Archive of Our Own

1. Ema

Ivan doesn't know how to react when Lovro invites him to Ema's exhibition. He doesn't really know why Lovro was invited in the first place. It makes even less sense that Lovro seems to want to go.

It's not that Ivan is jealous - he knows well enough that there had been no love to lose in the first place between them. He's simply confused.

“Do you really think that's a good idea?” Ivan asks. 

Lovro shrugs, the movement jolting them both. “It might be nice. You might like her now that she's not my girlfriend.” 

Being with Lovro is still so new that Ivan has found himself surprised by how easily they fit together. Although they've been trying to take it slow, trying to learn who they are together, already the moments they're alone are filled with the ease of a spring Sunday morning. Pale light shining through the curtain, filling his bedroom with the feeling that it's going to be a good day.

As hard as it is to keep his hands to himself in public, in the safety of his loft or Lovro’s room, they melt into each other with a speed that should be concerning. It could have been minutes or hours since they'd arrived at Ivan's after hanging out at the restaurant, but Ivan isn't sure. Time stretches out like taffy, the seconds on his watch ticking slower and slower the moment that Lovro lays his head on Ivan's shoulder, the two of them squeezing onto the sofa like there isn't plenty of room for them both.

He doesn't want to think about Ema right now, especially not with the word girlfriend attached. 

Ivan's arm shifts to curl around Lovro's waist, pulling him until he's on his lap. He holds Lovro to him, letting his head rest on Lovro's shoulder again. For the sake of his knee, he should find any other way to keep Lovro close to him, but the slight ache is worth it for how content he feels. 

The come down from his mania, the readjustment to his meds, still makes his heart sit heavy like a stone in his chest, but with Lovro here in his arms, it becomes a little easier to bear. Thinking of Ema only tips the scales back down to the nothingness, to the self-hatred, to the darkness. 

“Why would she even invite us in the first place?” he asks. WIth his chin hooked on Lovro’s shoulder, the frown on his face can’t be seen, but he knows that Lovro must still be able to feel it somehow. 

“I don’t know, closure? Because she wants more people to look at her art? Does it really matter?”

“Do you want to go?”

Lovro pulls back, and Ivan makes a noise in his throat that he would be embarrassed about if it weren’t for the fact that they’re both so shameless in their affection for each other. He doesn’t want distance right now. He especially doesn’t want Lovro to be able to look him in the eye. 

Regardless of what he wants, though, Lovro takes his chin in his hand and tilts it just so, so that Ivan can’t look away. “Are you jealous?”

Ivan blinks, and huffs a laugh at the question. “No,” he says. He had been jealous, of course, of the fact that Lovro seemed to keep choosing Ema over and over in spite of his own self, his own happiness. It hadn’t been fair of him to resent her for her role in Lovro’s life - after all, could he really blame her for liking Lovro? For believing in the lie that he was so desperately trying to create for himself? But fairness rarely matters when it comes to feelings. “I just- I don’t know.”

“That’s okay,” Lovro says. “You don’t have to decide now. I’ll text you the time and the place and you can show up if you want, or not. No problem.” 

It’s so easy to twist Lovro’s kindness into pity, as though he sees Ivan as someone pathetic, who needs to be handled with kid gloves. He needs to remind himself that this isn’t Lovro looking down on him, but giving him room to breathe. 

Thoughtlessly, he runs his hand through Lovro’s hair, and although Lovro huffs at the gesture, he doesn’t shake Ivan’s hand away. He just lets him do as he pleases, because every minute that they have together still feels like a luxury that Ivan can’t quite convince himself he’s earned. 

“I’ll think about it,” he finally says. He’s rewarded with Lovro’s smile, so bright that it’s impossible not to feel that light filling him up, too, the corners of his lips curling up instinctively at the sight of it. Ivan has never been inclined towards poetry, but he thinks that he could beat Shakespeare’s sonnets if he were to start putting every detail that he finds to adore about this boy down on paper. He has the evidence in his art, even if it’s all tinged with melancholy and mania. It’s still the product of his heart. 

All week, on the occasions that he’s been alone, he’s been trying to work up the courage to pick up his pencil again, but he’s afraid of what will come out. As Lovro’s smile softens, so does some of the ache in Ivan’s chest. He might never be able to do him justice, but he wants to try. 

***

“This place seems familiar,” Ivan teases, making Lovro jump where he’s waiting. For once, Ivan is almost on time, even for an event that he still isn’t sure that he wants to attend, or that he will be particularly welcome at. 

“We can’t ride off into the night together this time, though,” Lovro says, only a little sadly. Ivan might mourn the Tomos, but not as much as Lovro does. It’s not the reason that Lovro likes him, though. Of that, he has to remind himself, lest the niggling fear that stubbornly nibbles away at him take any more of the self-esteem that he’s trying to regain. He has some value outside of driving a bike. 

Ivan follows after Lovro, walking into the place where he’d picked him up those weeks ago, called to Lovro like a dog called to heel despite the fight they’d had. He tries to put some confidence into his walk, but he shoves his hands into his pockets to keep from fidgeting with his shirt, his bag, his boyfriend. “Do I look okay?”

“Better than me,” Lovro jokes back. “Do I have tufts in my hair?”

Ivan wants to argue back, and tell Lovro that he doesn’t think he ever looks bad, and is definitely not capable of looking worse than Ivan. It’s the kind of romantic overture that still has him a little unsteady, the kind of over the top words that, whilst he believes them to be true, might push Lovro over the invisible ledge that he still teeters on. They’re both trying to find their balance, both still afraid of pushing the other too far. 

So, he swallows back his compliments, but he reaches out to tenderly adjust the little tufts of Lovro’s hair that still stick out, smiling to himself when Lovro doesn’t push him away. 

Before he has any time to prepare, Ema has already appeared in front of them. He manages to produce some polite words that she teases him with, and then she’s melted back into the crowd. 

He had known that the rest of Lovro’s friends would be here, too, but being suddenly faced with the prospect of meeting them all, of not knowing what they know about him, is overwhelming. Unlike the rest of them, he doesn’t even have the privilege of getting drunk. Though, he supposes, if everyone else is drunk then maybe they won’t remember if he embarrasses himself. 

He tries to settle into the rhythms of these new people, tries to figure out the webs of the friendships and relationships between them all, tries to see the patterns of who they are and how they fit together, but it’s not long until he needs a break. Just some fresh air, something to clear his head. 

Lovro tries to follow him out the door, his blue eyes wide with questioning concern, but Ivan waves him off. Lovro’s night doesn’t need to be ruined just because Ivan can’t quite handle the burden of being himself in front of so many other people. 

The night isn’t as cold as he’d expected it to be, and the second he closes the door behind him his shoulders drop with relief. It’s quiet out here, despite the sound of infrequent traffic and thrum of music and life trapped behind those glass doors. He’s not extricated himself from the world; he’s simply made himself adjacent to it. A pocket dimension all of his own, where for a minute or two he doesn’t have to worry about how he looks or stands or speaks. 

He breathes out slowly, already growing steadier, and when he blinks open his eyes, he’s surprised to find Ema leaning near him, a cigarette held loosely in her hand. 

He can see what drew Lovro to her. She’s beautiful, but more than that, she’s effortlessly cool in a way that Ivan doesn’t think he could ever replicate, more so than just in her style than in the comfort that she has in her own skin. There’s a lingering jealousy as he looks at her now, but it’s harder and harder to cling onto. Any claim to Lovro that she might have had is long gone, vanished into thin air. 

“You’re very talented,” he says, awkwardly trying to break a silence that hadn’t been awkward in the slightest. “Your photos are great.”

“So great that you needed to run away from them?” she jokes back, her voice light, her smile soft. She exhales a stream of smoke that dances away from her lips. “I’m surprised you came.”

He shrugs, still trying to figure out for himself why he’d come. Though, it isn’t exactly a mystery. Lovro says jump and Ivan asks how high. “I’m glad I did.” As he says the words, he realises that they’re true. In spite of his nerves and the overwhelming reality of being in a room with almost everyone his boyfriend cares about, he’s happy that he’s here. That Lovro likes him enough to want him to be a part of his life, until he’s as trapped in the webs of their friendships as Lovro is. “Even if it’s a little awkward.”

“Eh, it’s all in the past. Though,” she starts, perking up suddenly, “I do have something for you. A little revenge, maybe, for Lovro.” At his frown, she sputters a laugh, though it isn’t cruel. “Don’t worry so much, it’s nothing bad.”

She vanishes for a minute, then reappears again with an envelope in her hands. “I almost put these on display, but thought better of it. Though, they are good pictures if I do say so myself.”

Ivan takes the envelope with the same amount of care and trepidation that he would use to handle a bomb. As he opens the flap, he glances at Ema, trying to puzzle her out, trying to figure out exactly how bad these pictures of Lovro could be that even she thought twice about putting them on display in front of everyone. “I thought we weren’t getting any presents until our wedding,” he says. 

“Who says this is a gift?” Her eyebrow raises in question, before her face softens to a smile again. “No, who knows how long getting married might take. I don’t have the patience to wait.”

The jokes about weddings and marriage should make him uneasy, trapped in envisioning a future that starts to stifle and pull apart the threads of himself, but he takes a strange comfort in imagining it. The simplicity of a life together, of following a path made of ups and downs made less severe by the fact that they can hold each other's hands through the worst of it. One day, maybe, they could be married. One day, in a better future, in a country that would allow it to happen. 

He takes out the pictures, smiling at the sight of Lovro’s face, wearing a smile that he’d only recently gotten to know. In the first picture, he’s wearing a bra, the tilt of his head a little shy, resistant to the picture being taken. There’s a bruise on his cheek, the one which Ivan had never asked about even as he’d softly stroked his thumb across it while kissing him. 

There are only a few photographs, but all of them capture an easiness that Ivan hadn’t expected to see, and he isn’t sure how he feels at the fact that it was Ema who had the privilege of taking them. He’d come to his own conclusions about their relationship, and assumed it to be hollow. 

“Thanks,” he says, his voice thick. 

“It’s no problem,” she says. “I thought they deserved to be with someone who would truly appreciate them.”

He can hear the meaning beneath the words, as she expunges any claim that she had to Lovro from herself, cleansing herself of even the good parts of their relationship. Perhaps she had once planned a more serious revenge with these - Ivan knows exactly how petrified Lovro would have been of these pictures only a few weeks ago, but they feel safe in Ivan’s hands. 

Before he can say anything more, she slips away, the crowd instantly disappearing her as though she had never been here at all, and Ivan had just been standing outside alone, talking to a ghost. He tucks the prints into his fanny pack, keeping them close to his heart. 

When he walks back into the exhibition, he feels a little lighter on his feet. Instantly, his eyes find Lovro in the crowd, a skill gained from months of training, and he smiles at the sight of him laughing so hard at something Mario has said that he’s clutching his sides. 

There’s so much to Lovro that he thinks he already loves, and so much that he has yet to discover that all he can do is hope for infinite minutes for them to share. 

He stalks his way through the crowd until he’s taken his place, standing at Lovro’s side where he belongs, and laughing at the jokes, too. 

***

The pictures find their home on Ivan’s wall, alongside his own art. He’d thought that it would unsettle him, to have someone else’s memories of Lovro in his home, in his most private space, but it settles him. And besides, it’s worth it for the indignant squawk Lovro lets out the moment that he notices them. 

He’ll never be friends with Ema, but he doesn’t have to be. He’s still grateful. 

***

2. The Flatshare

The last time that Ivan had visited the flatshare had been the night of that dreaded party. He doesn’t hold it against Lovro, but it’s difficult to forget the light pressure of his hands on Ivan’s chest as he pushed him away, leaving him to clean up the mess of their Christmas tree. 

Thus, when Lovro suggests they go over for hotpot, Ivan is a little trepidatious. 

In the daylight, the flat is transformed. The table and counters are no longer overflowing with bottles and cups, revealing just how spacious this kitchen is. Light streams through a large window, and the room feels clean and clear, draped in shades of pale blue and gold. It’s a welcoming space, where Ivan hadn’t quite been expecting it; his memory of the party and of his own tragic longing had tainted it. 

Vito and Maša are already sitting at the table, greeting Lovro and Ivan with warm smiles as they chop vegetables. Lovro takes a seat with the ease of someone who has lived here and already knows exactly where he fits in the equation, picking up a bowl of mushrooms and starting to peel them before he’s even been asked. 

Ivan, meanwhile, hovers. He stays by the door, as though being close to an exit can provide him with safety in a situation that shouldn’t intimidate him at all. This isn’t even his first time meeting Vito or Maša, but it’s his first time meeting them on their turf. 

Without speaking, Lovro glances at him, catching the uncertainty that must be scrawled across Ivan’s body, and kicks out the chair next to him. “Do you know how to do this?” he asks, as Ivan settles next to him, handing Ivan a mushroom. 

Ivan looks back at Lovro, incredulous. “Do you have such little faith in me?” He takes the mushroom in his hand, enjoying the familiar feel of it, the texture of its skin as he smooths his thumb over the ridges. “My dad and I used to go foraging for mushrooms all the time. I’m basically an expert. And a real mushroom expert knows that there’s no point peeling them in the first place.”

When he speaks with Lovro, he’s able to be himself, but his jaw locks at the realisation that he’s in a room with other people, people who he may have just inadvertently insulted with his strong opinions on mushrooms. 

Yet, instead of dissent, he feels Vito shift forward on the table, gesturing at Maša as he says, “see, I keep telling you you’re making work where there doesn’t have to be any.”

“That’s because I refuse to take food advice from someone who still doesn’t know the difference between lettuce and cabbage.” Maša rolls her eyes, though there’s the tiniest presence of a smile on her face. 

“I wouldn’t take food advice from this guy, either,” Lovro says, and though he speaks to the table, he looks only at Ivan, who snorts at being referred to as ‘this guy.’ “The first thing he ever made for me was peanut butter and gummy bear toast. I’ve never eaten anything worse.”

“I never said I was a good cook,” Ivan argues. “Besides, maybe I just wanted to see if you would eat it.” His voice softens at the memory of Lovro in his kitchen, the smell of weed, still lingering in the air despite the open window, painting the scene with a faint haze. It had been a long time since he’d felt so right, after everything that had happened at his old school, after starting to see the cracks in his relationship with Sonja. His life had felt hollow until Lovro, and it’s unfair to pin so much on him, but he doesn’t think Lovro will ever quite understand how much he means to him. And it’s not that Lovro can’t feel as much in return, but since that day Lovro had been his north star. A beacon of light in the darkness that Ivan couldn’t quite believe was in his reach. 

As Lovro had let Ivan feed him, as he’d eaten whatever nightmare Ivan had made purely for the fun of it, for wanting it just because Ivan had made it, butterflies had flapped their wings so hard they’d caused a storm in his stomach. It had been a moment that he’d wanted to last forever, and that had been so swiftly ended. It had been one of the first times that he’d felt normal, felt happy. Not just okay, but truly happy. 

The tips of Lovro’s ears turn red at the implication, and before he can stop himself, Ivan leans over to kiss him on the temple. He’s still not quite used to this, to being allowed to touch Lovro in front of others, to being treated to his beatific smile or the sound of laughter, to being looked at with such love after that it hits like a punch to the gut. 

When he’s able to peel his gaze away from Lovro, he finds Vito staring at them both with his head resting on his hand, aglow with pride. “I can't believe Lovro found a nice boyfriend before I did. What did I do to deserve this?”

Ivan's heart stutters at being referred to as a nice boyfriend. As much as he wants to play into his indignation at the notion of Lovro not deserving the best at all times, he isn't sure what to do at the realisation of Vito's perception of him, even after everything that he's done. A nice boyfriend wouldn't have crossed Lovro's boundaries, or needed to be saved from his own self. He isn't sure that he deserves the epithet. 

Yet, when Lovro looks at him again with the same wonderment in his eyes, he thinks that maybe he can be this so-called nice boyfriend. That he is more than just a problem.

Ivan leans back a little in his chair, settling into the easy atmosphere as Vito and Maša continue to banter. It's easy to see now why this has become such a place of safety for Lovro. A haven made of strangers who grow so quickly to feel like family. 

As the hotpot cooks, he takes out his sketchbook, doing his best to try to capture the line of Maša's nose, the glint in Vito's eye, the curl of Lovro's smile as he laughs at Vito's impression of a strict father. It's still hard to draw, but he's learning to find the joy in it again little by little, even as he forces himself to leave the small errors in his sketch instead of trying to fix them.

He's grown so absorbed that he doesn't notice Vito peering over his shoulder until the man speaks. “You still haven't given me the drawing you promised to make.”

“Which Lovro promised to you,” Ivan says back, matching Vito's light tone. Lovro has migrated to the other side of the kitchen, tidying up the mess while Maša sets out bowls and starts to serve. Even in his own home, Ivan isn't sure that he's ever had such a Sunday lunch so well lived-in, despite the reality of this routine barely even existing. “I, uh, I've been struggling to draw as much lately,” he confesses.

Vito perches next to him, taking Lovro's seat. “Well, there's no rush. Maybe it's for the best if you don't, poor Lovro's heart would break when you inevitably started to fall in love with me.” His smile is equal parts wicked and self-deprecating.

“Your sacrifice is so noble,” Ivan says back, as serious as he can muster. It's the tone that would have Sonja kicking him beneath the table, but for now he's been granted enough trust from Lovro to be able to make it through a conversation with his loved ones unsupervised. 

Vito snorts, before shifting close enough that he can see the sketch in more detail. Through his own eyes, all that Ivan can see are the flaws, and he wants to flip shut the cover of his sketchbook and protect himself from criticism. Vito, however, looks at him with askance as he places a hand on the corner, gently tilting the book to get a better view. “You're really talented,” he says. “Have you thought about art school again?”

It hadn't been so long ago that Ivan had barely considered even having a future, let alone making plans. He can't deny that the thoughts of art school still tease him, but he feels settled in his choice, unexpected as it may have seemed. Already, his relationship with art is so complicated. He wants to find his way back to it gently, like a leisurely stroll to take in the cool autumn air after the oppressive heat of summer. “I don't think it's for me.”

“That’s fair enough, I suppose. So long as you don’t stop drawing.” 

Ivan’s gaze drifts until he finds Lovro again, his face in profile just like the first time that Ivan had drawn him, smiling at something that Maša had said. “I’ve got some good inspiration.”

“You two are so cute that it’s annoying sometimes, you know that?” Vito takes a long pull from his beer, sighing as he places the bottle back on the table again. “You’re very lucky to have found each other.”

“I’m lucky to have him,” Ivan says. “He’s maybe less lucky.”

Vito turns to him, giving him his full attention. “Does that look like someone who’s just putting up with you?” he asks, gesturing in Lovro’s direction. 

The moment that Ivan turns to take in Lovro again, Lovro jolts and looks away, as though he’s forgotten that he’s allowed to look back. That, or he’s afraid that he’s just been caught in his nosiness. It doesn’t take long for him to meet Ivan’s gaze again, more firmly this time, his smile not quite full-beam, but the soft expression of someone who is truly content. 

It’s not just this place that puts Lovro at ease, but the fact that Ivan wants to be here with him, wants to be a part of the nooks and crannies of his life. That he feels safe enough with Ivan to share everything that he can. 

He doesn’t answer Vito’s question, but the matter is swiftly dropped when the food is ready and the conversation returns to the light banter of before. It’s still hard to believe it sometimes when Lovro says that he likes him, but he’s starting to see it more now in the spaces between the words. It’s in the way that Lovro looks at him like Ivan is the one who’s a miracle. It’s in the way that Lovro gives him a bowl of hotpot with only the mushrooms that they’d left unpeeled, even though Ivan would have eaten them either way. It’s in the way that Lovro lets his head rest on Ivan’s shoulder once he’s done eating, even though he finds expressing his affection in front of anyone difficult. 

There are so many ways to say not just that you like someone, but that you see them, and that you know them, and that you still like them anyway. 

Ivan relishes in the soft brush of Lovro’s hair against his cheek, and wishes that he could live entirely in these moments. 

It isn’t until Lovro shifts a little, pulling Ivan’s still open sketchbook towards him, that Ivan realises that he’d left it out for anyone to look at. Lovro hums his approval of the sketch, picking it up to take a closer look. 

“You finally got my moles right,” he says, all teasing considering he knows very well how obsessed Ivan is with the spots that adorn Lovro’s cheek. He could trace them in the dark, would be able to recognise them in the stars. “There’s only one thing wrong with this picture.”

Ivan sits up, resenting the movement immediately for how it nudges Lovro’s head away, when all he ever wants is for Lovro to be infinitely closer. “What?” he asks, afraid that he’s fucked up what had been a perfectly, well, perfect afternoon. 

“You’re not in it,” Lovro says. Before Ivan can argue the point of artistic perspective and realism, Lovro has already picked up his pencil and started to draw. And, while Ivan will sing Lovro’s praises about many things, he definitely makes a better muse than he does an artist. Ivan leans back, watching Lovro as his tongue sticks out slightly in concentration, and he wishes that he had a second sketchbook to capture this image. For now, the memory will have to do. 

Eventually, Lovro puts the pencil down, letting Ivan see the final drawing. “Voila,” he says, smiling so wide that Ivan can see the glint of his tooth gem. He’s full of mirth, laughing at his own sheer lack of skill. “Now it’s perfect.”

Ivan takes in the newly completed sketch, unable to hold back his laughter at the awkwardly drawn figure interrupting the otherwise skillfully captured image. “Why am I slenderman?”

“Come on, it’s not that bad,” Lovro argues. “Besides, slenderman is bald, and you very clearly have hair.” He points at the jagged lines that have been hastily scribbled onto drawing-Ivan’s head. 

“No, you’re right, it’s perfect.” While it, from any objective perspective, makes the sketch far worse, Ivan can’t deny that he’s overcome by the fact that Lovro can look at a picture of himself with his friends, his family, and wonder where Ivan is in that picture. He doesn't want Ivan to be a spectator to his life, but to be a participant.

He rips out the sketch and leaves it on the table, too shy to offer it fully as a gift, but he hopes that Vito will see it for what it is. 

***

Just before they leave, Vito hurries over to them, with a vinyl in his hand. “Lovro, wait, Nora said that you left this in her room.”

“Oh, that’s fine, she can keep it,” Lovro says, trying to hurry Ivan out of the door. 

“It looks like it was expensive,” Vito says. “Are you sure?”

Ivan glances back, seeing that last thing that he had expected to see. “Is that a Josipa album?” he asks, smugness already creeping into his tone. “But I thought she wasn’t your jam?”

Lovro snatches the vinyl from Vito and runs out the door, though it’s pointless trying to escape from Ivan. They both know that Lovro can’t run for shit. 

“Lovro, wait,” he says, catching up with his boyfriend easily at the entrance to the building. “Don’t be embarrassed. It’s sweet.” The image he conjures of a Lovro who longs just for the memory of Ivan so much that he had gone out to buy a vinyl of the album they had started to listen to together ripples through him like an ache. It’s sweetly devastating, full of a loneliness and longing that Ivan could empathise with only too well. 

“I don’t even have anything to play it on,” Lovro says, weakly. 

“I’ll buy you a record player.” Ivan starts to walk away, heading towards the nearest tram stop. “I would hate for you to not be able to listen to it.”

“You’re so full of shit.” Still, Lovro doesn’t argue when, a few days later, he notices the record player sitting innocently by the CD player in the corner of his living room. 

***

The next time that they go to visit the flatshare, Ivan has to swallow back the wave of feeling as he sees the sketch in pride of place on the fridge, held up by a faded Ibiza magnet that must be a relic of a slightly different time in Vito’s life. He might not have applied for art school, but this is better than any exhibition. 

***

3. Ana

Ivan likes Lovro’s mother. From their first interaction, she had accepted him with an ease that he hadn’t anticipated. Lovro hadn’t officially introduced Ivan as his boyfriend, but from the looks that she gave him, the way that she watched the two of them together, Ivan could tell that she knew. And, more importantly, that she approved of him. 

Still, he never knows quite what to say on the rare occasions that he’s alone with her. 

Ivan has never really had the need to develop the skill of charming a significant other’s parents. With his first boyfriend, it had been more of a fling, kept to the shadows. The thought of meeting parents was a fleeting one, that was often quickly kissed away. With Sonja, well, they’d known each other most of their lives. Their families were intertwined long before they were, and Sonja’s parents were more than aware of his flaws. 

With Ana, he’s still learning how to be. 

He’s had a long week, one where he’s teetered on the edge of the abyss. Even though his meds act as a rope to keep him from fully collapsing into that darkness, they don’t prevent him from slipping and feeling the vastness waiting to swallow him up. Yet, he’d woken up that morning with the ground more certain beneath his feet, and his first thought had been to visit Lovro. 

Lovro had stayed with him as much as he could, but he’d had to leave to visit his grandmother, and had only come home last night, too exhausted to drag himself all the way out to Ivan’s as much as he had wanted to. 

On the tram, Ivan bounces his knee up and down, body buzzing with energy after so much inactivity. He even stopped by a bakery on the way there, picking up some pastry for breakfast, wanting to wake his boyfriend up with a surprise and a smile. 

When he arrives at Lovro’s door, it’s Ana who opens it. She looks tired, though she still smiles at the sight of him, letting him in without any further questions. 

“He’s still asleep,” she says, rolling her eyes at Lovro’s impressive capability for sleeping in. Though, considering it was barely past ten in the morning, this wasn’t too bad on the grand scale of sleeping the day away. “You’re more than welcome to try and wake him up.”

Ivan thinks about it - it’s all too easy to imagine himself throwing open the door to Lovro’s room and curling up on his too-small bed with him until he drifted awake from whatever dreams he had to find himself in a hopefully even better reality. Or, more likely, Ivan throwing himself on top of Lovro and frightening his boyfriend awake. Both methods had been tried and tested, and while the latter was definitely more effective, the former tended to keep Lovro in a better mood for far longer. 

As he approaches Lovro’s door, though, he grows trepidatious. He hadn’t even texted Lovro to say he was coming over, and now here he is, imposing himself in his space, in his life. Maybe he didn’t come over last night for a reason. Maybe he wants distance and Ivan has just been too depressed for Lovro to be able to ask for it. 

“On second thoughts, maybe we should let him sleep. I can come back later?” he asks, poking his head into the kitchen, where Ana stands bleary-eyed in front of the coffee machine. 

“Don’t be silly,” she says. “I’ll make you some tea while you wait for sleeping beauty to finally wake up.”

He fidgets with the bag of pastries still in his hands, unsure whether to just make a run for it or not,but he decides to stay. This doesn’t have to be awkward, so long as he doesn’t make it. “Ah, would you like pastry?” He offers the paper bag to her, and her expression softens as she looks at the selection, noting that they’re all Lovro’s favourites. She picks out an almond croissant and puts it neatly on a plate, and gestures for him to follow her to the table. 

“I feel like I should be offended that you dared to bring even more baked goods into my home, but this is delicious.” She takes another bite, while Ivan perches on the edge of his seat, his spine curling as though he can make himself smaller. The mug in front of him steams away, still too hot to hold in his hands. It’s a little too close to a reminder of that night, and the cup of tea that Lovro had handed to him that had never been drunk. 

He smiles at her, though he’s sure that it doesn’t reach his eyes. How quickly his excitement had managed to wane, all because of what, exactly? Him shooting his own foot by overthinking an entirely normal situation. “How was visiting your mother?”

“Let me finish my coffee before we have to talk about my mother, please,” she groans, before taking a long sip, barely even reacting to the sting of the heat. “You would think she was the one in love with Lovro’s dad for how she still isn’t over the divorce. She still believes there’s a world where I would ever get back together with that man, just for the sake of her own pride.”

Ivan stares at her, surprised by her honesty. All he’d really expected was a polite ‘okay’, followed by more awkward silence until Lovro wandered into the kitchen like a bear waking up from hibernation. He likes this about her, though. The longer that he’s with Lovro, the more time that he spends here, the more that she opens up with him.

He’s never met Lovro’s father, nor does Lovro speak of him much, so Ivan has been trying to paint a portrait in his mind of the man. Thus far, it’s not a flattering picture. From the way that Lovro shrugs, or frowns, or chews on his words so much that they don’t seem to leave him even now, it’s clear that even Lovro isn’t sure what to think of his dad. 

“Maybe she’ll marry him,” he jokes. “You can be the maid of honour.”

When she laughs, he can see Lovro in her. It’s the way that joy has to work its way to the surface, as though she’s spent too long unused to the feeling of it. “I wouldn’t put it past her, honestly. If it wasn’t for the scandal it would cause, she would race up the aisle.”

“She doesn’t know about Lovro, then, I take it.” It’s somewhere between a statement and a question, not that Ivan had ever expected Lovro to tell the rest of his family. The layers of secrecy sadden him, though. It’s the legacy of these stifling expectations that had kept Ana stuck in a difficult marriage, that had crushed Lovro’s spirit. Ivan sometimes doesn’t realise how lucky he is to have been raised to believe that happiness is more important than judgement, though he knows that Ana believes the same. 

Ana shakes her head. “I don’t think it would be a good idea, which is a shame, because she would love you.”

“Maybe we should get married, then,” he jokes, with his most charming smile. He isn’t sure that he wants to be someone who this woman would like, though. 

The sound of Lovro blowing his nose is loud enough to be heard through the thin wall between his bedroom and the kitchen, shattering whatever remained of the conversation they’d been having. 

It doesn’t take long for him to appear, and Ivan finally starts to feel comfortable enough to sit back in his chair, taking in the view before Lovro is awake enough to actually register the picture in front of him. 

“Good morning,” Ana says, and Lovro replies instinctively as he opens the fridge, still none the wiser. “Your boyfriend just proposed to me.”

Lovro grunts in acknowledgement, then freezes as the meaning of the words finally computes in his head. He shuts the fridge door slowly, like the heroine of a horror movie hearing a sound and realising that she might not be as home alone as she had thought. “Is  it because of the cakes?”

“You don’t think someone could want to be with me because of my personality?” she asks, and though it is all light, there’s a glimmer of doubt in the sentiment. This dynamic between mother and son is still fragile, the two of them still not quite used to being on the same page. “Ivan, don’t tell me it was just because of the cakes. You’ll break my heart.”

His tea is finally cool enough to drink, and he takes a sip to avoid answering the question. 

Ana places her hand over her heart, shaking her head in disappointment. “Lovro, you can have him back. I only want someone who will love me for me, not because of my baking.” She finishes the last of her coffee and takes her dishes to the sink before she turns the corner, giving the two of them some privacy. 

“You didn’t tell me you were coming over,” Lovro says, his voice turning soft in the way that it often does when they’re alone. He’s beautiful in the morning, somehow. The purest, most undistilled form of himself, all bedhead and tired eyes and soft underbelly. Ivan wants to scoop him up and eat him in one bite, bones and all. He’s not typically a possessive person, but this is a sight that he thinks belongs to him and him alone. 

“I thought I’d surprise you,” Ivan says. “I missed you.”

“I was only away for, like, two days.” Still, Lovro comes closer until he eclipses all else, leaving room only in Ivan’s thoughts for him. His hand strokes tentatively through Ivan’s hair, and Ivan closes his eyes for the pure sensation of it, letting his head rest on Lovro’s chest. “I missed you, too.”

Ivan feels like a cat, like he could just curl up here trapped between this sunbeam and the warmth of his favourite person in the world, ready to purr to his heart’s content. “I brought you pastries for breakfast,” he finally says, though breaking the peaceful silence between them is painful. For a while, he’d been lost in the rise and fall of Lovro’s chest, lost in the comforting thump of his heartbeat. 

As he’d feared, Lovro pulls away, looking down at Ivan with so much affection that it almost hurts. He doesn’t know what to do with it all, how to keep deserving this. 

“Because what we really need in this house is more baked goods,” Lovro says, but he leans down to place a quick kiss on the crown of Ivan’s head. “Thanks.”

It becomes the kind of morning that he’d hoped for when he’d left his house, before the dreaded doubt had seeped in that maybe Lovro didn’t want to spend as much time together as Ivan did. Lovro eats his pastries slowly, stopping to talk as he tells Ivan stories about his grandmother. A flake of pastry becomes stuck to his lip and he doesn’t notice, so Ivan swipes it off without a second thought, letting his hand linger on Lovro’s cheek. 

It’s in these small, sweet moments - these moments that feel like a future together - that Ivan looks at Lovro and thinks that he has never loved anyone this much before. Even the meds can’t take away this depth of feeling, even if it numbs him. 

While Lovro showers, his mother walks back into the kitchen, tutting at the mess left on the table even though the dishes have all been washed and put away. Lovro has a true, natural ability for mess making. 

“I’ll clean it up,” Ivan says, hopping out of his seat to find a cloth or a kitchen towel, but Ana glares at him until he stops and lets her. As much as she might like Ivan, he is still a guest in her home. 

Once she's finished, she leans against the counter, her eyes warm. It's rare that they spend much time alone, and in the months that he's been seeing Lovro he's been waiting for her to corner him with a shovel talk. He's been waiting for any of Lovro's friends or family to give him a shovel talk, and it's yet to appear. Maybe it's coming today. 

She considers him, and Ivan tries not to let himself shrink under the scrutiny. He doesn't want her to see all of the ways in which he's not worthy. “I'm so glad that he has you, Ivan.”

It's not what he'd expected her to say. His brain freezes as he readjusts from the conversation he'd been preparing for to the reality being presented to him. “Oh.”

“I worry about him so much,” she says. “He's my son, I'm always going to worry about him. It's my job. But when I see the two of you together, I worry a little less.”

He swallows down the lump in his throat. It's far too early for earnest emotional conversations. Surely this is the territory of after dinner, after sunset, confessions shared where they won't have to be immediately confronted.

“I try my best,” he says, with a small shrug. “He deserves the best.”

“You're very sweet. Just don't spoil him too much.” She points an accusatory finger at him. “He'll start getting you to clean his room for him if you're not careful.”

“Well, we can't have that,” Ivan agrees. It's embarrassing to have it be noticed, how much he wants to spoil Lovro. He wonders sometimes how much of it is him trying to buy Lovro's love, whether through food or art or kisses, always trying to anticipate Lovro's needs so that he can meet them before encountering any distress or difficulty. If he can always be this good, then maybe Lovro won't leave him.

But then he thinks of the warmth that seeps through him at the genuine surprise he finds on Lovro's face at being treated, at being thought of, at being remembered. He just likes Lovro, and wants him to always feel special, and feel safe.

That's all his mother wants too, and she thinks that Ivan is someone who can give that to him.

“Thank you,” he says, quietly. His thanks is not just for her kind perception of him, but for accepting him so easily into her home, for not being something else that Lovro has to hide from. 

Lovro comes out of the bathroom already dressed, though his hair is still wet and his skin is still flushed from the steam. He glances up, turning shy as he realises that both Ivan and his mother are standing together, staring at him. “What?” He asks, then frantically goes to check his fly, which is thankfully zipped. “Is there something on my face?”

“We were just talking about how you haven't cleaned your room for weeks,” Ana says. “If you want to live in filth, fine, but must you make poor Ivan suffer with you?”

Lovro huffs and rolls his eyes. “I'll do it later.”

“Let's do it now,” Ivan says, sharing a look with Ana. “It's not like I have any other plans today.”

“I don't like this,” Lovro says, though he trudges in the direction of his bedroom. “You're ganging up on me.”

Ivan follows, his mood better than it has been in weeks. Even seeing the state of Lovro's room isn’t enough to bring him back down. If anything, it's impressive considering how little time he spends here to have created such a mess in such little time.

He lets out a low whistle, before sitting on the bed. “How do you do it? You don't make this much of a mess at my place and you practically live there.” It's true that Lovro tends to be flippant about things like clothes, but he's otherwise very considerate of Ivan's neatness.

“It's your place,” Lovro says, like it's that simple. “I'm not going to turn it into a dump. Anyway, we're not seriously tidying today, right?” His voice lilts, and his eyes darken almost imperceptibly as he joins Ivan on the bed, straddling him with a confidence that had taken a long time to grow. 

Ivan leans in, delighting in the way that Lovro's breath hitches just from the proximity. Slowly, he brings his hand to the back of Lovro's neck, his fingers tangling in the ends of his damp hair. “What else do you have in mind?” He asks, their lips so close to touching, but he refuses to close that distance. Lovro tries, but Ivan's grip tightens just enough to keep him still.

“We could make a different kind of mess.”

It’s incredibly tempting to give in, especially with a lap full of Lovro, but Ivan finds his resolve from somewhere deep within - which may or may not have something to do with the pile of dirty clothes laying next to them on the bed. He reaches over and grabs a handful, shoving them between himself and Lovro. “Nope!” he says, trying not to laugh as Lovro flops dramatically onto the bed, slinging an arm over his face. 

“I can’t believe this,” Lovro mutters, just loud enough that Ivan can hear it. 

Ivan ignores him, trying to locate a laundry basket somewhere in the chaos. He knows that there is one here, he’s seen it before, but it seems to have vanished into a parallel dimension. After some careful exploration, he finds it, and starts to pick up some of the clothes from the floor. He opens the window, letting in the fresh air, clearing away the stale smell that’s started to build up from a week of disuse. 

When he glances at the bed again, Lovro has turned onto his side, staring at him incredulously. “This is ridiculous,” he says. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You love me anyway.” 

Lovro grumbles as he watches Ivan start to tidy, but it doesn’t take long for him to stand up and start to help. “I do,” he says, quietly. “Even when you trick me into cleaning my room.”

“It’s not a trick,” Ivan says, smiling at the look of sheer disbelief Lovro gives him. And, okay, maybe he had been intentionally putting things back in the wrong places because, despite the mess, he knew Lovro well enough to know that there are, in fact, right and wrong places for things to be. “I would clean your room for you.” 

He looks at Lovro, and he knows that Lovro can hear the meaning layered beneath. That Ivan would do anything for Lovro, saving him from the tasks that he doesn’t want to do, that he knows Lovro struggles to be able to bring himself to do even when he tries. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Lovro says. “You know that I- that I don’t expect you to do all these things for me.”

“I know. But, I like to do it.” Ivan shrugs, like it’s just that simple - because it is that simple. “Besides, you’re helping, so now I’m not doing anything for you at all.”

It’s nobody’s ideal idea of a date, but today, Ivan wouldn’t have it any other way. He is full of purpose for the first time in days, and clearing Lovro’s space starts to feel like clearing his own mind, taking on a meditative quality that settles his nerves, quietens his doubts. They pore through Lovro’s belongings, frequently getting distracted by the trinkets and oddities that he’s collected over the years, and Ivan is just so glad to know this boy, to love and be loved by him, that it all feels like a gift, even when they’re literally doing chores. 

Later, in the long stretch of afternoon, Ivan listens to the sound of Lovro’s slow, steady breathing. He’d fallen asleep on him midway through a film, and Ivan had let him, even if he’d been wanting to force Lovro to finally watch one of his favourite movies instead of more anime for weeks. 

There’s a soft knock on the door before Ana opens it, her mouth opening and closing almost immediately as she catches sight of Lovro wrapped around Ivan like an octopus, face peaceful in sleep. Her expression melts at the scene, her hand briefly resting on her heart before she whispers a quiet thank you to Ivan, closing the door quietly behind her. 

He is so glad that he stayed. 

***

4. Eva (and the girls)

Ivan had lost Lovro. 

They’d been invited to a party - someone’s birthday, probably, but Ivan didn’t know who - and somehow, in the haze of the music and the lights and the crush of the crowd, Lovro had slipped away from him. 

It isn’t that he always needs to know where Lovro is, or that he doesn’t trust Lovro to be alone. It’s that, wherever Lovro has gone, all of their friends must be with him.

Ivan has spent a lot of time alone at parties, forcing himself outside purely for the sake of catching a glimpse of the crossfaded boy who’d blindly trusted Ivan to get him home safely. He had gone home that night still feeling the tentative grip on the sides of his jacket, wondering if he would ever get the chance to see him again. 

That’s a lie - Ivan had noticed him before that, passed out on the couch. Ivan had sat next to him, arm stretched out, not to touch, but to take up space, a strange instinct propelling him out of his comfort zone in order to protect this boy. Protect him from what, he hadn’t been sure, especially when it was probably Ivan himself that he needed protecting from. 

That’s not quite true, either. He had noticed Lovro for the first time whilst riding the tram, immediately struck not just by his beauty, but by the fact that on the rare occasions he smiled, it never quite reached his eyes. He’d been curious, entranced by this stranger. 

And now, he’s at a party alone again, looking for that same boy, safe in the knowledge that he would never be a stranger again. 

This house is far too big, though. He’s already looked in the kitchen and the hallway, fought his way through the living room, blanched at the chaos of the dining room, even stumbled into two different bathrooms and hastily apologised to the couples he’d inadvertently interrupted (though really it’s their fault for not thinking to lock the doors). Yet, wherever he looks, he yields no results. 

Anxiety twists his stomach, and even though he hasn’t had a single drop of alcohol all night, he still feels the rush of nausea of having had one drink too many. What if Lovro had left without him, without even saying a word? What if Lovro had forgotten him here, like a dog left outside of a supermarket? 

A body collides with his, jarring him from the spiral of thoughts he’d been about to go down, and he blinks down at the first person he’s recognised in an hour. “Eva?” 

“Ivan!” She greets him with a hug, arms wrapped loosely around his middle, though he thinks that it’s less to say hello and more to keep herself upright. “I missed you.”

“Okay?” He pats her awkwardly on the head, unsure that they’re really at the stage in their friendship where he should hug back. Not that he thinks Eva would mind, but in the chaos of trying to graduate, he’s only really seen the girls at parties, where he’s always sober and they’re usually not. “Have you seen Lovro?”

“What?” she shouts, leaning in to hear him over the music. Already, she seems to have taken him by the arm and started towing him through the crowd, leading him where, he has no earthly way of knowing. “Come play with us!”

He lets himself be dragged up more stairs than belong in any house, until she stumbles through a mostly closed door into a large bedroom. From how much quieter it is upstairs, he has to assume that guests are not allowed up here, but that hasn’t stopped the girls from sprawling out across the floor and the bed. Nix and Vanessa have collapsed onto each other in a pile of giggles, whilst Tina and Nora seem deep in their own conversation. Only Nora’s eyes seem as clear as Ivan’s own, but he’s never minded being around drunk people before. Anything is better than being down in that endless throng of strangers, alone. 

“Have you seen Lovro?” he asks. “He hasn’t seen any of my texts.” 

Eva lets out her own peals of giggles as she points to the bed, and in the dim light Ivan is finally able to make out the shape of a very familiar lump curled up, unmoving. “He’s really bad at ring of fire.”

Walking to the far side of the bed, Ivan kneels down, gently running a hand through Lovro’s hair. His skin is clammy, and it takes a while for him to peel his eyes open, his gaze unfocused when he does. He exhales, and Ivan winces at the smell of vomit that follows. At least there isn’t any on the floor. 

It’s another reminder of that first party, where he’d watched Lovro throw up into a bowl and still been intrigued enough to kidnap him from a karaoke party just to get to speak to him again. 

“Oh dear,” Ivan says. “What did you guys do to him?”

“Blame Nix,” Eva says. “She always mixes the worst drinks.”

“Just call me the Nix-ologist,” Nix deadpans, and all sense is lost in the room for a good few minutes as this seems to be the funniest thing they’ve ever heard. “It was around the third time he had to down the drink from the middle that we lost him. Rest in peace.” Her arm flops onto Lovro as she pats him faux-sympathetically.

Lovro groans, the closest to sense that they’ve managed to get from him. 

“Ivan, play Never Have I Ever with us,” Nix says. “We need to make sure that you’re good enough for Lovro, or I’ll have to break you up so that he can be with me.”

“Sorry to be boring, but I don’t drink, and I think I should probably try and get Lovro home.” He hates having to seem like a bore, because he knows that he can be fun, that he can be wilder than any of them, but that he has to balance himself on a knife’s edge between fun and breaking indecency laws. It’s exhausting to not be able to let loose without having to weigh up an infinite series of consequences. 

Vanessa shares a look with him, one of shared knowledge and understanding. “I think it’s time we all try and get home,” she says. 

“Noooooooooo,” Eva complains, trying to reach out for Nora but missing her entirely and ending up sprawling across the floor. “Just let me have one more drink.”

Nora picks up the half-full beer bottle that Eva had been reaching for with impressive speed, keeping it out of Eva’s reach. “I’m cutting you off. Come on, guys. We can share a taxi back to mine.”

“Wait, wait, let’s go to my place, my mum isn’t home. We can have a sleepover!” It’s impressive for how drunk Eva seems, how much energy and excitement she still seems to have. “You have to come too,” she says to Ivan. 

Five pairs of eyes all turn to stare at him at the same time, and for the first time in his life, Ivan thinks he finally understands the concept of stage fright. He knows that he should say something - ideally ‘thanks, but no thanks’ - but the right words seem to escape him. “Sure,” he says, like an idiot. 

Which is how he ends up shepherding a near-paralytic Lovro into a crammed taxi with a group of girls he barely knows, to have a sleepover with them against his will. His life has been so interesting since Lovro entered it. 

Lovro’s head lolls against his shoulder as he stares up at Ivan with bleary eyes. Ivan had forced him to drink some water before they’d left, and he seems marginally closer to sobriety than before. Confusion dawns on his face as he asks, “Ivan? When did you get here?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ivan says. “Just go back to sleep.” His hand rests on Lovro’s waist, just out of sight of where the taxi driver can see, and he gently smooths circles into Lovro’s skin. There’s a version of this night that had gone so differently, where Ivan hadn’t lost Lovro in the first place, or they’d played their drinking games together, or gotten bored and gone home early, or left to stalk through the neighbourhood until their innate sense of mischief inspired them. 

He doesn’t mind this, though. Doesn’t mind the chatter of the girls starting to die down as they grow sleepy or sober up. Doesn’t mind having to half-carry Lovro up to Eva’s living room before laying him down on the sofa. Doesn’t mind the not-so-subtle cooing that they do as Ivan strokes his hand through Lovro’s hair, as he lays down next to him. 

This night could have ended in so many different ways, and this would never have been on his list of options, but he’s finding that maybe he doesn’t mind this ending. 

***

Ivan is startled awake by the sound of pans clattering in the kitchen. Next to him, Lovro is still dead to the world, only kept on the sofa by Ivan’s arm hooked firmly around his middle. Ivan tries to extricate himself without waking him up, but he thinks that an earthquake could happen and Lovro would be able to sleep through it in this state. 

“Sorry,” Eva whispers as Ivan walks into the kitchen, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “Did I wake you?”

“I'm normally woken up by the dulcet tones of Lovro blowing his nose, so don't worry about it.” Ivan stretches, his back aching from his awkward position on the sofa. “You're up earlier than I expected.”

It's a nice morning, and a surprisingly quiet one. The peace is disturbed only by the occasional sound of cars driving by or birds singing their morning songs, or the gentle snoring coming from Nix still curled up in her chair. 

“And I'm already regretting it.” She pours herself a glass of water and downs it quickly, before poking around in the fridge. “You have the right idea. Alcohol is a mistake.”

Ivan snorts, though he's not unsympathetic. It's not as though he's never had a hangover before, either. “I miss it, sometimes.” Though he'd always preferred weed to drinking, he hates the way that not drinking makes him stand out, paints him as someone not normal enough to partake in the usual teenage rituals. “I don't miss the mornings after, though.”

“Maybe I should take a leaf from your book. I actually kind of enjoyed not drinking during the bet.” She's gathered eggs, milk and flour on the counter, and looks at them determinedly. “Do you want to help me make pancakes?”

He glances into the living room again, but still no one else has stirred, so he shrugs. “Sure.” He's never actually made pancakes before, but there's a first time for everything. “Just tell me what to do.”

She talks him through the simple steps, mostly using him to whisk and only occasionally staring at his biceps as he does so. When it comes to actually cooking them, she takes one look at his first (very burnt) attempt and takes over before the smoke alarm goes off and wakes everyone up.

“You really have the energy of someone who can cook,” she says, flipping her own pancake, though it flops over the edge and nearly catches fire. “Fuck, pretend you didn't see that.”

“Ask Lovro about my cooking abilities, he'll tell you about much worse crimes than that.” Ivan isn't the worst cook in the world - he can, at the very least, boil an egg and make some pretty simple dishes. He just likes inventing new dishes and subjecting Lovro to them for the sake of his own entertainment.

Eva shakes her head, though she watches the pan like a hawk, tipping the pancake from the pan just as it turns golden brown. “I can't believe Lovro - Lovro - figured out this relationship shit before the rest of us. Lovro.”

“Is it really such a surprise?” Ivan asks. To him, Lovro is impossible not to love. 

“Did he ever tell you about the time he broke Jakov and me up?” There's a lack of animosity in the statement. If anything, she's more excited to get to share gossip than she is hurt that it happened in the first place. At Ivan's blank stare, she continues, “it was ages ago, don't worry. Jakov and I were going through a rough patch, and then I kissed this other guy and told Lovro about it, and then he told that guy's girlfriend and it all exploded. Literally. She tried to fight me at school.”

Ivan doesn't know what to say, other than that it sounds exactly as messy as a high school relationship should be. The real tragedy is that Jakov and Eva still haven't gotten back together. “And you forgave him?”

“Of course,” Eva laughs. “You must know better than any of us how hard it is to stay mad at him. He's like a kitten.” 

“He really is.” How many times has Lovro gotten what he wanted without even trying? And, worse, how many times has Ivan let Lovro win an argument just because of being stared down by those big blue eyes. 

“Seriously, though, he'd just been having a really hard time. And I think he never really stopped having a hard time until he met you.”

“And then I gave him an even harder time,” Ivan says, unable to help himself. He knows that he needs to let it go, that Lovro himself has moved on from the events of those weeks, but the shame of it has been difficult to budget.

Eva turns off the stove, bringing the steaming plate of pancakes over to the dining table, asking him to carry over the toppings she'd found before. 

“He talks about you a lot, you know?” She says, and Ivan's heart becomes a stone, heavy with fear. God knows what Lovro could possibly have to say about him. “He's still shy about it, and he still struggles with sharing, but he'll tell us a joke that you've made, or facts about you, or just little anecdotes from when you've hung out.”

Lovro, he knows, can be intensely closed off. It's something that they've talked about, that Lovro worries about when it's dark and neither of them can sleep and their anxieties chew away at them until they have to lash out at themselves or each other. It's not that Lovro wants to be that way, but progress is never linear, and some days are easy and others have him curling into himself so much that even Ivan cannot pry from him the truth of what's wrong. 

“Really?” Ivan asks. He can't help the smile that creeps onto his face, growing like the sun peering over the horizon. The truth is that Lovro thinks of him, and talks about him, and wants to fight his impulse to lock himself away because he loves Ivan so much that he can't keep it all to himself. That truth lodges itself in the chambers of Ivan's heart, helping it to beat. “That's- that's nice.”

Eva smiles at him, like she knows exactly how much feeling can be trapped with two entirely insufficient words. “We should hang out more,” she says. “It's very selfish of Lovro to keep you all to himself.”

“First my mother, now this. Every time I wake up, someone is trying to steal my boyfriend.” Lovro's voice is hoarse, and slightly lower than usual in a way that has Ivan resenting the fact that they are surrounded by company. 

Before he can ask, Ivan has already poured him a glass of water, which Lovro takes and sips. 

“I think I might be dead,” Lovro says. “Never let me play drinking games with the girls again.”

“Oh, so this is my fault?” Ivan’s arm curls around Lovro’s shoulders, effortlessly drawing him in closer, and Lovro lets him. It’s always a small wonder to Ivan that, more and more, they can share these moments of affection without shame or fear. 

Ivan feels more that sees Lovro nodding, his hair brushing against Ivan’s neck. “Okay,” Ivan says. “Next time I’ll protect you from these scary girls and their scary drinking games.” He kisses Lovro on the forehead, relishing in the way that Lovro brightens just a little from the gesture. 

They startle at the sound of Eva politely coughing, a reminder that she’s still here after they’d started to fall so quickly and easily back into their own little world. “Help yourself to breakfast,” she says, pushing the plate closer to their side of the table. As she watches them settle into their seats, shifting the chairs slightly just so that they can be closer to each other, her gaze turns soft, as though she’s watching a video of two animals that shouldn’t be friends playing together. 

It’s not long before the rest of the girls start to wake up, most of them faring far better than Ivan had expected from the state they were in last night. Nix, especially, has a readiness for the day that is terrifying considering how much of her nightmare fuel she must have consumed. Only Tina really seems worse for wear, which leads to Eva excitedly regaling them with the story of their first sleepover together, even making her way over to the door to reenact a drunken Tina talking about killing Roko’s baby. Tina’s head is in her hands from embarrassment, her cheeks bright pink, but she’s laughing as much as the rest of them. 

The sun moves higher in the sky, time passing with the kind of ease that can only come from good company. Ivan can’t remember the last time he’d hung out with a group of friends who know each other so well, and who love each other so much, in spite of whatever fractures may have occurred in the past. It reminds him of his old team, and the bonds that they’d forged together so quickly from the sheer amount of time that they spent in proximity to each other. He glances at Vanessa, and she smiles back at him. An echo of a time that, for a long time, he had wished he could forget. He wonders if they ever think about him, as much as he thinks about them. Maybe, one day, he’ll be brave enough to ask her. 

He can’t regret the past, though. Not anymore. It’s the path that brought him here, to a life where he is, at least for now, happy. 

***

5. Jakov 

For maybe the first time in his life, Ivan is early. For maybe the first time in their relationship, Lovro is late. 

Ivan doesn’t mind. It’s one of the last days of summer, one of the last days they can relax before having to think about studying and their futures and being surrounded by an overwhelming amount of newness. He would be lying if he said that he isn’t anxious about the prospect of yet another new environment, even though the last one had opened up so many doors in his life. It had also, amongst several other factors, led to his last manic episode, and he is terrified that it will happen again. That the tremors in his body that push him to want to move and do and be aren’t just his nerves, but something bigger, something worse. He can’t put Lovro through that again. He won’t. 

He’s tried to sit, to sketch the world around him while he waits, but the itch in his legs is relentless. To an outsider, he must look insane, switching between pacing and sitting and stretching and pacing again, anything to avoid being completely still. 

“Tomos!” Ivan looks up to find Jakov traipsing up the path, as relaxed as ever, holding a hand above his eyes to try to block out the sun. It’s pure instinct at this point to perform the most sacred of teenage boy greetings, dapping each other up, before they go to move further into the shade. “Lovro still not here?”

“Nope,” Ivan says, peering his head down the path, then taking his phone out of his pocket to check it again. For the hundredth time. “Do you think he’s okay?”

Jakov is entirely unaffected by Ivan’s worry, the miasma of it refusing to spread. “Nah, it’ll just be the tram or something. No need to stress.”

Typically when he is stressed, the last thing that he wants to hear is to be told not to stress, but there’s something about Jakov that always tends to placate those around him. He can see why Lovro had been so drawn to him. Ivan nods, trying to relax a little more, but it can be difficult not to catastrophise sometimes. What if this isn’t just a tram running late, but the beginning of the end? A slow, drawn-out pulling away until Lovro meets a cool Psychology student who doesn’t have anything wrong with him, and has piercings, or tattoos, and can smoke as much as wants without fearing any consequences-

“See, there he is,” Jakov says, before jogging over to greet Lovro by dragging him into a headlock and messing up his hair. It’s sad that this kind of touch is fine, that it doesn’t have Lovro subtly looking for unwanted looks and glaring eyes, doesn’t have his muscles tensing as he waits for a stranger to make their feelings known, as though it’s any of their business. 

Lovro is shyer with Ivan, though the path is deserted enough that he leans in for a kiss, which Ivan happily obliges. “Sorry I’m late,” he says, voice slipping into the softness that’s just for Ivan, even though Jakov is in earshot. There had been a time when Jakov had given them space, politely pretending to ignore the shades of Lovro that were new and unfamiliar even to him, but even Jakov could only be so patient. 

“Bro, were Eva and I this bad when you used to third wheel us all the time?” Jakov jokes, and it doesn’t take Lovro long to find a stick on the ground to throw Jakov’s way. “We were way worse, for sure.”

They start their way up the path, Ivan leading the way. He’d started taking Lovro on hikes in the late spring, after Lovro had begun peppering him with questions about his interest in forestry, or going foraging with his father. To his surprise, Lovro seemed to enjoy them, lifting his face to the sun like a flower seeking out the light, breathing in the fresh air after so long in the city. 

“I have no idea how you've managed to trick this guy into hiking,” Jakov says. He keeps pace with Ivan, while Lovro lags a little behind. “He's such a city boy that I'm starting to think he'll die if he's not breathing in smog.”

A faint “shut up” drifts towards them, but it's not said with any real ire. 

Ivan shrugs, and wipes a bead of sweat off his forehead. As much as he loves the outdoors, he'll be glad to see the back of summer. These trails are so much prettier in the autumn, anyway, cast in infinite shades of gold and orange and brown. “No tricking required. He asked me.”

“He did?!” Jakov glances back at Lovro, staring at him in bemusement. “Isn't our Lovro just full of hidden depths?” 

At first, in those early weeks of push and pull, Ivan had never known what to make of Jakov. Could never quite decide if he was competition, or if it was just his own innate jealousy and self-doubt creating an enemy out of someone who has, it turns out, become a pretty good friend. He's accepted Ivan into the fold of their friendship group with such ease that Ivan had been a little overwhelmed. 

It's the first time that Jakov has third wheeled on one of their hikes, and Ivan had worried that it would ruin the sanctity of them, out in nature's cathedral where it felt as though, if there is a god, they look down on Ivan and Lovro with only love. 

He needn't have worried, however. Although Ivan misses his Lovro, the version of himself that only ever truly appears when they're alone together, he enjoys seeing all the sides of his boyfriend. They walk along this well-trod wooded trail, Lovro sometimes slipping through the trees to enjoy the shade or to gather twigs to arrange in Jakov's hair. 

“Bro,” Jakov complains, shaking his head like a dog to try and free himself. “Go harass your boyfriend.”

“It wouldn't be harassment if I did it to him. He wouldn't mind.” Lovro grins widely, his teeth all showing. His smile drops as he peers into Jakov's hair. “Wait, don't move, I think there's a spider-”

Jakov swears loudly, raking his hand through his hair with such speed Ivan wonders that he doesn't pull any out, only stopping when he sees Ivan and Lovro laughing at him. “Fuck you.”

“Hey, that's my job,” Ivan says, ducking as Lovro throws something in his direction. It doesn't do anything to hide how pink his ears have become, though, and Ivan knows that it has nothing to do with the sun. 

Usually, their walks are more meditative. It's not that they're never rowdy or loud or silly, but when it's just the two of them, Lovro can be quieter, like he doesn't want to disturb the world around them. He asks questions about different types of trees, and which is Ivan's favourite. He listens to the birdsong, and starts to take an interest in identifying them. Each visit, he looks for something interesting and pockets it, adding it to the collection of oddities in his room, and when Ivan asks one night he's able to remember where and when each of them is from.

Lovro wanders off ahead of them, cresting a hill that he knows leads to a particularly nice view of the city. It had been the first place that Ivan had taken him to on one of these hikes, wanting to share one of his special places, where he can sit and contemplate his life while the city sits small and distant before him, his troubles small and distant with it. 

“Eva's family has this great cabin,” Jakov says. “You should ask her if you and Lovro can stay there for a few days. It's beautiful out there. Very romantic. You could go hiking for days on end.”

“I think Lovro's lungs would give out after a few hours of walking.” Ivan tries to picture it: the isolation, and the freedom that would come with it. Getting to have everything that he wants, and then having to return to the crushing reality that what they're allowed to have in public will never be enough in comparison to that fantasy. “That would be nice.”

“Maybe I'll come with you,” Jakov says. At Ivan's raised brow, he holds his hands up. “Just kidding - though it would be revenge for the time he crashed my romantic weekend with Eva.”

They've slowly caught up with Lovro, who spins on his heels. “You invited me, and then you invited Zač of all people. I spent more time with Eva that week than you did.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Are we finally stopping?” Jakov heaves a deep breath as they crest the hill and reach a break in the trees, then stops in his tracks as he looks out. For once, they're all silent as they take it in.

It doesn't matter how many times he sees this view; he doesn't think that he will ever tire of it. Somewhere in that tiny city is his university building, and Lovro's, too. Somewhere in that tiny city are all the people that they're going to meet, and the people that they already know. Somewhere in that tiny city is the house that he grew up in, the house that he still lives in, the house that feels more like home the more he sees of Lovro in it.

Up here, the future seems further away. The cool Psychology student that he'd envisioned before is the size of an ant, barely visible to his eye. He's occluded by a different vision, of Lovro and Ivan lounging by a lake in the middle of nowhere, free to touch and kiss without fear. Of Lovro having a drawer in Ivan's house, migrating some of his clothes and entangling their lives together just that bit more. Of, one day, living together, sharing a bed that's big enough to hold the both of them, even if they'll still sometimes decide to stay on the floor. 

Despite the weather, the trail is quiet. It usually is up here, like their own little corner of the world. Ivan takes the risk, wrapping his arms around Lovro's chest, resting his head on Lovro's shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Lovro asks, quiet enough that Jakov can't hear it. 

“Yeah,” Ivan says, and he finds that he means it. “Just admiring the view.” The stretch of the city is nothing compared to the lines of Lovro's profile, the precious curve of his nose, lips that he always wants to kiss. 

Lovro snorts, knocking his head against Ivan's as both a sign of love and resignation. “You're so cheesy, has anyone ever told you that?”

“No way. All my many other girlfriends and boyfriends love it.” 

“I guess I'm just special.” Lovro's eyes are so alive. It's part of what had drawn Ivan to him in the first place; how, even when he'd crushed his soul small enough to fit into society's expectations of him, the truth could always be seen in his eyes. Now, the sun renders them a pale blue so intense that Ivan almost has to look away. They spark with joy, even if there is just the tiniest hint of jealousy underneath. A bad joke, maybe, but not enough to ruin this hike. Not even enough to ruin this conversation. 

Ivan kisses the tip of Lovro's nose, always ready to adore him. “Nobody compares to you.” 

Lovro rolls his eyes, but his cheeks are burning, and smiles despite himself. “Whatever.” It doesn't hurt that Lovro doesn't say it back. He always finds the right words to say when he needs to.

They startle apart at the sound of branches breaking up the path, but before they have any time to rue to feeling of parting, Jakov claps his hands together. “I was promised a picnic. This looks like the perfect spot to me.”

Lovro pulls his rucksack from his shoulders, sighing with relief at being freed from the weight. He quickly unpacks the food that Ana had made for them, and it doesn't take much time for them to demolish the sandwiches and sweet treats.

“Your mum is the best, man. Do you think she'll let me move in?” Jakov leans back into the bench, arms and legs sprawled out in a powerful act of manspreading. “I could live my dream, eating cake all day.”

“Honestly, I think she was surprised when I told her I had a boyfriend and it wasn't you.” Lovro takes a long sip from his water bottle, and Ivan has to try hard not to lose himself in the bob of his throat as he swallows. Lovro glances at Ivan, eyes lit up with mischief. “You've got stiff competition for being the favourite son-in-law.”

“I'm definitely her favourite,” Ivan says, easily. “She even made my favourite cakes for today.”

Interestingly, Lovro shifts slightly as Ivan speaks, avoiding looking his way at all. “I, um. I made them.”

“Seriously?” Jakov says, loud enough to startle some nearby birds from their tree. “Bro, you've been a baking prodigy this whole time and you didn't even know it.”

Lovro laughs, shaking his head. “That's why I was so late. I kept fucking them up.”

“They're perfect,” Ivan says, the words escaping him before he even forms the thought to say them, a direct path from his heart to his tongue. He pictures Lovro waking up early, listening carefully to his mother as she talks him through step by step, trying to stop himself from growing frustrated or spiralling at not being able to do such simple things correctly. As though Ivan wouldn't eat anything that Lovro had made for him. He could have swapped the sugar for salt, and Ivan would savour every bite, teasing him all the while.

Ivan catches Jakov watching the two of them, a bewildered wonder on his face at the thought of his best friend willingly baking just to make his boyfriend's day slightly better. 

It doesn't take long for them to pack up, and Ivan swings Lovro's bag over his shoulder without being asked. The walk back down is slower, all of them weighed down with food and lazy with the heat. 

“Thanks for letting me join you guys,” Jakov says. His footsteps are heavy, the back of his shirt damp with sweat. “I needed this. It puts shit in perspective, you know?”

“Does this mean you're finally going to ask Eva out again?” Lovro asks, too tired to be teasing. Even Ivan is starting to get frustrated at the two of them circling each other.

Jakov hums, mulling his answer over. “I guess I'm just scared she'll say no, and then what? What if she never wants to see me again? At least this way, we're still friends.”

It's a feeling that Ivan knows well, craving just any interaction with the person he likes, even if it's just getting to say hi in the corridors of school. “That won't happen.”

“Besides, is it really a smart idea to get into a relationship right now? What if I meet someone really great at university? Maybe I’m just trying to keep my options open.” Jakov keeps talking, layering justification over justification to try and hide his fear. 

Ivan glances at Lovro, afraid to see what emotion might be flickering over his face - what anxieties he’s harbouring that he won’t talk about, despite the progress they’ve both been making in being honest about their feelings. He seems more thoughtful than perturbed, though. 

“Do you really think you’ll meet someone you like more than her?” Lovro asks, not with any judgement. It’s a genuine question, and he chews his lip as his eyes fleetingly meet Ivan’s, as though it’s not just Jakov that he’s asking. “Someone more interesting?”

“I don’t know.”

That’s the crux of the matter, really. No one can ever truly know the future. That’s why it’s so terrifying, looming over them all with its potential to contain great change, whether for good or for ill. “You can’t ever know,” Ivan says. “You just have to decide if Eva is worth the risk.”

Jakov sighs, scrubbing his hand through his hair in agitation. “Of course she’s worth it. I guess I just don’t know if I trust us both not to hurt each other again.”

“Have you tried just being honest with her? It worked for Mario,” Lovro says, then grimaces. “On second thoughts, maybe don’t. If you two end up being anything like Mario and Tina I might have to scoop my eyeballs out.”

“So only you two are allowed to be cute together?”

Lovro scoffs. “There’s cute and then there’s whatever the fuck those two are doing.” Silence descends briefly as they all remember the last time they’d all hung out together, the boys and the girls. Ivan doesn’t think he’d even seen Mario’s face, because that would have meant he and Tina had stopped kissing. Even when they hang out with Mario alone, all he does is talk about Tina, with an amount of detail that Ivan wishes he could erase from his mind. 

Sitting in the silence is also the unspoken fact that Ivan and Lovro can’t be as bad as their straight friends, regardless of if they want to be. Even when they’re just in the company of their closest friends, there’s still an invisible wall between who they are alone and who they are with others. Whilst Lovro has grown infinitely more comfortable with small displays of affection, he can only ever let himself go in the privacy of the places that are simply theirs. Ivan is fascinated by it sometimes, watching the change in Lovro’s posture the second that they crest the stairs to Ivan’s attic as though shedding uncomfortable clothes, instantly gravitating towards Ivan even if it’s just to hold him, to rest his head in the crook of Ivan’s neck and breathe him in. 

“If you’d told me a year ago that you would be giving me relationship advice, I would have laughed in your face,” Jakov says to Lovro. “If you told me a year ago that you would suggest being honest with my feelings, I would have - I don’t know - eaten a fucking shoe or something. My little boy, all grown up.” He slings his arm across Lovro’s shoulders, drawing him in for a hug that Lovro tries to squirm his way out of. 

“Shut up.” Lovro slaps him away, but his laughter rings bright throughout the trees, in harmony with the birdsong. 

***

University has started, and the weeks have passed quicker than Ivan would like them to, but as much as things have changed, nothing has really changed at all. He’d had nothing to fear, really, as Lovro still curls up in his bed most nights, even if Ivan’s place is even further away from his campus. 

He lingers in the city, finding a cafe near the humanities department, joining the small crowd of already stressed students staring dead-eyed at their laptops, drinking coffee like it’s water. He orders a tea, and as he goes to find somewhere to sit, he almost misses the familiar mop of brown hair and flannel lying across a table with his head in his hands. 

“This seat taken?” he asks, and Jakov jumps to awareness, quickly clearing some of his books and papers to make room. 

“University was a mistake. Philosophy was a mistake. Whoever let Hegel have thoughts and write them down made a big fucking mistake.” There are dark rings under his eyes, but there’s still a spark of life in there. University hasn’t quite ruined him yet, though the combination of parties that go long into the night and early morning lectures clearly isn’t helping. “Are you waiting for Lovro?”

Ivan nods, taking out his own work and squeezing it onto the too-small table. Most days Ivan’s lectures end later than Lovro’s, so he’s started to treasure the ones where it’s the other way around, being rewarded with Lovro’s smile as though he still can’t quite wrap his head around the fact that Ivan is willing to wait for him. 

“How do you two do it?” Jakov asks, seemingly giving up on his work for now. He holds his mug in both hands, leaning back in his seat, trying to read Ivan like he’s one of his philosophy books. 

“Well, when two people love each other very much-”

Jakov snorts, nearly spilling his coffee. “No, no thank you. That’s not what I meant. You two just seem like you have it all figured out.”

“Hardly,” Ivan says. There have been plenty of bad days, or bad hours, or bad minutes between the two of them. Hardships don’t simply disappear the moment that you fall in love, as much as Ivan might have desperately believed that to be the case when he’d first started to fall for Lovro. “We just care about each other enough to always want to try, even when it’s hard.”

“Damn. It’s that simple, huh?”

“Have you talked to Eva yet?” It’s a landmine of a topic, seeing as the last time they’d spoken about Eva it was the morning after a party with a game of spin the bottle that seemed designed to upset as many people as possible. Lovro and Ivan had gone home early, but it hadn’t taken them long to see the fallout. 

Jakov drinks, because if he drinks then he doesn’t have to talk. There’s only so much coffee in his cup, though. “No,” he admits, his voice small. “I know, I know, I just need to be honest and tell her how I feel. It’s just… harder than it sounds.”

“Trust me, I know,” Ivan commiserates. There are times when his feelings spill from him so much that he can’t help but let them pour out of him, and times when he’s so afraid of himself, of his thoughts, that they’re like glue in his mouth, sealing his lips shut. Those first few weeks with Lovro, he’d had to be brave, holding Lovro’s hand and guiding him out of the mess of his own self-hatred, his own confusion. He still hadn’t been able to tell Lovro the whole truth, though. Then, Lovro had to be the hand saving Ivan from drowning. “But sometimes you have to be brave.” 

“Fuck it,” Jakov says, downing whatever remains of his drink and slamming the cup on the table. He pulls out his phone, hesitating as he presumably looks at his latest chat with Eva. “I’m going to be brave.” He fires off a text, then puts his phone face down so that he can’t see any response. Brave, but not that brave. “Okay, distract me. Tell me about trees or some shit.”

Ivan laughs, but obliges him, talking through the article he’d been reading about forest ecosystems. He enjoys talking about it, even if everyone else in the world might find it boring as hell. 

“You should read audiobooks, or host a podcast. Your voice is too nice to be wasted like this.” 

“Sometimes I’ll read books out loud for Lovro when he can’t get to sleep,” Ivan admits. He’s not sure why he decides to share such a domestic detail from their life, albeit one that’s much more embarrassing for Lovro than it is for him. “I think he’d get jealous if I just started doing that for everyone.”

“Well, we can’t have that.” Under the table, Jakov’s knee bounces, a combination of nerves and caffeine bursting from his usually relaxed body. “It’s funny. We used to joke all the time about how cold he was, but he’s just as sappy as the rest of us deep down.”

He knows what Jakov means - sometimes, it’s like Lovro switches off, becomes nearly impossible to reach, but he always thaws back out eventually. That coldness had been his protection, an outer shell he’d built that had been almost impossible to breach. It’s only natural that he still retreats to it from time to time. 

It's nothing compared to how warm he can be, though. How, without any intention to be romantic, he'll remember something Ivan said days or weeks or months ago, and it will hit Ivan like a punch to the gut. How he keeps Ivan afloat sometimes just with a smile or a joke, or by whiling away the hours in bed together until he feels more like a person. How he goes along with Ivan's ideas, looking at Ivan like he's hung the moon. 

“He's got hidden depths,” Ivan says.

Jakov starts to speak, but something in the entrance catches his eye and he starts to hurriedly pack up. “Shit, shit, shit.” He shoves everything into his rucksack, and runs a nervous hand through his hair. “If this goes wrong, I'm blaming you.”

Confused, Ivan turns to look at the entrance, where understanding immediately dawns on him. There, in the doorway, stands Eva.

As she and Jakov leave, Lovro enters, beelining straight for Ivan's table. “Did you have anything to do with that?”

“Maybe,” Ivan says, unable to help smiling the second that Lovro sits down and bumps his knee underneath the table. It may as well be a kiss for how it makes Ivan's heart beat twice as fast.

“Maybe,” Lovro echoes.

“He just needed a little push.”

“What are you, some kind of love guru now?” Lovro leans his head in his hand, staring at Ivan, his eyes glistening with humour.

Ivan mimics him, their heads almost meeting across the table. “Maybe I am. It worked on you, didn't it?”

“You're so full of shit.” Lovro kicks him, and Ivan has maybe never been happier. 

“You love it.”

Lovro is quiet, his smile softening. The café has faded entirely into the background, the low hum of conversation vanishing as Ivan loses himself in Lovro. “I do.”

In another world, Ivan places his hand on Lovro's cheek, swiping his thumb across those moles until he becomes putty in his hands. He leans forward, until they're only a breath away and he lingers there for a moment, a game of patience that he often loses. When he kisses Lovro, it fills him with light, his heart glowing from the joy it gives him. 

In Lovro's gaze, he can see him imagining the same thing - the best thing that could possibly happen right now. 

They settle for their hands entwining across the table, ready to pull apart at a moment's notice.

***

Jakov: thanks for the advice man

Ivan: did it work?

Jakov: a true gentleman never kisses and tells 

Ivan: haha

Ivan: you're welcome

***

+1. Ivan's Most Important Person

Autumn has fully descended on the city. There's a chill in the air that makes Ivan feel alive, and if he's started leaving the window open just to subtly encourage Lovro to cuddle with him more, well. No one needs to know.

For the first time in a week, the rain has ceased its familiar patter on the roof, the sun peeking its way through the clouds. Ivan had slept alone last night, but he makes his breakfast with a pep in his step, waiting for Lovro to arrive.

After six months together, Ivan's attic has become threaded with their history. The space is brimming with reminders of Lovro, their lives intertwining in a way that has Ivan feeling safe, and loved. There by the CD player sits the vinyl that Lovro had embarrassedly admitted to buying, confessing to daydreams so innocent and full of longing that Ivan could still feel the residual ache. On the wall, scattered drawings of not just Lovro, but the familiar faces that populate their world. Amongst them are hidden the drawings that Lovro attempts, each worse than the last, of Ivan. There's a collection of leaves and flowers that Lovro has collected, which Ivan has taken pressing and tracing and drying, whatever he can do to keep both them and the memories that come with them for as long as he can. Lovro’s hoodie thrown over his sofa, as though he still needs the excuse to return here. As though he isn't always welcome. 

The other day, he had finally worked up the courage to ask his parents if they would be okay with him giving Lovro a key. He had been nervous, always nervous, afraid that they still might see Lovro and wonder what he has that Sonja didn't, but they had laughed at his nerves and said of course. They liked Lovro, as much as Lovro might not believe it. Though, Ivan supposes, there's a lot about Ivan's parents that Lovro can't quite let himself believe. That they're both accepting of his son's queerness, that he can be so open with them, that his father isn't someone to be afraid of. It's not that his parents are perfect, or always say and do the right things. They just care more about him than they do anything else.

He tucks the key into his back pocket, unable to settle his excitement. Even his toast tastes like the finest meal in the land, his tea like ambrosia. When the buzzer goes, he nearly sprints in his haste to make it to the door, beaming so hard he can feel the whiskers under his eyes. 

“Hey,” he says, pulling Lovro in by his shirt and kissing him as soon as the door is closed.

A little dazed, Lovro looks up at him. A dimple appears on his cheek as he smiles that Ivan wants to climb inside, making a home for himself. He settles for kissing it, instead.

“Good morning,” Lovro says. “Someone woke up in a good mood.”

“It's a special day,” Ivan says. “Who wouldn't be excited?" He can see the slight apprehension in the awkward curl of Lovro's fingers, in the slight disconnect between his smile and his eyes. “Are you not excited?”

“I am! I'm just nervous. What if he doesn't like me?”

Ivan takes Lovro's fidgeting hands in his own, linking their fingers together, keeping them intertwined. He wishes that could take all the nerves from Lovro, all the doubt, all the fear, but the very least that he can do is ease the burden. “Of course he's going to like you. He's an excellent judge of character. Speaking of, are you ready to go?”

As much as he wants to just stay in all day, bringing Lovro back to his bedroom and closing the door, this is more important to him. At Lovro's nod, Ivan shrugs on his jacket and fanny pack, and they start on their journey.

It's a fair trek to the farm, but with the sun out and breeze keeping them cool, the time passes too quickly. Sometimes, Ivan wishes he could be walking these paths with Lovro forever, into infinity. Walking so far they circle back into a universe that isn't quite so harsh on them.

Lovro, from his huffing and puffing, has a slightly different view on the matter. “Are we nearly there?” he asks, stopping for a moment to catch his breath. Despite all of their hikes, and despite smoking far less than he had before, Lovro still isn't quite up to the hilly trails leading out to his uncle's farm. 

“Nearly.” Ivan's smile is enigmatic, the smile that always has Lovro rolling his eyes as he resigns himself to accepting whatever it is that Ivan has planned.

“And we have to walk all this way back?”

“You'll survive.”

“What if I don't? What if I just lay down and die? What then?”

Ivan looks back at Lovro, his cheeks red from the exertion, his brow furrowed, his eyes dark with either irritation or concentration or both, and thinks that he is the most beautiful person he has ever - will ever - meet. “Then I guess I'll lie down and die next to you, and we'll both be food for worms.”

“Cheerful,” Lovro says, sarcastically.

“You think I would just walk away? If you're going, I'm going with you. You can't get rid of me that easily.” Ivan's tone is light, but he means every word. Even joking about Lovro dying grips his heart in a tight fists, the ache of it making his steps heavy. That's a world that doesn't bear thinking about.

Lovro falls into step with him, nudging him with his shoulder. “I guess I'll have to keep going then, for your sake.” 

The moment that buildings appear on the horizon, Lovro walks slightly quicker, the sight of their destination giving him renewed purpose.

It's a small farm, with only a few buildings making up its complex. Though, even calling it a farm these days isn't quite correct. His uncle had sold much of the land long ago to resolve his father's debts, and, soft-hearted as he was, used the rest of it as a kind of sanctuary. He and his wife had jobs in the city, but this place was their true passion.

“Is your uncle home?” Lovro asks, noting the lack of, well, anything other than the stretches of pens and buildings around them. “Are you sure we're in the right place?”

“What, are you that afraid of trespassing?”

“I don't love the idea of being shot, or pitchforked to death, or however farmers do it,” Lovro says, his steps growing smaller, afraid to cross the invisible boundary from free land to foreign territory.

“I promise this is the right place. And no, my uncle and aunt are in the city today, but I told them we'd be coming. Nobody is getting shot or pitchforked today.”

Ivan walks with confidence, full of anticipation. It's been too long since he had last made it out here, and the familiar smell of earth and animal settles something in his soul, grounds him from drifting so far into his happiness that it's near-impossible to pull him back. “This way.”

It doesn't take long for them to reach the stable. He remembers his first time here, when he'd been small enough that the horses seemed like giants, terrifying and wondrous. He remembers the first time, years later, that his horse had arrived, how it’d been so afraid of everyone apart from Ivan. He breathes in the smell of fresh hay, and casually greets the couple of other inhabitants before beelining straight for the reason for their visit. 

“Hey, bud,” he says to Horse, his voice pitched low and gentle as he reaches in his rucksack for one of the apples he’d brought. He offers it out on his flat hand, careful to keep his fingers out of the way, and reaches out with the other to gently stroke his neck. “It’s been too long, I know, but I’ve brought someone very important for you to meet.”

He looks back, finding Lovro lingering on the threshold, glancing around at the horses nervously. “You can come in,” Ivan says. “They won’t bite. Probably.”

Lovro swallows and bolsters himself, and Ivan has to force himself not to laugh as he nearly jumps out of his skin as one of the other horses twitches its head in his direction. Lovro’s steps come quicker after that, as he hurries over to Ivan’s side. Well, more like Ivan’s back, as he seems to be using him as a human shield. 

“Why didn’t you tell me you were scared of horses before I brought you out here?” Ivan asks. He wipes his palm clean of horse spit on his jeans, and tugs Lovro a little closer. 

“I’m not scared,” Lovro lies, like a liar. And what a terrible liar he is. “I just didn’t think they’d be this big.”

Ivan stares at him, completely bewildered. “Have you… Not seen a horse before?”

“Of course I’ve seen a fucking horse before, Ivan. Just not this close.” Lovro tucks his hands into his hoodie pocket, curling into himself. “It’s fine. I’m not scared.”

“If you’re not scared, then I’ll do the introductions. Lovro, Horse, Horse, Lovro,” he says, gesturing between the two as though Horse has any comprehension of things such as names. If anything, Horse is more responsive to it than Lovro is, following the path of Ivan’s hand to where he’s pointing, staring at Lovro dead on with his gentle eyes. 

Lovro, it seems, finds eye contact with horses as difficult as he does with humans. “Your horse is named horse? And you dare to criticise my creativity,” he scoffs. His cool demeanour is instantly shattered when Horse huffs loudly, and he hides behind Ivan again, his fingers gripping tight to the back of Ivan’s jumper. “See, I told you he wouldn’t like me.”

“The more nervous you are, the more nervous he’ll be. They’re very attuned to our moods, you know? And yes, he’s named Horse. I was, like, twelve and I thought it would be funny. Don’t hold the sins of my youth against me.” 

Ivan drags Lovro out again, and fishes another apple from his bag. Standing behind Lovro, he keeps his hand just underneath as he guides Lovro’s palm out, placing the apple upon it. “Don’t be afraid, I’m right here,” he says, using the same tone as he would to speak to a startled animal. He can feel more than see Lovro rolling his eyes, but there’s an exhale as Lovro tries to centre himself. “Just keep your hand flat, just like that.”

Horse leans in curiously, as though he, too, is nervous of this new figure. It had taken a long time for him to be able to trust people again, being as timid as Lovro is now, shying away from most strangers. It had been a little risky, bringing Lovro out here to meet him, but after six months, the time finally felt right to give it a try. 

After a moment, Horse reaches down to take the apple between his teeth. Ivan’s grip tightens around Lorvo’s waist and hand, trying to contain the flinch as Horse’s teeth brush against the soft skin of his palm, but his fingers stay flat, and the moment ends without any imminent disaster. 

“See?” Ivan says. “He likes you.”

“He likes apples,” Lovro bites back, but his breath is shaky.

Ivan guides his hand to Horse’s neck, and he can feel the way that the tension in Lovro’s body starts to lessen as he strokes the wiry fur of Horse’s neck, smoothing it down the nap the same way that he does when playing with Ivan’s hair on a bad day. 

After a few moments, they pull away. Though Lovro still seems a little unsettled, there’s the same look of awe in his eye that Ivan must have had all those years ago, when he’d first become acquainted with these creatures in the first place. 

“I guess he’s not so scary,” Lovro admits, watching as Horse snuffles for whatever chunks of apple may have fallen to the floor of the stall. He’s still wary when the horse’s head leans over the door again, knocking its nose against Ivan’s arm for attention, but he doesn’t keep such a distance. “Why is Horse more important than all the other animals here?”

Ivan draws his hand through Horse’s mane, enjoying the rough texture against his fingers. “He was in pretty bad shape when he first arrived. He didn’t trust people anymore. He wasn’t aggressive or anything, he was just… terrified. I was always able to get close, though. My uncle used to say that we had a special connection, but I think now it’s just because I was the only kid. Still, he’s been with me through it all, you know? And I’ve been there for him.”

“Why did you never tell me you were a horse girl?” Lovro jokes, but his eyes are soft, and he looks at Horse with a mutual understanding. “I’m sorry you had such a hard time, Horse. But, I’m glad you found Ivan. He’s a pretty good guy.”

“Just pretty good?”

“Don’t fish for compliments, it’s rude.”

“It’s rude to say that your boyfriend is just ‘pretty good,’” Ivan argues back, but nothing can pop the little balloon of happiness floating inside of him, up to the very roof of his being, at this going so well. It’s silly that this matters so much, but after being invited into so much of Lovro’s life, he wants to return the favour until the spheres of their worlds have merged into one. 

They spend the rest of the day making sandwiches in his uncle’s kitchen, Lovro humming happily at the smell of the fresh bread, and making the rounds with the rest of the animals on the farm, even if Lovro is a little afraid of all of them. When they leave, Ivan’s gallery is full of pictures of Lovro surrounded by hungry chickens, cursing out his boyfriend for abandoning him to his fate instead of helping him, but Lovro still seems far lighter than he had on the journey out. 

The journey home always goes quicker than leaving it, such that even Lovro doesn’t complain, even if his steps are heavy with exhaustion from the sheer length of the day. There probably won’t be any bedroom activities at all tonight, but Ivan finds that he doesn’t mind. The easiness, the domesticity, is more than enough. 

When they reach Ivan’s door, he pauses, making a show of digging around in his pockets. “Oh, shit,” he says. “I think I forgot my key.”

“Are your parents not in?” 

“Fuck. No, they’re still at work. Shit.” He scrubs his hand over his face, and considers that maybe he should have gone to acting school instead of studying forestry. “Why don’t you check your pocket?”

Lovro looks at him suspiciously, but slowly digs around in his various pockets. He stills the moment that he finds something unexpected in his back jeans pocket. For once, Ivan is incredibly grateful for his boyfriend’s fondness for baggy jeans, because it had made it easier than it should have been to slip the key there while he’d been distracted with Horse. 

“What is this?” Lovro asks, fishing the key out. “I didn’t put this here.”

“No, but I did,” Ivan says. “Why don’t you do the honours?” He gestures to the door, waiting patiently for Lovro to open the door and let them in. That balloon doesn’t pop, but it does start to move closer to the ground when Lovro makes to give him the key back once they’re inside. 

“You should be more careful with your things,” Lovro says.

“Lovro,” Ivan starts, not continuing until Lovro is looking him in the eye. “I didn’t forget my keys. I just- Wanted you to have one, too. You know, if you want it, that is. And it’s fine if it’s too soon-”

“Oh.” Understanding dawns on Lovro, his eyes growing wide. “Oh!”

“Do you? Want it?” Ivan holds the key out, feeling as vulnerable as if he was giving Lovro a piece of his soul. 

“Of course I want it.” Lovro takes it from Ivan’s outstretched fingers with a reverence that such a mundane object doesn’t deserve. “Thank you. Really. For this, and today, and everything.”

Ivan sweeps Lovro into his arms before he can finish his sentence, losing his hand in Lovro’s hair, breathing in the smell of outdoors and earth and animal that still clings to his skin, and the fundamental smell of Lovro that lingers beneath. 

The past six months have given Ivan more than he’d thought he would ever deserve - a life that he had struggled to envisage himself living. With Lovro in his arms, he hopes that this can be his forever. 

For once, he doesn’t have to imagine the best possible thing. He already has it.