Chapter Text
Maybe time wasn’t a real thing.
It felt like liquid around Ivan, pulling at his limbs and making him move sluggishly against it. The bullets flew in slow motion as he dodged them; Till looks like he’s moving too quickly as he hits the ground with scarlet blood. It seemed that the aliens were determined on not letting the rebels get out alive.
You see, Till hadn’t adjusted to the fog quickly enough; hadn’t been quick on his feet to acknowledge that this was supposed to be a rescue mission for him. The days must have been hard on him, slowly taking at the spirit that had drawn Ivan’s attention all those years ago. What had once been a raging fire is now mere embers.
Maybe that’s what Till was — a raging fire that was destined to die too quickly for it had overused its fuel; for the world’s winds were too harsh; for Ivan was the water that had doused itself over him.
And so maybe this is wrong.
Maybe Ivan should have died back in round six. Maybe he had broken the balance that the world had set and so Till must pay for it. Maybe he shouldn’t be here. Maybe if he weren’t here, then Till wouldn’t be crumpling up on the ground with a bullet through his shoulder.
Ivan is frozen on the stage, rooted, as if an overgrown weed was holding fervently onto his leg. Suddenly, the panic returns itself a hundred fold. Where his courage had been is now a sheer sense of reality. This is real. He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive; and Till is hurt.
A realization dawned on him at that moment; he’d grown too soft.
He’d found that his once taut string of feelings became lax in the presence of humanity. And so maybe that’s why he’s standing here, wordless and helpless, as he stares into Till’s grieving eyes.
Till is in pain. A stray bullet had pierced through his shoulder, and the irony isn’t lost on Ivan. But the pain hadn’t come from his bullet injury, but because of Ivan’s presence on the stage.
Maybe it would’ve been better if he had died.
“Now would be a good time to move, Ivan!” Mizi yells into the communication device, snapping Ivan out of it.
Till is too busy muttering something about “alive…” as he’s nursing his shoulder to notice that the aliens are actively closing in on them. Ivan, too, was busy in his own internal struggle until now.
So he decides he’ll do what he does best — he’ll prove people wrong.
He grabs a gun from a nearby guard, injured from the monster that had gone rampaging, and he runs towards Till.
They make contact for the first time since Ivan’s death.
It contrasts to how Ivan remembers his self-assured punches made from the conscious decision that he needed to touch Till, no matter what, when they were younger. The desire to be close, the nagging need that he ought to be near, the alarm bells ringing in his head every moment he wasn’t touching Till. And those same thoughts are present in this moment, but now, with the knowledge that he’s in love... Ivan is gentler.
Till, on the other hand, is shaken. He’s too worn out, too tired to even fight back.
These were the factors that made the contact so electrifyingly soft.
First, was Ivan’s fingertips. It was gentle, it was kind, it was loving. Then, it was Till’s elbows. It was scared, it was tired, it was accepting.
Ivan pulls Till to lean on him.
“You’re alive.” Ivan murmurs. He knows better than anyone that you need to be reminded of that on the stage. That you’re alive. That you’re not a doll. That you have life.
“You aren’t.” Till answers, confused, dazed. Ivan pulls him towards the exit, a conscious effort. “You’re dead.”
“I was.” Ivan agrees, a grunt escaping him as he kicks away a dead guard from his feet.
“Are.” He corrects, angry. It’s the first time Till had said anything that wasn’t in an exhausted tone. “You’re fucking dead. Don’t lie to me. Don’t touch me!”
He pushes Ivan away, and the illusion of the gentleness lifts its veil. Maybe he isn’t deserving of the gentleness. Maybe he will never be deserving of the gentleness.
“Till,” Ivan says instead, not wanting to aggravate the other. He makes a move to pull Till with him. “You need to escape. So stop fighting.”
That only seemed to agitate Till even more, because he starts breathing heavily, and he claws on the wound on his shoulder, eliciting blood to spill out of it. He takes a step back, “I’m not leaving.”
“You have to.” Ivan urges, taking a step forward, his brows furrowed. He drops the gun in his hand — maybe that’s what’s making Till so hesitant.
“I’m not leaving!” Till repeats, his breathing becoming rapid. He looks at Ivan accusingly, as if he’s dirt under his shoe, “Ivan died because he didn’t leave for me. A hallucination like you won’t make me leave when I should die because I didn’t leave for him.”
Oh. So it was survivor’s guilt.
Honestly, Ivan wouldn’t be able to explain the rage that threatened to bubble over. Maybe it was the stress, or the pressure, or the dissipating fog, but he grabs Till by the elbows — careful with the wound on his shoulder — and he shakes him.
“I want you to live, idiot!” Ivan exclaims. “I didn’t plan to die for just anyone. If I hadn’t lived, you would let Luka step all over you, is that it?”
“I never wanted you to plan your death for me!” Till yells back, and it takes the other a horrifying second to register that he’s crying. “You shouldn’t have died… You were supposed to win this season…”
“Till.” Ivan frowns. He makes a decision to pull him in a hug, making sure that his ear rests over where his heartbeat would be. It’s embarrassingly fast, but it had been grounding when Mizi did it to him. To see is one thing, but to feel the source of life… “I’m alive. Mizi saved me. And now, we’re saving you… and Luka.”
“You aren’t.” Till insists, but more so to himself. “You died.”
“We’ll talk later.” Ivan decides, and that seems to placate the other enough to run outside.
He’s holding Till’s hand in his, and he smiles with relief. Only before, he would dream of this moment; thinking that if he could, he would charge through the world with his hand in Till’s, running without mind of the speed limits the world might have against a human with spunk and spirit.
He turns to look back just before they reach where Isaac and Dewey would have their getaway car, and he’s surprised to see that Till was looking only at him.
Till’s gaze… Ivan doesn’t feel consumed. Rather, he feels this encompassing warmth — he’s known.
“Took you long enough!” Hyuna complains almost immediately when they step out of the building. Luka lays still in the vehicle, seemingly knocked out. “I thought you’d given the aliens a second round of broadcasted make out se—”
“We should leave.” Ivan firmly cuts her off, glowering at her. Thankfully, Till was too out of it to pay attention to what they had been talking about.
“Don’t worry Hyuna, I was babysitting them!” Mizi cuts in, laughing. Hyuna cheers about You’re the best this, What would we do without you? that.
The ride back home felt eternally slower compared to the ride out of it.
The motions of the alien city to the outskirts were blurred, the speed liquifying the details until you can’t tell an alien apart from a human. Ivan opted to drive the larger vehicle with Till and Luka in tow, while Hyuna, Dewey, and Isaac took the two motorcycles they used to get towards the arena earlier.
When they finally reach the base, a weight is lifted off of Ivan’s shoulders. It’s done. Till is safe.
“Can you get him to the medical ward?” He asks Mizi, gesturing to Till. He’s gone silent again, with a dazed fog resting over his eyes. “I’ll get the blonde one to his room.”
“You better make sure I don’t see him.” Mizi warns, and he’s taken slightly aback with her fierce dislike for the other man. How unlikeable do you have to be to have the kindest human being disliking you?
Instead of asking, Ivan laughs, “Don’t worry about that. I’ll pinch him a couple of times for you.”
Mizi cracks a smile at that, and she gently holds Till’s shoulder to have him follow her. “I’ll take care of this one for you too, then.”
That seemed to spook the silver haired one, or at least jolt him enough so that he wraps his hands around Ivan’s wrist. “Where are you going?”
“We’re at the human settlement, Till.” He tries his best to soften his voice. He doesn’t pause to think that he automatically does that whether or not he tries, because it’s Till he’s speaking to. “A temporary one, anyway. Look, it’s Mizi.”
Ivan figured that the mention of Mizi would have Till looking away from him, surely. Instead, though, he snaps, “I have eyes.”
“Not ears though,” Mizi butts in, amused. “Since you apparently didn’t hear him say he’s going to care for Luka.”
Till’s face communicates a sense of betrayal, as if Ivan had just performed the most traitorous act known to man. “You said we’d talk about things here.”
Ivan doesn’t understand why Till is doing this. Why he’s acting like this. Is it the shock at finally having left ALIEN STAGE? Is it the shock of seeing a dead man walking? Is it because he’s clinging to familiarity?
“I said later, Till,” Ivan says instead. “Go with Mizi and I’ll go to you to talk after.”
They look at each other’s eyes, and maybe it’s because it’s the first time they’ve actually made eye contact since the fatefully unsuccessful escape, but Ivan finds himself glancing away first.
It’s not comfortable, Ivan decides. Till’s gaze, that is. He would have been fine with being consumed, with drowning in Till, with being broken apart. He would be fine with it, because it’s all he’s known. He would be fine with it, because it’s Till that’s doing it.
But it isn’t any of those things. Instead, being in Till’s gaze comes with the acute knowledge that Ivan is seen, for the lack of a better word. But he isn’t just being seen, he’s being perceived. And even deeper, he’s being understood. Every second spent in Till’s gaze is a second under a knowing stare.
Where Till had before assumed he knew all that he could about Ivan, is now this unfamiliar divulsion of every minute detail. Because he’d been wrong; he hadn’t known Ivan, and he’d thought that he never would, until now.
“You promise?” Till murmurs, breaking the silence. It wasn’t a question, but a demand.
“I’ll go to you to talk.” Ivan mutters back, careful with his words.
That seems to quiet Till’s worries enough to have him follow after Mizi, his back slowly moving away from Ivan.
He spends a few days not laying his eyes on Till.
Maybe the hesitance comes from the unfamiliarity. He was used to not drawing Till’s gaze — to always having to fight for it; to always being ignored in Mizi’s presence; to always being subjected to the knowledge that he would not be reciprocated.
Maybe he’d found more comfort in what he’d always known than he’d thought.
“You’re ignoring the twink.” Dewey concludes beside him as they practice together in the shooting range. He sounds genuinely curious as he asks, “He was the first thing outta your mouth when you thought ya died. So why?”
“Till,” Ivan corrects sternly, reaching for the dummy bullets they use and shooting at the dummies. “And I’m not ignoring him. I’m just… busy.”
“You’ve been taking care of blondie,” Dewey points out with a shrug, and he throws the gun back on the holder haphazardly.
“I was… Assigned to Luka.” He frowns, and he misses the dummy by a centimeter.
“You’re here even if your aim is already perfect,” The guy insists on proving his point.
“I have a rescue mission with Hyuna on one of the human traffickers later.” This one was actually true.
“The mission is an easy one and me and Isaac can do it blindfolded.”
“I know about alien machinery and I came from there.”
“Eh, you taught us enough about those.”
Ivan groans, and he sets his gun down, looking at Dewey. “What do you want me to do then?”
“Talk to him.” Dewey shrugs. “The poor guy’s worried, man.”
Ivan is ashamed to say that confronting Till feels like a more daunting task than even dying. At least when he’d marched onto the stage of round 6, everything was planned. Everything had moved according to most of his calculations, and each variable had been carefully considered. But here, outside of ALIEN STAGE, is a life he doesn’t know how to navigate, doesn’t know how to plan for.
Rather, it’s a Till that he doesn’t know how to navigate, doesn’t know how to begin to understand.
“It’s time for Luka to drink his medicine.” He excuses himself.
The walk towards Luka’s room was a blur. He’d greeted people on the way there, had dropped by the kitchen for the food and medicine — but even so, he felt as if he was detached from his body.
Luka was left alone for the most part. He was silent, always nibbling on his sleeve or the blanket. Hyuna was still too… bothered to talk to him; Mizi was too pissed off to go near him; Isaac and Dewey weren’t too enthused about him after hearing the stories.
As a result, Ivan felt a strange connection, or obligation, to Luka. “Here’s your lunch and medicine. Eat up.”
Luka looks up at him, and only nods, beginning to munch on his food silently.
Ivan sits down on the stool. He tells himself it’s because it’s his duty to make sure that Luka eats and drinks his medicine, and not because he wants to avoid running into Till who’s finally out of the confinement of the e medical ward.
“Isaac said you don’t talk to Till.” Luka mutters after a while. Ivan resists the urge to sigh heavily.
“I’m just busy.” He returns to the blonde, and silence settles between them again.
Luka speaks up again, just before he drinks his medicine, “He didn’t fall for it.” He fidgets with his sleeves, “When I tried to be Mizi, he didn’t fall for it.”
It’s weird. Luka rarely talks of his time at ALIEN STAGE, if he ever talks at all. That fact made the blonde’s words more impactful — Ivan wonders if it was because Till can never use violence against Mizi? But then, neither would Mizi towards Sua…
“He loves her too much for that.” He mutters instead.
Luka drinks his medicine, and Ivan gathers the dishes. Just before Ivan leaves, Luka pipes up from where he’s nibbling on his sleeves, “It’s been three days. You should talk to him.”
Ivan closes the door.
At the end of the day, midnight pulling at the edges of the moon, he trudges through a hallway that was relatively empty.
The rescue mission has been successful, although Ivan had strained his wrist with a nasty fall. It was fine, though, because it meant the child he was holding was safe. That also meant that she felt naturally attached to him — which led to Ivan being kept in the medical ward, entertaining children. He only found his way out of the ward when the kids fell asleep, which was midnight.
“Ivan?” Mizi’s surprised voice calls out to him, a wisp in the night. He’d been wandering aimlessly — at least, that’s what he tells himself — and found himself in front of Till’s door. She seemed to be exiting it.
“Mizi,” He replies, and he must have sounded desperate, because her accusing face softens. “How is he?”
She bites her lips, “Why don’t you visit him? He’s sleeping.”
“I…” He pauses, frowning. “There was a kid with silver hair that we saved earlier.”
I can’t get the image of younger Till suffering as they had out of my mind. I can’t get the image of Till being hurt out of my mind.
“He’ll be glad the mission went well. He waited for you.” She returns with a helpless smile.
He also couldn’t get you out of his mind. He wanted to see you, wanted to get the image of blood soaking your clothes out of his mind.
He looks at the door, the only thing that separates him and Till now.
It’s funny, Ivan thinks. There’s been many things that separated him and Till his whole life — things as terrifying as aliens, and things as harmless as stolen pencils — but none have felt as daunting as the medical ward’s door. He wonders if he opens it, it would present the chasm he feels has grown between them two, from the moment of their temporary escape.
“Good night, Ivan.” Mizi pats his shoulder again. This time, it doesn’t feel as if her hand had put the weight of worlds upon him. Instead, it had taken the heaviness with it, as she took her hand away and walks down the dim hallway.
“Good night, Mizi.” He returns, when her back is almost too far away for her to hear him.
He returns his gaze to the door, and he opens it.
Inside, Till is sleeping. He looks as he always had, if not better. The days have been kind to him, his sunken eyes seeming more lively even in his sleep. Ivan would do anything to see those green eyes again, but he finds himself unable to move inside the room. The thin blanket resting atop his body threatens to fall at that moment, with a gust of wind that rushes in from the open window.
It’s instinct that kicks Ivan back to moving. Instinct to make sure Till is well-cared for — and if that means walking to the window and closing it, then he will. After he makes sure that the window is securely closed, he makes his way to Till’s side, picking the blanket up daintily and pushing it up to Till’s shoulder.
It was chilly.
Till’s eyes were chilly. “You said we’d talk.”
His voice was groggy, tired. Ivan forgot how much of a light sleeper he was.
“I thought you were dead.” Till accuses him, holding onto his wrist. Till had started doing that ever since his death — always his wrist.
“You saw me when I took you from round 7.” Ivan tries to refute, sounding small in front of him. He lets his hands relax, so that Till wouldn’t have to grip it so tightly.
“I haven’t seen you since.” Till frowns, and his eyelids droop over his snow-draped green eyes. He yawns, “I thought… you were a ghost…”
The sight of Till now warms Ivan’s heart, and in spite of the large, deep river that now separates them, he feels as if he’s closer to Till now than he had when they came back from their near-escape. Then, Till had avoided his eyes, avoided his touch. Till had seemed almost ashamed — of what, Ivan couldn’t put his finger on — and that led to them fruitfully growing distant, despite Ivan’s valiant efforts.
His words were almost funny to Ivan. As far as he was concerned back in Anakt Garden, and even ALIEN STAGE, he had been a ghost.
“I’m not anymore.” Ivan mutters, and he uses his free hand to pat at Till’s hair. “We’ll talk in the morning. Go to sleep.”
Till closes his eyes. For a split second, they had reflected in them the life that they will have to look forward to.