The pyrotechnics had gone wrong.

In fact, Till's fire-stunt had gone so horribly, dreadfully, abysmally wrong that the screaming sirens of the ambulance were still audible from inside the building, even though they were three blocks away.

The remaining band members were standing in paralysed silence, listening to the vanishing sound. Five men who should be six, with partly sluiced-off stage make-up where stray foam of the fire extinguishers had hit them. The horror was still written across their faces. Blindly staring as if they could see through the walls and prevented by security to walk out into the cold night where dismayed fans were being guided out of the venue.

The freak accident should not have happened. It should have been impossible.

Till should never have burnt like a living torch.

Charred flesh, scorched skin, raw-red in the stage light, reeking of terror and stinking of agony. Wherever Till's broad leather braces had not protected him from the worst, his chest had been eaten away by pitiless flames, fuelled by the spilt accelerator that had run down his body, attacking defenceless skin. He had been trapped, screaming in pain beneath a steel contraption, while crew and helpers were trying to get to him. It had taking longer to extinguish the flames than it should ever have.

All five were too shocked to do anything but mutely staring, until Richard suddenly jerked away from the others. "Shit! I got to get out of here." Despite protests, complaints and reason, he remained adamant, his mind set on getting to the hospital. He didn't explain why, unable to clarify why he needed to be there instead of merely hanging on the phone like a lifeline to the other - real - world. He had to be physically present in the same place in which they would be working on the burnt body of the sixth one of them.

No one could stop him, he had made up his mind and after a hasty shower, frantic debates, angry delays due to security fears, he was finally on his way to the hospital.

* * * * * * *

Richard had been in the hospital since the night of the accident, having found a place in a secluded corner where they let him smoke. Sitting in the shabby waiting area, he was sustaining himself with lukewarm coffee and overpriced fast-food from the nurses' vending machine.

They wouldn't let him see Till in the ICU, claiming it was too dangerous and the patient could get infected easily, thus keeping everyone at bay. All the medical team would inform everyone about was that Mr Lindemann was being kept in an artificial coma to deal with the sustained injuries without interference from the patient due to the high levels of pain and that his condition was as would be expected after this type of burning. No mention of stable. Nothing else. Even his children were not told anymore.

Richard was smoking his umpteenth cigarette of the day, trying to make some sense out of the blurry letters on the worn out magazine he pretended to read. He'd been left alone after Paul had come to enquire and was told the exact same thing by the specialists, leaving on his own after Richard had declined to accompany him back to the hotel.

"Richard?"

He looked up at the familiar female voice, staring at his own wife as if he had never seen her before. "What are you doing here?"

She didn't seem to have expected this reaction that bordered on annoyance, frowning at him. "I told you I'd come, don't you remember? How is Till?"

Richard said nothing, gesturing towards the medical staff with a shrug. She turned her head, glancing over to where a nurse was making notes while a doctor was talking, before a deeper frown appeared on her face.

"There's nothing you can do here right now, is there, Rich?" He shrugged again, as if he were unable to make anymore sounds. Too tired and exhausted. Too helpless.

"Come home, or at least to the hotel with me. Till is in good hands, it will be alright. I am sure they'll call us if anything happens."

Richard shook his head, answering at last. "No. Forget it. I've got to stay here."

Her surprise was almost tangible. "Why? There is nothing you can do. Come with me, please, Rich."

"No." He was getting angry, but she didn't appear to take any notice, even though his dogged resolution was unreasonable. "I have to stay here. I'll see you later."

She wasn't going to be defeated that easily, pushing her hands onto her hips, raising her voice to give way to her irritation. "Don't make a fool out of yourself, Richard, that's just plain stupid! They don't even let you into the ICU, why on earth don't you come at least to the hotel with me and get a shave, shower and good night's kip? I am your wife, for Christ's sake, and Till? Till's the godamned singer! Nothing more." She was fuming, but this was nothing to the furious reaction she got.

"You don't understand!" Richard exploded, jumping out of his chair and shouting at her. "You just don't fucking understand!"

She took a step back, staring at him in shocked disbelief. Something suddenly seemed to make sense, out of the blue, because her whole behaviour changed from one moment to the next. Her hands were shaking, but her anger evaporated into defeat.

"No, Rich." Her voice had turned uncharacteristically quiet and flat. "No, you're wrong. A lot makes sense now." Understanding was evident on her face. "It makes sense all too well." She turned and left; there was nothing more to be said.

The heartbreaking truth that she had been fearing for quite a while was right there, in front of her eyes, even if he was blind to it.

* * * * * * *

Two days later and the hospital staff had become used to that strange German rock star, who refused to leave. They had learned the hard way that nothing could get him out of this place and that he was going to stay, no matter what, until something happened. In the end, they allowed him to see the patient, giving in to his stubbornness.

Till had been moved from the ICU to a less high-tech unit. While still in isolation, requiring visitors to wear sterilised coat, gloves and head covering, he was at least accessible. Richard was told that Till would stay unconscious for several more days to come, after they had notified the patient's family.

Once in the room, Richard had found himself a chair, unperturbed by how daft he might look in all the pale green get-up, sitting beside the bed and watching the still body. Hands lying in his lap, he sat motionless for a long time. Listening to the cyborg-sound of oxygen, CTG, and numerous other, unidentifiable medical machines. He felt intimidated, as if kneeling in a hallowed place, and praying in a cathedral of the God of technology that he dared not disturb, lest the injured disciple might die.

"I thought I'd feel like a right prat, Till, sitting here and talking without receiving an answer, but it's strange, it almost feels more natural than it would if you were conscious." Richard chuckled dryly, tiredly. "In fact, if you were awake, I wouldn't talk to you at all. Just like during all those years."

He was looking down at Till's face, pale beneath the mask. Expressionless and so very much unlike the conscious man. "It's strange, you know, I have always taken you for granted. I think we all did. You were just there. The annoyingly obnoxious bastard with that bloody enviable talent of crafting words into something beyond mere lyrics." He paused, listening to the hiss of the oxygen for a while.

"We hated you often enough, especially when you went into one of your self-loathing trips. It is goddamned irritating, all that crap about how ugly you are, how pissed off at the world, how depressed and how much you dread life and worst of all, how you loathe performing while being such a fucking great performer. You're an arrogant fucker, a self-centred egomaniac and I just want you to be as infuriating again as you have always been. I want you to live. To simply be here," Richard's voice dropped, barely above a whisper, "so that I can stop being terrified of losing you, you insufferable wanker."

He fell silent, sitting beside the bed. One of his hands had moved onto the white linens, the other remained in his lap, and he stared for a long time at the lifeless face and the mask that covered its lower half.

"Sometimes I found you so goddamned unbearable that I wanted to hit you. Just hurt you until I had beaten some sense into you, but every time I pictured it, it would end up differently. I wouldn't hit you, I would…" He trailed off and huffed quietly, a dry noise as requiem for a deserted thought. "It doesn't work like this anyway, does it, Till? Certainly not with you, would be far too easy. 'We hurt what we love' and all that crap? It's bullshit, after all, who do you hurt the most?" His hand moved to lightly touch the bandaged chest, a mere hovering of fingertips, too scared he could unwillingly inflict pain. "Exactly." He nodded as if Till had agreed with him. "Yourself, and we all know that you don't hurt yourself because you love yourself so bloody much. Oh no. You hate being on stage, hate performing, hate the band, hate the music, hate the lyrics, hate us and most of all you hate yourself."

He knew he was shamelessly exaggerating, but the flow of words could not be stemmed anymore. After over ten years he was at last talking to Till, even though he was a silent listener, unable to hear. If he could, Richard knew he wouldn't have opened his innermost self to allow rare glimpses of his core that was anything but shallow.

Who would have thought?

He was never going to admit this to anyone. His depths were for himself and no one else. Not even his wife would ever be privy to all his thoughts. God beware. No one should ever know.

Except for Till. Because he would understand. Perhaps.

"Thing is, though, that whatever shit was going on and however much I wanted to beat the fucking crap out of you, I didn't hate you. Never really could and I still don't. Not sure about the opposite of hatred, but damn certain about the fact that the world without Till, this epicentre of woe and annoyance, is just not right. Not for me. Not for any of us." He trailed off once more, his fingertips inching back down, towards Till's hand, whose lifeless fingers felt slightly cool to the touch when he lay his own on top of them. Watching the large hand being covered by his calloused but smaller one, he had to grin wryly despite the situation.

"You'd fucking kill me if I ever tried to touch your hand, let alone hold it, wouldn't you? I bet you'd be throwing up at this disgusting display of affection. I'm right, am I not?" He allowed his hand to curl around Till's in a defiant gesture. "Guess you can't do anything about that now." He couldn't be triumphant, though. His small-scale victory felt stale and shallow, tasting of antiseptic, burnt flesh and concentrated oxygen.

"Don't go." He whispered. "Just don't fucking leave us. You've got to stay here, in the midst of this insanity, reassuring us with the knowledge that you are somewhere around and even more insane than the weirdness of the world… more intense than any of us." Richard's tired eyes flickered to the complicated displays on the machines, before returning to the unresponsive body. "As long as I know you are there, somewhere, I will always have a point to return to and a reason why the hell I am doing all this shit. As long as you are around I can be superficial, hyper, pretty and irresponsible." He huffed wearily with self-mockery. "As long as you are with us I just … I just am."

Lines of lyrics came to his mind and he murmured them while staring without blinking at the white bed linen and their two intertwined hands.

"Ohne Dich kann ich nicht sein, ohne nicht. Mit dir bin ich auch allein …"

He sat still and in silence at last, like he had done in the waiting room and would do so at Till's bed for however long it was going to take. He didn't give a shit about what anyone said, didn't take notice or care. He had to be here, to guard this man.

The room sank slowly into semi-darkness except for the security night light and the displays on the equipment. Only one final whisper disturbed the low hum of machines.

"Don't leave me, Till."

* * * * * * *

Several nights later, Flake was looking down at the crumpled figure in the waiting room, curled up tightly in a foetal position on the plastic covered visitors' bench to fit across the three seats.

Numerous more-or-less empty Styrofoam cups of coffee, some with pieces messily torn out of their rim, were standing forlorn amidst dried-dark rings on a white plastic table. Old milk floated in the undrunk leftovers, turned into slimy white remains on dirty-brown liquid like cold semen, forgotten residue of stale illusions of passion. The ashtray was overflowing, dead stubs lying discarded, sullied with angry-tanned nicotine stains that had crept all the way up to the filter and burnt away the fibres.

The derelict table reminded Flake too much of the desolate state the man on the bench was in. The sleeping wreck was so much unlike the eternally preening, narcissistic guitar player they all knew. This comatose man had greasy hair that showed the first signs of grey roots, a dark stubble that covered his face, neglected clothes and deep shadows under his eyes.

Flake frowned. Something was badly wrong, and it wasn't the sorry state that Richard was in, but the answer eluded him right now. His hand reached out to shake one shoulder, even though he hadn't figured out why he wanted to wake Richard and what he was going to say to him.

"Richard". Flake shook the hunched shoulder vigorously. "Wake up." He had to try several times before he got a reaction.

"Whassup?" Richard yawned, groaning in pain when he stretched his cramped body.

"Wake up. I need to talk to you." Flake repeated, taken by surprise when Richard suddenly snapped wide-awake reacting with irrational panic. He jumped up so fast, nearly falling over but catching himself at the last minute with a resounding bang of his shin against the table. Even the pain didn't stop his alarmed expression.

"Till? What happened? Tell me!" He didn't even seem to recognise his band member, grabbing Flake's arms and shaking him wildly. "Tell me!" Extreme reaction out of the blue, agitation that Flake had never before witnessed.

Suddenly it all made sense when he looked into Richard's terrified eyes.

The last puzzle piece fell into place, neatly connecting the other parts and forming a picture so clear, it was breathtaking in its simplicity.

Richard. Till. Either perpetual near-nasty mockery or stony silence for years. Nothing in between.

Of course. The answer was frighteningly plain to see.

Beauty and the Beast. How much of a cliché the truth turned out to be.

"Calm down, Richard." Flake shook his head, pushing the other slowly back down onto the bench. "No news about Till, everything's still the same. I'm only here to get you out of this place."

Richard sat down, hands shaking, not even attempting to hide their violent tremor as he searched for his crumpled cigarette pack, managing to light one with difficulty. "No shit." He shook his head, inhaling deeply. "I stay here. I'm fine."

Flake huffed, watching the trembling hands, taking in the dark moons under fingernails that still showed remains of black varnish, clinging in small fragments to once-manicured hands. Richard was a mess. The pretty boy-turned-man had vanished, betrayed by lines of exhaustion and imprints of worry.

Flake pointed mercilessly to the shaking hand. "Bullshit. You are a complete wreck and that's not going to do anyone any good." He realised too late he was sounding like a caring nurse from any of the corny TV hospital series and the analogy caused him to frown. Damn! What had the world come to? Thus he continued before Richard could even answer.

"Whatever." Pretending defeat and sitting down on the bench, wrinkling his nose at the distinctly unwashed smell. He'd seen Richard pissed and drugged to the gills, throwing up in hotel rooms, and bleary-eyed with a crippling hangover after a night of faceless sex, but he'd never seen him letting go of himself like that.

Flake shrugged. "Just tell me one thing, alright? Why the hell are you staying here? This is one of the best hospitals in the country, so we were told, with a specialist burns unit and the staff know what they are doing. They have knocked Till out, 'artificial coma' and all that, he won't even know that you're here. Till is unconscious, doesn't that get into your head? He's not feeling anything and besides, they said he'll pull through anyway. He's stable and on the mend."

Richard shook his head vehemently. "Bollocks!" Brutally killing the burning cig, he stubbed it angrily in the already overflowing ash tray. Grey specks flew across the plastic table, mixing with the cold coffee in a tableau of denial. "I don't care if 'he knows if I am here' or not. It's not about that. It's bullshit that he doesn't feel anything. He's dreaming. I know he does and it's not bloody nice where he is."

Flake lifted his glasses, rubbing over the bridge of his nose, wondering if Richard was simply delusional or what the hell was happening here. "Dreaming?"

"Yes," Richard nodded, "dreaming. I read something about unconsciousness and comatose patients. Apparently many are caught in their nightmare world. Any fucking idea what Till's nightmares would be like? Trapped in them? No. Don't think I want to imagine that and I bet you don't either."

Flake hummed thoughtfully. "If that's the case, how do you think you keep him out of there? Especially by sleeping out here on the bench." Looking expectantly at the dishevelled other.

"I don't know." Richard's honest reply was disarming. "I really don't know how and neither do I know if it does any good at all, but I have to try. He deserves me trying, doesn't he? Some kind of friendship reasons. Something that pays back all those years of tolerating each other because come on, Flake, it's not just Till who is the annoying egomaniac bastard. We all are in our own ways and have been in our own time. True?"

Flake shrugged but nodded. "Still, friendship or not, you won't achieve anything by getting into an even worse state to the one you're already in. Go to the hotel, catch a few hours and come back. I bet the nurses will call you immediately if anything happens."

Richard once again shook his head with a determined look while his hands were fidgeting on the grubbily clad thighs. Fists surreptitiously opening and closing. "No. No way."

Flake didn't know what to say, nor was he quite sure if he cared all that much, but somehow he sensed he shouldn't just get up and go. His mouth opened and words came out before he had engaged his brain, wondering where in God's name that thought had come from.

"If I stay here and act as Till's nightmare-guard, will that do for a few hours? I sit and watch, you bugger off and come back in the morning. Do us all a favour, Richard, and get yourself under a shower. You stink." He settled the spectacles once more, looking intently at the other.

Richard took his time to answer, his eye moving to and fro the door behind which Till lay. Flake fancied he could see the wheels in Richard's mind turning and the levers cranking into pace while carefully considering the situation.

Richard nodded curtly at last. "OK, Flake." Just that and he got up, grimacing when stretching. "You make sure Till doesn't dream and call me if anything happens. Give me your word."

Flake didn't have a clue how on earth he was gong to 'keep Till from dreaming' but he'd just blag it, best to jolly Richard along, the man was too strung-out to be argued with. "I will and you have my word."

He stood up when Richard shuffled out of the waiting area. Flake, good to his word, turned towards Till's room to guard a man's nightmares. He wasn't convinced what good it would do, but he knew why he had agreed to it.

He'd never believed it but it all made sense.

Richard, the painted diva, was everything but shallow.

Who would have known?

* * * * * * *

The days passed and Till's condition improved. It was eventually decided by the specialists to wake their patient from the artificial coma. After almost three weeks, it was time to return to consciousness. That morning, while the team was working on Till, Richard sat in his usual place, chain-smoking and waiting for any news. When the doctors and nurses finally came out of the theatre, satisfied expressions on their faces and delivering a positive report of Till's remarkable healing progress, Richard smiled.

This was the last time the nurses saw the strange German man in the hospital. He vanished that very day after leaving a considerable tip to the hospital staff and a cheque written out to the staff room, to buy brand new coffee and snack-food vending machines.

He was gone and it didn't make sense to anyone.

Over the following days Till began to receive visitors, first only one a day for a few minutes, including his daughters, and then, while he progressively gained strength, everyone who needed to see how he was doing. Within a week he was having more distraction from perceived boredom of the morphine-drugged convalescents than he could bear, consequently asking to be left alone most of the time.

Each of the band members paid their visit; Paul chatting amicably about the inane insanity of his home life, Schneider being his usual quiet self of friendly smiles and non-committant shrugs, Olli delivering books and magazines that Till decided weren't worth hiding, and Flake bringing along laptop and portable printer, while otherwise comfortably sitting in silence for a while.

Only one of them didn't come.

Richard sent a card with best wishes and a stack of DVDs, but he never showed himself.

It took another week before Till exploded, demanding to know from someone, anyone, why that uncaring bastard, Richard Kruspe-Bernstein, couldn't even be bothered to say 'hello' and how come that he, as the only one, apparently didn't give a shit about anything that had happened and, on top of it all, if that wasn't bloody typical of the inconsiderate twat, who was probably sunning himself on some hollow American beach, pondering another botox injection.

As it was, it happened that Flake had folded his skinny self onto the visitor chair on that day, studying the irate Till, who was attempting to let go of his pent-up anger without being able to move.

He shouldn't, Flake knew he really shouldn't say a word, but sometimes even the corniest truth needed a kick up the arse.

Flake let Till go on for a while until he finally had enough and shrugged. "It's not that he wasn't here long enough."

"What do you mean?" Incredulity looked out of place on Till's face. "What the fuck do you mean?" Demanding an answer, but Flake had known him for too long to be easily bullied into replying. If he was to tell the truth it would be on his grounds and for his own reasons. He paused for a while, resting his long fingered hands on his thighs. He was somewhat amused by Till's impertinent impatience. Too predictable, as always.

"I mean that Richard was here until they pulled you out of the coma." Flake couldn't help but enjoy his slightly cruel stalling. "That's all I meant."

"Bullshit!" Agitation was the last thing that Till needed. He let his head fall back into the pillows with an agonised grimace, muttering expletives under his breath. "Don't bullshit me. Come on, Flake, explain those cryptic hints to me. Why would Richard stay here for weeks and then leave the moment they woke me up? How ridiculous! How utterly illogical is that?" Till growled. "Hang on, or is it indeed true, because such idiocy would be typical of Herr Kruspe, being the stupid prat he is."

"Well, that is up to you to decide, I guess." Flake shrugged. "Frankly, I was wondering myself why he sat here, day and night, neglecting food, drink, wife, even his stylist." Flake pulled a face. "However, he was adamant that he had to stay here, because according to Richard, you were having nightmares, even though everyone told him that it was most unlikely. Anyway, he ended up being your self-appointed guardian."

Flake carefully avoided mentioning that for several hours, throughout one particular night and well into the morning, it had been himself who was watching Till and that since then he had been forced to admit to himself that Richard had most probably been right. There had been strange little sounds, twitches and panicked movements beneath Till's closed eyes that he had wondered about. However, such observations were best left to the safe realms of silence.

"Guardian." Till stated flatly. "Richard." His brows rose in disbelief. "You are saying that Richard Z. Kruspe-Bernstein, all-round cosmetically enhanced pretty-boy Richard-I-like-to-get-stoned-out-of-my-head Kruspe was guarding me while I was unconscious. Is that what you are saying?"

Flake nodded. "I think I chose less flowery words, but yes. That's exactly what I said."

"Shit." Till murmured, lifting a hand to carefully touch the upper edge of the thick antiseptic bandages. "Holy shit." He was silent for a while, good thing that Flake was such a master of enforced patience.

"Damn him!" Till growled. "I can remember." He finally mused, looking up at Flake before his gaze slid off into the distance. "It's not true that there is nothing in unconsciousness. I remember one image, dream, nightmare, whatever. I'm not sure, have been trying to figure it out since I've been awake, but I do know it, whatever he 'it' was, came back time and time again or perhaps I couldn't get out of it in the first place. Yes…" He trailed off, searching his memory, but it was a place he did not want to dwell in; too dark, cold, lonely and spiked with fear.

"I couldn't get out. Don't know what the hell happened to my comatose brain, but something was there." Suppressing a shudder. "I remember falling towards an abyss so terrifying, I couldn't fathom the sheer extent of my fear. I kept falling and falling, continuously, waiting for the impact and to be torn apart until my limbs were shredded into bloodied sinews, splinters of bones, ragged intestines, but..." His eyes closed for a brief moment, unaware of Flake's look of disgust at this colourful description, "…it never happened. It was strange, but somehow I always stopped right before the horror would swallow me. Every time. In the end I lost the worst of my terror, knowing that the final descent would not happen; that something, somehow, kept me from losing myself in this unnamed fear."

Flake said nothing, listening with well disguised fascination. He'd somehow wondered if he had been wrong over the last weeks, if perhaps he was mistaken after all regarding Richard, Till and the whole mess, but puzzle piece after piece continued to be coming together. The final outcome remained to be seen, it wasn't up to him.

"Something stopped me." Till continued after a pause, looking back at his visitor, while barely moving his head. Pallid skin and dark hair lay starkly amidst the pristine white pillows. "Or someone."

* * * * * * *

Till was discharged from hospital several weeks later to remain an outpatient until the wounds had healed as much as they ever would. Flown back to Berlin, he returned to his flat to be surrounded by familiarity, yet felt steeped in unfamiliar thoughts. There was only one way to turn the unknown into certainty. He had to talk to Richard and it seemed he would have to employ cunning. So what?

It took a few days before his plan could be turned into action, the band manager asking Richard to come to Till's flat, under the pretence of a Rammstein meeting for some made-up yet incredibly important reason. Richard had swallowed the bait and flown into Berlin, arriving on an early Friday evening.

The moment Richard stepped into the flat he realised that he was the only one band member there and glared at Till. He was not amused. "Where are the others?" Enquiring with an edgy jerk of his head.

"Not here." Till replied after a minute pause.

"You selfish fucker!" Richard exploded out of nowhere, like one of their most impressive pyros. "You got me here for nothing!"

"No," Till shook his head, each of his movements still careful, deliberate, avoiding pulling the fragile skin across the massive chest wounds. "Not for nothing. I wanted to talk to you. Sorry Richard, but it seemed to be the only way." He indicated a shrug. "I lied. So fucking what? I had to."

He was met with a fierce glower that did not have the slightest effect on him, nor did Richard's defiant silence that followed the violent outburst. Till's own gaze did not waver. Steady, calm, and brutally frank.

"Why did you spend all that time with me while I was unconscious, just to bugger off the moment I woke up?" Straight to the point, using the sharp knife that used to be reserved for his anger. This time it was there to extricate the truth.

Richard growled, unwilling to answer.

"Right," Till indicated a shrug, "you want to play the game of pissed-off-silence and pulling-answers-out-of-nose? I can do that. I have time, lots of it. Sure, you can fuck off any moment, I can hardly stop you, but then you wouldn't do that because it's unfair, isn't it?"

Richard looked away and stared at the opposite wall in angry silence. His clenched fists - one of them crumpling the half-empty cigarette packet - gave testimony to his high-strung tension. He refused to answer, not even acknowledging Till's presence.

Neither was he able to leave, though. Rooted to the spot.

Till continued, unperturbed. "Seems it is I who has to do the talking now. Fine. I like words, one of the few things that have never failed me." Till chuckled sarcastically with humourless amusement. "Strange to think that it was you who was using words over copious days and nights. Makes a change." His eyes narrowed. "I want to know why. Tell me why and I shut up."

Till's demand was suffocating Richard, burning angry trails across his stomach, tensing his muscles, locking his jaws until teeth grated against teeth.

"Damn it all!" Richard erupted once more, crossing the room with a couple of furious strides. "So you want to know why? You do, don't you? You just can't leave it to rest, of course you can't. Not you. The bloodhound. I should have known better. Damn you, Till! Damn you to hell!"

He towered above the seated man in a rare reversal of roles. Glaring at Till, before suddenly leaning down, hands snatching forward and gripping the dark haired head. His unexpected kiss lacked even a hint of gentleness or finesse. Instead it was hard, insistent, brutal even and tasted of flaming anger. Initially forcing himself upon the other, he refused to be surprised at the readiness that he soon encountered. It was too late to push his tongue between Till's lips to demand entrance when he was already being sucked into the heat.

It hurt to kiss, creating an ache in the pit of his stomach, spreading to loins and heart alike, hurting his face and his eyes that burned despite himself. He resisted to give into himself, the other, anything, not this time, no matter what Till wanted. It was his call, had to be, because there was more at stake than merely over ten years of ignoring the gnawing suspicion of what it was he really wanted, if he ever allowed himself to ignore the reasons why he wasn't allowed to acknowledge this need. If only he were quite as shallow as he let everyone believe.

Till groaned all of a sudden and Richard realised he had been pushing down on him, his weight causing the other man to shift, tugging on barely healed injuries. When he tried to pull away it was Till who reached out and held him steady with those obscenely muscled arms and a strength that had only marginally decreased even after all the weight he had lost over the past weeks. He stood fixed to the spot and clamped between large hands. Biting, tasting, eating, licking, swallowing and devouring that godamned beast and being greedily consumed in return. He'd never tasted so much hunger, never known the intensity of desire he was receiving now. Addictive, needed and he had to stop. Had to.

Damn you, Till, damn you!

Richard forced himself to abruptly pull away, the hardest task he had ever accomplished.

"No!" Richard gasped into Till's face and encountered loss, devastation and grief.

"No, Till." Richard shook his head, wiping across his face, in an frantic, abortive gesture.

Till's silence screamed painfully in his ears. He had never seen that look of desperation on the other's face.

"I have a marriage to save." Richard stepped back hesitantly, forcing his body to comply, knowing he had to leave. "And you have to…" pausing, taking a deep breath, "you know that better than I do."

"What do I know?" The dark quality of Till's low voice made Richard want to yell in frustration. It couldn't be, wasn't meant to happen. He had always known this and if Till hadn't had that dreadful accident, he would have never had to face his own self.

"Till, you know better than anyone else why this is not going to happen; why I will leave now and fly back to the States; why I am fighting against a divorce and why there is nothing else to say."

"Do I?" How Till could be such a bloody obnoxious git was something that never ceased to amaze Richard.

"Yes, you do, because that's what we are. I am the Drama Queen, prancing about in next to nothing, painted face and blackened eyes, playing the guitar on stage. Off stage, I chain-smoke, knock back the booze and stone myself out of my head while you, Till, are the angry, dark man, the German Sex God, the Teutonic devil with his dark lyrics and fearful poetry. You are the knife's blade to our cutting edge with your shouting voice, your demanding presence and outrageously kinky shows. The pyromaniac, the magician of words. You are you and I am I and all the others, Flake, Paul, Olli and Schneider are who they need to be so that all of us together can be Rammstein. No more, no less."

Richard's smile was forced. "That's why nothing will ever change and why I'm leaving now. So that I can write music, play the guitar and create ever-new levels of sounds, together with the others. I will leave, so that you can write lyrics of achingly perfect genius, turning our language into something beyond mere strings of words; crafting sentences that will be not only sung by yourself, but memorised by thousands. You need to stay torn and haunted. Together we are Rammstein, but if the ingredients of this precarious mix changes, then we are nothing anymore. Just two men."

Richard didn't even try to pretend anymore that he wasn't hurting like hell.

"Two fucked-up men." He turned towards the door, walking with hesitant intent.

"Wait!" Till called out, one word like a whiplash, even in that low voice, demanding compliance. Richard already had his hand on the door knob but he stopped, turning slowly around once more. Arms hanging limp at his side, evidence of his defeat. Till's movements were slow as he pushed himself off the chair, carefully walking towards the door until he stood in front of the other. Close, but not touching.

He said nothing, no sound, no words for once, just looking down, until he lowered his head, raised his arms and undid Richard with one single gesture. Cupping the handsome face in his hands, he kissed him unhurriedly, but with the same intensity as the vicious act before. Perfect antonyms.

Richard reacted, helplessly drawn to the addictive sensations. It didn't matter that this kiss was not going to lead anywhere and merely created even more pain, greater than any before. The ache was coiling tightly in their bellies, lowering into their groins and demanding attention that it would never receive. Masochists in their denial - sadists in seeking out that which could never be.

Till finally moved his head away, his hands slowly sliding off the smooth face.

"Fucking bastard." Richard murmured.

Till smiled strangely. "That's what I do best."

He stepped back, moving out of the other's personal space. His voice was gravitating between often displayed sadness and rarely admitted warmth. "Diva."

The corners of Richard's lips briefly curled up, mirroring Till's expression. "That's what I do best."

He left without another glance.

Till remained standing and staring at the door a long time after Richard had left.

* * * * * * *

Rammstein's next album was the greatest success of the decade, some fans even claimed it would still be at the top of the list at the end of the 21st century. Where the critics had before been acclaiming the raw power of the German band, they were now falling over themselves in the use of superlatives. Those, who had been used to stamping them with the seal of being sick, twisted and perverted weirdoes who could not be put into any proper music category, were now praising the unbelievable intensity of music, words and performance.

With the new album they proved once and for all that even after over ten years, it was possible to produce something new, fresh and breathtakingly powerful.

The fans were scrambling to get tickets for their new tour, some intrigued to see how Till was coping, others just needing to see their live performance and to find out if the impact of the songs would be transferred onto the stage as well.

None of them were disappointed.

One song stood out amongst the eleven pieces of brilliance. It was slow, painful in its passion and forceful in its longing. It was believed at first to be in the tradition of Seemann, Nebel and Ohne Dich, but it turned out to be above and beyond any of those. No one was quite able to pin down where its emotional force came from, but Todeskuß was the most perfectly heart-rendering composition that tore open even well-hidden feelings. Agonisingly yearning with a sense of absolute loss conveyed by the perfect combination of Till's voice singing jagged lyrics of extraordinary passion - and Richard's guitar solo, curling around words and voice alike, playing against, together, along and in the midst of intricate expressions of forthright emotions.

Pain, clear and sharp like aching blades of hunger, transcended by guitar-riffs and voice alike. Each on their own would have been stunning, but together they were unparalleled.

Raw emotions, condensed into three minutes and thirteen seconds.

Richard had written the entire song almost at the same time as Till had penned down the extraordinary lyrics. Words of such force, they perfectly matched the music. It was Flake who had off-handedly suggested to leave the rest of the band somewhat in the background and they had agreed readily. Paul, Olli, Schneider and Flake providing the tapestry of sound for the battle between voice and guitar.

Battle? As Schneider quietly remarked during one of the recording sessions, it was more like mating.

No one had said anything, but Paul had smirked, Olli coughed and Flake had stared at his keyboard.

The mating of pain, not pleasure.

The first time they played Todeskuß before a live audience, at their tour kick-off concert in Berlin, the crowd of thousands was eerily silent after the song had finished.

The performance on the semi-lit stage was spectacular in a very uncharacteristic way. Paul, Flake, Olli and Schneider in looming darkness while cold white-blue lights picked out first Till, singing those constrained lyrics, then Richard, playing a powerful solo, both subsequently merging together. The ever increasingly intensive light became replaced by circles of fire that seemed to move and mutate as voice curled around guitar and words united with rhythm. The two men stood on opposite sides of the stage, caught in their own worlds of sound and meaning. Never looking at each other until the very end when final drum beats, muted bass, supporting riffs and reverberating keyboard accompanied the haunting voice and grieving guitar to trail off into the complete darkness of the stage.

Only then did a wall of flames shoot up in front of the stage, casting a fiery glow onto all six men who stood, waiting, secretly dreading the nerve racking moment that made a song stand or fall on stage. There was nothing, hardly any reaction from the crowd until Till turned his back and stepped away.

The audience finally erupted into madness.

It was an unparalleled success. An achievement of proportions that only two men could truly acknowledge. Sacrifices not for some unidentified Greater Good, but because there was no other option.

They were all part of the machinery and Rammstein had exceeded itself.

They were just two fucked-up men.