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There was security in Ivan's impassive gaze, Luka thought. A lack of expectation that felt almost foreign after his years as the alien's favorite doll. Ivan was a man of very few words outside of his songs, he certainly wasn't one to express his feelings. Verbally that is. His eyes though... Well, nothing reflects light better than the darkest of glass and Ivan's eyes were as black as onyx gems. Every thought and feeling were reflected in them, it's why his gaze is so heavy, it holds his heart. Most would shy away under his unnerving stare but not Luka. He thrives under it, free from the expectations weighing him down like shackles since he was first created and crowned the perfect pet. Ivan sees him in his entirety and immediately accepts him as he is, offering no judgment, just this cold and detached recognition. For all its apparent apathy it feels like freedom.
"You are oddly pensive tonight", Ivan's voice cut through Luka's thought waking him up from his light daze. "Something on your mind ?"
Here and now, lying bare under the rumpled sheets and sharing the youngest's body warmth (Luka is always so cold these days, he know it's only a matter of time before the ice spread from his fingers to his sick heart and freezes him forever) he ponders on whether or not to lie.
"I'll miss your eyes", he decides on saying the truth, no point in lying to the other when this is their last night. Ivan will already be frozen by Death's embrace come the same time tomorrow and Luka will be left alone with cold sheets and a weaker heart. Might as well be honest, if only to chase away the cold for a few more hours.
"My eyes ?" The curiosity was evident in his gaze, his head tilting just so and his hand momentarily stopping where it's been tracing pattern on Luka's bare back. His touch careful around his surgical scars, both men basking in the afterglow of sex.
Luka reaches out, barely touching the skin under these dark, dark eyes.
"My freedom" He answers with a slow nod.
Ivan just hums, lying down next to the blond, his hand stopping its movement to curl lazily on his hip, thumb quickly going back and forth on his pale skin, always touching as if to anchor his mind in the present, savoring the realness of the moment and relishing in the skin to skin contact he's normally deprived of.
"Do you think they'll let me keep them ?" He asks, just to see that fang glim in the dim light of the room when Ivan lets out a surprised chuckle. Luka smiles too, self satisfied and closes his eyes, content to bask in the warmth for as long as he can.
That's all he asks. No "Are you sure about this ?", no "Why don't you try to escape again ?" and certainly no "Won't you let him die ?".
Because he already knows the answers to all of these questions. It's the same he would give if somehow Round six was him facing Hyuna.
I am, we won't make it, I could never.
There's no world out there where Ivan let Till die in their face off tomorrow. No world in which he chooses to stay in Luka's sheets, warming up his dying body. No world in which Luka asks him to.
They are cut out of the same cloth after all, it's what brought them together : their bleeding heart that know not how to love without hurting the object of their affection.
.
.
.
There was desperation in Till's normally fiery gaze, Luka thought. A lack of fight that felt almost foreign after his explosive beginning during Round 2. Almost, because Luka has predicted it when he saw Till's and Ivan's name side to side on the scoreboard, when he saw the resolve in Ivan's eyes.
"I won't let him win, you know that right ?" He had asked Ivan after hours of silence on both sides.
Ivan had just hummed again, his stare as judgment free as it has always been, but heavier than ever with his heart full of grief.
"I know."
Somehow, it hurt more.
Luka tries not to let the same grief seep into his eyes as he looks at Till, the music and his voice silent compared to the loud beat of his heart. Luka tries not to be sick. It's hard when he knows that all Till sees when looking at Luka is Ivan's cold eyes.
Imitating his dead lover, desecrating what was once Luka's freedom and turning it into a weapon to kill the man that was Ivan's heart, Luka tries not to be sick.
"Bleeding hearts that know not how to love without hurting the object of their affection" indeed.