A/N: I have no idea where this idea came from. It's not my normal thing at all. I'd just like to say that none of the views expressed below are necessarily my specific views (which is good given that many of them are conflicting and I imagine they'd give me quite a headache if they were), they are simply how I think each character might think and react given these circumstances.
Disclaimer: I don't own Skins or religion for that matter.
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The rain falls, and it's fitting, really. Not even the sky can smile today.
Clouds mar the sky, stretched out as far as the eye can see, not a ray of sunlight in sight.
The earth is freshly dug; the scent of soil strong as the water kicks it up, brings it to their noses. It's sickening.
The whole fucking day is sickening.
There's not a dry eye gathered around, tears mixing with rain, dripping off of chins before plummeting to the earth.
Nobody meets eyes with anybody else. Their gaze is focused on the cold, grey slab sticking out of the ground like an eyesore, the only visible marker of a life cut short far too soon.
Here lies
Frederick Mclair
Beloved son, brother, and friend
June 14th, 1992 – August 23rd, 2010
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Effy takes in the small engraved cross at the top of the tombstone with dead eyes. She'd scoff if she could feel anything at all.
What a joke. If God existed, Freddie wouldn't be dead. She wouldn't be crazy. She wouldn't be numb at her own boyfriend's funeral.
Religion is a scam. One created to give lesser minded people a reason for existence.
Existence is shit. That's the fact of the matter. You're born, you die, and shit happens in between.
Brother's get hit by buses and never fully recover, mother's cheat, father's leave, friends turn their backs, boys delude themselves, and people die.
There's no deeper meaning. There's no reason for everything.
Everything just is.
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Naomi doesn't believe in God. Gods, possibly, but not God as in one single omniscient being. There's no God that serves as a guiding hand through people's lives. There's no Devil that lures people to sin. People sin on their own.
She fucked Sophia on her own, her own fuck up. She broke Emily's heart all by herself, the same as she fought to heal it all by herself. God didn't guide her to, love did.
Sophia jumped on her own.
Cook beat up that poor sod at the party on his own.
John Foster killed Freddie on his own.
Naomi squeezes Emily's hand and blinks back tears.
There didn't need to be evil in the form of the Devil on earth. Her mother had always told her that there's more than enough evil in the hearts of men.
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Emily doesn't bother fighting the tears streaming down her face. She's too in shock to.
When she'd heard the news, she'd closed her eyes and prayed. Prayed for the first time since the night she'd found out that Naomi had cheated, when she'd begged and pleaded with God for it to not be true, for it to be a bad dream. She'd prayed and prayed that he'd do anything to make her feel better. When she'd woken up, the next morning there had been a split second when she hadn't remembered, and then she'd blinked, feeling the soreness in her red-rimmed eyes, and then she'd turned her back on a God that could break her like this.
She'd wondered if perhaps God was punishing her for being gay. She'd cursed him and drank until she couldn't think straight.
When Naomi had finally gotten through to her, she'd decided that God couldn't possibly hate her because of who she loved. It had taken him a while, but he'd answered her prayers and made her feel whole again.
Now she needs prayer again.
She remembers going to church with Katie and their parents when they were little, she and Katie attempting to stealthily pass notes in the pews until they were sent off to Sunday School. She remembers when they were five and their grandfather died, and they hadn't understood that that church service was different from the others they'd been to until their father looked at them when they were giggling to each other drawing pictures in the margin of the hymnal with a pen that Katie'd snuck in, and they'd been sure they were going to get yelled at, but instead their father had had tears streaming down his face and he'd wrapped his big strong arms around them. He'd whispered in their hair that life was precious, a gift, and that they were his little angels sent from God.
The night she'd heard about Freddie she'd remembered those words. She prayed to God that Freddie had angels watching over him now, that Freddie had found a place with him in Heaven.
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Thomas closes his eyes and prays.
Freddie was a good person, a good friend. He was young. He should not have died.
Still, Thomas must have faith. God has a plan for everyone. He cannot believe that God would want Freddie to die like this, so horribly, at the hands of a madman, but, then again, God knows things that he does not.
He must have faith.
He prays for Freddie's soul, that he will be welcomed in heaven, his earthly sins forgiven, his soul cleansed.
He prays that God will show him the path to get him through this dark time, to help him with his grief.
He prays that God will be with Freddie's family and with Freddie's other friends, that he will help them in this, their time of need.
He prays that God gives him strength to accept this, as he cannot change it, and to someday come to understand why this happened.
He must have faith. He does have faith.
And so he prays.
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Karen can't look at the headstone anymore. She can't look at the stupid little cross on the top, just like the one on her mum's headstone, less than a fucking stone's throw away.
She doesn't even know why it's there. It's not like her dad's even looked at a fucking church since her mum's funeral. She can't blame him, either.
What kind of a God would take her brother and her mother from her?
She can't stop crying, tears blurring her vision until all she sees is a vague, gray blob.
It feels like she's got a hole in her heart and someone's sitting on her chest. She can barely breathe, even still, even now almost two weeks after she first found out and the policeman knocked on the door with a bag containing a shoe with blood on it...Freddie's shoe.
Her father had collapsed there in the doorway, screaming out a strangled cry. "Please, God," he'd said, "Please don't let it be true."
She hadn't prayed, though. She'd just stared at the shoe. She'd stared and stared as if, if she stared long enough, he'd be standing in it again, smiling goofily at her from under a haze of smoke, that stupid too-long hair half in his eyes.
Now he's in the ground at her feet, two plots over from her mother, both stolen from her.
If this is God's work, then fuck him.
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JJ's never had a very good grasp on religion. Deities, as far as he's concerned, are a preposterous invention. He'd gotten in trouble in Sunday School as a child for saying as much. It's simply not plausible for a single being to know everything at once and be everywhere at once.
The amount of prayers that he or she would receive in any given millisecond from all around the globe, and assuming that other life existed in the universe and they had developed a deity and they believed in prayer, potentially from elsewhere as well, would be enough to give anyone, even a deity, a migraine.
He was sure of it.
He couldn't understand, therefore, why the vicar had spoken with such conviction. Why had he asked them to pray as if it would make a difference? How could he be so sure that Freddie is with God, now? Freddie's dead.
He blinked and shook his head, wiping gruffly at the tears that burned down his cheeks. He's so fucking angry. Freddie's dead. Freddie's dead. Freddie's dead.
His whole body starts to shake. He's getting locked on and rage is overwhelming him.
Cook reaches out beside him, takes his hand and squeezes hard.
It's not much, but it's enough to jar his brain.
Freddie's dead, but Cook's not.
No, he decides, this deity that people claim can work miracles cannot exist. Freddie's not with him. It's a platitude the vicar told them. Nothing, not even mango juice, can make him feel better about this, though.
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Pandora just feels sad. Nothing else, just sadness.
She'd always tried to look on the bright side of life. She was positive by nature. Excitable by nature too.
Now there was nothing to be positive about.
Her mother told her that boys only brought trouble, but it's not boys, it's not even surf and turf. It's doctors and killers and evil.
Her mother told her that if she was good and she was calm that she would be rewarded and God would be proud, but what kind of a reward is this?
She's lost one friend to psychosis and another to death.
She can't sing songs about not being down and not frowning anymore. She can't even smile anymore.
She just wants to cry, so she does.
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Katie's never known someone her age who's died before. Obviously she knew it happened out there in the world, but not to her, not here in Bristol. Not to her ex-boyfriend, for Christ's sakes.
She almost scoffs at that thought. Christ. Yeah, sure. Fucking damn all he's done.
Christ the son of God, if such a being even exists.
She'd wanted to believe when she was little. She'd liked going to church. She'd always gotten a sticker in Sunday School. Plus Jeremy Leopold was in their class and he was cute and he smiled at her.
She remembered at her grandfather's funeral, she and Ems had stood next to their mum and dad and their nan before James had even come along yet, and everyone had said they were so sorry and that at least he was with God now. She hadn't understood what that meant, at the time. She'd mostly been confused. She hadn't understood why her father was crying and why their nan hadn't brought them Maltesers snuck in her purse.
She'd finally turned to her dad and tugged on the sleeve of his jacket and asked if, since Granddad was with God, could they go visit God please. Her dad had hugged her close and started crying harder and her mum had told her that people weren't allowed to visit God when they were as young as her, that she had to wait until she got old like Granddad had been.
What a big fucking lie.
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Cook stares dead ahead. He's not so much seeing what's in front of him anymore, so much as seeing the things that will never happen.
He's always known that the world's fucked up. He's had plenty of fucking life experiences to prove that to him.
The one constant he's had throughout, though, is Freds, and now Freds is gone.
He's out on bail, out for the funeral mostly. He knows they'll lock him up soon enough. Probably throw away the key.
He's a menace to society, after all. Beat a man half to death, he did. Apparently doesn't matter that that 'man' killed his best fucking friend in the world and would've gladly killed him too.
His fingers come up to absently rub the cross on the chain around his neck. He's always kind of subscribed to his own version of religion. It's always worked for him.
Sometimes he's had to go off and do his own thing and God's just had to let him. He's bargained with Him and compromised as well.
Now, though, he's been let down. His mind flashes quickly over things done and things said, things he'd change and things he wouldn't. He lets tears fall unashamedly. There's no shame in crying over the loss of Freds. Freds was his best friend, his brother. Tears should be shed for him.
He turns away from the small gray headstone that doesn't seem near grand enough a tribute to such an incredible fucking person. He runs his thumb over the cross on his necklace once more and looks up to the sky.
"Right, God. I think you and me need to have a chat."