PARTS 1-6 OF THE FIC.

Title: Some would kill for love.
Rating: R (in future chapters)
Pairing: Till/Flake, Till/Richard, Jack(OFC)/Flake
Summary: Some very unfortunate events leave Till obsessing over a man, leading to some even more unfortunate events. Beware of angst, darkness, more angst and slash.
Disclaimers: I don’t own any of the characters except Jack S., Richard S. and Robert S. - I respect and love all others, and they own themselves in every way possible. This is entirely fictional (that’s why it’s called Fan-FICTION).



1. The present.

I had lived in Mecklenburg for as long as I could remember. I had always wanted to move, maybe to Berlin or Leipzig, but I’d never found the motivation or willingness to sell up my house, or put it up for rent to strangers.

My house.

My house was a place I could escape to when the distress of the band made life unbearable, when the constant singing, the constant music made my head throb. In the German countryside there is no music. And that’s what I liked. My solitude, my peace. My house. Just looking over the frosted lake in winter and seeing the shivering, bare trees outside, flecked with snow and snagging the grey clouds on their braches. So beautiful. It helped with my writing, and that’s what I had been doing for the past months. Writing everyday. I had reams of paper, covering every inch of my desk. I suppose it helped block out the pain.








2. The past.

It’s true what they say. I’ve never visited my father’s grave. I have no need to, why should I? It’s unnecessary. I have no need to trudge down to Wendisch-Rambow, to that dark little church graveyard and mourn. Why? Asche zu Asche, und Staub zu Staub. That’s what he is now. Just dust. And dust blowing away from my mind. That’s all. My childhood, stained with his looming fatherhood, now replaced by new memories. I’m just grateful he died when he did. I didn’t need, if anything, his overbearing figure on the band. Why should I remember the man who made my life Hell?

That’s exactly the reasons that fluttered through my mind as I looked out of the steamy window of the train. I didn’t need to visit him. Why am I doing it after 13 years? I’m 45 now. The things in past should’ve been left alone long ago, like the fading words of an old book. But sometimes the past becomes…

Alive.

Painfully alive. And sometimes you can’t let it slip away so easily.

The train’s about half an hour away. The ladies with the trolleys come past, and give me a wary look up and down as they totter past. Maybe, and it probably is, because I look twice my age. Almost tramp-like! Anyone who knows me knows I’ve never been ashamed of my age. And true, I’ve never needed to cover up my greys like Richard, or plaster on makeup to hide my wrinkles. I could say I’m proud. But now, now it’s a different story. My grey hair is untamed and greasy, and falls almost to my shoulders, which are stowed away beneath a creased jacket. My t-shirt hasn’t been washed. And I haven’t been washed. And I haven’t slept. In all honesty, I look like a vampire. I’m just glad no one else is sitting in my compartment.

The drowning scenery swoops past. The German countryside is truly beautiful. Especially when it’s rain-washed; and it smells good then. Fresh. And alive. I’ve never been a big fan of the city. One of the reasons why I would find it hard if I moved to Berlin permanently. I’m just a country man at heart. Driving in a 4x4 off the beaten track, the only way to get around. Walking the little muddy paths up to the village, only inhabited by 12 houses. And the turquoise lakes. I’ve lived near my lakes ever since I fist came to Schwerin. Ever since I was a little boy. I swam all day in the lakes, even in autumn and winter, when the water was freezing. Swimming back then was the only escape from him.

My father was a drunk. Always drunk. When he came home drunk, that was when the skeletons in my hard-man closet would rattle their bones. Rattle their bones in time to my mother’s pleas and screams.









3. Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde.

The whispers came from the back of the tour bus. And from the very first moment I had heard that sotto voice, I knew who it was.

It shocked me, because I’d never known Paul to whisper, let alone about me.
Good-natured Paul, always smiling and cheery. Always happy. Bright.

Not one to whisper behind other people’s backs.

I tried to put the whispers out of my mind, to blame it on the bus’ whirrs and hisses as it sped us towards the Moscow Olympia. But the whispers incensed my ears like the noise of leaking gas. All the while I could hear the word ‘Till’ muttered, and then it would stop, then start again. And whoever Paul was talking to was not trying to stop him. Bastards.

Hot light crashed through the sunroof onto the deck of the spacious lobby area, its blinding shine bouncing off the TV set, table, stereo and games consoles. I looked around at all this junk we had. Shiny junk to keep us amused as we hauled ourselves across the four-corners of the globe to play music to our… adoring fans.

The others might enjoy the ‘high-life’, but not me.

It had taken me a while to finally admit I was homesick. Moscow, while a very beautiful place (for God’s sake, I had written a bloody song about it), didn’t have the same feeling as Germany. Didn’t have the essence. And I missed it after a few months. I missed my friends back home; I missed going to the pub with people I know, and not stripper bars with random strangers.
You see people, Till Lindemann was not the big guy you see on stage.

Actually Till was very disappointing when it came to social living.

And that’s what people didn’t bloody get sometimes!

Finally the whispering seemed to have been replaced by shuffling and the sounds of Paul getting up. I smelled the gas pungent in the air, waiting to be set alight by whatever he’s said about me to circle and spread. I pretended to bury my head in the ‘Zeitung’, (I actually didn’t read that crap, and anyone in the band could’ve guessed that easily).  

A figure stepped out of the musty grey curtains that hid a little sofa-bed and strode towards the kitchen. His earrings caught the afternoon sun, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a star of light where his head should’ve been. He glanced over at me (I could still see him over my mag) and swished past.

Secrets lying like a thick veneer of dust between us.








4. Stepping-stones.

The little garden at Wendisch-Rambow is dark, and the mossy stepping-stones look precarious and slippy in the light drizzle. I stand at the entrance to the graveyard; a small broken fence overshadowed by coniferous trees and the church, painted in monotones by the fading evening.  

A lone aeroplane crunches through the silence and rumbles away into the dark clouds.

I stand frozen. It seems that the graveyard’s grown before me, stretching further than I last remember it, further than the small village, out of sight, away into nothing but the night. I feel the cold prickle at me. Why didn’t I get here when it was still light? But, then again, I could check into a hotel for the night and come back here in the morning.

I turn on the spot to leave this godless place.

A door slams behind me, and I jump backwards into the gate I’d just shut.

Squeezing up my eyes and shrinking back into the shadows, I pray to any god that was out there to hear me. I feel the temperature inside my jacket fall, contrasting to the sweat condensing on my forehead.

Damn father! Why did I have to come to Wendisch-Rambow in the first place?

But of course I don’t believe in ghosts.
The trees shake. They whisper to me to turn around and face the church. Look at it. Look at it. An animal disturbs the hedges, and wind blows my hair away from my pale face.

Whatever… whoever had slammed the door is waiting. I can feel them waiting. It isn’t really difficult to spot a 6’3’’ man when they’re standing right in your line of view.  

Step.

Step.

Step.

Crap. They’re coming.

Step.

Why are my hands in my pockets? Why are they stuck inside my bloody pockets? Why aren’t my bloody feet moving? Crap. My eyes are still closed.

Step.

Step.

Step.

Less than a few metres away. How much is a few? It doesn’t matter. All that matters is-

“Mr Lindemann, I presume?”

Step.

They’ve said my name. What a friendly ghost. Maybe as they scare me shitless they might invite me in for coffee and cake?

“How long has it been? I… I can’t remember. More than ten years, certainly…”








5. I hate flying.

24th April 1999, Mexico

A sticky and faintly disinfected smell wafted through the air on the inside of the plane, where I sat near the front. To be honest I wasn’t overly joyed by heights, but as a constant jet-setter I had been forced to get used to them. The little hums of the air con didn’t lull me to sleep. The vibrating engine didn’t make me feel safe. I didn’t like it. I didn’t even know how you could eat on a plane and feel OK! I was just glad Emu, my manager, had had enough sense to book me the seats near the emergency exit to ease my fretting, much to the relief of the band mate I was sitting next to.

But still. An emergency exit didn’t prevent a crash.

I rolled my tired eyes heavenwards towards the blank ‘fasten seatbelts’ sign. Please let this be over soon. Please. I fidgeted uncomfortably in my seat; the belt was cutting into my stomach. Once again, the cons of being a well-built man outweighed the pros. I sighed and shifted again and wriggled against the backrest.

“Till,” came an unimpressed voice by my right.

“Uh. Sorry. My belt…” I tried to explain to the red-haired man, but he wasn’t paying attention. He was gazing out of the blazing window down into the slums of Mexico City.

“Man, if we crash now, we’ll take a couple thousand people to their deaths…” I stated. I didn’t know why I said it; it was just something to fill the silence that had been between us since take-off. Poor bastards living in the slums…

He grunted in recognition, but his magnified eyes never left the landscape below the smeared window. The light scattered though the clouds made his brightly dyed hair look even more amazing, and tinged his glasses and skin in a warm hue.     

He turned back to face me finally. I was sitting rigid in my seat, trying to look into the cockpit to check if everything was OK, (no dead or panicking pilots, and so forth). I finally slumped down again and looked around, frustrated. There was nothing to DO on this plane. And it was more than an hour to go. Maybe I could harass a stewardess to give me another drink and read a book? Or just sit here and panic. I felt another fidget coming along soon.

Some chuckles came from behind me, at the same time as the plane gave an unsteady lurch forwards. I moaned. If there’s one thing I hate more than flying, it’s turbulence.

I looked imploringly into Flake’s bored face that was resting to one side on the head bit, with his scrawny neck arched. His cheekbones were picked out by the sunset that backlit his head and shone through his glasses, masking his blue eyes with a white mesh. An amused smile moulded itself to his lips. But he said nothing.   

Sweating and agitated more than ever, I strained in my seat to look into the cockpit, grasping the tray until my knuckles went white.

That was when I heard the crash that echoed around the cabin, and shut my eyes, as all the lights went out.  








6. Werner Lindemann.

The sky rushes above me through my partially closed eyes; it’s the blood pounding through my head, making me dizzy. My breath kisses my lips goodbye and spirals upwards into the freezing air.  

Slowly.

I pivot on the spot to face him.

A high-cheekboned old man is standing nervously before me, wringing his hands and peering up at me through the darkness and thick-framed spectacles. I notice that the shadows had marched in like a silent army to blanket all of my surroundings; I can’t even see the front door of the church, or the wild hedgerows, all blends into the other.

Even if he does recognise me after all this time, I don’t. But I’m sure I know who he is. He’s dressed in black; a black coat hanging to his feet, which are encased in black shoes. Just like a tomb would a skeleton. His grey hair reminds me of the cold Victorian stone of the church, his glasses of the haunting windows. His face is furrowed with lines so deep that it seems like a vicious animal had clawed away at his skin, but leaving his blue gas-fire eyes deep set into his skull unscathed.  

“You are Mr. Lindemann?”

“Yes.” Comes my whiskey-and-cigarette fed voice.

“I’ve been meaning to see you. Even if it has taken this long…” his glance flickers around my face, as if in a predatory way. It makes me feel uneasy, but I don’t feel afraid.

And I know why I don’t.

“But I knew you’d come. In the end.” He finishes with a sniff and a cough- the silence lying dead in the wind.

I bite my lip. I think about how old he must be now- the only time I’d ever seen him was on that November morning of 1992… at my father’s graveside. Then, I didn’t know who he was. My father had a lot of friends I didn’t know. To think of it now, there were a lot of things about my father I didn’t know.

“He’s buried over here.”

He holds out his hand for me to walk beside him. Warily, I step in front.

The leaves pick up around our heels; stones crack; a night-owl hoots.

“I picked the spot. The burial spot.” He snaps the silence like one of the twigs under foot.

“You would.”

“I would. I was one of the only ones who really saw past the mask, you see?” He looks around at me again, the moonlight radiating off his skin.

My father was always masked. Lived-

“Lived in a world of his own, he did. Like, of course, all great thinkers do…”

I raise my eyes to meet his blue ones.

“Yeah.” Exhale.

Inhale.

“But sometimes he never knew reality.”

“Yes.” He says.

“Pity.”

What’s a pity? What now is a pity? The past? We can’t change the past. No use saying ‘pity’ about the past.

We’re standing in the middle of the graveyard, next to a yew. Next to a… familiar grave.

“Yes. Pity.” He murmurs. He looks down at his shoes and at the faded words marked on the headstone.

In Loving Memory of
Werner Lindemann
1926-1992
Poet and author, missed by many.
Rest in Peace.

“Unfortunately, not missed by all.” He says again.

“No.” I choke out. It’s embarrassing.


I haven’t cried in years.