Unfair

He had told him not to run ahead.

He always told Hanna not to run ahead, and of course, Hanna never listened. He was always three steps in front of everyone else, leaping into danger with little more than a marker, a hammer and a smile. He would leap ahead and his zombie companion would follow, pulling Hanna from the fire every time and begging Hanna to slow down at least a bit. And then Hanna would always smile and apologize and promise to not do it again and then they would both smile because they both knew Hanna could not stop throwing himself into danger any more than his zombie friend could stop worrying about it. This was just how things were.

It wasn't fair, but it was how things were.

It shouldn't have been a surprise that things happened the way they did, yet some part of him couldn't seem to comprehend the sight of Hanna bleeding to death on the grimy floor.

He knows it shouldn't have been shocking. For all his powers and secrets, Hanna was the most worryingly human of all of them. His zombie partner was already a dead man and couldn't die again, Conrad was a vampire and for all his neurosis's when push came to shove he could find a way to protect himself, Toni was a werewolf and was honestly probably the strongest of all of them, Worth seemed capable of surviving just about anything and even Veser and Ples seemed to have some strange abilities. Hanna, on the other hand, was human, and with humanity came weaknesses and vulnerabilities that they'd all known were there. There were times when one could almost forget this fact, and with all the things the redhead had survived it wasn't so hard to push the thought to the back of one's mind. His companion knows he shouldn't have found everything so surprising considering how often he worried about the subject, but even he had to admit some part of him had taken the redhead's energetic stride for granted. Hanna walked and talked as if he were invincible, and though of course they all had witnessed enough trips to Worth's office to know Hanna was anything but, in some strange way they had almost believed it.

But Hanna was not invincible.

Hanna was human, woefully human, and smaller and more danger prone than the average one at that. He'd known that, he'd known and worried enough to feel he understood better than anyone just how fragile Hanna really was. Yet somehow he couldn't seem to wrap his mind around the whole thing even as he knelt down and pulled the twenty-four year old into his arms. Hanna is of course smiling even as he coughs up blood and apologizes, as if the problem were the fact that some small time crook managed to get away and not the bullet wound in his stomach. He shakes his head as green fingers reach out to push Hanna's thin, bloodsoaked ones out of the way as he tries to get a look at the wound. And of course the redhead stops him, small, shaking hands grasping weakly at his as he continues to smile and admits there's really nothing that can be done at this point.

He wants so badly to ignore those words, to simply shrug them away like other protests of Hanna's that he's ignored when it came to the paranormal investigator's health. He wants to scoop him up and drag him to Worth's and listen to the doctor yell and scream because Hanna got himself injured again and the yelling would make sense because that would mean Hanna was okay. He wants to see Hanna get better, wants to tell himself this is the same as always and in the end the redhead would be alright and he'd scold Hanna for running ahead again and it would all be okay.

But of course he was never one for lying, especially to himself. He knew Hanna was right and there was no way around it, and it seemed so impossibly unfair that for once the redhead was right.

It wasn't fair.

That's all he can seem to think as he holds Hanna close and listens to the redhead's weakened whispers, feeling as if he's shattering into a thousand pieces with every word Hanna manages to choke out. Those pained words sound so impossibly wrong to his ears, as if they're coming from a different time, a different place, a different person, anyone but the Hanna he knew. It could not be Hanna because Hanna was not a weak, dying man. Hanna could not be dying because Hanna was life itself, giving breath and energy to everything around him as he ran about with reckless abandon and turned everything upside down. This could not be Hanna.

But it was, and in a way it seems so strangely fitting. Hanna was life itself, light made tangible, and the idea of him ever growing old and slow, of life slowly ebbing away as time etched lines into his face and age stole him away, that seemed all the more impossible. No, it seemed strangely fitting that Hanna would die young, going out as he lived, like some sort of shooting star that existed for one moment of brilliance before burning into nothing.

It was fitting, but it didn't make it any less cruel.

It's cruel and unfair and that's all he can think as dead fingers clutch at Hanna's bloodsoaked shirt, as if his grip would be enough to keep death away. He'd fought off vampires and ghosts, stood between the redhead and angry mummies and harpies, chased away nightmares and bad memories. He's supposed to protect Hanna from everything, but of course he never could protect Hanna from him own recklessness.

So he clings to Hanna's shirt and he feels something within him twist, as if he's being torn apart by emotions he's normally so used to not really expressing. And of course Hanna's just smiling through agony, laughing weakly and insisting that it's all fine and of course it's not because he can see the fear in those blue eyes and in a way it's almost insulting that Hanna can say that it's fine, because it is not fine.

If Hanna was his life and he was dead, then if Hanna was gone what does he have left?

He supposes that makes him selfish, to want Hanna to stay because Hanna is all he has. It's impossibly selfish, but to live was to be selfish, and he'd already done it twice so he supposed he had a bit of a right to be more selfish than the average person. He wants so badly to insist that this isn't true, to give Hanna his second chance, to do anything if it'll keep the redhead there and breathing. It's impossibly selfish, but of course selfish wishes cannot chase away the fear in those eyes. So he clings to the dying child in the body on a man on the floor and he forces a smile that doesn't quite make it to his lips, and all the while he's just desperately insisting that this cannot be in his mind.

He clings and he hopes but of course there's nothing he can do but try to say something reassuring, empty words rumbling in his chest. He speaks and of course Hanna just apologizes, babbling things about how they never did manage to find his name and he's so very sorry about that, and oh Hanna how can you think that even matters now? What was a name in comparison to something like this? And of course Hanna just laughs and keeps talking and the two sit there and murmur to each other even as Hanna's grip grows weaker and pale skin gets a grayish, dusty sort of tinge and electric blue dulls to something distant and glazed.

Hanna finally falls silent for a moment, the occasional hiccups of breath growing farther and farther apart. "Hey," He finally breaths out after a moment, and his voice sounds so distant and exhausted. "Hey... you said before that of the names I gave you, you really liked Ghallahad, right?"

His mind flicks back to a different time, of the dim lighting of a bar and a now missing fedora, of Conrad back when they'd first met and his confusion at the name, and he almost smiles. "Yeah," He murmurs as his grip tightens on Hanna's hand. "I remember."

"Maybe you should stick with it.... 's a good name, you know?" Hanna's voice slurred at the end, his eyelids fluttering shut as if he were drifting off to sleep, his body going limp.

And then he was gone, leaving nothing behind but a smile.

His friend is left alone on a grimy floor with nothing but a dead body and the drying blood on his gloves. There's no words for the agony, as if he's just lost a part of himself, the pain impossible like everything else about the situation. His chest heaves as he kneels there, as if his own body is trying to sob and can't because there's no liquid to draw on from a undead man. And of course it seems fitting somehow that here in this awful situation, with the remnants of his world in his lap, he can't even spare tears.

It wasn't fair.