#prayful

She is crying, and they are alone in a church. She finds them peaceful — people don’t die her, but they like to reflect here once dead. (Reflect and wail and moan and lament and praise and curse. It’s very complicated, the things that bring peace to her and the things that overwhelm.)

What is something they have in common? What is something they have in common? What the fuck is something that they have in common?

Spirit stares, and it looks like she is trying to blow Eli up with her mind. A bit lamely, what with accompanying a stare like that and all, she asks:

"Ain't it funny? Maybe the Lord's collectin' all the halfway decent Elijahs for a higher purpose."

Elijah laughs awkwardly.

A man jogging to his job interview, who dropped his phone down a sewer grate, hears church bells chime three times and knows he is not late. Most events do not require the intervention of angels. You don’t need long division to eat. You don’t need the elbow of an angel to safely cross the street. Miracles, by design, are showboats. Or else poorly time managed assistance. Prominence without provenance. When they must intercede, they prefer to be discreet.

They move swiftly—long, brisk strides—in a direct line to Elijah. Unbroken momentum and then at once none upon reaching him. Without an introduction:

          “Rain will fall today.”

They tip the wooden handle of their umbrella against Elijah’s chest (black and tightly closed (though it will very soon be used) because, as they understand it, an umbrella opened indoors is commonly believed to release curses captive within it).

QUALITY TIME. clubbing. face masks. movie nights. mall trips. vanya does all the shopping; spirit is actually quite supportive and good at quietly living vicariously. vanya cooks for spirit. it’s very romantic. 

UH OH! before spirit and sasha started fucking, yes, the girls made out in the club. neither of them remember it very well. sloppy jersey shore moment. 

CLOTHES. spirit asks to borrow vanya’s clothes all the time. she does hte same thing to juniper. she looks like shit every time. she just can’t fill ‘em out. it’s a sisyphussian self-flagellation. 

          “May I loiter here?”

As though it needs specifying—Lee worries, strangely, firstly, he might mean the world or worries Elijah might think he means it—his gaze skims along the long rib vault of the church (the intersecting white arcs looking so much like laced bone fingers stuck in a perennial prayer) and the bare pews.

          “Here.”

The re-emphasis sounds insistent. It doesn’t seem like he’s framing this right.

          “My keys.”

He reaches to his coat pockets to helpfully display his set of silvery keys and only remembers there is nothing to show once his hands fill and feel the cool satin lining of his empty pockets.

          “Ah.”

He smiles and his brow winces—embarrassed. How do you gesture to absence? Lee pats his flat pockets.