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11:35 in the evening saw Father Michael Keane stepping cautiously out of the sacristy towards the sanctuary with a walking stick at the ready. Attempted sackings of the church were a bi-weekly occurrence to be dealt with---which, along with his current lack of a phone made him hesitate to call the police. Nowadays he preferred to be prepared, and so kept his carved oak walking stick in the sacristy. Ever since the incident where he'd nearly hit a thug upside the head with a chalice, he made it a point to keep a non-blasphemous but convenient weapon on hand.
At this hour, it didn't seem likely that any visitors would be of innocent intent, and he'd forgotten to lock one of the doors, meaning to do so after he'd finished cleaning up after mass and catching up on paperwork.
However, when he silently pushed the heavy wooden door to the sanctuary open, his eyes lit upon one lone boy, of maybe eighteen, with messy black hair, slouched as if from exhaustion in one of the back pews. His shoulders were slightly tense, and he was glancing around, seeming uncomfortable but apparently with no mind of moving.
Father lowered his stick a bit, but still kept a firm grasp of it as he stepped inside a bit further, making sure to keep his steps loud enough to be heard. You never knew how any of the street kids was going to react to being snuck up on. He paused to genuflect reverently towards the tabernacle, and then carefully stood back up and walked slowly down the aisle. The boy glanced back once, his head snapping to the side as his wide eyes took in the approaching priest. Father thought for sure that the lad was going to run at that point, but with a slight huff that might have been derisive laughter, the boy hung his head and sat still, apparently waiting.
Father slid into the pew behind the boy, sighing a bit in relief. He'd been on his feet for a few hours today. "Evening," he said amiably.
The boy drew a quiet breath, but said nothing. The two of them sat in the silence for a while, only the distant traffic and shouts from the street audible in the echoing space of the church. Father had nearly given up on expecting a response when the boy murmured a quiet, "Evening," back, still not raising his head.
Father leaned to the side a bit to glance at the boy's face. He almost thought there was some serious scarring in the boy's mouth, but in the low light, he couldn't tell.
"Erm, I don't mean to pry, but if you don't mind my asking...?" He began.
The boy gave a faint laugh. "What the fuck am I doing in here at almost midnight?" His eyes widened and he stammered a "Sorry," almost at the same time as Father gave a stern "Language."
"Sorry! I, sh--oot," the boy said with a groan, rubbing his eyes with one hand. Father noticed with a bit of a startle that his hand was bloody.
"You alright there?"
"I'll live," the boy said dryly. "Maybe." Now that he paid further attention, Father noticed the boy's somewhat clumsily bandaged shoulder. It was a good technique for bandaging---clearly the boy was experienced---but his dominant arm was the injured one, mussing the application a bit.
"I, uh." The boy said, and Father's attention was drawn back to him. "I'm..." the boy glanced down again, playing with his hands. "I'm hiding from my dad."
Father's eyes went of their own volition towards the crucifix hanging above the altar, then to the tabernacle, and then back to the boy. "Doesn't seem like the best place to do it," he said flatly, and the boy laughed again, a faint, barely-there laugh.
"Yeah," he said. "I guess not." He glanced back at the priest, with a hint of a crooked grin. "In my defense, I highly doubt he'd look for me here. I don't think he knows this place exists."
Father's eyes widened a bit. He had been right; the boy had some intense scarring worn into his lips and in his forehead. He also had a still-bleeding scratch in his cheek. His black hair was matted and sweaty, drooping into his face, and his green eyes looked both fiery and tired all at once.
"Take it your da's not Catholic, then," he said after a beat.
The boy shook his head. "No."
"...But you are?" Father asked cautiously.
The boy shrugged. "I used to go to church here. Not for very long. I don't even remember how old I was when we quit coming. Back even before Dad got locked up."
"Did I baptize you?" Father asked, his mind racing to wondering if he'd have to hide a boy from his convicted felon father who would come tearing into the church looking for him tonight.
"I think so. Don't remember." The boy gave a faint grin. "If you've been here nineteen years, then yeah, probably."
"Guess I did, then," Father said. Normally he would have been transferred at least four times in that amount of years, maybe five, but the diocese always had trouble keeping a pastor in Gotham. He hadn't left, so the church hadn't made him.
"Maybe a waste, on your part," the boy said, voice low. "I'm not really anything anymore."
Father shook his head sadly. "No baptism is a waste, lad. And if you think it is, it just tells me how poorly catechized you've been."
"Sorry," the boy said genuinely. "Life's....well, it's kinda been a bitch to me. Sorry," he corrected before Father could open his mouth.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Father said after a moment. "I can tell ya you're not alone, certainly not in this part of the city."
"Oh, I know," the boy said quietly. "Believe me, I know."
"...So why you running from your da, then?" Father asked at length. "S'he hurting you?"
"No," the boy said quickly, almost too quickly. "Not...on purpose," he amended. "Not physically. Not like my birth dad."
"Ah," Father said, wondering what sort of character he'd gotten locked alone in the church with at this hour. One who needs help, Michael, the irritatingly kind voice in his head reminded him, and he grudgingly mentally agreed, which satisfied the voice enough to make it retreat back into the corner of his mind.
"I ran off, again. Cause I disobeyed him, again. I got hurt, again." The boy shrugged, picking dried blood off his nails. "The usual."
"Sounds like you have quite the relationship."
The boy snorted. "That's an understatement."
"Why is that your usual?" Father asked, and the boy gave another laugh, glancing up at the ceiling. "Just the way I am, I guess. I'm a screw-up. Always have been." He glanced down at the floor. "Dad didn't want me. Maybe Mom did, but if she did it was cause she was naive. I kind of treated my siblings like dirt. I was jealous of them. Bounced in and out of everywhere. I mess up everything I touch." He snorted. "I sound like some emo kid, don't I? 'Daddy never loved me.' Hell." He went quiet all of a sudden. "I guess he did, actually. Maybe not enough, but he did."
"Do you love him back?" Father asked. The boy drew a hitched breath in all of a sudden at that question, his shoulders tensing up. Father would have thought it was panic, but he'd heard the tears in it.
"Yeah," the boy whispered. "I do."
"Well then." Father set his walking stick onto the floor, leaned his elbows on top of it. "Kinda makes me wonder why you're here."
The boy shook his head. "Every time I screw up he gets so furious and it makes me mad. He thinks he's better than me, knows better than me, always, always. That ticks me off, so I leave." The boy snorted, giving a faint grin. "The problem is that he actually is better than me, just in general. I never remember until I'm already out again, and then I don't want to go back."
"Why not?"
"....I just don't want to, I guess." The boy finally said, after a long pause. "Admit I was wrong. Or that being around him matters more to me than having my way."
"....Think you know what my opinion on that is," Father said wryly, and the boy laughed. "Yeah. I should own up and go home. There's a story about that, isn't there? Always used to drive me nuts. The younger kid's a total dipstick and his dad just lets him come waltzing back in. Talk about a pavlovian response."
".....aaand you completely missed the point of the story," Father said with a tsk, shaking his head. "Though don't worry about it. Everybody does."
The boy glanced back once, uncertain. Father was fairly certain he heard him mutter "oh, hell with it," under his breath, and then he turned and leaned his chin against the pew, facing the priest.
"What does it mean, then?" He asked a bit peevishly.
"Well lad, you tell me. Where in that story did it say that the father didn't punish the younger son?"
The boy looked startled. "I..."
"I'll tell ya where. Nowhere. For all we know the father did make him work in the fields for six months after. It would be no more than the lad deserved. But that there's the moral of the story. Deserving."
"The younger son perhaps deserved nothing. But his father loved him. And because his father loved him, when he got him back, he didn't waste time being angry about the hurts he'd suffered because of the boy, even if he maybe should have been. He was so right glad about having him back that he celebrated rather than scolded. It's supposed to be about God's love for us, that He is so merciful and so full of love towards humanity that when we take even one step towards Him, He's that joyful that He'd be willing to forget everything for love of us. It's not necessarily practical parenting advice." He leveled a hard stare at the boy. "But you tell me what you'd rather have if you screwed up, and know you screwed up. A da who yells at you and tells you the faults you already know, or a da who just hugs you and takes you home?"
The boy blinked slowly, seeming thoughtful but maybe wistful. "The latter, probably," he admitted. He glanced back up, a hint of a desperate smile on his face. "What do you do if your dad's a combination of both?" He gave a breathy laugh.
Father shrugged. "Take the first step. It's never too late to try and fix things."
The boy's expression slowly fell. Father glanced at him, concerned. But he didn't have to ask because the boy spoke. "I...well, I don't know about too late, Father." He closed his eyes tightly. "I know the Seal of Confession is a thing, so I might as well say...I don't know if I can believe any of this anymore. I've been dead, before, and there was....nothing there." His voice was tight, and Father could see tears leaking from his eyes. "Nothing."
"We're...not technically in confession but don't worry, I'm not one for gossip," Father said quickly. "As to the other part, I um. I'm not sure how that works, but I assume that's a bit beyond my theology level. However, I...." he thought for a moment. "I dunno. You'll have to forgive me if this makes no sense, but I can try to ease your mind with what I know, if you like."
The boy laughed thickly. "At this point I'll take anything."
"...Right then. Well. Purgatory. S'a thing. It teaches that those who are good...but maybe not quite good enough to go straight to heaven without a problem have a chance to earn their salvation and purge their sins through suffering. S'like hell but for one big difference: everyone who goes to purgatory will one day be in Heaven."
The boy slowly raised his head, looking at the priest again, and Father was slightly encouraged by this, so he continued. "Believe it or not, the church actually teaches that it's possible for ghosts to exist; souls in purgatory who are allowed, as part of their atonement, to roam the world to try to right their wrongs. I don't...think you would adhere to that in the traditional sense, but who knows? I'm not God, I don't know how He orders these things to work. But maybe that's what you're doing here, lad. Maybe you were given another chance. Maybe that's why it's so hard."
The boy had looked more and more relaxed and yet oddly hysterical throughout the explanation, and now he made a choked but desperate noise. "Then what do I do?" He asked, leaning face down on the back of the pew.
"Don't waste it." Father said intensely.
The boy raised his head and met the priests eyes. There were definitely tears in the boys', but the same fire Father'd seen earlier, rekindled, but maybe not quite as harsh. Maybe not quite as old, either. Father found himself truly relaxing for the first time this evening, like the vice on his soul had been eased. Suddenly the church didn't feel quite so small and empty at once, and he could breathe freely again without worrying about accidentally driving away a hurting soul.
There was a rustling and a creak from the back of the church as one of the doors opened, and the both of them glanced back in surprise, Father gripping his stick a bit tighter and the boy suddenly going as tense as a wire, hand going down to what was most likely a concealed firearm.
But only one person stood there: a tall, dark-haired man, in a plain coat and jeans, with an openly concerned and simultaneously relieved expression on his face.
The boy's posture immediately loosened, his hand going away from the gun, though there was a sudden tightness in his face. "B. What are you doing here? How the hell did you find me?"
The man didn't move from where he stood at the back of the church, seemingly hesitant to step further, eyeing the altar like he was worried it was going to attack him. "Um. GCPD got a call about some tramp in a leather jacket trying to rob the church."
"Oh bloody--" Father said at the same time the boy opened his mouth. The boy then froze, and a wickedly delighted grin spread across his face. "Oh, don't you look so keen," Father said sourly, rolling his eyes.
"Um. Am I interrupting something?" The man said, seeming a bit lost, and Father shook his head. "Nah. Just having a chat, we were." He eyed the boy. "Weren't we?"
The boy swallowed, eyes downcast. "Yeah," he said quietly. He stood up, slid out of the pew, genuflected a bit clumsily but reverently, and very slowly made his way up the aisle towards the man, who for his part didn't move or speak, just waited.
The boy kept his eyes firmly on his feet. He glanced up once, but only held the man's gaze for a moment before looking down again. The man looked at the boy's head--they were about the same height.
"I'm sorry," the boy said, hushed and wet.
The man sighed. "Oh, Jay." He said quietly. He reached up, and the boy folded into the bear hug of an embrace, clinging to the man's coat. "Come home. Please."
"Okay," the boy said, almost inaudibly.
The man squeezed the boy tightly once more, pressing his cheek to the boy's dark hair, then gently pulled back, seeming a bit reluctant to let go. The boy scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand, sniffling, and Father may have been blinking back a few tears of his own. The man wrapped an arm around the boy's shoulders and turned to go, and the boy let himself be steered for a moment, before he suddenly pulled back and stammered, "Wait! Wait." His father looked concerned, but let him go.
The boy walked right up to Father, who was still sitting in the pew, but turned to watch the exchange between father and son. The boy dug into his pocket and drew out a slightly crumpled fifty, pressing it into the startled priest's spread hand.
"You said three masses for my mom when she died when I couldn't afford them," he said, gratitude in his voice and eyes. "I...it's not much but I have it, so...keep it. And thank you."
With that, he turned, and after genuflecting again, practically ran back to his father. The man wrapped his arm around the boy's shoulders again, drawing him in close to press a chaste kiss to his temple. "I'm very proud of you, Jay," he said softly, and Father froze.
He remembered baptizing a wee little boy named Jason Peter Todd, many years ago. He'd known Willis Todd, the mess of a man, and had disapproved of his marriage to Catherine, who had been a sweet if a little overwhelmed slip of a girl. She was proud of her boy, though, and his heart broke for the child when she'd died. He'd never known what happened to Jason after he'd stopped going to church. The last he'd seen of him had been his mother's funeral, as he stood tucked in the back, eyes red and countenance angry. He'd prayed for him whenever he thought of him for the past ten years, hoping against hope that he was getting on alright.
And as he watched the two walking back out into the street, the boy held against his father’s side even as they went, the concluding words of the story he’d discussed with the boy came to his mind, unbidden. Let us rejoice, for this child of mine was dead, and has come back to life. He was lost, and now he is found.
It was quite true, he reflected as he turned back to the quiet presence of the tabernacle in the once-more silent and still church, with the whole world rushing around it. The Lord really did work in mysterious ways.