Hello Everybody!

Warning: This is a deathfic! There is blood and angst. This story is worse than Solace if you have read it.

Well, I've written fluff, semi-tragedy, and sad/cute. I guess the next thing would be an AU death fic with angst. Yeah…how did I make that connection? No idea. I apologize for this one. I have no explanation except that I had my player on shuffle and one of my lesser-listened-too songs came up. This is what it spawned.

Once again, tying it vaguely in with Brothers in Spirit, (a stand-alone prequel, if you will) only severely AU. There are also allusions to Atmospheric Perspective if you look closely enough. Indirectly Un!Zombie's POV. Please don't hurt me…

Disclaimer: I do not own Hanna is Not a Boy's Name, nor any of the characters/locations therein. I do, however, own the Death(s) and the story.

They Walk in Shadows

Strong arms, trembling with panic and sorrow, wrapped protectively around the limp form as the older man rocked back and forth. "Damnit, don't do this. Don't you dare do this!" He clutched at the boy in his lap, holding the frail body as close to his own as he could. NonononoNO! He was not going to die, he wouldn't let him. "Please…"

But there was so much blood. It was everywhere, staining everything a dark crimson as it soaked into the ground, his clothes, his skin. It made everything slick and sticky and much too warm and worst of all, the more the warmth spread, the colder the boy's body grew. His arms held firm against the slickness though, refusing to let go.

He choked back a sob. He had to get help, he should go get help, but he knew that the paramedics would never get there in time. He couldn't risk moving the broken child locked in his grasp, but hell would have frozen over before he left him here alone. He couldn't do that, not to his little brother. So he sat there, rocking back and forth on the cold, filthy concrete ground of the alleyway.

"Hey! Hey, you do not close your eyes, you hear me? You stay awake."

" 'Mcold…"

It was a mumble, barely audible, and the older man instinctively tightened his grip in a vain attempt to provide heat. "I know, I'm trying but you gotta help me out here. You gotta stay awake. Okay? Can you do that for me?" His voice was cracking and not at all calm and he hoped to god that the boy couldn't hear. He needed to be the strong one.

He received a weak nod in response. Electric blue eyes, half-lidded and barely focused, found his. "...Scared…"

And he felt his heart break into a thousand pieces. He couldn't make it better, he couldn't…His brother was dying in his arms and he couldn't even comfort him properly. He couldn't even bring himself to look at the gaping wound that spanned the boy's torso, opened him up like an origami flower.

He shifted his legs and pulled his family up against his chest. All he could do at this point was talk. "Hey. You remember how Mom used to let us stay home from school on our birthdays? Or that stupid thing about the rainbows?" A small, sad smile slipped onto his lips as he picked at the memories.

Another nod; a tiny smile in return. "Think…she'll be waiting…for me?"

"Don't talk like that." Please don't, I can't deal with it. "You can't leave yet, you promised you show me how to fold paper crows."

"Cranes…"

"Yeah, cranes. You gotta stay awake so we can do that later." Oh god, oh god… he could feel his eyes start to burn with salt water as his vision blurred. You don't look like you're breathing. Why don't you look like you're breathing?

"Dun'cry," the boy slurred. "S'okay…" The fingers that had been loosely gripping onto his shirt fell away. The blues eyes slid closed as his head lolled backwards, limp.

"Shit, no! Hanna, Hanna, wake up! Wake up, damnit!" He felt like screaming, felt like shaking the younger form until his eyes opened back up again, but he knew somewhere down in his gut that it would do no good. That only made it all the worse. All the more heart-wrenchingly horrible.

Then the air around him began to crackle with static charge. Over and above the scent of blood, he caught a choking whiff of ozone. The hair on his arms and the back of his neck prickled and stood on end. And then, in the blink of an eye, he felt it condense into one solitary space – right in front on him. He looked up.

A figure in a long black cloak, hood up, scythe in hand.

His face contorted into a snarl of hatred. "You can't take him!" he growled, low and fierce, baring his teeth.

The figure didn't move, just stayed where it was. "Unfortunately, that is not for you to decide." The voice was soft, calm. This was not the voice of darkness and fear, not the voice of Death. It crackled like electricity, but, somehow, it was almost strangely soothing. Feminine. Tinged with regret.

He faltered for a moment. He had not been expecting Death to sound like that. He had not been expecting Death to speak at all. Then he regained his composure – what little he had had to begin with – and pulled the blood-smeared body of his only relation up against him until the tuft of red hair was tucked under his chin. "You. Can't. Have him." Almond-shaped eyes burned with protectiveness and loathing.

"His wound is fatal." Again, calm and sad.

"Our parents are gone," he spat. "We're all each other has left, damnit, I will not lose him too!" He stared up into the blackness of the figure's hood, watching it. It – she? – remained perfectly still. Something came unbidden to his mind. A memory; some little snippet of time that he had locked away and forgotten.

"What are you reading?"

"It's a book of old legends about Death."

"That's a little morbid, why would you want to read something like that?"

"No, no! It's really interesting see? This culture here believes that Death isn't just one entity, right? Instead there's like, this whole anti-world of spirits, and if you say a particular death spirit's name out loud then they're bound on Earth until they grant you three favors. And this other culture says that you can make a deal with Death if you have something to offer in return!"

"What could you ever possibly offer Death?"

"…I dunno…Your soul, maybe?"

Movement. He snapped his attention back to the creature in front of him, only now it was closer than before.

A thin (not boney, he noted without thinking) hand reached out slowly. "I am truly sorry for this."

He scrambled backwards as best he could, clinging desperately to his brother's corpse. Not corpse, not corpse! "No!" And the pale hand stilled. The man's breath came in near-hysterical gasps. It wouldn't lay a finger on his family. He'd fight tooth and nail and die himself before he let that happen.

"…you can make a deal with Death if you have something to offer in return…"

His eyes narrowed. "You…you make deals, right? Make one with me."

The fingers twitched, curled inward; the hand pulled back and away. It was a swift, almost startled motion. The air shifted. "Make a deal?" The electricity that lined the voice hummed with confusion. "For what purpose?"

"My life for his. He lives, you get my soul." There was no hesitation. None.

And yet, Death still seemed unsure. "You are willing to trade yourself for him." It was not a question, more of a quiet statement of disbelief. Then the figure snapped out of whatever trance it may have been under. A light hiss of static as an almost inaudible laugh flickered through the air. There was no mirth, no malice. Just a laugh. "What use have I for your soul?"

Dark eyes narrowed even further. He opened his mouth to speak, not even thinking of just what he would say, but the spectre cut him off with a sobering jolt.

"But your request is genuine." The long black cloak fluttered as its wearer crouched beside the two. "So very different from what I have become used to hearing. Most plead for their own lives, yet you plead to save the life of another." The hood, and thus, the head, cocked to the side as it studied the human before it. "And why? Not for personal greed, but because you truly wish to save him." It settled back on its heels. "You…intrigue me, mortal."

This time, dark eyes widened. "Our deal? My soul-" The hand that had once reached to steal away the smaller of the two men now raised itself in a 'quiet, please' gesture. So very unlike what he had pictured the Grim Reaper to be.

"Is of no importance here." The strange, unearthly voice rang with an emotion not known to man. "There is no power on this plain or the next that can restore life to him, and for that I am sorry. His life has ended, this is his death."

"But you said-!"

"I said, mortal, that life cannot be restored." A pause to regain its patience. "But it can be transferred from one being to another." At this, Death reached up and took hold of the hood, tugging it down to reveal…A face. A normal, human, female face. She was pale, angular, with a sharp chin and high cheekbones. Her eyes were darker than the void of space, her hair just a few shades lighter if at all and pulled back into a long ponytail. With the hood gone, the electrical charge that surrounded them all grew stronger.

When next she spoke, he could see bluish-white sparks dancing across her tongue and lips, swirling in her eyes as she looked directly into him. "If you make this deal with me, then it is your very existence that you trade. Your life…" her gaze lowered to the boy in his arms, "for his life."

He sat, struck dumb, on the blood-soaked pavement. All he could do was stare at the decidedly un-Death-like creature in front of him. Her. Death is a her. Death is a woman. He licked his lips, willing his brain to kick-start. "I'll do it."

She looked back at him, hard. Her brows creased and she frowned. "Do you understand just what it is that you are asking for?" She leaned forward, closing the distance between them to emphasize the seriousness in her tone. The very oxygen buzzed. "Whatever time you may have had remaining shall be his, yes. However, this death that you trade for is not your death; it is his death. So too, is the life that you give to him not his life. He will not know you. Nor you, he. " She stared him down. "It will be as if you never even existed."

He swallowed. He breathed in and out, slowly, deeply. He closed his eyes and focused. He did all this, and still he could not stop shaking. From the cold, from the pain in his heart, from the sound of Death's voice so close to him. From rage. "You mean he won't remember me?" he spat viciously, "What the hell, no one told me that part!"

"You did not ask." Death shrugged. "But it does not matter. I cannot change the rules." She chuckled bitterly and for an instant she seemed more like a human than what she really was. "Even I am bound by rules, mortal." Her eyes grew hard as she swept them from one brother to the next and back again. She stared deep into him, piercing his very being with her black gaze.

"This is not your death." Her voice became hushed, strained. "You will walk in death, be of death, and yet death will not occur. At the end of this life, which you give to him, he will die. And at the end of this life, which is no longer yours, you, too, shall finally die."

"So as long as he lives, I do too? How does that one work?"

But she simply shook her head. "That is not for you to know."

He struggled not to notice just how cold his brother was in his grasp. Gonna be okay, it's gonna be okay, it's gonna be okay… He clenched his fingers without realizing what he was doing, blood drying and sticky as it coated his flesh. Everything felt diluted. All he could do was stare back into those never-blinking eyes.

"A half-life and an un-death, I give to you both. Your existence no longer your own, and yet not quite each others'. "

He didn't know what that meant, but it made his skin crawl. For Hanna. Do it for Hanna. He took a deep breath. "If I give up my life, it'll be like we never knew each other…won't it?"

"Yes."

Do it for Hanna.

"But I am not without kindness, mortal." A strange smile flitted across her features. Sympathy. She held out one thin, long-fingered hand, uncurling it towards him with a sense of finality. "Is it a deal, then?"

He looked at the hand offered with a numb feeling in his gut. Some small part of him, the part that knew exactly what this creature was, the part that was in charge of self-preservation, screamed at him to leave; to run as fast and as far away as he could from the cold touch of Death. But he squashed it down until it was silent. He allowed himself one last look at his fallen brother. He seemed so small, so frail. Not at all like the brother he had known.

He steeled himself as he looked back up at the phantom. His resolve was iron. "If it saves him, deal." And he clapped his hand into hers without a second thought.

"So be it. Walk in his death." At that, blue lightning coiled from her fingertips as her flesh dissolved into white bone.

The feeling of something being drained from his soul engulfed him. He let out a cry of shock and fear as it passed through him and he had to blink away a new wave of tears before he could see. Beyond blurred vision he saw Death as she truly was; a grinning skull where her face had once been, cut across by lines of glowing blue symbols and patterns that ran in vertical trails. Long, sharp, pointed teeth frozen into a ghastly smile; hollow eye sockets that blazed with blue sparks. Beautiful, terrible.

The lightning curled around his arm, pulling at him, sucking every ounce of strength from his very being. It wound its way back around, flowing up into the darkness of the robe that still hung about Death's skeletal frame. Then, she let go of his hand. He fell forward onto his arms. Too weak to even hold himself up.

As he struggled to stay conscious, Death reached over and lifted the still body out from under him. With a gentleness that only Death could have, she lay the boy down on his back just a little ways away from his still-living (for now) family. Delicate finger bones slipped between blood-splattered lips and parted them. She turned so that one pitch-black socket peered back at the foolish and brave young mortal who had just signed away his own existence. Even without eyes, that she was looking directly at him was unmistakably clear. "May you not come to regret your decision, if you even remember that you have made one."

And with that, her jaw opened and she loomed just above the dead child's face. She exhaled a softly glowing mist. It hovered for a split second in the air before gathering itself into one single mass of blue. Like a vacuum, it was sucked down and away, into the opened lips of the boy, down his throat in a spiral as Death breathed life back into his battered corpse.

Searing pain wracked through the older man's body then. It tore through his bones, scraped at his veins, coursed through his blood. It hurt, oh gods did it hurt and he screamed. He screamed loud and long and harsh, he screamed until there was no air left in his burning shell to scream with. His lungs felt like lead. When the pain finally receded he was left with only a numb cavern where his warmth had once been. He was so tired, so weak. Black crept in around the edges of his vision as he tried to lift his head.

He looked to his brother, one last hope. Past the haze that had settled upon him, he saw the boy's body twitch and jerk, that same blue mist seeping out of the gaping hole still in place along his torso. It covered him like a death shroud. But then the movements calmed. The mist absorbed into the boy's flesh. His head rolled to the side…and his eyes opened. Not fully, just a slit, but they were open and they were looking right at him – glowing blue with Death's magic.

And his life force.

He collapsed onto the concrete. He could feel himself dying, could feel his energy slipping away from him. But he didn't care anymore. All that was important was his brother, his younger brother who was limp and still and carved open, but alive. With the last of his strength, he reached a hand out towards the boy. He wouldn't remember. Would never even know that he had had any siblings. But he was alive. And that was what mattered most in the world.

He reached a little farther, just a little farther, just a hair's breadth away from touching his arm. Even if the boy didn't remember, his older brother would. He could leave him with the image of his face; the memory of someone who loved him giving him one last smile. Maybe it would be enough.

Just before his eyes closed for the final time, he saw Death scooping the small figure off the ground. She held him like an infant, cradled him against her as a mother would her child. She glanced toward the entrance of the alleyway, human-esque once more. "I know of a man, a doctor, not far from here. He will be safe with him."

"And what of this one?" asked a second voice from behind him, one that the dying man did not recognize. Male, soft, monotone.

"Take him to the nearest hallowed ground. He gave his existence out of love. Such an act deserves more than an unmarked grave, though it is the only thing we can give him now…"

"May his spirit find peace one day."

"Yes."

And oblivion took him; one thought ringing throughout his mind and slipping like a ghost from his lips.

"Hanna…"

And then the night was silent once again.

I have no idea what happened to Hanna. All I know is that yes, this is the injury that we see in the comic that left the nasty scar on his chest. How it got there is up to you. Also, if anyone was confused as to whom that second voice was, there's more than just one Death, remember?

I highly recommend listening to this song while reading; it just fits so perfectly and even syncs up in some places. It'll make the experience all the better in the end.

Musical Muse: The Legend of Dragoon Soundtrack – Destruction of Seles