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Ivan was on the moon, he was married to the love of his life and they lived together in perpetual bliss and harmony. Not. Although, apparently only he knew that they were married. (Note the was.)
To explain this chain of events, he had to start at the beginning. The love of his life, Till, is problematic at best and downright rebellious at worst. He was stubborn and bullheaded and he always did the opposite of what was expected of him and Ivan adored him for that. Although, he did have to enlist Ivan’s help to pass all of his classes to graduate.
His rebellious spirit allowed Ivan to live vicariously through him and since he was a careful person, he fell in love with him for it.
All throughout childhood to college had Ivan stuck next to Till. Through thick and thin did he annoy the ever living hell out of him. But it was ok since Till knew that it was how he indicated that he liked him, right?
Wrong, dead wrong, it seems. Even though he didn’t have to execute his seven year plan to make Till love him, he made them sign wedding papers and somehow, and Till still didn’t know the extent of his feelings. Imagine that. How couldn’t he know?
Ivan had displayed his fervent affection through marking him with little bites here and there, hugging and kissing him whenever he could, frequently professing his love, telling his friends and family they were dating and then married, etc, etc. Simply mind boggling.
(He even went out of his way to change their dead joint Facebook account status to married.)
All this, and Till still couldn’t understand that Ivan loved him. This all culminated when Till found the marriage papers. Oops.
“What the fuck, Ivan?!” His shriek echoed around their apartment.
Till stomped into the living room where Ivan was peacefully reading a book on the couch and snatched it out of his hand. Ivan blinked two times and then grabbed Till’s hand and nuzzled him. Till glared at him, slightly pink in the face.
“What is it, pookie?” Ivan cocked his head.
“Don’t ‘pookie’ me, you idiot! How could you get us married and not TELL ME?!” Till grabbed him and shook him. His face was getting redder and redder.
What? What do you mean not tell you? You signed them yourself?! Ivan was very understandably confused. He had given them to Till and Till signed them on September 13th, 20XX. The time was 12:05AM. He had marked it in his diary as the most momentous achievement he had ever accomplished.
He blinked a few times and stopped functioning. NOOOOOOO, all my hard work went down the drain if he doesn’t even know he accepted it himself! How am I supposed to live knowing this?!
Till threw the papers at Ivan’s head and tried to beat him up. Ivan ducked and encircled his arms around Till and dragged them to the couch.
“Get off me, you asswipe! How dare you marry us without my consent?” Till was struggling, getting angrier and angrier.
“No, darling, I won’t until I know you won’t murder me in my sleep. Also, as I keep saying, I thought you were fully functional at the time.” He nuzzled at the back of Till’s head as he had his tantrum.
“It was ONE IN THE MORNING! How was I supposed to know what the fuck you were doing?!” Poor Till looked outraged. It was a good luck on him, Ivan thought absentmindedly. But then again, every look is good on him.
After Till raged a bit more, Ivan let him go as he knew that he was mostly out of the danger zone. Surprisingly, Till stayed on him. Ivan’s heart leapt with happiness. Historic day part two it seems.
After a few minutes, Till turned around and reached out and cupped Ivan’s face. This time he seemed to be actually upset. “Ok, the marriage papers are whatever. The real issue is the fact that you couldn’t trust me with that part of you. Aren’t we supposed to be best friends? Or rather husbands, now.” He snorted.
Ivan noticed that Till had spoken in a raw tone in the first half and it hurt. “I thought you would hate me.” He rested his forehead on Till’s. “I could never have that.”
Till looked sadly at him. “You should know by now that I would stick by you through anything, practically. I mean, I even moved in with you and put up with your nonsense.” He raised his eyebrow up at Ivan and flicked his forehead.
Ivan was scared. He knew Till was lying and that he needed to do whatever he could to keep him. He can’t possibly mean that. Those words inspired too much hope and weren’t something to be trusted. His turbulent emotions must have showed in his eyes because Till frowned.
Till waited for his response and when it didn’t come, something cracked in his eyes. Ivan’s heart throbbed at the heartbreaking expression.
He moved away and gave Ivan the silent treatment for the rest of the day. Ivan for the life of him couldn’t figure out where he went wrong. Well, obviously the “one-sided marriage” debacle, but it didn’t seem like that was what Till was upset about. Sometimes, it was so hard to understand what went on in that gorgeous head of his.
Ivan tried to talk to him to no avail. Till kept ignoring him and even went outside without him. Imagine that?
Even if Till had read between the lines, he still wouldn’t ever like him back, right? There was a twisted sort of comfort in loving someone would never love back. It still hurt, of course, but it kept one alive to keep feeling it and kept a sense of familiarity. But this time, it felt worse, as if Ivan had let something precious go.
This continued for a few days, and every time that Ivan would make an effort to talk, Till would shut down. He started to get very worried and made an iffy decision. She won’t make too much fun of me, right? Ugh, who am I kidding, of course she will.
In the end, he had to venture to his sister’s den since Till still refused to talk. Sua and Mizi lived together in a cozy little house near their apartment and it didn’t take long to walk there.
Sua looked at him with distaste when he showed up looking like a bedraggled puppy that had been run over one too many times. It had been a whole twenty four hours since Till looked at him and he was drying up on Till battery juice.
“Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. They just keep coming here for all their problems,” was the first thing Sua said in response to Ivan’s whole appearance. She turned around and headed into the house.
“Don’t listen to her! I want to hear!” Mizi was far more enthusiastic to witness Ivan’s suffering. Although, he didn’t understand what Sua meant by that earlier comment. Could Till have come here for a certain problem? And if he did, why didn’t he come to Ivan first?
They relocated to the living room, where they all sat on the couch and Ivan relayed the tragic tale of woe.
Mizi was tearing up by the end of it and Sua just looked angry. When Mizi hugged Sua for comfort, she softened a little.
“Well, first of all, you are a fucking idiot for treating Till like that.” Sua sighed. “What do I even do about the two of you?”
Mizi tried to explain what Sua was trying to say. “She just means that you are driving Till away by not acknowledging his own feelings.”
“What feelings?” Ivan’s heart dropped. He wasn’t aware of any feelings. What does she mean feelings?!
Mizi looked delighted and turned to Sua. “Oh my gosh, he doesn’t know! Well, a few weeks ago, Till came to us with a dire problem. He had developed feelings for a certain someone…”
Ivan tuned everything else out. Till had developed feelings for someone else?! How quickly could he go to their house and hunt them down?
“It’s you! She means you, idiot!” Sua glared at him. “And when he confronted you about the papers, he was probably just trying to gauge your reaction and see if you would fess up.”
Oh. Oh. Wait what? Those words couldn’t possibly be true, could they? I haven’t noticed a change in Till and I notice everything about him. Other than being a little more touchy about personal space and all that, it didn’t seem out of the norm. Wait. That explained all of those weird moments where Till would act stranger than normal. I’m so stupid. I couldn’t see the one thing I had been hoping for my whole life because of my insecurities.
“Isn’t it exciting?” Mizi was practically bouncing off the walls. “I’ve shipped you guys since like forever. Ever since Sua told me how whipped you were for him.”
But then that… that meant I messed up big time. Oh no, I might’ve lost whatever chance I had. “I have to talk to him!” Ivan announced.
“Finally, it’s over.” Sua gestured to the door. “Feel free.”
“Thanks Mizi! This really helped.” He shouted as he dashed out the door.
“That little twerp,” he heard Sua mutter to Mizi. “He doesn’t know how to thank me. After all the time I dedicated to convincing Till how whipped Ivan was for him.”
Those words helped provide the well needed energy to sprint to their apartment and strangle Till with a hug.
“You like me!” Ivan was on top of the world. This time it was real!
Till turned around slowly, which was hard to do as Ivan was clinging to his neck. “What did Mizi say to you?” He was also suspiciously avoiding his eyes.
Ivan wasn’t deterred. “You like me. Don’t deny it, I heard it firsthand by Mizi and everyone knows she could never tell a lie.”
Till was turning tomato red, which was a sure sign that whatever Ivan was saying was getting to him. He was tsundere like that.
Ivan was high on happiness and practically nothing could bring him down now. He grabbed Till’s face and gave him a little peck. Just to gauge his reaction, and when Till made his love struck face, Ivan knew he had won.
(Unfortunately, he had experience with seeing it, but not for him. In high school, Till had a puppy crush on Mizi and those had been the worst years of his life. Thankfully his sister had bagged Mizi and Till had to let it go.)
After bestowing Till with a few more puppy kisses, he dragged them to his camera, to document the day where he finally achieved the hardest struggle of his life. Making Till love him.
Snap!