Chapter Text
Till is handed a towel after the set is over.
He murmurs thanks accordingly, but he is far more grateful for the ice-cold water Ember dumps on his head.
His biceps hurt like a bitch. He spent the first half of the set on guitar and the second half on drums. According to Ivan, he’s a glutton for punishment.
It had taken a lot of trial and error to find bandmates who respected his creative process, his burning need to switch things up every other night or risk implosion. Ivan didn’t care, and, in fact, did the vast majority of the ego-stroking, soothing tempers with slick words and sharp smiles.
Speaking of Ivan: “Where is he?”
Ember and Jake look around. The set ended fifteen minutes ago and they’re due for a signing session, but Ivan is absent. It’s more than a shame—it’s a problem. The reason they have so many female fans is because of that bastard.
Till curses under his breath, pausing long enough to kick furniture. Ember and Jake don’t bat an eyelash; the reaction is typical.
He stomps off to the back, slamming Ivan’s door open without ceremony. He isn’t inside, because why would he be? Till considers what would piss him off the most. He pivots on his heel, aiming for his own room.
Lo and behold, Ivan is inside. Before he even steps inside, he smells the thick scent of rut. He’s prepared to be sympathetic, to jab the emergency dose of suppressants he kept on his person at all times into Ivan’s arm if he has to. He knows firsthand how ugly Ivan’s ruts get.
Instead, he is greeted by a sight he could never have imagined. Ivan is balls-deep in some skinny little omega’s ass, gripping their hips like he wants to break them in half.
Till goes slack-jawed. What the everloving fuck, he thinks, appalled. Ivan has the gall to glance at him while he tugs on the poor thing’s hair, wheedling the most obnoxious moan Till has ever heard out of his bed partner.
It’s a disgusting thing to think, but Ivan looks, well. Like an alpha. Not that Till had any doubts about Ivan’s designation, it’s just, damn.
He doesn’t think he’s ever fucked anyone as brutally as Ivan is fucking this guy and the guy underneath him looks blissed.
“We have a signing session tonight, you bitch,” Till manages to rasp, forcing himself to keep his feet firmly planted on the ground. Politely, he averts his eyes. “Hurry up.”
Ivan chuckles. “You could have slipped a note under the door.”
A vein throbs in Till’s temple. “It’s my room. I can do whatever I damn well please.”
“Fair point,” Ivan says, punctuating the statement by spitting on the guy whose brains he’s fucking out. “Will you be staying to enjoy the show?”
“No thanks.”
“Your loss.”
Till slams the door on his way out and tells himself that he did not escape. He tells himself that he’s woozy because the scent of omega slick is in his nose and not because Ivan’s musk was so suffocating he wanted to scream.
Ivan shows up six minutes late looking terribly refreshed. It is only because they’re in front of their adoring fans that Till does not drop-kick him.
When Till was seven, an older boy fished him out of a dumpster. “You shouldn’t eat out of this one,” he said, pointing to the alley across the street. “C’mere.”
Wordlessly, Till followed him. Tossed from orphanage to orphanage then thrown on the street because he was too unruly to manage, he didn’t know what to do.
At the time, Ivan was shorter than him, but much wiser. Ivan taught him how to steal and more importantly how to survive.
It was Ivan who bought him a halfway decent acoustic guitar for his twelfth birthday and Ivan who sang along while Till played, the two of them earning decent tips for their busking efforts.
Ivan hit his growth spurt late. He presented late, too.
They fought each other like mutts in their adolescence, but they made it out with scrapes and scars and stories to tell.
Till was the one who proposed putting together a band, making the most out of his skills as a composer and Ivan’s skills as a vocalist. “What do you think?”
Ivan shrugged. “It’s worth a shot.”
From the streets to greasy bars to proper stages, the past seven years have been transformative. Their popularity seemed to blossom overnight, especially because Ivan cleaned up well. They have more money than they’ve ever had in their entire lives. It is largely thanks to Ivan’s shrewd reminders that Till doesn’t squander it.
Till’s ruts are mild. Ivan’s are debilitating. Ivan nearly killed him the first time Till came to check on him, but Till jabbed the needle in Ivan’s skin, waiting for him to calm down with watery eyes.
He is not upset about Ivan following his instincts, fucking a stranger to let off steam after the set. He’s upset because Ivan fucked a stranger in a space that was most decidedly Till’s.
He can’t stop thinking about it.
“Someone’s distracted,” Ember says, idly popping gum. They’re off today, leaving her free to chase skirts or whatever it was lesbians did when they were bored.
Till set out to draft lyrics. Composing helps him process. So far, he has managed to sketch something that looked dangerously close to Ivan’s back in the corner of a notebook, the disjointed lines unrecognizable without Ivan’s tattoos.
He puts his head in his hands with a sigh. “Do you ever feel like the world is unfair?”
“Every day, babe,” Ember shoots back, voice thick with sarcasm. “Any particular reason why you’re askin’?”
Pale skin. Dark eyes. Sultry voice. A reedy moan reverberating in his ears. “No,” Till mumbles.
Ember sees through the lie, but she kindly does not call him on it. She pats him on the head on her way out, telling him not to think too hard.
A few minutes later, Till drags himself into a record shop. He listens to samples from all of the newly released albums, searching for a distraction.
He enjoys almost everything, from classical to heavy metal. Improv Jazz had a disjointed beauty to it, but it made his head hurt if he listened to it for too long.
After a while, Till turns to old inspirations. He hums his favorite song, the one that inspired their first hit single. He likes to think of it as a sequel rather than a standalone, but the critics have already analyzed it to hell and back. There’s not much else for him to say.
Mind wandering, he doesn’t realize that he’s in front of a heat hotel until it’s too late. He has no reason to go inside—regulatory medicine worked just fine for him, thanks very much—but he has nothing better to do.
It’s this or taking a risk, going back to the tour bus where Ivan probably is. Daring to look the smug asshole in the face. They haven’t spoken to each other in two days, but it’s Tuesday. They have until tomorrow to figure their shit out.
Not that it matters. A great deal of people called their chemistry explosive. Nothing would stop Ivan from belting his heart out on stage, even if Till currently had trouble looking him in the eye. I’ll make you look at me is what Ivan would say with his voice, every note demanding.
The concierge greets him politely, paying no mind to Till’s loud outfit. “How long will you be staying with us?”
“Couple hours,” Till mumbles. He hands over his ID card, complete with his designation in bold print.
He pays cash for the stay and signs a waver, accepting the basket full of things offered to handle his companion with care.
The woman at the front desk asks him about his preferences: gender, genitalia, scent, habits. Till answers with rosy cheeks.
The person waiting for him is exactly his type: soft-jawed, bright-eyed, long haired. They have a vaguely floral scent; it’s soothing. “Do you mind if I wash up?” Till asks, aware that he’s stalling for time.
She hums.
Till stands under the spray for a couple minutes, yelping when he feels a hand squeeze his shoulder.
“Was that not an invitation?”
Till scrambles to follow her train of thought. She followed him in because—right, this was a place to have sex.
Skittishly, Till allows her to explore. He feels like he’s boiling alive when she slides south, admiring his build. He’s not much of an alpha, but the tests didn’t lie. He had a keen sense of smell, elongated canines, a deep-seated desire to find a mate, and none of the other markers.
Despite himself, his thoughts wander to Ivan. Typically, Ivan’s ruts lasted four days. He looked like death warmed over by the end. On occasion, he quite literally had to be restrained.
He fucked like a maniac because he wanted to and because he needed the adrenaline rush. The high of omegas screaming for him was enough to sustain him for weeks.
“You liked that, huh?” She giggles. “I can do it again, if you like.”
“No, I. That’s. Um.” He shuts off the water in a hurry, ushering her out of the shower. “Sorry. I was thinking about something else.”
Shyly, he wraps a towel around his waist. The woman, who belatedly introduces herself as Yasmine, laughs. “Your ex?”
Till glances at her from the corner of his eye. “A friend.”
“Juicy.”
Cheeks hot, he pulls on a bathrobe—it would be a waste to put his dirty clothes on so soon.
They pad out of the humid space and onto the bed, lounging together. The words spill out of Till’s mouth like a fountain. He’s aware that he’s oversharing, but it’s not like he has anyone else he can talk to about this.
Hyuna is currently overseas. Her toxic on-again, off-again fling likes to pretend her friends don’t exist when she isn’t around. Mizi and Sua are on their own tour on the other side of the country.
Which just leaves Ivan.
Absolutely not.
“Let me ask you a question,” Yasmine starts. “Who are you jealous of, the omega or your friend?”
Till opens his mouth to protest: I’m not jealous. He forces himself to inhale and exhale slowly, refusing to lash out at someone who doesn’t know him. “Both, I guess,” he mumbles, fists balled in the sheets.
Ivan seemed…not happy, but satiated. Good went without saying—even in dire straits, Ivan looked like a model. Till had to wear makeup and paint his nails to make a statement. Ivan put on eyeliner that veered on the side of too thick and got away with it.
Who wouldn’t envy a guy like that?
“He asked you if you wanted to watch, right?” Yasmine asks. “Next time, you should take him up on the offer.”
There is something squeamish in Till that wants to rebel on principle, but he cannot deny there’s a lesson to be learned. He’s been having mediocre sex his whole life. Ivan has not.
“I’ll think about it,” Till says. He offers her a hefty tip for her time, but Yasmine waves him off.
He exits the hotel with his head heavier than it was when he went in.
If Unknown is Till’s song, Black Sorrow is Ivan’s. They took turns writing lyrics, but Ivan preferred not to explain the story behind his pieces and avoided the instrumental part entirely. “That’s not my gift.”
“Bullshit.”
Ivan laughs, just like always. Till bristles. It’s fine.
They have more important shit to do.
Till grips the neck of the guitar like a lover, fingers flying fast across the frets. The drum section is mellow for Black Sorrow so Ivan has space to breathe. His baritone carries across the amphitheater.
He’s mesmerizing. Dressed in all black with the lights bearing down on him, his skin is glossy. Till has his own mic, but he leans in to sing on Ivan’s, harmonizing with him effortlessly.
Ivan didn’t close his eyes when he was fucking that omega in Till’s room. He closes his eyes as he sinks into the music.
Till had his theories, but he wouldn’t know the truth about the concept until Ivan decided to tell him.
He pulls away for a guitar solo, banging his head so hard his beanie falls off. His hair is matted to his face and his neck, but he doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter how many shows they do, Till adores everything about touring.
The fans scream their names, singing along. He pours his heart out. Sweats his ass off.
Today, he decided to remain up front for the whole set. His backup is talented, seriously talented. Till is busy passing along his compliments when he sees Ivan approach a cluster of groupies.
One of them reminds Till of himself. Covered in tattoos and piercings, he’s rail-thin and pale. Till is too far away to smell them, but if he had to hazard a guess, they probably smelled typical: warm spices and woodlands, evocative of a campfire.
Ivan has on his sleazy business smile. His body language is relaxed. He’s got a few more weeks before his rut rolls around again, but there’s nothing stopping him from getting laid purely for the hell of it.
It might be better like this, with Ivan in full control of his faculties. Till waits until he sees Ivan lean down and whisper into the omega’s ear before he approaches, feeling awkward.
“I won’t go in your room this time,” Ivan says without turning around.
Damn. He thought he was being quiet, but Ivan’s nose was too keen. “That wasn’t what I came to say.”
Ivan lifts one of his dark, thick brows. “No?”
Till fidgets and fidgets some more. The whole reason he likes writing songs is because he’s a terrible improviser. He hates thinking on his feet—it makes him feel clumsy. “Last time, you said, um. That I could.” Till hides his face, stammering something fierce. “Watch,” comes out in a hiss.
Ivan blinks at him in disbelief. After a beat, he chortles. With the most patronizing expression Till has ever seen, Ivan places a hand on his shoulder. “It’s never too late to get an education.”
“Oh, fuck you.” Neither of them had gone to school. What moral high ground did Ivan have to stand on?
“That could be arranged,” Ivan purrs, staring deep into Till’s eyes.
Till smacks his hand away. “So?”
“Hm?”
“Is it going to be a problem?”
“Of course not,” Ivan assures him. “I’ll be in my room in twenty minutes.”
Just like that, Till has been granted a front row seat to a private show.
Ivan asks Till to wait outside while he goes over the running rules with their guest. It’s odd for Ivan to put it like that—he’s the one intruding—but then, Till is a lot less likely to end up in the news if any of Ivan’s flings break their NDAs.
The room smells like, well, Ivan. Ivan doesn’t smoke, but he always smells vaguely like tobacco, has ever since he presented. Combined with his penchant for leather coats and the scent blocking cologne which gives him a hint of cedar, he is so earthen as to be off-putting, in Till’s opinion.
The omega in Ivan’s bed looks like he's never smelled anything so heavenly before.
“Where would you like me to start?”
The question pulls Till out of a stupor. “Huh?”
“This is meant to be an educational experience,” Ivan drawls, reminding him.
“I know,” Till snaps. It comes out more harshly than he means it to; he’s defensive. “Do whatever you usually do. That’ll be fine.”
“Would you like me to narrate the experience?”
“What? Hell no. Don’t be embarrassing.”
“Just trying to help,” Ivan taunts. He is such a grade-A tool.
Ivan works at the omega with steady hands. He’s tall. Lean, but not skinny. He has the omega beneath him wet in no time at all.
He really likes foreplay, huh, Till thinks, watching Ivan suck at the poor guy’s skin. Ivan avoids the omega’s mating juncture as he unceremoniously slips two fingers inside, all but shoving his other hand down the guy’s throat.
Fucking someone chest-to-back seems impersonal, but the omega beneath Ivan doesn’t seem to mind. Folded in on himself, the omega whines that it hurts. Ivan gives him a careless hum. He presses his thumb against the omega’s knotting juncture and he drools, slick sluicing down his thighs.
And, okay. Till kind of gets it. Ivan pushes, but he never takes things too far. He puts his partner’s pleasure first even though he has his own agenda at heart.
He sinks in deeply, brutally deep, from the get-go. Ivan lifts the omega by his hair with enough force to make him weep, face tacky with snot. “Beg me for it,” Ivan says, casual as anything.
“Please,” his partner sobs.
Jesus. Till has to put his hands in his lap to cover his boner.
Ivan fucks him into the mattress, the omega clamped tight around his knot. At this angle, it’s difficult to tell if he can see Ivan’s cock bulging through the omega’s skin or not, but Ivan reads Till’s intrigue and flips the guy over.
“Can you feel me all the way up here, in your womb?” Ivan purrs, splaying a palm over the omega’s abdomen.
The omega nods, tears dripping down his face.
Till is going to come in his pants. Holy shit.
Ivan burns through three condoms in quick succession, ejaculating on the omega’s back the fourth time. He rolls off the mattress and pulls on his pants like nothing happened, offering Till a drink.
“No thanks,” Till mutters, escaping as fast as his wobbly legs will take him.
“Sua,” Till groans, “I think my dick is broken.”
The four of them have been in their hometown for all of seventeen hours when Till summons her for an emergency meeting. Ivan and Mizi are not invited.
Ivan is self-explanatory. Mizi is the same kind of deranged pervert as Ivan—she thinks everything Ivan does is funny.
Once upon a time, Till had a raging crush on her, but a guy could only listen to so many conversations about how much puss a girl was slaying before he got the memo.
“Oh no,” Sua says, taking a sip of her earl grey. “How pitiful for you.”
“You don’t understand,” Till groans.
“I really don’t,” she deadpans.
Sua is so disinterested, Till can’t help but laugh. He sits up, struggling to parse out his thoughts.
It had been a six-week tour. They visited eighteen cities. Things started to go off the rails on week three and kept going.
Ivan invited Till to every post-concert stint, going so far as to encourage Till to whip out his junk and masturbate. Might as well put your education to the test.
Till failed to see how he was testing anything when he wasn’t the one getting laid, but permission was permission and he was horny as shit.
For three weeks straight, Till jerked it to his best friend fucking other guys. Now, he can’t seem to get it up without thinking about Ivan muttering in some groupie’s ear. There’s a punchline to be had in that sentence, somewhere.
“It’s just. It’s Ivan.”
“Say less.”
“Sua,” Till whines. He’s desperate.
Sua sighs. “What did he do this time?”
Till explains, leaving out the gory details. By the time he’s done, Sua looks like she would like to throw Ivan off of a bridge, or perhaps a tall building. This, too, is typical.
She steeples her fingers together before she speaks, gathering her thoughts. “I’m going to tell you something. You’re not going to like it.”
Till braces himself. “Alright.”
“I think you want Ivan to fuck you, Till.”
Sua was right. He does not like this.
Till thinks about it and thinks some more. Sua is rarely wrong. She’s logical to a fault and she is, in her own words, Ivan’s biggest hater.
Which wasn’t to say they disliked each other—they’re alike in all of the worst ways. Till trusts Sua to give him insight. She’s good at understanding the complicated shit that goes through Ivan’s head.
Fundamentally, Ivan is an enigma to Till. Till has spent a lot of time trying to understand Ivan, but Ivan doesn’t make it easy.
There’s some truth to the fact that Till wants to be closer to him. He admires Ivan, even if he does want to strangle the infuriating bastard every three days. He had seen firsthand what Ivan was capable of and it was, in a word, fascinating.
A hands-on education wouldn’t be the worst thing.
What about the band? Till thinks, chewing on his lower lip. Bloodsport is in a healthy place. The sales for their fifth album are at an all-time high. He’s proud of the work they put out.
It wouldn’t be the same without Ivan.
Till slaps his own cheeks. Why am I assuming Ivan would leave? He’s the face of the band. If anything, I’m the one who would get kicked out.
No matter which way he slices it, he hates the idea of their band falling apart over something as stupid as sex. Interpersonal drama ruined bands all the time, but Till never thought that would happen to him.
More devastating than the loss of the band is the loss of a friend. Ivan carried him on his back when Till broke his ankle, paid for Till’s medical services out of his pocket. There had been a lot of cold, destitute nights in their childhood. Ivan ran warm. He didn’t mind Till curling up with him.
He walks over to Ivan’s place before he can talk himself out of it. “Hey. You busy?”
Ivan opens the door with a yawn. He’s as unkempt as he gets, dressed in boxer-briefs and a ratty t-shirt.
He shuffles into the kitchen, making coffee. It’s the shitty coffee Till loves and Ivan hates. Warmth blooms in Till’s chest.
He studies Ivan from afar. Ivan is not remotely close to his type. He’s currently got five o’clock stubble on his face, he adores horror movies, and he has the world’s most warped outlook on life. Still, Till can’t stop thinking about Ivan’s breath on the shell of some faceless omega’s ear, low voice uttering endless obscenities.
The thoughts are filthy and Till knows it, but he’s come to appreciate them.
He speaks only when the mug of black sludge is in his hands, steam wafting into his face. “If,” Till starts and then stops. “If I wanted our lessons to be different. It wouldn’t ruin everything, right?”
“Different how?”
Till rubs a thumb over the handle, going up and down until he manages to get his mouth working again. “I would prefer for them to be one-on-one,” Till confesses. He stares at the ground because fuck knows he can’t look at Ivan while he says it.
For a handful of seconds that feel like an eternity, silence reigns. Till thinks he hears Ivan inhale sharply, but his pulse hammers so loudly in his ears it drowns out everything else.
“It won’t ruin anything,” Ivan assures him.
Till releases the breath he was holding. “Good. That’s…cool, okay.”
He picks up his bag, hesitating in the doorway on his way out. “Can I come over tomorrow?”
“Of course.”
Once more, Till flees, but it feels like a tactical retreat this time.
Till spends the morning at the library, reading Intercourse Between Two Alphas.
The illustrations in the book are extremely anatomical, but Till still gets flustered. He doesn’t get further than lubricant required and clean yourself out thoroughly before he leaves from whence he came.
He’s too shy to do more than give his backside a cursory wipe, fidgeting as he leaves the convenience store with a bag full of miscellaneous supplies. He’s been to Ivan’s place hundreds of times, but the experience feels brand new.
“Are you planning to have sex with me for a fortnight?”
“I didn’t know which one was best, okay?” Till grumbles.
Ivan leads the way to his bedroom. It smells as overwhelmingly alpha as all the rest of the spaces he inhabits. Till wouldn’t say he’s become endeared to Ivan’s scent due to constant exposure, but he has gained a tolerance.
For a moment, it feels like every other time he slept in Ivan’s bed. They sit together, knees brushing. Palms flat on Ivan’s sheets, Till squeaks when Ivan leans in. He smells like pre-rut, more acidic than usual.
Till’s stomach flips. Something tells him he’s in danger, that the person in front of him is a threat, but he doesn’t pull away.
Instinct is a powerful thing. When Ivan attempts to pin him, Till snarls. He can’t remember the last time his canines elongated so far, but adrenaline has him focused, doing everything he can to keep pace.
They wrestle more than they swipe at each other, rolling this way and that. Ivan is stronger than him—he always has been—and it is with the acknowledgement that he tried his best that Till accepts the press of teeth in his skin.
The first bite is the roughest one. Ivan draws blood, lips stained when he licks them. This is nothing like his sessions with omegas. It is an entirely different type of brutal.
I won, Ivan’s pheromones sing. You’re mine.
Till gasps when Ivan pulls him flush against his chest, lubricant-slick fingers slipping into Till’s crack. Till hisses that Ivan should have warned him, but Ivan doesn’t hear a word he says.
His pupils flash red. Bewilderingly enough, he’s in pseudo-rut. Till is baffled to realize he triggered it.
Every thought in his head flies away when Ivan kisses him. It is a deep and sloppy thing. Uncoordinated, almost.
With fingers in his ass and Ivan choking him with his tongue, Till is completely out of sorts. Half-drooling and half-gasping, he asks Ivan to slow the fuck down.
Ivan is aware enough to oblige, falling into a routine that feels more familiar to Till. He starts muttering, but it’s nothing Till has heard before. “You’re such a reckless fool. So beautiful. Ah, Till.”
He’s never heard Ivan say anyone’s name before. “Do you really have to call me stupid at a time like this?”
Rather than answer the question, Ivan drools on him some more.
He works Till open mercilessly, inserting a third and fourth finger. He spreads Till wide, pushing his digits in so deeply Till screams.
“It’s too much,” he shouts.
“It’s not enough,” Ivan retorts, bringing Till to tears.
Till is sore and trembling by the time Ivan deems him ready, reaching for a condom with clumsy fingers. “S’not like anything’ll happen to me if you don’t put it on,” he slurs.
He has pushed past the pain, committed to seeing this through.
“You never know.”
What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Till means to ask, but his head is too foggy. He loses time.
Ivan lifts Till by his hips, slamming Till onto his sheathed cock in one swift motion.
He curses, calling Ivan every dirty name under the sun. “Shit, you’re huge.”
Ivan chuckles, sparing a moment to squeeze Till’s flaccid cock. Between the endless stretching and the orgasm that seemed like it happened hours ago, he’s spent. “I am an alpha.”
“You’re a jackass is what you are.”
“Whatever you say,” Ivan agrees.
He does not move slowly, immediately forcing Till to take three-quarters of his dick. Till trembles. Tears are hot on his cheeks as Ivan moves, hoisting Till up to let gravity do the rest of the work.
He’s annoyingly big. It hurts.
And yet, Till thinks, eyes rolling back in his head as Ivan grows, impossibly, thicker. His knot inflates and Till thinks he’s going to die. He feels like he pissed himself, or maybe he had a dry orgasm—it doesn’t matter. The point is, he cycles through pleasure to discomfort to pleasure again, hiccuping as Ivan thrusts.
“Fuck,” Till groans.
He feels obscenely full.
“How does it feel?” Ivan asks, like the rat bastard doesn’t know. “Can you feel me right here, in your womb?”
Till had no womb to speak of, but his face burns at the insinuation.
Ivan uses him, dumping hot loads into a series of condoms because, hell, he can’t afford to slip up and get Till pregnant, can he?
His toes curl with an ache he cannot describe in words.
He blacks out.
Ivan catches him before he falls.
“Not like you to ask to meet at the studio on a Tuesday.”
He usually spent Tuesdays with friends. Till doesn’t hang out with Ivan outside of the band. We practically live together when we’re on tour, dude, give me a fucking break.
The last time Till called Hyuna, she went on a can you believe this asshole rant about Luka. Till suffered through her drunken ramblings for twenty minutes before he came up with an excuse to hang up.
Sua isn’t exactly a socialite, but she had her circle and Mizi had a different one. He has plans to meet up with Mizi later, but he needs to get the jitters out in advance.
“Where’s Jake?” Till asks, attempting to change the subject.
“Nuh-uh. Tell me why Ivan isn’t here.”
Till fidgets. “He’s busy.”
Ember snorts. In a long line of horrible lies Till has told, this is the worst. “Ivan would take a red-eye across the country and drive here without sleep if you asked him to. Pull the other one.”
Till fidgets, flushing pink. “Can I tell you a secret?”
She beats him to the punch. There’s only one thing he would be so cagey about. “You finally slept with him?”
“What the—hey, how did you know?”
“I may be a beta, but my eyes work just fine,” Ember drawls.
Till groans, scrubbing a hand down his face.
Ember stares at him, concern bright in her eyes when he drops into a crouch. “Was it bad?”
He shakes his head.
That’s the problem. It was too good. Till can’t stop thinking about it. He thought he could handle it, but nothing could have prepared him for that.
“Then…?”
“Then, nothing,” Till mumbles. Ivan carried him home—carried him, like Till was a damsel in distress—and they haven’t spoken since. He spent all of Monday curled up in bed, clutching his guts like he could still feel Ivan inside. Eventually, he forced himself to go to the kitchen, fumbling like a newborn fawn as he grabbed water and snacks.“We had sex. End of story.”
“You threw together a jam session without our lead vocalist. You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t believe you.”
He forces himself to sit down properly, unfurling. After a beat, he admits the cruel truth: “If I see him, I’m gonna wanna do it again.”
“You’re never gonna believe this. Some people have sex with the same person more than once.”
Till glares at Ember. “That’s not the point.”
“What is the point, babe?”
He considers the question for several long seconds. “I mean, it’s weird, right. Two alphas being together?”
“I’m a lesbian, Till. Wrong person to ask.”
In a way, Ember’s response grounds him.
“What if I act weird onstage?”
“Don’t worry. Ivan acts weird all the time.”
That much is true. “Okay. Maybe I overreacted.”
Affectionately, Ember ruffles his hair. Belatedly, she explains that Jake had to run an errand and that he would be here in a few. They warm up lazily. Afterwards, Till and Mizi grab dinner.
He is pleasantly tipsy when he arrives on Ivan’s doorstep. “I liked the lesson last time,” Till slurs. “Teach me again.”
Ivan chortles as he peels Till out of his clothes, exploring at his leisure.
“What’s up with all the eye-fucking lately?” is the question Hyuna asks at dinner, the six of them meeting up for the first time all year.
Till chokes on his drink. Ivan, for his part, is nonplussed.
“You noticed, too?” Mizi beams, pulling a magazine clipping out of her purse. “Look at this. Does this look like a pure marketing tactic to you?”
Luka glances at the glossy photograph, lips curling up into a smirk. “Absolutely not.”
Mizi selected the shot where Ivan was practically on top of him. Their hair was sprayed to high hell. Their outfits are all the rage underground: arm-warmers and cargo pants with zippers for Till, a heavy chain for Ivan, bangles for both of them.
The stylists put a spiked collar on Till for the pure fashion of it, but Till was man enough to admit in the privacy of his own mind that it was nice to have something around his neck.
He has never been so touchy about it. Long nights spent brainstorming in Ivan’s bed, letting Ivan bend him over every flat surface in his apartment, have left Till sensitive. It’s not a bad thing—it’s a new thing.
“You could call it something polite, at least. Improved chemistry, perhaps,” Sua offers because she is a nice person.
“Call it whatever you want, hon,” Hyuna replies, waving Sua off. “Fess up.”
“I’ve recently taken up meditating,” Ivan lies.
Till rolls his eyes. “With what fucking free time?”
“Between the hours of midnight and four a.m.”
“I always knew you were a vampire.”
Ivan presses a hand to his heart. “Guilty as charged.”
Mizi starts giggling. Her laughter is infectious. Everyone else joins in a moment later.
Luka is the first one to congratulate them on getting together. It is said with finally implied so heavily Till can practically taste it.
Sua nods. Mizi claps Till on the shoulder. Hyuna howls at them to give her more details, but Ivan smiles his effusive business smile. Till isn’t going to say anything if Ivan isn’t willing to speak on the topic.
Hyuna gives them one last push, then she gives up.
Till goes to the restroom before they leave, hanging around the corner when he hears Sua and Ivan talking in hushed tones.
“…you don’t…screw this up.”
“I won’t,” Ivan replies.
“Good luck.”
“Coming from you, that’s a curse.”
“I hope you crash and burn, then,” Sua revises.
“That’s the spirit.”
Her heels click on the concrete as she walks away. Mizi pulls up in her motorcycle a moment later. She revs the engine as Sua clips on her helmet, the two of them zipping away as soon as Sua gets settled, arms wrapped around Mizi’s waist.
She’s so damn cool, Till thinks for about the thousandth time.
“What were you two talking about?” Till asks, hands shoved in his pockets as they walk home.
“Nothing important.”
A muscle twitches in Till’s jaw. It is not the fifth or the fifteenth or even the fiftieth time Ivan has brushed him off like this. He stops dead in his tracks. Ivan stops as soon as he realizes Till has fallen behind.
“I don’t appreciate this, y’know?”
Ivan makes a noncommittal noise.
“I’m serious,” Till snaps, itchy and irritable. “We’ve been friends for so long—why all the secrets? Why does it feel like Sua knows you better than the guy you’ve been sleeping with for four months?”
There are a dozen things Ivan could say. Should say. Till has always had a hair-trigger temper, but his cageyness never bothered Till before.
He lets out a sour, sardonic chuckle. “That’s just it, isn’t it? You’re some guy I’m fucking. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Till freezes like Ivan slapped him in the face. He stomps on Ivan’s toes before he storms off, cheeks hot and eyes glassy.
Ivan sighs as soon as Till is out of sight. I should have known things were going to go south as soon as Sua wished me good luck.
“Fucking Ivan,” Till snarls, punching his pillow with enough force to knock the stuffing out of it. It is not the first time he came home and started hitting things because Ivan pissed him off, but it was usually forgettable bullshit. Ivan stealing Till’s things to tease him, eating Till’s lunch without permission, etcetera.
Till seethes for ages, calming down only after he has taken a bath and had an ill-advised midnight cup of coffee.
Physically exhausted, he climbs into bed. His teeth chatter. He blames that on the caffeine. He wraps his arms around himself and pretends he isn’t lonely.
His rest is fitful. Every hour or so, he wakes up. At some point, he gets up to piss and the world swims around him. When he presses a hand to his forehead, he feels like he’s running a low-grade fever.
It’s fine. He’ll go to the pharmacy in the morning and buy some meds and sweat it out.
He tells himself that, but he loses track of time. Tomorrow turns out to be Friday, two days after his intended return to society. They’re supposed to be at the studio, for fuck’s sake, which is why Jake bangs on his door at six o’clock. “They’re gonna bill us for overtime if we’re late, Till!”
Till doesn’t care. He cannot fathom moving an inch. He had given all of his bandmates a spare key except Ivan, who knew how to pick locks. Jake steps inside with a warning that he’s coming in.
He, like Ember, is a beta, so Till’s scent doesn’t affect him at all. It’s clear that he’s in bad shape, though, so the frustration quickly slides into concern. “I’m gonna cancel the booking, okay?”
Till grunts. It’s the only sound he can force out of his throat.
Jake kneels next to him, frowning. Till hasn’t washed himself in days. He hasn’t eaten much, either. “I’ve never seen you in rut before. You look worse than Ivan.”
The mention of Ivan’s name should be enough to have Till infuriated, but all it does is make him shiver. “Ivan,” he rasps. “Where is he?”
“He’s in the car. I can get him, if you want.”
Till manages a helpless nod.
It feels like it takes years for Jake to leave and Ivan to enter. Ivan’s scent immediately permeates the space, soothing Till in a way nothing has for days.
“I’m mad at you,” is the first thing Till says when Ivan hands him rice porridge, forcing Till to sit up. He manages two spoonfuls before his arms give out, so Ivan ladles it himself.
“Believe it or not, I was aware,” Ivan drawls, unimpressed.
The conversation dies. He swallows slowly, spices and finely chopped vegetables sliding down his throat. Ivan couldn’t cook worth shit, but he was good at making three things—rice porridge, steak, and birthday cake.
Three of Till’s favorite things.
His fists bundle in the sheets. He didn’t mean to lash out. Till hates being so emotional. So vulnerable. It’s his least favorite thing about himself.
The words spill out fast and furious.
At the end, in a voice that is so small and pathetic he feels like crossing country lines and changing citizenship, Till confesses a truth he has been holding onto for longer than he likes. “I don’t want to be some guy you have sex with.”
Ivan sighs, straightening himself out. “I was being petty. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Why did you?” Till demands, a spark of life coming back to him.
A long, tense silence falls. Ivan walks away to wash the dishes. For a few minutes, Till thinks that’s going to be the end of it. Ivan is going to ice him out, again, and either they’ll stop sleeping together or they won’t, but Ivan promised he wouldn’t let the band fall apart.
He is on the verge of letting his eyes droop closed when Ivan starts talking. “I’m not an easy person to be around.”
Till snorts. That’s an understatement if he’s ever heard one.
Ivan chuckles. “As you well know.”
He carries on about lofty shit Till couldn’t hope to understand if he was in a decent condition. Eventually, Ivan dumbs it down, talking about repercussions, lifestyle changes, and skewed urges.
“I’m not capable of keeping things casual with you,” Ivan says. “You’re not capable of doing anything halfheartedly.”
Till gets the vague impression that was supposed to be a compliment, but Ivan made it sound like an insult. He licks his lips. “That’s good, right? We want the same thing.”
Ivan stares at him. Through him. “I’m not sure we do.”
Till’s face falls. He feels like he has hit two highs and three lows in the last ten minutes.
Dark eyes drift away. Ivan sighs, running a hand through his hair. “You’re in pseudo-heat. Did you know that?”
Immediately, ice runs through Till’s veins. “Impossible.”
“It’s not,” Ivan snaps, annoyed. “I told you about this when you presented. I knew you weren’t listening to me.”
Panicked, Till’s heart races. Him, in heat? Does this mean his body is going to change irrevocably? Is there anything he can do to stop the shift?
He asks all of his questions rapid-fire. “You can go on hormone therapy, but we have to cut this off right now.”
Till swallows. He can’t think of anything more miserable than Ivan leaving. That’s the pseudo-heat talking, the functional part of his brain says.
“I don’t want to.”
Once again, Ivan looks through him. “Becoming my mate—my bitch—that’s what you want?”
Till swallows thickly. When Ivan puts it like that, he feels less confident.
Mercifully, Ivan says, “I won’t make you choose today.” He tosses a box of pills on the bed. “Take two tabs. The shift hasn’t taken hold, so you should feel better tomorrow. Good night.”
He melts into the sunset, walking to his apartment.
Till follows instructions. He does not think about the fact that Ivan’s loss gutted him like a fish, left him horribly bereft.
There are too many other things to consider.
When starting a band was a pipe dream, they bickered about names for hours.
“Elixir Vitae? That’s gonna make us sound like hippies.”
“We’re homeless and you’re overdue for a haircut. The term isn’t off the mark,” Ivan drawled.
“Ass,” Till said, punching him in the side.
When they started booking real gigs, Ivan wrote Calamity down as their band name. Till wrote down The Fencing / Frantic.
Several names came and went, but Ivan scribbled down Bloodsport one night and the crowd liked it so much, Till decided Ivan’s love of the grunge aesthetic was suitable.
Bloodsport carried them through their fledgling teenage years to near household celebrity status. It’s not like they’re famous enough to get accosted on the street—or, at least, Till isn’t.
Ivan got stopped all the time for any number of reasons. His sleek silhouette. Powerful pheromones. Fetching eyes. Sleazy charm.
Till understands Ivan’s groupies. Really, he does.
As expected, Till feels a hundred times better in the morning. He apologizes for his abrupt illness. He offers to cover the studio fees, but everyone ignores him.
Practice is peaceful. It takes all of two minutes for Till to realize Ivan is avoiding him, but he refuses to call Ivan out on it.
For two weeks, they dance around each other. For two weeks, Till rolls the term bitch over around his head. He tries a couple others—Ivan’s mate, Ivan’s omega—but neither of them feel right.
Till has never considered being anyone’s anything.
The Discards was another name Ivan proposed. “It’s fitting, isn’t it?”
Till wonders if Ivan still feels like that, like a car part that was built incorrectly and consequently abandoned by the roadside.
Slowly, they begin to fade into what they were before.
He can’t stand it.
On a Thursday evening, Ivan bows out early on the grounds of a budding migraine.
It’s probably not a lie. Ivan smells like shit.
“Your rut starts tomorrow,” Till says.
Ivan nods. His gaze is unfocused.
“I could,” he picks at a loose thread in his shirt. “Join you. If you want me to.”
He stares at Till like a hawk with meat in its talons. “I won’t be able to control myself.”
Till swallows. He has never in his life gotten slick, but he feels like something is about to start sluicing out of him at any given moment. It’s discomfiting. “I’m not an idiot.”
Ivan’s eyes widen ever so slightly. To most people, the change would be imperceptible, but not Till.
Ivan’s hand flashes out so quickly, Till can’t track the movement. He rubs at Till’s bonding juncture, digging his thumb into the most sensitive portion. Till feels woozy.
Ten seconds ago, Ivan smelled like death warmed over, but now, he smells downright pleasant.
Till wonders if he has the shift to thank for that.
“Come home with me,” Ivan says. It’s not a request.
“Alright,” Till agrees, allowing Ivan to keep a hand on his neck as they walk.
Ivan cushions the blow so Till’s head doesn’t slam into the door as soon as they get inside, kissing him breathlessly.
He’s never been the type to drool. He’s careless with Till in a way he isn’t with anyone else. He bites too hard, grips too fiercely. He can’t contain himself.
Ivan never thought he would get this far. Till’s scent is suffocatingly saccharine in his nostrils. He tastes amazing. Ivan is unraveling at the seams.
“Ivan,” Till gasps, fingers curled in Ivan’s shirt. “Please.”
They haven’t fucked in two and a half weeks. They’re both desperate.
They half-run half-stumble into the bedroom. Till puts up a fight, but not much of one.
Today, Ivan has no intention of pretending to play fair. He flips Till over like the alpha he is, sinking his teeth into Till’s nape without fanfare.
“Holy—fuck,” Till curses, shuddering horribly. Fruitlessly, he humps the mattress, moaning when he feels no relief.
Mine, Ivan thinks. Till hears it loud and clear. Mine, finally mine.
Aloud, Ivan says, “This is going to become useless, you know,” squeezing Till’s cock. It’s soft, though Till is ten times more aroused than he was the last time they slept together.
It’s not a compliment. It’s really, really not. Regardless, Till’s toes curl. He whines. Ivan rewards Till by tugging at Till’s nipple piercings with his teeth.
He runs his fingers over every piece of jewelry. Ivan hums to himself that Till would look good with a ball on his tongue. He would suck on it for hours, teasing the sensitive area.
“I’ll think about it,” Till mutters, caught up in Ivan’s delusions.
“That’s all I can ask.”
Soon enough, speaking becomes impossible. Ivan folds Till into a mating press and bears down, ripping a lurid howl from Till’s throat. The bed quite literally shakes with the intensity of Ivan’s motions.
Till can’t think. He can hardly breathe. The world narrows down to Ivan’s cock in his hole, burning like a brand. Ivan is drenched in sweat, delirious with lust.
Honestly, Till is lucky Ivan had the wherewithal to bag it up.
(He refuses to acknowledge the voice in his head that wanted Ivan to forget.)
“Ivan,” Till cries, or maybe shouts. Ivan’s name takes on a lot of shapes as he pounds the shit out of him, fucking Till so full he feels silly.
Ivan’s knot inside is not a new thing. The glide, easy as pie, is.
“I ought to plug you up,” Ivan mutters. Till isn’t sure if he’s talking to himself or not. “Fuck a baby into you, watch you get round with my pups. Seven of them, maybe.”
Till releases a shrill, hysterical shriek. “Seven is too many, moron.”
“Five, then,” Ivan offers, as if this is a concession.
This version of dirty talk is a little too insane to be sexy, or it should be. With tears wet on his lashes, Till daydreams about Ivan knotting him raw, leaving him wet and messy. The vision makes him absurdly tight, milking Ivan for everything he’s got.
“You’re crazy,” Till mutters, splayed in the sheets after four bawdy rounds of sex in a row.
“You knew that before you started sleeping with me,” Ivan says, passing him a glass of water. Greedily, Till swallows it, spilling a fair amount.
Already, he is eager for more. He feels like a horrible slut.
“You’re not off the hook, by the way.”
“I assumed as much.”
“We’ll talk after your rut is over.”
“Or your heat. Whichever lasts longer.”
Till nods, cheeks warm.
He hadn’t considered that possibility.
To say that Till is embarrassed when Ivan pulls out three unlabelled boxes full of old journal entries, scrapped lyrics, and old photographs is putting it lightly.
Humiliated is slightly more accurate. “Oh my god,” Till whispers, hands shaking as he flips through everything.
It becomes immediately obvious that Ivan was—is?—obsessed with him.
Ivan shrugs. “There’s a reason I opted to keep these things to myself.”
There’s a dissertation written on the concept of Black Sorrow. “You can’t sing this one anymore,” Till shouts, red-faced with shame. How dare Ivan write such a fucking depressing love song about him and put it on the fucking radio?
“It’s our second most popular song,” Ivan drawls. Unapologetic bastard.
“Write a new one,” Till stammers, grasping at straws.
Ivan places a hand over his mouth as he chuckles. “Alright.”
There’s plenty of material to choose from, old and new. His most recent entry was written a month ago.
Eventually, Ivan pulls Till into his lap. He nuzzles lazily, enjoying his proximity.
“I don’t get it,” Till mumbles, letting his eyes drift closed. “You should have said something.”
He feels Ivan shrug. “You weren’t interested.”
Till wasn’t interested until he was. Ivan wasted an awful lot of time on a flimsy premise.
“You’re here now,” Ivan hums, lapping at the bondmark on Till’s neck. “Let’s leave the past behind, shall we?”
Till turns his head to kiss Ivan properly.
This turns out to be a horrible mistake. Kissing Ivan chastely and leaving it at that is impossible.
You’re not capable of doing anything halfheartedly.
This truth is easier to accept when he’s grinding in Ivan’s lap, rucking a hand up Ivan’s shirt.
epilogue
Till thought they were doing well for themselves as a band until Cure was released. The single blows the rest of their songs out of the water.
It’s as morose as everything else Ivan writes, harkening back to a time before they got together, but it’s a duet and it serves as a fantastic cooldown. It goes platinum in a matter of days.
Till forgoes his guitar in favor of sharing the mic with Ivan, the two of them singing into each other’s mouths more so than the equipment.
With this tour heavy on the synth, they hire an additional talent. Kara is not new to the industry, but there are always adjustments that come with fresh faces.
“We have a signing session tonight, right?” Kara asks, looking around for the stars of the act.
Ember and Jake share a look. “Ivan and Till will be a few minutes late,” Jake explains.
Pure-hearted Kara sets off to find them, assuming they got caught up in some sort of emergency. She is under no illusion that she’s ‘part of the band,’ but she is a professional and she holds herself to certain standards. No matter how well their new album was performing, they couldn’t sideline their fans.
“Ivan,” is the sound of a shout in the green room, wet and reedy.
Kara swallows, feeling skittish all of the sudden.
“Shh,” Ivan purrs. When Kara looks through the glass panel in the door, she sees Ivan fucking Till within an inch of his life. Till’s ankles are wrapped around the base of his spine. “You’re the one who couldn’t wait, remember? Ivan, give me a finger or two, I need it.”
“I did not fucking say that.”
“It was implied.”
Ears hot, she shuffles off. As an alpha, she’s well-acquainted with the sticky scent of omegas in the throes of passion, thick and stifling. Ivan and Till’s fragrances clash more than they compliment each other. She had mistakenly thought Till an alpha as well.
Later, Ivan claps a hand on her shoulder. His smile is frigid, icier than the tundra. “In the future, don’t let me catch you. We’re quite exclusive.”
Kara nods eagerly.
Jake claps her on the shoulder too, but his approach is warm. “Don’t worry. Ivan just gets a little territorial. He’ll come around once he gets used to you.”
Kara asked why they hired her instead of a beta. Jake shrugs. “You were the best person for the job. What’s your subgender designation got to do with anything?”
The compliment makes her blush. She giggles, clinging to the wall as everyone else in the fields questions and signs shirts.
Till sports a collar he wasn’t wearing earlier, worn to cover fresh love bites rather than his bondmark.
How telling, Kara thinks, smiling to herself.
Till sticks his tongue out as he runs a marker over gloss paper. A flash of metal catches in the light. Ivan is never more than a foot or two away, remaining close without hovering.
They’re an interesting pair, she has to give them that.
Kara looks forward to fitting in, someday.