"No," Chat cried out quietly in anguish "nonono."
This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. This morning it seemed like everything was possible, the world was at their fingertips, they were larger than life, but now walls were crumbling around them and the world seemed far too big a place when Ladybug lay in his arms dying.
Chat looked down at Ladybugs vibrant blue eyes. Blue. He hadn't even known what color they were until this morning when their hands brushed and fate decided to tell them what they had suspected all along. They were meant for eachother. Suddenly the world had turned into a paintbox of colors. It was beautiful, so much more beautiful than either of them had ever wished, or hoped, or imagined. The vibrant blue of a summer sky, the lively green of the leaves, the softest blush of the roses next to their feet and red. Red. Despite the sea of colors that swirled around them he had eyes for only one. In that moment, Chat watched as Ladybug stood in her crisom suit as awe transformed her face into something beautiful and he decided that red was his favorite color.
Now, mere hours later, he stared down helplessly at his hands and her body coated in the accursed color he once thought so beautiful.
They sky had turned the colorless grey that Chat was so used to, and clouds hung menacingly over the city. Ladybug's breaths kept getting shallower. Chat shifted so her head was pillowed on his legs as his fingers softly brushed stray hairs out of her eyes. Ladybugs rose petal lips trembled.
"Chat I'm so scared."
"No," Chat said quietly, "no, don't say that. You're ok, You're going to be ok."
Chats voice sounded thick with unshed tears and unconvincing even to his own ears and- God he couldn't think.
There was so much red.
Ladybug smiled softly, humorlessly up at him.
"You've always been a bad liar, you know mon chaton."
Her pet-name for him, spoken so fondly through such a broken voice was what finally shattered him.
"Please," He sobbed, closing his eyes and leaning down to rest his forehead gently against hers, "You can't leave me, I can't do this without you."
"Hey, shh, look at me." She said, gently placing a shaking hand on his cheek.
He opened his eyes, tears painting jagged lines of greif down his cheeks.
"Chat," the fire that had snuck into her voice startled him, "You can do this without me, I know you don't want to, but you can. You're so amazing Chat, there are so many people who love you and you never even notice because you're too busy looking at the ground, afraid that if you look up all you'll find is dissapointment in peoples eyes. You can't be afraid to look up anymore, You're going to have to be brave now Kitty."
"And Chat," Ladybugs voice got softer as the fire started leaking out of it, "You're so convinved that you're nothing without me that you don't realize I'm nothing without you. Mon Chaton," her voice trembled as tears began to slide down her cheeks. "you always look at me as if I hung the moon but I can never seem to make you understand that I wouldn't have even reached the stars if you hadn't been there to lift me."
The last of Ladybugs words came out soft and broken. The hand resting on his cheek slipped off and a soft groan escaped her lips as she curled into herself.
"My Lady!" Chat said panicked, "I-I don't- I can't-... what do I do?" His voice came out lost and broken and helpless as the tears began anew.
"Tell me..." Ladybug said so softly he had to strain to hear her, "tell me all the colors you see right now."
"The colors of what?" He asked as he choked on another sob.
"Anything... Everything." She replied, a soft smile blooming on her broken face.
And so he did. He described to her the green of the grass and the chesnut of the trees, and the beautiful rich brown of the dirt. As the sky began to clear of clouds, he told her of the burning reds and oranges and yellows of the sunset to the west, and of the soft blues and purples and blacks that painted the sky to the east. He told her how the stars, just starting to wink down at them couldn't really be described as a color because they seemed to be all the colors all at once. As Chat went on Ladybugs breaths became shallower and shallower.
Finally, he put his head back against hers and closed his eyes, for the last colors he had already memorized by heart.
"Your hair," he whispered, "looks like wispy strands of the night sky."
"And my eyes?" She asked in a voice that sounded as if it were already gone.
"And your eyes," Chat finished, "Are the brightest blue, like you somehow took the summer sky and trapped it beneath your eyelids."
The dam that he had been so precariously building back up broke again, and he cried freely, helplessly against Ladybugs forehead. He cried for all the somedays that would never come, and all the colors that he could never have again and for a love that was realized too late. Finally, when there was no more tears left and all that escaped him was a quiet choking sound he took a deep breath. He mustered his bravery and he did as Ladybug had told him to do.
He looked up.
Everything was Grey.