies pulsed under his touch, warm from his skin, looking like drops of Ivan’s blood dried onto the white gypsum. 

"The white sands.” Till murmured.

 

“You were supposed to walk through it with me. See what was on the other side. Not just... collapse on the fucking threshold."

 

A tremor flickered under Ivan’s closed eyelid. A second later, the fingers taped around the IV line twitched–a small, involuntary spasm. 

 

Till held his breath.

 

Ivan’s eyelids fluttered, not opening, but his pupils moved. For one fractured, heart-stopping second, his eyes opened a sliver. Dark, unfocused, but there. 

 

They locked onto Till’s face. 

 

Recognition flared, then—a silent scream against the dying of the light. 

 

Then his lids slid shut again, his breathing settling back into its shallow, mechanical rhythm.

 

Till stood abruptly, the stool screeching. 

 

He couldn’t stay.

 

Every miniscule of a movement, breath and even a tiny barely there spasm Ivan makes is going to choke him to death. 

 

He pulled the worn, graphite-smudged sketchbook from his backpack and placed it gently on the bedside table, beside the untouched plastic water pitcher. 

 

He scrapped a page. 

 

Haplessly, he wrote. 

 

"The Star People left us. Bunch of assholes. Guess they knew some wars are worth fighting in the dirt. 50%’s such a shit odd. Fight anyway, you shitty liar. I’ll be where your blood dried into the moon’s bones. —T."

 

He'll just have to tell Sua not to throw those away with how ragged it looked.

 

 

  . ݁₊ ⊹ . 

 

 

Three months have passed. 

 

The desert outside Alamogordo offered no comfort, only vast indifference. It was a mirror reflecting the hollowed-out space inside him. Till drove the beat-up rental car down empty highways, the obsidian pendant a cold, constant weight against his sternum. 

 

Why did the survival of a dying boy he’d known for three chaotic days feel as vital as his own breath?

 

Why did Ivan feel like the missing piece meant to slot into the hollow left by Io, completing some terrifying circuit? 

 

Three days.

 

That was a blink.

 

A blip in a high man's world.

 

Why was a measly three days doing so much damage to the three months he had spent feeling like this?  Like shit?

 

Only three days. 

 

Yet Ivan had cracked him open like a geode, revealing veins of something raw and terrifying he didn’t recognize.

 

He holed up in a motel vibrating with the constant groan of trucks on the nearby interstate. The room smelled of stale cigarettes and bleach. Sitting on the edge of the scratchy bedspread, he tried to dissect the madness.

Was it the defiance? That sharp, polished smirk Ivan wore like armor, even while staring into the fucking abyss?

 

The way Till’s own father’s casual betrayal resonated with the brutal dismissal Ivan received from Unsha? 

 

Or was it simpler, uglier? The terrifying honesty of his despair under the White Sands stars?

Stupid. Reckless. Like volunteering to swim tied to a whole ass anchor.

But the thought of Ivan dying, even when they were nothing to each other. It felt exactly like watching Io’s star vanish from the sky. A second light, violently stolen.

 

His phone buzzed. A voicemail notification from a number he doesn't recognize. He played it, speaker pressed to his ear.

 

"Till. It's Dad."

 

The voice was strained, older than he remembered. 

 

"Your mom–stepmom." He corrected without a beat. "She's wrecked. We found it. Io’s old songbook. Hidden away. We… we never meant… God, we were stupid. So fucking selfish. About the song, about… everything. Please. Come home. We can… we can fix this. Please."

He jabbed the delete button. Then, five minutes later, fumbled to retrieve it. 

 

Listened again. Three times. "Till. It's Dad—"

 

The old fury, white-hot and righteous, hadn’t died. It calcified into something heavy and inert, a stone lodged in his gut. 

 

Forgiveness was a language he didn’t speak yet. But the need to scream, to break things… it had dulled.

 

Two days later, Sua found him leaning against his rental car outside a dusty diner on the edge of nowhere. 

 

She looked carved from granite, shadows like bruises under her eyes. No greeting. She simply held out a single sheet of paper–a wire transfer. From Unsha. To Ivan.

“Till. He's awake.”  

 

The grey haired man felt the air leave from him, breath held.

 

“He said you told him he should keep it—at the time. ‘One last fuck you to the big man,’ said you'd get that joke.” Sua's gaze fell on him, a smile. "That Ivan. Hah—said he'll be the one to come see you. So give him time."  

 

“I–H-how is he?” 

 

"He woke up asking about the sketchbook. And you."

 

 

  . ݁₊ ⊹ . 

 

 

Consciousness returned to Ivan not as a gentle tide, but as a series of knife jabs—sharp, deep, unwelcome intrusion.

 

Pain was a constant, low thrum, a new baseline. 

 

His body felt like a hollowed-out ruin, scraped raw and fragile. Sua sat by his bed, her voice a steady drone explaining graft acceptance rates, neutrophil counts, the play of probabilities that meant he wasn’t dead.

 

Then she placed it on the adjustable tray table, sliding it carefully across the Formica surface. The folded piece of paper, stained with grease and something darker. 

 

Till’s letter.  

 

Ivan’s fingers, clumsy with weakness and tape, fumbled it open. He traced over a particular line. "Fight anyway, you shitty liar."

A sound escaped him—a choked gasp that was half a disbelieving laugh, half a ragged sob. 

 

He remembered.

 

Remembered the bone-deep cold, the terrifying thoughts, the indifference of the stars. Remembered Till’s hand gripping his.

 

Then he saw it. The sketchbook.

 

The one Till always had with him. Not with the grey-haired man. But with him. On his lap. 

 

Like it's always been sitting there, waiting for him.  

 

It took effort. His hands trembled. He flipped open the cover. The first page hit him like a physical blow.

 

1: "Seat 5B.”
A drawing of Ivan. Him on the bus, crisp shirt rumpled, dark hair swept back. That practiced smirk. But Till had captured the crimson rings around his pupils – the exhaustion bleeding through the polish. Not a cartoon like he'd allowed him to see the last time. A forensic study.

 

He turned the page, a tremor starting deep inside.

 

2: “Heat Index: Hell”
Him crouched by sagebrush, shirt plastered to his spine. The expensive shoes Till kicked so much given so much detail. He didn't look weak. Just weary. The lines around his mouth carved deep by pain he’d thought hidden. 

 

3: "Santa Fe."
Him. He was sure that was him, from when they were in that dingy alley behind Unsha’s fortress. The one where he knew  he looked like actual shit, even shooing Till away. One hand braced on filthy brick, the other pressed to his ribs like holding in his insides. Ugly. Desperate. Rendered with rough pencil lines. No pity, only brutal honesty.

 

Ivan frowned, stuck on the page. Did this guy like him or hate him, or what?

 

4: “Hyuna’s Eggshell Sands."
Him under the stars, head tilted back, moonlight catching the sharp angle of his jaw, the vulnerable line of his throat. Not a dying boy. Something… beautiful. What the hell was Till seeing.

 

He couldn’t stop.  A tremor became a quake. He flipped faster. 

 

12: "Eyes (Subject: Uncooperative.)"
Just his eyes. Dark pools. Red rings deeper like wounds. Rendered with such intensity they seemed to swallow the page. Till had seen the fear. The despair. The flicker of something… 

 

Ivan slammed the sketchbook shut as if it burned.

 

He clutched it to his chest, pressing it hard against the bandages over his sternum, over the newly grafted marrow fighting to take root. 

 

A sob ripped from somewhere deep and broken, mixed with a disbelieving gasp.

 

It wasn't grief, not exactly.

 

It was the shattering impact of being seen.

 

Till hadn’t drawn a victim or a caricature. 

 

He’d drawn him, etched in graphite and brutal honesty. 

 

The weight of it—the terrifying, undeserved intimacy of being perceived so completely—shattered something inside him that the leukemia hadn’t managed to touch. 

 

For the first time since he'd been given his diagnosis, survival felt more than just biological stubbornness or obligation. It felt like a possibility in the unflinching gaze of someone who’d looked at him and so stupidly refused to let go.

 

 

  . ݁₊ ⊹ . 

 

 

Four months since then.

 

The wind scoured the White Sands gypsum plain, lifting fine, bone-white particles into stinging veils. Till stood on where the scar used to be— a faint, rust-brown ghost staining the otherwise pristine sands, was it real? Or was it so etched in his mind that it stayed there.

 

Io’s obsidian pendant lay cold against the base of his throat, exposed above his collar. 

 

He heard the footsteps before he saw their source.

 

Not the rumble of the Stargazer Shuttle he'd come to know over the months, just the deliberate, slightly unsteady crunch of boots on gypsum, growing louder. 

 

He didn’t look immediately. He let the sound approach, let the tension coil in him.

 

Then, he turned.

 

Ivan.

Thinner. Gaunt, almost. Shadows lingered under his eyes, deeper and more permanent than before. But he was upright. Moving with a careful step, like someone navigating a floor made of reassembled porcelain. 

 

He wore simple, dark clothes that hung slightly loose, walking across the open gypsum, closing the distance. 

 

Ten feet. Five.  

 

He stopped. 

 

The wind whipped strands of his dark hair across his forehead. 

 

His gaze flickered down, landing on the obsidian pendant resting against Till’s throat. Then it lifted, locking onto Till’s own teal eyes.

 

No smile. No words. 

 

Just the immense, humming silence of the desert. The weight of the unsaid things screaming in the space between them. 

 

A minute passed. Two. 

 

Ivan’s voice, when it finally broke the silence, was the sound of sandpaper dragged over stone, weathered but fundamentally strong, deep. "Couldn’t stay away, huh?"

 

Till didn’t move a muscle.

 

His own voice was flat, factual. "And let you get away from traumatizing me like that? No way."

 

Another silence descended, deeper, thicker than the first. Ivan took a single, deliberate step closer. 

 

His eyes searched Till’s face— the lines etched by worry and sun, the guarded intensity in the teal depths—wary, uncertain. "Your drawings…" 

 

He swallowed. "I can't believe you . Till." He paused, the name sounding foreign yet familiar on his tongue. "Why wait this long? Why wait at all?”

 

Till couldn't help but smirk. "Hit your head too hard on the way down? Or did my drawings of your sorry ass not tell you anything, shitty liar. Ivan?"

 

A beat.

 

A flicker of something startled in Ivan’s dark eyes. Then, a rough, surprised bark of laughter cracked the stillness—genuine, disbelieving. "They told me you have stupidly terrible tastes in subjects."

 

A sudden gust scoured the dunes, whipping gypsum around them like stinging smoke. 

 

Till looked at Ivan—really looked. 

 

At the sharp lines pain and illness had carved into his face, the lingering exhaustion, the defiant, familiar glint slowly rekindling in those dark, red-rimmed eyes. 

 

"Yeah, well. I fucking love you anyway." Till stared him down. Unapologetically.

 

Silence.

 

Absolute. Profound. 

 

Ivan stared in disbelief. 

 

The dark-haired man’s lips parted and unparted. Brows furrowing and returning in place. No smirk. No deflection. No polished comeback. Just pure, unvarnished, stun, etched onto his pale features. Just like that? So casually wringing it out?

 

His eyes widened, searching Till’s face for mockery, for a joke, finding only raw, unflinching truth. 

 

Seconds stretched, taut and infinite.

 

“Gonna leave me hanging like you did months ago?”

 

Gods no. Ivan would never. 

 

Not with that look on Till's face. The pure unfiltered look as though Till would sooner chew through his own tendons than have Ivan walk (well, die?) away again. Not with that look on his face. Not with his fists clenched white-knuckled at his sides, the obsidian pendant at his throat catching the light like it's glaring at Ivan himself and his idiotic life decisions. 

 

“Till. Till… ”

 

Then, slowly, deliberately, Ivan shook his head. Not even understanding, perhaps. Just… acknowledgment. An acknowledgment of the grenade Till had just casually rolled into the space between them.

 

“No. I… I'm not leaving.” Ivan's voice softened. “Not anymore.” 

 

Till reeled—not dramatically, but with the quiet unsteadiness of a man who'd carried too much for too long. The tension bled from his shoulders in slow waves, leaving him lighter.

 

"Good." Till exhaled through his nose, rough but relieved. "Die one more time and I'm going with the aliens."

 

A flicker of that old mischief sparked in Ivan's eyes. A huff. "I think the aliens like me more—seeing as I literally almost saw the light—"

 

Till cut him off with a breathy laugh. "Hah. How fucking dare them pick favorites.

 

He then finds Ivan, hands on the seam of his side pocket like a tic he'd forgotten. Oh. He had to ask. 

 

"Since we're both in a silent truce of truth. What the hell was even in that side pocket you kept touching?" Till demanded as he picked his way closer to Ivan's.

 

Ivan didn't pause. "A single Skittle."  

 

Till nearly tripped. "A what."  

 

"You heard me." Ivan patted his pants where the pocket was resting. "Green apple flavor. Emergency ration."

 

Till stared. The desert heat must be frying his brain. "You were dying and your contingency plan was... candy?"  

 

"Not candy." Ivan's smirk was all teeth. "An alien... Little green bastard surviving against all odds? Besides, it worked. I'm still here."

 

Till opened his mouth. Closed it. Then, with the solemnity of a man accepting nonsense. "You're such a fucking liar."  

 

"Prove it." Ivan tossed him something small and hard—an actual green Skittle, slightly melted, that must've been hiding in a seam this whole time.  

 

Till caught it. Choked—and if he caught the way Ivan's expression fractured—caught between a scoff and something dangerously close to fondness, lips twitching against his will… He'd pretend he didn't see it.  

 

The desert stretched around them, indifferent as it is, but for the first time in months, the air between them didn't feel like borrowed time.  

 

They were going to be just fine. The both of them.

 

Notes:

End.

It is done. Let us all sleep now (with dreams of star people abducting us from earth.)

They’ll eventually pick up from here on and cue music, finally have their first kiss after maybe 9 years of dating, two adopted kids and a rental house in Illinois.

Chapter 6: (+) Months On A Rundown Albuquerque Apartment

Summary:

It's been months since they've moved in together, Till has never brought up his "love" for Ivan ever again and now that he recalls, he's never really replied to Till's confession. Now he keeps wondering "are they actually together together" or are they just physically bound in the space because the rent is cheaper to share.

 

or bonus; the getting together part (?)

Has it been 2 months since then? Three maybe. Or was it four? Ivan doesn’t really count the passing time anymore.

 

The scent of cheap coffee and gypsum dust, tracked in from Till’s latest desert hike, was a permanent fixture in the small two-bedroom apartment. It was a far cry from Ivan’s old life of sterile luxury, but it had something his old apartment (one his father left him and Sua) never had—a beat-up couch with a permanent Till-shaped indent, a fridge covered in Mizi’s ridiculous travel magnets, and the comforting, constant hum of the Shuttle’s engine being tinkered with in the parking lot below.

 

Ivan was meticulously arranging his limited-edition loafers in the hall closet (a losing battle against Till’s chaotic pile of scuffed boots) when a bellow shook the thin walls.

 

“FUCK! IVAN, DID YOU CLOG THE TOILET AGAIN?”

 

Ivan flinched, nearly dropping a pristine white high-top. He took a steadying breath, the familiar, phantom ache in his sternum a ghost of a reminder. He’d traded a twenty-ton weight for… this. 

 

A perpetually backed-up toilet and a roommate who declared his love under the sleeping stars and then never mentioned it ever again.

 

He found Till in the narrow bathroom doorway, arms crossed, glaring at the offending porcelain fixture as if it had personally insulted his entire lineage. He was wearing nothing but a pair of low-slung, paint-splattered jeans, his grey hair damp from a shower.

 

“I did not clog it,” Ivan said, adopting a tone of wounded dignity. He sidled past Till, their bare arms brushing in the cramped space. 

 

A spark, a jolt.

 

Ivan’s heart did a stupid, hopeful little flip. Till didn’t even seem to notice. The dark-haired man mutters. “It has a weak flush. It’s a constitutional flaw. We’ve discussed this.”

 

“We discussed you not flushing half a roll of that stupidly expensive toilet paper your sister sends you,” Till grumbled, leaning against the doorframe. 

 

"She said it's eco-friendly." He could only murmur, his mind going elsewhere.

 

His eyes, those stormy teal pools, scanned Ivan’s face. “You look pale. You feeling like shit?”

 

There it was. The care. 

 

The constant, gruff monitoring that had started in a desert and followed them home.

 

It was the same tone Till used to ask if Ivan had taken his vitamins or if he wanted the last slice of pizza. It was… roommate-ish.

 

“I’m fine,” Ivan said, his voice tighter than he intended. He focused on jiggling the toilet handle, a useless endeavor. “Perfectly capable of using the facilities without causing an international incident.”

 

“Move over, drama queen.” Till just grunted, a sound that conveyed both skepticism and a deep, profound familiarity with Ivan’s capacity for causing incidents. He reached past Ivan, his chest briefly pressing against Ivan’s back, to grab the plunger leaning against the sink. 

 

This was Ivan’s personal hell. A beautiful, confusing, plunger-filled hell.

 

As Till wrestled with the toilet with the focused intensity of a man defusing a bomb, Ivan’s mind spiraled into an extremely–unnecessarily–long monologue.

 

He said he loved me. He drew me like I was something worth seeing. He held my hand while I puked up blood. 

 

And now he’s yelling about toilet paper.

 

Are we together? Is this what together is? Because it feels suspiciously like having a very hot, very irritable handyman who also occasionally tells you to fight for your life.

 

We sleep in separate rooms. We split the rent. He calls me his ‘shitty liar’ in public. Is that a pet name? It’s not a good pet name.

 

Did I imagine the entire dune scene? Was it a near-death hallucination? Did the aliens lobotomize me and leave me with a fabricated memory of emotional vulnerability?

 

AM I ROOMMATE-ZONED BY THE LOVE OF MY LIFE AFTER SURVIVING LEUKEMIA? THE UNIVERSE IS CRUEL.

 

A loud, wet GLUG signified victory. Till straightened up, a triumphant smirk on his face. “See? Muscle. Not money. Solves problems.”

 

“Aphorisms. How novel,” Ivan deadpanned, his internal monologue screaming.

 

Till tossed the plunger back into the corner and wiped his hands on a towel. He looked at Ivan, really looked at him, and his smirk softened into something more curious. “You’re being weirder than usual. What’s up with you?”

 

This was it. The moment. Ivan’s mouth went dry. He could do this. 

 

He could be brave. He’d faced down his father and his own mortality. He could face this.

 

He opened his mouth, ready to unleash a perfectly crafted, slightly pathetic question like, ‘When you said you loved me, was that in a ‘let’s share a life and maybe kiss sometimes’ way or a ‘I’d be sad if you died’ way?’

 

But all that came out was a strangled croak of, “Are we dating?”

 

The silence that followed was absolute and terrifying. 

 

Till blinked.

 

Once. Twice. His brows furrowed.

 

Then, he burst out laughing. 

 

A real, deep, unreserved laugh that made the corners of his eyes crinkle. He shook his head, running a hand through his messy hair. “You’re such a fucking idiot man.”

 

Ivan’s face flushed with heat. This was worse than he imagined. Rejection via laughter. He was a joke. A—

 

“Ivan,” Till said, his laughter subsiding into a warm chuckle. 

 

He stepped closer, into Ivan’s space, and poked him hard in the chest. “I literally told you I loved you after you came back from the dead. I drew like, fifty pictures of your stupid face. I moved you into my apartment. I unclog your weirdly delicate toilet.” 

 

He poked him again for emphasis. “What the hell else did you want? A signed contract penned in blood? A skywriter?”

 

Ivan stared, his brain short-circuiting. “So… that’s a yes?”

 

Till rolled his eyes so hard it looked painful. “No, I do all that for my platonic bros. Yeah, it’s a yes, you shitty liar.” He leaned in, his voice dropping to a low grumble. 

 

“Now are you gonna kiss me or do I have to fix the kitchen sink too to prove my intentions?”

 

Relief, warm and dizzying, flooded through Ivan. The twenty-ton weight was gone, replaced by something terrifyingly light and buoyant. 

 

“The kitchen sink is fine,” Ivan said, his voice finally steady. He closed the small distance between them, his hand coming up to cup Till’s jaw, and his thumb brushing over the chapped skin.

 

“Good. ‘Cause I’m all out of WD-40,” Till muttered, but he was already leaning into the touch, his own hands coming to rest on Ivan’s hips, pulling him closer until they were flush against each other in the narrow bathroom doorway.

 

Till’s breath hitched, a tiny, unguarded sound. His eyes, those storm-sea teal pools, darkened, and his hands came up to grip Ivan’s hips, fingers pressing into the denim with a possessiveness that made Ivan’s knees feel weak.

 

The first brush of their lips wasn’t gentle. It was a collision—a desperate, hungry meeting of chapped and soft. It was Ivan pouring months of unsaid words into it—every terrified hospital vigil, every sketchbook confession, every moment of sheer, stubborn will to live that had been entirely because of the man in his arms.

 

Till kissed back with equal fervor, a low groan rumbling in his chest. It was all heat and pressure and the slight, metallic hint of the spoon he’d used to stir his coffee. His hands slid from Ivan’s hips to the small of his back, pulling him flush against him until not a sliver of space remained between them. Ivan could feel the solid wall of Till’s chest, the steady, reassuring hammer of his heart against his own frantic one.

 

The kiss wasn’t poetic. 

 

There was no spark flying around like he’d imagined.

 

It just felt right. Like second nature.

 

It was a clash of silent laughter and relief, the lingering, bitter taste of cheap coffee on Till’s tongue and the faint, clinical hint of Ivan’s morning vitamins. It was Ivan’s hands sliding into Till’s messy grey hair, and Till’s grip tightening on Ivan’s waist like he was afraid he’d vanish again.

 

When they finally broke apart, breathless and a little dazed, Till rested his forehead against Ivan’s, their noses brushing.

 

“So,” Ivan whispered, his voice a little ragged. “Not roommate-zoned.”

 

“Yes, Ivan. Not roommate-zoned.” Till huffed a laugh, his eyes still closed. “You’re still gonna have to pay half the rent.”

 

“I already pay more than half though?”

 

“You mean, Sua pays more than half.”

 

“I have a share on that, thank you very much.”

 

He pulled Ivan into a proper hug then, strong and solid, burying his face in the crook of Ivan’s neck. Ivan melted into it, the last of the panic dissolving as he felt the steady, reassuring thump of Till’s heart against his own. They stood there for a long moment, wrapped up in each other amidst the faint, unholy odor of their recently defeated toilet.

 

“Love you,” Till mumbled into his skin, the words gruff but clear, no stars or dunes required.

 

“Love you… too.” Ivan held on tighter, a genuine, unguarded laugh vibrating through him. “Now shut up before you ruin it and tell me you love me like you love that stupid plunger.”

 

Till’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. He pulled back just enough to look Ivan in the eye, a truly ridiculous grin on his face.

“Nah. I’m way more attached to you. You’re way more high-maintenance.”

 

 

End. 

Notes:

Hello omg. Never meant to write this part and wanted to keep it as is with them reuniting but a friend who proofread the docs for me wanted that "sweet sweet," so I caved since I wanted to ramble abt things too lmao.

What if the next one is Actor AU (also since i wanna explore that ivan + luka in one idol unit) but if you've made it this far then you probably know it'll be a bit dumb lmao.

So plot will go.... where a freak accident on set, sends Till, Ivan, and Luka as the main leads in a terrible, low-budget 1990s family sitcom, complete with a stupid laugh track.

They are now "Tilly," "Ivan-the-Terrible," and "Lukey-Loo."

Or maybe just a regular Actor AU where we pit them all in a love triangle lmaoo

😭 had way too much fun writing this I hope it was fun for you too. 🫶🏼

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EDIT (23/08): lmao actor au check it out if you want! Forget-Me-Not (Or How to Accidentally Ruin Your Life with Amnesia)