to me you are black sorrow

It feels like a dream when Ivan takes his hands and leads him, Till following after him in a daze. Or maybe a memory that has been perfectly preserved—buried under a sky of falling stars.

Maybe this memory will have a happier ending.

Yvain shoots out of Till’s room as soon as Ivan opens the door. Till felt bad, purposefully locking him in there, but he’d known that confronting Ivan would likely lead to a fight of some sort, and he hadn’t wanted to upset the large cat. He’s glad he did it now—even Till didn’t expect it to get this bad. Till nods in response to Ivan as he watches Yvain rub against Ivan and then Till in turn, before sidling up to Orthus affectionately.

For some reason, the sight brings tears to Till’s eyes. He’d forgotten that Orthus was even here, but… why didn’t the massive two-headed alien come to Ivan’s defense when they’d been fighting? The two obviously shared a close bond, and Till had seen Orthus be protective of Ivan on more than one occasion…

They had practiced out in the Mistwood. It was well-trained. It was in tune with Ivan. And like as not, it didn't understand Ivan's tears either.

Nor did it believe Ivan was in danger. Both heads sniff at Yvain, and then at Till. It did not shy away from that embrace. They shared a close bond, so Orthus had been learning how to settle into this new home as well.

Ivan doesn't go further into the room nor away from Till, stuck in limbo now, petting Orthus' other head. He's not sure if he should be going in, he's not sure if he should be the one to lead the way.

But Orthus eventually shrugs out from under Till's arm, shoving both of them aside to make way for himself and Yvain to waltz into the room like he owned it, sniffing around debris and art supplies on the floor.

His head is finally quiet, but his heart is so loud. Filled with so many emotions and feelings about Ivan—about Ivan trying his best to be good for Till’s sake—that he couldn’t begin to parse through the chaos if he had months—years—in front of a notebook and sketchpad.

More tears slip down his face and fall onto Ivan’s hands, where they’re trembling under his chin.

Moving as slowly as Ivan, Till releases his white-knuckled grip on Ivan’s clothes to reach up and take both his hands in his. And isn’t it funny? How both of them move like the other is a startled animal, waiting to bolt? Maybe they both are. Till’s hands are shaking just as badly as Ivan’s, and they’re smeared with blood, but the skin-to-skin contact is more grounding.

Till runs his thumb over the silver brand on Ivan’s wrist, just as gently as Ivan had touched the one on Till’s neck, before nodding a little hesitantly.

He butts his head against Ivan’s hand, nuzzling his temple against Ivan’s knuckles in a way he remembers Ivan trying to comfort Till when he was distraught. Till knows it’s difficult for both of them, the way it feels like Ivan is collaring him. Strangling him. Till wishes that they didn’t have to bandage his neck at all, but he sees now that what Ivan is doing is in the best interest of Till’s physical well-being. Selfishly, he wishes Ivan understood him well enough to take care of his emotional needs as well, but Till can intuitively feel how hard Ivan is trying. How badly he doesn’t want to mess this up. Till can bear it.

"I'll take it off in the morning, alright?" A promise, something that Till can look for, that he'll unbind him once the weeping wounds have had time to seal and begin to heal. That, at least, can ground him, can allow him to sit with it, unmoored as he is, anchored to this world. He won't leave, even if it hurts, and he still doesn't understand.

He opens his hand, pushing Till's hair out of his face.

The few words he spoke felt as though they had been wrenched from him, his throat raw, his voice fading. No, his voice had faded, but having dredged it up, it was unwilling and unready to greet the air above the depths, in pain and suffering.

Such sweet suffering, he can hardly mind.

The bathroom was a mess, but he didn't quite have it in him to worry about cleaning up. Instead, he moves to stand, holding onto Till's hands as he pulls him up from the floor.

Tugging him away from the mess, he opens the bathroom door, setting them both free from the bright lights overhead. He vaguely thinks to change those bulbs, but he's not sure what bathrooms needs. He's not sure what he needs right now. He can only tug Till away from the bloodied memories on the tiled floor.

Into the living room, Orthus' four eyes were glowing in the dark as it watched over them, getting up only when they started moving toward Till's bedroom door instead of Ivan's, seemingly sniffing around for Yvain, but then focusing on the blood on the two humans, starting to snuff at them both, nudging them as Ivan opened Till's door.

When Ivan asks what they've been doing, the ghost lets out a laugh. "Oh, you know, being a ghost." They cross their legs on the table they now "sat" on. More like hovered over.

"My usual person I bother had his brother with him in the lab I haunt, and so I decided to cause more noise in the hallway. Don't like being around too many people if I can help it. Outside of that, though, just ghost things." They grin - childlike just like the size of their form suggested they may be - at the other.

"I'm so hurt...I didn't know you bother other people! Though I wouldn't consider it a bother." In truth, he'd consider Zazie to be a friend, or at least one of the closest things to a friend he had at the moment. Humming, he presses his finger gently against the glass jar.

Perhaps he had gone too far? Probably, and a part of him felt sorry for the situation. Still, he wasn't there to ask easy questions.

Whatever he wants, or his own feelings, didn't quite matter, did they?

"As for my Student Council work, that is more of a security matter than I should be disclosing. Of course, I imagine you are aware of the dispersions cast against this specific club and its members. And I do intend to do a thorough job of investigating any and all accusations levied against students at this time, if only to alleviate the pain of those who have been wrongly accused." Now that caused a bit of a flurry, leading to him standing and bowing in front of the journalism students, effectively ending the interview.

Tears that had been welling up at his lashline spill over as Till looks up at Ivan mutely. The only noises in the room are Ivan’s voice and the much quieter sound of Till copying Ivan’s deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth, following Ivan’s pace.

The voices in his head fall silent.

He doesn't dare speak, lest he break the spell, instead getting to work on rubbing ointment on the cleaned wounds. It's not perfect, but they can check on them again tomorrow.

After being sure there's an even coat across all of the wounds, he slowly starts to wrap bandages around Till's neck, sure that it is secure, but not wrapping too tightly.

This is where he hesitates, hands shaking.

He sees Ivan’s mouth move through his vision blurred by tears, but he can’t hear him over the chaos in his head.

‘Be honest with me. You have something to tell me. I could cry with joy right now...’

‘He doesn’t know any better!’ A memory resurfaces of a much smaller Till defending Ivan’s strange behaviors, and in his head, it almost sounds like the child version of himself is arguing against the warped version of Ivan. ‘Nobody ever taught him how to be gentle.’

After a moment, Till nods once tentatively, a jerky movement. He’s not quite sure what he’s agreeing to as he bares his vulnerable, tattered neck to Ivan. Trusting. Willing to let him try again.

Gently, so gently, careful around the metal of his tattered brand to not catch it on the fibers of the towel. "I need to use disinfectant now."

He knew this would sting, but he tried to split himself off from imagining the sensation. He's inhaling in his nose, exhaling through his mouth, as slowly as he can. Carefully, like handling an old text with pages so thin you can almost see through them.

Setting aside the bowl, he murmurs, "That's done. Now it's just...ointment and bandages."

He holds up the tube and the bandages, holding them for Till to see if he needs to.

Then another. And another.

In the quiet, Till can just barely hear himself think.

He blinks, and he sees Ivan staring back at him, mirroring the fear and pain that he feels.

Till glances down at the bandages on the floor, sitting innocently among the flecks of his blood, only long enough to decide that’s not what he wants right now.

But he doesn’t know what it is he does want.

It's not innocent anymore when one of them is dead, is it?

It's not fun anymore. He doesn't like this reaction out of Till.

A new towel, nice and warm. He slowly moves to crouch by Till.

A new approach. He can be gentle, can't he? At least he can try.

"I'm sorry." Not a lie, not just a bandage. He's crouched on the heels of his feet, ready to move if he has to. "I didn't consider everything." His voice is as soft and even as he can make it. He's as quiet and gentle with his movements as he had been when sneaking into Till's hospital bed, careful not to disturb him.

He jolts, reacting instinctively as he brings his leg up and smashes his foot into Ivan’s chest.

Falling backwards onto the floor from the force of his kick, Till scrambles backwards until he hits a wall. He shoves himself into a tiny corner of the bathroom, chest still heaving. Bringing his knees to his chest, he tries to make himself as small as possible.

He releases his breath in a sob, tears running down his face and stinging the new cuts on his neck.

Eyes wide, Till stares at Ivan with an expression he’s never worn around the other man—an expression that’s so rarely seen on Till’s face, even when he looks up at his Guardian, who would hurt him so mercilessly.

Till who's looking at him like...

Like...

(I tried to warn him. I tried.)

He slowly backs away himself, back pressing against the door. A cornered, feral, animal, not entirely sure how to act. His heart is racing, his chest hurts, feeling like it's going to burst through his chest.

He doesn't understand, he doesn't understand.

(No, I do.)

He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Instead, he takes some of the fallen bandages from the first aid kit, using his foot to push them over toward Till, silently watching him from the doorway. A cat unsure if it should run or not.

Color bleeds from his world—all except for the red of Ivan’s burning eyes.

The image of the Ivan in front of him overlaps nauseatingly with the visage of the man who torments him—the one who taunts him and asks him to say the things he never got to say while stealing his voice from him.

Ivan’s hands on his throat—burning and itching and itching and itching.

Such a short and sweet time, he should have gone down the drain when he could. Ever monstrous, even now, that he thinks of himself first, and how he caused this.

He crouches in front of Till, reaching up and grabbing at Till's hands, pulling them, hard, minding his finger. Placing them on his own throat.

"Stop it."

Till smooths his fingers over Ivan’s shoulder in wordless apology—in gratitude—before shoving him without any real heat behind it, tsking in irritation.

“Not talking about me,” Till rasps. “Talking about you.”

He jolts like Ivan’s question sent ten-thousand volts of electricity to his spine. He might even have been furious if he wasn’t so surprised. So distraught.

How could Ivan even say that to him? How could he even question that? Till’s mind might have been too addled to take in everything that was happening when they sang together, but wasn’t Ivan listening to the lyrics that Till was singing? With Ivan? To Ivan?

“Course it’s important to me,” Till whispers, even quieter than before. “Wrote it with you…”

He stops, the faucet still running, drowning out his thoughts as he stares into the drain. He wishes to crawl into the drain, to preserve this moment, for the rest of his life. But the sounds on that stage feel so far away, and he...

"For...me?" He can't stop staring at the drain, watching the water go down the sink. Exhaling, he shuts the drain off, moving to press the wet cloth into Till's wounds on his neck, maybe rougher than necessary.

"Then,"

"If it's for me..." He wipes away some of the blood, pressing on the wound and pulling his hand back, licking at the fresh blood on his fingers, so reminiscent of their childhood, wiping the wound once more, and pulling out the disinfectant. He presses it into Till's neck, knowing it'll sting.

...But he thinks he’s starting to.

He wants to trust that Ivan doesn’t want to hurt him—that they don’t want to hurt each other—any more than it takes for them to understand each other.

Till grits his teeth in preparation for the pain, determined not to let out a single sound lest Ivan feel he’s to blame when he’s just trying to help. Till did this to himself, and now that the haze of fear and anger has largely faded, he can see how the choices he made while clouded with his emotions have hurt Ivan too.

Insistently, Till pushes Ivan’s bangs back away from his face, not letting him hide. But Ivan has more he can hide behind than just a curtain of black hair. He gently tilts Ivan’s head to make eye contact with him, so intense that it’s painful.

Rolling the words he wants to say around in his mouth, Till tries to find his voice. Maybe it’s not the best time to bring this up again, but Till was never one to let go once he’d sunk his teeth into something. At least now neither of them seems up to screaming at each other anymore.

His voice is trapped somewhere in his throat. His shoulders raise slightly, and then he nods his head, brow furrowed as he tries to find his own words.

"Yes."

He stands up, tugging Till with him, head tilted toward the bathroom so he can start pulling out first aid supplies. He tugs Till along because he's not running away, he's just moving their location. Gesturing for Till to sit on the lid of the toilet, he pulls out the first aid kit, and starts setting things out.

"Music is important to you." It's not a question. Till expresses himself through art, his feelings his emotions. Till learned about Black Sorrow from his interview, but Ivan heard Unknown on the stage. Even if those words weren't for him, even if Cure isn't for him, he still wants to hear the end.

A small object that looks like a large metal clasp is taken out, "For your finger," it's better than what he would normally use, or scrounged up, but he recognized what it was for. Taking Till's injured hand, he puts the object on it, keeping the finger stabilized.

"Is that so? Good for you, being so informed." He states simply, maintaining pace on their little walk. "But what reason do I have to cause harm to anyone? Are we competing? Are you secretly taking me to the stage right now?" As he questions, his pace quickens ever so slightly, moving in closer to Ivan, turning his head to offer piercing eye contact.

"I tried my best to keep it together, but you're really funny."

"In fact, I think maybe your guardian should have booked you on variety shows." He takes a step forward, both heads of Orthus turning to growl. Gently, he places his hands on Luka's shoulders.

"Here's the thing, Luka," he leans forward, his mouth even with Luka's ear, his voice falling to just above a whisper. "You aren't the King of the Stage, here. You aren't anybody." He grasps the man's shoulders more firmly, turning him around, a billboard with Ivan's face glowing in the evening din, announcing his upcoming album and shows. "This is my stage now, the crown has passed to someone else in your absence, Your Majesty"

His fingers delicately move to Luka's throat, finger pressing into the cartilage rings of the other singer's trachea. "You can read our performances, can't you? That's your weapon, right? Well, if you didn't understand me fully, I'll tell you a little secret,"

"My guardians let me read anything I wanted, so, I know where on the throat to press to avoid killing someone. Which means, of course, I know where to really press to kill someone." His fingertips put pressure on slightly, and then release. And he backs away, as though nothing had happened at all. The twin heads of Orthus back to casually sniffing around. He tilts his head, smiling his usual smile.

At the mention of something being purchased for her, she perked up immediately.

"Of course, we'll be sure to get something for your girlfriend, too." It did make him happy, to hear that she was thinking more about her girlfriend than herself. Not that he minded spending the Dust. The girl was strange, and he found himself amused by her.

That, and Ishmael had clearly wanted him to make friends. This was normal, right?

"Ah--well.., if you say so!" She clears her throat, then says, "I'll then say your name comfortably---like I do with Till oppa!" Since he had given her the okay, it was fine.

Wow, she feels like a princess, though, or more like Ivan really is so princely. She hasn't been kissed by the hand before!

"Ah, you're very busy, then, Saetbyeol. That's very impressive - you could be cut out to be an idol yourself, you know, which that kind of work ethic." A shrine maiden, right. He doesn't mention that he's the walking dead at the moment, lest she banish him before his work is done.

But when Ivan holds him there, it means only safety and comfort.

The tension momentarily leaves Till’s body with a shudder… before he surges back, stronger than ever, wrapping his arms under Ivan’s and pulling the other man in close, burying his face in the crook of Ivan’s neck. He hugs Ivan to his chest fiercely, pressing them impossibly closer, as if he can bring Ivan inside his heart through sheer force of will. Ivan’s warmth against his skin. Ivan's pulse in his ears. Ivan's breath in his lungs…

And finally, Till bursts into the sobs that he’s been holding back.

Till holds them together, huddled up in one another like pups thrown into the same cage, whimpering and shaking while they try to find comfort in each other—comfort from a fear of an inevitable doom that is larger than both of them.

He’s making quite a mess of Ivan, smearing him all over with his blood and tears, but Till can’t bring himself to care. Despite the discomfort, Till has maybe never felt more warm or content than he does in this moment, holding Ivan. If Ivan could only feel the cold and hollowness Till suffers when he’s gone, Ivan would never question why Till asked him to stay so selfishly.

It’s hard to tell how much time passes, Till is so wrapped up in the fervent elation of Ivan being his—the exquisite agony of his heart belonging to Ivan—that it feels like a few seconds and a hundred years all at once. Like Till has waited an entire lifetime for just a drop of the ocean he’s currently drowning in.

After what feels like a millennium, Till finally starts to become aware again of himself again—his senses that aren’t all wrapped up in Ivan. The crooked index finger on his right hand, sticking out awkwardly. The open wounds on his neck. Even the growing numbness of his legs under Ivan’s weight—all prickles of pain keeping Till from losing himself in the warmth of Ivan’s embrace.

Sniffling still, pressing his nose against the pulse point in Ivan’s throat, Till doesn’t even bother to lift his head, opting to meekly croak out his infirmity to Ivan alone:

“…think I h-hurt my hand…”

A sudden jolt of anxiety goes through Till’s heart. Ivan was crying. He so rarely saw Ivan cry, and certainly never this much. His Ivan, who bends but never breaks. Till would never be able to forgive himself if he were the reason something inside of Ivan broke.

Till pulls back just enough to see Ivan’s expression, reluctant to be parted at all. He holds Ivan’s face, pushing his hair back with his other hand.

(It's so monstrous, I'm so monstrous.)

He's crying himself, and he can't express himself appropriately, and he can't understand why he's crying. He's grateful for the first time that he doesn't understand, that he can't explain it to Till, because maybe then he can still keep a sliver of his mask on, the one that hides the ugliest parts of him, the parts that he can't change. He's not sure he wants to.

So when Till speaks again, he can't help but smile weakly at it. The familiarity of it among the new. Injured Till looking up at him and only him with his infirmity.

"I'm okay."

His tears frame his smile as he sits up, shaking his bangs back into his face as soon as he can, boyish charm at odds with the red rings about his eyes, his 'injuries' not even comparing to Till's. Wiggling up, he grabs Till's hand, leaning forward, looking at it, and then looking up at Till.

"It's gonna hurt," he says, with that same weak smile, eyebrows raised. "But I can fix it." He can, and he hopes Till understands that, he'd learned a lot about this sort of thing, not only here, but in his life before Anakt.