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Expectedly, the Russian winter is almost bone-chillingly cold. Inches of snow fall down in small flakes from the clouds that line the muted blue sky. As Tolys takes a step, his winter boots sink down up to his ankle in the snow that coats the ground; snowflakes fall down and cool his face, wet only from what has melted upon it, and he brings his arms up to hold himself for warmth.
Ivan walks a few paces in front of where Tolys straggles, skipping as much as he could with the ankle-deep snow holding him down, as he leads the way to their desired destination (which Tolys still doesn’t know of, yet). He had taken his hat off to ‘enjoy the season’ more, and there’s a small amount of snow flaked in among the strands of his white hair, only more accumulates the longer they spend walking outside.
“It is a very nice place, Tolys. Alfred showed me,” Ivan comments, slowing down just enough to turn his head to the side as he looks at Tolys. Tolys snaps his head upwards and meets Ivan’s eyes, however he quickly redirects his vision to just slightly off from Ivan’s head.
“...Alfred? Is it food?” He asks, tentatively. Cocking his head to the side, he straightens himself to stand upwards and begins carefully speeding up his walking speed to stand next to Ivan; it’s never polite to stay behind while talking, after all.
Ivan laughs, a noise that comes from his belly and thankfully, means that Ivan’s still happy. He pats Tolys on the back, a gesture that, for Ivan, is much too harsh and takes all of the air out of Tolys’ lungs. While he’s attempting to wheeze some oxygen back into his body, Ivan starts, “Yes, yes it is! Alfred is very obvious, right? Yes…” Ivan sighs, his ever-constant smile still on his face as he shakes his head, “He is very fat.”
“Right…” Tolys averts his eyes yet again, deciding to look across the street they’re walking on for any hint of what this destination may be, other than it being food related. There’s not much in this town to begin with, as they currently reside in some smaller town around Siberia, most of the buildings are similar and geometric, a left-over from Ivan’s (and technically Tolys’ as well) days as the Soviet Union. It makes Tolys miss being in Moscow, or Vilnius… or really any other city bigger than this.
“He had went to one in America, and he told me it is great for two people! So, I am bringing you!” He places his hand on Tolys’ shoulder, the pads of his fingers digging into the flesh despite the layer of Tolys’ coat between them. “He told me, it made Kiku and him very good of friends!”
“That’s nice– wait…” As he’s been looking back at the street before them, Tolys is able to see the striking bright orange and blue LEDs against the normally dreary landscape. The sign out front becomes more visible as they slowly approach (due to Tolys’ lack of experience walking through such a harsh winter than from any problem of Ivan’s), the words become visible.
“Burger King? You’re taking me to Burger King?” Tolys asks, his voice rising in volume for the first time in– he doesn’t know how long– at the amount of shock he feels that Ivan is not only taking him to a space that’s so clearly western, but also that it’s such a name-brand fast-food chain, which apparently is such a delicacy to Ivan. (Even though last time Tolys knew, there were already a lot of fast-food chains such as Burger King located all throughout Russia. Maybe, Ivan is playing it up because he thinks it’s a new experience for Tolys, although that’s certainly not true. Ivan’s sure to have seen him eating fast-food before, mostly as a result of Feliks, who’s never been the biggest fan of cooking, or eating healthy.)
“Yes! What, you are… not impressed?” Ivan asks, turning his head to look to Tolys instead of the Burger King slowly coming into focus before them. His smile seems to have begun to falter, into what emotion Tolys isn’t sure of, but certainly not one he wishes to find the meaning of.
“No! No! I think it’s nice!” Tolys quickly removes his hands from holding closely onto his arms to wave in front of himself, trying to make himself seem even more innocuous than he usually makes himself out to be, “I’m just sort of… shocked… is all. This isn’t something I thought you liked.”
“You are wrong then, my friend!” Ivan’s grin returns back to its usual look, much to Tolys’ relief. One of Ivan’s hands, somehow burning hot while being uncovered amidst the cold surrounding them, grabs one of Tolys’ own freezing hands. The satisfaction of finally feeling something warm after being near-hypothermic for hours is short lived, as Ivan takes this chance to pull Tolys along and force him to run to the restaurant which is only about a block away.
When Ivan stops in front of the doors, Tolys is still running behind, mind going too fast to notice until he’s already barreled into the taller man. He stumbles back, letting go of Ivan’s hand to place both of his hands outward and stabilize himself so he doesn’t fall supine in the snow.
Once he regains his balance, he places his arms around Ivan’s arm, and although the action makes him feel like a high school girl, he tells himself it’s a good way to keep himself stable. Ivan has little to no noticeable reaction to Tolys, instead he places his free hand on his hip and says, “Looks very good, yes?”
“Very modern,” Tolys responds honestly, looking up at the restaurant, which, compared to the rest of the Siberian town, which has only recently started to develop modern-style buildings separate from the Soviet apartment blocks, stands out like a sore thumb.
Ivan only nods in agreement, beginning to walk along to the entrance and pulling Tolys along with him, who stays glued to his side. The door thankfully makes no noise when they enter, which would have kept them relatively invisible in the crowd, only if they were not one of the few customers here at this hour.
The bright, artificial lights burn into Tolys’ retinas, the organ unused to the light from the LED lightbulbs after spending so long outside in the dark. So, as he blinks back the floaters that speck his vision, he doesn’t notice Ivan shrugging off Tolys’ hands, and when Tolys starts paying attention to his surroundings, Ivan is already standing in front of the menus, which sit above the check-out counter.
His muscles are stiff from the cold, and feel especially so now that the warm air from inside has only just begun to help to warm him up, as it feels like he’s dragging himself across the floor as he moves to stand next to Ivan at the front of the building. “So… What do you want?” He asks, leaning towards Ivan as he asks, his voice quieter even more than it usually is in the smaller building.
“Hmmm… I think I would like the one with two patties,” Ivan says after a few moments of consideration, his finger up to the menu as it looks it over. “What is it, the double?”
“Mhmm,” Tolys moves his head only slightly in a nod, before looking up at the menu despite the fact that he already knows what he wants, “I think I’ll just get fries.” He tilts his head slightly to look at Ivan, giving him a tentative smile, “I’m not very hungry.”
“Really?” Ivan turns to him, his smile still the same, so Tolys assumes that his remark hasn’t made Ivan feel any more off than usual. “Well, your dinner was very filling then, yes?” Tolys has no room to inform Ivan that his dinner was certainly not, since Ivan has already moved forward to the cashier.
Tolys follows, standing behind Ivan as he begins to rattle off their order, “One of the double, but no cheese, and medium-sized fries.” As the cashier begins putting their order into the cash register, Ivan remembers his manners and adds a chipper, “Please.”
A small giggle comes from Tolys, a noise that he would swear isn’t meant to be mocking, but instead… admiring, he guesses. How, most of the time, Ivan is so scary, but still can have times where he acts… cute. This thought screeches Tolys’ mind to a halt, so much that he barely picks up on the total which sounds like about 500 rubles, and only comes back to reality once Ivan speaks his name.
“Tolys,” Ivan starts, his voice containing an upset edge to it which has Tolys standing up straight and putting his hands to his sides, “I am forgetting my wallet, do you have yours?”
“Oh! Yes. Yes I do,” Tolys nods a couple times and he takes his wallet from his back pocket, it’s old, and only contains euro notes, his credit card, and a few polaroids of Feliks which had been mailed to Tolys during his time living at Ivan’s house. He takes out his credit card, “Here.”
“Thank you, Tolys,” Ivan says as he takes the card from Tolys’ hand, and there’s a small fluttering in Tolys’ chest which he pushes down as far as he could. He instead watches as Ivan swipes Tolys’ card along the card reader, and he watches as the reader displays a clear CARD DECLINED line across its small screen.
Tolys’ tenses and his cheeks begin to grow red in embarrassment before Ivan has even turned towards him. “It is declining?” Ivan asks, there's a small edge in his voice which Tolys understands as frustration, and although his gaze is directed to the floor, he can imagine the grit in Ivan’s jaw as he speaks.
“I guess I’ve.. used it too much,” The smile Tolys gives Ivan is hesitant, trying to cool the air which has already begun to tense between the two. However, his expression does nothing to help, as the air between the two of them begins to solidify more. It feels as if it’s wrapping around Tolys’ neck and choking him. He doesn’t move in retaliation as Ivan grabs his wallet from his hands and begins looking through it.
A few photos of Feliks fall upon the floor, until Ivan has extracted the physical money from Tolys’ wallet. Most of it is euros but there does happen to be a few rubles snuck inside, about two hundred from Ivan’s counting. At the money, Ivan does seem to have calmed down a little, and Tolys’ takes this chance to kneel down and gather the photos strung out across the floor.
“This is only enough for one,” Ivan comments, and Tolys raises his head to look up at Ivan from his spot on the floor. Tolys has all his photos and it seems Ivan wishes something else for him, so Tolys quickly scrambles up into a standing position. “We will share, then!”
“Share?” Tilting his head to the side, Tolys attempts to multitask carrying out the conversation while placating Ivan, and prying his wallet from Ivan to put the photos back inside, “Like… cut it in half?”
“No, no, at once!” Ivan slides the money over to the cashier and says “one of the regular burgers, only”, before moving away to the dining area. Tolys as always, follows behind, “Have you seen the movie with the dogs? What was it… The woman and the walking trip?”
Tolys slowly sits down in one of the seats at the table Ivan had chosen, and Ivan slides into the seat directly in front of him. “The… The Lady and the Tramp?” He slowly corrects, and his cheeks begin to flush a bright shade of red, all of the blood beginning to move back into his previously cold, pale skin. “You want to eat a burger… at the same time… like that one scene in Lady and the Tramp?”
“Alfred informed me that it is actually a very nice experience!” Any of the previous anger Ivan had in his expression is now gone, as his response now is overly chipper. He cocks his head to the side not unlike that of a confused dog, “I thought I would try, and you are already here, no?”
“I… I guess,” Tolys sighs, begrudgingly. He crosses his arms over the table and puts his head down on the cushion it creates. He rests his eyes for just a moment, listening to Ivan hum away to some classical tune in the near silence of the restaurant. The lack of words between the two is certainly not comfortable, but Tolys would be a liar to say that it isn’t its nearest equivalent. It’s nice enough that, admittedly naively, Tolys thinks today might not end with a visit from Ivan’s Magic Metal Pipe.
Tolys only blinks his eyes open when Ivan stands up once their food is called, being relatively early considering the small quantity they had ordered. He follows Ivan with his eyes as the Russian grabs the bag from the counter, nods in thanks to the cashier, and sits down in front of Tolys once again.
“We are going to eat our burger now!” Ivan announces, and Tolys finally sits up at attention, however keeping himself leaned forward as such a position would soon be asked for him anyways. Ivan holds the burger out between them, suspended evenly between their faces and above the middle of the table, the only grounding force being Ivan’s hands.
Ivan leans in without warning, so Tolys quickly follows before he’s able to be declared as a spoilsport. Tolys keeps his bites small, tiny enough that he’s barely able to taste the burger on his tongue; it’s more to avoid pushing him and Ivan’s lips closer together, as an accidental brushing of their lips is likely not what Ivan desires from this situation, and would most likely leave him off and irritable for the rest of the trek home in the cold. Which, now that Tolys is thinking about it, why is he even thinking about them kissing anyway?
Ivan seems less preoccupied with this fact, and continues to eat like he always does, sharing or not. Luckily for Tolys, Ivan’s bites are usually relatively small, but it’s still large enough to close the gap between them faster than Tolys would have wished.
Barely a minute or so into this arrangement, Tolys cracks open one of his eyes to see the progress that both of them have made. He’s shocked to find that Ivan is much, much too close and that the gap between them, and in turn the size of the burger, has closed into only a sliver of space. Tolys squeaks and pulls back, pressing his back up against the cold wood of the chair he sits on, only a second after his movement does Tolys realize his blunder.
Ivan does not frown, or even seems near to doing so. In fact, his smile only grows, and in the way that Tolys recognizes symbolizes amusement rather than anger; that, or Ivan has grown increasingly better at acting since they’ve last spoken. “Tolys, you are silly,” Ivan only says, pressing the last of the burger forward near Tolys, like he’s asking for Tolys to have the rest.
“Ah.. haha… alright,” He nods, hesitating before taking a bite of the rest of the burger that resides in Ivan’s hands. It’s not very much, but certainly bigger than the portions he was eating just beforehand, it doesn’t take long for Tolys to eat the rest of the burger and for Ivan’s hands to rest upon the table empty once again. Tolys averts his eyes to the side, embarrassed and unwilling to look Ivan in the eyes, or look at his grin.
The next few moments feel as if they occur in slow motion:
One of Ivan’s cold hands rests itself against Tolys’ chin, the pads of his fingers pressing softly on the hardened ridge of Tolys’ hyoid bone while the proximal ends of his phalanges press against the mental tubercle. Feeling almost as though its instinct, Tolys leans in closer to where Ivan sits before him, which provides the Russian with the advantage to perform his next action.
Lips press Tolys’, nearly numbingly cold even with Tolys’ own temperature being a few degrees lower than average. The kiss itself is simply a brushing of their lips, barely any pressure being provided which would hint at the wish for anything more in the moment. Tolys, however, barely picks up on these facts as he’s more than aware of the fact that Ivan is the man doing this.
Ivan pulls away as quickly as he had begun, his smile no different and his cheeks no more flushed from the action than they were from the cold. Tolys stays stock in his seat, his mind taking the time to process what had just occurred; his cheeks catch up before his brain, and begin to flush a bright red.
Ivan moves to stand, and Tolys mindlessly follows suit. He gets up onto his feet and walks a few paces behind Ivan as they leave the restaurant. He’s still processing as Ivan places the hat he had neglected to wear during their trek to the building on Tolys’ head, and how Ivan’s hands brush against the back of his neck as he tugs up the collar of Tolys’ coat to protect his neck.
“That was very fun!” Ivan comments, intentionally moving ahead of Tolys once they’re outside again, the same positions they were in on the journey there. “I think we should go again!”
“Uhm…” Tolys finally has enough awareness to clear his throat and mutter out the affirmative, “Yeah, yeah… maybe.” He finds himself realizing that his response is more genuine than the usual robotic affirmations he’s used to giving Ivan, and, somehow, it leaves him feeling a lot warmer despite the snow.