We're gonna start out with sad eater because it was the first one I got to

The Death God's Dilemma

Written because homework is hard. Just as unedited as it was when originally posted.

Slightly inspired by "Nageku Shinigami" by Miyuki Mitsubachi

Death the Kid had never, not once in his entire life, cried.

He didn't cry when he was five years old and the first line began to appear, marring his perfectly symmetrical appearance. He didn't cry when he was eleven and he broke his first bone – a finger – while out on a mission with Liz and Patty. He didn't cry when he was fourteen and discovered that his father had been lying to him about Shibusen. He didn't cry when Noah and Gopher held him hostage and tortured him for days on end. And he didn't cry when he was sixteen, and when, on the same day he came to gain incredible power and truth about a Shinigami's power and his personal beliefs, he realized it came at the cost of his father.

That wasn't to say that he didn't want to cry at these times – that would be a lie. No, more than anything, Kid wished he was capable of the release tears seemed to bring humans, wished he could show the world how much he was grieving besides the circles under his eyes that grew darker each day.

The old members of Spartoi knew how much pain he was in after losing his father, shared the same pain as he did. For the new Shinigami, this was as much of a comfort as he could hope to ask for. But that didn't stop him from hearing the words whispered behind closed doors by citizens the world over.

Did you hear that the new Shinigami basicallykilled his father?

As though he knew. As though he did it on purpose.

It was difficult enough negotiating the new political situation with the Witches Council and nominating Ambassadors and new teachers, but doing that knowing that the people didn't truly support him, doing that without being able to look in the mirror and seeing the connected Lines of Sanzu without being wracked with guilt so debilitating it made his earlier panic attacks seem like a molehill in comparison – well, it was a good thing that gods of death weren't held to the same necessities as humans.

Sometimes Kid wondered if he would be able to complete the grieving process if he could just cry. It seemed to help his friends, all of whom had mostly been able to move on. He'd never seen Soul so content, Tsubaki so confident, Jackie so assertive. He didn't begrudge them their happiness, he just wished he could join them.

He knew they were worried about him, worried about how much he was throwing himself into the Witch Council situation, into the recruiting process – into maintaining the old school his father had been so proud of. (There was talk of opening Shibusen up to common citizens, having a normal program along with a special Weapon studies program. Currently, he was negotiating with not only the Witch Council, but also representatives of various interested countries.)

Patty had been drawing him more pictures, and the corkboard in his personal office was nearly covered with pink giraffes and yellow elephants, cheery colors she said always made he feel better. Liz had given him a makeover and, without a sign of reluctance, told him that if he wished, her eyebrows were in desperate need of shaping.

That had made him laugh, a feeling he had nearly forgotten, and it wasn't until his weapons squashed him in a special Thompson Hug Sandwich, that he realized how truly worried they were.

Liz wiped a tear from her eye as she pulled back, holding him at arm's length. "Welcome back, Kiddo," she said softly. Patty squeezed him tightly around the neck, nearly choking him in her enthusiasm.

A warm feeling of gratitude and love for the two sisters who had been with him through more than anyone could ever imagine swelled in him suddenly, and it was almost like his father was sending him a message. As though he were saying, even though I'm gone, kiddo, look around you – look at all these people that love you, all these people that need you; even if I'm not there, they're here, and you live for these people like I lived for them.

The Thompson sisters may not have entirely understood the reason why he pulled them back in a tight hug with a whispered thank you, but they were beyond grateful that their Kid was back.

However, not even then, not even when he had wanted the most to cry, had Kid been able to relieve the pressure behind his eyes – no, not until his vision was full of black tinged with white, tinged with an emptiness he had not known for nearly sixty years.

Bile rose up from his stomach, and disbelief that had long since settled throughout his body number his fingers, causing him to fumble the microphone as he adjusted it.

Looking out at the crowd of wrinkled faces pulled taught with crippling grief, as though a Witch's Illusion were being laid over each person, he saw them as they were seventy-three years ago, youthful and covered of the scars and bruises of their battles. He saw them gathered in the basketball court, as they were when he watched from the sidelines, always observing with his cool impassiveness: Maka throwing a fit about the rules, Black Star running around trying to steal the ball from Soul who just laughed as he held it over the shorter boy's head, Tsubaki giggling as she watched, Patty jumping on Soul's back, teaming up with Black Star and yelling about tall shark boys should learn to play fair – and he saw her as she was, watching it all unfold with affectionate composure, not a blonde hair out of place. She would see him, and wave before heading over, having given up on them ever completing a full game of basketball. She would smell like oranges and spice, the scent that he had given himself three migraines while trying to find.

It was as he looked over the sea of black, as he filled in the gaps of the missing faces with those the city, the nation, the world, had already grieved for, as he saw them nodding, saw them crying the tears he had never shed, that something inside him broke.

He opened his mouth to deliver the beginning of the eulogy, prepared to open with the tried-and-true words that he found himself unable to do so. How could he address this crowd as friends when the last of his friends was no longer among it?

Kid was all alone, left with nothing but the empty faces of the people gathered at the church, of the people who could never know him like they did – like she did.

The black suits and dresses and white faces of the grieving folk blurred together, turned into a massive black and white kaleidoscope. A single line of feeling returned to him, and Kid slowly reached up to feel it, his finger coming away wet.

From the tear drop balance on his fingertip, feeling slowly returned to him, spreading through his hand, up his arm, and settling into a heavy ball in his stomach. It was a worse pain than he had ever felt in his existence, and nothing he had experience to that point could have prepared him for the utter misery that humans felt when they cared enough to cry.

It was at the moment that Kid finally cried that he wished he was no longer capable of it.