So that which is good may flourish.

Something is trying to pull Connor's soul from his body. His mouth opens on a silent question, gaping fish-like. Drawn up by a thread through his heart, neck arched, eyes wide and unseeing, not needing sight to know that Murphy is a mirror beside him, palms slick, waking sleep. Thread connecting their hearts, heart to eyes to hands, touching damp palms, looking a question that cannot be answered.

"Whosoever shed last blood--"

"--by man shall his blood be shed," Connor answers. His fingers fold down over the backs of Murphy's hands, feeling the pressure answered in a quick, compulsive squeeze. "For immunity of God make he the man." Wondering, amazed.

"This is crazy, Connor." Not the Voice. Well, maybe. But not only.

Connor is hard. He's surprisingly okay with that, sure somewhere in the crinkled pink pages of the family bible it mentions visits by angels, and these things happen. Primal, right. The power of the Divine.

"There are worse sins," he says.

He can feel Murphy breathing through the palms of his hands. Heartbeat above the Mound of Venus. Delicate lace-winged thing, fluttering madly, he could crush it beneath his thumb. Wants to, vaguely, destroy his brother, destroy himself. Squeeze.

There are worse sins. Maybe.