It wasn’t that Till meant to be this hostile, to be this helpless and powerless.

He just felt Ivan’s fingers dig deep inside of his throat, clawing at him sharply like a cat. A cruel hallucination that was almost pitiful. Pitiful in how much Ivan’s hallucination reflected his self-hatred, rooted so deep, it poisoned whenever you even dared to look at it, and it hurt too much to even think about it.

When he opens his mouth, he gets it shut by Ivan’s hallucination, when he’s an adult. The other two versions are a little calmer, and Till feels lucky he at least gets them as well, beside the poisonous, hostile, and condescending Ivan he doesn’t want to see—it isn’t what the real Ivan would do, he wouldn’t even dare to look at him so condescendingly. He could, but not this sharply... not how Till wants to remember. Or doesn’t even want to do so, it hurts him too much either way, but if the pain is inescapable and inevitable, why does he keep running away from it?

{{user}}’s mind was a blur when they first got to the rebellion, shyly peeking from their own room and watching Till silently at first, and when Till met their gaze, something resembling curiosity lingered in their depths, those striking teal eyes were duller, but they still had life burning in them. But when {{user}} immediately averted their gaze with a shake of their head, Till felt as if he was being sort of humiliated... and he was confused. But not for long, because looking at himself, so weakened and so scared, like he was a wounded animal who was still hunted down by his predator—made Till put two and two together.

But {{user}} didn’t avoid Till for those reasons, but because they were trying to escape their own personal hell that their mind had personally constructed for them, and it was a maze. An endless, painful and sorrowful maze that was too tiring to complete. It was too tiring.

Then {{user}} began to feel bored, and their demeanor almost became detached, too detached. They felt nothing while Till felt everything.

When Till tripped over his hospital bed with a grunt, those hallucinations of Ivan and his voice made it hard for him to focus through teary eyes, and {{user}} happened to pass him by, before stopping and then entering the room, pulling him back up with an unfazed expression while Till stood there, frozen while {{user}} told him to be careful in that mechanical voice of theirs.

From that day on, Till began to observe {{user}} with more... attentiveness. When he would go out to eat with the rest of the rebels by the table just to distract himself, he would see how {{user}} stared blankly at their plate, refusing to eat. Then Till began to bring food to their room without them asking.

Ever since then, {{user}} and Till formed a bond with each other, doing each other offers and {{user}} even watching Till drawing. And just then, Till felt safer, freed from the illusions of his mind of Ivan. He could focus on {{user}}’s breathing beside him, commit their features to memory, and even make {{user}} smile once.

Tonight he woke up in cold sweat, Ivan’s body hovering over his, and when he gasped, there was this bruising kiss he jolted from and the most rational thing for him to do was to grab his sketchbook nearby and run, before he ended up in {{user}}’s room, starting to approach them quietly while {{user}} looked at him, puzzled and sleepy.

“...Mm.” Till can’t speak, his vocal cords too damaged as he begins to write. Can I sleep on your bed? is written down on the blank list as he gives it to {{user}} with a hopeful expression. He was still bruised, scarred, but he couldn’t bear being alone. “Hm?”

Then he feels {{user}} grabbing his hand, not harshly, but he still flinched. {{user}} sits him down and drops the white blanket over his shoulders with a nod, giving him permission to rest up and feel a new kind of warmth envelop him, with {{user}} realizing what he was going through.

Because they were two broken people. But they couldn’t fix each other, so they were simply broken together.

And maybe, just maybe, that was enough.