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Ivan knows he shouldn’t have stayed up late watching that ET movie with Till. When he stays up late watching an alien movie with Till, dreams like this happen.
Ivan is used to having lucid dreams more often than regular ones. Google has only told him that people with neuroticism often experience frequent lucid dreams, which, despite what Till would say, he definitely doesn’t have, so he isn’t entirely sure why they keep happening.
They’re fun, usually. Interesting at the very least. Being able to procure a steamroller in the middle of a lecture hall and run over all of his annoying classmates without worry for consequence is freeing in a way that real life could never be.
This dream, though, is just fucked up.
It started with him getting nearly thrown off a building by some alien that strongly reminded him of King Kong. He’s a kid in this, around seven or eight probably, but other than that there’s absolutely zero context for the situation he’s in. He supposes it might be a manifestation of that one time he got thrown off the jungle gym back in grade school.
It’s nighttime, and the stars are pretty, but before he can truly get a good look the dream melts away into a new scene. He becomes bound in some sort of straitjacket, a white collar around his neck and attached to the ceiling. He’s also surrounded by aliens.
“What the fuck,” Ivan says. The aliens don’t seem to mind, chittering to each other as futuristic panels in a language Ivan can’t read pop up in front of them. That was strange: though most people aren’t able to read in their dreams, Ivan had always done so easily.
A huge alien-version of a pimp raises its hand(?) and says, “I’ll take that one.”
Oh, cool. Ivan just got sold.
Just as a prey mantis look-a-like reaches its spindly legs to his collar to free him and hand him over, the dream changes again. Now he’s in a field with other children all dressed in white. He looks down.
Those fuckers took his shoes.
Ivan glances around. Most of the children are circled together by a patch of flowers, plucking them from the ground and winding the stems together to make crowns. One of them in particular seems to be having trouble tying his together, the stems unwinding the second he stops twisting.
Till.
Ivan laughs, walking up to the group. He and Till had tried making flower crowns as kids because they had seen some characters doing it on their favorite tv show at the time. He guesses Till’s dismal attempts had stuck with him enough to land in his dream years later.
He comes up behind the other boy, holding a finger to his lips when a girl with pink hair takes notice of him. Then he flinches. It’s Mizi, the girl Till has had a hopeless crush on since he’d first met her at orientation. The three of them take an English class together. Mizi hides a grin before turning to the girl next to her, and this is just getting weird, because now Sua is there, Mizi’s long-time girlfriend who is also in their English class. Ivan glances at the other children suspiciously. He doesn’t recognize anyone else, from English class or otherwise, so he allows his focus to return to Till. The boy’s still trying (and failing) to successfully make a flower crown. Ivan can’t see his face, but he’s sure the boy has his tongue between his teeth the way he always does when concentrating. Ivan grins.
“That looks like shit.”
Till whips around, red flowers crumpled in his grasp. “Ivan,” he grumbles, eyes narrowing when he sees who’s standing over him. Oh good, they know each other in this. “Not again. It’s not even finished yet. Screw off.”
“Your mom,” Ivan blurts in English, a habit he’d picked up two years too late from the internet that he’d been annoying Till with lately in real life. This Till stares at him, uncomprehending. Ivan coughs. “Where are we?”
Till’s brow furrows. “Did I hit you too hard last time? We’re in the Garden.”
Ivan blinks at that, taking in the scrapes and bruises on Till’s face for the first time. Had they fought? It would make sense – they’re relationship had been fire and ice as kids, teaming up to play pirates one second and beating each other up the next. It had been Ivan’s unique way of pulling pigtails, but he’s still not entirely sure what Till had gotten out of it.
He’s been quiet for too long. Now Mizi and Sua are also looking at him, the former with concern and the latter with poorly veiled distaste. Ugh, Sua.
Ivan quickly slaps his forehead. “Right, the garden. The garden. The beautiful garden where we all…?”
“...Where we all practice our singing to compete on Alien Stage. Ivan, are you sure I didn’t hit you too hard? I have trouble controlling my strength sometimes.” Till says the last part with a proud glance at Mizi. Ivan and Sua make the same face.
Alien Stage, huh? That really hit the nail on the head. He laughs when he registers the first part. “Wait, we’re in a singing competition? Oh God, this must be because I forced you to play me your new song last night before the movie.”
“What?”
“What’s ‘God’?” a random kid across from them asks.
“Never mind,” Ivan says quickly. “So when exactly does this competition start?”
“Would you stop acting like a dumbass–”
“It happens every year, but we’ll only be able to compete once we graduate from Anakt Garden,” Mizi speaks up, smiling sheepishly at Sua’s incredulous stare.
“When’s that?”
“In ten years.”
“Fuck that,” Ivan says. He’s not waiting ten dream years to watch Till in a singing competition. He manifests a remote in his hand, his preferred method to change a lucid dream’s setting, and clicks the fast-forward button, ignoring the children’s startled shouts.
The dream zips by in front of him, and he waits about fifteen seconds before letting go of the button. Till’s in front of him again, this time completely restrained in a straitjacket and collar, similar to what Ivan was wearing at that auction. The walls are padded and white. Ivan nearly presses the button again, because this is obviously still way too early in the dream, but he hesitates. Till’s completely slumped over, head down and body occasionally jerking in what Ivan thinks might be pain.
Ivan groans, waving the remote away and reaching toward Till’s restraints. He can dream about Till in a singing competition some other time. This way he can tell real-life Till about how he heroically led him to escape in his dream and maybe get brownie points.
He fiddles with the collar on Till’s neck until it clicks and falls away. Jeez, everything in dreams is always so easy. Till stirs, head bobbing up and eyes blearily taking Ivan in. “Ivan…?” he croaks.
“Yes, your knight in shining armor is here,” Ivan grouches, pulling at Till’s straight jacket. It undoes itself without effort. Too easy . “Let’s go escape and do whatever runaway humans do in this universe.”
Till follows him in a daze. Ivan goes through doors randomly, assuming the dream will create an exit at some point if he just keeps walking. They enter some sort of grassy dome, and oh, great, there’s a door with a bright red “exit” sign above it on the other side. Ivan steps forward.
“ Wait!,” Till hisses, consciousness more-or-less fully returned to him. “This is where–”
A growl comes from Ivan’s left.
“Hoooooly shit,” Ivan says, backing up from the three-headed alien-dog-thing that definitely hadn’t been there a second ago. It stalks toward them, saliva dripping from its spiky teeth. “This is nothing like ET.”
“E-what?”
“Doesn’t matter. Listen, I never told you this, but I’m actually an alien-dog whisperer, so that’s why this’ll be over so fast.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, man.”
“Just watch,” Ivan says, calling upon his lucid-dream powers and walking up to the creature. God, it’s even uglier up close. All three of its heads turn toward him, snarling when he brings a hand up. He forces himself to rest it on one of its teeth.
“Good doggy…?”
The alien stops growling, tilting its heads to the side. Then it flops on its back, paws up and panting excitedly. The ground shakes at the impact.
“Oh hell yeah,” Ivan breathes. He walks back over to tug on a shocked Till’s hand. “Come on, babe.” It's a testament to Till’s disbelief that he doesn’t even react to the pet name.
Ivan opens the door that was surprisingly heavier than it looked and is met with a bright orange meteor shower. Till gasps behind him.
“Okay, here’s the plan,” Ivan says. “I switch my dream into third person and then we both run out dramatically while holding hands and looking up at the sky. Ready?”
“What,” Till says, but Ivan’s already pulling out his remote and hitting the “POV” button. His sight moves out and around so he can see both himself and Till before he drags Till by the hand and out into the shower.
It really is an epic shot. Till would definitely like it, the photographer that he is. Ivan wishes he could save a mental image. That way Till could see it and Ivan could tease him about holding hands with him, even if it was just the dream-version of himself.
Lost in his thoughts of real-life Till, Ivan almost doesn’t realize when dream-Till lets go of his hand. He turns to the boy.
Till looks around frantically, a hand clutching at his arm, before he makes eye contact with Ivan one last time and beelines it back towards the facility. Ivan stares after him, absentmindedly pressing the POV button to return to first person. Then he laughs.
His dream is obviously making fun of his ever-present fear that Till would eventually leave him, especially for someone else.
“Fuck off,” he says to the beautiful sky, grabbing the remote and pressing the fast-forward button once more.
…
Ivan is in…an egg? He’s in an egg, and so are the rest of the Alien Stage contestants besides Mizi and Sua who he can see clearly on the sci-fi jumbotrons. Till’s on the farthest end, an egg away from Ivan. Ivan taps at the glass and tries to do a goofy face to get his attention, but Till won’t look away from Mizi. Ivan tsks. Typical.
He’s wearing a black outfit that’s quite flamboyant considering its color. It reminds him of the outfit Till’s character in that one MMORPG game that he constantly plays wears. Actually, Ivan thinks, looking at the get-up again, that’s probably what it’s supposed to be. He’d always thought Till’s (customizable) character looked a lot like him, but Till had always denied it vehemently whenever Ivan had teased him about it.
Sua starts singing. Ivan snickers, because there is no way that Sua would ever sound that good in real life. The song is pretty, though. He must’ve heard it somewhere before; he doubts his mind could make up a whole song with intelligible lyrics, lucid or not.
Mizi and Sua look into each other’s eyes while they sing, which would be cute if Sua wasn’t involved. There’s some sort of futuristic scoreboard behind them, flipping rapidly between numbers until it finally lands on eighty-seven and eighty-six. Mizi won by a point. Ivan whoops, because he’d obviously been rooting for her, but chokes when he sees her face get spattered with blood.
“Shit!” he yelps, because Sua just got shot in the neck. And she isn’t moving. Is his dream malfunctioning? “Till!” He bangs on the glass. “Hey, Till! What was that?”
Till finally turns to look at him, a worried expression on his face. It becomes more annoyed when he sees Ivan frantically hitting at the egg. “....Happens!” he shouts back, but Ivan only catches the end of it through the layers of glass.
“What?”
“I said that’s what happens! When you lose! Obviously! You know that!”
“Really?” Ivan yells, but they both fall silent when Mizi is led into the egg between them. Her face is so shell-shocked, still covered in Sua’s blood, and Ivan has to look away. His dreams are way too realistic sometimes. He can’t see Till anymore, but he can practically feel the concern for Mizi oozing from the other boy.
When nothing happens for a few minutes beyond the audience’s clamoring, Ivan gently taps at the fast-forward button. Till blinks onto the stage, some brown-haired boy next to him, and Ivan feels slightly sick. He’s not sure he can watch Till get shot, even if it’s just a dream.
Till’s holding a guitar, and when Ivan looks closer, he sees that the guitar has an eye , but before he can process that information Till plays a loud chord and steps forward. Ivan grins. He recognizes that chord from the original song Till had played him last night. He even – Ivan cackles, taking in the shirt and red pants Till has on that he couldn’t see clearly when they were both in the eggs – he’s even wearing the same outfit from when he’d played it in the safety of their dorm room, lack of shoes and all.
All of the worry he’d felt floods away. No one would be able to sing Till’s song better than himself.
Till sings with an energy Ivan only sees in him when he’s performing for someone. It’s magnetic, drawing the alien audience in and winning their cheers. Ivan even sees some clapping along to the beat.
The other boy on the stage looks positively nauseous. Till’s not letting him get a single lyric in. Ivan hums, thinking of the music that had been playing before Till had started with his guitar. Had that been what they were originally supposed to sing? How evil of him.
The other boy opens his mouth to sing, but Till cuts him off by smashing his guitar to the stage. Organs fly out onto the floor, bloody looking in the red light that descends on the stage. Ivan cheers when the words “TILL WIN” appear above the boy but abruptly stops when Till’s slammed into the stage’s floor head-first. “These fucking…” he mutters, watching Till get heaved off the stage and toward the eggs.
He can see Till’s head bleeding when he gets closer, and Ivan waits for Till to look at him so he can make an annoying face and Till can flip him off and he can know that Till’s okay, but the boy never looks at him. He’s staring Mizi down, an adoring and expectant look on his face. Ah, Ivan thinks, he’d completely forgotten just who Till had written that song for.
Till had never admitted it, staying stoically silent as Ivan guessed every person they’d ever met to be the subject of the song after he’d played it for him. He was sure they’d both noticed that he’d left one particular name out.
What’s worse, Mizi isn’t even looking back at him. She’s staring at her knees, a dazed expression on her face. Till’s shoved into his egg where he almost immediately passes out, huffing out his breaths even while unconscious. Ivan can just barely see him over Mizi’s hunched form.
Ivan goes to fast-forward to the next round, but before he can, the front of his egg opens wide and one of the robo-guards reaches for him. Someone else is retrieved too, a guy who he thankfully doesn’t recognize. They’re both led to somewhere below the stage, a platform with two microphone stands already set up. He reluctantly stands behind the left one. With the rapid-fire events that had happened, Ivan had nearly forgotten that he was also a contestant.
The two of them had been left alone by the guards, silent and stiff. Ivan waits there for what feels like an hour before the platform starts lifting, too scared that he’ll press the fast-forward button and find himself in the middle of the round. He doesn’t feel like embarrassing himself in front of these aliens, even if they’re fake. They piss him off.
He turns to the boy. “Good luck,” he says, smiling politely. It doesn’t hurt to be friendly with the competition.
His opponent spares him a glance, stoic face now tinged with disdain. A few silent seconds pass.
“Cool, I’ll just go fuck myself then.” Ivan squints against the sudden light as they’re brought to the surface of the stage. They’re surroundings have become the night sky, comets and stars shooting across like, well, comets and stars. So many stars in this dream. Must be because he’s an astronomy major.
A drumbeat begins, and Ivan has to hide a smile by looking down at his mic because the song he’s about to sing is the song that’s been stuck in his head for the past three days. “Black Sorrow”, it’s called. Ivan had first heard it over the intercoms of the grocery store, of all places, about a week ago, but it was only recently that Ivan felt compelled to hum it under his breath every fifteen minutes, ten if Till was in the room. He knows every lyric. Get fucked, guy with an unflattering brown bob.
Ivan sings the first lyrics slowly. He’d never truly been fond of singing the way Till was. Till had assured him on multiple occasions that he had a voice that made the other boy want to punch him in the face because it was so good, but he himself had never seen the appeal. He prefers listening to others sing, Till especially. It’s the reason Ivan always suggests karaoke when the two of them are hanging out only to make Till sing most of the songs when they actually arrive.
The audience below him is filled with butt-ugly aliens and their captive children, so Ivan looks up at the stars as he sings. He’s never said it out because it’s honestly the corniest thought he’s ever had, but he’s always felt that Till’s a lot like a star. To him, at least, he’s the brightest thing he’s ever seen, burning fiery and hot where everything else is cold and dull. That’s where the resemblance ends, though, because Ivan doesn’t believe Till could ever die out like stars do.
Ivan glances at his opponent while he sings his verse. He’s not entirely sure why the other boy had acted so above him before the round began, because he sounds like ass. Ivan smiles at the thought a bit but realizes that’s not very sportsman-like, so he giggles instead. The boy side-eyes him.
It’s Ivan’s turn again. The ending is his favorite part of the song because of the raw emotion in the original singer’s voice, so Ivan does his best to think about yearning for something while he sings it. His eyes flick to Till who’s gradually blinking awake in his egg. Nope, something else. Ivan’s mind unwittingly thinks back to the cup of ramen he’d been saving for after his Chemistry test last week that Till had cruelly eaten before he got back. It was spicy-chicken flavored.
His voice gains a pining edge to it.
He raises his hand out to the sky for extra dramatics, holding out the last note, then waits for a gunshot. It comes, piercing his opponent in the chest. Ivan turns around. Ninety to sixty-eight. He whistles. As Sua would say, he ate that guy up. He frowns. Ugh, Sua.
Ivan skips the trip back to his egg, procuring his remote and fasting-forward. He ends up in some sort of bedroom, a barrack really, with a thread-bare twin and zero other furnishings. There’s no windows.
“Skippp.”
He goes a little too far this time, back in his egg but watching the aftermath of the fourth round. The winner kisses his dead opponent’s hand like a creep, and Ivan gasps when he sees his face. It’s the hot TA from his English class that everyone drools over. Luke, his name was? Lucas?
He’d always thought that guy was a little strange. Anyway, what is with this dream and the people in his English class? This was going to make the course so awkward.
To his right, Mizi is just being taken out of her egg to prepare for the next round. Ivan wonders who she’s going up against. He wishes there was some sort of bracket that he could look at to keep track– oh yeah.
Ivan thinks hard about a bracket, and it pops into existence as a screen in front of his egg. A girl’s face flickers out next to his TA’s photo, no doubt the corpse currently on the stage, and Louis travels up the bracket to be positioned next to Mizi. Two back-to-back performances – Ivan would feel worse if the TA was at all helpful in their class. He had a habit of purposefully pretending not to see when Till had his hand raised, the prick.
Beyond Mizi and Logan, there’s only one other pairing on the bracket. Ivan stares his and Till’s photos down with a frown. One of Ivan’s eyes is looking in a slightly different direction than the other one in the picture: he must’ve zoned out when they were taking it.
He hums, wondering what the best way would be to lose the round. Simply not singing would be the obvious choice, but he kind of wants to compete with Till, even if it’s only for a bit. Till feeling competitive is always a sight to behold for Ivan. He gets a spark in his eyes when he’s challenged and a joyful blush on his cheeks whenever he wins anything. Ivan wants to see both before he gets off-ed in front of the boy, even if it means he’ll have to sing again.
He can’t purposefully sing poorly because having an unworthy opponent will put Till out, so he decides to just cut out towards the end of the song. Maybe chuck the microphone into the audience. Depends on how ugly the alien closest to him is.
Plan in mind, Ivan once again taps his fast-forward button. He has to immediately cover his ears against the shrieks of the crowd.
Mizi and Lucian are on stage, the latter looking up into the crowd with a beatific smile. Mizi just looks suicidal, which Ivan fully understands. First her girlfriend dies, and now she has to perform some super upbeat song with their dumbass TA.
Ivan watches the first minute or so of the round in silence. Leon leans in about an inch away from Mizi’s face for the sixth time. Ivan knows: he’s been counting on his fingers.
“This has got to be sexual harassment,” he mutters, watching Mizi try to escape the dance the TA’s got her in and fail. She falls to the floor, bowled over and staring at her hands, and Ivan grimaces slightly. This entire thing is hard to watch.
The crowd floods the stage with purple, activating glow sticks and other light-up paraphernalia. One alien sticks out with their giant “PRINCE” hologram. Mizi’s gotten up from the ground, but now she’s staring at a fixed spot somewhere on the stage and no longer singing, so things have definitely taken a turn for the worse.
Ivan debates just skipping this round, but before he can, Mizi grabs Lucius’ throat and throws him to the ground. Ivan’s brow rises higher the longer Mizi sits there pummeling the guy’s face.
He looks over to Till. The boy is glued to the glass, hands pressing against the egg and face open in shock. They both watch Mizi get dragged off of the TA, nearly foaming at the mouth. She’s pinned to the floor, a gun to her temple, and Ivan silently urges Till to look away, not at all looking forward to the face he’s sure to make when he sees his crush get shot in the head. If anything, Till manages to see more as his eyes widen further, mouth twisting in alarm.
Ivan looks back to the stage just in time to see it fill with smoke. Cloaked figures grapple with the guards, but it’s hard to see anything else. The smoke clears somewhat as Mizi is helped off the stage by two of them.
Ivan is shocked by the complexity of this dream. There are rebels now, too? He should write a book about this when he wakes up. Or at least make a series about it on YouTube. Isn’t that what the author of Twilight did, have a wet dream about a vampire and make millions of dollars off of it? Twilight pales in comparison to whatever convoluted plot he’s got going on right now.
Till’s slumped over in what Ivan’s hoping is relief. He frowns slightly. He’s sure if Till had been on that stage and the rebels had asked him to escape with Mizi, he would’ve left without a single thought for Ivan, tail wagging. Perhaps Till’s disappointed Mizi left without him?
Ivan smashes the fast-forward button irritably.
…
Originally, Ivan thinks he went too far again, because he’s standing in an unfamiliar hallway with no egg or bedroom in sight. The corridor is stretched in both directions, so Ivan picks one and starts walking. It’s eerily silent, but he can’t tell what time it’s supposed to be because all he can see outside the windows he passes are stars and space.
He stops when he comes to a slightly ajar door. The room within is giving off a soft purple light, and Ivan walks in without thinking.
The first thing he sees is Till. That explains why he’d felt compelled to enter. Till’s passed out against a large armchair, collar wrapped around his mouth. Ivan hadn’t realized they were used as gags, too.
He creeps up to the boy, gently removing the collar from his face. If both he and Till are here, it must mean their round hasn't happened yet. Do the aliens delay the semi-finals to build suspense? Or is it due to Mizi’s disappearance? Ivan rakes at the hair near Till’s nape, noticing the brand on his neck for the first time. He smooths over the raised skin, wincing, before he notices the bruises on Till’s nape. He quickly raises the fabric of Till’s shirt. They continue down the boy’s back.
Fingerprints.
Alien fingerprints, judging from the size of them. Ivan frantically lifts Till’s head, watching as a tear slips out of his closed eye. He shakes him slightly. Till’s head falls to his chest. Did they drug him?
Ivan finally takes in the rest of the room. It’s clearly built for entertainment: there’s slot machines lining the walls and copious bottles of booze scattering both the tables and the floor. Till had also been there, unconscious and gagged and bruised all over.
Ivan presses his face to the side of Till’s head, wrapping an arm around the boy and nuzzling once. What a fucked-up dream.
He fasts-forward.
…
Ivan wasn’t able to speak with Till before they were separated. According to the guard’s metallic voice, Ivan’s only supposed to enter the stage after Till’s first verse and chorus has been sung, so Till had been dragged directly to the stage while Ivan was once again led under it.
The boy had looked even worse than he had slumped in that room, dressed head-to-toe in black with painful-looking bags under his eyes. He’s so different from the Till in real life, but it’s obvious why. This Till probably thinks he’s about to be killed while millions of creatures watch and cheer. The worst Ivan’s Till has to worry about right now is the Calculus exam he’d just bombed.
Ivan’s outfit, on the other hand, makes him look like a sexy mad scientist. He’d taken one look at his clothes and had immediately recognized the other outfit Till’s game character sometimes wore. It would be funnier if his subconscious hadn’t made it so accurate and detailed. Just how often had he been watching Till play his games lately?
He steps onto a wet platform, sans microphone this time, and looks up at the crowd. He would be in plain sight, but the lights have been positioned to illuminate only the stage and leave everything below it in the dark. From what he can see through the heavy artificial rain, the aliens look particularly rabid from this angle, various limbs thrown in the air and mouths open wide as they shriek for Till who must be on the stage already.
The sound of mic feedback fills the air, and Ivan startles as the platform under him shifts and starts rising. He can hear Till begin singing “Cure,” the top song in a popular boy band’s latest album that had been streaming everywhere lately, and he sighs. At least he knows the lyrics.
Till’s voice is beautiful as always, but Ivan had wanted to see his face. It’s one of the best parts of having Till sing for him, being able to watch as every emotion Till feels from the lyrics is etched on his face. He becomes the easiest to read, then.
Right now, the grief is obvious in his voice even without seeing his expression, unfortunately.
Ivan reaches the surface of the stage as Till finishes the chorus. He’s far back enough on the stage for the shadows to still be working in his favor. Till’s gripping his mic like a lifeline, panting slightly as he releases the last note. He looks like he’ll keel over any minute.
Ivan steps forward in the silence, hearing gasps from the crowd as he comes into view. He looks over at Till as he begins singing his verse, but the boy is staring resolutely at his mic. Ivan scowls. Would it kill this Till to look back at him just one time? He grips his own mic, forcing himself to complete his chorus. He won’t stop singing until Till looks at him. If he can’t see Till competitive, he’ll at least get a front-view of his face.
They begin switching off parts. Till’s voice is weak at first, which Ivan figures must be from exhaustion, but when Till’s next turn comes, he stops singing entirely.
So now Till’s feeling suicidal? Fuck that .
Ivan marches up to him, forgetting to chuck the mic at the crowd and letting it fall harmlessly on the stage instead. He fully intends to grab Till’s face and force him into extended eye contact – thirty seconds at least – but when Ivan gets closer, the look on Till’s face stops him.
He just looks so heartbroken.
Ivan kisses him instead.
As a rule of thumb, Ivan has never once kissed a dream-Till on the mouth. He’s hugged him, called him corny pet names, and on one memorable occasion kissed the boy on the cheek, but he’s always stayed far away from his mouth. He knows that if he ever experienced it, dream or not, he’d never want to stop after. He would crave it like water.
Till gains enough of his wits to push Ivan back, but Ivan presses closer, unwilling to stop just yet.
Case in point.
Ivan thinks, frantically trying to come up with a way to end this round without watching Till take a bullet to the head. He remembers Mizi, the way she’d nearly been executed after choking and beating their TA.
He opens his eyes, looking into Till’s shocked ones as he wraps his hands around Till’s throat and squeezes. A glance at the score tells him that Till’s in the lead anyway, but he holds out. This way, he has Till’s full attention. Till, who has gone completely limp despite the fact that Ivan was barely even massaging his neck. Why isn’t he fighting back? Is he waiting for him to get on with it or something?
…He probably was.
Ivan’s body lurches, and he looks down to see dark red blossoming over the white fabric on his side. He smiles despite himself. Finally, this dream could just be over . He gets hit in the shoulder next, and then the chest, and then he’s coughing up blood through his smile as Till stares at him with horror and he falls to the floor.
“Ivan!”
Till sinks to his knees next to him, panicked hands hovering over the wound in his chest. Ivan gasps raggedly. If he really wanted to, he could make himself breathe just fine, but if he’s going to go out like this it might as well be dramatic.
“Till,” he croaks, pressing one of Till’s hands to the bullet wound. Till gathers him into his arms and ooh that’s nice, especially since he’s not actually in pain.
“What?” Till says shakily. There are unshed tears in his eyes. Uh, maybe Ivan should take it down a notch. An idea forms in his head.
“This–” Ivan coughs up some more blood involuntarily. Dammit. “This…truly was… our Alien Stage, Till.”
Till drops him in disgust.
“Hey!” Ivan says indignantly. “Is that how you treat someone who’s bleeding out?”
“You…” Till seethes. “When will you ever take something seriously, huh? You’re dying, for crying out loud!”
“And you have terrible bedside manner,” Ivan mumbles. His vision’s starting to go fuzzy at the edges.
“That’s not– hey, hey! Ivan! Don’t fall asleep! Ivan!” Till’s face is the only thing Ivan can see clearly now, drawn tight in desperation and horror. There’s a furrow in his brow. Ivan raises a bloody hand to smooth it out.
“You should…be happier. That’s how you’re supposed to…all the time.” Ivan eyes close against Till’s shrieks, a serene smile on his face. So long, Alien Stage. The worst to you and your aliens.
…
“Are you fucking kidding me.”
Fully expecting to wake up in his dorm room, Ivan had been a little surprised when he opened his eyes and saw Sua, of all people, with a halo and angel wings.
They’re back in that garden from before, red flowers blooming all over the field.
“This dream has an afterlife?”
“Yep,” Sua says. She’s hugging her knees and moving the dirt on the ground around with a stick. “It was cruel what you did to Till, you know. He was completely distraught after you died.”
“Where’s he now?”
“About to go against Luka,” Sua replies. Ivan smacks his forehead. That was his name! “Unfortunately for you, I don’t think Till will be able to pull through this– what are you doing?”
Ivan pauses in shoving the gun he’d manifested into his mouth. He pulls it back out. “What does it look like? I’m not staying here for another fucking second.”
“Oh,” Sua says, apathetic. She turns back to her dirt. “Listen, before you go, I think we should talk more. In real life. We’re similar in a lot of ways, you know.”
Ivan snorts, putting the gun back in his mouth. “Tha exacly wah we soodn’t,” he says, and pulls the trigger.
…
When the first things Ivan sees after waking up are the glow in the dark stars he’d stuck on his dorm room ceiling, he nearly weeps. He processes the snores coming from Till’s bed next, as well as the sun that’s already peeking through their window. Till wouldn’t be too mad if he woke him up, then.
Ivan scoots out of his bed and walks the short distance between them before climbing into Till’s. Till grumbles awake as he’s jostled, shifting closer to the wall and rubbing his face roughly. “Ivan..?” he mumbles, eyes still closed.
“You can never audition for The Voice of Korea, Till,” Ivan whispers seriously.
“...Bad dream?”
“Awful.”
Ivan tells him everything. Well, everything besides the kiss and the state Till had been in when he’d found him in that room. He also leaves out the afterlife scene due to its absolute lack of relevance.
Till’s silent when he finishes, eyes finally open and staring at the ceiling, dumbfounded. “You said the words “this truly was our Alien Stage” and expected me not to drop your ass?”
“It was either that or expletives,” Ivan grouches. “And I was dying, it wouldn’t have hurt to be a little kind to me, especially since you kept abandoning me for Mizi–” Ivan’s mouth shuts with a click, eyes wide. He waits for Till’s explosive denial, but it never comes. Till keeps staring at the ceiling thoughtfully.
“Mizi has a girlfriend, did you know?”
Ivan blinks. “Wow, really?”
Till’s eyes slide sideways to glare at him before flicking back up. “Of course you did. Anyway, Sua texted me last night after you’d gone to bed to let me know.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Till says. “She also told me to pay you more attention, because you become ‘extra irritating’ whenever I ignore you for too long in class, apparently.”
“..Oh.”
“Yeah,” Till says again, rolling over to face Ivan. Like this, their noses are inches apart. Ivan fights not to look at his lips. The lips he’d kissed in his dream. God this was going to be difficult. “I’m sorry if I made you feel like that. Ignored. I guess I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately. That’s not fair to you, though.”
“It’s okay,” Ivan wheezes, trying not to breathe on Till.
“...And I’m sorry for eating your ramen.”
“You dick,” Ivan says, “I thought of it in my dream, that’s how much it hurt me.”
Till laughs, the little giggle he does when there’s no one around that he’s trying to impress. Ivan beams. The other boy yawns right in his face before closing his eyes and huffing a sigh, obviously about to go back to sleep. Ivan stiffens, because Till has always kicked him out to go back to sleep whenever he infiltrated the other’s bed to talk. “Should I…?”
“Just stay,” Till mumbles. “Our only class today is English, and that’s not for another four hours. Let’s sleep in.”
Ivan nods even though Till can’t see it. He will absolutely not go back to sleep today, not after that horrid dream, but he’ll certainly watch Till sleep. He burrows deeper under the covers, grinning.
Yay, Sua!