I wrote this last night around 2, 3 AM, inspired about a reel I saw on Instagram about someone dead cat. I fixed minor spelling mistakes but any incorrect grammar may still stand, so please excuse it. I also ended up writing a second and third installment. I will not be posting the third one here, for that you have will to look at my Ao3 profile under the series "Healing Takes Time." The second, however, will be posted shortly after this one.

"Hey," came the soft voice of his sister. He didn't respond, aware of her presence and yet lacking the motivation to move from his spot seat on his old leather couch. The couch Alfred had picked out.

"Ivan?" She said again, still no response. He felt her soft, uncertain hand on his broad shoulder, felt a movement beside him as the cushion dipped beneath her weight as she settled down. "Hey."

Her voice was gentle, and it was clear she was doing her best to sympathize, perhaps even empathize with him.

He hated her for that as much as he appreciated the effort. How could she understand, anyway?

"I… there isn't much to say, is there?" No. Well, kind of, but how would one put into words the pain it is to lose someone? Impossible.

"Katya," his voice rasped, grating against his throat in an unappealing rumble, "why are you here?"

He could hear his sister let out a breath. Was she tired of this yet? "I'm worried about you, Ivan. As is Natalia, though I'm not sure if she would ever admit to caring for Alfred much. You know her."

Alfred. He had so much to say, and yet no way to phase it. Or was it the other way around?

To pieces, Ivan had loved Alfred to pieces. The love of his life, that man was. Now be was gone, and with his physical absence Ivan felt a metaphorical absence in his heart.

"Do you want to talk about him?" Her soft voice resonated close to his ear, her hands, though still hesitant, where deft in their relaxing massages over his tensed muscles. How long had he been sitting here?

Yes. He did. "No. I don't."

Alfred. Although the name had been unpleasant to him at first, it had grown on him quickly, becoming a sigh of second nature when he awoke in the morning to beautiful, knowing sapphire eyes.

He wasn't a soft, delicate damsel. He was strong, rebellious, independent. Eager to prove himself.

He wasn't clever, per say, he was actually quite dense at times. Ivan loved him for that, his innocent naïveté.

He attracted attention. Ivan hated that, but it fit his lover well. He was glowing, a source of light for all in need, beaming. As if there was a spotlight upon him at all times.

He was funny, and he was beautiful. The first time Ivan had met him it had left him aching with the desire to see him once again, and he could tell Alfred had felt the same, that pull. "Meant to be," some might say. Ivan never really believed it before then.

He was Ivan's, just as Ivan was his. Their wedding had been happy. They had been a happy, perfect couple until his accident.

Alfred was stupid, leaving him here alone. But he wasn't alone, was he?

"Katya," he choked. "What if-" he broke off, staring at this twiddling thumbs attached to trembling hands. It was so easy to imagine Alfred's fingers twining together with his own, warm and firm. Not soft, like Katya's, yet not as calloused as Ivan's. Sure of himself, didn't know where exactly he was going or when he would get there but never afraid to take the leap. He thought caused a sob to choke itself out of Ivan's rapidly closing throat without permission, eyes and nose bridge burning as the world around him swirled in a messy mix of wet colors. What was Ivan to do with his hands now that there was so Alfred to hold them? "What if I forget his face, now that I can't see him every day. What if I forget his voice, its morning rasp or its sleepy slur at night or its excited tremor, or his favorite song, or his favorite food. What if I forget him?"

How would he continue with the hole in his heart? How could he ever think of living again when the best thing that had ever happened to him was gone?

Of course, there were days when they fought. Sometimes they slept in separate rooms, giving the other the silent treatment. But it was different—Ivan knew he was always able to go to Alfred about anything, even during those periods of aggressive stubbornness. Now he would never talk to him again, never.

He was gone.

Ivan would never touch him again, never hold him in his arms and comfort him. Never cry to him again, never fight with or cook for him again. Never hear him, see him. Gone.

It was as if, suddenly, he had never existed, although Ivan knew that wasn't the case.

It was lights out. Nothing more than a flatline in the early hours of the morning.

Another sob caught in his throat, the tears running down his face as his nose burned as passionately as his grief.

Katya's features were soft, and he noted distantly of the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes as well. "Oh, Ivan." She reached up to brush away his messy, greasy bangs—when had he last showered?—and sighed, pursing her lips to contain her sob. "It will be okay. This might not be what you want to hear, but memories dull with time, naturally, and while it might hurt to think of him now the happy stuff will come up soon. You will never forget him, but you will heal."

"He deserves better than that." To "heal," as Katya put it, would be to move on. To throw what they had away. He wasn't ready.

"You don't think he wouldn't have wanted you to heal? Ivan, he loved you. So, so much. Not now," she assured him, "no one is going to force you to look for someone else. But they want you to make an effort to start healing. And they'll be there to help you whenever you need it." Finished with her monologue, she leaned her head over her brother's shoulder, a position that reminded him all too much of his passed lover.

"It's not fair."

"No," Katya said. There was a silence, minus the faint sounds of her fingertips against his dirty shirt.

There was nothing else to say. It was the plain truth; it wasn't fair.

Sometimes good people get the short end of the stick while those with malicious intentions live to see another day, further their agenda.

And Ivan still sat there, motionless as his sister began to clean up his messy apartment, wondering what he was to do with himself without his Alfred.