Work Text:
Somewhere on the fifth floor of an apartment complex in Zagreb, three rooms house three people.
The first – the largest – has walls modestly bathed, shrouded, and clothed in prints of modern paintings, delivered to the flat via van and trolley, bought the day after black Friday in an elated, dazed, drunken frenzy for 35% off. The top of the outer doorframe (the hallway, perhaps) is ever-so slightly worn down in three cylindrical shapes from where its suspiciously tall resident has clung to and leaned against it, his pinky not holding enough pressure to make a dent in the dust or paint. The room is in a perpetual state of transition, between furniture, people, phases, and men, and there’s a little heater at the foot of the bed that gets tucked away between the wall and the dresser once the middle of March has passed.
The second – identical in size but not at all in shape to the third – does not often see natural light other than that which seeps out from behind a thick blind at the crux of dawn, but has grown accustomed to and even fond of the yellow warmth of a good lamp when necessary. The bed is stacked with sheets and pillows, and on the bottom of the bedside table’s drawer, there is a thin layer of papers from some time since passed with dates and long-lost handwriting silently waiting to be uncovered. Under the bed, there are two boxes, one for used batteries and one for new ones, one blue and one red, although the tenant here has forgotten which is which several times, and she really ought to label them when she finds that good marker.
And then the third, a hotel room, really, holds a boy as a favour and a couple as a forfeit. They’re sitting there on the bed, hands all over each other, and the room worries they’ll knock over the tower of books on the nightstand. It’s almost all the way to the ceiling now, but the previous tenant stopped adding when she could no longer reach the top of the stack, and this one, though taller, doesn’t strike the room as much of a reader. So the two people – unfamiliar – have fallen on their sides and backs on the bed, the worn-out mattress beneath them giving a faint creak of protest. Neither one of them is sure they know anyone here well enough to have a good defence if they are caught, which is the aim of this, to be seen with another person, to be spoken about, so each hopes the other does.
Then there they are, in the living room, kitchen, lounge, on sofas and chairs, makeshift dining tables and chipping windowsills, ambling about the apartment aimlessly, trying to sink their fingernails into whoever’s voice seems loudest. They spy vibrations in throats and movements of hands from east to west in sweeping motions, indicating a vocal indifference. Ivan swears if the music wasn’t quite so sonorous, he could almost hear the wet peel of lip gloss smacking between girls’ lips as they opened their mouths to talk.
“What?” Ivan is asked to speak up, for the third time tonight, by Sonja, whose nails scratch soft circles into his neck under the hem of his sweater. He makes no response, deflects with the same sweeping hand, and watches Lovro’s shoulders get engulfed by Ema’s arms. They’re long, he thinks, and hold the off-putting potential to twist and strangle with those slender fingers and forgiving joints. Some inconspicuous muscle in his forearm twitches at the thought.
Lovro knows what this is, right? He’s tracing the sheen of the overhead light on the sticky wooden table as it bobs in and out of existence with the movement of people and shadows behind him, but his mind seems just as occupied as his eyes are. Ivan is unsure to what extent Lovro’s clueless persona is authentic (all good lies are based in truth), but he cannot bring himself to believe Lovro could be that stupid.
When he was much younger, he was introduced to the concept of a mind palace. His interpretation of this was, of course, filled with spectacular possibilities only a child could conjure up. Someone had said memory, and he had heard fantasy. When his teacher asked him what he would do in this mind palace, he answered simply: Fight dragons, go to space, ride dinosaurs into battle, and invent a way to time travel. And that was how it was until he had exhausted every possibility and corner of his imagination and left the mind palace to whither.
Then middle school hit, and puberty hit, and, quite possibly the catalyst of it all, Petar hit. Literally. During basketball practice, as if his head was the backboard, and as the ball ricocheted off of walls, Petar’ hand was on Ivan’s face, trying to better inspect the damage done. Nothing happened. It would be silly to assume that anything did. Though soon after, the mind palace took on a new role. Damage control.
Was that what had Lovro all spaced out, eyes glossed over with a thick sheath of glass as his gaze moved now to the window, black and reflecting passing faces from the room? Ivan shuffles a little under Sonja’s touch, feeling a pang somewhere within him at the thought of some version of him tucked away in Lovro’s imagination, a doll made to act out whatever scenarios he imagined. He pictures himself an actor on Lovro’s stage, following each and every direction. He’d have done it either way, without question. There is no distinction between voluntary and involuntary if the desire’s roots meet.
“We should mingle,” Ema says softly into Lovro’s ear, piquing only Ivan’s attention unintentionally. She tries again at Lovro’s lack of response, “Lovro? Let’s not sit here like old people. Come on.”
Like old people.
Ivan follows the lines of Lovro calmly as they rearrange themselves back into the shape of a person rather than an immobile lump shoved in a room as decoration and walk off with his arm around Ema’s waist. Ivan hears Lovro’s name sounding out from a room further in the flat, familiar and warm. He glances around at the people dancing and speaking to each other carelessly, realising quickly and acutely that he recognises no one. Not a single face is known to him, not from school or otherwise. Maybe Lovro’s friends if he squints, but even then he can’t be sure they’re who he thinks they are as they pass between conversations effortlessly.
Sonja’s chin rests atop his head, hand running up and down the upper section of his arm until the cut-off where he has rolled up his sleeves. He brings a hand up to hers to still it and once again takes on his role of serial onlooker.
A taller man, curly hair and a chiselled nose, throws himself about in an attempt to dance. It is almost coordinated, just barely, but something holds him back. His elbow hits a shelf – all the better for it, shelves can’t hit back no matter how much they want to – yet he is unfazed. So it’s the drink. He’s clearly queer, Ivan is familiar with the type, and yet it baffles him to see one in action. He wonders what could have happened to warrant his letting go.
The corner hugs a woman who hugs a drink like a child. The walls know her and envelop her in a rocking cradle, not of protection but of familiar comfort. She meets Ivan’s eyes momentarily and moves on, uninterested with whatever contact she has made. These must be Lovro’s roommates, judging by the disregard they have for offending their surroundings, and the way the woman’s eyes narrow at Ivan when she sees him put a glass down without a coaster beneath it.
Sonja’s hand coils over half of Ivan’s neck. She beckons him up to the makeshift dance floor, creaking floorboards adding to the music raining down on them. He lets her arms snake over him, bending to meet her to listen to her jabbering while his eyes are elsewhere, following the two unmistakable silhouettes of Lovro and Ema reentering the room with a few newer friends in tow. Ema’s movements are a mirror of Sonja’s, all touching and caressing and fondling, awfully public, shameless, crude.
Sonja’s hand pulls Ivan’s head down to hers and his gaze with it, his mouth falling slightly open out of instinct as he braces himself for her lips to meet his. It is a known manoeuvre, evidently, as Ema does the same to Lovro across the room – though he doesn’t have to bend down quite as far. Ivan buries his face in Sonja’s neck when he is freed, the kiss stale and dry between layers of her lip stick and the vaseline she makes him wear on nights out. He uses her collarbone to rid himself of an itch on the tip of his nose, playing it off as a playful nip at her elastic skin. Resurfacing, he resumes his duty, bending his neck in a hopeful way to catch a glimpse of Lovro, either consumed by a passion for the girl in front of him, or the better reality.
Lovro’s hooded eyes blink with an exaggerated slowness at him, focusing in on him intently between seas of furniture, drinks, and people. When their eyes meet, they give a little bite to their counterparts, intended for the other. Barely noticeable but all too intentional. Suddenly, seeing the paleness in Lovro’s iris emerge as coloured lights pour over his face in all hues of yellow and blue, Ivan is not so bored of Sonja, because it is not Sonja he is kissing, but Lovro. All this without having to retreat into his mind – all this in front of him, just for him, even shared between the four of them. It is as much Lovro’s as it is Ivan’s, the way his fingers move slowly up Ema until they reach her shoulders and collarbone, the parts of her most passable as masculine.
Obligated to give something back, Ivan furrows his brows, feeling the warmth of a flutter of the eyelids wash over him as he leans into the kiss. This is so bad of us, he thinks, then places his hand on Sonja’s lower back to reinforce their balance as he pushes further into her. The music swells as Lovro copies his motions, letting his touch feel the curve of a hip and allowing himself to continue believing it is that of the man he’s staring at, even despite having surveyed the boxy, jagged outline of Ivan in his exercise kit in school the previous day.
Ivan lets himself believe as well, dipping back into his subconscious where the distance between them is squashed and the curtains stay drawn.