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The drumming of the rain around them was as deafening as the applause. When the lights were cut and the boys on stage were plunged into darkness, it should have been the end. The rain didn’t cease. No one came to collect them. Seconds stretched into minutes. Somewhere amongst the swirling thoughts of regret, Till realised he couldn’t move. His eyes began to sting with the need to blink, his chest barely shifting with impossibly shallow breaths.
Ivan was much the same. He had expected his thoughts to stop, for everything to stop. Instead, he found himself trapped in unending agony. Thankfully he glanced upwards in what should have been his final moment, his immovable gaze filled with Till. Equally trapped. Equally still. Ivan could tell from something in his stare that he was the same. That he knew what was happening but could not move, or speak, or do anything at all.
“The moment just showed the intensity of human emotion so well. Thank you both for agreeing to let us freeze it. The fans will be absolutely thrilled.” Neither could turn to see who was speaking, but it was a voice that they did not recognise. By the sounds of it, that segyein was some big shot in the competition and seemed to be speaking with their owners.
The rain had been stopped by this point, and their bodies had been relocated to a more suitable location for display. Their positions had been exactly recreated; their bodies entirely unable to be moved. Ivan was lucky to be lying down, though being stuck in any position for this long would become painful. His wounds still provided plenty of fresh pain, much to his frustration.
“Foolish pet of mine,” the growl was accompanied with the sound of a sharp slap to the back of Till’s head, the feet of his owner coming into his downwards facing view.
If Ivan could scowl, he would have. He knew how poor Till’s treatment was from the bruises and injuries he had seen, but watching their interactions in real time was different entirely.
“You are lucky your opponent was more stupid than you,” the segyein continued to snarl, pacing around the frozen display. “At least your idiocy is my profit. Learn from this, you will have no one to throw away their life for you next time.”
With cruel parting words, Urak took their leave with cold indifference to the condition of their pet. Ivan could almost feel Till’s anger despite his frozen form. Ivan wished he could do anything to comfort him.
“Ivan.”
Ivan’s own owner visited them immediately after, likely having been on the sidelines waiting for Urak to finish and leave. They looked down at Ivan with a pitying look, one that Ivan could barely see from his peripheral, his focus locked on Till.
“You were a most perfect pet,” it spoke with a fondness beneath its formal exterior. When Unsha shuffled a little more between the two boys, Ivan could see that the segyein had removed its hat in an unexpected show of grief. “To give your life for another, what could you have been thinking?” It pondered aloud, looking down at its fallen human.
Ivan felt a pull of emotion in his chest, he had never known that his owner cared like this. Perhaps if they had been more present, he could have known. He wondered if this was similar to what Till felt. A longing to have known the feelings of another before this point of no return. Ivan knew he was fooling himself to believe something like that. Or was he? He had expected Till to feel disgusted at his actions, but whatever emotion Till was staring down at him with was certainly not that.
Their display was opened to fans to view and pose with. Sometimes they turned on rain from above to soak them again, their bodies unable to shiver despite the cold and discomfort they could still experience. At least the falling water against their skin gave them something to focus on that wasn’t the sharp ache of their muscles or the sick chatter of the segyein.
At least they weren’t allowed too close. The general public were kept back with protective forcefields to preserve the display. They didn’t want to know what those fans would do to them if they were given the freedom. The pair heard the same conversations over and over, discussions about favourite humans, favourite moments and what they would do if those humans were their pets instead.
The conversations were awful to listen to, but trying to drown out the chatter meant focusing on their own thoughts which were just as terrible given the moment they could not move past. As torturous as this current existence was, Till knew that the moment their bodies were unfrozen everything would be somehow even worse. He would have to go back to Urak and continue to perform, and Ivan would die.
At least like this, Ivan was with him for a little longer. Till wished he could tell Ivan that he didn’t want him to go or give him any sort of reply to his feelings, but he would never get that chance. It was selfish for Till to want this torment to last longer given that Ivan must be suffering from his injuries, but Till knew that once this is over, he’d be left completely alone.
The forcefield was removed for their wealthier fans. Those segyein were allowed as close as they liked. They could even touch the frozen boys if that was what they desired. The only saving grace in this situation was that the freezing technology rendered their bodies entirely immobile, so they couldn’t be played with like dolls.
“Such a beautiful face,” one segyein had commented, though many had expressed the same in their own words. Its hand brushed along Ivan’s lips, trailing down to his chest. Till wanted to scream at it to leave him alone. That the last taste Ivan was meant to experience was him, not the hand of some random segyein. “The expression of a dying human is really so wonderful, so emotional,” it continued to ramble on in awe of feelings it would never know.
“His body is so wide here,” Ivan was not the only host to unwanted touches. Till could not see the segyein behind him that traced the line of his broad shoulders as it noted his proportions, but Ivan could watch its intrigued actions. “But so narrow here,” it continued its observations, ghosting its hands down Till’s sides to rest at his hips. The way his clothes had been styled emphasised his masculine V-shaped form, loose on top where he was most wide, tight on the trousers where his body tapered. Ivan hated watching those huge hands of the segyein touch Till’s body so comfortably.
The end date of the display had been announced. They hadn’t been in this frozen state for long, but when each hour felt like an eternity it was difficult to keep track of time. Ivan would be sad for it all to end, having savoured the extra time he’d been given with Till in his sight staring back at him. He wished Till didn’t look so sad. Truthfully, Ivan wished he had died on the stage when he was meant to so that he wouldn’t have to see that look across Till’s face and wonder if he was wrong to keep his feelings a secret for so long.
Till wished the display would never end. He could deal with the immense pain his still body was under, he was no stranger to such agonies after all. The time he’d had to linger on thoughts of the future, one without Ivan or Mizi or anyone at his side, had left him terrified of facing it. He wanted Ivan to stay, even if they both had to stay immobilised and admired forever.
The segyein that showed up to their final day of display were the wealthiest of all that had visited until then. The final slots to see them had sold for great sums of currency, the proceeds of which the two humans would never see. The types of fans willing to pay that sort of cost felt the most entitled to do as they pleased with the display than any others.
Their hands slipped beneath their clothing, cold flesh touching soft skin with abandon. With the stiffness of their bodies, their clothes could not be entirely removed as some segyein would want, but some could be moved at least. Their bodies could not react in any way to their touches, but it didn’t stop their greedy groping.
“They can’t move, but they can feel us, right?” It was easier when they could imagine that the segyein were unaware of their sentience. The lack of humanity that these aliens possessed would have driven a shiver down their spines if either were able to experience it.
The lingering touches were more violating knowing that the segyein knew they could feel every graze of their hands, every taste of their skin. While Till had wished that they could be frozen in place for much longer, now he regretted that want. If Ivan had died on the stage, he would never have had to experience the degradation of being treated like this. Of having his final moments mocked and immortalised for all to enjoy. He should never have had to know what the hard grip of a segyein hand against his hip felt like.
“Did you do this because you thought he would love you back?” One asked while crouched over Ivan, a clawed finger stroking his cheek with an inappropriate care. “But you would never live to experience that love, even if he did, so what was the point?”
These things couldn’t begin to understand their feelings. Were they really such higher beings if they couldn’t even feel?
“At least you get to die being adored,” it mused, as if being in their eyes was such a wonderful thing.
“What do you think it would do if it could react?” Another asked as its hands roamed beneath Till’s untucked shirt, its fingers dipping beneath the waistband of his unbuttoned trousers.
Both humans knew the answer all the too well. Till would attack a segyein that dared put its hands on him like that, although the outcome would not be favourable for him. Certain defeat had never stopped him before. Its hand slid into the back of his trousers, cupping the warm flesh of his ass. The touch was unpleasant, but Till was thankful that at least Ivan probably couldn’t see what it was doing.
“Do you think it would want me to stop, or maybe it would beg for more?” The segyein was clearly not much of a fan at all if it even had to ask.
The release of their freezing was more agonising than relieving. Everything hurt as it restarted, deep gasps and rapid, frantic pulses. Ivan’s breath was gone before Till had a chance to register his physical freedom. Before he could reach out, his own body was seized and restrained in the traditional way Till was used to as he was dragged back to his owner.
He hoped Ivan was able to come to some sort of peace with what happened. He hoped that Ivan could have seen the sorrow in his eyes to know that he would be deeply missed. He hoped the residual touch of the segyein didn’t stay with him in his final experience.
Knowing how the segyein thought about them, the things the segyein wanted to do to them drove Till wild with anger and disgust. The segyein were far from their highly evolved superiors, they were just as debased as any other being. They were just stronger. That wouldn’t be enough to protect them, not if Till kept fighting. He would find the way under their skin.
They would pay for all that they had done. None of them had the right to relish in Ivan’s dying moment like that. None of them had the right to touch him and mock him while he suffered in a way that they could never dream of experiencing. And when Till finally gets the better of them, they’ll know exactly what they did wrong.