AN- I was actually writing this as part of a fanfiction, but I realized along the way that it could work pretty well on its own. Some of the grammar might be twisted. My first fiction posting here, so let me know what you think.

Funeral of the Dead, Funeral of the Living

Four thousand crystal tears running down his soul, and he wants to close his eyes to the world and pretend. (Pretend this isn’t happening; won’t wishing make it so?) His throat feels dry, brittle, sharp…somewhere along the way he must have broken a glass bottle apart, and kissed the jagged shards.

But he’s ok with that. It’s as it should be, after all. The proper suffering for the occasion. His heart, though….that organ’s giving him some trouble. It should be frozen over and dead (and in front of him, they’re lowering that other dead thing into the ground), decaying and motionless. The fresh bruise on the face of the earth rises as they fill in the grave with o-so-black dirt; he knows it’s only natural, only decent, for his heart to need burying as well.

But it doesn’t.

It’s still there, thumping away inside of him, alive and well. He can’t stand it. His best friend’s smiles have just been covered high with mud, and yet he continues to breathe and function as if it were any other day.

That isn’t right. They’re covering forever a source of light and hope, and he doesn’t even have the decency to cry.

------------------------

“You idiot.”

Talking to a gravestone is foolish. Talking to a gravestone and expecting it to talk back borders on committable.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

He knows it’s wrong to insult the dead, but he does it anyway. Let them add it to his growing list of condemnations.

“You’re such an idiot. How could you go like that? You’re the one with the family, dammit.”

He breathes in deeply. The air around him is sharp and saccharine, falsely calm. He comes away tasting bitter sweetness at the back of his sandpaper throat.

A cold wind blows; he barely feels it. He looks down at the smooth, grey slab of an ending sticking up in front of him, and feels a wave of anger so intense, it hurts to try and reel it in. Suddenly, he wants to smash that stone, to yank it out and crack it and blow its knife-edged fragments to the wind.

(hide the evidence, it’ll be fine, he can’t be dead if no one can tell he’s buried)

“Dammit. I hate you, you know. You selfish prick, just leaving like this. What the hell—”

“Hey.”

He doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t want to. If he does, if he sees her, he’ll feel too warm, too fulfilled. Now is not a time for hope and love, now is a time for death and hate. Now is when he should want to join his best friend, watching eternity, not his lover, wrapped in her arms.

(Not that he would ever join him again either way; he’s not destined for the same place as the his friend.)

“Hey. You've been here a while....”

And, god, her voice is so soft and so gentle and so filling, and he resists it because it isn’t right. Who is he to seek her blessed company? He should be mourning, mourning friendship and life and that brackish stain now spreading out on the ground.

“Hey!”

Oh, god, he wants (doesn’t want) to turn around and dissolve into her comfort. His fingers clench on the stone, and he hurts…

“Listen...don’t.”

“Don’t do what?” and even if his voice is quiet, is gravel and rock, they both know he’s about to give in.

She's silent for a moment; he can almost hear her frowning.

“Don’t punish yourself for this.”

(he should be sadder colder mourning harder his heart should be brick and ice and tough cement…)

“Don’t stop feeling because of this.”

(he needs to be empty, needs to be aching, for life, for death, for him…)

“He wouldn’t want that.”

(needs to be hollow, needs to be weaker; in this situation, happiness is a sin...)

“Please. Don't.”

He breaks.

Her hand is small and comforting on his shoulder; desperately he turns to her, longing for her warmth, her words that can fill him up…he should keep that void inside of him, but he’s weak as only a human can be.

He buries himself in her arms, in her soothing heat. It’s wrong, but he needs her.

(And later it’s said that she’s the reason why he lives past that day, why he is not forever captivated by that violently peaceful stone.)