lucas’s character certainly doesn’t need any added layers of tragedy but i love him and thus i love when he hurts.

lucas still searches for god. he doesn’t do it on purpose— let it be known, he hates god. There’s no omnipotent fucker in the sky instilling morals in all of us, putting us in “good” and “bad” boxes to decide whether we’ll be tortured for eternity or not, and he’s sure of it. And yet there’s these little moments of heartache— where, just for a second, he’ll say a small prayer in his head, begging for god to give him something. to reignite any faith still lying in the depths of lucas’s abdomen and give him something to live for again. On days where he’s at his worst he’ll find himself staring at that god-awful, hideous, and ever-so gaudy porcelain statue of jesus and a lamb hinawa kept above the fireplace and in his mind he’ll beg, please, god, give me something. I can’t keep going without guidance.

God never hears him. God never gives him a sign. God doesn’t give him any consolation. God is a being of love and yet he doesn’t spare so much as a passing glance to Lucas, even with all the tragedy he’s endured.

Of course he doesn’t, because he’s not real. God doesn’t hear him, because god has no ears to hear. God is a superstition, a fairytale spread via word of mouth that gave people who feel lost something to keep wandering for.

And you know what— If God is real, he’s a total bitch! Lucas thinks so, anyway. If there’s some omnipotent old bitch in the sky who can instil whatever he wishes upon the world, he could’ve saved Lucas’s family. But he didn’t. He let them die, he took their souls away and left Lucas only with cold bodies and the memory of fingertips fading purple. He didn’t even provide Lucas with the saving grace of killing him off too; at the very least letting him die alongside those he loves. No, he’s forced to walk the earth without the embrace of a mother or the camaraderie of a twin, his family halved within a matter of days.

If anything, he must be taunting him. only a few years later dangling the near-dead body of his brother just out of his reach, letting him feel a slither of hope after years of feeling nothing at all, only to let him die once again. What kind of cruel joke is this?

If Lucas was to be honest— no jokes about god being a “real bastard,” he’d put it— He truly believes, within the bottom of his soul, a world where such mental tortures can be inflicted upon a mortal human is a world where there is no god. If god was ever real he has long since abandoned this world. The fruits of his creation have grown rotten beyond recognition.

There is no heaven, there is no hell, there is no god. There is only the world he walks upon, and the people that he walks alongside.

He wears a necklace with a golden cross pendant. It’s a tad garish, a little too big, and far too bright— Lucas certainly isn’t the type to wear jewelry, especially not gold. But he wears it anyway.

It was Flints’. Flint doesn’t remember where he had gotten it, but he explains to Lucas that he always felt it held importance— beyond being a symbol of god, or any of that garbage— he felt it had been given to him by someone special, and thus he wished to do the same. He gave it to Lucas at 17 or so; a time where Flint had become a weaker man, his muscle fading, his memory growing lesser. He’d began to do less, and thus, he didn’t need something like it anymore— god has helped him enough, Flint thinks, it’s time he grants gods’ aid to his youngin’.

He places the necklace into Lucas’s hands, before closing Lucas’s palms together— his sons’ hands now bigger, stronger, though calloused and scarred, where his has began to age, his skin growing rougher, almost paper-like, his veins protruding more than they ever did before— and he says, “Hold onto it when things are hard. When you’re scared, or you feel hopeless, grab onto that cross— God will hear you, and he will help you.”

Lucas never takes the necklace off, once given it by his father. And as his father instructs, in times of need, whether he be in danger, or in mental pain, or anything of the sort— he places his hand around the cross and holds it tight.

But he doesn’t think of God when he does this. No, god barely crosses his mind anymore. Rather, he reflects back to when Flint first gave him the necklace, wanting his son to be protected and always feel secure within his life. He thinks of when Hinawa once told him in his youth that she’ll fight off the nightmare monsters so he never has to be scared again; or when claus fought off a really scary animal (that he realizes only now was simply a dog) with a stick before turning to him and saying “you don’t need to cry, ‘cause I’ll always protect you!” He thinks of moments with strangers that solidified a different sort of faith— whether it be a little talk with an old lady at the store, or when a group of young children offered to help him with his farming duties.

Lucas’s faith— Lucas’s love, his drive to be good, his security— comes from people. There is no god, but the people within his life, even if they’re not in it anymore, come pretty close. He has faith in people, not false prophets. He holds love for the people he knows, whether it be strangers or people he holds most dearest, not a being that exists only in manuscripts and prayers.