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Till wakes up to the sweet smell of the omega nest in the rebellion base and fingers carding through his hair.
While the former sensation is like a warm blanket cast upon him, tickling his nostrils in flowery scents and momentary respite, the latter coddles him far from that very reality—sends chills down his spine and scalp in the mocking imitation of an affectionate gesture, dragging him into the illusion dear to heart and damned by his rare moments of lucidity.
He doesn’t open his eyes—lingers in that deception, moving his head so that the palm nuzzling it doesn’t stop.
“You are awake.”
“Yeah,” he murmurs, burrowing further in the blankets and scrunching his nose. Judging by the scent, the few omega adults residing at the base must have paid him a visit, scenting the covers so that he wouldn’t feel lonely, but the kids should still be close, so he keeps his voice low.
Icy fingers press right above his lips, a chuckle quivering on his cheek. “You are wrinkling your face. Is the smell too strong?”
“Not really.”
“Then what is it?”
Till sighs, opening one eye to look up. Black eyes stare down at him, a touch sardonic as he waits for Till to answer with his elbow planted on the pillow, and the Omega doesn’t retreat, a scowl all the evidence of his annoyance one can find on his face.
It’s not like he doesn’t appreciate the other omega rebels' care, but sometimes, their overwhelming presence only serves to highlight the absence of the person he still talks to, but that produces no scent Till can wrap himself into.
He doesn’t tell Ivan as much, but he knows he doesn’t need to—as a product of his grieving soul, Ivan must be ludicrously aware of it already.
“I think they are taking good care of you, considering you have finally started to help around.”
Till snorts. “Can’t believe I am alive to hear a compliment from you.”
“At least one of us is. Isn’t that nice?”
Breath halts in his throat, itching right around old and new scabs, and no matter how much Till tries to ignore it, the overwhelming sense of oppression bearing him down never fails to render him useless as fast as the reminder of Ivan’s death coming from in the Alpha’s own voice.
“If that’s all you have to say, go away.”
“I can’t. Otherwise, you’ll feel lonely.”
Then hug me , he desperately tries to say, but the words scratch his tongue and tumble back down, choking him until he has to heave a cough out. Ivan laughs, but he still folds around him, cruel in the frost embrace he offers to the tepid body curled on the ground, chasing away the warmth of the nest.
Till is fine with it—where the warmth smothers him, the cold sends shivers running down his back, making him gasp under the mouth that keeps stealing unwilling kisses out of him, sucking all the words Till could say until nothing but silence and freezing tears remains.
That’s how it has been for the past three years—Till has grown out of nightmares made of tortures and impositions, but his vanilla scent still withers in excruciating pain and anger at the thought of Ivan. Still shatters his ribcage in pitiful sorrow, the pathetic wails of a young man who is several years too late to realize that affection comes in variation, and that he had apparently promised his to someone he lost to music and slaughter.
“You never thought of me like that.”
Till moves his face toward him, nuzzling the palm now cupping his cheek. “Even your ghost bullies me, how could I have known what you meant to me?”
“You could have escaped with me.”
Another punch right in his stomach, so intense that tears gather in the corner of his eyes as he sucks in a breath.
“Does it hurt?”
Till doesn’t answer.
“Now you know. What we could have been.”
The omega closes his eyes. He supposes Ivan—what remains of him in Till’s madness—is right.
The kids are making flower crowns again. Till showed them how months ago, and the vast variety of plants colouring the woods around the base are the perfect victims for practicing.
A chill lifts the hair on his nape, trickling down like icy water. “Their flower crowns are better than the one you did when we were kids.”
Till raises a brow, an irritated smirk curving the corner of his lip up. “The one you stepped on?”
“I guess I deserved that.”
He chuckles, going back to watch the kids. His body feels sluggish, lazed by a night spent screaming against the pillow as sobs wrecked him from within—Ivan’s name like a prayer and a plea, offered to the impossible ground and sky and nature for anything to hold on, for everything listening to give him back to him.
I’ll do better, I’ll ask you why, I’ll listen even if it hurts, just come back .
But the dead have ears buried into the empty unknown, and Till didn’t even have the chance to hold Ivan’s hand before he was dragged away, forever out of the sight of those reddish, creepy pupils under eyelids now forever lowered.
He almost chokes on his next breath, teeth sinking in the inner side of his cheek to counter pain with pain.
“You look horrible.”
“Thanks to whom?” Till retorts before he can stop himself, but he immediately steps back and averts his gaze from the wicked, unforgiving glance of his invisible tormentor.
A strange sensation prickles his neck, dancing under his collarbone and settling right on his chest. The weight is familiar, shaped in the intensity of Ivan’s gaze on him, though unsettlingly vivid compared to the glacial touch that is now groping his jaw.
“Till.”
“What?”
“It’s time to ask yourself what I was to you.”
The question lands strange on his ear, unusually participative for the apathetic ghost that enjoys digging the knife into wounds that never really started scarring. But Till has had years to think it over, and although the answer he can produce stems from imaginary scenarios and memories that are agonizingly starting to blur, he feels like he knows his heart a bit better, now.
“My friend. My family. My—”
Till’s heart picks up, neck itching again, blood cursing in his vein like he is about to have a panic attack. His throat clamps again, something in his chest tugging him out of the meadow, toward the base. He wants, needs to go home.
Ivan’s image flickers, a crooked smile all he gives Till before he vanishes.
The base is a buzz of voices and confusion when they go back.
“What’s going on?”
“They found a group of humans stranded near to one of the factories. Apparently, they come from the other side of the planet—”
“Till! Come here.”
The boisterous sound of Dewey’s voice immediately forces Till to turn his attention to him, but it’s only when Till draws nearer that his nose finally picks up a scent slicing into his brain with the force of a thousand explosions.
He is moving, hands gripping Dewey’s shoulders, eyes wide with something that possibly has the same origin of the adrenaline wiring his whole body into action.
“Where? Where is he?”
“Down the corridor, the second door on the right—”
He runs.
When they explained to him the whole gender dynamic system, it had understandably taken a while for him to understand. Alpha, Beta, Omega, rut and heat, scenting and bonding—the discovery that his heart and body and soul had already claimed someone without Till consciously realizing had seemed so ludicrous that it had taken months of nightmares and ghost kisses biting his lips to realizes that all of this, Till was doing it to himself in place of what he would never have the chance to have again.
But now.
Now there is someone looking exactly like Ivan sitting on the ground, hair longer than Till remembers, shoulders broader too, back straight, offering some courteous shit of a smile to the doctor patching him up—but it’s dull, perfunctory, nothing like the celebrity of a life ago.
None of them are, anymore.
Till is frozen on the threshold, of all the scents surrounding him, only the sharp whiffs of citrus and forest penetrate his nostrils with the severity of Till’s own deep inhale, and when he feels it—acrid, woody—he doubles over, chest clutched in his palm.
That string inside him tugs again, pulls hard, screams at him to move.
Ivan, Ivan, Ivan.
He can't even exhale his name out. Why is it that whenever there is something to say, Till loses his ability to speak?
But he must make some sort of noise, because a few heads turn in his direction, and then there is black in his line of vision—and Till can breathe again.
“Ivan.”
Ivan doesn’t get up immediately. He looks over, apathetic, dead glare piercing his surroundings—Till sees it bloom red. His lips part, his face flushes, his eyes widen stupidly. Little wrinkles form between them and his temples, his forehead distends, his hair tickles his cheeks in a way that makes Till feel jealous.
Till is the first to move. Ivan’s scent lures him in, like a dazing spell, and he is not sure how, but there are things in his hands—wrappings, antiseptic, quivering at the intensity of the earthquake making his hands sunstable.
There are open gushes on Ivan’s torso—bare, battered in scars, and Till is too afraid to look for the bullet holes he knows he’ll find somewhere on his back.
He kneels, heart hammering wild. The doctor gives them privacy and goes to someone else, but none of them notices.
Till has never felt calmer and more content than right now. He is moving like a puppet on strings, cleaning the wound, disinfecting it, inhaling his childhood friend’s—his mate’s—scent, gasping and trembling so much that misses the injury a few times.
Hands close around his, steadying them despite not being as stable themselves.
They breathe together, Ivan’s fingers wrap around him like a vice grip, something violent flailing in his irises, scent like a storm through the woods.
Still clutched in Ivan’s hold, Till forces his wrist forward, against the wound—pushes too hard and jolts, wet eyes flashing on Ivan’s face.
“Does it hurt?”
“No.” The tone is quick, syllable stumbling on itself, almost clumsily. No sarcasm, no hurtful words, nothing like the ghost that had kept Till company for years.
Instead, a palm— warm, warm, warm —comes up to tap under his eyes, spreading the tears cascading down silently. “Why are you crying? Does seeing me alive make you sad?”
It’s too much.
Till sobs and crumbles on himself, growing increasingly groggy, and there are arms—sturdy and fierce and so, so real—around him when he and Ivan collide.
“Till.” Ivan’s face sinks in the crook of his neck and inhales, groaning low against his skin, and Till shakes hard.
“You fucking idiot—”
“Are you crying for me?”
“Is that even a serious question?!”
“You look horrible,” but the hands cradling his face have never been kinder, and even if the things Till wanted to say do not immediately spill from eager, babbling lips, he finally, finally sags against his Alpha, lets himself be enveloped by the familiar taste of Ivan’s biting sincerity and the warmth that screams how painfully alive he is—and Till flourishes.
His chest vibrates, something like a purr rumbling low in his throat the longer Ivan’s hands are on him, the spots where his Alpha glands hide grazing all over Till and wrapping the Omega in his scent.
Till’s head lolls sideways, face flushed, mind drowsy like he is yielding to slumber, yet sharp-awake in how he meets and holds Ivan’s gaze trailed on him.
No one approaches them. Perhaps it’s obvious they are having a heartfelt reunion, busy getting reacquainted, hands touching wherever they reach as they mumble and smile and tease with avid sweetness. Perhaps it’s also clear their bodies are getting fiercely in sync, the starting tingles of heat and rut wafting in the air and warning everyone around not to get close.
And when they are finally alone, Till’s room a comfort of privacy and intimacy, the ache in Till’s glands flares so hard he nearly gags on it, pupils blown wide, the scent of Ivan wrapping around him like a shroud and a lifeline both. It crawls under his skin like a fever. His body bucks forward, forehead pressed to Ivan’s collarbone, breath rasping wet and open-mouthed against skin.
Everything inside him twists, writhes toward the Alpha like it’s trying to claw its way out of his ribcage. His whole being is screaming: found, found, found, my mate . His fingers claw at Ivan’s shirt. He wants to bite, to cry, to rut against him until the trembling stops. He wants to split open and crawl inside his warmth until the last of the cold that long haunted him is burned away.
“I thought I’d die like that,” Till chokes, barely able to speak. “Without ever smelling you again.”
And it’s not poetic. It’s not gentle. It’s feral, embarrassing, real . Ivan’s hands drag down his back, breathing fast and unstable, their chests crashing together in the rhythm of something ancient and unrelenting.
Till doesn’t bloom like a flower. He tears himself out of the dirt, bloodied and gasping, and dares to live again.