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“What really happened with that knee?”
Lovro’s face is painted with concern as he watches Ivan wince. The sharp pain fades to the dull ache that he carries with him every day, one that he has grown so accustomed to that he hardly notices that it’s there. When Lovro looks at him, though, he can almost remember the times before in which nothing hurt and pain was a distant acquaintance to whom he had not yet been properly introduced rather than a close, constant friend.
“Nothing,” Ivan says dismissively, readjusting how he’s sitting on the edge of the pool to give himself something to do. “It did what knees do, it broke.” It’s a half truth that he’s convinced he can make a whole one if he tries hard enough, if he infuses his voice with enough conviction.
“It hurts a lot?” Ivan can’t handle the sympathetic look that Lovro gives him. He doesn’t want this to be how Lovro sees him, someone damaged and nearing on broken who needs him to be gentle.
Ivan shakes his head. “No.” A lie. Contrary to popular belief, Ivan doesn't actually enjoy lying, and so he decides to restore some kind of balance to the universe by offering Lovro a real, honest truth. “It hurts more when you stop training and everyone ignores you.” He grins and mimes a pushing motion. It’s not absent minded, it’s in fact a replication of one he hasn’t stopped thinking about. Sometimes, when he lies awake at night, he can still feel the lingering press of Lovro’s palm against his chest. “Like, they literally push you away.”
Lovro lets out a sound that blurs the line between a sigh and a giggle, warming Ivan’s chest as it echoes around the vast, empty space. Briefly, Lovro looks down as if trying to hide his smile, before seemingly accepting that Ivan might want to see it. And Ivan does. “You trying to tell me something?”
Ivan doesn’t miss the way Lovro’s gaze flickers to his knee again. He wants him to look at his face. “Maybe it’s for the better,” he says, anything to catch Lovro’s attention. It’s why he brought him here after all - it’s pretty hard to get distracted when they’re alone with a body of water. They’re away from controlling girlfriends and cheap booze and the harsh glow of streetlights, away from Tuškanac’s eternal rain. Here, bathed in the soft blue of the pool’s reflection, looking like he’s already underwater, Lovro looks unlike Ivan has seen him before: relaxed and open and carefree, as if by just being here, he’s somehow baring his soul. “Now at least I can do whatever I want.”
“You can break into pools,” Lovro says, as if it’s obvious. As if this is something Ivan does regularly with his newfound free will. As if Lovro is just the latest in a long line of people who Ivan brings to the place that his life used to revolve around.
Ivan looks at him, really looks at him. “I can break into pools with you.” It’s different, that kind of clarification, and Ivan hopes Lovro realises it. It’s a confession he isn’t sure either of them are ready for, disguised as a statement and dressed up with a smile. You’re not just anyone, Ivan wants to say. Surely you know that.
“I should ask you what really happened with your face,” Ivan says. Lovro’s forehead creases in confusion, nose wrinkling slightly, before his hand flies to his cheek. It’s as if he’d forgotten the bruise was there, but Ivan hasn’t. It’s the first thing he noticed when Lovro arrived tonight, the faded purple mark just under his eye. His initial thought, or realisation, was that Lovro must bruise easily, a sliver of information filed away in his brain for later, and his second, more pressing thought was that someone had done this to him. Lovro hadn’t said anything, and Ivan hadn’t asked no matter how much he wanted to then, but he knows what a bruise from a fist looks like. He knows that someone, somewhere, has curled their fingers into their palm and dared to tarnish the smooth expanse of Lovro’s skin. It doesn’t make him any less beautiful, but Ivan feels a stab to his chest when he looks at it.
“Nothing,” Lovro says with a tiny smirk.
“Hypocrite,” Ivan retorts. He shifts slightly, sliding along the edge of the pool until he’s next to Lovro, their bodies meeting at a perpendicular angle. “I’m serious,” he says, as soft as he can to blur the edges of the anger that threatens to creep into his voice. “Who did this?”
“What makes you think someone did this?” Lovro says, almost too quickly. His walls are back up, just when Ivan thought he’d managed to break them down. Maybe, instead, Ivan just needs to climb. “Maybe I’m just clumsy.”
“Ah,” Ivan says, “So did you trip and fall onto somebody’s balled up fist?” He forms his hand into a loose imitation of one, taking a leap of faith and gently holding his knuckles over the mark, not quite touching, to demonstrate that he knows exactly what it’s shaped like.
“Maybe I did,” Lovro whispers.
Ivan unfurls his hand, the movement taking more effort than it should, before slotting his palm against Lovro’s jaw and running his thumb over his cheekbone. Lovro inhales sharply at the contact, as if he’s suddenly run out of air and is desperate to find some, his mouth falling open slightly. It’s almost a wince. “Sorry,” Ivan says, “Does it hurt?” He hates to think that he’s hurt Lovro even more, but maybe it’s telling that even a touch that he thought to be gentle is somehow dangerous.
Slowly, almost imperceptible, Lovro shakes his head. He swallows, his voice shaking when he answers, “No.” It’s closer to a breath than a word. Ivan doesn’t move his hand. “It doesn’t hurt at all.”
Ivan wonders if, maybe, they’re not talking about the bruise anymore.
“Lovro,” he says carefully, his touch ghosting over the patch of reddened skin. He doesn’t know how much longer he can pass this off as friendly concern, especially when he presses down to the bruise’s centre with his thumb. The pressure makes the colour give way for a moment, melting into the pale ivory of Lovro’s complexion, before spilling back into the empty space when he retracts his hand. “What’s going on with you?”
In all honesty, he’s surprised that Lovro has let him get this close and stay here, especially after the last time their proximity was this significant. Lovro blushes, the colour almost identical to the bruise, swallowing it whole but giving Ivan something else to focus on. At least this time, the blooming colour on Lovro’s cheeks is because of him, not someone who looked at Lovro and saw him as theirs to mark.
“I got into a fight,” Lovro admits, “at the bar a couple of nights ago.” His voice is quiet, almost strained, as if it’s not his own. Maybe it’s the vulnerability that makes it difficult for him, the words he’s speaking being so disconnected from anything he would usually dare say.
“Why?” Ivan is careful not to sound judgemental, because he isn’t. He isn’t worried about the fact that Lovro apparently deals with things by getting into fights, he cares that he obviously felt a certain way that would prompt such a reaction. Because he knows that Lovro isn’t the kind of person to lash out unless he had a reason to, unless there was something else under the surface that made him take such an opportunity.
“Some guy pushed me. I was drunk.” Lovro shakes his head, almost embarrassed. Ivan catches his chin between his finger and thumb, tilting his head up to meet his eyes.
“Why?” he repeats. “Why were you drunk enough to get into a fight on a school night?”
Lovro scoffs. “When have I given you the impression that I reserve drinking for weekends? I’m not the class valedictorian, remember?”
“You’re deflecting,” Ivan says, a statement rather than an accusation.
“And you won’t let it go,” Lovro says. “Why is it any of your business? I was just distracted, okay?”
“Ah,” Ivan smirks, “distracted.” It’s my business because you showed up to my birthday with a mark left on you by someone else. It’s my business because you followed me here, even after you pushed me away. It’s my business because we broke into a pool together and now you’re letting me touch you. “Why were you distracted?”
Lovro looks away from him then, eyes flickering to the water beside him, but he makes no move to excavate himself from Ivan’s grasp. It’s as if their skin has fused together, the tips of Ivan’s fingers settling into their new home at the hollow of Lovro’s throat.
With a shrug, Lovro finally meets Ivan’s gaze again. It’s felt like a lifetime that Ivan has lived without those blue eyes on him, even though it’s been a matter of seconds. “I was thinking.”
“About what?” Ivan hums, barely giving Lovro a chance to breathe. Lovro’s eyes narrow slightly, a huff of laughter catching in his throat as if it’s something he might choke on, before shaking his head.
“It’s nothing.” His voice is so soft, so unfamiliar, and Ivan can’t help but think that this Lovro is just for him. Nothing. Maybe Ivan isn’t the only liar here.
“Okay,” he relents, and Lovro breathes a sigh of relief. Ivan smiles - mostly to himself, though he doesn’t mind if Lovro sees - before carefully lowering himself into the pool again, the cold of the water a shock to his system after being out of it for a while. He fully submerges himself for a moment, letting his body adjust and vision become accustomed to the blue tint that everything takes on. When he breaks the surface, he shakes some of the water from his face and hair before swimming back towards Lovro. Lovro has now adjusted his position, facing Ivan in the pool with his feet in the water. He looks so content, so peaceful, and that simply won’t do. Ivan wholeheartedly believes that Lovro deserves a life in which he only feels that way, but not tonight. He swims even closer, looking up at Lovro from almost between his legs and holding up a hand. “If it’s nothing, then give me a high five.”
Without hesitating, Lovro leans forward and clasps Ivan’s hand. Surely Lovro must realise what he’s just signed himself up for, placing himself at the perfect angle, but he still yelps when Ivan grins and pulls him forward into the pool. The force of the movement makes Ivan end up underwater too, but he’s quick to swim upwards when he sees Lovro emerge before him. With a smile that takes over his whole face, Lovro swims towards him and presses down on Ivan’s shoulders to push him under again before ducking under the lane divider. Something about the way Lovro accepts that he’s going to have to swim now and crosses over into the next lane without Ivan guiding him or dragging him along instills a strange, unnamable flame of hope in Ivan’s chest. Maybe he’s just a romantic, but it all feels a little symbolic.
Lovro splashes Ivan as Ivan follows him under the divider. “Are you crazy?” he says with a disbelieving grin. Ivan tries not to let the choice of words sting. You have no idea, he thinks.
“Yes,” Ivan replies, surging forward to splash Lovro right back. I’m crazy in a lot of ways, about a lot of things, but I think I might be the most crazy about you. “What,” he says when he looks at the dregs of annoyance that taint Lovro’s expression, ”we’ll get you dried off later. See, you took a swim after all.”
“Great,” Lovro says, all sarcasm, but he’s smiling.
“Great,” Ivan agrees. “Let’s see who can hold their breath for longer.”
Lovro raises an eyebrow. “A challenge?”
After a few failed attempts at counting down, distracting each other with jibes and playful teasing that feels like progress, Ivan says “Now.” He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and surrenders himself to the water and chlorine.
When he opens his eyes, the inevitable burn subsides as soon as he sees Lovro in front of him, floating as if in slow motion, the water carrying him down as if it bends to his whim. If that’s the case, it explains why Ivan has always felt so at home in large bodies of the stuff. Maybe all his time spent in this pool and others like it, in the ocean on family holidays or in streams during summer, has been practice for this moment. He relaxes, not fighting it when the water, although currentless, pulls him in Lovro’s direction - exactly where he wants to be.
Miraculously, Lovro is already swimming towards him, as if he’s been waiting for this moment, and Ivan understands that he has. Here, under the cover of fluorescent blue lit water, the tiny air bubbles floating to the surface as the only evidence that they’re there at all, they don’t have to hide anything. They can drift closer, gazes blurred but never leaving each other’s, and meet in the middle. Ivan reaches out a hand, just like he did at the surface, but this time Lovro does half of the work for him, tilting his head as he swims forward so that his cheek slots against Ivan’s palm like two magnets inevitably being drawn together. Ivan’s thumb brushes the bruise again before the rest of his fingers settle against the side of Lovro’s face.
Then, Lovro’s lips are on his, tentative and curious, slotting between Ivan’s as if they’ve done this a million times before in every universe, the action so second-nature and right that it makes Ivan giddy. Lovro tastes of chlorine, mixed with the faint remains of alcohol and weed, and, not for the first time in his life, Ivan worries about the likelihood of him developing an addiction. He doesn’t know how he’ll ever drink or smoke again without thinking of Lovro, or, if Lovro isn’t around, how he’ll be able to stop himself from doing either or both of those things just to remind himself of this moment and what he had, even if only for a short time.
There’s only so long you can stay underwater, even when the only air you’re breathing is that from another’s lungs, so they find themselves drifting apart and circling each other until they reach the surface. Ivan can’t help the grin that almost splits his face apart.
Above water, neither of them say a word - they don’t need to. Instead, Ivan raises an eyebrow in silent question before swimming back towards Lovro, giving him a smirk and two seconds to take a breath before he’s pushing him under again.
One day, they’ll have the time, space and confidence to touch each other like this outside of the little bubble they’ve created for themselves, but right now, Ivan brings Lovro back to their underwater world, a kind of Atlantis that they can rule over and govern with the way their lips automatically find each other’s again.
Lovro’s hand cradles the back of Ivan’s neck with a reverence Ivan didn’t realise he was worthy of as Ivan’s fingertips find that bruise again. Eventually, after they’ve traded air and apologies in the form of the graze of tongues, lips and teeth, they separate.
As Ivan sees the shy smile on Lovro’s mouth, pulling at lips he’s now familiar with, he’s suddenly inclined to believe the boy in front of him: It doesn’t hurt at all. At least not anymore.