THE CROSSFIRE // BURIAL

[GABRIEL]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-size: 9.4pt; line-height: 1.4;"]Gabriel had been to his fair share of funerals. When he served in Espada, they lost people like any other organization, and as the CO, he'd gone to every ceremony he could. He was welcomed at a few, usually by watery eyes and grieved understandings. Some families didn't want to see him at all, had glared at him with the rage of loss. A couple would spit curses, a few demanding to know why their child was gone, why he hadn't done his job, and he'd had nothing for them. What could he have said that they would have accepted? They needed time to mourn, and so he paid his respects and left. Then, on other occasions, there was no family to grieve the fallen. That involved a simple ceremony and cremation, so he was no stranger to the many forms of funerals. His mother had taught him the tradition of their family when he was a boy, and yet, for all his experience, he was so...lost.

He couldn't do it. Couldn't stretch Laz out on a table and put a sheet over him, with candles at every corner to burn until all that remained were stubs kept for good luck. He couldn't invite people over to putter around, to pray when so few of them feared a higher power, to remember Laz when even fewer had known him. So he didn't. Gabe left tradition to the people who could pass it on.

Digging the hole had been menial work he did numbly, until his muscles shook and every breath was a pant. It fit Laz's dimensions, with a little bit of extra room left, and once the sky was all he could see from the bottom, he stopped digging.

He stopped everything, simply lying down where Laz's body would soon. He briefly entertained the stupid thought of staying here, but that would be selfish, and Gabriel had never been particularly good at that. Or maybe he was confusing selfishness with self-care. Wasn't like he knew the difference at this point.

When the sun moved a few positions to glare down at him, he jumped out of the grave, landing beside the body placed near the edge. He'd wrapped Laz in his blanket, and there wasn't much to bury with him otherwise. A few bones he'd still been chewing on. Bits of tree bark. Everything a toothy kid needed.

Lazarus was larger than Gabe, and after digging the hole, with the headache still chiseling away at his sanity, he wasn't certain how smoothly this would go. But he wouldn't mishandle him. He'd pull him down rather than simply push him in, and if shit went south, Gabe would at least cushion his body. It didn't come out to that, though, the little bit of extra room allowing him some maneuvering, and though his muscles trembled, he was just glad he hadn't dropped him. He...didn't know what he would have done if he had.

Exhaling shakily, he ran his talons gently over the still face, and lowered his head, beak pressed into a cold, stiff cheek. "Sólo quería decirte que te amo. Te extraño." He inhaled, but Laz had lost his scent, and the smell of the earth was overpowering. Gabriel pulled away slowly, curving one wing around, and he plucked out one of his primaries with a faint grimace. He set the inky feather on his shoulder, and before he could make any other rash decisions, clambered out of the grave.

Breathing hard, black spots in his gaze, he dropped a clod of dirt onto Laz's body, the heavy thump sending a flinch down his back. "Lo siento. Requiescat in pace."

Maybe not all traditions were absent.
[align=right][i]——INFO

[MOONMADE]

[size=9pt]Moon'd watched it all from afar. The outline of Lazarus' slumped figure against the sky, Gabriel tearing at the ground mindlessly. Not even the sight of the hybrid trembling under his son's weight was enough to bring him forward. One could argue it was out of respect-- maybe Gabe needed to do this alone. But the reality was that Moon didn't know what to say. It scared the shit out of him. He was good at quips, he was good at jokes, but what the fuck kind of shit could he spew that could possibly help Gabe, now, with his kid rotting in the ground just a few feet under?

Eventually, he did come, though. Silent, he walked to Gabe's side and stood there, jaw set tight as he listened to the whistle of the wind, the sound of the dirt landing on Lazarus' body. After a moment of suffocating paralysis where he stood staring at the pile of dirt and wondering if it was even his place to do this, if he was even fucking worthy, the lion took a pawful of the dirt in his palm. He walked to where the ground dipped inward, where the canine lay, gradually fading into the earth, and, so carefully he must of pulled a muscle, poured the brown dust over his disappearing figure. He willed it to land softly but the world wasn't kind like that. It hit his body with a resounding thump.

"He was good." Says Moon, hushed, once the silence and the debilitating need to comfort becomes too much and he caves. The stagnant air surrounds them, threatens to push his words back down his throat. "You made it good for him."