Morality
Summary: You're a friend of Lenora's who's always had a bad feelin' about that new preacher. Word Count: 2.6k Warning: Includes sacrilegious details and talk of suicide and sexual assault. Heavy on the religious trauma. Note: Wrote this because I'm real into The Devil All the Time and wanted to try writing something in my own accent lmao. It's also basically proof to myself that I still know how to write a little. Sorry it's not Marvel. Read first by @kiba-uwuzuka so blame her if there're mistakes.
"You got those peaches counted yet, or you just standin' there zoning out again?" The manager's voice cut through the backroom's flickering fluorescent hum. You blinked down at the clipboard in your hands, realizing you'd been staring at the same number for three minutes.
"Yessir," you murmured, voice lighter than you feel, but just as thin. You stepped to the door and hung the clipboard on the wall beside it, glancing once more to the room before shuffling into the aisles to look for something productive to do; something that might take your attention off of the way time has slowed to a crawl, every second after finding out that Lenora was dead dragging on despite every urge to end it alongside her.
That's dramatic. You're not dramatic. But you're also not happy.
The citrus-scented floor cleaner burned your nose as you crouched to wipe smeared fingerprints off the glass cooler doors from Mrs. Neeley's sticky-handed children wrecking the store at Too-Early o'clock.
You didn't hear him approach, he'd always moved quiet as a shadow, but the sudden shift in air pressure and the faint perfume of funeral flowers clinging to him made you freeze mid-wipe before you even turned your head.
Arvin's knuckles were white where they gripped the shelf edge and his eyes were near you but not on you. You turned back to the glass for a long moment before standing, not bothering to finish the job before tucking the wipe beside you and turning to face him without looking at him- reciprocating the unspoken boundary.
"I'm sorry," you mumbled, hoping for sincere but sounding more like habit- the thing you know is right to do when a sister kills herself and you miss the funeral.
He exhaled sharply through his nose, like he was trying to breathe away the smell of chrysanthemums still clinging to his collar. His fingers twitched against the shelf. "She wrote somethin' to you," he said. "Not a letter. Just... scribbles in her Bible."
You nod, not looking at him yet- just staring into the four feet of space between you. "I'd ask you to tear the page out for me, but I don't think Emma'd appreciate that."
His fist clenches on the shelf edge again, tighter for a second before it disappears entirely, buried in his pocket. "Grandma hasn't seen it."
You nod again, looking further away like you can feel your own grief radiating off of you and pooling into his on the cracked tile beneath you both.
"She okay?" you ask halfheartedly, though there's no sarcasm in the question. Emma has never been the biggest fan of you or your influence on Lenora- as if you could ever influence Lenora. As if there was ever anything other than her bleeding into you.
He shrugs, a tiny motion you barely catch in your peripheral vision. "Same as ever. Same as always." His voice is quiet, but flat- not disappointed, exactly, just acknowledging the truth: Emma will never waiver from grace, not even for grief.
You hum low in your chest, hands coming up together to absently pull fibers from the cloth. "You?"
Arvin's jaw works silently for a moment before he speaks, words carefully measured like he doesn't trust himself with them. "Dunno what I am." His admission is rough, scraped raw from somewhere deep. You don't answer- just let the hum of the cooler fill the space where words would be if you had any idea what made sense anymore.
"You here for..." you start, then stop to swallow when your voice chokes from your throat. "D'you wanna talk?" You glance up at him and immediately regret it- the clarity of his pain too much for you to handle, so you look away again, fingers straining against the fabric.
He shifts his weight, shoulders rolling back ever so slightly. "Wouldn't be here if I didn't," he finally mutters, low and tight.
Your breath leaves you slowly, eyes closing with a solemn nod. "Off at 2:00," you say once you get your air back. "We can walk. If you want."
You open your eyes once you committed to the words, blinking down at the floor by his boots.
He moves his tongue over his teeth, considering. "Yeah," he says, soft but decided. His fingers flex against his thigh, restless before he stills again, nodding like he's convincing himself.
The fabric moves between your hands as you step away, the conversation ending without punctuation because you can't bear to stand there with him anymore. On the way to the register you think that maybe Lenora wouldn't want him here, asking questions neither of you can answer.
But she's not here, and that's the whole problem.
And it is a problem. She left you here with only enough of a clue as to what the hell happened to her to make hatred burn in your gut, only traces of pain you can conjure up from memory- snippets of conversations, not nearly a sufficient trail to find something resembling closure.
It's too early to hope for closure, and maybe you're not on the list of those worthy of it, but this hollow wound in your chest is worse than any pain you've felt 'til now.
-
Arvin was leaning against the brick wall outside when you finally pushed through the door at 12 past 2:00. His cigarette smoke curled grey against washed-out daylight, giving his face a sheen of color- not the color of mourning. The color of nothing.
His lips barely moved around the filter, inhaling like breathing was just another chore he had to finish and the smoke somehow made it easier.
You cleared your throat softly, just enough to announce yourself without startling him. His fingers twitched then moved to pull the cigarette from his mouth and lower it from his face as he turned to lock eyes with you- the pockets under them dark like he's been punched square in the soul.
"You got another o' them?" you ask weakly, eyes flicking from the cigarette in his hand and back up to his face.
He stares at you for a second, breathing out smoke through his nose before he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the pack. He holds it between two fingers, offering, though his brow furrows slightly- like he’s trying to reconcile the image of you asking for one with whatever idea he had of you before now.
You take it without hesitation, pulling one free and pressing it between your lips as you hoist your bag more solidly onto your shoulder. He watches, then fishes out a matchbook from his breast pocket, striking it against the brick in a single practiced motion before cupping the flame toward you.
Your eyes stay low when you finally take in a breath of it, the burn the first real thing you'd felt in hours. Your feet move before your mind really catches on, and he follows half a step behind you.
The woods swallow you both before either of you speaks- too much air between the trees for words to feel like they'd land right. The cigarette hangs limp between your fingers, ashes crumbling off onto the damp leaves underfoot, and it's only when your toe catches a stem in the ground that you remember it's there and bring it back to your lips.
Arvin's beside you now, hands tucked into his pockets as he keeps your pace, your stride nearly half a foot smaller than his.
You know it's your job to speak first, but you struggle to find words that might suffice.
You don't notice your fingers shaking until ash spills onto your wrist. Arvin sees it- his brow twitches, but he doesn't mention it. The silence stretches taut like a wire, waiting to snap under the weight of everything unspoken.
Lenora is dead, and neither of you know how to say her name aloud now without choking on it.
You take in another long breath of the poison in your hand, shifting your bag back onto your shoulder before you let out the smoke in front of you.
"She came to me- after what happened in that godforsaken church," you spit the words freely, not masking the venom. "I'm sure you knew that."
He makes a slow, acknowledging sound in his throat, his fingers tightening around his cigarette before he exhales sharply through his nose. "Told me she talked to you. Didn't say much else."
"She wouldn't give me the answers I was pressin' on her," you said, slowing your steps unconsciously as your eyes drift across the path. "I tried. I tried to get 'em outta her."
His boot scuffs against a tree root, the sound rough like his voice when he finally speaks. "Answers 'bout what?"
You glance at him sidelong, brows pinched and eyes sharp like he's asking a stupid question. "'Bout what the hell happened. 'Bout how the hell some preacher comes to your church with lies about her and gets up in front of the town to speak ‘em."
His jaw flexes and you can hear his teeth grind before he speaks. "She tell you that?" His voice is low, dangerous, cigarette crushed between his fingers and forgotten.
"'Course she told me," you say, not bothering to flick the ash from your cigarette before it falls to your shoes. "Didn't wanna... slander a man of God." Your voice is low and tight, but the resentment is clear. "Didn't wanna hear it when I said he ain't such a thing."
Arvin stops walking. Just stops. His stillness is so sudden you take two more steps before realizing he's not beside you anymore. When you turn, he's staring at the ground like he's afraid to look up and find you waiting for him to speak.
"She wouldn't- shit," you let out sharply, stopping to look away for a breath. Your polite facade is gone today, and it might be disturbing him a little to hear this from you- but everyone else's already disturbed so you might as well be honest now. "It's his fault. I know it. I had a bad feelin' about that man the second I saw his shiny li'l car roll into town."
He tilts his head slightly, eyes flicking toward you before he rubs at his nose with the back of his hand- covering something twitching in his expression. "She tell you what he said?" The question comes out almost reluctant, like he's afraid of the memory but more afraid of silence.
You scoff, turning halfway around as you flick the ash unnecessarily hard. "Told me that son o' bitch said she was sexually immoral."
A muscle jumps in his jaw, his fist clenching at his side before he forces it open again. His cigarette butt hits the dirt with a hiss as he grinds it under his boot, eyes dark like storm clouds gathering.
"Ain't no fuckin' way," you mutter, the words tumble from you before you can catch the tail of them, spewing your disdain into the dirt without filter. "She wouldn't tell me why he'd have it out for her like that- why he'd say somethin' like that."
His breath hitches, barely audible, but his fingers curl into his palms again like he's holding something invisible and fragile. "You think..." He swallows, throat working. "You think he did somethin' to her?" The words scrape out, raw and jagged, like they've been dragged through broken glass.
"She denied it," you say immediately, not as a dismissal but as a plea. You look up at him finally, arms at your sides with your cigarette limp and burning in one hand and your bag slipping from your opposite shoulder. "I asked ‘er. Told her if he predated on her then that's what it was- not her bein' immoral."
His nostrils flare with a sharp inhale. His hands shake before he fists them in his pockets, pressing his knuckles into his thighs hard enough to bruise. "Could've lied," he grits out, voice cracking halfway through. "Could've been... ashamed."
Your lip twitches into a snarl before you turn away from him again. "That's all that fuckin' place does to you all. Shame and fuckin' isolation." You turn to him, teeth tight together like they're trying to keep the words back. "This town thinks I'm a fuckin' blasphemer, meanwhile you got a wolf in y'all's goddamn pulpit."
Arvin flinches like you've struck him. His shoulders hunch forward, not in defeat but in something darker- like a predator coiling before the kill. The air between you thrums with a violence barely restrained, his breath coming in short, sharp bursts through clenched teeth. "You got any proof?" he rasps, the question more growl than words.
You exhale sharp and slow, your shoulders slipping down as you look away. "Nothin’ anyone'll trust. Just my intuition makin' a witch outta me."
He doesn't move- doesn't blink. "Tell me anyway," he murmurs, low and deliberate, like he's already decided what he'll do with your answer.
You shake your head, dropping the cigarette at your feet and watch it burn the leaves around it.
"She told me somethin'... a couple weeks ago," you breathe out as the stinging starts behind your eyes. "She said she helped him- the pastor. Said he was strugglin' and she talked him through somethin'." Your eyes flutter and you watch a tear drop from your eyes down to the leaves around the cigarette butt. "I messed it up- I shoulda asked what she meant. I shoulda asked insteada judged."
Arvin's gaze flickers between your face and the burning cigarette, his jaw tightening with each passing second. "What kinda strugglin'?"
You don't move, eyes locked onto the dichotomy at your loafers; tears wetting one side of the leaves and embers burning the other.
"She wouldn't tell me once I said that man shouldn't be comin' to her with his problems. She could feel it, I- I let it slip, I mean-" You sniffle, looking away and back up the path toward town. "She could tell I didn't feel right about it."
The shadows of oak limbs twist across his face when he finally steps closer, one boot crushing your discarded cigarette into the damp earth. He's studying you now with a focus that makes your skin prickle, and you can't face him to see what expression he's carrying.
"She tell you where they talked?" His voice is flat, deliberate- like he's measuring each syllable before letting it loose.
Your eyes distance from reality when the question lands, and the idea that this is more than just a fleeting misstep between two friends starts to solidify higher in your chest like you might vomit something sharp.
"His car," you whisper after a moment. "She said he- he wanted a private conversation, and she was the one who could help him." Your eyes flit back and forth across the path as you recall, then land on him. "She said he was strugglin' and she got riled up when I told her it shouldn't'a been on her to help the man. She wouldn't tell me anythin' else after that."
Arvin’s breathing slows unnaturally, his chest barely rising. The veins in his forearms stand stark against his skin as his fingers curl inward like talons. The woods around you feel too quiet now- even the birds have hushed, as if sensing the storm brewing in the man before you.
"I told her, Arvin-" you start, like you're expecting the condemnation from him you feel within yourself. "I said I had a bad feelin' about it, and she didn't tell me to stop talkin'- she just told me she'd pray."
His jaw clenches so tight you hear the scrape of his teeth, and for a moment you think he might walk away- just turn on his heel and leave you standing there with the weight of your confession. But instead he digs his heel into the dirt, twisting it until the last embers of your cigarette are smothered.
"Let's get you home.”
