#a personal thank you to the cathedral singers and their album of catholic chants

[godsweakestsoldier]

“one scene” 🥺🥺 🤝 one fear 🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠

if you listen really carefully you can hear me shaking like a tiny beetle with a sword facing down a lawnmower 🥺🪲🗡️😭😭😭

Oh my sweet friend, do not be afraid, it's just a *checks word count* 1.2 k little scene. But, you are so brave in the face of the one fear. I hope you enjoy whatever this is. It's got your favorites, love you.

-

“Bea,” Shannon starts. It’s the first time she’s spoken since she settled next to Beatrice. Knee bumping into her shoulder as she adjusts. A whisper breaking the silence that had been filled with hushed supplications.

Beatrice’s fingers ache as rosary beads work themselves through pinched fingers. They’re cool beneath skin, solid beneath callouses, heavy as they drag with each Hail Mary. Lips wrapped around words, praise that she couldn’t remember learning yet mutters all the same. There will be bruises, and she knows that. Blossoming across her knees from where she kneels and knuckles where she clutches the rosary. She doesn’t care.

Polished oak creaks as Shannon shifts her weight. Heat growing prominent from the movement, a constant rolling heat that Beatrice had begun to associate with her from their first moments. A fire capable of consuming.

“Bea,” there’s steel in her voice now, not harsh nor chastising, but it’s there. Her hand warm as it wraps around Beatrice’s clasped hands, “Beatrice, that’s enough.”

It’s the formality that causes her to stop, not the words. The sudden shock of her name, of vocal chords dipped in steel. Shannon’s fingers twitch where they rest against blood-soaked hands. A few flecks of dried blood breaking free, floating to the wood beneath them, disappearing into the darkness. Dried blood cracks as Beatrice finally opens her eyes. Their hands are cascaded in the soft yellow lights, darkening the maroon blood coating her fingers. Deep blue beads catch the soft glow of artificial candlelight.

“I’m sorry,” Shannon whispers, barely audible over the sound of the heater buzzing above them.

“No.”

There’s a sigh of resignation that emerges from her chest, and Beatrice watches her shadow become distorted—passing over pews, stopping just before the steps to the small altar. Feels the weight of Shannon sliding onto the kneeler, air escaping in protest. Watches as she removes her hand, makes the sign of the cross with her precision, and there’s silence.

Familiarity seeps in and sinks beneath cutaneous tissue and tendons and sinew. Settles against her bones, filters into marrow to be circulated through her body again. Kneeling, fingers held high with bowed head. Beatrice couldn’t count the amount of she had done this, with her parents, the bordering school. It had been months since she had stepped foot in a church, taken communion, confessed. Her communion, her refugee, currently lay sprawled out in a hospital bed.

“I’m sorry.”

“Shan, please,” Beatrice breathes, gentle and heavy, and it sits strangely in her mouth. It’s wrong. Wrong to consciously speak after relying on muscle memory, on scriptures and prayers cemented in her head.

Her eyes flicker up, meeting the clock held aloft by a long-forgotten string. 2100, just over two hours.

“Beatrice,” it’s a plea and a command wrapped into one, “look at me.”

Reluctantly, Beatrice turns her attention towards the woman beside her. Takes in the black sweatshirt emblazoned with a small halo in the right corner, the way it sags around the shoulders, clearly made to accommodate border shoulders. Trapezius and deltoids, she reminds herself. It’s Mary’s, of course, it’s Mary’s. The smaller hairs that had escaped her braid framing her head. There’s desperation in her eyes underneath dark circles; it is nothing like the Shannon that Beatrice knows.

“Shan-.”

Shannon’s hands unfold from where they rest against the back of a pew, one gripping onto wood, the other closing the gap between them. Her fingers resting over bone and cartilage.

“No, you don’t get to Shan me, not right now,” Shannon says, the steel sneaking back into her voice, “you only get to listen to me and that’s it, do you understand?”

Beatrice nods, because she is nothing but obedient, and it’s Shannon who sits next to her. Her fingers start to unlace hers, gently unwrapping taunt fingers. Allowing the beads to drop, dangle and reflect golden light across the curve of Shannon’s jaw.

“We didn’t know where you went, didn’t know if you were alive or not. You could’ve been dead or bleeding out somewhere,” she pauses, gently lifting the rosary from Beatrice’s hand. “And, when we found you, you blatantly ignored me,” Shannon’s fingers land on the curve of her jaw, her thumb brushing back one of the fallen strands. “Beatrice, you’re supposed to be the smart one.”

“I know,” Beatrice replies, and it’s smaller than she’d like.

“No, I don’t think you do because if you did, you would’ve stayed with us or at least told one of us where you’d go,” there’s a softness to her voice, a slight uptick of her lips, “you’re lucky I’m patient.”

“Lily?” a silent, desperate prayer manifested finally into words. Beatrice can feel tears well, the sting as one slips across broken skin, shame reaching out across her chest cavity.

“Will be okay,” Shannon answers, gently brushing the pad of her thumb across the curve of a cheekbone. Her eyes soften slightly, a glimpse of gentleness hidden in their depth. “I promise you I would never lie to you,” she mutters, lips warm against Beatrice’s brow.

“Is she awake?”

“No, not yet.”

Something deep within Beatrice cracks, some edifice crumbling underneath the confirmation. The tendrils of shame gradually retreat in the light of relief. Warm fingers move across taunt muscles, sternocleidomastoid, and tuck underneath strands of hair. Shannon’s here and present; she can smell the slight acidity of coffee. She’s not alone anymore. They, Shannon and her, kneeling with foreheads pressed together, remind her of that fact.

“The others?” Beatrice whispers, her eyes fluttering shut.

“Are okay, although I think Cam may have walked a rut into the waiting room’s carpet.”

She smiles then, for the first time in hours since the fight. It’s small, barely noticeable, except for the slight upturn of her lip and dimple, “That sounds about right.”

Shannon chuckles and the sound chases away the shame entirely, at least for now. There’s an easiness to being around her, something Beatrice revels in, “Yeah it does. I love you, you know that right?”

Beatrice hums in acknowledgment.

“I love you, but you look like shit,” Shannon continues, her hand leaving its resting place at the nap of Beatrice’s neck. Warmth fleeting as she moves away. Cartilage cracks as Beatrice hears her stand, opening her eyes. Blue refracting from the rosary dangling from her fingers, coating the kneeling woman in light. “Do you promise not to start praying again if I give you your rosary back?”

“I promise.”

It’s offered then by two fingers held aloft between the two women. A golden crucifix dangling before her face, Beatrice takes it with her right hand.

“If Mary asks, I gave you this,” Shannon says, her hands coming to the collar of the sweatshirt. Beatrice watches her pull the sweatshirt over her head, and traces the plane of abdominal muscles as her shirt rides up, corded muscles flexing with the movement. Until she stands there in a grey tank top, coated in shadow, St. Christopher medallion glinting, her sweatshirt held out in silent offer.

“Shannon,” Beatrice starts.

“Just put it on. I’m not about to be seen escorting a blood-soaked woman through a hospital.”

Beatrice reaches out, taking the slightly worn fabric in her hand. It smells faintly of incense, myrrh and frankincense, and distantly of gunpowder. Sacredness in both senses of the word. It’s surprisingly soft as she pulls it over her head, avoiding the fresh clot on her cheekbone. Lose around the shoulders and waist, yet comforting.

“Come on,” Shannon says, offering her hand at last, which Beatrice takes and is pulled to her feet. Hands come up, placing the hood over her head, “Let’s get you back where you belong, yeah?”