Chapter Text
“You.” Till looked up at the noise.
He didn’t think he was being addressed, just curious who was bold enough to stride into this rough neighborhood and announce themselves so loudly. But lo and behold, a finger pointed straight at him.
“You play music, right?”
A strange question — not entirely odd, but bizarre for a stranger to ask someone clearly scraping by at the bottom of the barrel.
Till answered all the same. He had nothing better to do. It's not like sharing his musical ability would put him in some life-threatening danger.
"Yeah. What of it?"
He was sure his smile was demeaning — more than intended — but he didn't care enough about the guy's opinion to soften it. He blew smoke freely in his direction. A gift, really. Most people had to pay for second hand contempt.
“I have a son. He's nineteen. I want you to teach him.”
Till raised an eyebrow.
“I can't say it's smart to scout tutors down here, old man," he said, gesturing to the grimy alley behind him.
Till lived in a scrappy apartment nearby, no stranger to these parts. But the more he studied the man, the more sure he was that this guy had never done a hard day's work in his life.
He probably didn’t know how to drive — chauffeured everywhere, most likely.
Till debated blowing more smoke in the man’s face, but then a wad of cash landed at his feet.
“This is a down payment. You can expect triple that per hour,” the man said, “he already knows piano and violin. I'd like you to teach him guitar, of course.”
Till’s opinion of the dude flipped once he counted the cash tossed his way.
Who the fuck had this much money? Let alone on their person to throw around? The guy may as well have been a thief’s wet dream.
There was only one problem.
“I’ve never taught anyone before,” Till said reluctantly, not evil enough to scam the dude (even if it really was tempting) in case he was looking for someone with experience.
It was the polite way of saying: I am barely qualified to manage myself, let alone anyone else.
“I’ll double my previous offer.”
Never mind, Till suddenly believed in capitalism again.
He could learn how to teach someone. Probably.
Maybe this wouldn't be that bad.
________
It was that bad. Perhaps worse. No, definitely worse.
Till had very quickly come to learn three things. One, that stranger who approached him in the alley was named Unsha, one of the richest men in the fucking country. Two, he had a very good-looking son. Three, the son in question was annoying as fuck.
To be frank, Till couldn’t help but wonder what kind of moron Unsha's son had to be for him to resort to such measures. You'd think if previous tutors failed, he'd look for those of higher quality, not some random smoker who hadn't showered in the past week.
(No, Till was not one of those unhygienic men who embraced ‘natural scent’. He just didn't have enough money for the water bill.)
Either way, he was both grateful and bothered. Grateful because he now didn't need to worry about showering for his next two lifetimes. Bothered, because his boss's son was a freak.
Till wasn't a judgmental person.
Well.
Till wasn't a super judgmental person.
He's no saint, but he's not that much of a dick either. He tried to suppress judgments based on appearance, knowing the age-old saying about not judging a book by its cover, and he really did try his best with Ivan.
Yes, Ivan was his name. The son he had to teach.
In fact, when Till first met him, he'd thought Ivan to be the hottest guy he'd ever seen.
Correction: He still thinks this to be true, he just didn't like admitting it considering his ever-growing list of gripes about the guy.
His image of him started to sour immediately upon their first tutoring session.
“Hey, hey, hey, I'm bored.”
“Yeah, well, I don't care.”
Till would've liked to say he actually didn't give a fuck, but he decided to word it more lightly in case he got fired on his first day.
“You should care. I care so much that it's honestly sad how much you don't. I'm the biggest carer in the world, you should learn from me.”
Yes, as it turned out, Ivan had never been told no in his entire life. Till swore he wasn’t exaggerating here. Most of the time he felt as if he were dealing with a newborn child and not a fully grown adult.
Till observed Ivan with the detachment of a scientist studying a volatile compound. The boy’s complaints were performative, each whine calibrated to provoke a reaction. His fingers, slender and unscarred, moved with a precision that belied his tantrums, and he noted the way Ivan’s eyes flicked to him after every outburst, seeking something.
What that something was, Till was still trying to figure out.
“My fingers hurt. I don't wanna play anymore.”
“Till is mean. Till is a meanie! A big, fat, meanie!”
Till, meanie that he apparently was, wanted to slam his head against the wall until Ivan had no choice but to call the paramedics and treat the inevitable brain damage caused by spending so much time with him.
Then he remembered the raven would probably laugh, maybe even livestream his bleeding head instead of offering help like a normal human being.
Yeah, Ivan was fucking annoying.
________
Till hated the elevator. It was too slow. Too quiet. The kind of silence designed for men who needed to hear their own importance echoed back at them.
So, most men.
By the time he stepped into the penthouse, he’d already run through three different excuses for why he hadn’t quit yet. None of them felt even remotely convincing.
Ivan was on the couch. Not waiting. God no. He was practically draped across it. He had that specific kind of expensive aimlessness rich boys mastered before they could legally drive. In his hands was a battered hardcover, spine broken from the weight of obsessive annotation. Probably Musil. Or Mann. One of those miserable Europeans who wrote eight hundred pages about fog and died before reaching their thirties.
The book should not have looked good in his hands. Nothing should have.
(It unfortunately did.)
“You’re late,” Ivan said, without looking up. A man too important to be burdened with eye contact.
Till let the guitar case thud against the floor. “You’re conscious. A miracle. Should I alert the Vatican?”
“Don’t be dramatic,” Ivan replied, turning a page with all the urgency of a dying aristocrat. “I’ve been awake for hours. I had a call with my godfather in Geneva.”
Of course he did. Because nothing said well-adjusted adult like sunrise diplomacy and a Swiss godfather. Till blinked, slowly, once — because if he didn’t, he might laugh. Or throw something. Preferably at Ivan.
“Did you manage to ruin his day too, or am I special?”
Ivan snapped the book shut. He was still sprawled like he owned the furniture, the room, and the land deed underneath the precinct. If Till didn't know Unsha bought the place, he might've believed it.
“Special, obviously. He likes me.”
Well. That made one of them.
Till didn’t respond. There was no winning with someone who knew they were charming.
What a world. Reading as a performance art. Intellectual striptease. Very tasteful.
“Get your guitar,” Till ordered, already regretting everything that had led to this moment, including but not limited to his birth.
“I’m reclining.”
“Then un-recline.”
Ivan sighed, long and theatrical. The kind of sound that belonged in a cathedral at midnight or a courtroom minutes before sentencing. He pressed a hand to his temple, not because it hurt, but because he liked imagining himself in oil portraits.
“Before we begin,” Ivan said, “can we agree that the word strumming is vulgar?”
“No.”
“It’s ugly. Onomatopoeic in the worst way. It sounds like what a twelve-year-old does to a ukulele.”
Till crouched and flicked open the guitar case’s latches. “I don’t care what it sounds like.”
“I’m just saying. We’re shaping sound, aren’t we? There should be dignity in the language.”
“Pick a new word and shut up.”
Ivan finally leaned forward, sliding the guitar onto his lap with that infuriating ease he wielded like a weapon. Then he smiled — the polite kind, soft and symmetrical, designed in a lab for maximum irritation.
More specifically, Till’s irritation.
“Plucking,” Ivan offered. “How’s that? Slightly pornographic, but closer.”
Till dropped down opposite him and pulled a pencil from his pocket, tapping it against his knee. He’d given up on carrying a notebook. Nothing the boy did lasted long enough to be worth writing down.
“I’m going to say a chord. You’ll build it.”
“Which tuning?”
“Standard. You’re not ready for modal variants.”
Ivan made a sound halfway between a hum and a sneer — something low and self-satisfied. “I’ve studied theory. You don’t have to spoon-feed me like a feral dog.”
Till didn’t look up. “You’re not a feral dog. Feral dogs learn.”
“Wrong,” Ivan said, calm and unbothered, like the answer had bored him more than offended him.
Till almost smiled. A twitch at the corner of his mouth that didn’t count unless someone blinked and missed it.
“B minor seven,” he said, because biting was frowned upon in professional settings.
Ivan didn’t hesitate. The shape was clean, placement precise, but it was the kind of precision that made Till itch. It had no instinct in it. Just the cold, perfect mimicry of someone who learned fast and felt nothing while doing it.
“No. Again. Your third finger’s riding too high. Barre it cleanly or don’t bother.”
“Maybe you’re projecting,” he said. “Ever consider that?”
“Projecting what?”
“Control. You're not annoyed because the voicing’s wrong. You're annoyed because you can't control how I get to the answer.”
Till narrowed his eyes. He could feel his pulse flicker in his temple. “You’re stalling.”
“I’m philosophizing.”
“You’re being an asshole.”
“Synonyms, in most circles.”
Till reached out and pressed Ivan’s wrist lower to adjust the angle. It was reflexive, nothing more, but something in Ivan’s face shifted — just for a second. A flicker of amusement. Or worse, recognition.
“You know,” Ivan said, not moving his wrist, “most instructors avoid physical correction now. Something about autonomy and lawsuits.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
Ivan played the chord again. This time it rang out cleaner, brighter. Till said nothing. He wasn’t going to clap. It was just the bare minimum needed to move forward.
“Better,” he muttered.
Ivan smiled.
Till was going to off himself before the month was over.
________
Today, Till was late. Not for the first time, and certainly not by accident. The city had conspired against him, as always — slow trains crawling through jammed tracks, a spill at the bar that blocked the sidewalk, some overly friendly tourist attempting to pay for his set with empty compliments and a half-smoked cigarette. But none of it was truly unavoidable. He could have made it on time if he’d wanted to.
He hadn’t.
The penthouse door was cracked open when Till arrived, left ajar.
Ivan, as usual, lay sprawled like something poured out of a silk bottle, one arm casually draped over the curve of the sofa, the other bent under his chin as if cradling his own boredom. His hair hung loose — far too glossy, the kind of pretty that suggested either excessive hair product money or a supernatural pact. In Ivan’s case, either option was possible.
His guitar rested across his thighs, untouched. He wasn’t practicing as much as he was posing.
“I assumed,” Ivan said without moving, “you’d finally decided to ghost me. I was prepared to feel abandoned. I had a whole speech ready.”
Till didn’t respond. He slammed the door shut behind him, setting his guitar case down with more force than necessary. The latch rattled against the polished floor. The faint smell of smoke clung to his jacket. He hadn’t eaten. He hadn’t slept. He hadn’t wanted to be here.
“I waited,” Ivan continued, his voice softer now, almost mocking sympathy, “thirty-six minutes. And counting.”
“You could’ve practiced.”
Ivan turned his head just enough to glance over his shoulder. His eyes — black with streaks of something almost crimson — were heavy-lidded. “What’s the point of practicing if there’s no one here to be impressed?”
Till dragged a hand down his face. “Up. Couch. Now.”
His patience was thinning, but he wasn’t about to dignify Ivan’s performance with more than a grumble. The way Ivan stretched and fidgeted made him look less like a musician and more like a toddler refusing to nap.
Ivan shifted with the slow disdain of a cat forced off a warm windowsill. He rose in pieces, stretching his legs, his shirt lifting just enough to reveal a flash of bare hip and the gentle curve of his ribs. His stomach was unnaturally smooth — too flat to be real — as if sketched by someone who’d never seen a real, breathing person.
He perched on the edge of the couch, loose-limbed. His guitar rested against his thigh, held entirely wrong, entirely on purpose.
“I’m ready,” he said, without an ounce of humility.
Till rolled his neck and crossed the room, his footsteps too loud against the polished floor. He fought the urge to light a cigarette. Barely.
“You’re sitting wrong.”
“I’m sitting like a muse.”
If Ivan were any more spoiled, Till would have found a pacifier, shiny and gaudy enough to match his designer wardrobe, and handed it to him just to speed things up. Maybe even tucked him into a gilded crib while he rehearsed that same bored expression, waiting for someone to applaud his effortless misery.
Instead, he held back multiple curses. “You’re sitting like a brat.”
Ivan tilted his head. “You’ve missed me.”
“I’ve missed peace and quiet.”
Till crouched next to him, unzipped the guitar case, and pulled out the instrument. The movement was automatic now, muscle memory — his fingers moving like machines when they weren’t wrapped in gauze or sweat.
Ivan watched with all the detachment of a wealthy child watching a grown man fix his toy.
“You’re sulking,” Ivan said.
“How? I’m just breathing.”
“It looks the same on you.”
Till rolled his eyes so hard he almost felt it in his neck.
“Posture. Left hand. Try the A minor.”
Ivan lazily positioned his fingers with the deliberateness of someone pretending to guess.
It was wrong. Again.
Thumb too high. Fingers flat. No arch. No pressure where it mattered.
Till stood, stepped behind him, and didn’t ask.
He reached forward and placed both hands on Ivan’s arms. Guided. Adjusted. He pressed his thumb against the muscle just above Ivan’s elbow, pushing it forward, then slid down to re-curl his fingers over the fretboard.
For someone so insufferable, Ivan’s warmth was dangerously disarming.
Ivan tensed — just slightly — but he didn’t resist. His body stayed pliant under Till’s hands.
Till tried not to think about it.
He adjusted the fingers one by one, holding Ivan’s hand in place with his own. There was no space left between them. Ivan’s back pressed into Till’s chest, shoulders broad and cushioned beneath the stretch of his shirt. He breathed deeper now, and Till could feel each inhale push against his ribs.
He hated how soft Ivan was.
It wasn’t fair. No one that infuriating should be this warm. This weightless. This easy to move.
Till pressed the side of his hand to Ivan’s jaw, turning his face slightly — not because it was necessary, but because Ivan’s neck was too long to ignore when he tilted it like that. A boy built to be looked at. Framed.
“You’re way too stiff,” Till said, voice flat, eyes on Ivan’s wrist.
Ivan didn’t look up. His lashes stayed low, his mouth tugged sideways. “Just focused.”
Till reached down to nudge Ivan’s pinky off the neck. “You’re overthinking this.”
“I’m thinking about your hand on mine.”
Till grunted and shifted Ivan’s thumb.
Ivan sighed, and the sound curved lazily against Till’s wrist. “You’re surprisingly warm.”
“And you’re ridiculously soft,” Till said, frowning, because the pad of Ivan’s palm was in fact unfairly smooth.
“Delicate, thank you very much.”
“More like pampered.”
He thought about reminding Ivan that soft and fragile were different things, but it would’ve just wasted breath. Besides, Ivan would probably make it about how Till was emotionally fragile instead.
As expected, Ivan smiled, breath hot at the corner of Till’s wrist.
“You touch me like I’m going to break,” he whispered. “Is that on purpose?”
Till pinched the inside of his upper arm — hard.
Ivan yelped. A full, petulant sound. He twisted around to glare up at him, eyes narrowed, lips parted in affront.
“You pinched me.”
It was almost impressive how seriously Ivan took something so trivial, like a full-on show piece calibrated for maximum effect. Till was certain he could hear the faint echo of an invisible audience applauding the theatrics.
Till stepped back, exhaling sharply. “You were slumping.”
“You left a mark!”
“Good. Maybe it’ll remind you how to sit upright.”
Ivan rubbed his arm. His lower lip actually pushed forward, and Till hated how beautiful it made him look. An overripe fruit dangling just out of reach — too perfect to grab without risking a sticky mess, too sensitive to handle without bruising, and yet somehow utterly irresistible. There was a reckless sweetness to it, the kind that promised everything and nothing all at once, daring you to come closer even though you knew better.
Till did not consider himself to be religious, but he briefly found himself sympathizing with Adam and Eve.
“You laughed,” Ivan said.
“No.”
“You did. When I yelped.”
Till scratched the back of his neck, trying not to let the corner of his mouth twitch. “That was self-defense.”
Ivan twisted fully now, propping himself up on his elbow. “You’re smiling.”
“That’s a nervous tic,” Till replied, too fast.
Till caught the flicker of amusement dancing in Ivan’s eyes. He had the kind of grin that said, Gotcha, but without any real victory behind it. Till hated that smile almost as much as he hated how easily Ivan got under his skin, turning every little jab into a game he never wanted to play.
He wanted to tell Ivan to quit looking so pleased with himself, but instead, he just rolled his eyes and moved on. Let the brat have his moment. It was easier than admitting he was actually entertained.
Ivan turned his whole body back toward the fretboard, repositioning his fingers more carefully this time. He was pouting. Actually pouting. His shoulders hunched and small, and his hands — still wrong, but closer — trembled faintly with effort.
Till leaned against the grand piano, watching him.
(Don't ask why there was a grand piano in the living room, he didnt know either.)
Ivan strummed. It was cleaner than before. Still mechanical. Still too careful. But better.
He peeked over his shoulder like a kicked dog. “That one was fine.”
“It didn’t make me want to rupture my eardrum, so yes.”
“I’m going to sue you for assault.”
“Then I hope your lawyer knows music theory.”
Ivan’s expression shifted. Not a smile. Something smaller.
He strummed again, softer this time. And it was… fine. Hollow, but fine. He looked up like he expected praise.
Till gave him nothing.
“Still wrong,” he muttered.
Ivan shrugged, unbothered. “Then correct me.”
Till considered it. Maybe tomorrow. Or the day after if he miraculously ended up keeping this job.
________
It had been four weeks. Twenty-eight days. Sixteen lessons. Seven migraines. Two rainstorms. One fever. And exactly one moment where Till nearly broke his rule about not punching minors — before remembering Ivan was, in fact, nineteen and legally fair game.
The boy learned fast.
Too fast.
That was the thing that made it bearable, really. The talent. Not just skill; anyone could have skill. Talent was something different. Something feral, precocious, and utterly fucked-up. It lived behind the eyes. And Ivan had it in spades.
Chords came to him as naturally as words. He retained phrasing like melody, able to play back what he heard within seconds. His fingers were still too long, his nails filed to an irritatingly perfect roundness. He was a pest — an overgrown toddler draped in silk, a self-mythologizing heir with god-awful taste in guitar straps.
But he could play.
And Till hated him a little bit for it.
Not because Ivan was good, that was expected. What threw Till off was that Ivan didn’t have to try. He didn’t care about being good. What mattered was Till’s attention, Till’s approval. The chords only counted if Till said they did. Ivan wasn’t playing for the music; he was playing to see if Till was paying enough to notice. Till couldn’t quite figure out why the hell that was enough for him.
For now, he let it be.
The elevator moved at a crawl, silent and cold. Brass fixtures gleamed under fluorescent lights, polished daily by someone ordered not to linger at the security cameras. Till pressed his back to the mirror, neck stiff and sore from playing three sets in a row. His left wrist throbbed with that familiar ache. The kind that came from gripping the guitar neck too tight or the weather changing.
He despised this feeling. The ache. The craving for a cigarette he didn’t have the patience for tonight. But he was going to show up anyway. Ivan’s chords, effortless as they were, still felt like a challenge.
The hallway beyond the elevator was always overlit. Whitewashed. Echoing like a mausoleum for someone whose bones were lacquered in platinum.
The door was already slightly open, so Till stepped in and let it shut with a whisper-click behind him.
Ivan was on the sofa, limbs thrown wide in disarray, one sock slipping off his heel. His neck bent at an angle that would have looked grotesque on anyone without years of forced grace carved into their spine. He wasn’t reading so much as letting the book rest on his chest, pages closed, as if expecting knowledge to seep through skin and bone.
He had the look of someone suspended mid-rehearsal, too bored to finish performing but too vain to fully stop. Every time Till arrived, Ivan was caught in that same velvet inertia — somewhere between sleep and provocation.
“Nice of you to show up,” Ivan mumbled, eyes still shut.
Till dropped his gig bag by the door harder than he needed to.
“I had work,” he said. “A gig.”
That got a reaction. Ivan opened his eyes and rolled his head toward him. His expression was the same as always — half-lidded, soft-mouthed, unearned in its calm.
“Work,” Ivan echoed, like it was a foreign word. And to him, it most likely was. “You still do that?”
Till didn’t answer. He walked past him to the window and stared down at the city — its glass towers, its endless traffic arteries. Somewhere down there, he’d spent the night elbow-to-elbow with people who didn’t care who he was, so long as he hit the notes clean.
Ivan made a noise under his breath. Not a laugh. Just a breath dressed in amusement.
“You mean you have another job,” Ivan said. “Outside of me.”
Till turned around slowly. “Yes. I’m not a plant you water twice a week.”
Ivan blinked.
“I just assumed,” he offered, “based on your… lifestyle.”
Till raised a brow. “What, because I don’t have a penthouse?”
Ivan looked vaguely embarrassed — just enough to keep going. “Because you don’t even lock your guitar case. And you wear the same boots every time. And you don’t have Spotify Premium.”
Spotify Premium?
What the — how the fuck did he even know that? Till couldn’t remember ever mentioning it. He barely remembered using it in front of Ivan.
Whatever.
The silver-haired man said nothing. He crossed the room, collapsed into the chair across from Ivan, and lit a cigarette with a flick that spoke of habit.
Ivan wrinkled his nose.
“You can’t smoke in here,” he complained.
“Then call the butler.”
“He’s on holiday until next week.”
Till had only been guessing about Ivan having a butler, but the confirmation somehow made it worse.
“Figures. No one in this place knows how to serve anything but condescension.”
Ivan rolled his eyes. He shifted upright, legs folding beneath him with slow ceremony, all posture and no purpose. The book slid off the couch and was promptly ignored, as if its only function had been decorative.
“You’re defensive today,” Ivan observed. “Was the crowd mean to you?”
“They were drunk.”
“Same thing, no?”
Till dragged in smoke, let it settle behind his teeth, hoping nicotine could bleach the memory of Ivan’s voice out of his head.
Rich kids, trust fund prodigies, protégés who thought pain was a costume you could borrow. He’d met all kinds. Most of them blurred together.
But Ivan watched.
Not just stared. Watched. Paid attention in that way that made your skin itch, like being studied under museum lights. He noticed when Till changed strings. Saw every shift in his attitude. Remembered throwaway things Till didn’t even recall saying.
It wasn’t flattery. It was something colder. Stranger.
A form of collection.
There was no real privacy with Ivan in the room — just the illusion of it, tolerated until he decided to speak.
Till blew smoke toward the ceiling.
“I play at a bar on Thursdays. Saturdays too, unless the owner's niece is trying to find her inner pop star again.”
Ivan’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“Gigs, then,” he offered.
“Wow. Observation of the century. It's almost like I said that two minutes ago."
Ivan’s gaze flicked up, amused.
“No, I mean — I thought you were more theoretical.”
What that was supposed to mean, Till didn't know. Then again, the world of the wealthy remained one he wasn't familiar with, so maybe there were businessmen that discussed the idea of jobs rather than actually working them.
“You think in adjectives, don’t you?”
Ivan tilted his head. “Don’t you?”
Till didn’t answer.
Normally, he’d mutter something about needing a raise to endure questions that stupid, but there wasn’t much point. His salary already bordered on unethical — enough to make his past self gag, enough to finance a startup or fund a small coup.
He couldn’t exactly complain without sounding like a jackass. Not that that had ever stopped him. Still, it was hard to play the overworked, underpaid martyr when his monthly deposit could cover rent, groceries, and a spontaneous crisis without breaking a sweat.
“I assumed you’d be more academic about music,” Ivan said after a moment. “You correct like a… like a professor.”
“I’m not a professor.”
“I can tell.” Ivan's mouth twitched. “They don’t swear half as much. At least my other private tutors didn't.”
Till shot him a look, but Ivan was already moving, pulling his guitar onto his lap.
“You look like you were into painting,” Ivan said, plucking the open G string.
Till blinked. “What?”
“Your hands,” Ivan said, nodding at them. “Calloused in weird places. You smudge a lot. The way you hold your pen — it’s too loose for a pure musician.”
Till frowned. He refrained from asking what the Ivan’s definition of a “pure” musician was.
“I did draw. Once. Art,” Till muttered. “Sketching, mostly. Clay, a bit. Nothing formal.”
The younger nodded like he’d just confirmed a theory.
“Didn’t go anywhere,” Till added. “Pursued music instead.”
Till didn’t want to admit how much the thought of art school still stung. Didn’t want to say it out loud: that it wasn’t talent that stopped him, but money. Art school costs more than a liver, he thought bitterly, and that was saying something. Even if he could pay for it now, was it even worth it?
For once, he was thankful Ivan interrupted his inner spiraling.
“Couldn’t get a scholarship?”
Till looked at him. “Nice joke.”
Ivan just plucked another string.
“So…?”
“So I didn’t go to college. Didn’t go anywhere. Got a guitar from a pawn shop, broke it, fixed it, kept playing. That’s it. End of story.”
Ivan’s posture hadn’t changed, but something in him quieted. Not softened. Just… stilled. Thinking, maybe.
“And now you teach.”
“I play and I teach you. That’s different.”
Ivan’s squinted, clearly not satisfied. “You don’t teach anyone else?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t like people.”
Ivan smiled. It was subtle, sly, the kind of expression that made Till immediately suspicious.
“You like me, then.”
Till snorted. “No. I tolerate you.”
Ivan didn't answer. He played a minor sixth and let it ring out. His playing, as always, was surgical. No mistakes. But no hunger, either.
Empty, empty, empty. Sound without passion.
Till studied Ivan's hands carefully.
“You’re too clean,” he finally said. “You never let the chord get messy. You play like it might shame you if it sounds anything less than perfect.”
Ivan met his gaze without hesitation. “I don’t want to play ugly.”
Till shook his head. “Then you’re never going to play something worth listening to.”
Ivan’s lips twisted into an off-putting smile. “How philosophical.”
“It’s not,” Till said. “It’s just true.”
There was a pause.
Then Ivan’s voice came, low, almost careful. “I didn’t think you had anything else.”
“What?”
“I didn’t think your life stretched beyond… this. This room. This routine.”
Till laughed, quick and sharp. “Yeah, well, you’re a real visionary.”
Ivan studied him. Something flickered. Curiosity, maybe. Or something like respect. No, Ivan wasn't the type to respect people. Till hoped it was at least a grudging acknowledgment.
With that thought, he cracked his back, standing.
“C major scale, ascending triplets,” he said. “Let’s get it done.”
Ivan rolled his eyes. “Slave driver.”
“Yeah, sure, kid.”
They fell into silence after that.
But the room felt different. Not warmer — never warm — but lived in. Like maybe, just maybe, Ivan finally saw that the guy teaching him chords had a life beyond the walls holding up his family’s gallery of tax evasion and antique clocks.
Even if by only a little, ironically enough, Till felt like he knew Ivan a tiny bit better than before.
________
The first time Till noticed, it was nothing.
He was showing Ivan diminished sevenths because if he had to endure one more pristine E major he might lose his mind and Ivan was extra insufferable. Asking questions he already knew the answers to. Slouching. Picking at his nonexistent cuticles. Pretending to forget lessons Till was sure he’d already taught.
So he snapped. Not with words — he knew better than to give Ivan the pleasure — but with posture. He folded his arms across his chest and tilted his head slightly, gaze flat, lips pursed.
And then, for some reason, Ivan shut up.
It wasn’t dramatic. No theatrical gasp. No visible shame spiral. He just... quieted. Mid-sentence. Mouth half-open. Eyes lifted like he was about to be scolded.
Seconds later, he straightened his spine, picked up the guitar, and played the chord correctly.
At the time, Till hadn’t thought much of it. Chalked it up to tone. Or maybe Ivan finally deciding not to push his luck.
But then it happened again.
And again.
And again.
The next week, they were halfway through a lesson when Ivan started ranting about the sexual politics of fretboard positions ( “You have to admit it’s phallic, Till, just look at it” ), and Till, already nursing a headache from last night’s gig, just… crossed his arms.
Ivan went still, not immediately or obviously, but slowly, as if winding down like a clock. His eyes flicked up and his mouth closed.
Then, as if routine, he reached for his guitar and resumed the exercise Till had told him to repeat.
Till didn’t mention it — not even to himself, not consciously anyway.
But it stayed in the back of his head.
He tested it three more times.
The first, during a lesson when Ivan wouldn’t shut up about how his grandfather’s lake house had terrible acoustics. Arms crossed. Head tilted. Ivan silenced.
The second, when Ivan tried to stall a chord-building drill by showing off an alternate tuning from some band Till couldn’t stand. Arms crossed. Ivan adjusted immediately.
The third, after the lesson, when Till was already halfway out the door and Ivan called after him with a question that wasn’t really a question: “Do you think I’d be good at drums too?”
Till turned around. Crossed his arms.
Ivan blinked. Took half a step back.
Something clicked.
Till didn’t like the sound of it.
And then came the rain.
It was late. Past ten. Till had stayed longer than he should have, the lesson bleeding into conversation, conversation bleeding into nothing. He’d meant to leave an hour ago, but the city was soaked and the storm was only getting worse.
“Don’t be dramatic,” Ivan had said, smug and already smugger, “Just stay.”
Till wanted to say no.
He said, “Fine,” instead.
He didn’t bring pajamas. Ivan offered a robe. Till refused. The robe was probably worth more than his monthly income and had some Italian name embroidered on the sleeve.
Till sat on the edge of the sofa and tried not to look like he was regretting his entire life.
Ivan was on the floor, curled up with a throw pillow and his guitar in his lap, legs bent at strange angles, looking every bit the spoiled lounge baby he was.
They were talking. Sort of. Ivan was rambling. Something about learning theory. About how most composers were just obsessive freaks with better PR.
Till made a sound of agreement and rubbed his eyes.
“You think I’m getting better?” Ivan asked suddenly.
The raven looked up at him with big eyes and the same tone he used when debating whether his hair was “romantically tragic” or “just tragic.”
“Yeah,” Till said, because it was true. “Fast learner.”
Ivan’s expression shifted, just barely, but Till caught it: a flicker of satisfaction, a softness, then a quick withdrawal.
He leaned back as if bracing for the moment to pass, as if praise was something slippery, something timed, something rationed.
“Thanks,” he muttered.
Till said nothing. His arms ached from the day, and his back was starting to complain, a slow grind just beneath his shoulder blades. He shifted his weight, cracked his neck, and crossed his arms without thinking.
Ivan froze.
Till saw it clearly this time — the spine stiffening, hands stilling, breath held.
That look.
Like an actor waiting for a line he hadn’t memorized, hoping the cue would just come to him. A fledgling perched on the brink of its first flight, nerves humming in every feather.
He wasn’t waiting to be told what to do.
He was waiting to be allowed.
Till tilted his head slightly.
Ivan jolted, just barely, and stumbled back into speech. His words rushed out unevenly and hurriedly, scrambling to catch up with his sudden alertness.
It was not what Till had meant before — not some warning or calculated threat. It was something far simpler, almost accidental. Crossing his arms was just a habit he fell into when tired, cold, or bored. But Ivan reacted as if a dog flinched at a gesture no one intended to be cruel.
He was not afraid of pain or physical harm. Ivan was scared of something else. Something quieter but deeper. Disapproval, maybe. Distance. The cold snap that came when Till went still and unreadable.
It was Pavlovian, a reflex, hardwired and without reward.
Ivan had learned something Till had never intended to teach. He had encoded it into his body, a silent command embedded in his nervous system.
Ivan’s voice kept going. Rushing. Running over itself like he was trying to prove something.
Till didn’t interrupt. He just watched.
The way Ivan’s hands gripped the throw pillow like a seatbelt. The way his mouth kept twitching toward a smile he didn’t mean. The way his posture straightened automatically, trying to look smaller and taller at the same time. Like he wanted to appear correct, whatever correctness was meant to look like.
It was pathetic.
It was… sort of cute.
Till hated that thought. Wanted to scrub it out with bleach. Because it wasn’t cute in the normal way. It was cute like roadkill arranged in a gallery. A wolf trained to kneel.
Except Ivan wasn't as much of a wolf as he was whatever it dragged home to eat.
Till didn’t move.
He didn’t nod. He didn’t blink. His arms stayed crossed, sleeves creased under his grip. His mouth stayed shut, pressed flat, the muscles in his jaw steady and still. He kept his eyes on Ivan, unflinching. The silence filled the space between them, heavier by the second. Ivan, who never ran out of words, was already trimming them down, pausing mid-thought, eyes flicking to Till’s face with less confidence each time.
The rambling shifted to structure. The tone softened. The tangents trimmed themselves without protest. Ivan sat impossibly straighter, spoke cleaner, his hands suddenly more interested in folding the hem of the pillowcase than conducting a monologue about modal jazz.
It wasn’t fear. Not shame either. It was instinct — something older than either. Ivan folded in just slightly, a practiced curve of the shoulders that suggested apology without ever offering one. He glanced up once, measuring the silence. His voice had gone soft, but the edge was still there, tucked behind the quiet like a knife under a napkin. Barely concealed.
Till watched with clinical interest.
He tracked the adjustments with quiet precision. Ivan’s knee shifted inward by degrees, not enough to cower, just enough to suggest compliance. His fingers fidgeted near the seam of his sleeve, performing penance without conviction. Every few seconds, his eyes lifted toward Till’s face, not pleading, but calculating, searching for the edge of permission.
He found nothing.
Not yet.
The silence in the room was not dramatic. It had no need to be. It was orderly, efficient, the kind that follows routine rather than revelation. A familiar rhythm falling back into place. Till had seen this posture before. Not in classrooms or confessionals, but in the living rooms of families with too many sons and not enough time.
It would have been facile to dismiss it as a conditioned response. Till had witnessed enough maladaptive behavior — scaffolded by inept parenting and reinforced by repetition — to identify its residue. But this wasn’t residual.
It was methodical.
Not the aftermath of harm, but the product of discipline.
Somewhere along the way, Ivan had internalized the correlation between posture and power. His body obeyed an invisible directive, calibrated to respond the moment a hierarchy was established.
And right now, that hierarchy positioned Till at the top.
Not by choice. Just… by default.
Till shifted slightly, just enough to let his weight settle onto one leg. A passive adjustment. Comfortable. But Ivan took it as something else.
He stopped moving entirely.
Lifted his eyes, expectant.
Not asking. Not apologizing.
Just waiting.
Till tilted his head barely, barely enough to shift the air between them.
Ivan blinked as if someone had snapped their fingers inches from his face.
“You’re doing it again,” Till said.
He didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t move. The words drifted out soft and low, curling through the room like smoke from a dying fire. Till slouched sideways on Ivan’s silk-covered sofa, one boot resting on the table, the other hooked under the carved leg of the couch as if the floor might vanish. His arms folded loosely but with deliberate tension. The leather band around his wrist creaked quietly when he shifted.
Ivan blinked, head tilted like he’d lost the thread. Then — just as suddenly — he kept going. Again. Voice even faster than before, like he had to make up for the slip.
Till didn’t look at him. He picked at the corner of a peeling sticker on his lighter instead.
Ivan’s voice kept running.
Till let it.
Then, with the same disinterest he used when tuning an amp with a broken knob, he said it again.
Louder.
“You’re doing it again.”
Ivan stopped properly this time. “What?”
Till tilted his head and finally looked at him. Ivan was sprawled across the other end of the couch in a too-soft hoodie and socks that didn’t match. His knees were bent. His book lay forgotten on his stomach, one corner creased. He had that look again. Half a pout, cheeks still flushed from whatever academic tirade he’d been mid-way through before Till cut him off.
The light from the lamp caught on the slope of his cheekbone. Too smooth. Too symmetrical.
“You always stop talking when I do this,” Till said, flicking his gaze to his own folded arms.
Ivan’s brow pinched. “That’s — no, I don’t.”
“Yeah. You do.”
“That’s not —” Ivan sat up straighter, bristling like a cat who didn’t know why it had puffed up. “It’s not because of you. I just lost my point.”
“You never lose your point.”
It was true, Till couldn't recall any days where Ivan had run out of things to say.
“Maybe I had too many.”
“You’re rambling now.”
“I am not.”
“You are,” Till said, and that was when he unfolded his arms.
Ivan exhaled. Not loudly, but Till saw the way his shoulders dropped half an inch. The way his fingers unclenched in his lap. The way he shifted — reorganized — like something inside him had been untied.
He didn’t know he was doing it.
Till leaned forward slowly, elbows on his knees now. His silver hair caught at the corners, falling into his eyes until he pushed it back with a flick of his fingers, silver glinting off the piercings along his brow, his ears, his lip. He didn’t speak. Just let the weight of the moment press on Ivan’s chest.
Ivan looked down. Then back up, frowning deeper.
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“Mm.”
“It’s not like I’m responding to you. It’s posture.”
Till rolled his lip ring between his teeth, pretending to think. He tapped a beat out against his thigh —calloused knuckles against ripped denim.
“You’re responding to the posture I make,” he said finally. “Which is arguably worse.”
Ivan flushed. That same soft, bratty pink that crept up from his collar whenever Till said the younger thought to be embarrassing or shameful.
“Why are you even noticing that?” Ivan asked.
“I notice when things shut you up.”
“I’m not shut up.”
“Close enough.”
Ivan sat forward like he was going to make a point, then didn’t. His sock slipped halfway off his foot. He didn’t fix it. He just sat there, crumpled, visibly annoyed and confused.
Till reached over and tugged the sock back into place.
Ivan jerked.
“What are you —”
“It was falling off,” Till muttered. “Don’t get weird.”
Ivan’s mouth snapped shut.
Till let his fingers brush the edge of Ivan’s ankle a second longer than necessary, then pulled back. He didn’t look up.
He didn’t need to.
Ivan’s silence was doing all the talking.
“Maybe it’s just that you look like you’re going to say something mean,” Ivan offered, and his voice had gone thin. Defensive.
“I don’t need to say anything.”
“You’re —” Ivan stalled. “You folded your arms. That’s not a command.”
“No,” Till said, considering, “but you listen to it anyway.”
Ivan bristled. His eyes flashed, but then he hesitated.
Because he had listened. And they both knew it.
“I’m not one of your pets,” he said, finally.
Till didn’t blink, opting to bite back a mean grin, instead. “You’re better trained.”
Ivan sucked in a breath. His eyes darted to the floor. Then back to Till.
“Stop that,” he snapped.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You’re smiling.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m not.” He totally was.
Ivan shifted like he meant to stand, but didn’t. Just adjusted his spine again. Sat up straighter. Like that could undo whatever had just happened.
“Do you always respond to posture that way?” Till asked, tone unreadable, eyes on Ivan’s hands where they fidgeted uselessly in his lap. “Or is it just mine?”
Ivan’s fingers twitched once, then stilled. “I don’t respond.”
“You do.”
“I’m being polite.”
“You’re being quiet.”
At that, Ivan’s spine went taut. His mouth closed a little too firmly, as though he could bite back whatever response had nearly slipped out. Three seconds passed. Four. His chin tilted upward with mechanical defiance.
“I hope you fall off a balcony.”
“Duly noted.”
Till stood. The motion was casual in theory, but he knew better. Ivan certainly did. His steps took him around the couch, one palm tracing the carved wood of its back. He passed close enough to Ivan’s ear to rattle the quiet with heat, but made no contact. It didn’t matter. Ivan was already motionless in that way that wasn't relaxed so much as braced. Not for pain. For attention.
He picked up the abandoned book from the floor. The cover was some vintage facsimile of seriousness — too clean to have ever been read properly. He opened it. His eyes flicked across a paragraph. His mind didn’t bother translating. He snapped it shut.
“Are you reading this for the plot or because it looks expensive?”
Ivan didn’t look at him. “Both.”
“Of course.”
He returned to the couch. This time, he sat closer. Ivan didn’t shift. Their knees made contact, the faintest alignment of heat and bone.
Still no movement.
Just that pinched flush in his cheeks, the shallow rhythm in his chest, the flex of his fingers where they hovered too close to retreating. He hadn’t blinked in too long.
Till lifted a hand and pushed at some phantom speck in Ivan’s hair. It gave him an excuse to touch the silky strands again. Pointless, obviously. Ivan’s hair was immaculate. The whole thing was an excuse.
“If I tell you to sit up again, will you?”
Ivan inhaled, held it for a beat, then obeyed.
No protest. No hesitation. No dignity either, apparently.
Till watched the adjustment — the lift of his shoulders, the correction in his posture, the way his thighs tensed just enough to keep balance without leaning back — and felt a grim, unwanted warmth bloom in his chest.
Not satisfaction. Not quite.
Understanding.
And that was worse.
________
Till hated mornings in the penthouse.
They felt curated. Artificial. Bleached of noise and friction. The kind of air that didn’t just smell clean, but filtered. Recirculated. Sterile. Like the walls were trying to erase any suggestion that real people had spent the night there, let alone slept badly, sweated through dreams, or muttered things in their sleep.
He sat at the edge of the kitchen table now, elbows braced against the lacquered surface as if he might fall through if he leaned too hard. It gleamed beneath him, polished to a false mirror, too pristine to have ever seen a spilled drink or a dropped fork. The mug between his hands had long since been drained. He hadn’t bothered to get up for another.
His hair, overgrown at the temples, was pulled back, but not neatly. A few stubborn strands had broken loose, curling around his jaw like they were trying to make a home there. His eyes stayed locked on the window, where the skyline flickered between cloud and sun like it hadn’t decided whether it wanted to commit to morning or go back to sleep.
Footsteps padded in from the hallway.
Not cautious. Just slow. Whoever they belonged to wasn’t in a hurry and didn’t think they needed to be.
So, naturally, Ivan.
He moved like gravity worked differently on him —barefoot, dragging his heels, one sock still half-on (Till was starting to see a trend here) from where it had twisted in the night.
His sweatshirt was oversized, swallowing one arm entirely, while the other sleeve had been shoved up past the elbow and forgotten. His hair was a disaster. Static-y and shiny, sleep-creased in every direction.
“Are you mad at me?” he asked, not even pretending to ease into it.
Till didn’t look over. His fingers tightened slightly around the mug. “No.”
Ivan crossed into the kitchen, the hem of his pajama pants swishing low across the tile. “You look mad.”
“I always look mad.” It came out flat, but not untrue. Just exhausted.
“True,” Ivan said, with the kind of vague agreement that carried no real commitment. He slid onto the stool across from Till, yawning. His jaw cracked with the motion. “You slept like a corpse. You look like one, too. I think. I've never seen a real corpse before.”
Till let the silence drag for a beat. He wasn't sure if Ivan was trying to insult him or not.
It was safer to assume he was.
“Thanks.”
“I watched you sleep.” The words came lightly, but there was no teasing behind them. Just fact, as if merely offering the weather.
“Of course you did.” Still, Till didn’t turn. He didn’t want to see whatever expression Ivan was making — wide-eyed innocence or smug grin or that tilted-head look he got when he thought he was being charming. Which, he was. Ivan was always charming. It was terrible for people's hearts, especially someone like Till's.
Ivan shifted in his seat, pulling his buried hand free from his sleeve just long enough to tug the cuff back up his wrist. “You kicked me in your sleep.”
“You were too close,” Till muttered, because he remembered that part. Half-conscious, a tangle of limbs, heat at his back he hadn’t asked for but didn't push away.
Ivan’s voice dropped into something quieter, more curious. “You made a noise.”
That got Till’s attention, even if he didn’t show it. He stayed still.
“Like you were mad at me in a dream,” Ivan added, eyes narrowed slightly like he was trying to solve a puzzle. Not hurt. Not scared. Just... taking notes.
Freak.
“I’m mad at you now,” Till said. He wasn't actually, but watching Ivan's eyebrows furrow in annoyance was very entertaining, especially when he was in such a physical state of disarray.
Ivan had gone soft in the posture, arms folded on the tabletop, cheek pressed against them. He looked too young like that — though not in the way that meant innocence.
His lips were parted, just enough to suggest thought, breath, hunger. He dragged the spoon through the yogurt with slow, idle movement, pretending not to notice the attention, but his lashes didn’t lower for no reason. His whole body hummed with awareness. His stillness was vanity. His quiet was temptation. He was the serpent asleep beneath the fig tree, dreaming of Eden while already planning its ruin.
Pretty, pretty Ivan.
Ivan would’ve drowned in a mirror if it meant he could watch himself do it. Not out of vanity, but fascination. Narcissus hadn’t loved himself. He’d been cursed to stare.
Ivan was the opposite — he knew exactly what he was, and still demanded more. More attention. More awe. More proof that everyone in the room saw him. That Till saw him.
“Why are you staring?” Ivan asked without lifting his head, voice muffled against the crook of his elbow.
“You’re doing the thing,” Till said, watching the way Ivan blinked back at him like a cat pretending not to notice it was being watched.
Ivan squinted. “What thing?”
Till made a vague gesture with one hand, trying and failing to come up with an accurate description, barely moving from where he sat. “The... baby thing.”
Ivan wrinkled his nose, the tip scrunching like he’d smelled something unpleasant. “I’m not a baby.”
“You are,” Till said flatly, not because it was new information but because it had become undeniable.
“I’m sophisticated,” Ivan countered, lifting his head just enough to pout with mock gravity.
“You’re barefoot in pink pajama pants.”
“I wear them because they're comfortable. Don't tell me you have fragile masculinity, Till.”
“Oh, shut up. You wear them because you don’t know how to do your own laundry,” Till said, pushing his mug a few inches away like it offended him now.
Ivan didn’t deny it. Just blinked, slowly, then traced a circle on the table with the tip of his finger, like he might draw something with the condensation.
“I’m hungry,” he announced, not looking up.
Till exhaled through his nose.
“I’m not asking you to cook,” Ivan added quickly, sitting up straighter, already playing defense. “I’m just saying. You stayed over. It's customary to feed your guests.”
“This isn’t my house,” Till muttered, pushing his chair back with a scrape. "I'm the goddamn guest here."
Ivan’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, just a flicker. A reaction.
Still, Till opened the fridge, squinting into a landscape of glass containers, sealed packages, and immaculate rows of imported condiments. He reached past something that looked like it cost more than his last coat and pulled out the most recognizable item: yogurt.
When he turned back around, Ivan was sitting upright now, posture too expectant to be casual. His hands were folded on the table like he thought that might make him look polite.
“Strawberry or vanilla,” Till asked, already peeling the lid back.
Ivan’s reply came syrupy sweet. “Strawberry.”
Till handed it over, along with a spoon, and didn’t say a word.
Ivan looked down at it. Then up at Till. “Seriously?”
“Eat,” Till said, already leaning back against the counter.
Ivan took a spoonful and held it in front of his face. “You’re doting.”
“I’m keeping you quiet.”
“You’re feeding me.”
“You don’t know how to function alone. You should invest in a babysitter.”
Ivan chewed the bite slowly in an attempt to make a point. “This is infantilizing.”
Till tilted his head slightly.
Ivan’s mouth parted, appearing as if he was going to say something else. Then he thought better of it. He lowered his eyes, returned to the yogurt, and ate the next spoonful without comment.
Till watched him. Watched the lazy dip of his lashes, the tiny furrow between his brows as he focused on the yogurt. He finished half the container like that.
He smothered the tiny flicker of fondness in his chest immediately.