What's this? Hanna Is Not A Boy's Name fanfiction? Yeah...I adore this comic and I love writing about it so in honor of the comic being updated today i wrote a fanfic. It's starts out kind of silly and turns kinda serious...so warnings for blood I guess.
HiNaBN belongs to the lovely Tessa Stone.
He couldn't do it. He would never be able to do it. Conrad Achenlek stared glumly as the orange haired old man walked around the corner and disappeared.
"You could have got that one, Connie!" Hanna said exasperated. "He was so slow; all you would have had to do was walk up behind him and bite down!" Conrad glared at him.
"It's not as easy as it looks, ok." He said. "Besides, he was elderly. How would you like to have that on your conscience?"
"It wouldn't have been on mine." Hanna snorted. "If you want, me and Pablo can go and get some coffee so you could have some privacy." Conrad rolled his eyes. The kid obviously thought that offing someone for your own dinner was like trying to go to the bathroom in front of an audience. It would have been funny if the he wasn't so annoyed at the moment.
He had gone to see Worth (God help him) to get his dinner for this week. Worth had been willing to hand it over, but a tiny paper cut on Conrad's left index finger caught his eye when the vampire had reached for the blood bag.
"What's that, eh?" he had asked, pulling the blood bag away from Conrad's outstretched hand and motioning to the cut. Conrad had recoiled and mumbled something about an electric bill envelope that had got the better of him.
"Ow' long ya 'ad it?" worth asked, eyeing him skeptically.
"Uhhh…I don't know…three days maybe." Conrad had answered, making it sound a bit like a question. He knew what was coming. It wasn't natural for humans to still have bleeding paper cuts after three day. So obviously, it wouldn't be natural for a vampire to have one. Worth had been on him since the day they met about drinking "fresh" blood. But he couldn't stomach the idea. Worth stared at him as he if was an idiot.
"Yer an idiot." Worth said, confirming the unsaid thing in his gaze. "Tha's never gonna heal unless ya' get something fresh in ya. That bagged crap ya drink is basically for keepin ya full, but it won' give ya any substance. S'like a human living off of that yuppie crap. Keeps em full, but they won' grow any hair on their chests from it."
Conrad fought the urge to give a very yuppie-ish "gross!" at the hairy chest comment. Worth had given him crap about the blood thing for a full six minutes before he had handed over the blood bag and forced Conrad to promise to go on a "hunting" trip with Hanna and his zombie side kick before the week was out.
And so here they sat. The zombie who happened to be "Pablo" at the moment was crouched on one side of Conrad while Hanna with his thick rimmed glasses and inerasable grin sat on the other. They were hiding behind a row of four trashcans in a dark alley. The sun had set a while ago and Hanna had appeared on Conrad's doorstep clad in a black sweater and black pants with a black knit beanie pulled down over his red head. Pablo wore the same thing he always wore, Orange button up shirt under a black trench coat with his signature black fedora. Conrad stared glumly at the flickering streetlight over head and wondered, for the millionth time why he had agreed to this. Oh yeah, cause Worth was a jerk and Hanna had a set of large blue eyes that could have given Shirley Temple a run for her money and could guilt you into anything.
"Why don't we just face the fact that this is never going to work and Worth can just-"
"SHHH!" Hanna gasped. "Here comes another one! Oh, Connie! You got this one in the bag!" at that moment a middle-aged woman with bleached blond hair that glowed in the artificial street light turned the cornert. She took a drag on her cigarette and Conrad wrinkled his nose.
"I can't drink her blood! She smokes!" Conrad whined. Hanna's head swiveled towards the vampire and gave him a disbelieving look. His mouth fell open to protest but Pablo cut him off.
"Conrad doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to, Hanna." It was one of those rare moments when the zombie would come to his aid and he couldn't have been more grateful for the green skinned sidekick.
"But he will die!" Hanna said his arms flailing dramatically over his head. "Franklin, he has to drink real blood or he'll shrivel up like a…hey where's he going?" Conrad had jumped to his feet and started towards the woman. She looked up from the battered cell phone that she had been punching numbers into and quirked an eyebrow at him.
"Can I help you?" she asked in a surprising southern drawl.
"Sure as heck you can!" he said in what he hoped was a menacing voice as he launched himself at her. Her brown eyes widened, but she didn't have time to react as his head slammed into her shoulder and they tumbled to the ground. He distantly heard Hanna whisper a "Holy crap" but his mind was too preoccupied with the fluttering blue vein under the woman's spray tanned skin. He sunk his single fang into it and she went completely rigid. Blood filled his mouth and he felt his eyes almost rolled back in his head. Was this what heaven felt like? Warm and sweet with just a hint of tanginess that made his taste buds sing. He could hear speaking behind him and part of him wanted to listen, but another more powerful part told him to keep drinking. He drank and drank until a gurgled cry cut through his personal silence and he pulled himself off of her. She was dead before her head fell back and hit the concrete. Dread replaced the warmness in his gut and he spun around horrified too see Hanna and Franklin wearing identical masks of shock.
"I didn't-you told me too-I had to…" Conrad sputtered. He needed to find an excuse to justify the thing that he had just done, something other than, "I was hungry!" Too his amazement, Hanna threw his arms around him and hugged him fiercely.
"You did it, Conrad!" Hanna praised, using his real name for once in a long time. "I can't believe you actually did it." Conrad pushed him away and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
"I just killed a woman." He said in an uncharacteristically low voice. "I killed a woman because I was hungry and I felt like I had too."
"Actually…" said the zombie. Conrad noticed that he was talking quite a bit more than normal "You killed a woman because you would die if you hadn't. Don't feel bad. There's worse you could have done." Conrad gaped at him for a second then shrugged Hanna's concerned look off. He turned and left the two standing in the alley, Franklin's orange gaze unwavering as they watched him go. He wasn't mad at them. They were only trying to help him do what was best for him. But he needed to think. He pulled his iPhone out of his jean pocket and dialed a number that was regrettably becoming familiar. After four rings a gruff voice answered.
"Wha' d'ya wan?" asked worth, his voice thick with sleep.
"I killed someone…just like you wanted me too." Conrad said, trying not to sound bitter. "The kid and the zombie watched." There was a soft, unbelieving sound on the other line.
"Didn't think ya had it in ya, Connie." Worth congratulated in a way that only Worth could. "So wha' d'ya wan, really?"
"I want to know why I don't feel bad about it…"
A wheezy laugh erupted through the phone and Conrad flinched. So, this is how things were going to be. Bitter questions, bitter answers, and late night "hunting" sprees in which a graphic designer becomes a murderer and is completely ok with it.