Alfred eyed the gravestones before him with a calmness he was not usually accustomed to. He traced their gray and marbled curves lazily, as though he were staring at rooftops, all of them distinct but still so similar. He glanced over the mausoleums, took in the sculpted angels that wept for the dead, the bouquets of fake flowers meant to last eternally, and shook his head at it all.

"What's it like?" he asked, leaning to the side, his shoulder bumping against another. A colder one, a harder one.

"The same," came Ivan's voice, flat and rolling and only too beautiful. Alfred couldn't imagine what it must have sounded like before. "But without sleeping. Or eating."

"And drinking?"

"Unnecessary."

"Do you get bored?"

"Quite," and Alfred knew from the way Ivan went stiff as a corpse that it was best not to pursue the subject. Not that it stopped him.

"How long have you been ─"

"Two years," Ivan cut in, as curt and quick as he ever seemed to get. But his tone was still strangely monotone, bordering on lifeless, as it always did.

"Not bad, not bad," Alfred murmured, more for the sake of something to say than any real desire to continue the conversation. It was best not to push too hard for the moment.

Instead, Alfred sighed softly and turned to look at Ivan, unsurprised to find him looking back. Alfred studied Ivan's face, leaning in and squinting against the dying light of the sun as it slowly settled. He made out the flutter of white, spider-leg lashes set against the purple of Ivan's eyes. The oddly alluring pallor of his complexion, like the graveyard statues he so often liked to admire, the sweet cupid's bow above of his unmoving lips. Alfred adored it all.

"Don't ever change," Alfred told Ivan, the noise coming out as more of a command than he would've liked it to.

"I will do my best not to."

"Ivan, you're supposed to just agree. You gotta say 'Sure thing, dollface' and smile or something." Alfred wrinkled his nose in amusement at the thought of Ivan calling him 'dollface' . Not that Ivan didn't already have a few pet names for Alfred, but none of them were in English, and he refused to translate them when asked.

"I understand."

"Go on then, promise. Promise me you'll never change."

But Ivan didn't, and Alfred found himself unsurprised. That was like Ivan, unable to make a promise he knew he couldn't keep, no matter how much Alfred pawed and begged and wheedled. Nevertheless, he knew Ivan would at least try, ever wanting to see him happy. Alfred sighed, absently tracing a warm finger along Ivan's frigid skin. He brushed along an old bandage that Ivan had taken to wearing. Or maybe he'd never taken it off to begin with.

Alfred remembered the bandage well enough. White and gauzy and absolutely unimportant until he'd actually had to use it. It had been an accident, plowing into Ivan while zipping along on his bike. Not exactly the best way to meet, but an introduction nonetheless.

At first Alfred had been nothing but petrified after the accident. His first glimpse was of white hair and a coat much too warm for the weather, an arthritic body struggling to get up. An elderly person, Alfred had assumed in the first few confused seconds after the crash.

Then there had been the rush of relief as he saw Ivan turn to look at him. His face showing not a line of age, nor a furrow of anger. Just a fixed, passive stare, almost eerie in its placidity. Alfred was on his feet and offering his hand in an instant, not particularly aware of the coolness of the stranger's skin as he hauled him up. There was too much excitement in the air to note the small stuff.

What Alfred did notice was the scrape on the man's forearm, which he first mistook as something old and healing until the noticed the guy was transfixed by it as well, murmuring a soft, "Oh," of what must have been surprise, just muted surprise. He'd gotten knocked flat on his ass less than a minute ago, after all. It took time for those things to catch up. Alfred jumped into recovery mode when his own mind caught up with him.

"Don't worry, I got some first-aid kit jazz in my bag," Alfred assured in his friendliest voice, thankful, and not for the first time, that his boy scout days had kept him prepared.

Rifling through his backpack, Alfred soon pulled out a white tin emblazoned with a red cross. It was dented and covered with a few oddly colored stains, but it would do. Alfred crouched and flipped the lid, dumping the contents onto the sidewalk. His casualty had taken to sitting on the curb, seemingly shell-shocked by the event. That, or he was a mute. Either way, he certainly wasn't paying much attention to anything besides his arm, which had not yet taken to bleeding.

"You still alive, buddy?" Alfred questioned, earning him a startled jolt from the stranger. He looked at Alfred with the strangest eyes Alfred had ever seen. All milky and bright at the same time, like a faraway nebula photographed by a satellite, with a stunning violet color to match.

"Yes, I am still alive," was all he said, and from the trill of his words Alfred knew he'd hit a foreigner. A foreigner. Way to make the worst bad impression ever. The guy would probably go back home and tell everyone that America was full of rowdy teens looking to mow people down. Alfred wouldn't let that happen, not on his watch.

"Uh, yep. I'm sure you are. It's a figure of speech, that's all. Anyway, this might sting for a second, but it'll make things better," Alfred said soothingly, as though speaking to a child. He sprayed the scratch with antiseptic and waited for the usual flinch that accompanied it. When none came, he couldn't help but remark, "Tough stuff, buddy. You're made out of it."

After that, Alfred had been quick to bandage the area, hasty and haphazard, but the whole time talking the stranger's ear off until he got a name out of the guy. Ivan. A classic name from the old country. Before he knew it, Alfred had found himself sitting on the curb with Ivan, idly chatting away in the free manner he was most prone to, simply enjoying his new acquaintance's company.

But that had happened months ago, seasons ago, before Alfred had found out why Ivan was so chilled to the touch, so pale and bloodless looking, and why he never took off the bandage. Before Alfred knew that the scrape never would get better. Because Ivan didn't get better. He only got worse, building up an assortment of scratches and cuts over time, none of them bleeding or bruising, and yet never healing.

"Ivan, Ivan, Ivan," Alfred said softly, caught in the past as he clung to Ivan in the present, careful not to clutch too tightly. Careful not to hurt him.

"Yes, Alfred ?"

"What am I going to do with you ?" And with a theatrical mwah, Alfred kissed Ivan, over the top and sappy to hide the fear that gnawed at him more and more as the days passed. He pulled back when the formaldehyde-tingle turned to a formaldehyde-burn, smiling coquettishly at Ivan's expression. Or rather, lack of one.

Ivan didn't make expressions. Didn't emote. He felt emotions, Alfred was sure of it, but they never reflected on his face. Ivan's features were constantly solemn and remote, unmoving except for the occasional blink, which Alfred always found peculiar. They didn't always sync up, Ivan's eyelids. But aside from that oddity, Ivan's face never did change. It was a death mask. Had been ever since Alfred met him, and it would never not be.

"My silly-billy," Alfred teased airily, resting his head against Ivan's shoulder. He took a deep breath as he nuzzled against Ivan's scarf.

It smelled like steel tables and bone saws and y-shaped incisions. Smelled like thick, still blood and empty bodies. Not people. Only bodies. Their husks, carapaces, shells. No one inside. Most of all though, it smelled like Ivan. And Alfred loved it and all its wrongness.

"Promise me one thing, Ivan."

Ivan hummed for Alfred to go on.

"Promise," Alfred began, lightly kicking the backpack that rest at the foot of the sarcophagus they were sitting on, "that you'll never eat my brains."

Ivan made a wheezing, withered noise somewhere in the realm of a laugh. "I promise I shall never eat your brains, Alfred. There would not be enough to keep me satisfied for long."

"You jerk," Alfred chided playfully, threading his fingers through Ivan's bony ones." Good thing you've got enough brains for the both of us."

"And you," Ivan whispered, giving Alfred's hand a gentle squeeze, "enough life. "

A/N:

-Yep. Yeop. Zombie Ivan. Zombivan. That just happened. I don't even know where I got the idea for it. Like, originally, I was thinking of some kind of oneshot with Ivan and Alfred in high school, and it turns out that if he gets pissed enough Ivan could do things with his brain. Like blow-out lights, send chairs vaulting across the room, fun stuff like that.

Somehow, that translated into this.

-I kind of want to write more for this universe, but I can't see it really working unless it was stuff that lead up to this specific point in time. I mean, come on. Ivan can't last forever like this. I wouldn't know how to give this universe a happy ending. :(

-For the record, Ivan died by falling through thin ice. Just a bit of morbid headcanon for this 'verse.

Edit: Sorry for all the spaces that snuck in when it came to dialogue and punctuation. For some reason the formatting went all stupid, but I think it's fixed now.