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Ivan does not think himself stupid, yet he steps onto the stage today knowing his plan is undeniably naïve.
His heart seizes in his chest as he comes to the existential, but inevitable dread that he has 5 minutes left to live, yet it is only with this fool’s resolve that he does not falter. It ruthlessly bids his feet to step towards Till, letting instinct take over as his hands reach for the microphone.
He hopes pathetically that his fingers do not tremble, because what he cannot smooth over with the honed edge of instinct — beaten into him to charm, to perform — is the primal, all-consuming fear of staring into the abyss of death.
Ivan’s feelings had never been hard to mask, rather it is the facial expressions of others that he struggles to read, and to emulate on his own façade. Even now, as he grapples with the gaping horror of what he must do, his face remains unflinchingly blank, his being remaining just shy of something human.
This fact alone extinguishes the fleeting fear within him with a solemn confirmation, like the ebb of the tide. He understands the weight of his life in the grand scheme of things, and he understands that all he can give in this moment is all of him — an infinitesimally small amount.
And how can he choose to back out now, when Till looks like that? His heart shatters for the love that Till can never attain, yet still looks for within the crowd. Ivan looks at him as Till sings — voice near vulgar to his ears in its emptiness and despair — and he wonders what Till sees, amidst the mass of aliens and their pets. He hopes that wherever Mizi is now, that his song will reach her, just so she could see the unadulterated devotion Till has for her.
Ivan’s heart clenches impossibly tighter. He loves that about Till, the brutal and honest way he loves, and hates himself for wanting to snuff that hope out and take it all for himself.
Look at me he wants to beg. He is about to make the ultimate sacrifice for the boy he loves, yet he won’t even look at him. There, defeated and hopeless and lost, Till still keeps his eyes trained on the unattainable. Ivan’s heart fills with admiration and coils with a monstrous envy.
If time had permitted, he would’ve had a good laugh about how pathetic he was, but he can’t muster it in himself to care when he has two minutes left to live.
Till finishes his line. The hollow notes of the instrumental ring out eerily within the silence of the stage. He hears his points tick down. Ivan is as familiar with the following lines as he is familiar with what he is about to do next.
Ivan guides his hand to the back of Till’s neck, and pulls. He pushes his lips against Till’s. For a few seconds, there is no one else in the world except for Till, Ivan, and the searing guilt lancing through his chest.
Look at me, Ivan chases Till’s lips that purse and draw back. Even if loving me is so repulsive, do not reject me, just this once. His heart shatters again and again as he has to tighten his hold around Till’s neck to make him stay. He wishes he could handle Till with a delicate care, the way he imagines Mizi would handle Till, but knows with great agony that his love could never be gentle or delicate. It is an obsessive attention that burns, wretched with desire, untethered, thus undesirable.
He looks at Till as they break apart. Tries to sear the image of him within his memory.
The music swells with dreadful gravitas. Even his death will be a performance, entertainment to the aliens to his last breath.
He takes Till’s throat in his hands, this fragile hope, and squeezes as hard as his poor, shattered heart will allow. Till barely puts up a fight, as pliant in his hands as he was unconscious on the floor before the aliens. A sick revulsion washes over him as he contemplates the sight they make. How different were his hands from the collar around Till’s neck? How different was he, wretched, selfish beast, from Till’s owners?
His fingers lay claim to the tattooed ridges of Till’s flesh, melding with his Adam's apple, his trachea, all there is to Till. Ivan focuses on this sensation like a man drowning.
He supposes, both of them are at fault, in a way. Ivan has no one to blame except his fractured humanity — human enough to love, yet not righteous enough to not be selfish. Till has no one to blame other than his nature of dreaming for something more in a world that thirsts for suffering.
Till goes impossibly limp in his arms. The points tick down, down, down, along with Ivan’s thrumming heart. Eighty-five to eighty to seventy. It’s not enough.
A gun bullet shrieks, firing into his abdomen, and the crowd erupts into a frenzied, fevered screaming. His ears ring from the noise, yet all quiets down sooner or later, as he looks at Till’s head, still lolled back. He can’t bring his eyes to look anywhere else, ever drawn to Till like a compass to its North.
He grits his teeth as a second shot hits his shoulder. He’s so close to his dream. His grip slips as his vision blurs for a moment. Blood spurts out of his side, steady as passion. It’s a strange sensation, to have your blood pulsing inside and outside your body.
He takes a shaky breath, licks his lips and tries to remember the taste of Till. He steadies his hold even though his palms sweat and he loses more and more feeling in his arms as the seconds tick by.
He focuses his all onto keeping his face carefully blank, while his fingers search feebly for Till’s steady pulse.
A warm fluid itches at his throat, as his muscles spasm. He coughs once, twice, and knows it is blood. His thoughts trickle out of his grasp like water through his palms. Slowly, gently, he lets Till go — his blood will not taint Till’s dream for love.
-
Thank you for letting me love you. You have taught me how beautiful death can be.
And if I were to write my love in the stars, I hope that it is not despair you feel whenever you look at the sky.