Chapter Text
Ivan found him exactly where he always was on cold morning, sitting on the kitchen counter with both legs dangling, sock feet bumping the cabinet beneath, a mug cupped in both hands like it was the only warm thing left in the world.
It wasn't. Ivan was standing right there.
"You're going to fall off of that," Ivan said, and set down the bag of soil he'd been carrying in from the balcony.
Till looked up. His hair was still a disaster from sleep, dark, uncombed, going in all four directions that had nothing to do with gravity. His oversized sweater was Ivan's. It had been Ivan's for approximately one week before it became Till's, which was how every piece of clothing seemed to work in this apartment. Ivan had stopped being annoyed about it sometime around month two.
"I haven't fallen yet," Till said, with the particular tone he used when he found Ivan's worrying endearing but wasn't going to say so.
"That's not how probability works."
"Come here and catch me, then."
Ivan crossed the kitchen in three steps and stood in front of him. Till looked down with those unhurried eyes, calm as still water, the way they always were in the morning, before the day asked anything of him. He held out his mug. Ivan took a sip without being asked. Black tea, a little too strong, a little too hot. Perfect.
"Good?" Till asked.
"It's tea."
"That's a yes." Till took it back, satisfied.
❧
The thing about being bonded, the thing nobody told you clearly before it happened was how aware it made you of each other. Not in an oppressive way, not the way the old stories made it sound, all obsession and possession. Just. Aware.
Ivan always knew when Till was tired before Till admitted it. He knew when Till had been writing for hours because Till's scent shifted warmer, deeper, a little unfocused. He knew the particular quality of silence that meant Till was happy versus the one that meant he was disappearing somewhere inside himself.
Right now, Till was happy. Ivan could tell by the way he kept bumping his heel against the cabinet in a small, irregular rhythm, not anxious, just present. Just existing in that easy way he had when nothing was asking anything of him.
Ivan put one hand on Till's knee, mostly to make him stop kicking.
Till went still immediately. Then he set his mug aside, hooked both arms around Ivan's shoulders, and leaned down to press his nose against Ivan's temple.
Ivan exhaled.
This was the other thing about bonding: the scent. Till smelled like cedar and cold rain and something faintly sweet that Ivan had never been able to name. It settled something in Ivan's chest every single time, like a key turning in a lock he hadn't known was there untilTill had walked into his shop eight months ago with a broken umbrella and asked for flowers for a funeral.
Ivan had given him the flowers and overcharged him by accident because he'd been too busy not looking at him.
Till had noticed. Had come back the next day with a slight smile that meant he thought Ivan was funny and wasn't going to say so.
Ivan had been done for since about that moment.
"You're thinking loud," Till murmured into his hair.
"I'm thinking about soil pH."
"You're thinking about me."
Ivan said nothing. Which was, of course, a yes.
❧
They spent the morning the way they spent most Sundays: Ivan repotting things on the balcony while Till sat at the low table inside with his guitar across his lap, picking out something slow and unfinished. The balcony door was open. Soil and music and cold air and the smell of Till drifted together in a way Ivan had come to understand was what contentment felt like for him personally.
He'd never been a particularly content person before Till.
At noon, Till appeared in the balcony doorway, guitar-less, with his arms crossed over his chest and his hair still not brushed. "I'm making lunch," he announced, which meant he was going to make the one dish he reliably didn't ruin, which was rice with a fried egg on top.
"I'll make lunch," Ivan said.
"You always say that."
"Because you always burn the egg."
"I like it crispy."
"You like it carbonized."
Till uncrossed his arms, walked across the balcony with dirt on his socks from somewhere, and took the trowel out of Ivan's hand with tremendous dignity. He set it down. Then he took Ivan's face in both hands, his palms were cold from the air, which was unfair and he looked at him for a moment.
"Let me make lunch," Till said.
"It's going to be burnt."
"Yes," Till agreed. "I know." He tilted his head and kissed Ivan once, soft and unhurried, like he had all the time in the world and had decided to spend some of it here.
Ivan kissed him back.
The egg was, in fact, burnt. Ivan ate it without saying anything. Till watched him over the rim of his mug with an expression that was almost certainly smug but was calibrated to be deniable.
Ivan thought: eight months. He thought: hopefully another eight. And another after that.
He didn't say any of it.
Till said, quietly, unprompted: "Me too."
Ivan looked up.
Till's expression had changed, still soft, but more open, the way it only got when they were alone and Till had decided to be seen. "Whatever you were thinking," he said. "Me too."
Ivan looked down at his plate. He felt the back of his neck get warm.
"Eat your egg," he said.
Till smiled. He ate his egg.
❧
By evening the apartment had gotten dark and neither of them had turned on a light. It was that kind of day, the comfortable kind, where the dark came slowly and there was no real reason to chase it away.
They were on the couch, Till half-draped across Ivan the way he tended to end up, his cheek against Ivan's chest, one of Ivan's hands moving absently through his hair. Till's eyes were closed but he wasn't asleep. Ivan could tell by the quality of his breathing, a little too even, a little too deliberate.
The omega-warmth was starting to rise off him. Not urgency nothing like that, just the gentle tide of it that happened sometimes in the evenings, when Till was relaxed and safe and close. It made the air between them smell like heat and cedar and that unnamed sweetness turned deeper, richer.
Ivan's chest tightened in the good way.
"Till," he said.
"Mm."
"You're doing that on purpose."
A pause. Then Till shifted, tilting his head back to look up at Ivan with those eyes gone warm and dark at once. "A little," he admitted, in the low voice he only used at close range.
Ivan looked at him for a moment. The low light caught the line of his jaw, the soft curve of his mouth. Eight months and Ivan still found himself doing this, just looking, the way you stared at something you couldn't quite believe was real.
He pulled Till up by the back of his neck and kissed him properly, slow and sure, and felt Till melt into it the way he always did, bonding scent blooming between them warm as held breath. Till made a small sound against his mouth, not desperate, just pleased, just yes and Ivan's alpha instincts settled into something quiet and certain and very, very satisfied.
His, said something deep and wordless in his chest. Safe. Here. Mine.
Till pulled back just enough to breathe and pressed his forehead against Ivan's. "The plants need watering tomorrow," he said, slightly flushed, entirely earnest.
Ivan stared at him.
"You always forget," Till added.
"I'm not thinking about plants right now."
"I know." Till smiled, slow and private, and kissed the corner of Ivan's jaw. "I just wanted you to know I pay attention too."
Ivan held him tighter. Pressed his nose into Till's hair and breathed.
"Yeah," Ivan said, very quietly. "I know you do."
❧
Later, much later, with the city murmuring somewhere below and Till asleep against his shoulder and one of the balcony plants tapping gently against the glass in the breeze. In this world Till was warm and breathing and smelled like cedar and sleep, and Ivan had dirt under his fingernails and a shop full of flowers and exactly the life he would have chosen, if anyone had ever thought to ask him.
No one had ever asked him. He'd gotten here anyway.
He closed his eyes.
He watered the plants in the morning.
- fin -