Chapter Text
Ivan dies and then Till’s mind clears beneath the haze of miserable uncertainty that had settled in after MISSING. He can see the crowd, one by one, open mouths, teeth. He can see his reflection, up over the unscuffed white shoes. He can see Ivan, in the water, swirling out red, one wet sock. He’s face down. He’d drown if he weren’t already dead.
When Ivan had strode across the stage before the song even ended, grabbed him by the face and kissed him, Till had just thought what the fuck, Ivan. He’d tried to pull back but not very hard, as half hearted in his no as everything else he’d been doing onstage that day. Then came the hands around his neck which should have been worse than the kiss, but they were both just things happening to Till. He was getting his first kiss and getting choked out and none of it mattered because he was gonna die in thirty seconds when the score rolled in. Till had sung like dogshit, sounding like he wanted to cry the whole time and gave even that up halfway. Piss and vinegar was all he had on stage anyway, so losing to Ivan was whatever. Ivan had a fan base and a smooth voice and didn’t have to wear his collar, not even between shows. Ivan was always gonna win this until he didn’t.
They’re expecting Till to go feral, kick and punch on the way out but he doesn’t do any of that this time. If they let him go, then what? What’s Till gonna do, go back to Ivan? He’s fucking dead.
Plus Till’s got a show to put on. It’s the only thing he’s good for.
Till had been nursing a grudge since that cream sauce pretty boy pushed Mizi into throwing her match alongside the first punch. He lets that simmer up inside him, tuning the replacement guitar they give him like the quiet shock of losing everyone he ever knew in any real way can be placated with a new chew toy. It lies inert under his hands, no way they’d give him a live one again. Because of that, he’s kinder to it.
When Till takes the stage it’s like the first time. He’s expecting nerves or maybe ennui, like he’s lost his last fuck to give, and it is a little like that when he comes face to face with Luka. This is it, then? Seriously?
Luka struts on stage, exaggerated limbs and voice and hair; thirty years old and camp bravado when Ivan had more talent and charisma in his goddamn pinky finger. Till sneers. He doesn’t care about living but no way in hell he’ll die for this prick.
Till rips Luka to pieces, bit by bit - echoing his lines and twisting them back cleverly, guitar riffs coming hard and fast; Till feels his index finger catch and tear on a string, fingernail ripping clear down to the quick, playing through the gushing blood. He feels not good but greater, like above all this shit, rising up like the sounds to the rafters. Luka’s the best, he’s lived this long by eating the young and now it’s time for Till to swallow him whole.
There’s a discordant sound in the audience - screaming, shouting. Explosions that pop pop, marcato, dissonant, he wraps them in the music and sees a glimpse of his own green eyes shining manic in the reflection of Luka’s pastel panicked ones. There’s something wrong here, wrong with him and wrong with the show and wrong with the whole fucking world. There’s a flash of pink in the crowd, and human hands without shackles, and blood. Mizi has brought a War.
Till laughs, joyful and hysteric. Behind them, the scoreboard is spinning, the votes are coming in! He doesn’t know when he starts crying too, exactly, salt and snot with a rictus grin. He would have done anything, anything to help her and, check this out, it wouldn’t have mattered if he died first round. All his snipping and snarling up to now did fuck all. The guts it took to throw the strike and keep fighting was all her. It was the kind of fight the rebels had, the kind that Ivan had hidden all his life right up to the end, hands around Till’s neck. Ivan had pulled the collar off him once; Till had been the one to put it back on. Behind him, something fizzles, cracks, and then the stage is on fire.
The scoreboard stops and Till doesn’t even look. From Luka’s face Till knows he won. Running steps echo, too heavy and off beat to be human. The cavalry is coming, but Mizi’s gonna win this one. The vidscreen cuts from the carnage to the stage, the triumphant rescue of the precious pets. Claws and talons, robotic limbs reach out, tug the leash around his neck back toward safety. Till turns his crazed grin and both middle fingers up for the cameras, then he throws himself off the suspended stage headfirst. The momentum rips clear of the cords in his neck, blood streaming behind him from his open wounds. Behind his eyelids are flashes of his life: long pink hair, bruises down to bone, and one night with the sky streaked bright, running hand in hand.
On the way down he thinks, in the split second before his neck snaps against the hard metal floor, that if he had the chance, he’d keep running next time.
~~
It makes sense to Till that death is a dark and endless pain, until he hears the click hiss as the visor drops from his face. The muzzle goes next, and then the collar. The light is too annoying for him to be dead, and so’s the kid looking back at him.
It’s Ivan, he remembers this was Ivan, little Ivan with the weird eyes and the dumb hair he’d never even spoken to, breaking him out of the solo cells, helping pull the long thin needles from his wrists and ankles. Till doesn’t bleed much for how long they are and he is calm enough this time to wonder just what the fuck they were always pumping into him anyway. His face hurts, his body hurts, his blood hurts in his veins like it’s forcing its way through, thread in a needle in a piece of woven cloth. Ivan had never been much for saying anything direct, important, or obvious, so he had just led the way and Till had followed. He follows this time too, clumsy in his stiff limbs and adjusting to this tiny body all over again. He’s so short.
Till had never really thought much about this time later on except when Ivan was being particularly horrible and Till would decide he was done, fucking for real done and then suddenly just wasn’t anymore. Ivan would go right back to doing his fuck shit and Till, for all his bitching, would let him. Doing something like this for somebody like Till - pissy, ungrateful, fuck-it-up Till meant something big, something deep Till didn’t know how to deal with so he didn’t. He didn’t have room for anything but hating and Mizi. But in this moment, he doesn’t have room for hate or for Mizi. Someone is holding his hand and they are running, out, free.
Till hesitates in the same spot, lets his hand drop. Ivan turns back to look at him, mouth curving into a bitter, knowing smile. It’s the kind of smile a guy might have asking for a last cigarette before his execution, maybe, so it’s weird on a kid. Had he had this face the last time too? Would Till have even noticed?
Till had told himself over and over he went back for Mizi. Like she needed him, would be so weak and small without him. What was one fucking thing he ever did to help her, then? Another puppy in the kennel to play with? Fuck that, and fuck this. Till’s scared, a little bitch fucking baby about being out here, about missing a girl and a warm bed and getting smacked around for screwing up all the time. He gave Ivan such shit for being a perfect pet back then, but Till was the one running to his master. If his defiance was what Ivan had liked about him, no wonder Ivan beat his ass over a flower crown when they got back.
Till takes a deep breath, then smiles. It’s been a while since he had one in him that he meant. Ivan flinches like he’s been slapped, but Till grabs him by the hand again anyway. They run through the fields, turning right into the woods, away from the road. They’re so tired that they don’t see the drop off in the darkness, when Till steps right off the side of the ledge and plummets down two hundred feet. Since they’re holding hands, Ivan goes too. Till’s leg snaps, his wrist bends, and he dies when his head slams into a rock and splits, the last sound Ivan’s scream, cut short midway.
~~
click. hiss.
Till’s limbs work a little better this time. He’s getting used to his line of sight so low.
He hesitates; his hand drops. Till takes a deep breath, then smiles. The sky is streaking orange bright, reflected in the black red of Ivan’s eyes as he holds his breath, waiting. It looks like a star imploding.
“This time, we go left,” Till says.