Chapter 1

Ivan enters Till's life at the ripe age of nine, and it's been hell ever since.

They're stepbrothers, technically. Technically. Because Ivan's bastard father married Till's mom – Io – and somehow, Till was cursed with an older brother.

Then, tragedy struck. Ivan's father couldn't even make it through his first year of marriage before dying spontaneously of a heart attack at his law firm. Some sort of major blockage. They called it a widowmaker heart attack, and it did just that. It made Io a widow approximately one year after exchanging her vows with the guy.

Rest in peace, bastard. You will not be missed. Io cried for months.

Still, it worked out well. Io was cut a hefty life insurance check, as well as the substantial sum of money Ivan's father left behind.

Unfortunately, there was the Ivan Problem – the fact that Ivan was only twelve and had no relatives to take him in. Well, besides Io, who couldn't part with Ivan even if she tried. She loves Ivan. Neat, athletic, sociable Ivan. Everything a kid should be, at least when no one was looking.

And Till was the only one who saw him for what he was – a freak, one who hid it under a thick coating of princely polish. But Till didn't see it at first, not when they were kids, not when he didn't know any better.

At first, Ivan was normal. His blank stare locked onto Till the moment they were introduced, almost calculating. He was eleven, Till was nine, and that was it. They played and fought like any other pair of kids, except Ivan was weird about it. He didn't play with anyone else, and he didn't let Till, either. He was clingy.

"Till, you can't play with him. You can't. You have to play with me."

And Till didn't like being told what to do. So, they started fighting more than playing – "I don't want to play with you anymore, you're mean and weird! " – but that came to an end when Ivan's bastard father kicked the bucket.

Something about Ivan changed. It was like he aged an entire decade between the ages of twelve and thirteen. He helped Io around the house, focused on his schoolwork, and he didn't play with Till anymore. Didn't follow him around, didn't glare at other kids when they approached him.

And no, ten year old Till didn't miss it. He didn't cry big fat tears and beg Ivan to throw the ball with him, please, just for fifteen minutes. He definitely didn't cry harder when Ivan said no, stating that his older, cooler friends were more fun to play with because they could at least catch the ball.

They get along better now, or so Io says. Ivan has grown into the school heart throb, the star quarterback who took Anakt Garden – the stupidest name for a school Till has ever heard of – to the playoffs. He's at the top of his class and gets along with everyone. On track to go to some Ivy League school miles and miles away from their hometown.

He's popular, is what Till is trying to say.

And Till... is 'figuring things out,' according to his mom. He paints his nails. Wears dark and ratty clothes that sometimes reveal too much. He has a temper and a foul mouth that earns him detention at least once a week, and he holes up in his room to sing and play guitar instead of doing his homework.

All in all, they're polar opposites.

Yet, here they are. After ignoring Till for, like, five straight years, Ivan's gone back to being his usual freak self these days. It's been that way for a little over a year now, and Till is still coming to terms with it.

"Why the fuck are you sitting with me?" Till asks for the third time.

Ivan is idly picking at his breakfast wrap. "You don't have any friends, do you?"

"What?" Till hisses. There are approximately fourteen people staring at them, because a popular jock sitting with an emo delinquent is apparently the most interesting thing to ever happen to the cafeteria. "Where the fuck did that come from?"

"Well," Ivan says mildly, still pulling his wrap apart like some kind of psychopath instead of eating it. "You sit alone every day. Doesn't that make you feel like a loser?"

Till narrows his eyes. Takes a deep breath. Lets it out, slowly. "You have five seconds to remove yourself from my presence before I throw the first punch."

Till's already unpopular. Breaking the school heart throb's perfect nose would probably make him the target of a lot of vandalism on his locker, but he can just draw over it. Io certainly won't be happy with him, but Till's defense has always been, 'He started it.'

"Please don't." Ivan finally finds what he's looking for in his breakfast wrap – a piece of bacon that he pops into his mouth, which also coincidentally makes a girl two tables over swoon dramatically. "I thought you'd appreciate some company after Mizi rejected you this morning."

Till's heart freezes to ice. "H-How did you hear about that?"

Ivan fake smiles. It never reaches his eyes, fucking freak. "On the grapevine. You managed to make a wave. A small wave, granted, but I still would like to congratulate you."

"You're so full of shit," Till manages. His head is still reeling from the knowledge that most of the school probably knows at this point and is laughing at him. "I just... shot my shot. There's nothing wrong with that."

Ivan hums. "She's a lesbian, Till."

Till glares at the table. His own sandwich – which Ivan packed for him, since Io was busy – is getting soggy from all the ketchup he used to make it edible. "How was I supposed to know?"

"Somewhere between Mizi's third or fourth tongue-kiss with Sua, I'd imagine," Ivan replies helpfully. "Are you going to cry? I have a tissue in case your eyeliner runs."

"Fuck off," Till mutters, scrubbing the wetness from his eyes with the back of his hand. It leaves a dark smear, but Till still has yesterday's sharpie doodle covering his skin, so it isn't too noticeable. "Leave me alone."

"There, there." Ivan reaches into his varsity jacket pocket and pulls out a neatly folded tissue, like this entire conversation was premeditated and destined to end in Till crying. "Let me see, Till."

It's so stupid. So, so fucking stupid how Ivan's tone is all soothing and nice, how everyone is watching them like Ivan is a kind older brother taking care of his loser sibling after said sibling got rejected, when Ivan is literally incapable of sympathy. Till's just surprised he isn't recording this on his phone.

Ivan grips Till's chin and forces him to lift his head. Till glares at him through a sea of wet, angry tears, tinged black from his eyeliner. Then, perfectly casual, Ivan begins the careful and painstaking task of dabbing Till's tears away while also cleaning up the makeup stains.

The same way someone might scrub at their rat dog's eye boogers. Sweet, indulgent, as if it's an everyday occurrence.

Till does not sniffle, and he does not allow Ivan to wipe away his snot. Except that he does. "I fucking hate you."

"If hating me makes you feel better," Ivan begins, examining Till's face until he finally deems him clean, "Then by all means, hate me. Also, you should eat your sandwich. I made it with love."

"What," Till breathes, eyes wide because he ate a few bites already, "did you do to it?"

Ivan blinks innocently. "Turkey, cheese, whole-grain bread, and a few –" Till's heart genuinely stops beating until he hears the rest, " – Pickles."

After that, one of Ivan's popular jock friends shows up and asks him what he's doing talking to a loser like Till, and Ivan's fake smile grates on Till more than usual as the two walk away.

Till has ceramics with Ivan this semester.

He's also fifty percent sure that it's some sort of divine punishment. Ivan is a senior, so he needs one last art credit to graduate and be sent off to his fancy ivy league school.  As a sophomore, Till had signed up for every art class he could, and somehow, that ended with taking a ceramics class with Ivan.

"God, you suck at this," Till groans, shoving Ivan aside so he can wedge the clay himself.

Ivan's genuine smile is all snaggletooth, and Till hates how he knows that. "How so? I was doing it right this time."

"Yeah, if you're fucking geriatric or something," Till replies, a little breathless.

"Ah. You said I used too much force yesterday, so –"

"You almost broke the table, dumbass."

"Language, Till," says their art teacher from her desk, idly reading a magazine. "Three more swears and you're in detention again. You know the rules."

Till has been allowed five swears a day, which isn't close to enough when your ceramics partner is fucking Ivan. In light of this, he thinks he should be given at least twenty more.

Ceramics is their last period of the day, and with only a handful of students in the class, Ivan's... Ivanisms are dialed up to the nth degree. He hovers and follows Till around everywhere, leaning his hip on the table, shallowly apologizing when he accidentally bumps Till when he's glazing something. Once, he plucked a hair from Till's head and kneaded it into his clay, saying that he'd cherish it forever.

(Thankfully, Ivan's project exploded in the kiln. Till may or may not have sabotaged him).

"I'll help you wedge your clay, Ivan," a girl says, deciding to appear out of thin air.

Or, at least it feels that way. Till shrieks and nearly sends the mass of clay flying at her face, but Ivan reacts faster and catches it before it can. Do quarterbacks catch? Till doesn't know shit about football. The reaction time is kind of terrifying, though.

"S-Sorry," the girl says, shaken by Till's outburst. "I just thought Ivan needed help."

Ivan's fake smile is so slimy and disgusting, Till has to look away. None the wiser, Ivan crosses his arms and seems to think it over. "Sena, right?"

The girl's eyes light up, and Till goes eugh under his breath, still wedging. A piece of nail polish chips off his finger into the clay.

"Oh! I didn't think you'd remember. We had economics last year."

"I remember. You wore a braid," Ivan says.

"Ponytail," Sena corrects, still starry-eyed. "It was a long time ago."

"Yeah, a whole year," Till mutters under his breath. If he asked right now, Ivan could probably say what Till wore on the second Tuesday of last month. The dude's memory is as freakish as his personality, so he must be fucking with this girl on purpose. God, he's so slimy. "Take him away. He's fucking hopeless."

"Two more, Till," monotones the teacher from her desk, turning her page.

It takes everything Till has to stop himself from flipping her off. He doesn't know where that would get him. Suspension, probably. Ivan would never let him live it down.

Sena is still hopefully gazing at Ivan. "So, what do you say? Partners?"

"Actually, I'd prefer to work with my brother," Ivan replies, and Till freezes up.

That's not part of Ivan's script. Ivan is supposed to say, 'That sounds wonderful. I'm sure my grade is safe in your hands' and the girl will say, 'Please take my virginity and don't wear a condom.' And Till will still be here, wedging this fucking clay, while Ivan raises the teenage pregnancy statistics.

(Except that isn't quite true. Ivan's never brought a girl home, and he's too smart to have unprotected sex. Fucking barf. Till hates this train of thought).

Sena's lower lip wobbles. "I understand. He probably needs your support right now. I'll, uhm, leave now. Excuse me."

"What the fuck, who said I need support?" Till asks once she's out of earshot, ignoring the teacher's sharp glare. He's one swear away from detention again, but whatever. "And since when do you call me brother?"

Ivan used to say it all the time when they were kids to anyone who would listen. Till is my brother. I only have one brother, and it's Till. He's important to me because he's my brother. He can only play with me, his brother. Isn't my brother cute? Stop following my brother around. My brother doesn't like you.

They aren't even real brothers. Not a drop of Ivan's mutated, freak DNA is shared with Till, thank god.

"Mizi rejected you, and we are stepbrothers," Ivan reminds him, peering over Till's shoulder to watch him work the clay. "Is that a piece of your nail polish?"

Till hurriedly kneads the black chip out of sight. "No."

"Don't do that," Ivan chides, frowning. "I want a piece of clay with the essence of Till."

"You're a sicko," Till accuses, elbowing Ivan hard in the ribs before he can get any closer. "You want my essence? I'll spit in your water bottle before practice."

Ivan looks way too excited at the threat, tanking Till's bony elbow without complaint as his eyes widen gleefully. "Promise?"

Till genuinely can't believe him sometimes. He's such a freak. "You need to be institutionalized."

"High school is the same thing." Ivan is quiet for a long moment, and just as Till finally finishes wedging the clay so it won't explode in the kiln, Ivan says, "If you do decide to spit in my water bottle, can you make sure it has some phlegm? The kind that's mostly mucus, you have to hack it up from the back of your throat –"

Till doesn't wheeze, but it's close. "Get the fuck away from me, you freak of nature."

The teacher, who must have heard the entire conversation, decides the most important one to reprimand between the two of them is Till and his colorful language.

"Detention, Till. I'll see you after school."

"Seriously?" Till asks, pursing his lips when he sees Ivan's stupid snaggletooth smile. He doesn't ask the teacher if she's selectively deaf, because he's pretty sure that would land him detention all week.

"I'll pick you up after football practice," Ivan says, like the phlegm thing was a ploy to get Till into his car and drive him home. It probably was.

At least, Till hopes so.