Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and places belong to other people. I'm not making any money off it, so if my mother had her way I'd be doing something else.
A/N: I was going to wait to post these until I had ten, give you 1,000 words, but I ran out of ideas. Feedback would be wonderful. Enjoy.
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Waiting
Murphy hated the waiting more than anything. It was weightless the moment after impact, knowing the pain was coming. It was the dry click, the gun jammed, the sudden catch. It was your hands pinned, waiting for the blow to fall. It was that moment in between, when you couldn't make anything happen. Anything go.
Sitting in the Hoag med ward, aching and itching, burning and freezing, nerves jumping, needing a drink, needing a smoke, the incessant beeping of the (Rome's) heart monitor a steady, gratin screech (like nails on a blackboard) in his ears, Murphy knew.
This was purgatory.
Watching
Ever since Da died, Connor hadn't been able to do anything but watch. Watch the FBI surround them. Watch them take his brother into custody. Watch them watch him in this square little room, the beep of the heart monitor filling the silence. Echoing.
His thumb rubbed the next bead of his rosary. His lips formed the familiar words and he watched. Watched Rome's chest rise and fall. Watched his still face. Watched.
Watched Rome because he could bear to watch Murphy. Couldn't watch him fall apart. There was nothing he could do. Helpless.
It was all he could do.
Guardian Angel
Eunice always knew helping the boys could cost her job. The law didn't differentiate between good men and evil men, not when they both used guns and left bodies. Not when the only objective difference was the victims.
That was where she came in.
Justice might be blind, but those who wanted it weren't, couldn't afford to be. So she'd always known the boys might mean her job.
She just hadn't expected it would hurt so much. Hadn't thought success would marry failure. That she'd find love, and death. Life.
That she'd have a second change as their Guardian Angel.
Standing Guard
There's something unnerving about standing guard on the Saints. It's not that they look dangerous, though they do. It's not that I think they'll hurt me, 'cause I know they won't. The Saints only kill criminals.
But there's definitely something. It's in the look that passes between them when they sit up, in their faces when they see the comatose Mexican, in their expression when they look at me.
Against my better judgment, I remove my finger from the trigger guard and let them up. It's there when they see the inmates in the yard. Killers hiding in innocent men.
Good Enough
Paul Smecker didn't have much use for religion. If there really was someone up there, he didn't give a flying fuck about what happened down here. He'd seen too much to believe different.
The priest stepped back and wrung his hands after helping Eunice into the boat. Nervous. Disapproving. He didn't like Smecker, but believed in the Saints. Believed Paul was called to help them.
Maybe he was.
Paul still didn't know if he believed in the boys' God, never mind he'd had eight years to think it over. He believed in the boys, though. Maybe that was good enough.
Messed Up
"They found the Old Man." Standing in front of Greenly's headstone, hands deep in his pockets, unable to look at anything but the grass under his feet, Dolly didn't know what he was doing here. "Then Kuntsler caught up with them." Chaffey's recounting of that stand-off still sent chills down his spine.
"They're in the Hoag." With all the deranged sex freaks. "I don't think they've gotta worry about cock sandwiches." He'd kinda like to be there if they tried, though. The boys would eat them alive.
God, but things were so messed up now. "We miss you, Green Beans."