Day 69: Male Showers

[envy_the_sinners]

Scar wasn't fond of being forced to shower with everyone else. Bathing had been a rare luxury during his recent time in Lior, (Had it really only been just over a week ago?) so he was thankful at least for the chance to wash. Just as long as he could spend the whole time facing the wall.

He washed himself quickly and quietly, taking no time to savor the warm water and steam that made him drowsy.

[To here]

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[stop_the_rain]

Murphy didn't know why Gabe was laughing, but he didn't care. It wasn't like he was being laughed at.

"I don't think I care anymore. About...a reason or anything like that. But I'm angry. I'm pissed off and I hurt and I never care about much when I'm like that." He sniffled, acutely aware of how tired he was. But it was true. Right now he didn't give a damn what reason there was for any of the torments he'd suffered. His pain overwhelmed him, it always had.

All his nightmare adventure had done for him was allow him to accept that Charlie was gone, and that his own revenge had been an empty and selfish gesture. Those weren't even cold comforts to take with him into the night.

"God, I don't know how you put up with me. I'm a pretty miserable son of a bitch, huh?" He pulled away then, wiping his wet eyes and swallowing thickly. It was his own way of asking for that help, because he knew damn well he couldn't pull his soul up out of the gutter on his own.

[impudentsongbird]

"You're not that hard to put up with." Gabe let Murphy pull away but smiled at him, gentle but warm and with tears in his own eyes, on his own cheeks. Sympathetic tears. "You're worth it, anyhow. I've been around long enough to tell when people are worth it, and you are."

If he wasn't, he wouldn't feel so deeply for what he'd done. The danger lay in his not caring; at that point, Lucifer will have won. If Gabe could save Murphy from that ...

The Archangel reached out to squeeze one of his hands. "Would you like to pray with me? Or I can pray for you alone, if you'd rather."

Because he would, either way. He just thought Murphy might like the chance to do so for himself ... even if it was just to rail at an apparently absent God. Sometimes the outlet helped.

[stop_the_rain]

"I'm glad one of us thinks so."

It was hard, not to be self deprecating. But if Gabe wanted to think so, Murphy wasn't going to argue. He wanted to be worth something. To someone, anyone. He could hardly remember what that even felt like.

And praying sounded oddly comforting. He'd been trying, more and more lately.

"Why don't you start us off?" he asked, not sure he could bear to address God on his own right now.

[impudentsongbird]

With a smile Gabe clasped both of Murphy's hands in his, without breaking gaze. "Our Father in Heaven," he said softly, just loud enough to be heard over the patter of the shower-water.

"In Your name I pray for Murphy Pendleton. Help him find the courage and will to continue in spite of what he has suffered. Let him feel Your love so he may know that it is eternal. In the difficulties Murphy must face day by day, here in this Institute and whatever life he has afterward, may he know that You are watching, regardless of whether You might be seen or unseen. Help him bear his sins until such a time he is ready to ask forgiveness. Because when that time comes, I know he will already be forgiven."

The last line was said quietly, half as if an aside to someone Gabe knew very well and was sharing a knowledge they knew which others might. The other half was said directly to Murphy himself, as encouragement, as faith that he would be forgiven. If he only asked.