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Standard of Operation

"Who the fuck is Ivan?!"

"Hyuna."

"What?! I've been asking the same question for four everlovin' hours and no one wants to give me an answer!"

"It's been four hours?" Till asks, voice gravelly and lids heavy. He rubs his eyes as he attempts to sit up, assisted by Mizi standing off to his right. Then, to himself, "And here I thought I only spent an hour with him. . ."

"Speak up, kid, no one likes a mumbler." Hyuna snaps.

"Hey." Taiga says, brows furrowed in displeasure. "Tha's what I call him."

"Taiga. Not the pressing issue here." Luka sighs, pinching his nose bridge between his thumb and pointer finger, easing away what looked to be a growing headache.

Till's lips twitch in amusement as he attempts to ignore their banter and takes a look around. He feels disoriented and heavy with sleep. Blinking, he realizes in the Med Bay, faint orange sunlight leaking through the crack in the ragged curtains, but that's where his lazy observation starts and ends.

He gets the story in bits and pieces from the scattered argument going on around him, and has to puzzle the rest of it out himself with what he can remember before passing out.

After Luka came rushing in with the news of Ivan's supposed survival, Till remembers completely losing it and collapsing to his knees, screaming and crying so hard he was foaming at the mouth. He can't decide whether or not to be embarrassed about it.

Till learns that the four of his benefactors had blinked at each other uselessly— "Someone pick him up, he's dying!" "I don't touch dying people, sorry." "Bitch, you're hopeless." "Then you do it!" "Uhh. . ."— before carrying him to the Med Bay together, where Medcat had very studiously stayed by his side and succeeded in keeping him alive another day.

That's good, Till thinks with a sigh of relief. If I had died, I wouldn't have been able to keep my promise.

He owes Ivan too much as it is, already. If Till were to up and die now, he will be wasting all of Ivan's careful time and effort put into saving Till's life in the first place.

Taiga sidles over to him and fills him in with what happened after they got him to Medcat. Turns out, he's been knocked out for much longer than four hours. Not a big deal. It had just been four hours since he started calling—

"I what?!" Till exclaims in horror, throwing his pillow at Taiga before yanking the blanket above his head to hide a furious blush.

"Ya were callin' his name fur hours, kid." Taiga chuckles, easily catching the pillow and tossing it aside. He admits it smoothly enough, though he looks as if he's being burned at the stake for it.

"Ivan, Ivan!" Luka cries in an over exaggeratedly high-pitched voice. "Don't go, Ivan!"

Till blinks. He turns slowly away from Luka to stare blankly at Taiga. He points a thumb in the blond's direction.

"That supposed to be me?"

Taiga shrugs. "Hell if I know."

"I'm only gonna ask one more time." Hyuna hisses from across the morgue, over her shoulder at them. "Who. the fuck. is Ivan?"

"Till's sweet lover boy, of course." Luka supplies happily. Taiga only sighs, helplessly fond.

Till, on the other hand— if he had the energy to retaliate, he'd slap Luka back to last year. But as it stands presently, Till's limbs felt leaden. Too dense, too heavy. And anyway, he wouldn't dare smack Luka in front of Taiga, so yeah.