Work Text:
Till watched, quietly, listlessly, as the sun began its unhurried descent behind the horizon.
Usually obscured by buildings, by people, by hills and valleys and mountains and clouds, the line where the earth rounded the corner was in plain view to Till as he stood, toes in the sand, corduroy school uniform pants rolled just a little ways up his calves. He didn’t want them to get wet, if he did end up going in the water – he wasn’t going to, but just in case. Washing the salt and the foam and the general ocean grime out of his clothes was something he’d like to avoid, if at all possible. It was a Wednesday, which meant he had school again tomorrow, which meant he’d have to wash his clothes tonight, which meant –
“Till?” Ivan queried, his pants decidedly not rolled up, and already dampened by the shallow waves that just barely passed over the tops of their feet.
“Um,” said Till.
He’d been doing a damn good job of distracting himself, but the object of his anxiety insisted, incessantly, on making its presence known. Now, as he glanced up – always up, of course, the infuriatingly tall bastard – at Ivan, his pulse quickened in much the same way as it had on the walk here. And at school all day. And the day before, and the day before, and the day before.
He wasn’t entirely sure when it had started. It certainly hadn’t always been so overwhelming, though. Of that, at least, he was certain. This feeling, this sense of… dread? No, that wasn’t it. Urgency, perhaps? An all-knowing, all-encompassing sense of urgency, of something that had to happen – no, that he, Till, had to do, and that, without a shadow of doubt, he would do, without the slightest sense of what it was, until… until the moment was right. Probably.
“Do you want to go in the water, Till?”
“...Yeah.”
So they did.
Only until the water reached about halfway up their calves, though. It hadn’t quite reached Till’s pant cuffs yet. That was good. Ivan was smiling. That was good too. There was nothing else in the world but Ivan and Till and the water.
Suddenly, inexplicably, Till felt his clothes become drenched. Ivan was laughing. Ah. He’d splashed him. He’d have to wash his uniform tonight after all. He giggled, pulling Ivan into a headlock – not an effortless task, considering how much Ivan had shot up in the past couple years. They went back and forth like that for a while, their clothes getting completely and utterly drenched in the process.
Ivan laughed, and laughed, and laughed. The genuine kind – not the sort of polite drivel he offered to adults and most of their classmates. His nose crinkled. The light from the setting sun illuminated every plane and crevice of his bewitching face. Till felt his muscles tense and his brow furrow as the heat that bloomed from the sunlight resting on his napes spread to his cheeks.
He stood on his tip-toes in the shallows – the gentle sway of the seafoam against his feet nearly making him lose his balance – and took hold of Ivan’s collar, gentler than he’d perhaps ever been.
He kissed him.