Paper Cranes

Pairings: Hanna/...
Warnings: None, I guess?

This is set at the beginning of chapter 3 of HiNaBN.
I hope this isn't too OOC. Someone had to do it, damn it. The scene was so damn fluffy all on its own. Also; COMMAS, EVERYWHERE.
Also, I may use this fic as my dump-all-my-HiNaBN-fics-place, for any future ones I may do. The others can stay where they are though.

It's made of cheap, thin paper, the kind you buy in bulk for only a couple of dollars, but with a few folds and a simple gesture, it's suddenly the most important possession he has. He reaches out and picks the paper crane up the way one would hold a piece of antique china, cupping it gently with both gloved, trembling hands.

Hanna's already starting another one. Some distant part of his mind instructs him to remind the redhead exactly what time of night it is, make the living man go back to sleep, but he's frozen, just staring at the small piece of paper in his hands - identical to the one Hanna sent him as a guide. Something he'd been perfectly ready to accept as meaningless and forgotten like the rest of him sits in his palm, sentimental again, trusted and safe. He half-hears Hanna mention something about numbering them, the click of a marker cap and the squeak of a scrawled '2', then a rustle of paper and a fwp-fwp-fwp.

He raises his eyes to stare at Hanna in awe, only now noticing that the smaller man is humming softly to himself with a smile, and in the deafening silence of the night it sounds like a lullaby.

"You want to try making one?" Hanna asks merrily, looking up from the third crane to beam at his undead companion – face falling when he sees the expression on the zombie's face. It's about as far away from neutral as he can get. He looks…vulnerable. Like he's afraid and hopeful and sad and happy all at the same time.

"…Antonius…?"

The name is enough to knock him out of his stupor.

He didn't know he could move so fast – neither did Hanna, judging by the surprised "gnhh!" he lets out when the dead man throws his arms around the living man and clings, the force of it enough to knock both of them back down onto the mattress. Hanna lies in stunned silence for a moment, before he realizes that the dead man on top of him is shaking, holding onto him like his (after)life depends on it.

"Antonius?" the smaller man asks again, soft and gentle. The zombie lets out the barest of noises – more a breath of air than anything else – and Hanna pries free a hand from the dead man's grasp to run his knuckles down his back soothingly.

It took ten years. Ten years of sitting on his grave, just thinking and waiting. Watching cemetery visitors leave flowers for loved ones long dead, wondering why nobody ever came for him (did they even know that he died?). Ten years of wandering the city, looking for something, anything, to fill a hole in his heart he couldn't quite place. Ten years to forget how to smile, how to cry, how to laugh. Ten years to accept that he would never live again, never love or be loved again.

And Hanna undid it all with two minutes and a paper crane.

He wants to say something to Hanna. "Thank you", maybe, but those two words could never be enough for all the young man has done for him. Part of him wants to say "please don't go", "please don't leave me", and he has no logical explanation as to why, because this is Hanna's house after all, and the redhead has never made any mention of disappearing. He wants to tell him how grateful he is, how much the crane means to him – how much Hanna means to him - and he tries a few times to let words form on his tongue, but they choke in his throat and the scar that lines his neck twinges with the effort. Hanna gets his other arm free, wrapping them around his shoulders and nosing into dark hair.

"It's okay," Hanna murmurs, and he hears himself make some pathetic noise, a high-pitched moan maybe, in reply. "It's okay…you don't have to say anything." He buries his face further into the warm chest below him, squeezing his eyes shut while a shudder rattles through his corpse.

They stay that way for a long time – long enough that he hears one of the neighbours start to move around and get ready for work through the paper-thin walls – Hanna's hands rubbing his shoulder blades in slow circles while he just breathes in, focusing solely on the smell of Hanna, nose pressed up against his shirt. The rhythm of warm hands up and down his back calms him, the steady thud-thud of Hanna's heartbeat lulls him; he feels himself slipping, as if he might fall asleep (though he knows he won't. Can't).

Eventually he feels his emotions settle, long-practiced calm washing over him and a peace he hasn't felt since…since he was alive, probably. Hanna feels it too, he knows, because the living man has started to hum again, fingers shifting to play with white shocks of hair.

"What should we wish for?" Hanna whispers. It takes a while for the words to register.

He lifts his head up just enough to be heard. "Whatever you like."

"Don't be silly, Claudius," chastises Hanna playfully, "the cranes are meant for you, not me."

"We'll share it then," he answers quietly. "We'll keep it for something important."

The living man ponders this for a moment, running his hands through the zombie's hair absently. "Okay," Hanna grins at length, "it's gonna take a while to make a thousand of those things anyway, huh? We gotta think of something really-super-awesome to wish for…"

He lets Hanna ramble on for a while without interruption; the redhead is starting to sound tired now, and he doesn't want to keep him up. He catches something about never-ending chocolate fountains and rollercoasters and all-you-can-eat buffets always, the words becoming less and less distinct (he's not sure if that's just Hanna falling asleep, or his mind wandering further away from the moment – maybe both).

It doesn't matter. The only thing he would wish for himself is lying underneath him, warm and sleepy, a million paper cranes condensed into a single person, and anything else he could think of would probably be for Hanna's benefit. The room is silent save for the sound of light breathing, and he reaches up with one hand to pluck the glasses from Hanna's face and place them by the bed before settling back against the small man's chest.

His consciousness shrinks until all he knows is Hanna's heartbeat and the vague feeling that his wish has already been granted.