Chapter Text
The crowd was endless.
Bodies pressed in on every side, faceless silhouettes swaying as one. Ivan shoved forward, elbows digging, but the mass gave nothing. Each inch became a mile. Lights above burned green, then crimson, pulsing like veins in the sky. Smoke salted his breath. His lungs dragged thin.
Onstage, Till’s voice cracked the void, sharp and aching. Silver hair clung to his temple, eyes burning under the lights. He dazzled, terrible and beautiful like a dying star, but Ivan saw the fatigue in his shoulders, the tremor when he gripped the mic. He was fraying.
Opposite him stood Luka.
The sight hit like a blow. Luka’s razor-thin smile was too calm for the violence in his gaze. He circled Till’s light like a shadow with teeth, voice slicing through the song with practiced precision. He moved as if he’d already won.
Ivan shoved harder. “No—” The roar swallowed his voice. Heat walled him in. The crowd’s faceless heads swayed in rhythm, deaf to his panic.
Till’s knees dipped. Luka leaned close, lips shaping words Ivan couldn’t hear but understood anyway. Taunting. Poison between verses. Till’s voice faltered, then steadied, breath ragged.
Ivan screamed his name. No sound came.
The crowd surged. He clawed at shoulders, hands slipping on fabric that wasn’t real. Pulse hammering. Get to him. Just get there.
For one impossible heartbeat, Till looked up. Across the haze, their eyes met.
Ivan froze, breath catching like glass. Till saw him. Fear cracked and something soft bled through. A hand lifted, reaching.
Ivan reached back, arm straining above the sea. His chest tore with it. If he could just—
The gunshot split the world.
Till snapped back. The bullet tore his neck. Silence held for a half second. Then the spray came, catching the lights, fanning sharp across the stage. Droplets hit Ivan’s face, warm. His shirt speckled. His fingers streaked red as he pushed forward. Till’s voice cut mid-note into a wet gasp. Blood climbed the roots of silver hair, darkening everything it touched.
“No. No, no!” His throat tore on a sound he couldn’t make. His raised hand was painted with Till’s blood. He had reached too late.
Till crumpled. Red spread beneath him. His eyes held Ivan’s even as they dimmed.
“Luka Wins!” flashes brightly on the screens, the crowd roaring his name, as Ivan tries desperately to reach the stage.
Ivan woke choking.
The monitor shrilled. His pulse spiked. He bucked against the bed, bandaged shoulder jerking, ribs tugging sharply. Two nurses moved in, calm and practiced. One steadied his shoulder. The other reached the IV.
“We need to give him something before he hurts himself,” one said.
Till’s head snapped up. “What are you giving him?” Urgent.
“Ketamine,” the nurse replied after a beat. “Not an opioid. It will ease the pain and calm him so he can rest.” Her voice softened, remembering the warning Till had given earlier. “It’s safe for him.”
Till gripped Ivan’s trembling hand.
Ivan’s eyes darted, bright and unfocused. “N-no, don’t let—” Panic caught in his throat. Tears tracked hot. “Till, what’s happening? Please.”
“You’re safe,” Till whispered, fierce and steady. He cradled Ivan’s hand in both of his. “Look at me.”
The nurse pushed the medication.
Ivan flinched as a cold rush spread through his veins, heavy and metallic. “Feels wrong,” he managed. “Don’t—”
“Shh.” Till brushed damp hair back. “You’re not alone. I’m right here.”
For a moment, Ivan steadied, eyes half-closed, grip twitching against Till’s palm. Then his gaze snapped wide, staring past the room.
“Blood.” His voice broke. “I saw you. I couldn’t stop it.” He arched off the bed. The monitor shrieked.
“He’s breaking through,” a nurse said. “He needs more.”
Till shook his head, squeezing tighter. “Ivan, it isn’t real. Look at me.”
Ivan’s tears ran hot and relentless. Words collapsed into fragments. “Don’t let me see it again. Please, Till. I can’t watch you die again. I can’t.”
The second dose went in, colder, faster.
Ivan whimpered, shaking his head weakly. “No—don’t—don’t let—me—” His words unraveled, slurring thin. “Wrong… don’t…”
He lifted his hand, reaching for Till, but his fingers drifted short, hovering inches from where they should have been. He blinked at them, puzzled, trying again, slower this time, but his movements lagged, uncoordinated. His hand felt detached, as if it belonged to someone else.
Till saw the confusion flicker across his face, the way his gaze kept dropping to his own fingers, the tiny tremor of frustration as they refused to obey. Without hesitating, Till leaned in and caught his hand, guiding it into his own.
“I’m here,” he murmured, firm but quiet. His thumb brushed over Ivan’s knuckles, grounding him. “You found me.”
Ivan’s lashes fluttered, the tension bleeding from his features. His eyes lingered on their joined hands for a long moment, as though making sure the connection was real. His breathing slowed, chest still trembling faintly, the panic easing into exhaustion.
Till kept hold, even as Ivan’s grip weakened. “You’re safe,” he whispered. “It’s over.”
Ivan’s body softened in his arms, the fight gone, the monitor’s beeping leveling out into a steady rhythm.
The world tilted. Not sleep. Somewhere else.
The stage dissolved into red.
Blood covered everything. His hands, his shirt, the floor. It soaked his knees and the lights until the world flickered crimson. He clutched Till and rocked him, words scattering as soon as he spoke them. “Don’t go. Don’t leave. I can’t.”
The crowd roared without faces, their mouths stretching too wide. The roar thinned into the monitor’s beep, then into laughter.
Blink.
He was in a hospital bed, hands red, Till limp against the white sheets. Nurses stood masked and distant. One pressed another syringe.
“No, stop!” He thrashed weakly. “Not again. Don’t put me under. I can’t lose him again.”
“Calm down, Ivan,” the nurse said, her voice sliding into Luka’s, smooth and cruel. “It doesn’t matter what you do. He dies either way.”
Blink.
Luka crouched on the stage, lights pulsing behind him. “You killed him, Ivan. Every time, it’s you.” Teeth too sharp. Eyes the color of monitors. “Your love is a noose.”
“I can feel him,” Ivan rasped. “He’s still here.”
The blood wouldn’t stop. His palms slipped on the wound. Till’s chest rattled, breath wet and thin.
“I can’t lose you,” Ivan sobbed. “Not you.”
Till’s lips moved. Blood bubbled. A voice, hoarse and broken: “This is your fault.”
Ivan froze. “No.”
“You left me,” Till whispered. “You always leave. You bleed for me, and it’s never enough.” Another spray streaked Ivan’s hands. “You made me watch you die. Now I’m gone too.”
Hot metal filled Ivan’s mouth. He gagged and spat red. His own body convulsed. He was drowning, too.
Lights pulsed white. Luka’s shadow lengthened. Your fault. Always your fault.
“I just wanted to save him,” Ivan coughed, words breaking apart. He fell to his knees, spitting blood. The crowd vanished. Only darkness. Only Luka.
“You’ll never wake up,” Luka breathed. “You’ll stay here, holding a body that never breathes again. You chose this.”
“No.” Panic shattered him. “I didn’t. I just—”
The monitor returned, too fast, too sharp. He clawed forward until he found Till’s hand again. Cold. Limp.
A twitch.
He stilled. Their joined hands. Another twitch, faint but real.
“Please,” he whispered. “Don’t leave me.”
Blood dissolved. The crowd flickered out. Luka blurred away.
The monitor’s beeping came first, a thin, rhythmic sound. Then the weight of air pressed back into his lungs. The pressure of Till’s hand in his soothing him.
Till’s voice followed, quiet and cautious. “Hey… are you okay? Calmed down?”
Ivan blinked, unfocused. He gave a slow nod.
“Good.” Till’s tone softened further. “Then rest.”
Ivan exhaled. His eyes closed again, and the edges of the hospital room dissolved, folding into white.
When Ivan opened his eyes, he was standing in the garden again.
Light spilled across an endless green plain too vivid to be real. Grass shimmered like glass threads under a wind that didn’t move. The sky was washed in static blue, clouds painted perfectly in place. Somewhere distant, a child’s laughter looped like a broken song.
A figure waited ahead of him.
It was himself.
The other Ivan stood motionless beneath a thin fall of rain that didn’t touch the ground. His white coat was torn open at the shoulder, the fabric clinging wet to his skin. Blood traced the corner of his mouth and ran down his chin in slow, glinting threads, gathering at his collar before disappearing into the mist. His eyes, glassy and hollow, carried no anger, only the quiet acceptance of someone already gone. When he spoke, his voice barely stirred the air.
“I thought that girl and I were in the same predicament,” he said quietly. “I think her eyes misled me into thinking that way. She wasn’t that much different from me. Her environment, her twisted personality, they were all similar to me.”
As he spoke, the air rippled.
Mizi and Sua appeared in the shimmering field. They sat together in the identical grass, laughter faint and real in a world built for performance. Mizi reached out to brush a petal from Sua’s sleeve, and Sua smiled, open, unguarded, full of that small, steady love Ivan had never been able to name for himself.
“When I found out I was wrong,” the bleeding Ivan went on, “I think I felt something I couldn’t quite put into words. But… I don’t know. I can’t remember. Come to think of it, I shouldn’t have been so hard on him.”
The Garden shifted. The perfect green deepened, reflections bending until they shaped scenes from memory.
Ivan and Till lay in the tall grass, a single red flower between them. Till’s fingers touched the stem gently, eyes soft with wonder; Ivan watched him with the same quiet awe.
The image blurred. They were running, laughing, tumbling through the grass. Dirt smeared across their white uniforms; Till’s face turned fierce, almost angry, while Ivan only laughed harder, eyes bright.
The light darkened.
Till was on the ground now, knees drawn up, a muzzle clamped across his mouth. The world around them fractured into shards of pale glass. Ivan knelt beside him, unbuckling the lock with shaking hands. The metal came free with a soft snap. He ruffled Till’s hair, smiling faintly, then helped him rise. The shadows recoiled, just a little.
Then everything stilled.
Till stood on a stage under a sky the color of stormwater. Rain fell in threads of silver light, hissing when it hit the ground. Pools gathered at his feet, mirroring his pale reflection. Ivan watched from the wings, half-hidden, the cold air brushing against his throat like a warning.
Till lifted his head, silver hair slicked dark, light catching on the droplets that clung to him. His expression was unreadable, fear and defiance all folded into one.
Ivan’s hand curled into a fist. He straightened the collar of his white jacket, exhaled once, and stepped out onto the stage beside him.
The other Ivan watched from the rain, blood at his lips, voice fading softer. “I didn’t think I’d end up like this either. I didn’t expect those words to come back at me. I should’ve been kinder.”
The rain paused midair, suspended. Light cracked white, and suddenly, Ivan was somewhere else.
A hallway. White walls, humming lights overhead. The air smelled faintly sterile, like the Garden’s training corridors.
Sua stood in front of him, arms crossed, eyes unflinching.
Ivan exhaled, a humorless laugh slipping through his teeth. “Ah, sorry. I couldn’t help but laugh.” He looked away, the corners of his mouth twitching upward, brittle. “Well, we won’t see each other anymore, so it doesn’t matter.”
Sua’s brow knit. “What’s funny about that?”
Ivan’s expression softened for a moment, then hardened again. “When I see you, I feel relieved,” he said quietly. “So it’s not just me who’s been this twisted.”
Her lips parted, but he didn’t let her answer.
“I mean, would I really want to be the tragic heroine who sacrifices themselves for someone?” His voice sharpened, each word cutting cleaner than the last. “Aren’t you just miserable and pitiful?”
Sua took a half-step back, eyes flickering.
Ivan pressed on, the words coming faster now, angry, but at something unseen. “Such a hypocrite. All you can do is pass everything you don’t like onto someone else and run away without a care in the world.”
His voice broke on the last sentence, a crack slipping through the veneer. “You’ll be nothing more than a trauma to the one you leave behind.”
Silence filled the hallway. Sua just stared at him, wide-eyed and hurt, but said nothing.
Ivan looked down, suddenly unsure, his pulse loud in the empty space. Then the lights began to flicker, and the scene fractured, collapsing back into rain.
The light intensified until the stage and the Garden fused, green bleeding into blue, dissolving into rain. Ivan could still see his other self standing at the center of it all, blood glinting under the pale lights like shards of glass.
“Still,” the wounded version whispered, “let me say this just in case.”
He smiled faintly, the edges of his mouth painted red. “Thank you for being the victim of my shallow emotions.” The words lingered in the air like smoke. Then the world shifted once more.
The stage lights narrowed into a single white beam. Rain still fell, steady and silver, whispering against the floor.
Ivan saw it from somewhere above, detached. Till standing in the light’s center, motionless, his dark uniform gleaming with water.
At his feet lay Ivan’s other self, pale against the black stage. The rain struck his still body, running in thin red threads toward the edge of the stage.
Till didn’t move. He just stared down, his expression unreadable. Something between grief and disbelief. His hands hung limp at his sides. The silence swallowed everything.
Ivan wanted to speak, to call out, to tell him it wasn’t real, but the sound wouldn’t come. The light dimmed until only Till remained visible, haloed in gray, and the faint sound of rain faded into static.
The Garden folded in on itself. Rain becoming petals, light dissolving into white.
He was back in the hospital. Ribs heavy, shoulder burning, sweat cooling on his face. The monitor hummed. Till was there. Their hands were still clasped.
The lights were too bright, but real. His ribs ached. Bandages bit his skin. The room had softened at the edges. The ache was dull weight now, not fire.
He tried to shift and hissed as his ribs tugged. The monitor clicked up, then down. Sweat chilled his temple. He turned his head.
Till slouched in the bedside chair, silver hair mussed, eyes rimmed red. He wasn’t asleep. He watched, elbows on his knees, hands locked together like he’d been bracing for hours. When their eyes met, he exhaled as if he’d been holding his breath all night.
Ivan swallowed. “You’re… still here.”
Till’s mouth curved, small and certain. “Yeah. I’m not going anywhere.”
Ivan’s eyes filled. The motion of his head drew another quiet sound of pain. The monitor ticked faster, then settled. “I saw you die,” he rasped. “I couldn’t get to you. It felt real.”
Till leaned in, careful not to crowd him. He brushed Ivan’s fingers. “It wasn’t real. I’m here. Breathing. You’re not going to lose me like that.”
“They keep happening,” Ivan whispered. “These dreams. They feel like memories.”
“Then let them be what they are,” Till murmured. His thumb eased over Ivan’s knuckles, hesitant, then steadier when Ivan didn’t pull away. “Dreams. They can’t touch you here. Not while I’m watching.”
Exhaustion tugged at Ivan. He turned a little toward Till. “You’re really not leaving?”
“Not a chance.”
For a moment, the words held him together. Then his gaze drifted. A faint echo of rain crossed his hearing, the hush of it somewhere beyond the walls. “They’re not just dreams,” he said. “They’re connected… It’s like I’m remembering another life.”
He flinched as the motion tugged his shoulder. Sweat slid along his jaw. “And Luka was there.”
Till went still. “Luka?”
Ivan nodded weakly. “He said things on the rooftop, in class. In the dream, it was the same look, like he recognized it too. Like he knows what I see.” His breath hitched. The monitor answered. “He knows.”
Till’s grip tightened, anchoring. “Then he knows something he shouldn’t. He doesn’t get to own it.”
Ivan let out a broken breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. Pain pinched his face. “What if none of it is mine? What if I’m replaying a script I can’t change?” He blinked hard. “I keep seeing the same stage, the same light. You standing there. Me bleeding out. It’s like the world keeps starting and ending in that place.”
Till’s fingers tightened around his. “It was just a dream, Ivan.”
“No,” Ivan murmured. “It wasn’t just that. There were… others.” His voice quivered, too raw to steady. “I saw Mizi and Sua. They were there. They looked happy. Then I saw us, running, fighting, laughing, like we used to, or maybe like we were supposed to.”
He paused, blinking hard, trying to pull the fragments into sense. “I remember talking to Sua. I said things to her. Awful things. I told her she was selfish for wanting to die for Mizi.” His breath hitched. “But I think I was really talking about myself.”
Till stayed quiet, waiting.
Ivan’s eyes filled again, and he looked away, voice shaking. “I told her she’d only become a trauma to the person she left behind. That she’d ruin the one she was trying to save.” He let out a trembling laugh, half-sob. “And I was right. That’s what I — he — has been doing this whole time.”
Till reached out and brushed Ivan’s damp hair from his forehead. “You’re not the only one who blames themselves,” he said quietly. “But you can’t keep living like every moment has to make up for the last one. You’re here now. That’s what matters.”
Ivan shut his eyes, tears sliding sideways down his temples. “Then why does it all still feel real? Every time I close my eyes, it’s like I’m remembering, not dreaming. Like all of it happened somewhere.”
Till’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Maybe it did. Or maybe it’s just what your mind does when it’s trying to make sense of pain. Either way, you’re not there anymore.”
Ivan let out a breath, uneven but calmer. “When I saw him, the other me, he looked at me like he already knew how it would end. Like he’d been waiting for me to understand.”
Till nodded slowly. “And do you?”
Ivan stared at their joined hands, quiet for a long time. The faint rhythm of the monitor filled the silence. Finally, he said, “I don’t know.”
He glanced toward the window. The light outside fractured across the glass, scattering faint colors. The sound of the monitor hummed steadily, almost rhythmically, like distant rain.
Ivan’s voice came soft, almost to himself. “We’re okay now, right?”
Till’s hand tightened around his. “Yeah,” he said. “We will be.”
He shut his eyes and whispered, almost to no one, “Then let it stay that way.”
Outside, a thin pattern of rain tapped the window, catching the early light. For an instant, it broke into faint colors, green and red and white, like glass reflecting from somewhere far away. Ivan stared until his vision blurred, then closed his eyes, letting it fade.