marcus keane (
exorkismos) wrote2018-05-29 06:20 pm
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@poleaxed
The last dregs of the congregation are returning to the pews after taking Communion when the heavy chapel doors bang, so there's a little bustle to cover the noise, but not enough. Marcus freezes, winces. Oh. It's Sunday, is it? Yes. It's Sunday. No chance of grabbing the priest for a private chat about the minions of hell, then, not until this wraps up.
He shakes off his moment of surprise easily. The other church-goers don't. He doesn't take much notice, but he doesn't blame them either; he's lanky and a little stooped, dressed in slept-in and rained-on black and with his hat casting shadows over his bruised face — and there's blood trickling from his nose, though he's not really cognisant of it. He swears under his breath, leaves muddy bootprints on the floor as he stumbles to the back pew and drops his bag too loud. The distinct acidic tang of sweat pours off him.
Some lessons on behaviour in Church are so ingrained, through, as to be muscle memory: he genuflects hurriedly (though getting up sends a pang through his torso — that's a bruised rib, he notes to himself with a grimace) and takes his hat off. Wipes his face and is startled by the crimson streak along his knuckles. "Ah, God damn it."
Nudging the woman next to him, he says, not really quiet enough, "Sorry. Got a tissue?"
He shakes off his moment of surprise easily. The other church-goers don't. He doesn't take much notice, but he doesn't blame them either; he's lanky and a little stooped, dressed in slept-in and rained-on black and with his hat casting shadows over his bruised face — and there's blood trickling from his nose, though he's not really cognisant of it. He swears under his breath, leaves muddy bootprints on the floor as he stumbles to the back pew and drops his bag too loud. The distinct acidic tang of sweat pours off him.
Some lessons on behaviour in Church are so ingrained, through, as to be muscle memory: he genuflects hurriedly (though getting up sends a pang through his torso — that's a bruised rib, he notes to himself with a grimace) and takes his hat off. Wipes his face and is startled by the crimson streak along his knuckles. "Ah, God damn it."
Nudging the woman next to him, he says, not really quiet enough, "Sorry. Got a tissue?"
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Far from understanding creating empathy, she just feels embarrassed. If she ever went to church like that, she would have been slapped, worse than slapped, she would have doubled the investment of whatever pain got her in trouble in the first place. It all reminds her of old regrets, a life she's well passed living in, and an angry annoyance at- yeah, yep, he's next to her.
She cringes when he swears and doesn't spare him a look of barely restrained contempt when he speaks to her. Sure, her Sunday best isn't great-- jeans, a hoodie over a T-shirt-- but that's why she's in the back, and that's probably his thought process, too, and oh, for fuck's sake, she hates this.
But she does grab a dirty rag out of her pocket. It's not a tissue-- it's actually smeared with engine grease-- but this fucker can deal. Her whisper is harsh but flat, not echoing into the rest of the room. Unlike, you know, some shit.
"I will drag you out if you faint."
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He takes her in: he hadn't, before she spoke. Classic back pew, he notes a little dizzily, young for this church — most of the other people here are closer to Marcus' age. Grumpy, and that's funny, doesn't fit so much with the jeans and the grease rag, he'd expect more contempt from some of the neat-pressed middle-aged married couples sitting closer to the altar, but you just never know. He keeps grinning at her all the same.
"Really? 'S nice of you." A noisy sniff, which he immediately regrets: oh, good, blood-taste. "Mn. Don't worry. Best behaviour from now on."
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She leans in a little closer to him, not caring if it upsets his personal spare or confuses him. A quick sniff tells her what she needs to know. "Not wasted. Thanks for that."
Of course, that means he's not in here to dry out, and the way he came in suggests he's not in here to duck a fight. He'd looked genuinely confused when he staggered in, but he knew how to blend once he was in the right place. And, again, he's British.
So, none of it adds up. Well, that's fine; makes it someone else's problem. "Keep the rag. Don't need your staph infection."
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But he's never been able to let go of the last word.
"What were you gonna do, tell the priest on me?" He nods towards the altar. "Let beer be for those who are perishing, wine for those who are in anguish. Let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy," he quotes, made nasal by the way he's pressing the rag to his nose. He coughs, grimaces at the way pain reverberates through his chest. "Proverbs, innit. Man upstairs doesn't turn away drunks." He wipes his nose: pleased to see that the blood's mostly stopped, he leans forwards, forearms on the back of the pew in front. "Thanks be to God," he adds, quieter and dryer.
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"Do I look like Him? 'Cause that'd be a first."
But she keeps talking. Someone else's problem, yeah, but it's becoming a scab she can't stop picking. A more self-aware person would realise when they'd already consigned this problem to the pile of things they consider their particular duty to deal with. Joan barely notices another thing to shoulder. It's not like her life is rife with responsibility to begin with.
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He's slumping over, elbows on the back of the pew and his mouth against his upper arm, looking at her sideways. Thankfully there's no one sitting directly in front of him, but a little further down the pew a starchy man in an ill-fitting Sunday best shirt shoots them both an irritable look.
"Dunno. You're talking to the wrong person, maybe. Ain't seen Him in a bit."
Marcus' eyes flick over to the man glaring at them. He winks, just in the interest of seeing what colour the poor bastard will go.
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Don't swear out loud. The bird isn't in the Bible.
She considers his words-- someone who doesn't just take the dogma at face value deserves consideration, and it puts a wrinkle in her annoyance enough that she can concentrate on the priest again. Calming words, it settles her temper to a low boil.
She points to a carving of Christ at the altar, all gaunt and strung up bleeding. "Point of coming in's to keep an eye on Him." For her, anyway, but she doesn't like him enough to clarify.
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"Yeah. I should come in more often, maybe. Get back to the routine." He rolls his shoulders, grimaces: his neck's stiff. Minor compared to the bruising on his face and the dull pain spreading across his side and back, but still. "Didn't realise it was Sunday. Didn't realise it was mass."
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And, because she's a judgmental prick and she knows it, "don't ever do things just for the sake of doing 'em. Waste of everybody's time."
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"Y'know, you've got a better preaching voice than Father Lawton up there. Much tougher. Nobody'd fudge the details if they were confessing to you, huh?"
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"Somebody doesn't give their best advice to a guy who wanders into a church bleeding and doesn't know what day it is," she murmurs, "bigger asshole than I can stand."
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On that note — warm, comfortable, only cheerfully defensive — he lets the conversation slide, drifts through the final blessings. He doesn't join in with the kneeling and standing, just sits. Maybe it looks like he's trying to rebel, but he's just not sure he wants to fuck up his ribs more. God will understand. He bows his head and tries to breathe easy, and the heady gut-familiar smell of the incense begins to soak in even though his nose is stuffed up and his mouth tastes of blood.
Go in peace, says the priest, glorifying the Lord by your life. Marcus is a second too late with his, "Thanks be to God," sort of lost in thought, not fainting thanks-very-much, and he sits up with a groan and a glance at Joan. "Long mass. Lawton always so slow?"
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She's getting ready to leave when Marcus speaks up again, and she shrugs. "Dunno. Only been in town a week." And she's not intending on staying; the only jobs she can get are part-time or don't pay under the table, and like hell she's going back to waiting tables. "Maybe he lost a fight, too." She turns for the door, never having been a dawdler.
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He stands, and grimaces when he picks up his bag again. Father Lawton is shaking hands at the door. He should really wait until everyone's gone, give him the full details...
But instead he joins Joan at the door. Lawton, when he sees him, looks alarmed. Probably the rusty traces of blood in his moustache don't help, Marcus reflects cheerfully. He sticks out his hand anyway. Lawton is obliged to take it. "Don't worry about it," he tells him. "Check in with the family in a day or so, once everyone's had time to rest. Sorry I missed the sermon."
"Right," Lawton says, his polite meeting-parishioners smile getting taut. "Thanks for coming."
"Oh, any time, mate." To Joan, as he's reclaiming his hand and settling his bag on his shoulder, trying to find a comfortable way to carry it: "Just passing through, is it?"
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And when they're out-- "And that was a creepier thing to say to one. Jesus. I'm gonna be pissed if St Edmund's is in with the mob." Because it means she's going to have to kick someone's ass before she leaves town, and it's more shit to worry about when she gets out of here. Christ.
She shoots Marcus a dirty look-- a symptom of her own worries-- but it cools after a moment, fading into exasperation. It won't do any good to show she's annoyed; he's more than proven that.
"Yeah, I'm expecting to fly." She's walking toward a car at the back of the lot-- she's not special, she didn't get here early either-- that's a Frankenstein of different parts, the model consistent but the paint job scratched and not matching the color of the door, the hood, the trunk. It's a dinky little sedan with plates from two states over, but in nice condition to a careful eye, tires maintained and without any sign of rust or denting. Worrying about looks in a car, her older brother and her father both agreed, is for pussies.
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His voice trails off, eyebrows going up. "You drive that? I mean, I'm right in thinking that's a car, yeah?"
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Daddy, can we move now that you've shoved a priest's head into a wall?
She shakes her head and, for once, doesn't show offence, if only because it gives her an opportunity to slide in another Neil Young reference. "It's sedan delivery." Anyway. "I bet yours runs worse."
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"Mine don't run at all right now," he admits. "Left it stalled in the parking lot of the motel I'm in. Hopefully the tires ain't been nicked."
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Well, no fixing that; it's been that way since birth.
And then he says something that entirely distracts her-- it's been far too fucking long since she worked on a car that wasn't FrankenFord. She can feel her fingers itching for it.
"You need it looked at?" She opens the trunk of her dinky sedan, so he can clearly see the wealth of mechanic's tools, well-used but well taken care of, laid out and ready.
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“Yeah, if you’re offering.”
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She shuts and locks the trunk before opening the driver's side door, getting in, and leeeaning across the divide to unlock the passenger's side. Automatic locks, what the fuck are those. As soon as the engine roars to life, the entire frame starts to shake, vibrating just slightly. There's also a half-second of blasted music; she turns down the volume quickly, before Harvest echoes through the entire parking lot.
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As he closes the door, he says almost conversationally, "She wasn't that old." His voice is tinged with something not-quite-cautious. Careful, maybe. A delicate subject. "In her thirties. She's sick, doesn't know where she is sometimes or what's going on, makes her lash out. Not her fault. I offered to pray over her. Sort of what I do. She was doing okay when I left her. Nice lady, kicks like a fucking mule."
He's actually pretty pleased with that description. All of it's true. He'd come out with it and say exorcism actually — it's tempting — but he can't work out what type of bastard Joan is: the crusading type or the not my business type. Latter's fine, former's admirable but inconvenient.
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Joan moves the sedan out of the parking lot, and the rattling stops, smooths out, the car running without a bit of complaint. Well, as long as they stay under 60, and don't ever floor it, which they thankfully do.
She listens to Marcus' little story in the meanwhile, chewing it over. Something's off. Ex-priests don't go to pray for funzies. Don't get kicked around by sick old(er) women on the regular. Unless there's some embarrassment, something deeply wrong, something they don't want the real, actual priest poking around at, either out of shame or a lack of expertise. Or both.
Joan's voice is about as close as it ever gets to gentle when she says, "she was a junkie, you mean. And you let her hit you."
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Speaking of. He rolls his neck, frowns, reaches up to try and wring a knot out of his shoulder. "Don't worry about it," he advises. "Small, sad story. No fun." He flashes a wider slice of teeth. "What about you, then? You just drive around in this thing looking for good works you can grumble about while you perform?"
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Also, she thinks he'll get a kick out of the middle name. Somebody always does.
"Maybe you didn't have to hit her, but fuck. Could've done something. You look like shit." Because it's her problem, now. She's too lonely not to worry, though she guards it with a gruff exterior. "I'm looking for a town with good racing. This ain't it. Lucky this car'd be shit for it."
Not strictly true-- she'd like a steady job as a mechanic, maybe finally settle down, but quick drag racing cash is always welcome.
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Without even a few words to indicate the moment at which he glides over the question of could've done something, he says, "Racing, huh? Sounds exciting. Tell me about it."
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So she tells him more jokes about her name, because some stupid and lonely part of herself likes making people laugh. Nobody ever laughs around her. It's novel and exciting.
"Gets worse. Three older brothers. Matthew, Mark, Luke." Her parents weren't even that religious, beyond a general observance of tradition; they just liked matching names.
As for racing-- "Drag racing. Need a better car for it, though. This one's got a fine motor--" she'd know, she put it in herself, "but the frame's shit. Get above seventy and it'd shoot out like a cannonball."
Not strictly true, but it's how she explained it, the one time she needed to when someone was dumb enough to leave her alone with their inquisitive five-year-old.
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"So how does that even work, then? You just find someone likely-looking and bet they can't beat you?" Actually. He gives her a sideways look and grins and says, "Oh. Do you get underestimated? And then you show 'em how good you are? I think I saw that movie once. With that guy in it — Vin Diesel."
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Joan frowns. That was a lot, and she's not used to people being interested in, well, her. "Why d'you care? There's money in it, but unless you've got a real strong, light frame and you can fit the bill for new parts, I can't do shit for you."