The smooth glide of Sibelius’s Valse Triste, Op. 44/1, unspooled lazily into the moonlit living room of the condo you and Fyodor shared. His choice, of course— the faint crackling static of his antique record player added a poignant ambiance to the otherwise simple atmosphere. Him, on the couch, with a book spread across his lap, silver blades of the cityscape’s light cutting across his angular features.

Fyodor’s elegant hands skimmed a passage of the text he was currently reading, the faint twitch at the corners of his thin lips indicating some kind of amusement at the contents of his novel. The reaction was uncharacteristic of him; something he might have deemed childish once upon a time. But the protagonist reminded him of you, and he simply couldn’t will himself to stay taciturn while his train of thought circled back to his heart.

You were the poems he could have penned in God’s name, his other half and the only one he deemed worthy of being by his side as a lover. He looked up, bathing his gaze in the artificial red glare from a plane that left a comet’s radiance behind. The harsh yellow lighting from faraway skyscrapers flickered like stars— and they could be with a promise and a delusion. Something beautiful, stemming from the inventions of a species so horrible the vaccinated hue of human purity stained not white but a shade of black soaked with disease. The stars were replaced by cities while he watched and despaired and rose above it all.

If that was true, Fyodor mused, then you were more than human, more than the corruption that always seemed to bite at his heels.

The wooden creak of a door gave him pause in his thoughts, his book sliding shut on his lap when he glimpsed your silhouette. Standing up, he strode to your side and pressed a ghost of a kiss to your knuckles— his breath was cold on your hand, slipping against your skin.

“Won’t you grant me a dance, my love?” Fyodor asked in his graceful murmur, gelid fingers smoothing your hand against his cheek. “If only for the sake of novelty.”