Chapter Text
There are a million ways to describe a billion sorts of sunsets from all over the world, but he has only seen one type from the tiny corner of his world, and it is hard to put vision into words when there is nothing to compare it with.
Grey, Ivan thinks, like the concrete blocks below the sky. Quick; A blink, and the colour changes, plunging into a dark blue and then pitching black, the streetlights like stars too big and bright against the colourless backdrop.
It's not pretty. He doesn't know how the photographers do it.
"It's not witchcraft," Gilbert argues, elbowing him. "It's just that you have to be at the right place at the right time, and with the right weather, of course."
The weather. Of course it's the weather - it's always the damned weather. Forgot your keys? The heat made you lethargic and careless. Tripped? It's the autumn leaves that covered up the gaps on the ground.
"Geez, you are gloomy," Gilbert says, but shuffles closer to Ivan anyway. They make quite a sight, both of them: alone at a shady bus-stop in the middle of nowhere, shivering from the late-night chill, steadfastly not looking at each other even though their sides are pressed together.
Won't that get the tongues of nosy old ladies wagging? He voices it out, and Gilbert chuckles.
"Do you mind if they do?" Gilbert asks. "If they talk. About us."
The temperature feels like it has plunged seven degrees in a matter of seconds. Ivan exhales, and he can almost see the white wisps of breath.
He stares at the ceiling instead, watching the flies buzzing about and bumping against the glass of the neon lights. "I don't know."
Gilbert follows his gaze and, without a second word, takes a photo with the camera hanging from his neck. It is not quiet, because there is the whirring of a camera processing, there is the zz flashing of electricity running through wires, and there is the wind, whistling, low and quietly but there, and yet-
And yet the air feels so heavy Ivan feels like his shoulders are about to snap. He does not need to see to know that Gilbert is fiddling with the camera, and then the movement stills and it is hesitation now, a lot of waiting for any cue because what next, now what, Ivan?
He clears his throat. "Do you?" he continues. "Do you mind?"
Gilbert tenses against him, and suddenly Ivan feels like laughing, because only Gilbert can breach past all his defences and inhibitions about physical contact, and yet make him feel like they are the very opposite of intimate when they are fucking pressed against one another.
Gilbert closes his eyes and sucks in a sharp breath. "No," he finally decides, and turns his head. His eyes holds Ivan's firm, and there is something about how steely it is, the glint in its depth, that makes the answer seems like a challenge.
A test will be a more appropriate description, Ivan thinks. And so he does the next thing on his mind and finally laces their fingers together. Gilbert stares at it. Ivan resolutely refuses to.
"I don't know, but I don't think I will," Ivan says, and squeezes his hand a little.
Surprise, surprise: Gilbert squeezes back. "That's good," he mutters, and it is like an invisible wall has just melted away, and Gilbert finally relaxes against him. Ivan returns the favour, leaning a little harder until it feels like he will fall off the bench the moment Gilbert moves away.
They stay like that until the bus arrives, and Ivan manages not to let go. If he notices Gilbert trying to stop smiling, Ivan doesn't point it out.