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The bottle skids to a wobbly stop, pointing toward Till, because of course it does. (It seems everything in Ivan’s existence pulls inexplicably into Till’s orbit; it couldn’t possibly have landed anywhere else.)
Ivan looks up, across the circle of party-goers, and makes eye contact with the victim of his spin, the love of his life.
Till is sitting wide-eyed like a deer in headlights. His mouth is slightly open with shock.
The noise of the party simmers out of focus as Ivan watches the realization slowly register on Till’s face. It’s the transition from oblivious to surprised to tipsy consideration and then finally—Ivan doesn’t look too closely, for fear of what he could risk seeing. In case it would hurt too much.
Really, there’s only one option, and it is saving Till from the embarrassment of having to kiss Ivan, of all people.
“…I’ll drink,” Ivan says after a moment.
“What?!” Mizi exclaims. “Boooo—”
Ivan doesn’t hear the rest of the protesting clamor over the sharp heat of alcohol as he downs the shot. It tastes like straight hand sanitizer, but it’s worth it to avoid an awkward rejection from Till, or an even more awkward kiss. (Ivan doesn’t want a kiss from Till if his heart isn’t in it. He would think about it too much, want too much, know how it feels—)
The game continues. Mizi might be kissing Hyuna; Ivan doesn’t really pay attention. After a few more turns, he eventually excuses himself and heads to his bedroom, where he slides open his glass door and steps out onto his balcony.
The night air is crisp and cool on his face. It's very sobering, even if he didn’t have that much to drink in the first place.
The sky is clear and dotted with stars. The party he threw—mostly Mizi’s doing, honestly, Ivan just happened to have the fanciest place—is little more than a hum in the background.
Time wafts by.
At some point, there’s movement behind him, and Ivan knows who it is without having to look.
“There you are,” Till says, announcing his presence as he slides the door shut. “It’s almost midnight.”
“It is,” Ivan says.
Till settles next to him, leaning on his arms over the balcony banister. The silence is more peaceful than awkward—but still not entirely comfortable. Ivan is a little too aware of his own breathing.
“So,” Till says, “you didn’t want to kiss me?”
Ivan glances down at him. He goes back to staring at the night sky.
“I never said that,” he says. “I was just being, hm, considerate.”
“Considerate?”
“Of your… wants.”
“And what are those? My wants.”
Ivan doesn’t really want to answer that. This conversation is getting more painful with each word, and he’s dying to escape it. “Did Mizi send you out to get me? You can tell her I’m fine.”
Till scoffs. “What, I can’t be out here because I want to see my best friend?”
“It seems less than probable.”
Ivan can feel the pout without even looking down at Till’s face.
“Am I wrong?” Ivan finally asks. He regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth.
The pause lasts for a beat too long before—
“Look at me.”
Reluctantly, terrified, Ivan does.
Till has a fire in his eyes—that vivacious passion of his that Ivan has always, always adored—but it’s directed at him. It’s blinding, and disorienting, and before Ivan can process what any of that could possibly mean, Till’s arms are hooked around his neck and Till’s lips are pressed against his.
Their kiss is more tender than Ivan would’ve ever imagined, and then it’s over, and Ivan’s eyes are slowly blinking back open.
Till is staring at him, again. Still.
Ivan is at a loss for words.
“I thought I was being obvious,” Till says.
“I… did not want to assume. You’ve been drinking.”
Till rolls his eyes. “For years.”
“Oh.” Ivan swallows. His thoughts shift, click into gear.
“There’s a difference between baseless assumptions and obvious inferences, dumbass,” Till points out.
“I suppose.”
Till’s arms are still draped over Ivan’s shoulders.
“I love you.” It tumbles out before Ivan can stop it.
Till grins. “I love you, too, idiot.”
And suddenly there’s a thundering in Ivan’s chest, not his heart, something farther away: fireworks explode between the stars, painting the sky in glimpses of color and light and—oh, Till is gorgeous, like this, dipped in reds and golds that gleam over his skin and sparkle in his eyes. Ivan can’t look away; he’s entranced. Lost. (He's been lost to Till for a long time, now.)
It’s midnight.
“So?” Till says. “You gonna kiss me or what?”
So Ivan does.
Set alight by the fireworks and resounding with the booming echoes, Ivan pulls Till in by the waist, leans down, and kisses him. Till tastes like fruit and alcohol and he’s so, so sweet, sweeter even than in Ivan’s most saccharine dreams. He loops one arm tight around Till’s body and then raises the other hand to cup Till’s face, deepening the kiss as his unkempt desires begin to seep over.
Till eventually pushes Ivan away just the barest amount, gasping, complaining about not being able to breathe, at which point Ivan realizes he, too, is out of breath.
(Is it too cliché to say that Till has always taken his breath away, and now he doesn’t notice the difference?)
This off-balance reality feels as though he’s toppled headfirst into a whirlwind fantasy. But no, this is so very, tangibly real: Till’s waist in his grasp, Till’s arms around him, Till’s lips kiss-bitten and swollen under the starlight. (It takes everything in him to not dive right back in. But Till has to breathe, he reminds himself; he just got this, he can’t go accidentally killing him anytime soon. Or ever.)
Till is smiling up at him, and Ivan can feel himself smiling back—for the first time in his life, smiling is as easy as breathing.
Maybe even easier, considering how heavily the two of them are panting.
When Till tugs him back down again, it’s sloppier. Wetter. Till opens his mouth and Ivan obliges without hesitation—he licks along Till’s teeth, slides over his tongue, exploring every minute detail of Till. But then Ivan’s neck starts to ache from leaning down, so he hoists Till up by the waist, and Till immediately wraps his legs around Ivan’s hips.
Ivan blindly shoves the sliding door open and walks the two of them into his bedroom, barely having enough bandwidth in his concentration (really, what more can he think than Till Till Till) to shut it behind him.
He tosses Till onto the bed and straightens, extracting his limbs from Till’s.
“Hey, where are y—”
“Locking the door,” Ivan says.
Till grabs Ivan’s arm, pulls him back down with surprising strength, and says, “It’s already locked.”
“You…?” Something hot stirs low in Ivan’s gut. It’s starting to boil over.
Till just smiles deviously at him, and Ivan leans back over to kiss him. It’s easier like this, with Ivan’s arms caging Till in and their bodies pressed together. Ivan slots a leg between Till’s, and Till responds with fervent, needy thrusts, grinding against Ivan, pressing up into the bulge in Ivan’s pants. Ivan groans, bites Till’s lip. Till mewls under him.
Ivan keeps one arm by Till’s face, propping himself up, but the other wanders down Till’s torso. His hand slips underneath his shirt, feeling along the soft skin of his chest and stomach. His thumb traces gentle circles around Till’s nipple and Till keens, moaning into the kiss. But it's not enough, Ivan needs to feel more of Till, see more, hear more—
“Can I touch you?” Ivan asks.
Till audibly swallows before nodding. “Yeah.”
Ivan kisses him again, and his hand moves lower. Ivan cups Till through the restrictive confines or his jeans, squeezes, and Till stops kissing him back—he’s just breathing hard, unfocused, overwhelmed—so Ivan moves to mouth at his neck. Now there’s nothing stopping Till’s little whines from escaping. Still sucking at Till’s skin, Ivan moans in encouragement.
Ivan’s hand dips under Till’s waistband, palm on Till’s stomach and fingers over the fabric of his boxers, but it seems the feeling magnifies because Till gets louder with a surprised little “Oh—” that goes straight to Ivan’s dick. Ivan has his middle finger aligned right down the center of Till’s cock, and his pointer and ring fingers are surrounding it in on either side. He moves his hand slowly, pressing in, up and down and back up again, and Till squirms underneath him. He bites along Till’s neck as he rubs little circles right underneath the head of Till’s cock, massaging it, causing Till to cry out and his shaky legs to snap shut around Ivan’s thigh.
“Mnghhh, Ivan, I—ah…”
“Yes?”
“I need more, please—touch me—”
“I’m touching you,” Ivan says.
“Fuck you, you—”
Ivan presses a quick kiss to Till’s lips and slides down, pulling Till’s jeans down past his hips. He laps at Till through the already-damp boxers, and the sound Till makes, god, it’s straight out of a wet dream. So he keeps going and Till keeps whining and whimpering until he says—
“Ivan, stop teasingghmm…”
And when Till is pleading with that voice and that expression, well—Ivan would do anything for him.
Ivan sits up and tugs Till’s jeans and underwear completely off, and then he settles back down between Till’s legs, his hands on the outside of Till’s thighs as they rest atop his shoulders.
Till, in all his beauty, is shaking a little bit, staring down at Ivan. Ivan’s gaze shifts from Till’s face to his dick, hard and pink and glistening with pre.
“I’ve thought about this for so long,” Ivan murmurs, his breath ghosting along Till’s cock.
Till’s response is weak, barely audible: “Yeah?”
“You’re gorgeous. Even here.” He licks a wet stripe up Till’s cock. “Perfect.”
Till throws an arm over his embarrassed face and his cock twitches. “Dumbass.”
Ivan slides his mouth down over Till’s tip and hums in agreement, and that makes Till’s hips twitch, thighs squeezing tight around Ivan’s head. Ivan goes lower, savoring the salty taste and the warmth, testing how deep he can take Till, and—oh, Till likes that a lot. He writhes in Ivan’s hold, his hips jerking up uncontrollably into Ivan’s mouth, pushing at the back of his throat. Ivan experiments a bit, hallowing out his cheeks, swirling patterns with his tongue.
“Ahhh, wait—” Till whimpers, “I’m gonna, oh—”
Till aggressively tugs at Ivan’s hair. (He hadn’t even noticed Till sneak them in; he must’ve been too occupied with Till’s dick.) Ivan relents and lets go of Till with a pop that makes Till keen.
“If you do that, I’m gonna cum,” Till gasps.
“Then cum,” Ivan says. “I want to taste you.”
Without waiting for a response, Ivan resumes—he hears a rushed ohmygod in there, somewhere—and then Till is back in Ivan’s mouth, hot and twitching, and Ivan’s fingers are digging into the plush skin of Till’s thighs and stomach, and then with a few more tight sucks Till is arching up off the bed and moaning and throbbing, pulsing, shooting cum into Ivan’s mouth. Ivan does his best to drink it down, swallowing; even if it makes Till jerk and spasm with sensitivity, makes his legs squeeze tighter around Ivan’s head, Ivan can’t bear to sacrifice a single drop.
When he finally lets up, licks Till clean, Till is little more than a puddle of limp, quivering limbs on the bed. His eyes are closed, and his cheeks and ears are flushed. Small noises come out with every exhale.
Ivan cradles Till’s face and nuzzles their foreheads together. Till almost subconsciously reciprocates. Ivan settles down next to him on the bed, pulling the sheets up over them.
“Wai… what about you?” The words are half-formed. Till sounds tired. (Ivan has heard before that orgasms can help induce sleep, so that checks out.)
“Don’t worry about me,” Ivan says. The gift of witnessing Till had been… everything. Nearly an out-of-body experience. Ascension. He can’t even think about himself right now.
He wraps his arms around Till, using one hand to move Till’s messy hair out of his face. Till’s eyebrows furrow, even with his eyes still closed. (It’s adorable.) Ivan preemptively squeezes him tighter, smothering any protest.
“Trust me, my love,” Ivan says. “That was more than enough.”
“Hmph.”
Till snuggles deeper into Ivan’s embrace.
“What about everyone else?” Till asks, muffled.
“Mizi can deal with them.”
“Mm.”
“You can sleep,” Ivan assures. “I’ll be here in the morning.”
But it seems like Till is asleep before Ivan even finishes his sentence: his breathing is slow and deep, and his limbs have relaxed—loose, languid, at peace.
Ivan smiles.
Smiles because he loves Till. Fiery sparks because fuses are lit. Thundering because metal salts heat and explode. Lights dappling the heavens because Till loves him back.
Till loves him back.
It can’t get any easier than this.