The Prettiest Star

Title: The Prettiest Star: Prologue: Last Year

Author: Allison Wonderland

Rating: PG, this chapter

Summary: Alexei Zolnerovich’s world collapses on the night of his seventeenth birthday.

Warning(s): Angst, death of a minor character, hurt/comfort, discussion of a past male/male homosexual relationship (though nothing too graphic), all original characters.

Disclaimer: The title The Prettiest Star comes from the David Bowie song of the same name which I have no claim to/am not making any money from.  Other than that, this is a work of fiction and any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.  This work is the sole property of the author and is not to be reproduced through any means, either whole or in part without the permission of the author.  The author reserves the right to whack upside the head anyone who goes against these rules.

Word Count: ~900

Series: None.

Note(s): This is a story I wrote a long time ago.  It’s the first original slash story that I ever completed and kinda sucked so I’m doing some major editing and posting it here before I start working on a complete rewrite of the whole thing.  The new story that comes out of this one (called either ‘Sleeping With Ghosts’ or ‘The Only Exception’) has almost no resemblance to this one past about midway through.  And yes, there is a chance that you’ve read this before.

~*~

It was not the voices in the hallway outside his bedroom door that woke Alexei Zolnerovich from a sound sleep but the absence of the warmth and presence of his twin sister Anastacia who had been sleeping beside him not long ago - the twins always slept together on their birthday to recount the party that had just ended and discuss next year‘s.  Stacia’s was one of the voices in the hallway.  The other two belonged to their parents, Michael and Irina Zolnerovich.

“Let me tell him,” Stacia was saying.  She did not sound like herself.  It sounded almost as if she had been crying.  But Stacia never cried.  She was Anastacia Zolnerovich, the Heinous Bitch of Shady Lake High School.

“Stacia, we’re your parents,” their father said.  “It’s our job to tell your brother what happened.”

“But Daddy!”  Stacia only called their father ‘Daddy’ when she wanted something.  “He won’t cry in front of you and I know he’s going to need someone to hold him.”

Alexei wondered if they were talking about him.  What his sister was saying was true.  Stacia was the only person who had seen him cry since he was ten y ears old, except for the one time when he had come out to his parents and told them that he and Jonny weren’t best friends, they were boyfriends.  He sat up on his bed and raised one hand to rub a sleepy brown eye.  He wondered what had made Stacia wake up.  His sister slept like the dead and there were times when even the alarm clock couldn’t wake her for school in the mornings.  “Stacia?” he called.  Something horrible had to have happened for Stacia to be awake.

“Mama?  Daddy?” he heard his sister ask.

“Go on, but call if you need either one of us.”

Stacia made no reply but Alexei heard footsteps - their parents’ he assumed - moving off down the hall toward the bedroom at the end.  When the door shut but he still saw no sign of his twin Alexei called again, “Stacia!”

There was a street lamp outside and its light always came through Alexei’s window, something he usually hated.  But tonight he was glad of it.  When Stacia stepped into his room the light reflected off of something on her face.  She had been crying.  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

Stacia came closer and sat down in almost the exact spot where she had been asleep earlier.  “Alexei,” she began.  Then she stopped.  Sighed.  And began again.  “The last few months when you and Johnny were going out…that was fun, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You should always remember how much fun you and Johnny had.”

“Yes,” Alexei agreed.  “What’s wrong?  What happened?” She was starting to scare him.

“Alexei, tonight after Johnny went home, he shot himself.”

“No!  No, Stacia.  He didn’t.  He couldn’t.  He was okay just a few hours ago!”

“I’m sorry, Alexei.  He did.”

“Is…is he okay?”  Alexei felt sure he already knew what she was going to say before she even said it.

“Alexei…”  He knew the truth for sure by the way she said his name.  She didn’t have to say anything else but she did anyway.  “He died on the way to the hospital.”

“No,” he whispered, shaking his head.  The tears that had gathered in his eyes began to flow.

Stacia held out her arms and immediately found them full of her sobbing twin brother.  She held him, rocked him, and told him she would help him get through it.  But she didn’t say, “it’s all right” or “it’s okay” because she knew that, for Alexei, it would be a long time before anything was “all right” or “okay” again.