Soul of Christ, make me holy
Sunday morning comes quickly. He is stiff as he wakes, after hours of the previous day stuck in the squad car with bitter coffee and her. He could not fidget, she glares with dark eyes and he withers into the solidity of the seat. They only caught sight of life, a mother walks her child in the deepening dusk, a couple laugh glittering sound. Giving up is a relief, this man strikes at day's end, hookers starting their hours. He does not stay out after midnight. Elliot sees in Sunday in bed, awake, with his wife sleeping peacefully beside him. To be home feels wrong.
This day is soaked with blood. Dark and congealed, flies paddle when they get there but neither look away. One of the mouse's hands is white, the other dyed as the red oozed down to the ground and gathered underneath. A bell tolls for him, lying in the secluded yard of the Catholic day school where he shouldn't be on this day. The black shadows of nuns drift with bowed heads. She looks at him as they carry the body away, but sees nothing inside.
Body of Christ, be my salvation
A mother drapes rosary beads across his pale skin, the crucifix resting close to his heart. Silent moans shudder them, prayers guide her as she sinks down, stretches lifeless across the body she created. It is still. The mother kisses blue lips. He aches within her grief. She watches them both in their pain. Each leave the room of the morgue without looking back. A mother. A father. A daughter. A doctor. The son sleeps alone, and no tears stain him.
Blood of Christ, let me drink your wine
His forehead embraces the cold of metal, his locker steeling him. When he dares to risk opening his eyes, his palms are streaked in blood. Half halos, crescent moons, nails clenched flesh. The sign of pain makes it easier. Makes him able to breathe the old, worn air of the precinct for the time it takes to leave. He has proof of what is there.
She watches him go, from the darkness. The room, the night, her, all empty. The only thing left is the sound of hymns echoing from the church, as they supervised the boy being carried out. That stays with her in her solitude. She finishes black coffee. Black, of night and death. Of hiding.
Water flowing from the side of Christ, wash me clean.
The call breaks the sanctity of her bedroom, where she is sitting on the floor, fully dressed. It is long past Sunday end. Kathy reports to her, Elliot hasn't come home. There is no asking, no query. She cares enough to tell Olivia, not enough to hunt for him herself. Olivia wants to cry at the lack in her voice. At the metallic quality, robotic, tired. She knows how Kathy feels. A scalding hot shower calls, losing herself in steam, in red burns. She closes her eyes and shuts the door behind her as she goes to him. How can she not. Such is their life.
When she pulls up outside, there is flickering light within. She knew. Knew where he would be. He calls to her, moth to flame. It will burn, she will taste pain. Dew already drowns grass. The door of the church creaks her approach.
Candles dance down the long aisle. He is silhouetted, sitting to one side, cross above him. From here, she cannot tell if he sees it. Her footsteps betray her. Warn him. He shows no surprise when she slides next to him, and looks to the man crucified above. She's never had religion, never sought salvation. Coming from more sin than most, she thinks it holds nothing for her.
Without looking, he hands her clear liquid. She does not resist or even hesitate. Glass hits teeth, vodka hits throat. Numbs its route into her, to curl within, break the stiffening pain. Rigor mortis isn't just for the dead, it takes them too, when they cannot move, cannot breathe, cannot choke on agony.
Passion of Christ, strengthen me
"Why?" She's been wondering how long a Hail Mary takes. How many she could have said in the silence. His question lurks in the shadows made by candles.
"You want an answer to that?"
He shrugs weakly. They of all people know that there will be no sense made. That's part of what clear vodka brings; sense to nothing, reconciliation to everything they see. Why else would they drink it? Both know what it can do. What damage it brings.
"Where was God in this?" Where is God in anything, she wants to reply. Where is he when people starve, when people cry. When people lose everything.
"Isn't that what faith is for, belief in God despite it all." He looks at her, who has never believed in anything. Who can sit in church and not count regrets until she runs out of numbers in her head. Who does not need to kneel, to beg, who goes home to emptiness and lives within herself. She is more contented in her skin than he will ever be, though on the surface she has nothing. Him everything.
He wishes he carried her courage. He will fall, without her.
Kind Jesus, hear my prayer
"When did you last pray?" He asks, but does not move towards her. When? As a gun presses against her head and he watches. Fear and relief flood in equal measure. Let this be over now, to end. When his blood seeped through her fingers and she begs his name in crimson tones. When she holds his child. When they stare and death opens its arms to one, but who. As tears hit both and she will never break as she did then.
When glass crashes against her door and she curls into a ball so small no one will ever find her. When her mother cries with truthful hate and she is alone in the world.
Every day. Never.
How many people pray right now, in desperation. A man at the bedside of his father as it ends. A woman slips down the stairs with bags over her shoulder, fearful of the clicking door betraying her. How many will be heard or answered.
None. All. She shrugs a lie.
"When did you?" This is what they do. Never speak, even when words come. Everything is done in looks, in the empty spaces they fill with years of knowledge.
"Now." He says, without looking at her. She doesn't ask what the prayer is, but stands. Moves away from him to join the candles. The flame shakes as it lights. It's her, her that trembles in the darkness but the candle sings her song. Tells her secrets. Each one holds silent whispers dances. On their own, they show nothing, but like this they are alive. They pick out the shadows of her eyes as she closes them. When she opens, nothing has changed.
Hide me within your wounds
Though she is lost, his breath against her neck does not surprise. It warms only that piece of her. Her skin welcomes him. She resists the desire to lean back. To depend on him. To give him her weight. She will not.
A candle of his own is placed. As his hand drops, she sees the blood across it, dried dark in the lines of his life. Crescent smiles to his fingers. Reaching out, she traces them, not soothing but recognising. His palm tries to curl around her. He will not allow it. When she has brushed against each one, her hand drops. In the faint light, he thinks he sees traces of him across her tips. He thought it was dry, but he can still mark. Stain.
He can see her scar, see it even though it hides within her skin. He reaches out, but its not his hand that runs the white line, but his lips. It surprises even her. She doesn't move. He counts his blessings that she doesn't draw away, or run.
And keep me close to you
Hours, but perhaps minutes or seconds, they sit again. The bottle is empty, clear as daylight falling through water. He slides the gold down his finger, off, and it absorbs fire within it. It's heavy in his hand, and in the corner of his eye he sees her watching. She will always watch him. It reflects in her eyes.
Balancing it on the end of his thumb like a quarter, this time he risks a look. Stares into her as he says, "Heads or tails."
She shivers, but thinks he doesn't see. Heads. Head or heart. Logic or love. To listen to one, but not the other. Fall head over heels. Head into the unknown, brave the flutters of fear and find a future. Tails. Brisk beats against a old man's legs, his last companion. Tails slip between legs and slink away in defeat. Chase tails, in circles, always circles. A tale never told, never spoken. She doesn't answer, again.
He tosses it. Spinning in the air, weaving gold as a net. To catch or trap. He doesn't reach out and it lands, heavy and echoing through the church. The church that sees them new and smiling. That sees them worn and dented with the years. But never sees them taken off. That is left for empty rooms of tears, alone but for the wonder of what can change.
When his hand drops, it lands onto the seat, so near to her he thinks he can feel her anyway. That a touch could leap a distance as slight as that. They must be made of the same flesh by now. They must attract, be pulled together. He dare not move away, to acknowledge what they do not do. Find comfort in each other, in even the simply press of heart against heart.
Defend me from the evil enemy
Prayers slide through his mind. Prayers of forgiveness, of absolution, of hope. None appeal or call to him. Only she does, with her dark eyes staring, picking out lights of the vast night. He thinks of his children, fast asleep now. His wife. His vows. He looks at the Virgin, son in hand. At her halo, her protection of them all. The cross, head bowed.
Instead he turns to her, and his thumb strokes unshed, unspilled tears, eyelashes catching his rough skin. Her eyes blink. Once. Twice. Three times and she looks back at him, leaning into his touch, lips slightly parted. It's nearly enough. So nearly.
She thinks she will crumble, if there is skin against skin for too long. She will turn to ash, dissolve. What comes from ashes, she wonders. Is there rebirth, or nothingness. A reincarnation, a chance to do it all right. His hand slides downwards, thumb tasting her lips. She reaches to him without knowing, nails digging into the back of his neck, mimicking each others pain. Both shiver.
And call me at the hour of my death
A kiss in front of the altar. Darkness in the back of the car and it goes in the wrong order. Not, I love you, I will, I do. But I love you, its positive, we must. This is not the order either. This is we need. I need you. I need you or I will not survive to see hell in all its glory. It is holding onto each other before the fall comes.
She tastes of incense and wax. Vodka and coffee. Tears and early morning starts with sleep still resting in eyes as they drive. She is everything he will drown in. When they gasp for breath, when they retreat from the safety of mouths and simply drink each other's air, sweet and heavy from their lungs, she is silhouetted with golden candles. With a burnished, broken halo that will save him. Then he pushes, so there is cold beneath her back, dark above them both and they see nothing but eyes. Feel nothing but slick skin, and teeth claim ownership.
He hovers, waiting, and she draws him in. To earth, to solid ground. To a world that is nothing more than her gasp and his groan.
To the fellowship of your saints
When she rises to him, meeting him midway, never letting go, he catches sight of the ring in the shadows. A candle leaps, just reaching it, but it is nothing. Cold and hard. Relentless in its force. Round and round with never an end or an answer. She is molten beneath him. Heat and burnished, tipping into moulds that will not hold her. Will not be shaped by anything. He could let himself melt into her. For pieces of gold, or silver, or any price he has to pay.
That I might sing your praise with them
And when it comes, it isn't difficult at all. When he presses down and in and she shudders simply from his weight upon her, it's as easy as breathing. As standing twelve stories high, toes over the edge, and being caught by nothing but air.
"God, El" slips from her as she falls, and clings to him, and dances to his name a million times within her head.
"Jesus, Liv."
for all eternity. Amen.
"Forgive me," he whispers as they cool, his body covering hers. He rains kisses of truth across her skin, and dies in her eyes again.
Forgive me.