#oh how cafuddàri jane has my heart

[anthrofreshtodeath]

Soft-ish prompts: "Let me do this for you, okay?"

I'm not sure if I'd prefer this as Jane to Maura or Maura to Jane, it has good potential for either....

Okay my request is for Maura to Jane in the Cafuddári universe if you are so inclined please and thank you.

Writing this kind of hit me in the feels 😅

___

“Night has fallen,” Maura says to Jane, and they are hovering in the doorway between St. Paul’s pastoral offices and the sanctuary itself. The length of the church, of the holy parts of it, appears interminable from this vantage point. Light is scarce, most of it coming from the votive candles to their right, at about the halfway marker of the massive room. 

Jane laughs in that Italian way. “Night has fallen,” she says in her easiest accent, the one from home. The one she probably last used when in a church - that is, before last night. “You sound like one of us. I’m not sure if the change is a good one.”

Maura shakes her head, reminds herself that fear is speaking to her more than Jane is. “I am. I’m better for knowing you, even if it hasn’t been very long. Do you think you could try?”

Jane stares only ahead, but allows Maura’s fingers to thread through her own. “Melissa deserves a candle. She deserves ten. She had no idea about all this bull… about our world, and yet, she served the church. She let them torture her before she gave anything up. If she gave anything up at all. But I just don’t know if I… the pain if I try and it doesn’t…”

More than fear. Mortal terror. Maura refrains from cursing the God of Abraham only out of respect for Jane’s respect for this place - his rejection and his enforcement of that rejection has made a centuries-old being (those exist!) cower from the soft glow of candlelight. So, Maura swallows, reminds herself that cognition is so much more powerful than emotion at solving problems, and Jane is right. Melissa deserves honor from all of them. “Let me do this for you, okay?”

Jane’s head snaps toward Maura’s. “What?”

“Let me light the candle for you. For her,” Maura says softly. 

Jane blushes, full of Maura’s blood still, and she sports an incredulous, half-exhilarated smile. “You don’t believe,” she says.

Maura turns to her, puts hands on her shoulders, rubs her thumbs over the warm skin on Jane’s neck. If she concentrates, if she pauses the affection, she can feel the periodic knock of the carotid - slow, inhuman, but full. She licks her lips, purpose renewed. “I can be respectful,” she says to Jane. “I can have a moment of silence.”

“You won’t pray?” Jane asks quietly.

Maura shakes her head. “No. I never have, and I probably never will. And because we are in a place of worship, that’s all I’m going to say on the matter.”

“Probably for the best,” Jane says, looking back toward the votives and the likeness above them. “Saint Paul is a total asshole.”

Maura laughs, loud and pretty and free. “He certainly wouldn’t approve of our nighttime activities, would he?”

“No, he wouldn’t,” Jane says. Then she turns back to Maura and her face grows long, serious. “Thank you, for this.”

“Stand behind me,” Maura nods. “Coach me, if I need coaching.”

Jane puts her arm out, asking Maura to lead the way. “I don’t think you’re gonna need any help at all,” she says.

They walk to the candles hand in hand. For Melissa.