A Breathless Utopia-for Kimbk and Tschusscake

I didn't want to open my eyes at first, as I sat there in the cold and let the hum of the water penetrate my ears like a million water logged bees. I knew it would sting, would make this whole process go faster, and though I would have loved to have it over with as quickly as possible, my heart was still pounding out of my chest in something you would call fear.

Well, you know what they say. Every person that tried to commit suicide by jumping to their death only to survive, admits regretting their decision. Each person said that the little problem they may have been having wasn't worth killing themselves over, and they realized it when they were about three fourths of the way down. They wish they had never done it. Every. Single. One.

But I was a little different, now wasn't I? My death wouldn't quite be the same. I wasn't falling. I was just sitting here. Innocently. Calmly. Nothing was wrong with me. I was just enjoying a lovely night, really. I was just going for a swim in a hotel pool while the rest of my friends continued on inside, with their shooting, and drinking, and smoking.

And no one would hear my last breath as I took it or my last scream of desperation and misery. I wasn't going out with a bang, just a small, silent choke and then… I would just… fade away.

Those five valiums I popped before I decided this helped with the silence anyway. My body was too relaxed to make a damn sound.

Expecting something different from a person like me? Something a little more… hardcore? No. That wasn't really my style.

I opened my eyes and they fluttered a bit, trying to get the sting to go away, though it didn't, and I knew it wouldn't. It was just my body. No, my mind was stronger, or maybe my legs forgot how to work because of the little exhaustion and small high I was on from the pills. I wasn't going anywhere.

Finally, I had them all the way open, deciding to just embrace it. Wasn't the way I saw real life horribly stinging as well anyway?

My world that night was black, with only the moon casting its rays on the blue walls and sending the reflections around me in ripples of beauty. I allowed a small smile. They almost looked like fairies to me… moving too fast for me to catch their true form, and instead they just flew all around me, enveloping me in iridescence.

I blinked again. I choked. A bubble of air left my mouth and began traveling up to the surface, breaking through back to the real world. Yes. This would surely be a good way to go out.

This was, after all, his element. My love played with fire, but he was only truly happy in the opposite. When we first met, at his old place in the country, we had a huge party and danced, and drank, and snorted, and smoked the night away. And in the morning, after purging everything in my stomach into his bathroom, I walked out of the cabin while the rest of the band was sleeping in the kitchen and Flake stood at the stove, trying to make eggs, only to look down the way a little bit and see what I thought was a torpedo cutting through his little lake. I could hardly take my eyes off of him, or what I thought was him, as I watched this other life form break through invisible barriers like they were nothing. He popped out of the water a moment later, when he was on the other side, and smiled. He smiled. It was this small, prideful grin that I never saw on his lips again. And it was right there, at that very moment, when I knew there was something special about him.

That very day, I convinced everyone who stayed from the party from the three bands that were there to join a band with me. A whole new one. Of course Till was the most reluctant, but I convinced him. How I did it, I don't even remember, but I convinced him. I told him, no, I promised him, we would be huge. We were going to be special.

He was special.

We all had to feed off of that.

And we needed him.

I needed him.

My lungs started to feel like raisins, and everything felt so overly cold. I knew I didn't take a big enough breath before I descended from the hotel, and went into the abyss of this other world, this dangerous, breathless utopia. If I did, I wasn't going to sink. I was going to float. Till taught me that.

He taught me how to swim, actually. Huh. I guess I forgot.

Another bubble. Another choke.

Damn breath control. This was what I got for trying to better myself musically. Till and I used to do long tones together, facing each other, trying to get the undertones between us so intense that we thought we could break glass. Maybe we could have, but we never actually tried that. In fact, I could hold a note longer than he could. He was so angry at me for it when he found that out. After all, I had to not upstage him. Sure, he didn't like people looking at him, but on that same note, he didn't play a guitar and stand in front of me at a show.

We were pretty different, he and I. He would have preferred to be a singer that never had to have an audience. He would be perfectly happy if he could just stand above the crowd, while they faced the other way, and sing to the wall they looked at. Attention made him nervous, he would do better back in the middle of nowhere, with no one around. He was fine with silence. Me, on the other hand, I needed love. I needed attention. It was my own, personal drug. I needed to make a splash that everyone would hear, and I needed the adoration I would get in return if I did a good enough job.

And to tell you the truth, I was pretty damn envious of him. When we were old and gray, he would lay in his lonely bed, the morning doves singing out his window, the only sound he could hear and smile. I would have my eye on a shotgun when the constant scream my life had become came to a silent end.

My fingers were immovable now, and I'm sure my face was a beautiful shade of blue. Well, this was it.

The thought of him finding me popped into my head for a minute. It would be quite ironic, wouldn't it? To find your lover, dead and floating in your element, a man who always wanted to make loud noises to get someone, ANYONE'S attention, lifeless and silent.

I almost hoped he'd find me.

He would be the only one who truly could be inspired by my demise. Yeah… this would make for a great song, now wouldn't it?

The laugh I took made a whole wave of water rush into me. This was the end, and I didn't thrash about, or scream underwater, or try to swim to the surface as my black, breathless utopia, descended even deeper into my own dying mind.

**********

Hey.

Hey!

Till…? Why did he sound so far away? His voice is quite beautifu-,

Did you drink too much last night?

Well, besides that cherry gin and sprite…

Why don't you open your eyes, at least? Come on, Richard, really. It's so late in the day. I thought you wanted to work on that song… lazy…

I wasn't lazy… I was just really… really… wow, how could I be this tired? What did I do?

Slowly, I opened my eyes, and the light was just so incredibly bright that they basically clamped shut immediately.

Well, isn't that funny? What are you? Afraid of the light?

"You're one to talk…" I went to rub my eyes, but it didn't feel like my hands were even touching my face at all. That was peculiar…

Touché. He sighed, and I heard blankets rustle. Maybe he was moving… was I back in our hotel room…? At least I can open my eyes. It doesn't matter how scared I am of this place. At least I still face it.

He was right… I had to open my eyes. No sense laying here, talking to him without looking at him.

Protest escaped my mouth when the light flooded onto my face again, but this time, I opened them wider. And there he was, laying right next to me, on his side, looking right in my eyes with his, all of a sudden this amazing emerald green. We were on this glowing white bed, the sheets completely pristine, and the pillows so fluffy that they bowed up around my head, and he smiled at me.

"Where are we?" That's when I realized we were naked. The covers and sheets came just about up to his bare chest, and my body was much too sensitive to the softness to be clothed. It was quite strange though…

Till was incredibly… attractive to me, hence the fact that we were fucking like rabbits any chance we could get… backstage, in bathrooms at after parties… we even somehow got roomed together while on tour. Usually we couldn't keep our hands to ourselves…

But I didn't feel sexually inclined right now. It was just… him and me.

"The better question is; where are you?" he smirked, never taking his eyes away from mine. In fact, I wasn't sure if he had even blinked.

"Are we in the hotel room?"

"Well… I am."

"Then… where am I?"

"Probably at the bottom of the pool," he said, unemotionally. It's like he didn't even care… then again maybe he didn't.

"Oh… yeah…" Why did I do that again? Oh yeah… because nothing was worth it anymore.

I didn't want to play anymore… all I wanted to do really was drink and get high… and now… Till wanted to leave me. It was like, all the fame and fortune wasn't enough anymore. It just got old. It was almost as if the buzz of the first high finally wore off, and I was left with nothing. I just felt… completely empty and unfulfilled. I couldn't even write anymore, and now… Till was just fed up with it. I could understand though. Who would want to be with a shell of a man?

"So… what are you going to do now?" he asked. I thought about it for a while, before rolling onto my back and sighing up at the glowing white ceiling.

"I guess… I guess I'll just lay here, then." He smirked and chuckled.

"Then I guess I'll keep you company."

Richard! A voice called me. It was so far away again, muffled by the barrier of worlds. Was that… Till…?

"Looks like someone wants you."

"So what…?" I didn't want to go back to that place. That Till wanted nothing to do with me. That Till would throw me away when I needed him most. Why wouldn't I want to stay with a different Till, who just content being next to me, and seemed to love me like the other one used to? Seemed like that world would be better off without me anyway… seemed like that Till would be better off without me…

RICHARD!! It was louder now, the break clear in my ears, though there was still a difference between where he was and where I seemed to be… wherever I was… Don't you dare leave me, damn it!!

Well. Wasn't I just saying that same thing about an hour or two ago?

"So… obviously someone wants you up there, you might as well wait on this if you ask me."

"I'm not asking you…"

Reesh…? It was someone else. Maybe Flake?

Oh my God… is he…? Paul. He sounded so fucking shocked… maybe even crying.

Call a fucking ambulance! What are you doing?! That was definitely Ollie. Of course, Ollie would be the one who did something instead of just gawking and being completely shocked over a situation like this.

Shit… the phones are down. Doom. What do I do? Till! What do I do?!

You shut the FUCK UP! THAT'S WHAT YOU FUCKING DO!

"He's giving you CPR, you know that right?" I was quiet. "So…"

"He's just trying to do the right thing," I didn't even want to look at him. No. I needed to die. I needed this.

"Maybe he needs you," he said, quietly. "Maybe… just maybe, he needs you as much as you need him. And you can't say you've been much of yourself as of late."

Reesh… please… he sounded like he was desperate. Pleading for dear life itself… I had never heard him like that…

"You don't want this," he stated. "You want that."

"But I… I don't want to leave you…" He laughed.

"I'll be right here."

**********

The other Till was gone… and the next thing I knew, I was facing the pavement, puking up something that tasted like chlorine. Something… someone's hand was running through my hair, and holding my face to the side.

"Oh my God… Richard!" Paul's voice, then it got farther away. "Ollie, Chris! Richard's…" Why was he talking about me? What the fuck ha-,

I coughed again, a hard cough that felt like my lungs were turning inside out, and with it, more water. Yes, this was water. Why was there so much water? Something grabbed my face and pointed it upward, so I was looking at the black night sky… and his face, water dripping from a lock of hair that hung down and dripped onto my forehead. He breathed hard onto my face and when I looked into his eyes, I saw that they were caked in worry and desperation. He couldn't have been that worried about me…

"Can you hear me? Richard?" He slapped my face a few times, never leaving my eyes. Another slap, this time harder.

"Uuugggghhhh…" That's all I could croak out before sliding my head to the side and purging more water onto the ground.

"Is he ok?" Flake. I could hardly hear him over my coughing. It seemed like I couldn't stop coughing… and my mouth tasted like a horrible mixture of straight pills, and chlorine.

"I-I don't know," Now it was back to Till. "Richard?"

"Till…?"

"Oh my God…" now it was relief, and as I put my head back up to face the sky his head hit my chest, and I felt his body go limp and his hands shaking trying to find the right place to touch me, to hug me. I put my hand on his back, and focused on my breathing, focused on trying to remember how to breathe…

All of a sudden, he snapped back up and grabbed me by my shoulders, tears of anger in his eyes.

"Don't you EVER do that to me!" he practically screamed, like a mad man. "Don't you EVER… WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?! Why did you-,"

"Leave him alone," it was Flake again. Till reached behind him and swatted at something, and he swatted hard.

"Shut the FUCK up, Flake!"

"He needs to go to the hospital, Till! You're going to kill him!" He looked back down at me.

"Why…?"

"I'm… sorry…" I said in nothing more than a whisper. That was all I could get out. I could feel him shaking, feel his heart beating a mile a minute, feel his fingertips as they dug into me and surely made new bruises on my shoulders.

"What did you take?"

"Wha-?"

"What did you take, Richard?!" I had to think about it for a minute. "I found a pill, what the FUCK did you take?"

"Just…" I had to swallow. "Just valium…"

"How many?"

"F…five…? I think…?"

"Holy shit… Paul! Are the phones back up?!" There was a muffled reply, and I couldn't hear it, but it seemed to make Till even more stressed than before. "Fuck…"

Everything was so blurry… and I was so tired…

"No, NO!" Another small slap to my face that sent my eyelids flying open again. "Stay with me, ok? Please? Richard?"

"Do you love me?" I whispered.

"Is that what this is about? Really?" I was quiet. "Richard…"

"I can't… I can't do it anymore…" Tears started running down my face, and I couldn't control them for some reason. "I can't write anymore, Till… I can't play… I don't want to… do this… and then… and then there was you. And now, you don't even love me… and there's no point to this stupid fucking goddamn-,"

A hand cupped my cheek and stopped me, and his eyes shone down into mine as he shook his head with a little sad smile on his face.

"Just because I don't want to be with you right now doesn't mean I don't love you," he said quietly. "Don't you ever forget that. Never."

And with that, we shared a long silent gaze as I tried to focus on those amazing eyes and the dripping hair, trying to keep my eyes open.

"Till!" It was Ollie's voice again, and he sounded close. "The phones are back up, an ambulance is on the way." And Till looked away from me then, up in front of him and nodded.

My chest started to get very heavy, and keeping my eyes open was completely impossible.

"Richard?" This time, I couldn't reply. I could hardly feel him slapping me and shaking me, though I knew he surely was.

RICHARD! STAY WITH ME! TALK TO ME! PLEASE!

No… I think I would just enjoy the lovely night, and think about all those people who regretted trying to die.

And as my lovely night went black… I found it quite funny that in thinking he had left me, I in turn had left him first.

~FIN~