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It’s hypnotizing, the way blood flows from his wrists into the water, the very essence of his life turned into little expanding clouds of crimson that paint a grotesque picture. Once the blood loss is enough to evenly coat the bathtub in red, Till knows.
He’ll be dead within a few minutes.
The thought isn’t as haunting as expected. The weightlessness of walking the tightrope between life and death is surprisingly comforting, at least in comparison to his father’s fist; to the sound of his overpriced Rolls-Royce slamming the brakes into their driveway and stomping up the stairs to signal that the only dinner Till gets to have is the bitter taste of iron in his mouth.
Till had always fought back and always been awarded with new purple marks or split lips without fail. No one cared when he was younger. Sure as hell no one would give a damn about Urak’s fuck-up bastard son at eighteen years old. But Till hopes it fucking haunts him. He hopes the police harass his ass about the gallery of bruises dotted across Till's body until he inevitably has to churn out a fat portion of his fortune on lawyers and shush money. He hopes he’s never able to completely scrub off the blood spilt in between the marble tiles of his bathroom.
Reluctant to let his last thoughts be about his father, Till closes his eyes and clings to the kaleidoscope of good memories he does have. When Mizi taught him how to cut paper dolls in primary school; that time he won his school’s talent show with a song he composed in his —now shattered— acoustic guitar, the warmth of his mother as Till sat on her lap clumsily weaving flower crowns just days before she passed.
Outside, the sky thunders and pours down onto the concrete with all the rage of a late summer night. Inside, deep within his ribcage, Till’s heart slows to a dangerous cadence.
Suddenly, the nauseating sensation of free falling takes over, and any comfort is stripped away as panic sets in.
Till hardly had a peaceful day in his life. He shouldn’t have been naive enough to expect a peaceful death.
Panicked, he thrashes —or tries to— and the water is barely disturbed by the futile efforts of his weakened body. His vision blurs and slowly blackens, his fingers twitch as if grasping for a lifeline that’s just out of reach.
And for the first time in his life, teetering the precipice at the end of the world, Till prays.
For salvation, for revenge, for a second chance; he isn’t sure, but all of his last breath is spent in the single word he never gave his father the satisfaction of hearing.
Please.
Death never spares anyone kindness, though.
Against all odds, Till wakes up. He realizes this only because there’s something warm and slippery pressed against his swollen wrist. It’s both soothing and disconcerting.
With much difficulty, he opens his eyes only to find a strange man right in front of him, lapping at his wound with a hunger so palpable it kickstarts his heart the moment he looks up.
No, that isn’t a man. His skin is too pale, his tongue just a bit too long in a way that signals something not quite human. Something dark lurks behind him. Shadow-like tentacles lift from beneath the blood-stained water, expanding like wings and obscuring the neon lights of the bathroom that flicker as if whatever it is can’t help but absorb all the energy around it.
The entity’s lips, red with Till’s own blood, curve into a horrible smile. A sharp canine catches the light.
“You called, Till?”
He screams himself into unconsciousness.
“Good thing you didn’t overreact,” is the first thing the entity says when Till wakes up for the second time. He would be offended by the audacity if he wasn’t busy trying to scramble away as far as possible —only then does he realize he’s in bed, in dry clothes and—
Alive. Till is alive.
He looks down at his wrists, smooth and pristine as if they’d never been kissed by the unforgiving edge of the razor.
“You— I was—” Till stutters, trembling despite the new rush of warm blood pumping through his veins, his body a well-oiled machine working the way it’s supposed to. “How…?”
“It’s easier if you stick to one question at a time.”
Till frowns. The first emotion he experiences after the hopelessness and fear of his failed attempt happens to be annoyance.
While retaining that eerie quality about him, the not-man stands tall in a sleek black suit, perfectly pressed and expensive looking. With his tentacles now tucked out of sight, it would be easy to think the host of some luxury jewelry store somehow found himself loitering inside Till’s messy bedroom. But no matter what he conceals, Till knows what he saw —him being alive should be proof enough that something isn't exactly right.
The bedside lamp buzzes softly as he approaches. Till swallows.
“Who are you?”
“You can call me Ivan.”
“What are you?” Till asks, exasperated. “Why are you here?”
Ivan says nothing. He looks rather amused with Till’s impatience. Was he seriously going to stick to that ‘one question at a time’ bullshit?
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” His frown deepens. “Just answer the damn questions.”
“That’s an awfully rude thing to say to someone who just saved your life.”
His tone is dramatic, but Till can tell he isn’t actually offended at all. In fact, he’s very obviously repressing a smile. Despite that, a hint of guilt still pricks within his chest. He wants to protest and tell him to read the fucking room, that he obviously wanted to die anyways, but those last few seconds made it clear that that is no longer the complete truth.
He holds his own arm protectively, looking away.
“Sorry.”
Ivan’s eyes widen discreetly enough to make Till think he imagined it.
“I’m here because you called me, Till.”
Till called him? He frowns again, but then it hits him. Blurred memories of his labored breaths; his slowing heart and his body growing cold as one last plea escaped his aching lungs.
“Are you an angel?”
The surprise in Ivan’s eyes is evident now. His lips part ever so slightly, as if robbed of speech, then he laughs. Loudly, uncontrollably. It’s a weird, inhuman sound. Till doesn’t know whether to be embarrassed or scared.
“Do I look like an angel to you?”
Embarrassed it is. Having it pointed out like that makes Till’s skin prick with heat. This guy is clearly no angel, but also not just your average asshole.
“Shut up,” is all Till musters. “You’re not fucking human. You said it yourself, you saved me, you closed my wounds like it was no big deal. And I saw you… those. Things. On your back.”
Ivan hums contemplatively, most likely considering whether or not to mess with Till for a bit longer.
He nods.
“You mean these?” The same thick black tendrils he remembers emerge from Ivan’s back, long and slick and shadow-like. The lamp goes haywire, buzzing so loudly it makes his ears ring.
Till scoots further away until his back hits the wall. The room swirls at the edges of his vision, like Ivan is a black hole about to devour the space he inhabits. His chest is tight under the suffocating pressure, heart beating fast at the top of his throat —he’s never been more terrified, never felt more absurdly, irrevocably alive.
“Get away from me!!”
One step, two closer, then Ivan stops.
“Are you scared of death?”
He doesn’t wait for Till’s answer before reaching out to cup his cheek. Till freezes. Ivan’s hands are soft, but ice cold. His pupils are a deep crimson, his features beautiful in the same way marble statues in mausoleums are. Delicate, striking, decadent.
"That's pretty ironic for someone who was just bleeding out in a tub, isn’t it?”
The subtle mockery is what ultimately snaps Till out of his stupor. He slaps Ivan’s hand away hard. Ivan’s eyes glint with the same hunger he remembers from when he had his tongue pressed over his wounds. Till tries not to let his shiver show.
“I said get away from me, you demon.”
Ivan smiles, a gesture too sweet for the occasion.
“You finally got it right.”
In the next few minutes, when Ivan —temporarily— gets bored of messing with him, Till finally learns the details. Ivan is in fact a demon. He’s kind of pissed off that that wasn’t his first guess, but hindsight is 20/20. More specifically, he’s a demon that feeds off of the emotions of humans. The stronger the emotion, the juicier it tastes, and apparently, the cries of a desperate man at the brink of death are a noteworthy feast. Till’s, especially, had tasted particularly sweet.
“So, what? You kept me alive cause you think there’s more where that came from?”
“Kind of.”
Ivan chuckles at Till’s offended scoff.
“I’m not doing that again,” Till says, without an ounce of confidence in his own words. Right now, he’s pumped full of adrenaline and shock and unfounded bravado. Tomorrow, his father will be back from his business trip. Till knows better than to underestimate the difference in his mental state between the two.
Ivan makes himself comfortable sitting on Till’s bed. He looks human again for all intents and purposes, in all but that perpetually unsettling aura.
“There’s more than one way to make a man desperate.”
Something in Ivan’s face makes his stomach twist, something that Till can’t begin to name. It doesn’t sound as threatening as words like those should. He swallows. Ivan’s eyes follow the bob of his Adam’s apple with the focus of a bird of prey.
“Like— what?” Till asks, resenting how his voice stutters.
“You have to let me in first. Then, I can show you.” Leave it to a demon to be so charismatic that for a split second he makes Till’s own demise sound like a tempting offer he should be bargaining for.
“Let you in?” Nevermind what kind of meaning that sentence may carry. Till has even more pressing questions.
“What the hell is in it for me?”
Slowly, Ivan reaches for his arm. His cuts are gone, but the evidence of his father’s wrath is still etched under his skin in ugly amalgamations of purple and green. The demon’s fingers trace over them gingerly. Till’s heart shrinks at the realization that, however wicked and rotten Ivan’s intentions may be, his skin hasn’t known a tenderness like this since the age of five.
“I can make your problems disappear.”
Till hates the certitude with which Ivan utters those words, loathes that he desperately wants to believe him. Aren’t demons supposed to be tricksters? Ivan is probably saying whatever bullshit will break through Till’s already vulnerable defenses so he can, what? Suck his soul dry and have a feast with his finger-licking-good misery?
And yet, with his options being returning to his usual nightmare routine or ending up dead by his own hand or another’s, that offer isn’t the worst.
“I can cut them at the root,” Ivan adds.
Instead of the protest he wants to make, Till asks, “how?”
“Let me in,” the demon repeats, voice low in a way that makes an unwanted warmth spread across his lower stomach. When Ivan cups his face and leans closer, Till no longer needs to ask what he means.
Every instinct in his body is ringing the alarm bells that this is wrong, stupidly dangerous. Till hasn’t listened to reason ever in his life, though. Once those icy lips make contact with his, there’s little room for hesitation. Ivan kisses him with such gentleness that it hurts, fingers running up his scalp and grabbing onto fistfuls of hair just enough to send little sparks of electricity under his skin. Till can do nothing but press his hands onto Ivan’s chest, devoid of a heartbeat or warmth but feeding into Till’s own.
Clumsily, he kisses back and realizes, with a fair amount of shame, that he doesn’t really want it to stop.
As if Ivan can read his thoughts, his tongue presses against Till’s lips and pushes its way inside his mouth, dragging a muffled sound of surprise from his throat. The invasion, however abrupt, isn’t unwelcome. The previous gentleness is dead and gone, but the eagerness with which Ivan explores his mouth tickles Till’s own hunger, something that had been dormant somewhere deep inside him, lying in wait to grab him by the throat in the worst of circumstances.
Lights flicker behind his closed eyes, his touch starved body chasing after every sensation that the demon eagerly offers while his mind still itches with the awareness of giving into something he shouldn’t —maybe that’s exactly why it’s so tempting in the first place.
In the midst of his dilemma, something cold and slippery sneaks under his shirt. His eyes shoot open and he gasps when that thing touches his nipple. He pushes on Ivan’s chest just enough to take a good look at the dark tentacles sprouting from his back. Ivan’s pupils shine a brighter shade of red, a stark reminder that he’s laying with the devil. Adrenaline rushes through his veins. He thinks about booking it, pushing Ivan off and running away into the mouth of the storm still roaring outside the window.
“Hm? Do you want me to stop?”
Ivan’s smirk is nothing but a taunt, a way to wordlessly accuse him of cowardice. Stubborn as ever, Till refuses to concede, but he cannot bring himself to admit that his willingness to continue has less to do with proving his bravery and more to do with the steadily increasing heat pulsating between his legs.
Whatever. Till has shook hands with worse types of self harm before.
The demon takes Till’s silence as permission. The tentacle flicks over his nipple with playful curiosity while another slowly makes its way under his shorts and wraps around his leg, the tip resting dangerously at the crease between the top of his thigh and his crotch. It’s a weird, slimy sensation on both places being touched, but God, Till’s already soaking wet. He closes his eyes and his back arches under the meager stimulation.
His hips move on their own, aimlessly, a futile attempt to elicit a different action from the demon, a bigger sensation to scratch the itch now plaguing him. No such relief is offered. A frustrated groan escapes his lips before he can catch himself. When he opens his eyes, Ivan’s gaze is different. Not exactly mocking, but glinting with barely concealed ecstasy.
He’s feeding on this, isn’t he?
Till frowns, red with a mix of indignation and embarrassment.
“What?” Ivan caresses his cheek with unfitting sweetness. “You didn’t answer me before.”
Till bites his lip. He doesn’t want to give Ivan the upper hand, but he’s also never been offered a single choice in his life. It’d be foolish not to seize it. Fear and shame have had him on a leash ever since he can remember. Till is sick and tired of letting them control him.
“Keep going…” He says it so softly it’s almost a whisper, but Ivan hears it loud and clear. He licks over his own lips like Till’s reluctant admittance was a sweet little snack on its own.
It goes from zero to a hundred. Within seconds, those black tendrils wrap around each of Till’s limbs like weeds climbing up an abandoned building —his body is much like one, broken and neglected, haunted by more ghosts than it can carry without collapse. They take a hold of his wrists, his chest, torso, legs, pinning him against the mattress. His shirt is pushed up above his chest and his bottoms are pulled off entirely, leaving Till bare.
The thought of being in such a vulnerable position in front of anybody else, every ugly mark exposed and the evidence of his desire dripping between his legs, would have been horrifying in any other circumstance. Ivan doesn’t give him a single second to wallow in shame, though —perhaps it’s not quite as tasty as the frenzy of desire.
Tentacles wrap around both his thighs, spreading them open with an ease that should be scary but only serves to make his stomach knot with anticipation. A tentacle slides up between his legs. Till gasps when it reaches his clit, the slick of it combined with Till’s own fluids helping it grind against him with extraordinary ease. Once he gets past the weirdness of the sensation, it’s fucking amazing.
“Fuck—” Till curses under his breath, throwing his head back. He bites his own lip in a futile attempt to repress the sounds threatening to leave his mouth, but Ivan isn’t having it. He kisses him again, pushing his lips open and greedily swallowing Till’s moans until his throat is raw.
Ivan is everywhere, invading him like a parasite that hopes to burrow its way under his skin. His nipples are hard and swollen under the slick of his tendrils, his cunt is throbbing from the steady friction, his mouth is full with Ivan’s tongue, whose hungry kisses eventually move to his jaw and the top of his neck; biting, sucking, covering old pains with new kinds that are much closer to pleasure.
It’s too damn much, like his body is being pulled apart. He doesn’t know whether he wants to close his legs to escape the overwhelm or spread them wider to chase after some sort of release. In the end, he can do neither. Ivan holds him so tightly the only thing he can do is tremble and squirm in place.
He’s unable to hold back a sob, or the subsequent tears that run down his cheeks. Ivan licks them shamelessly, humming in delight at the salty feast under his tongue.
“You’re so delicious like this,” Ivan whispers in his ear. It’s filthy and borderline offensive, but Till can’t help the groan it pulls from him, the praise going straight to his crotch. Something about the vibration of his voice, the auditory evidence that the demon is as weak for his taste as Till is for his touch.
Ivan offers him a small mercy and presses harder between his legs, increasing the friction and pace. Till’s muscles tense and relax uncontrollably under the relentless stimulation. Just as he’s so close to climax, Ivan stops.
Till whines in frustration. Through his blurry eyes, he can see something borderline frantic in Ivan’s expression.
“Goddammit, Ivan, just—”
“Shhh,” the demon ‘soothes’ him. Unsurprisingly, it has the exact opposite effect. Lowering himself down, Ivan presses a kiss against the inside of his thigh, too close to where it aches the most. “Be patient for me.”
His words don’t match his intentions. If Till had the capacity to be patient, Ivan wouldn’t get his fill. He’s sure the demon is feasting on Till’s every tremor as he sucks new bruises into his thigh, the twitch of his fingers on Till’s hip giving away the thrill underneath it all.
His cunt sits neglected and involuntarily clenching around nothing with every new drag of Ivan’s tongue somewhere else that isn’t where Till needs him.
“Ivan,” Till scolds. His mouth holds a plea hostage, but he still somehow manages to hold on to a sliver of his stubbornness —and vindictiveness. Against all odds, Ivan’s face reveals that he might find that delectable, too.
Till hisses when Ivan bites down on his thigh, hard. That sharp canine will surely leave a dent. The demon doesn’t give him room to complain before the sting is immediately overpowered by the sensation of Ivan’s tongue licking right between his lips.
On top of everything else, nothing could have prepared him for this kind of touch. Ivan alternates between playfully flicking his clit to full on sucking on it, leaving Till’s already sensitive nerves on fire, tiptoeing the edge of climax but never crossing the line. Every time Till gets too close, the demon switches to kisses that would look like worship coming from someone holier —now, Till understand that torture can take many forms.
The grip on his arms and legs go loose. Without missing a beat, Till frees his hand and grabs onto Ivan’s hair, pushing his head down hard between his legs. There’s a tiny, choked sound that gets caught on Ivan’s throat. Till can feel his lips curve over his skin. Only then does he stop playing and eat him out like he means it. At that point, Till isn’t sure he can call it mercy.
He’s blinded by his own tears, the storm muted by his own heavy breathing and the obscene, wet sounds of lips smacking and slurping. Ivan shifts, and for a second, Till thinks he’s about to pull away again. The sound of complaint dies in his throat when a tentacle presses against his cunt, the tip pushing lightly on the entrance.
Ivan sits up, his mouth replaced by his thumb, stroking his clit in slow little circles. His pupils are blown so wide that his eyes are almost entirely blood-red, his lips and jaw shiny with a mix of saliva and Till’s fluids. The sight alone could have pushed him over the edge.
Till bucks his hips up against Ivan’s thumb, but the demon softens the pressure accordingly. The tentacle keeps teasing his hole, just on the verge of penetration.
There’s more than one way to make a man desperate.
The idea that Ivan might just toy with him like this with no relief in sight is terrifying.
“Ivan,” Till whispers in between pants, mind empty of anything else. “Ivan…”
The demon throws his head back, something between a moan and a laugh leaving his lips.
“What do you want?”
“You know what I want!” Ivan presses harder on his clit, just enough to drive him insane.
“You know how to get it, don’t you?” Ivan says, words laced with deceitful kindness. “You did it before.”
Till is too far gone to pretend that he doesn’t want what he’s being offered.
“P-Please…” He concedes. “Please, fucking hell, please… I-Ivan.”
Feverish with need, eyes full of tears, he keeps whispering those words like a corrupt prayer.
In a crude show of lust, Ivan takes his thumb from Till’s clit and licks the slick off of it, eyes closed, brows furrowed, sighing like it’s ambrosia on his tongue.
Then, Till’s wish is finally granted.
Ivan flips him around like he weighs nothing and, very soon, Ivan’s tendrils are wrapped around his whole body again, keeping his wrists together, his hips lifted and his legs open.
With no time to lament how exposed the position leaves him, the tip pushes all the way in, spreading his walls apart until he’s completely and utterly full of Ivan.
His eyes roll back when the demon starts thrusting, a high unlike any he’s ever experienced. He can’t even finish processing when a second tendril penetrates his ass, a few more stimulating his nipples, another rubbing against his clit.
He’s full to the brim, clawing at the sheets so hard they rip under his nails, biting his lips bloody. Ivan forces his mouth open and pushes his fingers against Till’s tongue so he can no longer hold back a single moan.
Till thinks he might be dying for real now, thinks a human body may not be built to withstand a whirlwind of pleasure such as this, so intense it borders on pain. His mouth goes slack in Ivan’s grasp, drool running freely down his jaw. His weakened body is held up solely by Ivan’s own.
Ivan whispers something that could be praise or a curse, but Till can’t hear over his own voice.
The storm runs wild and the lights buzz frantically, loud like wasps stuck in a jar. Till’s heart matches the chaos around it —for a moment, it’s just like the second it stopped, except instead of free falling, he’s floating higher and higher until his body can’t stand the atmosphere.
He doesn’t realize when Ivan lifts him up and holds him against his chest as he fucks into him mercilessly. He doesn’t hear himself pleading, sobbing so hard he’s almost choking.
Till climaxes so hard he’s rendered mute. The light bulbs in his room burn out.
In the darkness, as he’s laid back on the bed, all Till can see are Ivan’s glowing red pupils, big and bright and imposing. The demon’s sigh cuts through the rain. The raw, frenzied gratification it carries rattles inside his bones like thunder.
Till doesn’t remember falling asleep. When he opens his eyes, the rain has stopped and Ivan is gone. Soft morning light filters through the gaps between the closed blinds, painting golden streaks on his bruised skin.
There’s an odd calmness in the atmosphere, as if he’s looking at life through the grainy filter of an old videocamera. The air smells of childhood. The neighbor’s windchimes clink softly in the gentle breeze.
The stillness is suffocating. Ivan is gone, and it is morning, which means his father should be home.
Any sense of tranquility is robbed from him as dread makes his spine stiffen, a million questions tormenting him at once. Is his father here? Was it all a fucked up dream? Did Ivan lie to him?
Till hurries to inspect his body in the mirror, sore and full of bruises but devoid of cuts. When he fails to distinguish old marks from new ones, he stumbles into the bathroom.
It’s just as he left it last night.
The water in the tub is drenched in red, blood smeared on the edges and spilt on the white tiles below.
It wasn’t a dream, which means not only did he fail to die, but Till was used and abandoned right after hitting absolute rock bottom.
Of course.
(“I can make your problems disappear.”)
He exhales something like a laugh. A bitter, pitiful sound punched out of his lungs. Of course he’s so pathetic and cowardly that he can’t even be good at dropping dead. Of course he cries and pleads and ends up trading his last shred of dignity to a demon. Of course he fucking enjoys it. Of course his father was right when he called Till a whore.
His knees hit the floor. Bracing against the edge of the tub, Till bawls over his own spilt blood, every leftover emotion from the previous day coming back to carve its name in the space behind his ribs.
In the back of his mind, he wonders if Ivan would happily get a taste of this, too.
Once the tears dry up, numbness sets in. Till drains the tub, wipes the floor and washes his face with tired resignation. He opens the blinds to confirm his father’s car is parked in the driveway, a little off center —that means he’s in a bad mood. Nothing unusual.
But the same stillness continues to permeate the house. An angry Urak means doors getting slammed, things getting thrown and loud steps. Violent knocking on Till’s door, if he’s especially pissed off. Now, the windchimes and crickets are the loudest thing on the block.
There’s a faraway buzzing sound, too, so subtle that Till could have easily missed it. He gathers the courage to leave his room. As he goes down the stairs, the buzzing gets a little louder. Then, there’s something else. Gentle cracks like the wood of a bonfire. A copper-like smell.
From the corner, the kitchen lights flicker.
His stomach twists in a familiar way. It takes him until then to notice the trail of blood on the floor.
What he finds inside the kitchen could have been extracted directly from a nightmare. Ivan is there, tendrils spread out, jaw off its hinges as sharp teeth dig through the skin, muscle and bones of his deceased father as if he was made of putty. Urak’s lifeless eyes stare wide at Till, frozen in a moment of indescribable terror.
Ivan knows he’s there, but he doesn’t address him until he’s done swallowing. Poised, polite —things that shouldn’t have a place in a moment this gruesome.
“Good morning.” Ivan beams at him candidly.
The scariest part of it is that Till isn't scared. He looks down at the slaughter and feels nothing for the husk of a human that was his sperm provider.
He can’t even bring himself to feel shame about his relief at the sight of Ivan.
“Did he suffer?” Till asks, his heart buzzing with something unknown.
Ivan’s expression is an answer in itself.
“He pleaded,” the demon confesses. He knows intimately what Till really wants to hear. “Begged for me to take you in his place.”
Till snorts a laugh. Cruel and pathetic until the end.
His only regret is being asleep while it happened. Hearing the satisfaction in Ivan’s voice, though, awakens something insidious. It manifests in the tightness of his lips, the slight furrowing of his brows. The demon smells it on him like a bloodhound.
“Are you wondering who tasted better?”
Blood rushes to Till’s face, which is ridiculous. He’s standing in front of a literal demon and the mangled corpse of his father. Not the time or place for his body to betray him like this —definitely not the right time for his mind to conjure up every touch, every sound from his mouth, the blissful sensation of fullness, the delight twisting Ivan’s expression into something wicked.
Even now, there’s still a glint in his eyes, like Till’s reaction is indeed tastier than the flesh he’s currently consuming. Till doesn’t know if that should flatter him or piss him off.
“You’re insane,” Till says instead, doubting his own sanity.
Ivan finishes the job quickly. His tendrils multiply in number and size, enveloping Urak’s corpse entirely, akin to vines swallowing him into the earth. Just like that, he’s gone, guts, blood and all. The floor is left impeccable. Even the stringent smell of iron, that had completely permeated the cramped space, disappears. It’s as if not only the corpse, but the man’s very existence had been consumed into nothingness. It’s a strange sensation. His shoulders relax and his lungs take in more air with the space cleared by his absence.
Seems like the horrid scene of monstrous munching was only Ivan applying theatrics for Till’s sake.
His sake, or a reaction good enough to feast on. Either way, it’s done. The contract is completed.
Ivan leaves without saying goodbye.
Unlike his father, his presence remains etched into Till’s body permanently, an invisible tattoo as all his bruises fade. Enough time passes that Urak is officially presumed dead, so Till sells the house and pays for college and therapy with the hefty inheritance he gets because the bastard was too lazy and overconfident to write him out of the will before his demise.
Till buys a brand new guitar, starts composing again, makes new friends, aces his art classes and fails statistics, gets drunk every other weekend and has people around him to pat his back when he pukes into the toilet. It’s not perfect, but it’s better. It’s his, and in the background, the ghost of Ivan is always there, carved into the scar his fang left on his thigh.
Sometimes, Till wonders what would happen if he called him. If he would actually show up. If this version of him, faraway from the one on the bloody tub, would still prove to be just as tasty. On bad days, the name dangles at the tip of his tongue, a pendulum between sanity and desire, but Till resists the temptation. He reminds himself it’s better that way.
There’s more than one way to make a man desperate, and more than one way in which Ivan stays. An itch that cannot be scratched. Sensations that human touch could never replicate. A parasitic longing lingering inside his body, red pupils haunting every corner of his mind. The unexplained flickering of the lights on cold, lonely nights.