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There's no such thing as acknowledgement, now. Everything that has been acknowledged, has been.
Ivan looks at himself in the mirror. A long thing— it captures him from head to toe, sharp shadow, hard gaze. The glint of the zipper running up to his throat.
The white coat is heavy, draped over his forearm.
He scrutinises himself in his reflection. His hair is styled in a windswept, artfully gelled manner from its usual limpness against his temples. There is a slight dusting of foundation on his undereyes. He is, still, painfully average.
He considers the weight on his arm. Now, or later. It won't matter.
Beside him, a three-inch wall away, hidden in the curtains of another changing room is faint rustling. Till is there, breathing, moving. Faint clink and rustle of some sort of chain.
Ivan will know what he's wearing, soon. He pulls the long sleeves of the jumper over the heels of his palms. Over the branding. More of him covered up and indiscernible.
Ivan considers himself again. Then he unravels the lump of cloth in a languid rustling of the material, pulls it over his back, slips his arms into the coat.
He looks. His reflection stares back, drained of much.
Okay, Ivan thinks. Okay.
He turns, and does not look back. He pulls the curtain open and walks backstage.
Ivan sits on a long bench backstage. Till soon joins him there. There's only a half hour, maximum, until it's time.
Ivan barely looks up from the lyric sheet in his hands. It wrinkles, slightly, under the tensing of his fingers.
Till walks. There's an unnatural metallicness, an unnatural stillness to the usual loud, unfettered steps he likes to take. Ivan looks past the papers to see metal shoes, elegant to the eyes. Not so for the wearer.
Something morbid echos in his head. Something about blood and how its redness would cling, slide off the material of the shoes. Ivan does not react. He slides his gaze back on the sheet.
In your gaze where I'm seen; Consume me
Till sits next to him. A distance away. It's not arms length. Ivan pretends not to notice, like he's not finetuned to everything about him.
Till is slumping against the wall. His head hangs, and he's got his hair styled in a tamed, straight manner so utterly different from its innate unruly state.
He doesn't speak a word. Ivan looks at him. Till's carved dark rings around the hollow of his eyes, and he's clad in all dark grey, like a stormcloud, whatever that is.
Till is desolate, numb. There's really nothing in his gaze, not the usual fire burning in the heart of them. It's horrid. His spirit is lost.
Ivan tries to make small talk. He's never been too good at it— Till used to like to demand him to be 'less intense', or 'less of a weirdo', or 'be more normal'.
"Have you at least read the lyrics of the song? You don't want to be the first contestant in Alien Stage history to die in ten seconds," Ivan says.
There's barely even a reaction. Till's eyes flicker up and down and nothing else.
"I can lend you mine." Ivan says. He pushes his sheet halfway across the chasm between them. Despite the layers he's got on, there's a distinct chill in his bones. Ivan represses the shiver.
Till looks at the sheet, back hunched in on himself. He looks so utterly destroyed that Ivan has to tug on his sleeves to pull them down further past the heels of his palm. Not enough.
Till takes it. His fingers are thin and guitar calluses decorate some parts of them. He does not do anything else other than stare at the sheet in his hands.
Ivan does not acknowledge this. Till does not, either.
There's glimmers of a notion in his mind. He's never really considered it. Not fully. Maybe Sua planted the seeds in his mind. Maybe Mizi did, Round Five.
He grasps onto the idea. Sounds it out, runs it like water. It sounds good. The best possible option. Till won't like it much, but he'll manage.
Till keeps staring unblinkingly at the sheet. He's light years away. Ivan wishes he was closer, then wishes he himself was less of whatever he is.
Ivan wishes he would close the not-arms-length distance between them. It's entirely selfish. He's already held his unconscious face in his unworthy disgusting hands and pressed the surface of his undeserving face against his. Taking advantage. Truly despicable. Not enough. Ivan has never truly learnt restraint when it comes to Till.
He needs this. Till does not want this. One of them is more strongly determined.
The air is still and Ivan and Till sit, side to side, not-arms-length distance apart. Ivan cannot reach out to him without moving from his seat. So he does not.
Time passes. Ivan supposes he should savour it. He presses his gaze on Till, his eyes, his cheek, his torso. Imprints this one amongst the rest of them. More, more.
Then it was time.
They told them to stand up, to take position to be lifted up to the main stage. Perform. Give the aliens something awesome to yell about. Your whole lives lead to this moment.
A life for a life. And now, again: A life for a life.
Ivan looks at Till. He's cast his gaze on the floor.
"Good luck, Till," Ivan says. The words taste like finality. He does not let the bitterness of it seep into his voice. A steady, neutral thing.
Till places the sheet on the chair they occupied.
Notice my pain, and mend me right now.
Ivan adjusts the coat, the overbearing thing, white like the snow that falls in Anakt Garden. Unbeautiful.
Till does not look over as he steps into the marked circle. Ivan does as he does.
It did not matter if Ivan made it out alive. It did not, because simply put, if Till died, he would've died, and if Ivan died, Till would not have died. It was a sentence, either way. Punishment, maybe.
Once there was a sky filled with dying stars and once there was a him who was truly vindicated and fulfilled who either died or never existed in the first place. Once he had assumed that he had to earn the affection, like the aliens, and after he realised there was no earning it because he could not be loved, if there was even such a thing. The incapability of love and being loved ran so deep in his veins that it was him.
This obsession with Till— a violating, vapid, horrid, thing.
Ivan did not need love. He did not need to be loved. It was in his nature.
Ivan looks away. His breath is steady. His hands are sturdy, surgeon-precise. He looks at his prime.
The platform beneath Till's feet lifted. If there were any more words, they would be lost in the rain, in the screaming and jeering of the audience.
No more words. Ivan thinks. No more. The platform shifts under him. It's time.
Ivan steels himself for the lights. Rain falls on his cheeks, his lashes. He hopes the end of all this would be kinder.