Viennese Waltz

For Hanna, the whole thing started on a rainy weekday when he had come home a full fifteen minutes early. Hanna hadn't gotten off from work early, though because of the rain, he had sprinted home, thinking about how stupid he was for forgetting his umbrella (again) and how his awesome roommate of awesome disliked the rain and would (might) appreciate Hanna's company.

When Hanna had arrived at his floor in the apartment building, he was annoyed to hear very loud and Disney-like music shaking the paper thin walls of the building. Sighing angrily and hoping he could ignore the music, Hanna stopped at his apartment door to find out that the music was coming from the inside of his own apartment.

Cautiously, Hanna unlocked the door and poked his head inside. Instantly, his eyes widened in surprise and his jaw slackened in awe at the sight that greeted him.

The Disney-like music was coming from Hanna's laptop, which was sitting on its chair in the corner of the room. The whole living room had been cleared out, with everything pushed to the walls. And in the middle of the room…

In the middle of the room was Hanna's awesome roommate…Dancing. And dancing well. Like, really, really well. And gracefully. So, so, so gracefully like whoa.

He looked awesome.

Eyes closed, the undead man was dancing to the music with an invisible partner, and he did all of the steps and twirls and everything else correctly and perfectly and Hanna was just amazed at how skilled his roommate was.

When the music ended, Hanna quickly and silently pulled his head out of the apartment and closed the door. He figured that the dancing was a private thing for his best friend, and unless his friend wanted to tell him, he shouldn't ask about it, or spy.

So, Hanna waited outside of the apartment for the rest of the fifteen minutes and made a show about arriving late. He hoped that all of this would hide what had happened.

Much to Hanna's chagrin, his undead friend didn't mention anything about the dancing, to which Hanna was dying to find out more about. And so, with no way to mention the dancing without confessing to what he saw, Hanna hit the books…or rather, the Internet.

Every time the undead man left the apartment, Hanna dropped everything he was doing and raced to the computer to do some research. It took Hanna three weeks to find out that his roommate was doing a waltz. He watched the video he found online with a goofy grin plastered on his face, recognizing a few parts of the dance. Still, to Hanna, the waltz didn't seem right. He had his partner's dance burned to the back of his eyelids, and the waltz he was watching just wasn't it. So, frowning determinedly, Hanna looked up the different kind of waltzes there were.

He was mortified and flabbergasted to find that there were more than ten different kinds of waltzes. It didn't deter him, though, and the redhead decided that alphabetical order was his friend as he searched for videos on each one of those waltzes.

It was about a week later when he learned that alphabetical order was not his friend, but pretty much his worst enemy, as the waltz that Hanna was looking for started with the letter V, which was, like, near the end of the alphabet.

The waltz that Hanna was looking for was called the Viennese Waltz, and it looked simple enough that Hanna couldn't help but try to mimic a few of the movements.

Turns out, it was a bad idea: Hanna wound up tripping over something (he wasn't sure what) and broke his glasses.

Not cool.

Two weeks later, when Hanna was finally able to get a new pair of glasses (for the record, his spare pair sucked), Hanna tried again. This time, he was smart about it and shoved a few things out of the way. But when he danced, he realized that not only was he doing the steps completely wrong, they were also really hard to perform.

It made him appreciate how awesome his roommate was a bit more.

Hanna decided that this was a challenge to his skills, especially after he had lost his old glasses to the waltz, and Hanna was not the kind to decline a challenge. This led him to doing more online research until he found a website that showed him how to do all of the moves step-by-step.

…The problem with that became that he had to go back and forth between practicing and looking at the computer screen. And no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't memorize the steps. At the end, he decided that the best thing he could do was get a book that he can hold while practicing. That way, he wouldn't have to keep stopping.

It was about a week later that he finally managed to swipe his roommate's library card (and he felt so guilty about it) and rent out a book that had all of the steps. It turned out that the book was a lot more detailed and informative than the internet, and Hanna found out that in order to even practice properly, he needed to find a song and learn to time it.

And thus, Hanna returned to the World Wide Web on a quest to get an awesome song to dance to. Preferably the one his super cool roommate was dancing to that evening so long ago.

It took about an hour to find the song his roommate was dancing to: it was The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss II. He listened to it a few times, and, ignoring the geeky voice in his head that kept linking it to all of the Disney movies and Tom & Jerry episodes he had ever watched, Hanna decided that the song was too long for his liking and searched for something shorter by the same composer. In the end, Hanna had to murder (or at least seriously harm) his inner geek before deciding that the Vienna Waltz was more to his liking.

And so, Hanna slowly started to time the music.

One, two.

One, two, three. One, two, three.

Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

One. One. One.

…This was how Hanna found out that he was tone deaf. He refused to give up, though, and kept on practicing.

Months later, Hanna was finally able to time music to a satisfactory degree. He was so proud of himself, and even treated himself to his favorite ice cream in reward. He knew that the next part would be the hardest, and, as he borrowed the dance book from the library again (because he wisely returned it when he realized he was taking forever doing the music timing), he wondered why his roommate hadn't said anything about his library card being missing…Hanna never did return it, after all…

But oh well. There was time to guilt about that later. Now, however, he had to focus on getting those steps right.

And so, he practiced every time his partner was out of the house. He would push everything to the side, pull out the book from the super secret place he hid it, turn on the music, and try to dance.

…Needless to say, it wasn't going too well, but Hanna still refused to give up.

He practiced and practiced, and even though he never got it right, he noticed that he was slowly, slowly getting there, which, to him, was awesome.

It was during one of those practice sessions that his undead roommate made the same mistake of coming home early that Hanna had done all those nights ago. He had gone out to get a few emergency items for the dinner he was supposed to be making, and he really did expect to be out for another twenty minutes or so, but the supermarket was surprisingly empty, and thus he was back much earlier than expected. The undead man was pleased with himself, as he would now be able to finish making dinner on time.

As he reached the door of the apartment, he was surprised to hear waltz music coming from inside it. Frowning slightly, the undead man put the bags he was carrying on the floor and quietly unlocked the door. When he poked his head inside the door, his eyes widened a bit in surprise before his features relaxed into an affectionate smile. He was sure that Hanna would have squealed in happiness about it (or something to that effect) and added it to the tally, but the redhead currently had his nose in a book he was carrying with one hand while trying to dance with an invisible partner.

It amused the green-skinned man how bad Hanna was, even though he was trying so hard. The dancing was also using up all of the redhead's concentration, seeing as how he didn't even notice when the undead brought his bags inside the apartment and locked the door behind him. It was only until after the music stopped and Hanna went to restart it did he finally notice the undead man standing there with a bemused expression on his face.

Hanna instantly turned red, stuttering and flailing while he tried to explain that the situation was 'not what it looked like.' The undead man didn't buy any of it though, and when he told Hanna that it was okay, the redhead turned even redder and kept quiet.

As the two of them moved the bags into the kitchen, the green-skinned man asked his roommate about what brought about his interest in proper dancing. The question seemed to have a strong effect on Hanna, and Hanna guiltily confessed to everything, from accidentally walking in on his roommate's private time to stealing the library card, which he promptly returned.

When Hanna finished his story, he went very quiet and stared at the floor, not daring to look up and see the expression on his roommate's face, which he was sure was one of disappointment or disapproval. So he was very surprised when his undead roommate put a hand on his shoulder and steered him towards the living room, saying softly, "You know, it's easier to learn when you have an actual partner."

Hanna didn't look up as he replied, "Yeah, well, I don't exactly have any extra cash on me to, like, afford actual lessons. Besides, the steps looked easy—"

"—Hanna." The undead man interrupted, and Hanna finally looked up to see that his friend wasn't upset at all, but was rather wearing a small smile. As Hanna tried to comprehend why the undead man wasn't upset at him for spying and stealing, he didn't notice that his roommate had walked to the laptop and pressed the play button. As the music filled the room, Hanna snapped back to his senses to find his roommate facing him with the soft smile still on his lips and his hand extended.

Hanna readily admitted to himself that this was most likely the most charming thing he'd ever seen.

"May I have this dance?" The orange-eyed undead asked. Hanna turned a deep shade of red and bit his bottom lip as he nodded and accepted his roommate's hand.

The undead man's smile widened by a fraction of an inch and he took Hanna's hand in his, gently, as he calmly and expertly led the dance. Throughout the dance, Hanna stumbled and tried his hardest to keep up, and the green-skinned man remained patient with him, and, by the end of the song, Hanna was much calmer and a tiny bit angry with himself that he had chosen to work with such a short song. He stifled a disappointed sigh as they parted, but he was instantly over it as the undead man only restarted the music and held Hanna again.

Needless to say, dinner was completely forgotten.

Are you talking fanfics? If so, uhm... I dunno. Anything Hanna/Zombie. Anything you feel like. Oh! I know. Maybe incorporate something about dancing in there. Cuz we all know Hanna FLAILS rather than dances. –UncleKasu