A/N: Love this chapter. LOVE IT. I DIED WHILE WRITING IT and now I am dead fhdkfgldkg the first gnee appears.

I love Veser here, despite his utterly cracky concept. I hope you do, too!

PEE ESS FOR GODS SAKE DON'T DICK WITH THE SPELL ITS NONSENSE I AM TOO LAZY TO FIND A GAELIC TRANSLATOR GOD SO ASHAMED AND HUNGRY TOO MMM FOOD

Warnings: language, some disturbing/violent magical imagery

Selkies and Spellcraft

The Detective wasn't very good at texting.

He had never really had a chance to find this out before, but he managed to poke out a simple enough message on his flimsy pay-by-the-minute phone to arrange a Thursday night meeting with the witchdoctor Conrad had secured for them. Bowled over as he was by the coroner's unexpected tenacity, nine p.m. still seemed a little too early for something so shifty.

Little did he know, both the early night and the texting were mandatory … otherwise, parents might have gotten involved.

The warehouse section of the docks was a holey maze of corrugated iron and wet grey fog. The latter soaked into their heavy clothing, adding two pounds of weight and the sharp stench of dead fish. The ancient docks creaked terribly underneath their feet, black water sloshing close below.

The Detective felt Hanna drift closer to him, putting his warm body between him and the edge of the dock at all times. The Detective knew the little zombie disliked water intensely. He could only be coaxed into a run two ways: if his partner was in a life-threatening situation, or if a surprise shower hit the city. Hanna plainly did not want to be there, but his reluctance was an encouraging mark in more than one way. First, the speculated prize was enough to risk proximity to water; second, Hanna was clearly feeling things, even if they were negative.

The pair of investigators walked at a forcibly calm pace under a string of busted lamps until they came to warehouse 6A, one of the only buildings with the door still on its hinges. Shivering slightly in the heavy ocean cold, the Detective stopped to check his cellphone, affirming the meet-up place and the time on the tiny green screen. The warehouse's peeling façade towered above them, rusted holes giving way to the inky blackness inside.

The older man turned slightly when he felt a tug in his trench-coat pocket, then followed the line of a skinny stitched-up green arm. Hanna was pointing beyond the yellow light of the lamp, where a pair of stick-thin legs and a blue-grey hoodie was hanging by one of the peeling metal walls. The figure was absorbed in scuffing its green tennis-shoes on the rotting wood of the dock, posture hunched and rebellious.

The Detective stiffened a little, on guard against hoodlums and wary of having their privacy invaded, but the figure turned and the hood fell back.

"You Marc Raney?" the kid asked, flashing the most amazing teeth the Detective had ever seen. They barely seemed to fit in his mouth: small and sharp, they bristled from all directions, pristine and white and utterly terrifying. Like a lamprey. Just … shoved into the open mouth of a boy with strangely silvery hair and a thoroughly impatient expression, like he wanted to get on with this already.

"A kid," Hanna's whisper came from behind him, deadpan.

"Kid? Fuck, bet you a twenty I'm older'n you." The hoodlum snorted derisively, then opened one alarming highlighter-green eye and gave Hanna a scathing up-and-down. He blinked. "Whenever you croaked, I mean."

The Detective's mouth fell open, but he didn't have a chance to react further. Veser Amacker Falun, as he was called, shocked the older man again by wiping at his pug nose and slamming open the door to the dilapidated warehouse with his foot, creating an ear-splitting clang that made the Detective's cop side wince, even as he knew how rarely the dock area was patrolled.

"Well stop gaping already and get in, I don't want this to look like any more of a crack deal than it already does," Veser said blandly, rolling his eyes as he disappeared into the mouth of the sagging iron cave. "You losers better pay by the charm 'cos I'm fuckin' fast and I don't wanna be in here for more than an hour. I got homework."

For a moment, they were left out on the freezing dock, feet glued to the old wood. Hanna was the one to follow the witchdoctor's lead first, walking calmly into the black until his partner complied as well.

Every footstep echoed hollowly, only adding to the foreboding atmosphere of the empty warehouse. The zombie's eyes provided enough watery blue light to walk by until Veser produced an electric lamp from nowhere and created a new world about nine feet in diameter, soft at the edges and cast in yellows and sharpie-black shadows. The Detective felt the cold night solidify around him, now a tangible force to be beaten back by the buzz of electricity.

Until he found his voice, it was all the older man could do just to stand and watch the witchdoctor set up his gear.

"What are you, uh, studying?" the Detective asked at length, at a loss for what to say to get the conversation started. He was thrown off by the witchdoctor's mention of homework, but he did look young. Horribly young, and vagrant-ish to boot. Veser honestly looked like he would be completely at home bumming change in an arcade and relentlessly hitting on older women, which didn't do much for the older man's confidence.

That wasn't even taking into account that the kid had a fin on his hoodie. A fin? Really?

"Oh, I go to Creepy Old Basement Library University and I'm shooting for a Major in Sea-Magic with a minor in Voodoo."

When the Detective didn't appear to get the joke (or, indeed, didn't seem to be the joking type, at least when his zombie partner was concerned), the young man shook his head, looking grim.

"Gen ed, and it's slow going. Fuckin' hate school."

Veser ransacked his battered backpack looking for his materials, haphazardly throwing aside a shiny Nintendo DS to get to a divining bowl. He dug to get candles — nine of them, all white but smeared with lint and pencil lead— and set them aside before groping around on the filthy boarded-up floor. When he found the board he was looking for, he lifted it up with a grunt, revealing a rune-circle much, much more intricate than the one Hanna had scribbled out in the abandoned housing project. White lines crisscrossed the center like a dream-catcher, words of an unknown language spiraling over the edges.

Noticing the pair staring, Veser turned and puffed his chest out.

"Put it here myself a few months ago. Dumbasses never think to check under the boards," he said with perverse pride, obviously quite pleased to be beating the Man. Veser returned to his prep-work, and Hanna and the Detective left him in silence for the most part, both of them obviously thinking over the information that the supernatural contractor had given to Conrad. Conrad hadn't mentioned they would be dealing with a teenager, but had specified the witchdoctor's race and his half-exiled status, which was yet another mystery.

"I thought selkies were girls," Hanna said out of nowhere, watching Veser's scuffling almost doubtfully.

The teen snorted as if severely annoyed with what seemed to be a common and frequently voiced misconception.

"You just hear about the chicks. Sexiest things out there, downright addicted to getting abducted and having ballads written about it. Guy selkies are exactly the same, you just don't find many chicks willing to club them over the head and drag them back home to be hubbies. They're still sexy as hell and magical and shit." Veser paused to gather some bottles, the glass clinking sharply in the cavernous warehouse. He emptied their clear contents into the divining bowl then leaned back to wiggle his eyebrows and drawl, "That way, I'm all selkie."

"Are you…" the Detective trailed off, unsure how to proceed when given such cryptic hints from a boy who seemed to take offense quite easily.

"Half-breed," Veser said promptly, bright green eyes locked on the powders he was mixing in a Tupperware bowl. The older man looked to Hanna and could take no knowledge of selkie mating habits from his glowing blue eyes. He tugged at his faded black tie.

"Do selkies usually…"

"Christ, what's with the third degree, Humphrey-fucking-Bogart? And all the fuckin' half-sentences? You really hot on ellipses or some shit? You want my whole fuckin' life-story?" the witchdoctor fired off sharply, turning around to glare at them with his thorny teeth poking contemptuously past his lip.

That was far too many questions from one snotty teen, so the pair of investigators just stared at him blankly, waiting for Veser to make his own conclusions. Even as the witchdoctor looked intensely annoyed that they would ask, he also looked intensely annoyed at everything and anything at all, so Veser settled down rather quickly with a grumpy okayfinewhatever as he set to mixing his powders in earnest.

"Selkies don't bump with humans if they can help it, but it happens. Did with my mom, obviously. Some asshole raped her and she had me."

His flat tone and unflinching work unnerved the Detective more than anything; even Hanna cocked his head curiously.

"He didn't get the 'steal pelt first, rape later' memo and she ended up biting his head off or some shit. Yeah, and I had to grow up like that, and she still never really decided whether she wanted me around. Only stopped by every three years or something. Not the tenderest of upbringings, but hey, we got to go to the beach allll the fuckin' time."

Veser rolled his eyes, then continued his tale free of encouragement, apparently firmly seated on his tangent.

"She died a few days ago. One of the main sea-witches around and it goes genetically. Selkie witches can only have one pup and they aren't supposed to have boys but that's what human gene-fucking does to you, so she missed her shot and I got the title anyways."

"So you're … a sea-witch?" the Detective said hesitantly, spiraling further out of his depth by the moment.

"Hey, dude," the pointy-teeth boy said, looking severely un-amused. "Sea-wizard sounds just plain gay."

As Veser went back to work, the older man could see why this boy wasn't welcome in the mainstream, and not just because of his half-blood status. Maybe he'd learned to be obnoxious as a defense mechanism to being exiled, but it worked. If the Detective's own experience was any indication, it certainly kept people looking for the nearest exit.

Veser was throwing out incense sticks with negligence, sending them rolling over the dirty floor, then upended his bag and shook it violently. A single, fat, red sucker fell out and he ahhed in victory. He snatched it up and stuck it between his teeth while it was still in its wrapper, looking satisfied for the moment.

"Kay, wheel pulseless over here," the sea-witch muttered, lurching to his feet and brushing off his jeans. Suddenly, the sucker wrapper was gone—had he even taken it out of his mouth? The fact that he spit it to the side a second later and swished the sucker to the other side of his mouth said no.

Unnerved by the half-selkie's swiss army knife mouth, the Detective started to put a hand to Hanna's shoulder, but it was unnecessary. The young zombie was already padding towards the middle of the magic circle, blue eyes empty of apprehension or excitement or fear. Veser grudgingly stepped back to let the light of the electric lamp hit Hanna in full, slouching as he studied the small yellow-washed zombie. He inspected Hanna's hands, his luminous eyes, his stitches, and even took a curl of his unexpectedly bright red hair and frowned at it.

After a long pause, Veser poked him in the side of the head. Then he poked Hanna again. It was okay the first and second time, but it got just plain unceremonious the third time. When the Detective opened his mouth to protest, the sea-witch made an impatient sound and stepped back, crossing his arms.

"He shouldn't be this … dead."

"But he is dead," the Detective said cautiously, unused to doubting the very definition of very basic words. There wasn't much deader you could get than no pulse and he had never seen Hanna breathe or attempt to.

"I know, but — dude, seriously, who's the expert on voodoo here?" Veser demanded nastily, which got the older man to shut his mouth rather quickly. Veser snapped and motioned to Hanna, who stood looking passively at the far wall. "I mean, look at him. Rot hasn't set in on his brain or anything and on a scale of just-born to dust he's like, 'just stopped breathing'. Barely dead, or even like mostly dead in terms of zombies. He should be a little perkier than this."

Veser hmmmed and actually looked a little professional for a minute as he poked at Hanna's temple again, who turned a bit but still didn't blink.

"Think something's stuck in his pipes."

"What can you do?" Hanna's partner asked, crossing his arms and messing with his sleeves to hide his sudden anxiety. He plainly didn't like the idea of Veser rummaging around in Hanna's insides, especially if the way he treated his backpack was any indication of his level of care.

"What the man does," Veser said arrogantly, taking a second to puff out his scrawny chest again before going back to his knees and bringing out a piece of chalk.

He drew out a smaller circle over the already-existing seal and hatched it nine different ways with a practiced hand, then rimmed it with the powders he had just mixed, plus a little sea-salt. Like some kind of rusty supernatural generator had been jumpstarted, a burst of power flickered through him and the circle. A blue haze went over his eyes and slipped beneath his skin, but the Detective could have sworn he saw the shadow of a sinewy sea creature with a fin in the filmy bounds of Veser's body; then it was gone.

When his senses returned, Veser was murmuring in a complex, melodic Gaelic-sounding language; the older man's anxiety for Hanna clashed with the rising humidity in the air.

"What … is this? What are you doing?"

He could hear the sea grinding away outside the warehouse and found himself staring upwards at the slats of moonlight in the roof, like he expected black water to come pouring in. The very night seemed to condense into pressing water and sharp salt, twisted by Veser's spell.

"It's sorta an all-purpose crowbar charm. Blunt force and wide range. If it doesn't work, we know we're dealing with something nastier than the charm-equivalent of a window."

Seawater crashed against the side of the warehouse, making the Detective jump. Veser looked up and grinned, eyes and teeth glowing out of the depths of his hood with an otherworldly light.

"Water cleanses, but it can also drown your ass. They don't call me a sea-witch for nothing."

The Detective swallowed hard and looked to Hanna, no longer doubting the half-selkie's expertise but still unspeakably anxious. Was this a smart decision? Could they have statements from other customers first before allowing a teenager to mess with the very fabric of what kept Hanna alive? All of his previous confidence was forgotten, replaced with the pathetic image of his partner and silent friend marooned in the middle of a spell circle, helpless and trapped in the dark.

But then, how was that different than their current predicament?

The tiny zombie, ushered into place by Veser slapping at his ankles, looked back at his partner blankly. He had nothing to say and the Detective couldn't bring himself to speak, or force Hanna to care about the amount of water involved in this. Submitting to what appeared to be fate, the Detective finally stepped back out of the circle and watched as Veser knelt at the front of the seal, lit all nine candles with a zippo lighter and raised his arms.

"Muir muir eslanatin protiferus malun, muir muir reacon finus."

The older man could feel the magic rising around him, the sea shifting restlessly in response. The air smelled salty and rich. It was different from what he'd felt with the djinn: less gauged towards total destruction. It felt … big, pressing, all-encompassing. Capable of either cocooning or crushing.

Hanna watched Veser's every single movement meticulously, as sucked into the spell as the selkie. Veser chanted them deeper and deeper into the circle, then threw a handful of powder into the divining bowl.

With the last word of the spell, the candles around them flared so brightly that the Detective grunted and flinched backwards. When the flare ended, the suddenly-green flames were burning so intensely they visibly ate through the columns of wax, candles burning lower and lower and lower like some awful movie sped up. The Detective felt the night air around him tighten dangerously; deep in his chest, beneath his staples and twisted skin, he felt the crash that Veser had promised.

On some cosmic plane, a crowbar met a window, but there was a vacuum inside the window and when the glass shattered, it tried to suck everything in.

Feet swept out from under him, the Detective fell down to the filthy boarded-up floor with a boom and held onto the ground. He barely managed to force an arm above his head to shield himself from any debris, black trench coat whipping violently around his legs. He looked up in time to see Hanna, lit a brilliant white by the circle, go up to the tips of his battered Vans. Every stitch-riddled limb was pulled taut by the power cocooning him, his bright blue eyes staring endlessly into the rafters of the warehouse. Veser was reduced to a crouching silhouette in front of him, shouting more spellwords above the roar.

Heart going high in his throat, the Detective kept himself from running or crawling into the circle only by the barest of willpower. He knew now, you didn't interrupt spells unless you particularly desired to mess everything up, but the splitting pain in his chest did a good enough job of keeping him pinned to the floor. The singular crackling gravity of the white circle seemed to have looped hooks into each of his staples, inflaming the black space beneath as it pulled and pulled and pulled at the bits of metal that kept him together.

The cyclone of power went on forever and a moment and the Detective watched with his hands crammed over his shaking chest, face twisted in pain. Then, like there was wire connected to every joint of him, Hanna convulsed at thirteen different angles and was slammed down to his knees, green fingers clawing at the glowing floor. His skinny form jerked and his mouth opened. It almost looked like the small zombie was breathing in until he jerked again and red fluid came bursting out of his mouth and down his chin. The Detective could hear the sharp splatter as it hit the floor, gallons of it, and something rolled to the side in the flow, covered with the slick dead substance.

The Detective barely saw Veser's skinny arm thrust into the circle to grab the crackling sphere out of the pool of red, but was up on his knees by that point, fighting towards Hanna's twisted form with all the strength left in his brainstem.

"Don't go into the circle, dumbass!" Veser shouted over the last of the noise, looking away and dousing his entire hand into the divining bowl with a roar of his own. The purified seawater in the bowl steamed and crackled, turning black. The green smoke curled up his arm, making his veins flare the same color.

Kneeling at the very edge of the circle, the Detective looked at Hanna's crouching form, frozen in place as the roar faded down to a whisper and the warehouse slowly materialized around them again. At last, the white faded from the rune circle and the water outside fell back to its heavy cling around the silty grey seabed. As the Detective watched, the blue light in Hanna's eyes went out and he slumped to the floor like a doll.

For a moment, there was only Hanna, motionless and dark on the floor, red soaking slowly and steadily into his oversized t-shirt as the electric lamp buzzed on and on and on.

"You killed him!" the Detective shouted hoarsely, the numbness fading from his skin only to be replaced with hard fear. His hands were numb as he struggled into the circle and grappled Hanna's upper half into his lap, looking fearfully at the looseness of his neck, the curl of his fingers.

"Are you fuckin' listening to yourself?" Veser snarled as he stumbled behind him, green eyes wide in abject horror.

It was obvious he didn't know what he'd just done and his hands were shaking too badly to pretend otherwise. His entire body crackled with fading power, making him fight not to hyperventilate. His left hand, badly burned, was held just behind his back, limp and useless, but the pain was totally overwhelmed by the fact he might have just killed someone. Again.

"Just-just shut up and watch, he'll come around. Just watch. He's got to." Veser craned fearfully over the older man's shoulder, then whimpered, "Come on, little dead dude. Come on."

"Hanna? Hanna."

The Detective said it like a prayer, willing some sort of movement into the limp young man draped over his legs. He ran his fingers over Hanna's back, his arms, his hair, not looking for warmth but some kind of flicker. He didn't know what he was looking for, but he would know it when he found it.

For minutes and minutes, he sat with his hand over the zombie's silent heart, waiting and fearing and hoping.

At last, Hanna made a small, weak noise and that sound made the magic breath come back into his body. Pressure finally voiding in his aching chest, the Detective said something relieved and nonsensical and the noise made the small zombie look up. The innocent blue light had returned to his eyes but was a bit less blinding, showing a little more of the cornflower corneas beneath. Very, very weakly, Hanna looked up at his partner and his cupid's-bow mouth drifted up at the edges.

"Hey."

It came out of his stained mouth as a bit of a gasp, but the older man forced himself to smile back to make up for it. The Detective put his warm hand on the tender space in between Hanna's bird-bone shoulder blades, feeling his back cool and dry underneath his shirt. They would throw the red-blotted shirt out. Never do this again. Quiet was better than inanimate. Unsure was better than nothing.

"You smiled."

"Really?" Hanna whispered, closing his eyes. His mouth tugged downwards. "That's… kinda funny. 'Cos I feel like I just barfed up my s-soul or something and that doesn't sound like … smiling material."

Hanna looked up and gave another weak smile, head lolling to rest against the Detective's red-stained leg.

"It's okay, Marcus. Wait. Heh. Guess that's … too close to your fake name, huh? I was going for, like, Marcus Aurelius but … eh. Oh jeez, my head."

Hanna was severely confused and nauseated. His partner could tell from the expression on his round face, which he had never seen before. No, he had never seen an expression before now, only remnants of them. Never had 'like' made an appearance, either.

The Detective's frown tightened as he realized something was very, very different with the zombie on his lap – if not very, very wrong.

"Hanna?" he said cautiously, a world of apprehension and fear hidden in the two suddenly unfamiliar syllables. Rising to his stitched-up elbows, Hanna shook his head; the movement was more quick and sloppy than all of his other movements over the past two months all put together.

"Man, what hit me and can I hit them back? Seriously."

He groaned again and was staggering to his feet before his partner could stop him. Once upright, he lurched into the Detective's chest, accepting the support and fully absorbed in reeling from his head to his toes. All of it showed on his expression, the likes and intensity of which left his partner absolutely speechless.

"Oh, wow. I think I … feel better?"

"You feel?" the Detective managed to say, voice almost stricken, but Hanna didn't have time for him when he had just discovered himself. The zombie was patting at his own skinny chest, jaw cocked to the side, brows twisted, fingers knotted, eyes wide.

Then he pointed at his partner, amazement shining out of his very eyes as his mouth popped into an open grin.

"Wait. Wait. It's me! And it's you! And I can talk like I didn't know I wanted to and my god, hey, wow! Forget okay, I feel great!" he exclaimed and flung his hands out, voice going so high it cracked, which made the Detective flinch like it was a gunshot.

With that, Hanna looked down at himself again, patting down his stained shirt with a look that was disgruntled and curious and amused all at the same time, all of the emotions crowding his pointy green nose and blue eyes.

"Also still kind of dusty, though, and wugh that smell, is that me? I hope it's not but I'm sure we can like febreeze that away — for everything you can't wash there's febreeze huh and I'm pretty sure I'd melt in the washing machine or something and man speaking of washing machine when's the last time my clothes got run through and what was I thinking with this shirt, seriously."

A multitude of emotions tangled inside the Detective's chest, just under his heart and just above his gut, but he could do nothing but stare. The spectacle in front of him was almost too much to layer atop the wound left by the terror of the spell. It was like he was afraid that Hanna's round face was simply going to tear apart from so many expressions pulling it all different ways all at once and the shock and wariness showed on his own (comparably inflexible) face, making Hanna's own expression drop when he caught sight of him.

"Oh. God. I'm different," Hanna whispered, one hand to his quiet chest. The statement, so obvious and yet so necessary, seemed to stay in the dusty air between them, hemmed in by the absolute darkness of the warehouse. The zombie stared into his partner's blank face for a minute, then winced so hard it seemed to hurt him, voice tightening. "Do you still like me?"

"Yes," the Detective managed after a minute. For a moment, it seemed like that one word would be his last, then the faintest ghost of a chuckle steadied him. He laughed, and Hanna heard it.

The instant, violent brightening on Hanna's face honestly disturbed him just as much as the spell had. It was like a video of the slow, incautious but steady-moving boy he had watched for months was suddenly sped up to an insane speed, complete with gibbering chipmunk voice.

And he realized it was amazing.

"Yes, Hanna. I like you. I like you very much."

"Oh. Man. Good," Hanna whispered so faintly, but the Detective could see the relief in his wide blue eyes and that sheer fact cut him at the knees in the greatest of ways.

"Hey, so, you're not dead. Go me."

Startled, the pair of investigators looked to the side to see Veser standing by the messy rune-circle, shaking out his hand, which looked a little blackened at the edges. He tucked it into his hoodie pocket before they could make a conclusion, jerking his chin towards the zombie. His grin was equal parts horrible teeth and ego.

"You still got all your stitches, kid?"

"For the love of – I'm not a kid!" Hanna grit out, face crumpling in the exact same way as it had when Conrad had doubted his age: it was like seeing a sketch fleshed out into full color, and the startling difference made the Detective laugh again from pure shock. Perking up like a puppy, Hanna looked over and grinned at the very sound, obviously forgetting the offense immediately. Veser took advantage of Hanna's distractible nature, which easily joined 'flighty' and 'over-eager' in the list of new traits the dead boy had accumulated in the last five minutes.

"Eh, whatever, you'll just spend the rest of your undead life looking like one." Veser shrugged, then wiped at his nose with his free hand. "Yeah, so, back to my totally awesome skills of magical deduction. You want the full diagnosis? It'll cost you fifty extra."

The Detective nodded, unable to take his eyes off of Hanna. Veser gestured grandiosely to the zombie.

"This dude here's totally been mind-sealed."

"Mind-sealed? You're certain. What was that thing that came out of him?" Hanna's partner asked tensely, knowing instinctively that the two were connected.

"It totally fucking disintegrated and nearly ate my hand in the process but it looked like a sealer. Someone probably sewed it into him to cement the spell but didn't think about the stupidity of putting it into his stomach or something."

Veser winced as he clenched his hand experimentally. Obviously it still stung and would require some bandages. Hanna studied his face, lower lip poking out slightly.

"Is your hand alright? I know dispelling sealers can be pretty bad," Hanna said worriedly, tugging at the hem of his stained shirt. His hand slipped into his pocket, presumably rummaging for a sharpie. "I know a few runes that can take the sting off, if you want."

Veser blinked at him, obviously getting used to the idea of addressing him directly as a person and not 'that zombie'. Hanna also seemed to 'remember' some really weird things for having a sealed mind. That, and he didn't let other people work hoodoo or charms or whatever on him. It was one of his things.

"Er, no, I'm … good. Thing is, you still have your memories, someone's just cutting them off," the sea-witch explained, sounding amazingly bored. He paused to pick at something in his awful teeth. "You just have to find a way to unlock 'em. Maybe time'll do it, but I don't think so. That shit was nasty. Oh, and this goes waaaaay fuckin' outta my magic-mojo domain, but if you find the right guy, you can totally bring him back."

"What?" The Detective exclaimed, eyes widening. He couldn't even focus on the news that Hanna still had his memories; the idea of reversing the young man's skin-tone to a pale peach was too much for him. "Bring back … Hanna? Bring him back to life?"

"Look at him, dude's like market fresh," Veser scoffed, gesturing offhandedly to the zombie. "He's only been in the ground for what, like, a year? That's cake. He doesn't even have any dry-rot. Someone dug him up real quick and did an expert job animating him. There'll be a really fucking messy scene when they pop him back, but he'll live."

"Man, I wanna be a real boy again." Hanna's face scrunched up, lip twisting, then he pointed at his partner and cried excitedly, "Pinocchio!"

"You are remembering things," the Detective said softly, overwhelmed by the sheer complexity in Hanna's expression.

There was a moment of mutual, over-awed staring before Hanna abruptly began hopping up and down, yelling oh my god oh my god oh my freaking god and rattling the very floorboards despite his feathery weight. The Detective said it himself several times, but he really just mouthed it because he just couldn't get the words out. He was just that happy, happy in a sharp and overpowering way like he hadn't been since he'd woken up alone in a forest, and then all of a sudden Hanna was in his arms, legs wrapping around his waist like the happiest little lemur in the world.

They clutched and hugged and laughed uproariously, the Detective still shocked by every little slam of bright brash sound out of the boy, all that volume and vibration and force and so much will to live. Then they cracked their heads together and all of it stopped with a muffled noise. Hanna froze against his chest, then reluctantly leaned back and grinned in his partner's face, sheepish.

"Ur. Hi," he chuckled, voice very, very tiny. One hand crept up to ruffle at the back of his red hair.

"Hi," the Detective answered, grinning so hard it hurt as he put a hand to where he had slammed into Hanna's forehead. Hanna's nose wrinkled and he snickered, plopping his chin down on his partner's shoulder.

"Wooooow."

Again, they both looked over to where Veser stood, forgotten. His arms were crossed, incredulity and 'what the fuck now' skepticism in his highlighter green eyes. The half-selkie looked at the holey ceiling and waved his hand dismissively.

"Happy reunion with a heaping side of awkward. I'll just … get out of your incredibly gay hair, then, soon's you pay the bill. Use protection."

"Thank you. Thank you so much," the Detective breathed, pushing Hanna's curly head under his chin, who gave a noise that he would come to hear quite often in the future and know only as gnee.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Two hundred and fifty bucks."

Veser put his hand out imperiously and the Detective let go of Hanna long enough to fish five fifties out of his wallet, messily folding them into the kid's outstretched palm. He didn't even feel the money leave him. Veser saluted them and gathered the necessary stuff into his backpack as Hanna untangled himself from his partner, apologizing haltingly and ineptly for his over-exuberance. The sea-witch grabbed up the electric lamp and slung his backpack over his shoulder and turned to go, then he stopped, frowning.

"You gotta think, though. He's got a lot of stitches on him."

"He's dead," the Detective said. The awful sentence didn't even make a dent on his smile, but the next one did. "The stitches are probably from when the medical examiner …"

The Detective trailed off. Hanna's body had never been found. There would be no incisions that didn't occur before he died.

"Yeah, but stitches can tell you a lot 'bout what happened before you died. Maybe even how you died," Veser suggested, kicking the stub of a candle out of its wax-pile. "Too bad you don't have some guy, like a … you know like a morgue guy. He could probably tell you some kinda crap like that. Eh. Anyways. Catch ya later."

The sea-witch departed the warehouse with a boom of a door, leaving the Detective and Hanna alone in the dark with the black sea shifting restlessly below them, subdued but never absent.