Chapter Text
At first, Till doesn’t realize that he has a gift.
It is rare but not unheard of, children being born with certain skills. The problem, for him, is that his gift manifests when he is stuck with his father in a quiet room, whose thoughts are basically indistinguishable from the things he says aloud. Good for nothing clumsy boy. Starting fights and putting holes in his socks for no reason.
The holes are outside of Till’s control—he’s a child going through a growth spurt, all of three years old and stringy with it. The fight, however, was his fault. He has no defense to offer. He mumbles an apology, his father takes it at face value, and that’s the end of that.
It’s only once he gets older, when people’s minds get more complicated, that he realizes it’s less a gift and more of a curse. Till has always been awkward, quick to anger and reluctant to take anything back. He retreats inwards, learns to keep his eyes pointed at the floor or look into the middle distance to prevent himself from hearing all of the impolite terms lobbed at him.
By the time college rolls around, Till has a system. He is familiar with the decay period on his ability, how long eye contact will give him insights he didn’t want in the first place. He’s not going to let anything stop him from living his life. His gift is just something he has to deal with.
On the first day of sophomore year, he bumps into someone on his way out of his favorite café. This is not a problem in and of itself. The problem is, before he can fall flat on his ass, the other person catches him. A warm arm wraps around his back. Their faces are too close for Till to look away without seeming totally insane, so he steels himself for the onslaught. Watch where you’re going. God, this guy is gonna make me late.
None of that happens. It’s suspiciously quiet for a beat, then a thought incongruous with the stranger’s blank, placid expression slams into Till with all the force of a freight train. Goodness, he’s pretty.
Unused to compliments, Till squirms free, cheeks hot. “T-thanks,” he stammers.
“No problem,” is the sound of his smooth baritone, a match for the voice Till heard in his head. “I’m glad you didn’t spill anything.”
He nods, scurrying off to class. He arrives early, having accounted for the line being ridiculous. There’s nothing to do but wait, filtering into the lecture hall then choosing a seat.
With two minutes to spare, the same dark-haired student slides into the empty seat beside him. “Hello again,” he says. “I’m Ivan, and you are?”
“Till.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Till.”
Till can’t help himself; he scoffs.
It won’t take Ivan long to change his mind.
Not only does Ivan fail to change his mind, he gets worse.
Till does not feel particularly inclined to tell Ivan about his gift. He had been disowned after he reported his father’s underground deals to the authorities and his foster mother wasn’t exactly the biggest fan of him knowing all of her sordid secrets either.
There’s no nice way to say, “Can you stop thinking about fucking my brains out for five minutes?” without sounding a little bit crazy.
It started off with a series of observations spurred on by Till’s snappy reactions. Rather than growing irritated with him, as so many did before they learned to keep their distance, Ivan prowled closer. He had gone so far as to memorize Till’s order so that he could buy Till's coffee, sparing him the trouble of going to the crowded shop.
Till is not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it’s only after getting shocked with the mental image of Ivan’s tongue sliding into his mouth that he wonders if he has somehow given Ivan the wrong impression.
At some point, he realizes that something is just wrong with Ivan, full stop. He hasn’t so much as stared into Ivan's eyes in weeks, but his voice is as loud as ever. The visions only grow more lurid. Ivan whiffs his armpits in his head and the sensation is so visceral that Till winds up zipping up his jacket, glaring at Ivan entirely on accident.
Ah, Ivan thinks, tone dreamy, he finally looked at me.
Something about the softness of his expression, about his pure, blind elation, gives Till pause. Rosy-cheeked, he lets Ivan’s transgressions slide. He’s harmless, after all. Generally speaking.
That exchange happened weeks ago. As it turns out, Till’s failure to reprimand Ivan for acting like an ardent admirer has turned him into an utter reprobate.
Till watches porn because of course he does, he’s a healthy red-blooded male, but nothing like this. Ivan breathes hot on his skin in the bathroom, on the dining table in some sort of fancy mansion—his house, maybe? Surely not, they’re enrolled in a public university—etcetera and so forth. It gets to the point that Till wonders if Ivan absorbs any of the information being presented to them in class.
Unfortunately, the tests don’t lie. “What the hell?” Till mutters, shaking his head. He had gotten a seventy-two in comparison to Ivan’s perfect score.
He feels like Ivan owes him for obliterating him over and over again in his mind, making an utter mess of his hole. “Are you any good at Chemistry?”
“Decent, I suppose.”
Till had been considering dropping it because his grades were so god-awful terrible, but if Ivan is willing to help him out, he'll bite the bullet and get it over with. “Meet me at the library on Friday afternoon.”
“Alright.”
There are pros and cons to studying with Ivan.
The pros: he’s brilliant. He explains complex concepts in such simple terms, Till is impressed. He scribbles notes on paper because his memory is stronger when he writes things out by hand. Ivan doesn’t complain when he doodles, either, telling Till that he should learn to use artistic symbols as mnemonic devices.
The cons: Ivan is still kind of, well…obsessed with him. He’s sort of an asshole about it, though, is the thing. Ivan thinks Till is a moron, but a lovable one. He thinks everything Till does is messy and Till can’t refute him when he’s stuffing his face and getting sauce all over his shirt. Nothing Till does seems to curb Ivan’s enthusiasm in the least.
Till powers through exactly four study sessions, marveling over his shiny eighty-nine percent before he decides to come clean, mumbling all the while. Surely, the truth would be compelling enough to turn Ivan off.
“Hmm,” is Ivan’s placid response.
Till gawps, shaking him by the shoulders. “That’s all you have to say?”
Their eyes lock, brown irises so dark as to be black meeting aquamarine. A bawdy moan in Ivan's head has Till looking away, going pink up to the tips of his ears. “I did think that you were unusually wary of me. It takes most people ages to realize that my intentions are impure.”
Admittedly, Till would have fallen for the ruse without his gift. Ivan had a handsome face, a silver tongue, and a gorgeous smile. Those weapons would have been enough to win the average person over.
“So?” Till asks, guiding the conversation back to the rails.
“So?” Ivan echoes, lacing his fingers beneath his chin.
“It doesn’t bother you?”
His gaze goes distant and somber for a moment. Eventually, Ivan plasters on a smile. It’s a gentle thing, genuine in a way his shit-eating grins are not. “No. This comes as something of a relief, honestly.”
Till intends to ask Ivan what he means, but before he can utter a single word, thoughts of fingers trailing up his throat consume him, followed by flashes of strong hands tugging at his thighs. Till’s back hits a steering wheel. The horn blares. He’s sweaty and sticky and Ivan is hard as hell inside him.
Now that I know I have an audience, I have to do a better job of making the show entertaining.
Reflexively, Till punches him in the arm.
The funny thing about escalation is that the intensity ramps up to such a degree that it offsets the strides Till could be making in his studies.
If Ivan is going to keep daydreaming about fucking him against every flat surface—at an obnoxious volume, at that—Till isn’t going endure Ivan tucking hair behind his ears, whispering formulas to him while their knees brush in public.
His dorm is a terrible idea, mostly because his roommate sucks. As it turns out, Ivan has an apartment to himself.
Till has the self-awareness to pause as he gathers his things in the lecture hall, eyes narrowing. “You’re not going to do anything to me, are you?”
Ivan smiles. “I won’t do anything you dislike.”
That’s going to have to be good enough.
He packs his things for an overnight stay, taking off his contacts before he leaves. His piercings and his baggy sweatpants keep him from looking too much the part of an honor student.
Surprisingly, when Ivan comes to the lobby to get him, he’s wearing glasses too. When Till teases him about it, saying, “Wow, Mr. Perfect has flaws after all,” Ivan laughs.
“Over half of the population requires corrective vision.”
“You seem like the sort of guy who would have gotten surgery to deal with it.”
“I’m not interested in a stranger taking a laser to my eyes.”
Till snorts. “Fair enough.”
True to his word, Ivan is polite for two hours. He brews Till coffee, tutoring him diligently. His thoughts wander, but not much. Till can’t help but think he’s putting in an awful lot of effort into playing nice.
Then, boom: Till is splayed out on a table covered in various meats and cheeses. How they managed to stay intact when his skin feels like it’s boiling, Till has no idea, but what is far more distracting is that Ivan is eating off of him, pulling salami between his plump lips then sucking the salt off of Till until he bruises.
Till’s breath comes in short bursts. All of his limbs are restrained. It is with a gasp that Till opens his eyes, staring at Ivan in horny-horror.
“Sorry,” Ivan hums, looking profoundly unapologetic.
The weather outside is dreadful. It’s warm in Ivan’s apartment, but Till aches for the biting chill after that, unable to stop himself from rambling. “I’m not that adventurous, you know.”
“I know. You’re a virgin.”
Immediately, he stammers. “How did you—who told you?”
Ivan giggles, reaching out to twirl a lock of Till’s hair around a finger. “No one. Your mannerisms gave it away. To put it more accurately, I assumed you were a virgin and you've confirmed my thesis.”
Till pouts. “We can’t all be sex gods.”
A thick eyebrow lifts. “Is that what you think I am?”
He opens his mouth. Closes it. It wasn't fair to judge someone’s sexual prowess off of their rampant libido. For all Till knows, Ivan is terrible in bed.
Shyly, tentatively, he asks if Ivan has experience. Ivan nods, as expected.
There’s something in the air, something that makes Till look up, makes him look at Ivan. This time, the vision is simple. I want to kiss you, Ivan thinks. In his mind, they’re holding hands, walking around town.
It’s such a simple pleasure, such a straightforward dream, that Till finds himself granting permission. “Okay,” he whispers, allowing Ivan to swipe tongue across the seam of his lips.
He hears Ivan in surround sound, breathy pants and the introduction of teeth coupled with murmurs of Till and he’s so warm and he’s squirming and he feels so good in my lap. “Christ, you’re noisy,” Till mutters—not that that’s news.
In response to that, Ivan says nothing. He’s too busy cataloguing every one of Till’s reactions, taking notes like a scientist. He studies the notches of Till’s spine as he pulls off his shirt. Ivan feels Till twitch against him, nearly blows his wad in his pants.
“Fuck,” Till curses. Ivan really likes him.
Ivan likes him messy and unorganized and less-than-academic. Likes him ruffled and whining and desperate to cum. Likes Till in tears. Wants to have sex with him anywhere and everywhere.
The attraction is overwhelming.
Ivan gets him off roughly while they're both fully clothed, biting into the meat of Till’s neck. “Can I choke you?” he asks, lowering Till onto the cushions before he unzips Till’s jeans with his teeth.
Red and reeling, Till shoves at him weakly. “What?”
“Not for long,” Ivan assures him.
Till makes the mistake of glancing at him again, looking away before the phantom sensation of being stuffed with cock can drive him insane.
Ivan takes the lack of denial as a yes, straddling Till. They’re too tall for couch Jenga, but he makes it work, palms circling around Till’s jawline, working their way to his collarbone then back up.
Admittedly, he’s nervous. Calm waves of, I don’t want to hurt you, I just want to see you struggle a bit, said in the same dulcet tones Ivan uses to explain properties of acids and bases have Till biting his lip, steeling himself.
Till, you’re beautiful, Ivan thinks. The admittance robs Till of higher thought process, then Ivan squeezes. So careless. So irrational. It’s lovely.
He sputters when Ivan releases him, fat tears dripping from the corners of his eyes. Euphoric and rock hard, he pulls Ivan down for a slipshod kiss, missing twice before Ivan steadies him, grinding in Ivan's lap.
Till is boneless as Ivan prepares him, slipping in raw the minute he deems Till ready. He scratches Ivan’s back, helpless to do anything else. He hiccups. Ivan murmurs, “Shh, I’ve got you.” Till cums.
He does not think his hunch about Ivan’s skills was unfounded.
Anything Till could do to avoid going home, he would, which is why winter vacation sees him curled on Ivan’s chest like a cat.
Ivan, for his part, is busy daydreaming about lacing Till up in a corset. Till grunts. “Don’t even think about it.”
He has come to learn that Till’s denials are rarely hard no’s; Till is the type of person who can only fit one thought in his head at a time. Ivan’s constant internal monologuing would have been intolerable if he hadn’t learned to treat it like background noise.
Considerations of expensive, cashmere robes are also vetoed, as are tailored suits. Ivan sighs, turning his thoughts to leather loafers with heels, imagining Till stepping on him in them.
Till does not immediately refute. There’s merit to that idea, then.
At some point in the afternoon, Till rolls away to eat something. “I don’t understand how you can be so horny all the time.”
Ivan smiles, licking crumbs off of the corner of Till’s mouth. “I have a captivating muse.”
Till rolls his eyes in disbelief. It’s the truth, though.
There’s something freeing about being so transparent. About being seen. Ivan’s thoughts veer into the egregious quite often. More than once, Till has said, “I ought to report you to the authorities,” but he’s still here in Ivan’s apartment and he seems to be making no plans to leave.
He cuddles Till so hard, he winds up breathless. “Ease up, idiot,” Till gripes. Ivan obliges.
Happiness is such a deceptively simple thing.