Chapter Text
Ivan had been reading the same paragraph for long enough that Till had begun to suspect he was doing it out of spite just to keep him waiting.
From the perch on the edge of one of the tables, Till watched Ivan’s eyes move slowly across the page, pause, and then return to the beginning with an expression of a man searching desperately for evidence that the words might rearrange themselves into a more intelligent sentence if given sufficient opportunity.
Unfortunately, they did not appear to be obliging him.
The classroom was quiet around them, emptied for lunch except for the faint noise drifting in from the corridor whenever a student or teacher passed the open door. Somewhere outside, a group of students burst into laughter, followed by the squeak of trainers against polished flooring. Ivan seemed not to hear any of it.
He sat behind his desk with one elbow resting near the stack of essays, a pair of thin, dark-framed glasses balanced low on the bridge of his nose. He never wore them during his lessons, only when he was grading papers with great concentration, and consequently, Till spent far too much of the last fifteen minutes trying not to look at them.
They made Ivan appear older somehow, and impossibly, his eyes seemed even darker behind the lenses, his fingers pressed thoughtfully against his mouth as though the paper had presented him with a genuine philosophical dilemma.
It was irritating… mostly because Till knew he liked them, that, and of course - naturally, Ivan even made glasses look appealing.
He lowered his head again before Ivan caught him staring.
His pencil moved lazily over the page. He had started with no particular idea in mind, only a few rough lines to keep his hands occupied while he waited, but somewhere along the way, they had become the outline of a figure hunched over a desk, surrounded by mountains of paper. Till smothered a grin and shaded beneath the desk with the side of his pencil.
At last, Ivan released a long, controlled breath.
“This student seems to believe ‘The Great Gatsby’ was written by Shakespeare.”
Keeping his eyes on his sketchbook, Till smirked. “Hmm, seems like a reasonable mistake to make.”
There came the soft scratch of Ivan’s pen, followed by the heavier sound of the essay being placed on the finished pile.
“And apparently,” Ivan continued, “Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship is the healthiest in the book because he reorganizes his entire life around watching her house and obsessing over her green light.”
Till’s shoulders shook despite himself. “Kinda sounds like something you’d do, sir.”
“I do throw excellent parties.”
Ivan set the pen down, finally finished, and Till’s amusement pulsed into a more reckless and whimsical feeling beneath his ribs. He closed his sketchbook before Ivan could ask what he had been drawing and placed it beside him on the table, the movement feeling too guilty at its speed. He tried to correct it by leaning back on his hands, adopting what he hoped looked like the posture of a student who had not been waiting for his teacher’s attention for the past fifteen minutes.
Gathering the papers into a neat pile, Ivan tapped their edges against the desk until they were perfectly aligned. He then removed his glasses, folding the arms with precise care before setting them beside his pen. Till experienced a brief, unreasonable stab of disappointment, which lasted approximately half a second.
Without the glasses, Ivan’s face was no less arresting. If anything, there was now nothing to distract from the pleasing symmetry of his features or the enticing, direct focus of his eyes. It was frankly obnoxious that he could remove the very thing Till had been admiring and remain just as effortlessly handsome.
Only then did he look up, his dark gaze finding Till’s immediately. Till’s stomach gave a traitorous flutter.
“That reminds me, I listened to the CD you lent me,” Ivan said.
Till straightened. “Yeah?” He mentally kicked himself as the word came out too eager. He cleared his throat, trying for nonchalant, but instead found significantly less dignity as his voice pitched slightly higher. “I mean, was it all right?”
Ivan’s lips curved with the beginning of the smug smile he kept mostly in check. “It was more than all right.”
He felt his own smile beginning before he could stop it.
Opening the top drawer of his desk, Ivan took out the aforementioned CD. Till had burned it himself, specifically for Ivan, although he would never dare admit that to him, even if someone attempted to torture the confession out of him. He had scribbled the track list across the insert in a fine black marker, along with a few cramped notes about why these particular versions were better and which songs had to be listened to with earphones to get the full effect.
“I wasn’t entirely convinced by track six when it first started,” Ivan said, examining the case. “But it became quite evocative.”
“Evocative, huh?”
Track six. Out of all of them, that was the specific song Till thought encapsulated everything about Ivan… Everything about the strange, insufferable outline his English teacher had carved for himself inside his head… Everything that Till sometimes caught himself imagining they could be.
Not that there was a ‘they’.
Ivan glanced at him over the case. “Yes. Evocative. It means it provoked a strong emotional response.”
Till rolled his eyes, though the warmth had already spread through his chest. “I know what it means.”
“Do you? You looked worried.”
Scoffing, Till shot back, “Would it kill you to talk like a real person for once?” He sighed exaggeratedly before continuing, “So… you liked it then?”
“I did.”
Lifting himself from the desk chair, Ivan came around the desk with the CD still in hand. Instead of passing it across the space between them, he leaned back against the front of his desk, far enough away to maintain some pretense of propriety, yet close enough that Till caught the faint scent of his cologne. Something musky and clean, with a deeper note Till could not identify. Expensive enough to make his eyes water, no doubt.
It had been a hot, sticky day, and Ivan had abandoned one of the many waistcoats he often wore during lessons, leaving it draped over the back of his chair, his sleeves rolled neatly to his forearms, exposing strong forearms and the dark leather strap of his watch. The top button of his white shirt undone beneath a loosened black tie.
His clothing should not have made much difference… but it did.
Till’s feet dangled a few inches above the floor, while Ivan was still slightly above him where he leaned, his posture relaxed in a way it rarely was during class. With a smile that exposed the slight imperfection of his snaggletooth, he finally held the case out.
“You were right,” Ivan said. “I have to admit, it was a good recommendation.”
Till took the CD; their fingers came close enough to touching that he noticed the absence. Looking down at the cheap plastic case, he couldn’t help the absurd bubble of satisfaction rising within him. It was only music, he knew that… Who actually cared that Ivan had listened to the songs that Till had agonized over arranging? Still, the knowledge that those particular songs had existed in Ivan’s apartment, maybe inside his living room or his bedroom, or whenever he had played them, felt oddly intimate. A small piece of Till’s inner world carried somewhere he could not see.
“Next time,” Ivan said. “I want something of yours.”
Till looked up at him. “One of my what?”
“Your songs.” For a moment, Till could only stare at him. Ivan’s expression remained neutral, as though he had asked for nothing more significant than another homework assignment. “I’d like to add a CD of your own music to my collection.”
Heat crept steadily into Till’s face. “I… I dunno,” he replied weakly, a hand rubbing the back of his neck. “It’d be kinda embarrassing…”
“Why?” Ivan asked.
Till threw a hand up, as if the answer was obvious. “Because it’s not the same. It’s different when it’s mine, something I’ve written, my own voice.”
“Yes,” Ivan replied. “That is generally what makes original work original. I’ve heard you sing before, and I know I’d enjoy listening to it.”
Biting his lip, Till looked down. The idea of Ivan listening to music Till liked had been intimate enough… Ivan, listening to a creation he had written, hearing his voice admit things he could only say when they were disguised by a melody, felt perilously close to being seen without any skin to protect him.
“I’ll think about it,” Till finally muttered.
He turned the case over in his hands, too distracted with his own thoughts to question the way that Ivan continued to watch him. When he finally looked up, he was met with that familiar, fascinated gaze, quiet and attentive in a way that made him feel as though Ivan were studying a language no one else had ever bothered to learn.
Then it slowly faded into something else entirely… and Till found himself missing it the moment it disappeared.
Ivan tilted his head slightly. “You missed my class yesterday afternoon.”
Immediately, Till felt the quickening of his pulse, his heart beating a little harder as the fluttering in his stomach changed shape.
He had taken the bait.
Till lowered his eyes to the CD once more. “Oh yeah… sorry about that, sir.”
A perfectly groomed dark brow lifted at his apology, which, obvious to all involved, contained approximately no remorse. “Are you?”
Till shrugged, in an attempt to feign disinterest. “No, not really.”
Ivan exhaled through his nose. “I appreciate the honesty, if nothing else. But it isn’t like you to miss my classes.”
It wasn’t.
Out of everything on his timetable, even when considering Music or Art, English had become one of the few lessons Till did not resent having to attend. Ivan explained things in a way that did not make him feel stupid for needing the explanation; he treated Till’s answers as if they were worth listening to, even when he disagreed with them, and had somehow turned several books Till would ordinarily have used as emergency firewood into something almost interesting.
Naturally, Till’s enjoyment had absolutely nothing to do with the infuriating man leaning against the desk in front of him, sleeves rolled up and tie loosened, watching him with an attention that made Till feel too warm under his light shirt.
That would have been ridiculous.
He could hear the curiosity in Ivan’s words. Concern, too, perhaps, buried carefully beneath the mild reprimand. Although he preferred not to dwell on that for too long.
Till scratched at the corner of the case in his hands, his thumbnail catching against a lip in the cheap plastic, causing a small flake of red polish to chip away, leaving another uneven crescent on the nail.
Ivan’s eyes remained on him. He could feel the weight of them even without looking up, patient and expectant, waiting for Till to offer a response more convincing than an apology neither of them had believed.
Finally, Ivan asked, “Where were you?”
“I had to go into town for something,” Till conceded, keeping himself very still except for the restless movement of his thumb. The tingling he felt on his skin had begun to spread, prickling across the back of his neck.
Frowning slightly, Ivan folded his arms. “What exactly was such urgent business that it required you to miss English without any explanation?”
Till’s fingers tightened around the case. There was no reason not to tell him… it was not as though Ivan could undo it, and if Till was being painfully honest with himself, shocking him had been half the appeal.
Perhaps more than half.
He could have booked the appointment after school. He could have missed Maths, or History, or any one of the lessons he regularly fantasized about escaping through the nearest window. Instead, he had chosen Mr Ivan’s class, knowing Ivan would notice the empty seat and ask where he had been.
Till had wanted to be missed. Although he would rather have swallowed the CD whole than admit that.
“I got a new piercing.”
“Oh?” Ivan’s gaze travelled over his face, lingering briefly on his eyebrow and the collection of silver decorating both ears. “Did your ears even have room for another one?” Ivan finally commented dryly.
Till glanced up at him from beneath his fringe. “Not… not up here,” he murmured, making a vague gesture towards his head, the confidence he had carried into the classroom beginning to thin through Ivan’s scrutiny.
Ivan’s mouth curved. “I didn’t take you for a belly-button piercing kind of guy.”
“I got my nipples pierced,” Till breathed.
One dark eyebrow twitched upwards, and the faint amusement disappeared from Ivan’s mouth as completely as though it had never been there.
Till shifted on the table. “Ah, yeah… so that’s why I missed class.”
“How unexpected,” Ivan managed, the words seemingly delivered with unusual care, each one inspected before being allowed out.
Till nodded, suddenly acutely conscious of every layer of clothing separating Ivan’s gaze and his bare skin. The fresh piercings pulsed under his skeleton shirt, still tender and hot. The dull throb seemed to deepen now that he had drawn attention to them, as though his body had become embarrassingly aware that they were being discussed.
Then, Ivan’s dark eyes flickered down.
It happened so quickly that Till thought he might have even imagined it, but his body reacted before his mind could decide. Heat rushed into his neck and face, his pulse jumping hard under his skin. He swallowed.
“I imagine that must have hurt,” Ivan said with a quiet chuckle.
The sound was slightly stiffer than usual, but already Ivan appeared to be recovering. The surprise had begun to smooth itself from his face, his expression settling back into that familiar composure, as if Till had merely announced a new piercing in his ear instead.
An unreasonable flicker of irritation moved through him.
That was it?
Till had imagined this part more times than he cared to admit. He had pictured Ivan’s surprise, the restrained disapproval he wore whenever Till did something he considered particularly reckless. He had wondered whether Ivan would laugh, or sigh, or deliver one of those weary little lectures that somehow managed to sound irritating and affectionate at the same time.
He had expected to unsettle him. And for one brief second, he had… but now he was putting himself together far too quickly.
Till wanted the crack to widen, another reaction, something he could not dismiss as curiosity or surprise. Something Ivan would not be able to polish away before Till had properly seen it.
Because somewhere inside all those fantasies, Till had wondered about one thing more than any other. Whether Ivan would want to look.
The question lodged uncomfortably in his throat. It was ridiculous. Irresponsible, even by his standards.
Unfortunately, his mouth had never demonstrated much loyalty to conscious thought.
“Do you want to see?”
Ivan’s entire body seemed to stiffen, and Till’s pulse stumbled.
The question appeared to hang between them, gaining weight with every second Ivan failed to answer. In the corridor outside, footsteps passed the open doorway, accompanied by the rise and fall of a distant conversation. Neither of them moved until the sounds faded again.
An awful realization began to creep over Till.
He had misread everything, hadn’t he?
All the private jokes, the lingering looks, the strange intensity with which Ivan sometimes watched him. Till had taken those fragments and arranged them into something they had never been, allowing his own hormone-fueled fantasies to fill the spaces between.
Fuck.
Ivan’s face had emptied of almost every expression. Only his eyes betrayed him, fixed on Till with an intensity that made the tender ache under his clothes deepen.
Till’s courage began to curdle under that same stare.
Then, Ivan looked away, turning his head slightly towards the windows.
“That would be inappropriate,” he said quietly. “Wouldn’t it?”
The heat prickling Till’s face became almost unbearable.
“Right.” He stared down at the CD in his hands. “Yeah, of course – obviously.” He laughed – or attempted to, the sound emerging thin and breathless. “That was a dumb thing to ask. I wasn’t trying to make it weird. I was just excited about them,” Till continued, the words gathering speed as though they might repair the fracture opening between them. “I just wanted to show someone, well – not show, talk about it, I suppose. I don’t know. It was stupid.”
The explanation sounded utterly pathetic once spoken aloud, mortifying. He scraped his thumbnail against the case again, nearly bending it back.
“Sorry, I was just curious what you’d think, that’s all… of course you don’t wanna see something like that.”
Excruciatingly, Ivan still said nothing. Which was worse than the refusal itself. He offered no joke, no teasing remark, nothing Till could seize and use to pull them back towards familiar ground.
Fine.
Till slid off the edge of the table, reaching for his sketchbook and preparing to escape before the lunch bell rang. As his feet met the floor, his shirt pulled taut across his chest, the fabric catching against one of the fresh piercings, causing him to flinch.
You must be fucking kidding me.
“Till.”
He stopped, and now Ivan was looking at him again. His gaze moved over Till’s face, pausing on the color that must still have been burning across his cheeks. An unsettled look had appeared in Ivan’s expression, an internal conflict Till could not quite understand.
For once, Ivan did not look composed. His jaw had tightened, one hand curled against the edge of the desk behind him, gripping it as though he needed the resistance of a solid weight. For a long moment, his eyes darted toward the open classroom door.
Then they returned to Till.
“Show me.”
Till stared at him, the words refusing to make sense at first, slipping through his thoughts without finding anywhere to settle. “What?”
Ivan’s eyes did not leave his. “You heard me, Till.”
Every nerve in Till’s body seemed to awaken at once.
He wanted to see.
Till placed the CD case beside his sketchbook, his fingers clumsy against the plastic. He tried to tell himself that this did not mean anything. Ivan was feeding into his curiosity; that was all. Till had offered, Ivan had reconsidered, and now he was humoring him. Nothing had changed.
Still, his hands were not entirely steady when he caught the hem of his black shirt between his fingers.
He lifted it slowly.
The fabric dragged over his stomach, revealing a narrow strip of smooth pale skin first, and then the shallow definition of his ribs. The cold classroom air brushed across him, though heat continued gathering under his skin until he felt feverish with it.
Till kept his eyes lowered, because looking at Ivan felt mildly dangerous. If he saw discomfort on his face, or regret, or worse – the bored indifference of a teacher merely indulging a student’s strange request, Till suspected he might simply disintegrate where he stood.
He raised the shirt only high enough to expose one side of his chest. The small silver bar sat through his nipple, the surrounding skin still pink and faintly swollen, looking more vulnerable under the harsh fluorescent lights than it had in the piercing studio, where loud music had rattled through the walls and every surface had gleamed with stainless steel with the clinical, clean smell of disinfectant.
Here, with Ivan watching, it seemed startlingly intimate.
His lips had parted slightly, eyes lowered, fixed on the small flash of silver with an attention so complete that Till felt it everywhere. That gaze traced the reddened skin and followed the line of the jewelry, lingering long enough for Till’s breathing to become shallow. While the space between them had not changed, the distance no longer felt empty, as Ivan’s attention seemed to cross it.
Till could almost imagine the warmth of curious fingers following the same path of those dark eyes, and the thought sent a sharp tremor through him, his grip tightening around the bunched fabric.
“What… what do you think?” he asked, his voice coming out more nervous than intended, thickened by something he did not dare examine too closely.
Ivan inhaled carefully. “It suits you, Till.”
He spoke with control, because Ivan was always controlled, but Till had the impression that a thread had slipped loose.
Till looked up fully, and Ivan’s gaze rose to meet his, and for one suspended moment, neither of them seemed capable of pretending that this was harmless.
Till felt the shift pass through him like an electrical current, beginning within his ribcage and travelling lower before he could stop it. Ivan remained motionless, his hand still braced against the desk, but the look in his eyes had changed; now there was recognition.
Ivan’s eyes dropped to his exposed nipple once more. “You’ll need to be careful while they heal,” he said, voice lower than before. “Don’t keep touching them, and follow the cleaning instructions they gave you.”
The practical guidance fractured whatever formed between them.
Till smiled despite the unbearable pressure of the moment. “I know that; this isn’t my first time getting pierced.”
A sudden burst of laughter rose from the corridor, much closer this time, and so he let his shirt fall back, the fabric settling over his chest and brushing against the sensitive piercing, sending another sharp jolt through him, causing him to suck in a breath and his shoulder to jerk involuntarily.
Ivan’s eyes widened. Only slightly, but Till still saw it. Saw the way his focus caught on his body’s movement before his expression closed again.
Till smoothed his shirt down unnecessarily, suddenly unsure what to do with his hands, his eyes, or really any part of himself. If he had thought the silence before he lifted his shirt was awkward, this was worse.
His stomach dropped as Ivan pushed away from the desk, momentarily moving closer - but Ivan only moved around the desk to lower himself back into his chair. The broad wooden surface came between them again, restoring the ordinary arrangement of teacher and student, both safely on their correct sides.
Despite them already being perfectly aligned, Ivan began adjusting the finished essays. “You should go to your locker,” he said. “Lunch is almost over.”
Till glanced towards the clock; there were still several minutes left, but he understood anyway. “Okay.”
He collected the CD and sketchbook, shoving them into his bag before slinging it over one shoulder. His movements felt louder than they should have in the quieter classroom, every buckle and zip announcing his departure.
At the door, Till hesitated.
Ivan had picked up his pen, though there was nothing left in front of him to mark; his focus appeared to be fixed on the empty space where the final essay had been.
Till wanted to say something, a joke – a snarky comment, anything that might thrust them back towards normality. But he couldn’t find the words.
“See you later, sir,” he said at last.
Ivan’s fingers tightened around the pen.
“Yes, Till,” he replied, without looking up. “Later.”
Till finally stepped into the corridor, the classroom door remaining open behind him, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he had crossed some sort of hidden line. The more troubling realization that if he had… Ivan had crossed it too.
And Till was not sure he wanted either of them to step back.
---
By the time the sun had started sinking behind the neighboring rooftops, Till had changed his shirt four times and accomplished nothing except burying half his bed in rejected clothing.
He stood in front of the mirror with both hands braced against the dresser, studying his reflection as though it belonged to someone he had been asked to identify in a police lineup. His hair refused to sit correctly, the eyeliner he had applied looked cleaner above his waterline on one eye than the other, although every attempt to fix it only seemed to make the difference more obvious. He had already wiped away one wing and redrawn it twice; a third attempt would probably leave him looking as though he had been punched.
The black vest he wore was fine, he even liked it – but he would need a shirt over it. Going sleeveless on a night out would just make him look as though he wanted everyone to notice his arms, which he absolutely did not, not while the last of the fading marks remained visible against skin.
And of course, under his loose vest, his new piercings continued their steady, tender pulse, ensuring that whenever his thoughts drifted too far from the classroom that afternoon, his body promptly dragged him right back.
As though there had been any real possibility of forgetting…
Till had replayed the interaction so many times in his mind that he seemed to discover some new implication on each loop. Ivan’s eyes lowering… his hand gripping the desk… that gently spoken command before either of them could reconsider it.
‘Show me.’
And then the way Ivan had looked at him afterward, as if he had reached for something without thinking and only realized once it was already within his grasp that he was not supposed to claim it.
Till still had no idea what any of it really meant.
Perhaps Ivan had only been curious, felt sorry for him after the embarrassment of the refusal, reconsidering out of kindness, although there had been nothing particularly kind about the way his gaze had lingered on his exposed body… But really, the most likely option was that he had imagined the whole damn shift because he wanted Ivan to look at him differently, had become so fucking desperate that his mind needed to manufacture the evidence.
Now, that he could believe.
He snatched another shirt from the bed, held it against himself, and immediately threw it back onto the pile. Mizi had said the evening was casual, but casual could mean almost anything when coming from the girl who somehow managed to look radiant while wearing the basic school tracksuit and a ponytail. There would be other people there, including several members of the cheerleading team and, presumably, at least a few boys Till may or may not have ever met who actually knew how to speak to strangers without appearing either openly hostile or painfully uncomfortable.
Oh, why, kind, wonderful, if not slightly oblivious, sweet Mizi… why ask me to come, of all people?
Maybe this was her way of trying to draw him out of his shell, his socially awkward, vaguely artistic shell.
He still had more than an hour before he needed to leave… plenty of time to develop a mysterious and highly contagious illness. He was contemplating whether food poisoning sounded more convincing than a sudden fever when his phone vibrated across the dresser.
Till glanced down without much interest, expecting another message from Mizi reminding him of the address or threatening to come and haul him out by his ear herself. Instead, the name glowing across the screen made his stomach tighten.
Ivan.
For a moment, Till could only stare at the letters across his screen.
Ever since the day Till had arrived in his class bruised with an ugly split lip after a particularly rough night with Urak, and Ivan had subsequently given him his personal contact number, it had always been Till who called. Despite the initial reasoning for the gesture, Till had called on many occasions, often under some questionable pretext that neither of them examined too closely. Sometimes it was an essay question he could easily answer alone, or a song he insisted Ivan needed to hear, or because he had found some obscure film adaptation of a novel Ivan liked that Till needed to complain about while the outrage was still fresh. Other nights, particularly when Urak was drinking, Till would call to ask something painfully insignificant and then allow the conversation to wander until the noise elsewhere in the house had gone quiet. Ivan answered more often than he probably should have, with a weary, dry patience of someone tolerating a stray cat that had appeared on his doorstep and decided to move in, but still, Ivan never initiated the calls himself.
Till’s first thought was that something had happened. His second was considerably worse.
Ivan had spent the remainder of the afternoon thinking about what had occurred between them and had decided it needed to be addressed. Calling to tell Till that the interaction had been inappropriate, that whatever peculiar understanding existed between them did not permit Till to walk into his classroom and pull up his shirt whenever he felt like provoking a reaction. That Ivan was still his teacher. Perhaps he would say there needed to be clearer boundaries from now on… That showing him had been enough to ruin the strange, delicate thing they had built.
The phone continued to vibrate.
Till swallowed and answered before it could stop, furious with himself at the way his voice carried none of the composure he had hoped to portray. “Hey… what’s up?”
A brief pause followed. In the background, Till caught the faint melody of a string orchestra and what might have been the scrape of a glass being placed against a hard surface.
“Good evening to you, too,” Ivan replied.
The instant Ivan’s voice reached his keen ears, he noticed that something was… different. The words themselves were unremarkable, but Ivan spoke lower than usual, the slightly pretentious crispness of his speech smoother, slower… looser. Not enough to comment on, but Till tucked away a note of the observation regardless.
Till turned away from the mirror, pressing the phone more firmly to his ear. “Well, it’s kinda weird for you to call, isn’t it? I assumed someone died. Are you dying?”
“No, Till.” Ivan released a long breath that might have concealed a laugh. “I’m sorry to disappoint, but I’m not dead yet.”
Till waited for him to explain the real reason for the call, but as the seconds stretched on and Ivan remained silent, the feeling of unease began to creep back in.
“Uh,” he prompted. “Did you… Do you need something?”
“Hmm. Not particularly.” Another slow, languid answer.
Frowning to himself, Till tried a more direct approach. “Then why are you calling me?”
The orchestra continued playing somewhere on the other side of the call, and Till was on the verge of a catty remark when Ivan finally permitted himself to speak.
“I felt like talking to you.”
Till felt his fingers tighten around the phone. Ivan had spoken as though the answer were obvious, even ordinary, yet everything about the situation screamed that it wasn’t. He lowered himself onto the edge of his bed, a discarded pair of jeans beside him slipping to the floor in an undignified heap.
“Right,” he responded, because any more intelligent responses had apparently abandoned him. “Kinda weird, but that’s fine, I guess.”
Till pictured him sitting in his lounge (because obviously Ivan would have a lounge rather than a living room like mere commoners) with a stack of essays spread in front of him, maybe with his glasses back on, though the image did not quite fit the voice coming through the phone. He sounded far too relaxed to be marking any of his moronic classmates' work.
For wanting to talk, Ivan was being suspiciously quiet. “So… What are you doing?” Till ventured.
“I’m enjoying a glass of wine.”
Ah… that explained a lot.
“What? On your own?” Till smirked. “It’s a Friday night, isn’t that a little depressing even for your standards?”
“I think I’m more than entitled to it after surviving another week of dealing with classrooms of teenagers like yourself,” Ivan chuckled, the sound travelling down the line with an unfamiliar warmth.
Till felt an entirely unreasonable pang of resentment for being lumped together with the other students.
“If you say so…” Till said, leaning back on his elbow, stretching his legs along the floor. “I was just in the middle of getting ready.”
“Ah, yes, for your evening with Mizi.”
Till blinked, sitting upright once more. “I never told you about that.”
“You wound me, Till,” Ivan crooned. “No, you didn’t, but Mizi mentioned during cheerleading practice that she had invited you along to a social gathering tonight.”
“You both talk about me during cheerleading?”
“Only as a last resort, I assure you.”
Huffing, Till rolled his eyes, forgetting that Ivan could not see him. Some of the tension that had drawn into his shoulders finally drained out of him; whatever this conversation was, it did not seem to come with an excruciatingly awkward reprimand.
“Awh, are you jealous you weren’t invited, sir?”
There was another long pause, but Till could hear the delicate clink of glass once more, the wine glass he assumed, imagining Ivan taking a long sip of what was probably some ancient red wine with a French name Till would pronounce incorrectly just to annoy him.
“I’m devastated,” Ivan finally answered. “Although I’m sure you must be pleased. I hear Mizi has quite the competitive social diary.” He continued, before Till could reply, as though he was really talking for his own benefit. “You ought to accept more invitations, Till. It’s good for you to spend more time with people your own age. You should try your best to actually enjoy yourself tonight.”
Yes, yes – Till was painfully aware he was considered a bit of a loner, the classic example of your emo school reject. He had heard versions of this speech before, but there was something off about this one that he couldn’t quite place his finger on. Till glanced at his own reflection again, searching his own face as if it might help him identify what he was missing.
“But then who would keep you company while you drink alone on a Friday night?” Till jested, diverting from the point Ivan was clearly trying to make. “How often do you drink by yourself?”
“Not often.”
He looked over at the chaos covering his room, remembering that he still wasn’t ready for this fantastical night out that even Ivan had learnt of. If Ivan had known he would be getting ready and had chosen to interrupt him anyway, he could at least make himself useful.
“Alright,” Till said, rising from the bed. “Since you called, you can help me pick something to wear.”
Before Ivan could object, Till pulled the phone away from his ear and switched the call to video with the swipe of his thumb. His own face appeared, framed from an unflattering angle beneath his chin. He swore, adjusted the phone, and propped it against a stack of unread textbooks on the dresser until the camera captured him from the waist up.
He waited for Ivan’s camera to activate, but the call remained divided between Till’s image and a dark square containing Ivan’s initial.
Till frowned into the camera. “You’re supposed to turn yours on too.”
This time the response was swift. “No. I look dreadful.”
Tutting, Till complained. “Oh, give over, no, you don’t. You’re way too vain to let yourself look like shit.”
Ivan hummed. “I am sitting in a boring old gym top and a pair of jogging bottoms with a glass of red wine. There is nothing worth seeing.”
Stepping out of frame, Till changed into his first option, tugging it down slowly over his body as he considered the idea.
Till privately disagreed with almost every part of that assessment.
A new image arrived far too easily. Ivan sprawled somewhere in his apartment, dark hair perhaps falling loose over his forehead, maybe damp from a shower. An old gym shirt stretching across his shoulders. The jogging bottoms were impossible not to picture once they had been mentioned, soft fabric slow on his hips, one knee raised while he traced the stem of a long wine glass idly between his fingers.
Till stared at the dark square where Ivan’s face should have been.
The scene sounded perfectly worth seeing.
“You’re gone quiet,” Ivan observed, the velvety tones of his voice increasingly becoming difficult to ignore.
Till moved back into frame, his voice softer than before. “You probably look ridiculous.”
He adjusted the phone so it captured him from head to midway down his thighs. “Okay, so this is the first option.”
The t-shirt was black, long-sleeved, and loose enough to hide most of his shape. It had a slightly faded print across the front from a band Ivan had once described as an insult to music. Ivan considered it for long enough that Till became conscious of standing there waiting for his approval.
“No,” Ivan said at last.
Punctured, the air deflated out of Till’s lungs. “Why? What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s too large for a start,” Ivan sighed, “and you wear tops like that to school regularly. Why don’t you try dressing a little nicer for tonight? You might actually make a good impression that way.”
Till started to take the unsolicited (a little solicited) constructive criticism personally when Ivan spoke again.
“Try another shirt – but with some effort this time.”
“I guess being a bossy prick is just part of your full-time personality,” Till grumbled, although he did in fact begin to rummage through the shirts lying around his room as requested.
“And yet,” Ivan replied, amusement curling through the words, “here you are, doing as you’re told.”
Till swore, followed by Ivan's rumbling laugh from the other side of the phone, the vibrations of his voice reaching under Till’s skin as heat crept up the back of his neck.
There was another sharp clink of glass moving. Damn, Ivan really was enjoying his wine tonight.
Gripping his next attempt in one fist, Till jumped out of view again and stripped off the rejected band t-shirt, wincing when the fabric dragged across his tender chest, tossing it over the bed. He slipped his arms into a dark maroon button-up and drew it over his shoulders, pausing when a faint rustle travelled through his phone, leaving the shirt hanging open. Nothing followed except for Ivan’s oh so very faint breathing, steady enough that Till wondered whether he had heard anything at all.
He drew the two sides of the shirt together; the material was smoother than his previous top, cool where it brushed across his stomach. It was a shirt he’d never worn out, the very definition of an impulse purchase he had carried home, hung in his wardrobe and promptly forgotten. Till fastened two of the middle buttons before stepping back into the camera’s view.
“What about this one?”
He kept his head lowered, concentrating on feeding another button through its stubbornly narrow hole. He expected the immediate criticism Ivan had offered before; maybe this time, he’d tell him the color was unflattering or that the fabric was too cheap to be worth considering. Instead, the dark square offered him nothing.
Till flattened one side of the shirt where it had creased inwards. “Ivan? You still there?”
This time, a quiet exhale stirred across the connection.
“Step back.”
Till’s fingers stilled against the next button.
It was a perfectly reasonable request given the situation at hand. Ivan needed to see the full outfit if he was going to be able to judge it properly, but the manner in which he asked made Till’s stomach flutter. The words had emerged with a slight grit that Ivan did not usually possess, stripped of the usual polished authority, yet somehow it sounded more difficult to disobey the command because of it.
He stepped backward until the backs of his legs met his bed, the phone now capturing him from his head to his knees, his black jeans sitting snug below the untucked shirt.
“Is this enough effort for you?”
“Yes.” That word caught slightly in Ivan’s throat.
Till waited for him to elaborate, his fingers returning to fastening the buttons one by one while looking down, leaving the top two undone, allowing the collar to fall open around the base of his throat.
Another sound through the speakers caught his attention. This time, followed by what he could only describe as a very subtle, slow, yet rhythmic sound, too indistinct to place. It disappeared under the music playing somewhere in Ivan’s apartment, no doubt to make drinking alone look intentional rather than bleak.
“Well?” Till prompted. “What do you think?”
Ivan took so long to answer that Till glanced at the dark square on the screen, half expecting he had really dropped off the call this time.
“That looks much better,” Ivan finally responded.
Finally receiving the minor compliment he had been waiting for, he should have been pleased, and he was – embarrassingly so – but again, there was a strangeness in the delivery that kept him unsettled. Each word had been carefully separated from the next, as though Ivan had been required to retrieve them individually, and the final syllable left him on a breath that sounded less controlled than it ought to have.
Till let his gaze lift to the mirror, trying to see what Ivan saw. The reflection waiting for him sent heat rushing into his face. He had remembered the shirt being fitted; he had not remembered it fitting like this.
The thin material traced the narrow line of his torso and slight waist, tighter over his shoulders, every shallow breath subtly changing the way it rested against him. Perhaps he had grown since he bought it (less likely), or he’d simply never bothered to properly try it on with any attention (most likely). That alone would have been enough to make him self-conscious. But the worst part of it all was the way his new jewelry created faint but unmistakable peaks in the fabric. He couldn’t help but stare at his own reflection, realization dawning that there was no possibility that Ivan had failed to notice.
Heat climbed from his throat to the tips of his ears. Instinctively, he folded his arms, which, upon reflection, had been a fairly useless gesture considering the up close and personal view he had willingly given Ivan of his piercings earlier that day.
“Something wrong?” Ivan queried, his voice unexpectedly cautious, as though Till’s discomfort had reached through the screen.
“No, it’s just…” Till dropped his arms just as quickly as he had raised them, unwilling to let Ivan see just how mortified he had been. “Tighter… than I remembered.”
“Mhm.”
The hum travelled through Till; he had not even attempted to disagree. Till’s fingers caught at the open collar, pulling one side inward before allowing it to fall back into place. The movement did absolutely nothing to disguise what the thin fabric revealed… all while Ivan watched. At least, Till assumed he was watching. The black square on the screen gave nothing away.
“Is that all you’re gonna say?” Till asked, trying to sound irritated rather than unnerved. “Usually, you love the sound of your own voice.”
He heard him breathe in, slow and measured, followed by the gentle click of his tongue against his teeth before he answered.
“Turn for me.”
Till glanced towards the screen. “You’re taking this job very seriously.”
“Turn around, Till.” His name arrived lower than the rest, roughened in Ivan’s throat.
The flutter in Till’s stomach tightened.
He should have made another joke, asked Ivan whether the wine had transformed him into some deranged fashion critic. Instead, he obeyed, turning slowly, offering the camera his side and then his back, the whole time feeling absurdly conscious of every inch of himself as he moved. So he can check the fit. That was the purpose of this. Nothing more.
The shirt pulled tighter across his shoulder blades when he folded his arms loosely in front of him, and without meaning to, Till held his breath while he waited for Ivan’s assessment.
None came.
In the drawn-out silence, he heard that soft movement again.
It drifted from the phone behind him, lazy and repetitive, barely louder than the distant music. Till found himself turning his face curiously over his shoulder, and as he found the green of his own eyes looking back at him on the phone image – he heard a sharp involuntary intake of breath, as Ivan’s breath faltered.
It all seemed to slot into place inside Till’s body before his mind understood it, a warm disorientating pulse shooting lower through him.
Wet.
Till continued to stare at his reflection.
The rhythmic noise sounded wet. The stuttering intake of breath –
His mind supplied him with the comparison that his body was already recalling… one he knew all too well.
The taste of cloth from a t-shirt clenched between teeth, muffling the gasps that desperately wanted to escape while his own hand reached between his legs, wrapped firmly around –
His eyes widened. Till whipped his head toward the wall before his expression could betray him to the camera.
“No, uh – actually, I think it’s too much,” He stumbled out, his throat thickening around the words.
He straightened unconsciously. That was not happening, and the delusion of it embarrassed him even in the privacy of his own mind, rejecting it to try and prevent it from forming too clearly. But his body refused to cooperate, and he felt heat deep in his abdomen, curling tighter as it inched deliciously down his body.
“You know –” Till continued, swallowing against the sudden dryness of his mouth, “the shirt, it’s not right.”
He waited for a response, his head feeling strangely light, as his blood pumped too quickly around his body.
“No,” Ivan murmured at last. “Not for tonight.”
The unhurried, slick beat continued.
This time, Till couldn’t help his imagination from supplying the image.
Ivan leaning back somewhere dim in his immaculate apartment, perhaps with only a lamp burning beside him. The empty wine glass abandoned on a nearby table. A pretty flush high on his cheeks that Till had never seen before, the phone held securely in one hand, the image of Till filling the screen, dark eyes fixed on him as he modelled outfits for Ivan. His other hand held lower… out of sight, gliding up and down around himself with a steady rhythm.
Till’s breath caught in his throat.
No.
Ivan would not be touching himself while watching him.
But the possibility moved through Till like an electric current he could not dislodge. And once imagined, the scene came into clearer focus with every second. Every airy breath, every movement, every sound was repeating in his mind, and Till’s pulse began to beat hard enough that he felt it in his throat.
“I… I’ll try something else.”
He stepped out of view, and the instant the dark edge of the phone screen concealed him, Till covered his face with one hand, his skin burning under his palm.
This was insanity.
He stood beside the dresser, breathing through parted fingers, trying to slow the frantic rise and fall of his chest. The maroon shirt became unbearable against him, every brush of the fabric over his nipples feeding the feverish loop of his thoughts.
Ivan might be touching himself.
Looking at him. Because of him.
A nervous thrill tore through Till, so intense that his knees felt briefly uncertain of their purpose. He lowered his hand from his face and stared at the floor, willing the room to become solid around him again.
He could, should end the call… that was the sensible response… right? He could tell Ivan that he didn’t need his help and could finish getting ready himself, then hang up before spending the next hour pretending the conversation had not somehow tilted irreversibly off its axis. End whatever game they had stumbled into.
Instead, Till reached for another shirt.
His fingers felt clumsy as he undid the dark buttons of the maroon shirt. He kept himself carefully outside of the camera’s reach, though the knowledge that Ivan was right there… listening, waiting… made the privacy feel almost imaginary.
Till pulled on a black top, simpler, still flattering, but with a more modest fit. It caught briefly against his hair, forcing him to tug it down with both hands. He smoothed the disordered strands into place and tugged the hem down over his stomach, attempting to recover some fragment of his composure.
When he returned to Ivan’s view, the movement on the other end seemed to slow even further, if that was possible.
“What about this?” Till asked, his voice gentler than he intended. His thumb found the inside of his opposite wrist and began tracing firm circles against his racing pulse.
“No,” Ivan dismissed almost immediately, “Try another shirt.”
Till barely cared about the answer anymore, the clothes had become almost irrelevant, merely props secondary to the thoughts screaming inside his head.
“Sir?” The word slipped out softly, as Till’s heart gave a violent thud.
“Yes, Till?” Ivan’s voice was strained enough now that Till could no longer pretend not to hear it.
Till continued staring towards the black square on the phone screen, the real question pressed behind his teeth, terrifying in its simplicity.
Are you masturbating?
He could not say it. Speaking those words would make the possibility too real, and if somehow he was wrong, there would be no surviving the humiliation… And if he were right… What the fuck was he supposed to do next with that information?
Till swallowed forcefully against nothing. “What are you doing?”
The silence that followed was almost excruciating, stretching so long that Till could hear the unsteady beat of his own pulse inside his ears. Somewhere beyond the phone, the orchestra continued playing with stately indifference.
“I’m helping you choose an outfit,” Ivan replied at last.
Liar.
The word flashed through Till’s mind with startling certainty.
Liar. You’re a fucking liar, Ivan.
Breath escaped Till all at once, almost becoming a harsh laugh. “That’s… that’s not what I-”
A low, breathy chuckle vibrated through the speaker. “I know.”
Another wave of heat washed through Till’s body, every part of him more alive and alert to sensations that should have been too small to notice; he could feel his heartbeat throb everywhere, in his throat, his fingertips, deep in his stomach… lower.
“Show me another one.”
The deflection should have irritated him, and it did, somewhere under all the haze of his want. Ivan wanted to enjoy this without acknowledging it. Wanted Till to continue while preserving the fiction that this was about outfits – that Till remained oblivious, that nothing had changed.
Yet the request also unfurled through Till with a dark, dizzying excitement. He looked at his own image on the screen, cheeks flushed red, eyes wide under the dark liner; his hair had fallen messily over his forehead despite his attempts to tame it. One hand still circled his wrist as though he needed to physically prevent himself from coming apart.
Ivan wanted him to continue… to watch and relish in him while hiding in that black square, protected from every consequence by the convenient absence of his own face. Is that what Ivan thought this was? Something he could take while Till obediently pretended not to understand?
No. He wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of hiding.
His attention remained fixed upon the dark square that had somehow become more captivating than Ivan’s face might have been. Every sound emerging from it seemed magnified now – the distant strings, the occasional catch of Ivan’s breathing, the faint whisper of pleasure being found beyond Till’s sight.
His fingers curled around the hem of his top.
Ivan wanted more?
Every time he had moved away from the camera to change, he had done it because he assumed that was the right thing to do, what he wanted, what Ivan wanted.
He’d give him more.
This time… he stayed exactly where he was.
His heart struck hard against his ribs as he crossed his arms and caught the hem of the black top in both hands. For one suspended second, he remained perfectly still, giving Ivan ample opportunity to understand his intentions.
Then, Till began to pull the shirt upward.
Agonizingly slowly.
The fabric dragged over his stomach, exposing a narrow strip of pale skin before climbing higher, the cool air kissing his waist. His pulse seemed to gather under every inch he uncovered, leaving him unnaturally aware of himself, of the slight definition along his abdomen, the shirt slipping over his ribs as he drew it upwards.
Ivan’s breath hitched as the black fabric passed over his chest, his arms lifted above his head, stretching his body upwards, leaving him completely exposed to the camera before the top finally slipped free, and his hair fell back into uneven strands around his face.
Till let the discarded top fall from his hand. The silence between them felt alive, pressing against his skin with almost physical weight, heavier than any stare those beautiful dark eyes could have provided him. Till knew he was being watched, could feel it in the sudden raggedness of Ivan’s next breath, in the slow, faint, wetter sounds that followed, less controlled now, briefly losing its rhythm before returning.
An intoxicating surge of gratification went through him.
He had caused that.
Till lowered his gaze, feigning interest in the clothes on the bed, the final combination he had laid aside earlier, while every nerve in his body remained trained on the phone. He lifted a black long-sleeve shirt and held it in front of his chest, holding the garment against himself without putting it on, only covering the center of his torso, leaving the silver jewelry visible on either side.
When Ivan finally spoke, his voice had deepened into a register Till barely recognized. “Why did you get them?”
Till glanced down at himself, the question felt oddly intimate, despite everything Ivan had already seen. Perhaps because Ivan wanted to know why Till had chosen to alter his body in this particular way, to understand him. Till had wanted something that belonged entirely to him. His body had spent years feeling like contested territory, something Urak could bruise, classmates could whisper about, and Till himself could only endure. This was something Till had chosen rather than inflicted upon himself, like all of his piercings. Something beautiful for himself.
And somewhere, within that decision, there had existed another desire… That Ivan might see, might want.
Till chose the path containing fewer traps.
“I thought they’d look good.”
Ivan breathed out, the sound scarcely more than a whisper. “Is that the only reason?”
Till tightened the grip on his shirt. “What other reason would there be?”
Ivan did not answer straight away, and Till could picture with startling ease the expression that might have accompanied Ivan’s silence – dark eyes narrowed, mouth curved in that maddeningly restrained way it did wherever he believed Till was withholding a part of himself.
“Did you get them for tonight?” Ivan asked.
Till blinked. “What?”
“Did you want… someone to see?”
A sharp heat twisted low in Till’s stomach. He could hear the possessiveness hidden inside the question, almost carefully disguised by Ivan’s practiced tone, but no amount of polish could truly conceal it now.
Till found himself answering with more intention than he expected. “I’ve wanted the piercings for months… I got the idea from an ‘Unknown Sorrow’ photoshoot… the lead guitarist had his pierced.” He glanced down, tracing the black fabric with one thumb. “I’ve been trying to set aside as much money as I can afford for things like this, and I had to book weeks in advance. So, no… They weren’t for tonight.”
Was he jealous? Was that even possible? But yet… tonight, that seemed almost inconsequential compared to everything else that was unfolding around them.
A shiver crawled up Till’s spine… maybe this could not be undone.
Till’s fragile confidence flickered, but as he thought of Ivan and what his hidden hand was doing to himself, as Till stood before him half naked, it drove him forward again.
“Turn your camera on,” Till insisted. “I don’t care what you’re wearing… Let me… let me see you.”
If he could look into those dark eyes… what would he find? He needed to know whether the face he had imagined bore any resemblance to reality. Whether he was consumed by the same impossible hunger that had taken hold of Till.
For several moments, Ivan said nothing. The music continued faintly in the background, the delicate sweep of strings almost ridiculous against the tension filling Till’s bedroom.
“I can’t do that, Till.”
A refusal, strained at its edges, as though granting the request would break whatever brittle restraint Ivan still possessed.
Disappointment sank through Till, hot and surprisingly sharp. He hid it by unfurling his fitted black top, pulling it over his head, less slowly this time, though still remaining fully within view. The material settled close against his body, outlining his chest and waist without revealing what lay underneath. He tugged the hem down, then tucked it slowly into his jeans. The adjustment required him to slide both hands around his waist, smoothing the cloth beneath the waistband… Till was acutely conscious of the camera as he worked, of the way his fingers disappeared briefly between fabric and denim, flattening the shirt against his hips. The movement felt vaguely indecent, and Till allowed himself to linger over it before drawing his palms free.
When he lifted his face towards the lens, Ivan’s breathing deepened again.
Till reached for the final layer, a loose, half-sleeved grey top next, shorter than anything he normally wore, cut to fall just above the waist, with fine silver chains draped across both shoulders. He pulled it on and adjusted the neckline, stepping backwards to provide Ivan with a clearer view.
The grey fabric fell loosely around his chest and ended just above his waist, revealing a narrow section of the fitted black top visible between it and his jeans. The layered effect sharpened his slight frame rather than concealing it, drawing attention to the slim line of his middle and the dark denim sitting low across his hips. The delicate chains at his shoulders caught the dim light, echoing the jewelry now safely hidden from view. His look was unusual without appearing forced, deliberate in a way Till rarely allowed himself to be.
For the first time since the call had begun, Till felt genuinely nervous about Ivan’s opinion. He needed Ivan to like it.
“Ivan,” Till said, resting one hand against his waist, pretending the pose was accidental. “Is this okay?”
As before, Ivan was agonizingly slow to answer. Till waited, his earlier boldness beginning to shake on its unsteady foundations. Maybe the cropped layer looked foolish, like he had tried too hard to appear interesting. Maybe stroking his own body didn’t read as sexy, and instead made him look pathetic, some desperate loser performing for the approval of the popular teacher he could not stop wanting.
Noise rose inside his head, shrill and overwhelming.
Maybe none of this was okay?
Ivan cut through all of the suffocatingly relentless noise.
“You look beautiful.”
The words arrived quietly, without any of the earlier teasing that came so naturally to Ivan.
Every part of Till went dangerously still.
Ivan had called him many things over the years they had known each other. Difficult, stubborn, angry… frequently infuriating. Talented, occasionally, when he had created something exceptional that even Ivan had been unable to pretend otherwise. He’d even said he was a ‘good-looking guy’ under the guise that if Till had only tried to open himself to the possibilities of the people around him, he might find more acceptance among his peers.
But… never beautiful.
Beautiful didn’t belong to him. It belonged to Ivan. It radiated from him, in the certainty of his movements, the effortless way he knew how to draw everyone in to him, to the way he spoke of literature and classical love stories that Till pretended to have no interest in. It was in the way he made space for Till, even when he arrived damaged, defensive, and incapable of managing the violence of everything he felt.
Everything he felt now… all of it directed towards a black square on his screen.
Beautiful… the word settled everywhere inside him, warm and unbearable, finding hollow places he had not known were waiting to be filled and were greedy for more.
Till lowered his eyes before Ivan could see how much the admission had affected him, but he was unable to prevent the small, disbelieving smile pulling at his lips. “You’ve… you’ve definitely had too much wine.”
“Ah, perhaps…” Ivan acknowledged, faintly amused.
The room seemed hot and humid against his skin now, the layers of clothing clinging to his body. He wanted to ask him if Ivan meant it, but he didn’t dare risk the illusion that it could have been a flicker of truth Ivan had kept hidden from him.
Whatever distance remained between them felt like it was collapsing into ruins. Ivan might have been across the town from him, but Till felt captured within hungry eyes he could not see, studied with a reverence that made his logical defenses that protected him fiercely loosen their grip. All sensible thought was drowning under his heartbeat and the occasional roughening cadence of Ivan’s breath.
Maybe… Ivan really did think he was beautiful, telling him that, while his hidden hand, if Till was right, had not stopped moving.
The combination made Till feel intoxicated. There still remained a chance he had misunderstood… but that possibility now seemed so detached from the tension in his body and the tightening in his own jeans.
Moving without thought, Till’s hand slipped down his stomach, fingers shaky as they came to rest above his waistband.
“I… I don’t think these jeans are right,” He breathed out, staring with renewed focus on the black square.
The lack of an answer sent a thrill through him; he knew Ivan had heard him, was waiting with anticipation, or fear of Till’s intentions. Till could almost feel the palpable tension gathering on the other side of the call, a cord drawn tighter with every second he remained still.
His wandering hand found his belt.
The buckle was cool on the tips of his trembling fingers. He slipped the dark leather free from the metal prong, a sharp click obscenely loud in the dim bedroom.
He imagined Ivan sitting forward, bringing the phone closer to his nose as he watched him, eyes dropping towards the slight visible bulge in his jeans.
Till drew the belt slowly through the buckle. His pulse was racing so violently that he could feel it in his fingertips, making the leather tremble against him as he pulled it loose. He left it threaded through the loops, the ends hanging open on either side of his hips.
A sharp, undeniably labored exhale of breath bled through the speaker.
There you are.
Till placed his thumb against the button of his jeans. He hesitated on it, not because he wanted to stop, but because he wanted Ivan to understand that this was deliberate. That Till knew how Ivan was consuming him, that he had chosen to stand in front of the camera and offer him this.
He pushed the button through its hole.
“Till, wait.”
His name reached him softly, said almost as a whisper under Ivan’s breath.
But Till couldn’t focus on Ivan calling his name, to interpret whether he was trying to stop him, or simply unable to stop himself from saying it.
All he could hear was the slick, uncoordinated sound that was increasing in speed, slipping through the phone, that exhilarating movement of skin gliding over skin that sounded so much louder in his ears than it could have been in reality. That steady, controlled beat Till had been listening for was losing itself, and Till’s face throbbed with heat, salvia pooling in his mouth.
“Sir?” Till breathed out, clipped and masquerading as innocence.
Till’s fingers drifted toward his zipper.
“Till,” Ivan repeated his name, but this time, there was an edge of a useless warning, too frayed, too late to make any difference. "T-” a barely there sound swallowed as Ivan shifted wherever he sat, “Shit-”
Even the curse was quiet, like it had slipped through clenched teeth; Till had heard him swear before, but never like that.
There was no more uncertainty.
Ivan was touching himself, losing that perfect controlled composure as he was tipping over the edge.
Till’s fingers rested against the small metal tab; he felt suspended there, every nerve in his body trained upon Ivan’s quickening movements.
Then he began to pull, the zipper moving down by a fraction, each tiny metallic tooth releasing with a quiet rasp. He continued slowly, his fingers shaking so badly now that he could barely maintain the ridiculous pace. The movement was not practical. He was not changing his clothes. They both knew it, and the knowledge made the air thick enough to choke on.
“Till.” His name broke this time.
Till stopped, though he did not release the zipper through Ivan’s long, shuddering breath. Till strained his ears, but he could no longer hear the movement, only Ivan trying to gather enough control to speak.
“You don’t need to do that.” The words were careful, gentle, even.
They should have broken whatever fever had seized hold of Till; they should have returned him to sanity, to the absurdity of standing in his bedroom with his jeans partly undone while his teacher was on the other side of the phone.
Instead, Till felt a small flare of hurt creeping under the heat.
“Maybe I want to.” The admission left him rougher than intended, hovering somewhere between a challenge and a confession.
“I understand that.”
It was not enough. Not while Till’s pulse still hammered through his veins, not now that the triumph of knowing he could have this kind of effect over Ivan. He closed his eyes, trying to ground himself in the room around him, to feel the warm floor against his bare feet. His own breathing sounded too loud, almost childish in its lack of control.
When he opened his eyes, the black square stared back at him unchanged.
“Then why… why are you telling me to stop?” The question that emerged from him was smaller than he wanted it to be, before the growing embarrassment made his eyes narrow. “Just be honest and tell me that you just don’t want me to.”
Ivan sighed into the phone. “That is not what I’m saying.”
The force in Ivan’s response startled him.
Ivan seemed to reconsider his approach, the polished dryness beginning to return, if only in fragments. “The jeans are fine. The shirt is fine.” Ivan paused, his breath catching before he forced the rest into place. “Everything is…Everything is already exactly as it should be for tonight.”
Till looked down at himself, his hand finally letting go of the zipper. “Right.” The feeling of rejection had not completely disappeared, but it shifted as he began to understand.
Ivan was not saying he did not want him.
“Yeah…” Till continued. “I like this one too.”
“Then it’s settled.”
Till nodded before drawing the zipper upward again, fastening the button into its hole. Each practical action may have succeeded in making him more presentable, but it did nothing to cool the desire pooling. He left the belt open, letting the ends hang loose, if even to allow some small part of evidence of what had almost happened to remain.
He found his own reflection in the mirror once more, his cheeks were still red, his eyes unnaturally bright, accentuated by his dark liner. Arousal and nerves mixed together, making him no longer quite recognizable as the boy who had answered Ivan’s call, expecting a reprimand.
“How much wine have you actually drunk tonight?” Till asked.
And acutely, Till realized that it mattered greatly that Ivan remembered this. Till could survive Ivan regretting it tomorrow; he was not certain he could survive discovering Ivan had been too drunk to understand what had been shared at all.
“Not nearly enough,” Ivan said dryly.
Till’s lips curved despite himself. “So… you’ll be able to remember us talking?”
A deep, stupidly charming laugh reached Till’s ears. “Yes, Till. I’m fairly certain I’ll have no issue remembering.”
The answer travelled warmly through Till. He picked up his phone, bringing it closer. His face filled more of the screen now, while Ivan remained represented by that irritating black square, with only his initials for company.
“I think, I’ve stolen enough of your time tonight,” Ivan said.
Till glanced at the time displayed on the screen; there was still time before he needed to leave, though less than he had imagined.
Ivan finally seemed calmer again, the strain had receded from his voice, although the air between them had not returned to what it had been before. A small part of Till suspected it never would.
Clearing his throat, Ivan continued. “You should go and enjoy yourself.”
He sounded sincere, Till recognized that Ivan was guiding the conversation towards its end. Till traced his thumb along the edge of the phone.
“Yeah,” he said, “I suppose I should.”
He lingered for another moment, reluctant to press the button that would dissolve Ivan’s presence from the room. There were countless things he wanted to ask but knew he could not. Whether this had begun this afternoon in the classroom, or long before. Whether Ivan would think about him after the call ended. Every question risked shattering the peculiar honesty they had found inside their denial.
Instead, Till said, “Thanks for helping me.”
A pause followed.
“Goodnight, Till.”
“Night.”
The call disconnected, and with it the screen dimmed under Till’s thumb.