Work Text:
Till isn’t good at writing.
It probably comes as a surprise to some people, despite him always having a pencil and notebook on hand. He sketches a lot, yes, but he also spends plenty of time penning down lyrics and trying to come up with new songs.
But it never really gets easier. Words just don’t flow from his brain the way melodies and chords do, and it’s fine. Whatever. Till doesn’t need to be good at writing—it doesn’t bother him that much.
Today is a regular day in the garden, with classes over and nothing much to do. Till rests outside under the warm sun, soft grass tickling his bare feet. He’s propped up on his elbows, fiddling with a pencil and staring at the blank lines of his favourite notebook.
Inspiration isn’t striking him, no matter how long he thinks. He looks up with a frustrated grunt, eyes scanning the environment and hoping for a muse of some sort, or literally anything interesting to happen. But the sight he’s greeted with is the same old as always—various children scattered around the garden, bright light beating down their backs, and vibrant flowers whose petals sway in the wind.
Till sighs, flipping to another page of his notebook, where a half-finished sketch lies. He’s drawn the scenery here a thousand times already, but he always goes back to it when he doesn’t know what else to do. So he picks up his pencil and starts shading another tree in. Then he adds some more flowers and details to the grass, and after a bit of debate, draws a girl with long hair standing in the distance, her hand reaching towards the vast sky.
“What are you drawing?”
Till’s muscles tense as his pencil digs into the paper so hard the tip cracks. He turns his glare towards the perpetrator, whom he recognised the moment he heard his voice.
Ivan stares back at him, wide eyes blinking innocently. He has his hands clasped behind his back while he leans over Till’s frame, casting a vague shadow over his body. Till hides the notebook beneath his chest, scowling. “Just the scenery.”
“Again?” Ivan looks disappointed. “Boring.”
He invites himself next to Till, sitting crisscross applesauce. There’s a little bit of dirt by the cuffs of his pants, as if he just waddled through a muddy puddle. Till side-eyes him, but when Ivan remains quiet and doesn’t bother him, he relaxes, going back to his drawing.
When he’s finally satisfied, Till tears the sheet of paper out. The sound startles Ivan, who turns to him with a deep frown, but Till ignores him in favour of folding the paper up into an airplane. Afterwards, he tosses it into the air, letting it soar, carried away by the wind currents.
“It’s gone,” Ivan drawls as the plane flies out of sight. “That’s a waste.”
“It’s not a waste,” Till argues. Hasn’t Ivan heard of those stories where someone sends a message in a bottle, and someone else ends up finding it? Of connection from across the seas and even the universe? Admittedly, this was just a paper airplane, but eventually, it’ll land in another person’s hands. “Someone else will come across it.”
Maybe it’ll be someone outside of Anakt Garden, who will open up the plane and see this garden’s beauty depicted by him. That’s a nice thought to have.
Ivan scoffs. “So what? It’ll probably just get stuck in a tree. No one will end up seeing your drawing.”
Till’s eyebrows pinch together, a wave of hurt washing over him. He pushes Ivan away before grabbing his notebook and stomping off. Whatever.
Dear Ivan,
Hello. How are you?
I
Never mind. This is a waste. It’s not like you’ll read this anyway.
“Psst, Till.”
Till twitches as he feels something round and blunt poke into the side of his cheek. When he doesn’t budge, the person pokes him again, and again, and again—
“What?” he finally hisses, lifting his head, only to freeze when he realises his surroundings.
They’re in the middle of class. Till looks down at his desk, where a half-filled worksheet lies, held down by his hand with a pencil almost rolling out of his grip.
Ivan rests his cheek on his palm, watching him with an amused smile. His posture is perfectly straight, and he gives no sign that he’s not paying attention, but when Till chances a glance to the front of the room, he sees their teacher shooting daggers in his direction. Aw, damn it.
Till clicks his tongue, biting on his inner cheek to hold back the flush that’s threatening to rise. He’s not the best at paying attention for extended periods of time. If Ivan didn’t wake him up, he probably would’ve been caught dozing off and been given a punishment after class. Perhaps he should be grateful, but then again, judging by the smug look on his face, Till doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he’s thankful.
Time drones on. Till taps his pencil against his worksheet, growing increasingly irritated at the drag. When he finally can’t stand his boredom, he sets his pencil against the paper and begins doodling.
He starts off simple, drawing a sun and a grassy field of flowers, like always. Then his eyes start scanning the room, and he copies things he finds interesting—the hanging light with tentacle-like bulbs, the cacti resting by the windows… His gaze slides to the side, landing on Ivan’s neck, where his collar sits perfectly.
Till squints. Ivan isn’t actually paying attention either. His eyes are totally blank.
Well, at least he won’t notice, then, if Till draws him.
He sketches out Ivan’s side profile, starting from the edges of his messy bangs to just shy of his shirt’s collar. He follows the shadow of Ivan’s lips and the thick arch of his eyebrows and the little fat resting over his cheekbones.
It’s as Till is deciding whether to draw a moustache over Ivan’s stupid mouth does everyone start standing up, scaring him out of his flow. He yanks his worksheet from the desk, filled to the brim with his whims, and stuffs it in his bag. Ugh, he hopes that wasn’t meant to be homework.
Ivan also seems to have snapped out of his daze. He turns back to Till, curiosity stirring in his eyes. “What were you doing just now?”
Till feels something hot crawl up his neck. “Nothing,” he bites out, hurrying away so he can get to the next class.
Dear Ivan,
I don’t know why I’m trying again. I guess I must be losing my mind if my boredom has made me resort to this.
The rebellion are nice people. Isaac gave me loads of notebooks and scrap papers so I can communicate with others, but all I’ve been doing is wasting them on small doodles and whatever this is. Typical, isn’t it?
Ivan hasn’t shown up in the garden for a week.
It’s not so uncharacteristic for certain humans to disappear from time to time. Often, it’s because their guardians have taken them away for some special, private training. Or their guardians are going somewhere across the universe, and have to keep them locked up so they don’t run off or get hurt.
But Ivan’s guardian isn’t known for having such restrictions—in fact, he only ever calls on Ivan for ‘business’. From Till’s memory, Ivan is never gone for more than three days. So it’s weird.
At least it’s peaceful, he tries to tell himself, when he’s out in the garden again, leaning against a tree trunk to hide from the intense sunlight today. A toy xylophone is laid by his feet, with Till lazily tapping the keys, sounding out the different melodies with his mouth.
He hits a set of keys again. Something sounds a little—
“That sounded off.”
Till shrieks, the mallet nearly flying out of his hands. He whips around, only to find Ivan’s face way closer than he expected—he didn’t even hear him walk over! Ivan is grinning in amusement, but before Till can complain, he kneels down, stealing the mallet from Till’s hands.
He copies the notes he just played, humming after. Then, he plays it again, this time changing the last note to a lower one.
Ivan’s lips stretch out into a self-satisfied smile. His tooth juts out, catching onto his bottom lip, and Till scowls back at him.
“Where have you been?” he asks.
Ivan tilts his head. His bangs are noticeably longer, falling over his eyes. Has Till just not been paying attention? “Aw, Till, did you miss me?”
“I didn’t!” He crosses his arms, leaning back with a huff. “You just don’t usually disappear for so long.”
Ivan shrugs back. “Vocal training,” he says vaguely.
Till’s eyes fall over his body, subtly searching for signs of injury. But Ivan is always in long sleeves, and his posture doesn’t give off any sign that he’s in pain. It probably really was for business.
“So!” Ivan says brightly, seemingly reinvigorated. “What did I miss? Did you learn anything fun without me?”
“We started practicing a new song,” Till replies after thinking about it for a bit. “You’ll probably get the sheet tomorrow.”
“So I’m already behind?” Ivan pouts. Till gives him a suspicious look. It’s not that big of a deal. “Ah, I know. You can teach me the song!”
“What? No! I have better things to do.”
“Please, Till? You have good music sense anyway. I’m sure you’ll be able to teach me quickly.” Ivan leans in, so close that Till can feel his breath fanning against his face. He pulls back with a snarl, but when Ivan doesn’t give up, Till sighs.
“Fine,” he mutters, picking up the mallet again as he closes his eyes and tries to recall what he’s learned.
By the time the sun sets, Till’s throat aches a little and Ivan has a pleased smile on his face.
Dear Ivan,
I learned one of your songs today.
It was leaked by an anonymous donor, apparently, but your loyal fans loved it so much that they demanded it be released officially. I heard it through the radio and I knew it was you instantly.
I practiced it on this old guitar I found somewhere in the rebellion’s base, though I can’t sing. You’re probably disappointed about that, since you always insisted that we duet more often. I did manage to record your song down, though. The quality isn’t as good as the real thing, but at least this way, you can sing while I play the guitar. That’s a kind of duet too, isn’t it?
“This way,” Ivan urges, tugging him forward, and Till’s heartbeat races as they pick up the pace.
He has no idea where they’re going. They’ve been twisting and turning through cold corridors for what feels like ages, and an alarm has been ringing in the background insistently that it almost hurts Till’s ears. But Ivan has a steady grip on his wrist, and as he stares at the back of Ivan’s head, he feels an inexplicable sense of trust.
There’s a gap in the tunnel where the segyein come in and out of. Ivan squeezes through it, then helps Till too, and suddenly, there’s a burst of wind against Till’s face as his senses are assaulted all at once by something magical.
Till gasps, tilting his head up.
The sky is nothing like what he’s known all his life. It’s vivid red, like the blood that drips from his flesh, like the pupil of Ivan’s dark eyes. There are rocks soaring overhead, leaving behind a trail of cosmic dust. The grass and dirt dig into his feet, not as soft as he’s used to, but terribly real all the same. Till takes it all in as he rushes forward with a gleeful smile, and he figures out what’s happening: They’re free.
He can feel the shackles around his throat breaking in real time. Ivan is panting softly ahead of him, his eyes trained ahead on some pathway or route that Till has no idea of, and he has the urge to ask Ivan how he figured this out, but he probably wouldn’t receive a straight answer. Ivan is so secretive when it comes to things that actually matter.
But whatever it is, Ivan must’ve spent ages planning his escape, and he exteneed his hand to bring Till along—
Oh.
Tug. Stop. Till’s gut churns, fear seeping into his veins like ice when he realises. He can’t follow.
Ivan’s feet slam into the ground, braking. There’s a brief second where Till regrets it—sees that he might’ve made the wrong decision in the hunch of Ivan’s shoulders. But then instinct kicks in and he knows that time is ticking.
Sorry, he thinks, turning away before he can hesitate any longer. He doesn’t hear if Ivan follows after.
Above, the blazing meteors continue to fall.
Dear Ivan,
The sunrises and sunsets are nothing like the ones in the garden.
They come in all kinds of colours. If I had paint, I’d attempt to recreate it, but these kinds of resources are limited so I have to settle on sketches for now. Sometimes, the clouds obscure the true intensity of the sky, so they seem a little more muted, but other times, the sky is clear, and it’s like an explosion of colour.
I see them when I’m out riding to get supplies. If you were here, maybe you’d like to see them too. Or maybe you wouldn’t think that they’re all that? I’m actually not sure.
I wish I got to know you a little more.
“Till.”
Everything burns.
The sting when he tries to open his eyes, the ache in his stiff joints, the scratch of his voice against his throat, nothing more than a hoarse groan.
Till’s memories are still hazy, but he recognises this feeling—one he’s grown all too familiar with. He must’ve acted out again, and one way or another, fell unconscious when he was punished.
A gentle hand caresses his cheek. If he had the energy, he might’ve flinched away.
“Come on,” the other voice murmurs, and then there’s a hand scooping around his waist, lifting him up.
Till’s instinct is to thrash and do whatever it takes to free himself. But his arms are so exhausted, and when the person brings him closer to their chest, Till can feel a warm and steady heartbeat against his cheek, thumping fiercely. Despite himself, he relaxes.
He’s not sure how much time has passed since then, but eventually, he is laid down on something soft. Something wipes at his arms, battered in bruises and still sore to the touch, and he can only groan weakly when more pressure is applied.
“Sorry,” the mysterious person says.
It sounds stilted. Awkward, like their tongue isn’t familiar with the word. Till frowns, but his eyelids are as heavy as a ton of bricks, and he can’t open them even if he tries.
He must fall asleep at some point, but when he wakes up, there’s a glass of water by his bedside and a plate of jelly covered by a lid, his mysterious saviour nowhere to be found.
Dear Ivan,
My wrist is starting to ache, but I can’t stop writing these days. It’s the only thing I can do to talk to others, anyway, though it’s apparently not that optimal either because Dewey says my handwriting is difficult to read.
It sucks! I’ve been given this book about vocal therapy so I can get my voice back, but honestly, I don’t think it’ll happen anytime soon. Every time I open my mouth, I feel like something’s stuck in my throat. I wonder if that will ever change.
I bet you’d find it funny, though. You’d figure out all the ways you can piss me off, and I wouldn’t be able to yell back at you. You’re so annoying.
Or… Or you might look after me more. Like an overbearing idiot. I never did notice how much you did for me until I had to tend to my wounds myself, and I couldn’t reach this one spot behind my shoulder.
On certain occasions, Till finds Ivan staring into the river, his body unmoving and his gaze focused, as if he was watching a particularly interesting fish.
It’s late enough that they shouldn’t be out, in case any of the guards catch them. But Till has never been one to care for the rules, and if the golden child is out here too, then he could probably get away with more.
So Till creeps towards Ivan’s unsuspecting figure, hoping to maybe jumpscare him the way Ivan always does to him. But the water betrays him, and Ivan catches him right as Till’s finger is a hair’s breadth away from his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” he asks with a soft laugh. “It’s past curfew.”
“Not yet,” Till disagrees, folding his arms across his chest, a little miffed that his plans were ruined. He peers into the water, but the only thing he sees is his own reflection, rippling whenever Ivan pokes the surface absentmindedly. “What are you doing?”
Ivan shrugs. Useless. If he doesn’t want to tell Till, then fine.
Still, he doesn’t feel good leaving Ivan alone here. It’s been years since they’ve met, but Till always feels like Ivan gets a tad bit more unnerving when he’s standing alone. With his dark hair and pale skin and the unnatural perfection of his posture, you’d think he was a ghost.
So Till sits by the riverbank, uncaring of the chilling waters that he dips his feet into, and kicks.
Ivan jerks back when the water gets onto his pants. It makes Till breathe a sigh of relief—finally some proper reaction.
He flops back with his arms splayed out to gaze at the abyssal sky, where there are scattering stars twinkling back at him, as always. He’s stared out his tiny window enough times to memorise the exact placement of the stars. They never change, which is an odd thing to find a comfort in, but Till relishes in knowing that they’ll always be watching, waiting.
His gaze drops to Ivan’s frame again. He’s not great at… talking, or whatever, but there’s obviously something bothering him. Till didn’t even think that was possible. With the way Ivan is, so casually cruel and flippant about everything, he wouldn’t have expected something to be visibly on his mind.
“Hey,” Till calls, nudging Ivan’s ankle with a foot. “…Happy birthday.”
Ivan immediately turns to him, a flash of surprise coating his features. It melts when Till meets his eye, though, transforming into something more sly. “You’re only telling me now? You already missed it.”
“I didn’t!” Till whips his head around, trying to find a clock to prove that it isn’t past midnight yet. He fails. “I just didn’t want to tell you in the day!”
Ivan gives him a look that says he doesn’t believe him, but will let him have this. It’s true, though. All day, Ivan was swarmed by other humans, showering him with gifts. He received a fancy watch by his modelling agency too, then scheduled another session as a birthday shoot, so he was gone the rest of the evening. Till didn’t even see him come back.
He wonders if that’s what Ivan is upset about. Till knows he’d hate to have to do random bullshit on his birthday. Or any day, really, but semantics.
Then again, Ivan never gave off the impression that he particularly hated nor liked anything his owner made him do. He just went along with it, a small smile always on his face. Overly compliant, the way Till can’t stand to be.
Till reaches into his pocket, fingers curling around the sheet of paper he’s folded in there. He spent the afternoon drawing it, but it’s not his best work—in his defence, he didn’t have the real deal as a reference, so he probably got some details wrong.
Before Till can pull it out, Ivan pipes up, “Do you ever think about what’ll happen when we die?”
Till’s heart drops.
“Why are you talking about such bullshit on your birthday?” he begins slowly, trying to laugh it off. It comes out hoarse and ingenuine.
“Not my birthday anymore,” Ivan quips back. He snickers when Till scowls at him, but still, his eyes remain painfully blank.
Till sighs, turning his face back to the sky and returning to the original question. “I don’t know. Isn’t it supposed to be something like… going to the afterlife?”
“But you don’t believe that.”
“I don’t,” he agrees. “So I don’t know. Why? Does it even matter?”
Ivan hums. He copies Till’s position, flopping back with his arms above his head, like he was in surrender. Idiot, Till thinks, a little too fondly.
“Maybe you’ll be reincarnated into something else,” Ivan says. “I think you’ll be a flower.”
Briefly, Till imagines the numerous flowers Ivan has crushed under his careless foot, and wrinkles his nose. “Ew, no.”
“What?” Ivan snickers. “No? Okay. Maybe another animal… A pufferfish.”
“Wow.”
“A tiger?”
“Sounds cooler.” Till chuckles, tilting his head. Ivan is already looking back at him, and the relaxed expression on his face takes Till’s breath away. “You’d be a bug. One of the creepy ones with lots of legs.”
He waits for Ivan to jab back—they’re jesting around, after all, and they never did quite grow out of their incessant need to annoy each other all the time, at least not on Ivan’s end. Till rarely gets to get back at him for all the torture.
Instead of the expected reaction, though, Ivan just shakes his head. “Nah. That means we might run into each other again.”
Something in the air shifts. Till chews on his bottom lip, trying to make sense of Ivan’s words. “You… You don’t think we’d meet again in another life?”
“You might have another life,” Ivan says, dodging the question with a feeble shrug.
“And why wouldn’t you?”
A wistful smile climbs onto Ivan’s lips. Till stares for what feels like ages, his voice stuck in his throat, unsure of how to feel.
Dear Ivan,
Happy birthday.
I got you a gift. I know, it’s a waste. But there was a nice market I was passing by today, and you probably don’t care about materialistic things like that anymore, but it looked nice and was on sale, so I got you a watch. It’s on my desk, if you ever feel like collecting your present.
I used to only give you drawings or flowers. They were all I could find back then, anyway, and I didn’t have the opportunity to go out of the garden for jobs like you did. It really is a whole different universe, huh? Sorry if you don’t like your gift. Too bad.
…You told me once, that if we were to be reborn, you don’t think we’d meet again. You said it like it would be a blessing for me, to never have to know you again. I don’t think you understood how wrong you were. I only wish I had the words for it back then, but I couldn’t figure out what you were trying to say.
Honestly, it was a really childish conversation on both our ends. I laugh a little thinking of it now. There’s probably no such thing as reincarnation, but if you’ll allow me to just entertain an old fantasy, then I think you’d be a star.
When Till turns twenty-two, he pulls on an oversized jacket he was gifted by Isaac, grabs his helmet and guitar, and goes for a ride all alone.
He’s gotten used to the feeling of the outside—the cool night’s breeze against his face and the plesant hum of his motorcycle’s company. Some of the others invited him to the bar to celebrate, but he declined. He’s not great at holding his liqour.
Till rides aimlessly, no one destination in mind. He finds himself in an open plain a while later, an emptiness that stretches on for miles. It’s a little nervewracking to see such a vast expanse, and know that you’re a mere speck of dust in comparison, but at the same time, it’s peaceful. To be so insignificant.
He reaches for the strap of his guitar, pulling it over his shoulder. The first strum rings aloud, and when Till looks up to the stars, he hears the faint hum of the boy he once knew.
Till smiles to himself and begins to play.
Dear Ivan, his music sings, I hope you’re listening.