Brendan had only really been Brendan for the last four years. Before that, he had been known as nothing but a shadowed figure, cloaked in the immortality of the night as he danced around the heads of the living, prancing through their thoughts and tugging on the strings of their fear, making them taut and tense as he lay in wait at the end of every single one of them. And he had laughed at every wrinkle he had caused in the stitching of time because that was all he had known how to do. All he had ever known was taking, the gathering of the string when the game was over, never choosing what length it would be or where it would end up. Just the receiver of it all, the entity who cleared up all the mess left over at the end. But he had still received the blame, the curses of the mourning as if he had been the one to snip their loved ones away. But he was just the aftermath, the collector of all lost souls that he deposited swiftly into the afterlife. He was the link in between everything, not the cause or the ending of life. The fate of lives had never been his to determine. Just something for him to take away.

But, after the disappearance of his best friend, he had found himself forced to travel into the mortal world. A world where people actually died once they stopped breathing and were limited in their time walking the earth. A place where people who played god weren't actually god and he wasn't expected to be the earth's personal binman. 

Death had been with Fate as long as he could remember, pretty much exactly since the dawn of time. They had grown old together, laughing and bickering all the way as they came to realize just how reliant they were on one another. Neither of them could possibly exist without the other and, when harsher laws and darker times rolled over the big kingdom up in the sky, they stuck by one another and guided each other through, whether that be by making fun of the asshole in charge or exchanging some of the weirdest experiences they had ever had when carrying out their individual jobs. 

So, when his only friend in a bunch of backstabbers disappeared, he had to go and find him. It hadn't exactly taken him too long to make the decision and go after him, throwing his responsibilities to deal with death out of the window and descending into the human world under the name of Brendan Cole. The last time Fate had been sighted was a super posh school located around the area of London, England. So he had enrolled, hoping to be in and out of the place in the time span of perhaps a week or two. But he had never even come close to finding Fate; the trail had completely gone cold. But he had never given up, determined that he would pounce on the chance to get back his best friend the moment he resurfaced. 

So he had stayed at the school, making a promise to himself that he would remain there until Fate returned. And he had a good bit of fun too, finding that the humans, knowing that their lives were due to end at some point, lived in a very different way to himself. And...strangely enough, he had found himself somewhat admiring them. Particularly one girl, Eleanor, who made him think in a way he hadn't thought possible and forced him to feel things that people had told him simply weren't possible for a man with a job such as his. He could still remember their first meeting, the incredulous gaze she had given him when he mentioned his recent pummeling of a boy in the year below. The way that, somehow, she had made him feel some sort of remorse for once in his life. 

He had received many letters from the big guys above, of course, ordering him to return so that he could sift through the souls of the dead. But he wasn't having any of it and, now that he had met Eleanor, he wasn't just on earth for Fate anymore. He didn't really allow himself to think of what was happening to the souls of the dead, how they were stuck in the static state between dead and alive, an endless pitch black waiting room as they awaited their fate of heaven or hell. Because the judge was gone, abandoned his post to revel in the delights of the mortal.

He had found out Eleanor's death date pretty soon after his first conversation with her, his ability not being something he could necessarily help. And it had only made him want to be with her more, ensuring that she carried out all the best opportunities she could possibly have in what little time she had left to live. And he found himself hurting with every second that she breathed, for he was counting down the days till her heart. Just. Stopped.

He tore his eyes away from hers.

"Look, I know he was here. I sensed him." He had been lounging on his sofa at the time, flicking through some random channels as he attempted to take his mind off the fact that the girl he loved was going to die. It had shocked him, in all honesty, to feel his best friend's presence after such a long absence. It was mandatory for a god to sense the power of another one of his kind, and he had traced it to the Reed household as fast as he possibly could. Only to find the scent of his ominous power lingering and long gone. 

Liam raised an eyebrow. "Sensed him? What are you, a werewolf?"

Death turned to glare at the redhead, studying his assortment of freckles and the dark chocolate of his eyes. He had seen him around the school corridors just as he had any other student, had assessed him for knowledge of Fate's disappearance the same as he had with everyone else. And he had been one of the better contestants for the award of kidnapper, along with his two friends, but he then did a further background check into the three seers and found them incapable of committing such a crime. They had no motive except for perhaps attempting to resurrect a dead girl named Bronwyn and, even then, surely that was more of a Death kind of thing. As far as he could remember, they had no record of any other siblings apart from Flynn's sisters, who had wanted nothing to do with their brother's world anyway. Which had brought his investigation to a dead end, because that had ruled out his only suspects, seeing as they were the only other supernaturals in the school, thus being the only ones capable of planning a kidnapping or even knowing about Fate in the first place.

"No, I am not a werewolf, just a highly perceptive god who can literally make your head disappear off your shoulders if you don't stop pissing him off. And don't try to mess around with me, either. I know he was here. The only question is, where'd he go?"

It was the brunette who answered him, rising from the stool he had previously been seated at and reaching up towards his full height. Death had had a fair few interactions with Nate, most of them being brooding glares as they wrestled for alone time with Eleanor. And, from what he had seen, he was quite similar to himself. A little bit brooding. Didn't talk to people unless he liked them or it was absolutely necessary. Scowling most of the time. "He was here." 

Death nodded once, feeling Eleanor's wide-eyed gaze on him from the corner of his eye. He swallowed down some of the bile in his throat. He needed to focus. He needed to get his best friend back so he could finally leave this hell hole and get back to his place looking down on it. "Where did he go, then? And why was he here?"

Flynn, who still stood beside him, shrugged his shoulders as he averted his gaze to the floor. "He was only here for about two seconds before he disappeared again. He took what he came for and vanished into thin air." There was something in Flynn's tone that held an underlying of bitterness, almost as if Fate's actions had hurt him in some way. Which was odd, really, because Death couldn't exactly see his friend doing anything to harm another person. As a matter of fact, he could remember the first few days under the new rule where Fate had almost completely broken down after the instruction to harm innocent people. 

"What did he take?"

To his annoyance, it was Liam who answered the question. He had already developed an intolerance to his snarky remarks and quipped manner. But this was only mainly because of the knowledge that he could sense the fact that Liam didn't like him very much, at all. And he wasn't exactly someone to try and make amends to such hatred, much preferring to return the favour in his own way than to butter the other person up. "My brother."

Death's eyebrows raised at that, straightening up from his position leaning against the doorframe and looking Liam dead in the eyes with a narrowed gaze. "You have a brother?" His tone was incredibly accusing, as he was certain that he had to be lying. If there was any record of there being another McAllaistar child, surely he would have found it. He had done all kinds of digging, both legal and slightly on the dodgier side of the law to find out everything he possibly could about every single student at that damned school and not once had he come across anything containing information about Liam McAllaistar having a sibling. 

"Yeah, I have a brother." Now Liam just looked confused at the tone in which the question was asked. "Is that a crime, or something?"

"No."

"Then why did you sound so damn sceptical about it?"

"I...I just...didn't know that you had one." How was it possible that all record of his brother had slipped past the knowledge of the entire universe?  It didn't seem as if Liam was lying but how...how could a person's existence have been completely erased from time itself? It was almost as if Fate himself had stepped in and plucked his life from the sky, leaving nothing but a dark, empty space in its midst. But wait...hang on a moment...Fate. Could Fate have...but why would he... "That bastard!" The realisation hit him like a ton of bricks, the dreaded thought smashing down on his skull so hard that it pulled all of his muscles taut. He couldn't believe that he hadn't thought of it sooner. Of course he hadn't been able to find someone capable of capturing Fate. It simply wasn't possible to keep such a powerful entity hostage. He had been blackmailed and, as he stretched his memory back to the last encounter he had had with Fate, he could imagine exactly what the blackmail was.

He needed to find Oscar Hart.