Work Text:
It is a late summer evening. The sun has long since fled, and with it the warmth of the day. A slight chill is starting to set in, and Bruce is alone. Just as he prefers.
Well, almost alone.
He leans on his shovel, staring down at the pit he is steadily filling. A faint knocking sound had started a minute or so ago, muffled by the cedar wood of the casket and thin layer of dirt. Bruce wipes at a sweaty brow. “Well, clearly that batch was not worth the money,” he grumbles to himself. “Normally they aren't awake for a while yet.” He hates it when this happens. The people are inevitably going to die anyway; they might as well have the decency to do it quietly.
The knocking has now been joined by a voice. “Hello? Is anyone there? Please get help! I'm stuck in here and it's getting hard to breathe."
Reaching down, Bruce hits the casket with several strong thuds of his shovel. “Oh, get off it already. You're dead; the rest of you just hasn't caught up with the fact yet. The world will be a much better place without you in it.”
The person has the audacity to start screaming at that. Bruce just grits his teeth and continues to cover the casket, shovelful by shovelful. The whole night has been ruined now, thanks to that annoying bastard below him. It isn't the job he had planned to get into. But someone has to clean the streets of those hooligans and rude youths. The police refused to do anything about it, no matter how many times he called, so it was clearly left up to him. A community service, really. He is doing them a favour: they could be dying in any number of ways but at least being buried alive makes for far less mess.
Soon enough, there is silence in the graveyard again. Bruce lets out a low whistle, surveying his handiwork. One day those people might learn how to behave in a society but until then, he was there to teach them.