The Grim Reaper Days: The Four Courts

Alcohol Won't Solve My Problems, but Neither Will Water

There wasn't much to say about the funeral, mainly because Lucius had tried to avoid going to it all together. He had locked himself in his, well Zaden's, room. He wasn't quite sure why though. Out of all the places he could be, he chose to be here. He chose to be alone, which was arguably worse than having to show his face at the trio's combined funeral. But it wasn't like he could avoid it, he'd be dragged there by someone.

"You've got go." Josh said as he leaned against the pale white door frame, "I can force you to go, but I'm not going to break down the door. I'm in enough debt to this school as it is." He chuckled, but the laughter did not reach his eyes. Joseph barely knew the three people who had died; the only reason he knew their names was mainly because everyone had been talking about them for past seventy two hours. However, Josh did know one of the people who was affected by the travesty that had happened a few days before. He had seen Lucius with those people at the party, and he saw how close he was to that football player, Trey. In the few months that the Reaper had been staying on the mortal realm, he had taken a liking to the blond man, and the fondness was returned too, but it was a shame the relationship was abruptly cut off. "Come on Lucius," begged Josh, "staying in there is not going to fix anything."

Lucius sighed as he lazily thought of a spell to unlock the door. He didn't want to get up, let alone go to the funeral. Who knows if he was going to be forced to speak, or be asked questions he wasn't ready to answer. Was this how the Court's felt when they were questioned? Did they feel just as guilty? Were they just as responsible? He had already accepted the blame, does he really have to admit it to everyone?

"Thank you," Josh said as he opened the door. Lucius didn't look up to meet his gaze, he just wanted to go back to sleep and skip the whole day. "Tyler told me to give you this. He said to dress nice." An item was thrown on his bed, it sounded like a outfit of sorts, but Lucius didn't care enough to want to see what it was.

"For what," Lucius murmured as though he didn't know what was happening today.

"Come on Lucius," begged Josh as he sat down on the edge of the bed, "don't make me say it." There was another moment of silence before Josh started another sentence, he didn't want to have to speak for Lucius, but he already knew what he was thinking. "I know you don't want to go to the funeral, but you can't avoid the fact forever."

"I'm not avoiding the fact that they're dead." He watched them die, but more importantly he was reason that Trey died, and that was a fact that Lucius could not handle. He wanted to be able to say that due to their own stupidity and recklessness they died a perfectly avoidable death.  "I'm trying to forget I was the cause of his." Lucius was very careful not to say his  name, but since Josh was not sure which 'he' Lucius was referring to, he furthered his question.

"Which one, the football player or your roommate?" Josh thought for moment as he looked for their names. He had almost forgot what they were, but considering Lucius wouldn't have batted an eyelash if someone else, it had to be one of the two men he constantly spent time with.

"They have names." Trey said in a tone that he usually only used with people who worked in the Courts. He softened it slightly with Josh, but the Reaper couldn't help but fall into old habits when it came to correcting titles given by ignorant beings. "Trey Jordan Kingston and Zaden Monre Quinn." It hadn't taken Lucius long to learn their middle names considering how many times they had to show ID to be able to drink alcohol. Lucius never quite understood why they always had to ask him his age, mainly considering Grim Reapers rarely if ever keep track of the number. It was rather hard to know what year your turning when you can barely keep track of the hour. Even then, it was rather impolite to ask an immortal being what age they were, who would want the reminder that the end was never going to be near?