Work Text:
Perhaps it would’ve been more dramatic if it had not been such a dreary day.
Ivan could imagine how it would’ve felt with the wind whipping through his hair, sending an eerie chill down his spine as he’d peer into the vast city below.
Or, instead of wind, maybe it could’ve been rain. Rain that would pool down his cheeks in what could resemble tears, suspended droplets flying past him as he’d tumble to the concrete below, joining him in his terrible descent.
Instead of either of those two options, there was smog. A thick waft of it emanating from the factories not too far away from Ivan’s admittedly run-down apartment. He frowns as he recalls Andrew’s words to him on that subject– his home, such an empty place. Such a drab place. It would’ve been cooler if the fog was thick enough to conceal the concrete a few hundred feet down, but it was not. It was a weak smoke just strong enough to seal the sky in a grayscale haze.
Ivan steps up to the railway, looking down. It was a pathetically short drop in comparison to the skyscrapers that loomed above his building, but he figured it’d be enough to finish the job.
Rather bluntly, Ivan was going to kill himself.
This was how he decided he was going to make an impact.
He knew Andrew had already released the evidence of his… ‘abuse,’ as he called it. Ivan thought of it as tough love. Or, perhaps, something more twisted than that. It was a necessary evil, he justified. That was something Andrew could never understand, with his thousands of players and unparalleled talent.
Oh, Ivan.
Poor, unrecognized Ivan.
Poor, forgotten Ivan.
His mother’s voice echoes in his mind, a soft pitying coo. It gets him to tighten his fists at his side.
Ivan did not want to be known as an abuser. No, he wanted to be known as a tragedy. He always liked those.
A quote comes to mind, as natural and instinctive as his very own breath.
“True! — nervous — very, very dreadfully
nervous I had been and am;
but why will you say that I am mad?”
- Edgar Allen Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart.
Something chortled beside him, gruff and gravelly. Ivan whipped his head around to face the source of the sound, no longer gazing into the void below.
“Ironic. How ironic.”
Ivan tensed.
“You always loved that story, didn’t you? And now, you’re living in your own little tragedy, trying to convince yourself you aren’t going mad.” Strings held this thing up. Impossibly long strings that seemed to feed into the sky itself. It prickled and fuzzed in and out of existence as it spoke, but it distinctly made the movement of tilting its head.
“I’m not–!” Ivan is swiftly cut off.
“Leaving a legacy by killing yourself? That’s quite counterintuitive, is it not?” This thing speaks, drawing out every harsh sound, annunciating every consonant in a terribly condescendant fashion. It has this layer of fuzz over its vocals that causes the words it speaks to get stuck in the crevices of Ivan’s head like moisture.
“What other choice do I have?” Ivan asks, his bad eye twitching at the corners in a subtly agitated way. ”He’s gone. He’s convinced the world I’m a terrible person, and I have nothing left!” He does not yell, but he is not quiet, either.
He is passionate, but he is also resigned
There are many contradictions to be found when it comes to Ivan.
He is ambitious, but he is also cowardly.
“Didn’t that little puppet you call ‘father’ tell you to never give up? Or do you only listen when it personally benefits your own narrative?” It snaps, leaning forward to meet face-to-face with Ivan. Through the layer of darkness, the image of his own face stares back at him.
“If you’re trying to talk me out of this, you’re doing a godawful job.” Ivan snaps, shoving his arms out in front of him in an attempt to wave the hallucination away. It takes a few unbothered steps back as hands clip through its torso, snorting. The strings follow with, sharply snapping to its new position.
“...Talk you out? Hm.” It hums, sitting itself up on the building’s railing as it thinks. “I suppose, in a way, that is what I’m trying to do, isn’t it?”
Ivan gives no response, sitting up on the fence, legs dangling over what he hopes is a lethal height. This did not feel momentous in the slightest.
“You aren’t doing anything special, you know.” That figure speaks again, pulling its feet up to its chest. It is balancing on the railway using only its hands, now– which are clasped firmly around the bars. “Millions of people commit suicide. Your attempt at making a stain on this world is nothing in a sea of blood and misery.”
“...Andrew will see it.” Ivan mumbles, letting himself look up at the stagnant, shrouded sky.
“Trust me when I say you’ve made enough of an impact on him, already.” It growls, and that sly tone it had before melts away into one of anger. The strings begin to vibrate, something of a face shifting in that reflection sitting beside him. Ivan grips the railing until his knuckles begin to turn white, curling them as far as they’ll go around the metal.
“I know, I know! And I said I was sorry! You already– you already told me about this! I get it, okay? But I can’t do anything about it! It’s over.” He rationalizes in that way of his, the way that absolves him of any sort of responsibility or self-reflection.
“Oh, but you could. And you know that, don’t you? You could’ve done so much. Stopped this before it even started happening!” That thing refuses to look away from Ivan, no matter how much he wishes it would. “But you are a coward. Taking the easy way out.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re just–!” He snaps, gritting his teeth.
“Just what, Ivan? Or would you rather not admit that to yourself?” The thing cuts him off again, stilling as its strings relax, loosely hanging in parabolic curves. A single white eye stares back at him.
The same eyes stare back.
“...A tumor.” Ivan murmurs, in that cowardly way he always does. He glances away from the reflection, and back down at the quiet city below him. Nobody is awake. Nobody would even notice until morning at the earliest. He would not be making any more of an impact on the world than the impact he’d have against the grainy, broken-down concrete.
…The city will wake eventually, though, and scrape him off of the ground and into a casket. The thought of his own funeral floods his mind. His mother would be there, obviously. Andrew…
…
Just his mother, huh? Something tugs at the corner of his head, but when he looks back up, the entity is gone.
Rather bluntly, Ivan was going to kill himself.
His legs are already dangling off of the railing, after all. Perhaps he lost his only chance to leave a legacy in his life. He can only hope his one friend will hear and weep over him in that selfish, malignant way that only Ivan could ever desire.
The sky is still gray. Andrew is still gone. The game has been published.
Ivan is still a coward, and that is what he will die as.
In a pitifully suspenseless way, he hurls himself over the railing and feels his stomach drop for about three or so seconds, before he --