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They say that you don’t appreciate what you have until it’s gone; Till had always scoffed at such romantic notions, because people are first and foremost selfish greedy bastards, and Till is no exception.
He didn’t think that losing Ivan would do this to him, though.
Ivan leaving, in and of itself, is not unusual. That’s their whole dynamic; they push and pull at each other until one of them inevitably goes too far and it implodes in their face, before they come crawling back to each other. But Ivan leaving him for more than a week though? Now, it’s well past the two week threshold and Till is absolutely driving himself up the wall with how much Ivan won't leave his mind.
He didn’t think he’d ever say this, but fuck, he misses Ivan. Misses the way he would make fun of Till for his inability to brew a cup of coffee (It's just instant coffee, Till, how are you so bad at this), but there would always be a fresh mug in the mornings waiting for him. Misses the way that Ivan would scold him for doing the laundry wrong. Misses all his annoying, endearing quirks and habits— padding around their shared apartment at ungodly hours of the morning, humming under his breath. Ivan’s smile, the crooked one that showed too many teeth and made his snaggletooth look like a fang for real, Ivan’s overbearing clinginess, his sharp tongue and steady presence. Ivan.
Till wonders if he’s going insane. He keeps turning to the side, expecting someone to be there, and is met with silence every time. He runs through the lyrics of the latest song he’s been writing and automatically starts to ask, “Ivan, what do you—” before remembering that Ivan’s not here anymore.
Look, Till is well aware that he’s a selfish, insufferable asshole, always too loud and full of bluster. He will also admit that there were many moments when he should have been nicer to Ivan. Some sick, twisted part of him thinks, See, this is what was always going to happen. All you know how to do is just drag people into your own self-destructive tendencies.
And now Ivan’s gone, and it’s all his fault. Till can’t blame him for leaving. For finally getting sick of him. But even though it was a separation of his own making, he can’t help but miss him. He wears Ivan’s hoodie that he left behind, and imagines that it’s Ivan himself holding him instead, and then hates himself for wanting that in the first place. When did he get so domestic? The scent of Ivan's cologne has long since faded, being overtaken by Till's own body odor, and all Till can think of is how much he wishes that it would still smell like him. That Ivan's presence would linger just a little longer.
He imagines Ivan out there, alone, seducing someone else with that easy charm he carries everywhere, and it curdles in his gut. That’s the worst part. He hates the thought of Ivan finding another person, even though he has no right to keep him.
You are not mine, and I am not yours.
But I want to be yours, a tiny, stupid piece of Till’s heart— that he keeps trying to squash— protests. Because it’s Ivan. Ivan who has seen him at his best and at his worst, who was the only one who stayed even when things got difficult. And vice versa. In public, Ivan might be all smiles and charisma, but it's Till who knows how much of an asshole he is behind the scenes. How he's so petty and childish still, even as a grown man of 28, and his biting words delivered in a flat deadpan, never one to mince them. It's Till who gets to see all his ugly, unpolished sides. Till hates that he started thinking of them as a thing. Ivan and Till, Till and Ivan, always the two of them. That he started believing in maybe forever. That the same tiny, hopeful little part of his heart— that wanted to be Ivan’s— had started thinking that maybe he could keep something. Someone.