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Ivan’s steps are slow but sharp, practiced. He knows the patrol schedules. He knows the blind spots. This is a familiar path, one he draws out every night, except this time, it is one door further to the left.
He knocks twice, doesn’t wait for the thump thump to echo through the dimly lit hall before opening the door.
Inside, Till is halfway through scrambling to hide piles of papers, yelling, “Wait!” He freezes when he sees Ivan, then slows, huffing. His bangs flutter lightly. “Oh. It’s just you.”
“Just me,” Ivan says, smile lop-sided.
“So? What do you want?”
“What happened to courtesy and good humor, Till?” Ivan’s hands tremble against the door as he shuts it. He keeps them behind his back. “Let me demonstrate. How was your day?”
Till scrunches his nose. “Bad,” he says easily, hand rubbing against a dark bruise on his cheek.
“Yes, well.” Quarterly check-in days aren’t anyone’s favorite. It’s a long and thorough rundown, a careful inspection; the goal: a reassigned value; the methods relentless. Third quarters are always the worst. “Maybe not that.” He blinks, bleary. Shakes his head. Always the worst. “What’re you up to?”
“You’re being weird,” Till says. “I was just—“ He gestures vaguely to the papers around him. Scribbles. Crossed out lyrics.
“You’re quite the,” Ivan says, loses his breath and laughs it back into his lungs, “diligent one, aren’t you? Not a day of rest with you.”
Till’s bare feet pad against the floor. Plop. Plop. Their rooms aren’t big. It takes Till two, three, four steps to reach Ivan and grab his shoulders. “You’re seriously being weird. Stop,” he says.
Ivan lists a few responses in his spinning mind. Polite. Inconspicuous. Ill-mannered. All catalytic as he can’t help being when it comes to Till. It’s too easy. His explosive reactions are unavoidable; Ivan just knows how to draw them out best.
A minute of silence passes. Till’s hands begin to travel up. Ivan’s vision falters. “I wanted to ask if I could spend the night here,” he says. Till’s hands stop.
Skeptic, he asks, “What gives? Why would you wanna stay in my room? Yours is nicer.”
Ivan nods. “Yes, it is.” He eyes the walls covered in drawings, the empty spots where long shallow scratches were etched by blunt nails. “I have something to trade you for it, though.”
Till blinks. “What is it?”
“It’s a surprise.” Something quakes between Ivan’s ribs. There is a line he has carefully toed for years, and it is now fading beneath his careless footsteps. There is a correct decision to make: turn around, open his own door; he does not make it.
“How am I supposed to decide it’s good enough, then?” Till asks just to be contradictory, hand raking through his bangs.
Ivan shrugs. Till’s eyes narrow. “Fine. Whatever. This better be good. Just. Sleep on the floor, okay?”
Ivan shifts uncomfortably, wiping the sweat beneath his shirt collar. “How cruel.”
“I don’t want any funny business.”
He beams. “You think I’m funny?”
Till groans.
A short ding rings out through the room. The analog clock built into the wall reads two minutes till 23:00. Till moves back to shove the rest of his papers inside his rickety bedside drawer. He graciously tosses his only pillow down to the floor then clambers onto the bare mattress.
Ivan stands, scalding feet against cold tile until the lights shut. 23 on the dot.
“You’re not gonna even ask me for it, now?” he says, shuffling closer. It’s easier to talk when he doesn’t have to worry about what kind of face he’s making.
Till lets out a broken hum. The sound shudders through Ivan’s body. “You have it? Is it invisible?”
“No, just a bit small.” He settles on the floor, knees digging into the worn pillow. He rests his head against the mattress.
“How’s that any good?”
“Size isn’t everything. You’d know that.” A foot connects with his elbow. He grabs it by the ankle, and it doesn’t pull away. “Till,” he says, body weighted, eyes threatening to shut. “Ti—ll.”
“Go to sleep,” Till says, shoulders shaking with annoyance.
“I thought you liked gifts.”
A beat. “It’s not a gift if you’re making me trade for it,” he says quietly.
“Hm.” Ivan’s hand trails over, stopping just short of Till’s nape. He knows where he’s asking to be left, exposed like an open scab under Till’s gaze, yet he says, “Till. Turn around.”
And he does, slowly, skin brushing against Ivan’s fingers. There is a flicker in the moment their eyes meet. Something alive is let go from a far height, and it makes a gross splatter as it hits the ground of Ivan’s mind, asking for another chance. He tampers it down still, asks it to wait.
He steadies his hands if only for long enough to thread them through Till’s hair. Till stiffens, fingers tugging against Ivan’s sleeve until he lets go. He then reaches for the same spot, taps against the strawberry-shaped hair clip bunching his bangs.
“It looks good on you,” Ivan says, snicker muffled, cheek pressed against his palm.
Till glares, and Ivan can only make out his shiny eyes when telltale light filters beneath the door, a robo-guard’s passing through. Whirr, whirr. He makes out, too, the blotchy red against pasty yellow on Till’s face, his puffy eyes, the full size of the bruise he’s sporting without his long hair to cover it up.
There is a thumping sound threatening to break out beneath it all. Stuttering breaths. Pitter-pattering.
Ivan’s index traces the wound. He feels Till wince beneath the touch, pressing his own thumb against Ivan’s lips, the raw, red peeling corner. In turn, he brings his finger up against Till’s lower lid, wet. Don’t cry, he hopes. Till’s pity is a heavy thing to carry.
The weight of it topples down onto him when Till pulls away, pushes himself against the wall.
“Get in,” he says and nothing more.