Chapter Text
Among his many other talents, Adriel did not seem to have a gag reflex.
Vincent threw back his head, shifting forward on the patio chair, as (literally?) divine lips slid smoothly down his cock. He could feel Adriel’s nose against his belly as the hand that had been jerking him off relocated to cradle his balls gently. “Oh, fuck,” he groaned.
“You don’t have to narrate, Vincent,” Adriel smirked, pulling off with a wet sound. Vincent had never seen anything as goddamn fucking gorgeous as this goddamn fucking angel. He was flushed, and some mixture of his own spit and Vincent’s pre-cum was smeared all over his mustache, clinging to his beard. A trail of saliva traced between his mouth and Vincent’s cock. At least until he brought over his other hand and resumed a handjob. “I know what we’re doing.”
Vincent chuffed out a laugh, only momentarily distracted. He ran his fingers into Adriel’s hair, traced them down Adriel’s cheek, watched that strong hand moving with light pressure up and down. When he glanced down, Adriel’s eyes were sharp on his, pins to a butterfly collection.
This was what he’d wanted. Even before he’d joined the priesthood. All those years on the wrong side of the law, searching for acceptance, a meaning, a way to feel like anything about his whole wasted life mattered. He’d needed Adriel. First, he’d found a gang. Second, he’d found a church. Now, he’d found completion. It was that simple.
In his early life, money, power, and drugs had been enough of a god as long as he didn’t get too picky. Drinking alone, drinking with others and still feeling alone, drinking but never alone from himself, which was all he’d ever really wanted, to finally be free of everything he was. To be free of the foundational agony of being trapped in his own mind, his own body, his own life.
He had always known there had to be something else. Something that eased the pain of living. Something that gave him back all the decisions stolen from him when he’d crowned into a cold existence, homeless-junkie child of homeless junkies.
There had to be something that let him be larger. He’d thought the Church might be it, and for a while, it was. First the Jesuits and then the OCS had taken him in, letting him do meaningful work in a suffering world. He’d made a reluctant peace with the notion that nothing was perfect, and had chosen to tolerate the hypocrisies and harms the Church inflicted alongside its charity.
It was enough, until it wasn’t. So the first time he’d heard the voice in the Vatican, he’d feared. But the second time, he’d listened.
Before he’d hearkened to Adriel, he’d felt more torn than ever before. He’d known he played a material role, however small, in the care and salvation of all human beings. He’d also known that he did so only within a church framework with little tolerance for the nuance of life.
Even now, Vincent was perpetually reminded that the only reason he’d even entered the Church was because its ideology loved nothing more than a hard-luck story with one particular ending. He was first a villain redeemed through their efforts on behalf of the “lowly.” Then, he was the exact type of sinner in whose weakness the Lord’s power could be made perfect, to assist the OCS.
Left unsaid: what if he’d relapsed? What if he’d returned to the streets? Would he still be beloved, or only pitied? Of service, or fit only to be served?
As much as he’d wanted out of his life within the gang, and had been willing to take the offered hand, he resented the arrogance of the assumption that they’d saved him. That he’d besmirched himself with the path he’d chosen, and that he’d needed them to fix him. That he could never pay them back enough, that he should forever live in gratitude that they’d condescended to help. Somewhere primordial, brainstem-level, he knew he’d never been less or more than anyone else.
No matter what they’d said. What any of them had said. The shouts of “maricón,” the teasing that wasn’t, the fighting and fucking and occasional black eye (usually dealt out by somebody whose dick Vincent had recently sucked). The boys, when he was a boy, and men, when he was a man. Sweet, some of them. Bitter, a few. Violent, plenty. Heartbreaking, all of them.
“Christ Jesus allows us to leave the sinful past behind,” the bishop had said, the first time Vincent had wandered into a confessional. He didn’t remember, now, why he’d gone into the church at all. He’d been fifteen, rolling on something. Probably with a pocket full of cash, a nose full of coke, and no reason to feel as empty as he did. There were always more drugs to do, more loads to swallow or give, more assfucking to take or dish out, more things to forget.
“Leave the sinful past behind,” huh? And find the love of our lives and live some fucking fairytale—ha, fairy tale—where we just go to our boring job and come home to our boring house and snuggle our boring sweetheart? he’d thought, rage liquefying the inside of his chest. Would this asshole ever recognize how desperately he longed for exactly that kind of stupid suburban dream? No. Because you don’t think this is my anguish. You think it’s my sin.
The second time, a year later, Vincent had stumbled in after getting jumped in an alley. He’d spat blood on the floor without thinking. (Hadn’t mattered anywhere he’d ever lived before.) A woman kneeling in a middle pew had glanced back at him, wisely decided just to turn back around.
That same bishop had appeared out of nowhere. His eyes had been attentive, unsurprised. “My son,” was all he’d said, his voice soft. He’d pulled Vincent into the bathroom.
He’d carefully cleaned Vincent’s face with damp paper towels, a steadying hand on his shoulder or his cheek the whole time. He’d known what Vincent had confessed months ago. He hadn’t known any more about HIV—well, GRID, then—than anyone else at the time. He should have been afraid. He wasn’t.
Vincent had waited—nobody gives without getting—for the faggot-hater in the frock to shove him down onto his knees or bend him over the sink. It hadn’t happened. The bishop had asked him to wait in a back pew, had disappeared only briefly before returning to press a flimsy medal into his palm. “You need protection. St Christopher cares for travelers. If you can’t ask God, ask Christopher.”
The third time, two years later, Christopher had burned against Vincent’s chest as he detoxed behind a dumpster. He hated kicking, more each time, because he knew he was useful only when he was strong, and he was safe only when he was useful. His . . . affiliates were not known for their benevolence. His drug problem was a vulnerability in a low-ranking, already-compromised member. A few more handjobs weren’t going to fix this.
Slick with sweat, he’d vomited into the gutter before crawling up the marble steps. His bishop hadn’t been there. The woman in the middle pew had, but he’d barely noticed her. The priest had sat next to him as he shook uncontrollably in the back pew. They’re going to kill me. I’m going to kill me. I need help.
A ninety-day stay at a Church-run rehab program later, Vincent had given himself over. He’d been baptized—well, rebaptized, since his parents had apparently somehow convinced a priest to pour water on his head when he was an infant—on his own insistence. The random lady who’d previously watched him stagger around spitting blood and shivering had been the only other one around, and had accordingly been named his godparent. They’d never really spoken, although he’d seen her nearly every time he’d gone back to that church. Did she ever go home?
Well, anyway, he was starting new. He’d chosen his name to match. Vincent, conqueror. And the next thing he planned to conquer was an 11-year course of study. He’d decided the direction his new life would take. He was going to become a Jesuit priest. One of God’s Marines.
Pink cloud or not, he was where he needed to be. If some members of the Church were less accepting than others, that was fine. He’d find his own place. At least, that’s what he’d thought as he began the novitiate, the first step in his formation as a clergy member. So many of his early-recovery thoughts seemed downright quaint, these days.
Vincent hadn’t learned St. Christopher was also the patron saint of bachelors until he was already a scholastic, two years in. How apropos, bachelor Christ-bearer. Clearly a queer God had sent Vincent a queer saint through a queer priest. Right?
He still thought about that bishop from time to time. The bishop had attended Vincent’s ordination, but they hadn’t stayed in touch. Later, Vincent had heard he’d died. Every bone in Vincent’s very-gay body hoped that that guy’s marriage to Jesus had finally been consummated. Sit at His right hand. He can reach your cock better that way.
The thought pulled his attention back to Adriel, whose strong hand and outstretched arm were indeed working some miracles. Fuck, that’s good. “I’m getting close,” he warned, the tension in his belly beginning to heighten.
“From a handjob?” Adriel teased, lightly licking the tip of his cock. “Don’t you want to spill your seed in my mouth?”
Groaning again, Vincent nearly came just from the suggestion. Of course he did. He wanted to bury his cock so far into Adriel that he couldn’t feel himself anymore. Get me gone, engulfed in you. He could imagine it already, fogged in by the heat of Adriel’s mouth and the pressure of his hands until the clouds broke open, rained Vincent into a storm.
“Push yourself down my throat and just let go of everything? Feel me swallowing, tightening around you?” Adriel ran his tongue up the underside of Vincent’s cock. “Accepting you into me?”
Exhaling with a wordless growl, Vincent grabbed Adriel’s head by the hair, did his best to shove his cock into Adriel’s mouth. “Come on,” he choked out. “Hurry—hurry—“
Adriel abruptly stopped stroking him, grinning as his eyes met Vincent’s. “Well, if you want something, you can have it. But you’re going to have to ask.”
“Oh-god-let-me-cum-in-your-mouth.” The words rushed out of Vincent, absent any conscious thought. “Please—please—suck me and let me cum—“
“Like this?” Adriel inquired, but before Vincent could answer, he shifted forward and started deep-throating Vincent again, and Vincent blacked out for a long moment, only distantly aware of anything beyond the feeling of his cock spasming, his cum surging into Adriel’s mouth. Wave after near-painful wave pushed him down into the dark, breathless and emptying and oh God, so good, fucking take it, fucking take it all--
When he came to, Adriel was still kneeling in front of him. Adriel’s long, slim, muscular fingers kneaded the muscles of Vincent’s thighs, occasionally retreating as he smoothed his palms down Vincent’s legs. “You’re so beautiful when you let go,” Adriel purred, his eyes dark and dangerous. “When you can’t take it anymore. When you pour yourself into me.” He licked his lips.
Vincent reached out and stroked Adriel’s cheek. His fingers had always been more facile than his words, but he tried to show Adriel some small corner of his cathedral heart anyway. “I love you.”
“You love freedom,” Adriel countered lazily. His voice was soft, but the response wasn’t what Vincent had hoped to hear. “Affection. Respect.”
“And you,” Vincent insisted, less vigorously than he felt it. He wouldn’t allow Adriel to sell himself short, to imagine that Vincent just wanted bouts of (extremely hot) sex in Adriel’s time off from enlightening the world. He wouldn’t let Adriel forget about the trust, the care, the bright and unbreakable link he felt between them. “And you.”
Smiling, Adriel snorted, but he conceded. “And me. At least, getting shagged silly by me.” He kissed Vincent’s inner thighs, each in turn.
“You’re more than—“
But Adriel cut Vincent off. “We have a little more time before the speaking engagement. Is there anything else you’re interested in at the moment?”
Everything, Vincent wanted to say. Your heart, your mind, your soul. I know you have to fix this world. But let me help. Let me love you. Let yourself come home to me.
During theology studies, nine years into the process of becoming a priest, Vincent had looked into the New Testament apocrypha just a touch more than his professors had been comfortable with. Unlike the canonical gospels, which all asserted that Jesus had been a lifelong bachelor, many of these works supported the radical new idea that Mary Magdalene had been Jesus’s wife.
Some secular scholars went so far as to say that her historical characterization as a sex worker was a response to her true status as Christ’s spouse. (It was notable that this common perception of her vocation was not directly stated even in the canonical Gospels.) These scholars held that the early Church fathers had essentially started a rumor to discredit and demean her. Their agenda? Paving an easier way toward Christ’s divinity and unity with the Father.
After all, if Jesus had married, He’d look an awful lot like every other very-human failed-apostate rabbi of the time. Even if the faithful could be convinced of His divinity, the plot would only thicken. Because celibacy wouldn’t have been historically likely, and with the existing Old-Testament links between fertility and divinity, it would have been suspicious to claim that they had never reproduced. However, if they had, that would open the door to human-God hybrid children, a political nightmare for the Church.
So in the end, His exaltation came at the expense of her lowering. If Magdalena had been His wife, He must have been just a man. But if Magdalena had been just a hooker, He could be God. The Council of Rome, and later the Council of Trent, had chosen Him over her.
Over the past decade, Vincent had gotten to know Adriel like he knew shame, thoroughly and darkly, twisted into his muscles alongside the unpronounceable name of God. He’d marked himself with Adriel, for Adriel, long before his divinium tattoos. And Adriel’s rising church would do no such traitorous thing as Rome, would never discard truth to consolidate power.
Which meant that Vincent, like Mary Magdalene, had a role to play. His love had a place to go. Into Adriel, into service, into actually building the better world the Catholic Church always claimed they wanted but also actively thwarted.
Maybe he could even be written into history the way she’d been denied. Queer. Addict. Sex worker. Beloved of divinity. Worthy of care. Instrumental in bringing about the liberation of humanity. Maybe the next boy born into a toilet, barely breathing, would find his way into a church, could look beyond the cocaine and cockroaches he’d crawled through from infancy. He’d have Vincent there, where Vincent had had no one.
Saccharine, self-indulgent thoughts. Vincent let the self-loathing rear up and recenter him. Adriel was here. It was better to enjoy their time together now than to get sidetracked into the past or make up fantasies of the future. He reached for Adriel’s hands, held them loosely in his own trembling grasp.
Adriel squeezed his hands, his eyes gentle as they sought Vincent’s. “You never truly forget, do you. And you always still want.”
To be known had been the greatest fear, and was now the greatest gift, of Vincent’s life. He didn’t have to say anything with Adriel. He felt aglow, everything in him lightened by love. He lifted Adriel’s right hand to his mouth, kissed it.
I’m yours, he’d thought, the first time he saw Adriel’s face, but Adriel had laughed to hear it. “You’re not mine. You’re yours. These antiquated notions of loyalty, ownership, possession—what place do they have in a world of true freedom? You, beloved, are the sole architect of your reality. I am only as you need me to be. Draw close if you wish it, not because I do.”
He did wish it. Had then, did now, suspected he always would. The soft gaze surrounding him. The straight, strong fingers of his destiny, clasped around his own. The sense that everything was going to be ok now, that history could be corrected, that safety wasn’t too far off.
Starting to catch his breath, he looked up, turning his eyes beyond Adriel, to the stretch of placid green fields, to the valley below, to the purple mountains off in the distance, to the horizon. Wouldn’t be long before dusk, then sunset. Another day ending, another day beginning. The entire world, even Vincent, restored in beauty.
Vincent relaxed into the feeling of peace, of completion. Here they were, out in the yard, quiet together. Vincent was boneless in one of the patio chairs, pants around his ankles, surrounded by red brick and flowers. Adriel was on his knees in front of him, cheek now resting against Vincent’s thigh. Their hands entwined.
He let go of one hand and stroked Adriel’s hair absentmindedly, gaze still fixed in the distance. Somewhere nearby, a bird chirped. A light breeze moved the faint scent of the bougainvillea past them. Everything was still, but nothing stagnant.
The thought swelled Vincent’s belly, made him aware of his own breath. One breath ending, another breath beginning. His chest, like the sun, rising and falling. He was a series of tiny patterns built into the unimaginably vast universe, cycling like the great lights, the seasons, smaller but no less a part.
A verse from Micah rose into his mind unbidden. So this was what it felt like to sit under his own vine and fig tree, without anyone to make him afraid. No wonder nations wouldn’t be learning war anymore. There was nothing missing, nothing to want. If only everyone could feel this, the marrow-deep wholeness . . .
Adriel kissed his inner thigh, fingers tracing across it. “You seem content.”
He nodded, shifted his focus back to Adriel. “What about you?”
“Anticipating speaking tonight with no small degree of joy. Although I’ll certainly miss this.” He kissed Vincent’s thigh again, nibbled a path up toward his cock. He sunk his teeth in for a harder bite as he reached the upper part of Vincent’s leg.
Desire flared unexpectedly in Vincent’s chest. He wasn’t likely to get hard again this soon, but he already felt Adriel’s absence, craved closeness before they had to part ways again. “Didn’t you say we still have a few minutes before you need to go?”
Adriel smirked up at him. “Why? Do you want me to make love to you?”
“No.” Vincent reached down to grab Adriel’s shirt and drag him in for a kiss. He pushed his tongue unsubtly into Adriel’s mouth, his hand unsubtly into Adriel’s pants. Serenity was a rare gift, only happened so often and went so far. Hunger, however, always returned. “I want you to fuck the shit out of me.”
Amused, Adriel pushed up into him. It was almost too much to feel, the warm weight of his dick in Vincent’s hand, the intrusion of his tongue into Vincent’s mouth, the wrench of his fingers tangling into Vincent’s beard. Vincent clung to each sensation. This would have to last until the next time he could see Adriel alone.
“You’re already there,” Vincent smiled against Adriel’s mouth. He wasn’t surprised at Adriel’s erection. He already knew how much Adriel loved sucking him off. “It’s one of the most dominant things anyone can do, providing fellatio,” he’d told Vincent. “Controlling not just your orgasm but the continuation of your life. If I bit down as hard as I could, you know what would happen.”
Any time I blow you, I could kill you. Vincent wished he’d realized that 40 years ago. Might be a lot fewer johns out there now. Although AIDS had likely done the same job.
So many of the men he’d known (biblically and otherwise) had died before the antiretrovirals came out. Some had even infected others after receiving a diagnosis. Not maliciously, as far as Vincent could tell. But it was just as easy to believe that the “gay cancer” was nothing but a hoax as it was to believe the stories, at least until someone you knew got sick.
The whole world was already trying to annihilate queerdom. Was it so outlandish to think that governments might create disinformation to scare them out of sex? “You’ve tested positive.” For what? Loathsome faggotry?
“You’re quite idealistic,” Mother Superion had observed, a few minutes into their conversation, the first time they’d actually spoken. Not Suzanne. The Mother three Mothers before her. “For someone of your background.”
What the fuck is that supposed to mean? “As befits a servant of God,” he’d returned evenly. Twenty years ago, before his ordination process, he might have shot off his mouth, gotten himself into some serious trouble. People could say what they wanted about repression, but the Church was even better than AA at inducing restraint of tongue and pen. “My background matters only as it can assist in meeting the needs of His Kingdom.”
She’d stared at him for a long moment, then. They’d been in a garden, in Vatican City, in the Year of Our Lord 2005. It was April, John Paul had died a week ago, and the city was mobbed. Benedict would be elected a little over a week later, not that anybody knew that quite yet.
Still, seeing then-Cardinal Ratzinger conduct the Requiem Mass had given Vincent pause. Just who we need, the head of the Roman Inquisition, he’d thought. It felt like he’d swallowed molten iron, his tongue now metallic and his innards rigid and sharp. Oh, excuse me, now they call it the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The Letter to Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, which Ratzinger had authored, had come out around the time Vincent was finishing his novitiate. He’d nearly thrown away his sobriety over it.
My “inclination” is “objectively disordered”? If you really wanted to see someone with a “tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil,” all you’d have to do is look in the mirror. Did you forget that there are real people out here in the real world whom your words will harm? “Affirm my dignity” all you want, but don’t expect me to thank you for it. Not while you’re digging my grave.
His opinion of Ratzinger had not improved with the subsequent years. Vincent knew it wasn’t exactly fair to blame the attack dog for its master’s commands, but Ratzinger hadn’t seemed to mind baring his teeth. And oh, they’d been sharp.
Ratzinger, acting at John Paul’s behest, had allowed sexual abuse to continue, and then blamed it on gay priests, in flagrant disregard of all available information. Advocated against condom use in areas of high HIV transmission. Doubled down on abortion opposition. Condemned liberation theology while taking the side of credibly accused rapist priests. And me, faithful, I’m the bad guy?
So Vincent had already been weighted, irritable, while in Rome. He would never do as the Romans did, no matter how tied to them he was. The steel in his guts had melted and reformed over and over again over the course of the past few days, leaving behind a feeling of distention. Even before Francesco Duretti, a cardinal priest he’d never heard of, had summoned him to a meeting. “To discuss a commission that might benefit from your involvement.”
What commission would that be? The Interdicasterial Committee for Carpet-Surfing? The Pontifical Institute of Caring for Cocksuckers? The ‘Rules for Thee, but Not for Me’ Tribunal? The Dicastery of You Should Definitely Be Ashamed, But We’ll Love You Anyway, As Long As You Change Everything About Yourself Like God Wants?
Vincent had been in some trouble over his refusal to read the latest diocesan horseshit from the pulpit. “Show up to the polls to support this anti-gay ballot measure! And if a conservative politician so happens to get elected as a side benefit, that’s nothing we explicitly asked! Look at us being both righteous and tax-exempt!”
When his bishop had called him in to chastise him, his show of repentance had apparently been lacking. Old coot must’ve finally gotten hearing aids acute enough to hear Vincent’s muttered fuck you as he’d exited. So he’d needed to look good, look obedient.
Which meant he hadn’t had a real choice in whether or not to respond to Duretti. Yet again. He’d never truly gotten to choose, not before Adriel. Somehow, especially not in the most important moments.
At least he hadn’t been afraid for his life this time. Wasn’t trying to wake his passed-out parents to take him to school, terrified that this was the time they’d died, his stomach sinking when he realized that they hadn’t. Wasn’t famished and filthy on the street, one knee in a puddle of motor oil behind a dumpster while some grown man came all over the wispy mustache that he’d just started to grow. Wasn’t pointing that gun at that supplier, wasn’t seeing the mist that had been the poor guy’s brain spray out the back of his newly-opened skull.
Nothing but champagne problems now, he’d thought to himself. Sure, he was on thin ice with his bishop at the moment, but he had plenty of job security. Ahem, “felt confident that his call to ministry would continue to be sustained.” It wasn’t like there was an overabundance of priests just slobbering to fill his poor, chaste, obedient spot.
Besides, theology notwithstanding, he liked what he did. It filled a need even AA hadn’t led him to recognize, a need to be of service. He spent his days arranging practical support for people living in poverty, organizing protests opposing nuclear proliferation, saying Mass at the local college and letting young adults cry all over him about stupid identity-forming shit.
He helped people. They mattered to him. He mattered to them. Suck on that, Roman Curia. He knew that living in the rulebook would have killed him. But here, in the real world, really ministering to others, he thrived.
See, that was the good thing about the cavernous Catholic hierarchy. The guys at the peak of the pyramid had no idea what the ones at the base were doing. Which freed up the guys at the base to do God’s work.
So if a speedball a day hadn’t killed him, then an hour with God’s out-of-touch top brass wouldn’t either. He could rein himself in for one meeting. He’d be neutral and polite and composed, and go to the thrift store when he got home. Nothing relieved stress quite like procuring a full set of china for cheap and then smashing every single fucking goddamn piece into fucking goddamn powder.
Superion’s response had been the first clue that his façade might not be as crucial as he thought. “I respect your optimism. And belong to an order that has need of your experiences. All of them.”
There hadn’t been a good way to say wait, the testicle-tickling too?, so he’d settled for “I’m not sure what you mean, Mother.” A glance at Duretti had revealed nothing. Other than that the man had a glorious head of hair shellacked under an unfortunate taste for gel overuse. Seriously, did he think it was going to crawl off his head unless sufficiently plastered with product?
“The Order of the Cruciform Sword handles matters of some . . . sensitivity,” Superion had continued. “While we are not a secret organization, per se, we are well-shrouded within the Church. Our mission pertains to the struggle between good and evil in our realm, and requires a certain pragmatism. Particularly as pertains to violence.”
“Violence?” he’d repeated. It had been years since he’d let anything violent escape him. Well, at least a month. Uh, ok, a week. But he’d just been out for a midnight walk, minding his own business, and had seen a guy who looked sort of like the dude who had yelled “faggots!” while riding his bike past an anti-war demonstration. If said dude had needed his nose broken, who was Vincent to deny him?
“Violence,” she’d confirmed. The incongruous scent of linden perfumed their discussion, yellow buds forming, soon to become flowers. The first stirrings of summer in Italy. A dead pope, and the question of his successor. Gorgeous greenery. And now, violence. “The forces of evil don’t abstain from it. Which means that no force of good can be fully effective without it either.”
He’d quieted the flare of excitement in his chest with an extra dose of external mousiness. “I don’t think I understand,” he’d murmured diffidently.
“The fact is—“
“Thank you, Mother Superion,” Duretti had butted in, summarily, with a dismissive wave of the hand. A knot of dislike had instantly twisted itself into Vincent’s metal entrails. “Father Vincent, let’s not beat around the bush anymore. Here’s the truth. Demons are real. They possess people all the time, and present a grave danger in many other forms as well. The OCS is an order of Sisters who use high-level fighting skills and strategy to defeat these and other manifestations of evil around the world. They safeguard a mystical relic of immense power, the Halo, gifted to the Order hundreds of years ago by an angel, and are tasked with protecting our world from the most serious spiritual and physical peril that exists.”
Holy shit, warrior nuns. Are they shitting me? Vincent had thought incoherently. He’d given himself a moment just to nod thoughtfully before speaking, like a good priest, rather than screaming fuck yeah, sign me the fuck up, what’s the magic angel shit they’ve got, like a Vincent. Nothing from the Church hierarchy came without strings. Best to play it cool, suss out the matter a bit more. “My deepest apologies, Your Eminence, but I’m not sure how I can be of use here,” he’d replied eventually, putting on a self-effacing air. “I doubt I’m eligible to join a Sisterhood.”
Duretti had shifted uncomfortably against the wooden slats of the park bench, nodding. The heated stare he’d shot to Superion suggested that she was supposed to broach this topic. However, she’d only inclined her head 45 degrees to the left, a picture of soft harmlessness. Oh, but didn’t you want to do the talking? her facial expression had proclaimed.
Sighing, Duretti had plunged ahead. “Well. We know you were in a-- a gang before you were rebaptized. Were linked to . . . extrajudicial killings. And are currently a suspect in a number of assaults.”
“I am of course not guilty of any such activity, Your Eminence.” In a legal sense, since nobody’s got enough evidence to charge me. “But the matter concerns violence, then, Your Eminence? As Mother was just saying? Before she was interrupted.”
Something had sparked in Duretti’s eyes, then, and his lips had tightened, but he hadn’t responded to the jab otherwise. “Well, yes. Make no mistake, your taste for bloodshed will get you defrocked if you remain within the Jesuits. Within the OCS, on the other hand . . .”
Vincent had nodded, choosing to ignore the threat. Go ahead, defrock me. Just like you didn’t defrock most of those child-raping fuckwads you sent to the Congregation of the Servants of the Paraclete. “I wish to serve in whichever ways I may be most useful to the Body of Christ, Your Eminence. But surely I’m not the only priest with exposure to violence. Wouldn’t you prefer a military chaplain?”
Duretti had shaken his head, staring off into the middle distance. “The past seven advising priests have had military backgrounds. Three have been reassigned, another three have been laicized, and, well, one was institutionalized. Over the past two years.”
Oh, so they had a problem, and a relatively-disposable Vincent. This wasn’t so dissimilar from the gang, really, was it? “Your Eminence, I fear it would be arrogance for me to think I could succeed where these men have not,” he’d begun. Shit, have I been saying Your Eminence enough? “What leads you to think that I may be suitable for this work, Your Eminence?” Superion had caught his eye, then, and made a barely-perceptible twisting motion with her hand and wrist. Ok, fine, I’ll turn it down a notch with the Eminencing.
“As Mother Superion would tell you,” Duretti answered stiffly, “if she were not unfortunately mute at the moment, the Sisters believe that a contributing factor to priest burnout within the order may be the overseeing priest managing the Order in a way that is perceived as . . . domineering. Macho. Misogynist, even, although I hesitate to admit that particular feminist buzzword into the discourse.”
Priest burnout, huh. What a diplomatic way to say that the Sisters were running the manly men off. Perhaps this assignment might be a good one for Vincent after all. “So you’re looking for a priest who is weak? Or feminine? Or both?” he’d asked ingenuously.
Although her poker face had been excellent, Superion’s entertainment had shown in the light creases around her eyes and lips. Vincent had continued. “Not that I’m disputing the characterization, Your Eminence, but why was I the one who came to mind? When you thought of weak, feminine priests?”
“Your, um, your.” Duretti had scratched at his chin. Glared daggers at Superion. Rubbed his jaw. “Well, first of all, those are your words, not mine, and furthermore, I don’t see why this matters.”
“Was it his beard, Your Eminence?” she’d inquired, mocking Duretti from behind a screen of plausible deniability. Then, as if listening to herself on a recording, she’d cackled under her breath. “Or rather, your need for one,” she’d murmured to Vincent as Duretti harrumphed on.
“Whoever is called is called. Reasons aren’t relevant. But I understand that you’re a h—h— a h—“
Smiling faintly at Superion, Vincent had rested his chin on his hand, gazed raptly at Duretti. He couldn’t miss the glee crinkled at her eyes. They were going to make Duretti say it. “A humble servant, Your Eminence?” Vincent had inquired innocently. “I certainly aspire to be.”
Vocalizing painfully, Duretti had shaken his head. “Again, this question is not germane to—“
“Your Eminence, I believe it may be,” Superion had protested seriously. “Did you mean a handyman?”
Vincent wouldn’t have taken Duretti for a man who blushed, but sure enough, his face was rapidly reaching a shade similar to that of his cassock. Angry? Embarrassed? Either way, it was dangerous to bruise a superior’s ego.
“Ah, Mother, I think I may know.” Vincent had held out a hand to her, palm down. It was time to defuse this at least a little before they incurred more of Duretti’s wrath. He wanted to know more about this demon and mystical relic business, and he liked Superion already. If he wanted to be reassigned to her order, he’d have to show Duretti that he could both work with her and hand down messages from the Church patriarchy. Further violation of their vows of obedience would be counterproductive. “His Eminence is aware that I am a ho—“
“—mosexual,” Duretti had completed, in relief, at the exact same moment Superion and Vincent had chimed “—memaker.”
In the awkward silence that had followed, Vincent had learned that there were few moments in life more satisfying than the ones where a proven poofter and the general of God’s likely-dykely army successfully joined forces. Vincent had only narrowly kept himself from high-fiving Superion. The grin she’d somehow sublimated into her gaze (ha, gays!) was enough.
The meeting had concluded brusquely, but after that, Duretti had indeed reassigned Vincent to the OCS. Possibly just in hopes that it would destroy him. But Vincent would take his wins where he could get them. And so the next 15 years of ass-kicking and mystical study had begun.
It turned out that all of Vincent’s slightly-suspicious manuscript-diving during his theological-study years had also been part of the reason for the transfer. Within the OCS, his acuity for translation and historical work furthered the mission, but didn’t push him into the more visible role of an academic. Fine by me.
The Sisters didn’t need him for much, combat-wise. Even the new recruits tended to be much more capable than he was on a battlefield. All the same, they were gracious in allowing him the occasional curb-stomping. He’d been relieved to realize that his time spent as a go-between was minimal, and pleased to discover that the other Sisters were almost as delightful as Superion.
Oh, his first Superion. How he’d loved her, in the particular way that only a cocksucker can adore a muffdiver. After Duretti had left that first meeting, she’d introduced herself. Patricia. After St. Patrick, snake-wrangler, mountain-faster, freed from enslavement. Patron saint of engineers, Ireland, and Nigeria.
She’d entered religion, as they’d said in those days, as a teenage hell-raiser. She’d exited twenty years later, on a side street in Naples, bleeding out after an attack by a particularly vicious set of archdemons. Of all the people never to reach forty.
She’d died in a Sister’s arms, as befit a member of the OCS. Vincent hadn’t been there. Couldn’t have saved her if he had. Would only have watched the life leave her with the blood. Some days, he felt guilty about it, like he’d owed it to her to be her witness. Others, he knew her life hadn’t been about him. Not to the degree she’d changed his, certainly.
But he loved her so much, even still. He’d initially stayed with the Church, after she died, only on the maudlin hope that he could someday make it to heaven alongside her. He knew it was self-pitying. All the same, he hadn’t been able to stop imagining her with a halo, the lower-case kind. She’d be glowing, hiding a 40 in each feathered wing and a gravity knife in her hair.
When he got there, probably sneaking his way in on the underside of a cloud, she’d pour three fingers of horrible malt liquor for him, four for herself. They’d toss it all back at once before smashing their glasses on the cobblestones of God’s own street. She’d take him to see the girls, all those other faded soldiers of God, and maybe to see a dirty movie after. It would finally mean something, all this agony of love. Something other than pain, once the loss was erased.
What this celestial dick in his hand meant, though, was that Vincent would never see Patty again. God in His high heavens had not welcomed her home. St. Peter had not rocked back on his heels at the sight of her deeds, had not peeled open any pearly gate for her to pass through. It was a lie. Had always been a lie. She wasn’t an angel. She was gone, forever. And the best Vincent could pray for was the strength to face that.
Vincent exhaled, consciously relaxing his jaw. As distracted as he’d been, he’d apparently managed to work Adriel up even further. He ran his fingers lightly over the head of Adriel’s dick, enjoying the moisture starting to collect there. “You’re going to pound me so fucking hard,” he murmured, locking his eyes to Adriel’s. “You’re going to own me. You’re going to mark the fuck out of me. And you’re going to use me until I can’t remember my own goddamn name.”
He loved to watch Adriel’s eyes darken. To know that he was the one inciting this intensity of desire in the most powerful being on the planet. Sure, they weren’t getting married tomorrow. For all Vincent knew, Adriel was fucking enough other people to repopulate Earth singlehandedly. They’d never discussed it, and Vincent didn’t care, precisely because of moments like this one. Right now, you want me so bad that nothing else matters.
Rising to his feet, Adriel yanked Vincent up from his chair, stopped just short of kissing him. Their foreheads pressed together as Adriel glared at Vincent. “You wish to debase yourself to me.” His breath moved lightly against Vincent’s cheek, drawing a shudder through him.
“If that’s what it takes to get your dick in me,” Vincent countered, turning his face in an effort to force the denied kiss. Bratty, maybe, but deliberately calibrated for what he knew was coming next.
Snorting, Adriel released Vincent with a light push, and he stumbled backward a step, tripping over his pooled pant legs and underwear. Exasperated, he kicked them off. He recovered to catch the weight of Adriel’s gaze on him. He’d known this would be Adriel’s reaction, but that didn’t stop the flare of heat in his belly and his face.
“Surely by now you know better,” Adriel observed idly, his expression neutral. Under his examining eyes, Vincent felt stripped, analyzed, cataloged. Adriel didn’t expand, clearly waiting for Vincent to respond.
He couldn’t stop himself from taking the bait. “Better than what?”
Adriel advanced one step. He was at his most gloriously disheveled, beard matted and hair tangled and dick as upright, perfectly-postured, as the rest of him. Vincent swallowed thickly. Adriel’s authority derived from something internal, built into his being, more evident here than in all the external symbols of power Vincent could imagine. “Than to think that any of this is for me.”
It was a perfect setup. “Says the guy with a hard-on, my cum on his face, and his pupils blown out like he just smoked a rock the size of a soccer ball.”
For a brief, splendid moment, Adriel’s eyebrows knit together, his lips thinned out, and a familiar glint sharpened his eyes. Fuck, did I get him? Vincent could almost feel the spin of Adriel’s hands at his hips, the wood of the bench underneath his palms, the shove and stretch as Adriel thrust into him--
But Adriel only shrugged, his features smoothing out again. He turned and walked away from Vincent, retreating to the covered patio. One of these days, I’ll break you, thought Vincent. Immaculate self-control and all. You won’t be able to stop yourself. You’ll smash into me with everything you’ve got, and no matter how much you give, I’ll take it. Because all that lip service aside, you have no idea how goddamn fucking strong I am.
Under the portico, Adriel removed dead leaves from a few of the plants, fluffed the cushions on the wicker couch, rummaged in the chest of blankets. The longer he lingered, the thicker the air seemed to set. Vincent stood alone in the grass, naked from the waist down, arrogance slouching through his shoulders. The feeling of exposure tickled uncomfortably at his innards, inciting an equal and opposite reaction. Yeah, here I am. All of me. And you love what you see.
Adriel let him wait for a few extra moments before speaking, his tone conversational. He barely glanced at Vincent as he set aside a few blankets and refolded the rest. “You know, one might think that the man with his dick and derriere on literal display is the pawn. The toy.” He began returning the freshly-tidied blankets to the chest. “But you know what you want. And you know that if I give it to you, it’s because you asked. You’re not some pure innocent swept away by my wiles, so desperate to have me you’ll agree to anything. You’re the one holding the power. You dictate the terms of our arrangement. Always have. Always will.”
Vincent’s chest tightened as Adriel’s words vibrated through him. That’s right, he thought, and don’t you fucking forget it, but he was starting to realize how false his bravado sounded. Adriel plucked him like a harp, like a turkey. Resounding, denuded. He didn’t speak, sure the quiver in his legs voiced his reaction.
Closing the lid of the chest, Adriel returned to the grass, every movement slow and considered. The blankets in his arms almost concealed the other supplies, a small plastic bottle and paperboard box. Vincent’s gut clenched, glee and apprehension. “Don’t you, Vincent?” Adriel asked blandly. “Don’t you control what happens to you? When you’re with me?”
“Yes,” Vincent managed, his interest in defiance somewhat diminished now that he’d seen the lube and the box of condoms.
“Aren’t you the one who wishes to be . . . hmmm, what was it? ‘Used’? ‘Marked’? ‘Owned’?”
Vincent’s mouth watered, and he found himself too busy swallowing to do much but nod. Yeah, duh, I already said. So quit jerking me around and fucking do it.
“Speak!” ordered Adriel, his voice suddenly harsh. He tossed the blankets to the ground, advanced sharply toward Vincent.
“Yes,” ventured Vincent, shivering internally with the threat. Arousal stirred through him, oil in water. As much as he wanted to keep poking at Adriel, he needed this too badly to belabor the point.
“Yes what?” Adriel sneered, halting abruptly. His eyes sought Vincent’s. “Look at me!”
Drawing himself up, Vincent allowed their magnet stares to click together. “Yes, sir,” he enunciated.
“Better,” purred Adriel, crossing behind Vincent. With a snap, he shook the top blanket out on the ground. “On your hands and knees. Now.”
Vincent dropped down, hitting his knees as if in a house of worship. Bench instead of pew, blanket instead of kneeler, Adriel instead of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. A memory of incense wafted through his nostrils.
She’d come from outside, the Superion before Suzanne. Clare. The one whose death Suzanne would eventually cause. When he’d gotten word of her appointment, Vincent had been sitting in the back pew of the sanctuary at Cat’s Cradle, two days after her predecessor’s funeral.
Barely clear of the funeral Mass, he’d been trying to find it in himself to cry. After a while, though, the deaths just seemed to open room after vacant room in the hallway of his heart. No matter how much the emptiness expanded in him, there was nothing to do but close each door. No one lived there anymore.
First Patty, now Lawrence. This time, it’d been the first Tarask they’d seen in decades. Faulty information-gathering. Lawrence had taken some new recruits to handle a wraith, and walked into a hellstorm. They’d buried her in a chest the size of a tissue box.
“Father Vincent.” Duretti’s voice had echoed behind him, but he hadn’t turned. Oh, good, this asshole. Yes, by all means, move me into the anger stage of grief.
“Cardinal Duretti,” he’d returned evenly, his eyes fixed on the crucifix suspended behind the altar. It was one of the ones where Jesus’s eyes were turned up, His mouth agape, His hands and ankles distorted with gravity pulling on nails, His head sweating red and His whole side a lake of spear wound. Where every crease of His face and rivulet of His blood showed you how much it really fucking hurt.
“My condolences on the passing of Sister Lawrence. I understand you two were close.”
Only enough that I can feel her pulse in my own veins. He’d thought of her cheerful capability, her brusque archivist voice and her tai chi fluidity and her penchant for barbeque. “I am grateful to have known her,” he managed after a while, his mouth watering with the taste of smoked paprika, his ears indented with the absence of her laugh. “What brings you here, Your Eminence?”
Duretti’s thin smile had oozed through his voice. “Why don’t I show you?”
Ten minutes later, out in the field, Vincent had joined a fury of Sisters leaning their elbows on the fence. Duretti had given him only a vague outline of the potential successor’s background. Born in Poland, elderly, a longtime member of a contemplative order. As far as Vincent was concerned, it didn’t bode well. The Sisters needed a leader who knew the fight firsthand. Sure, they were light on experience at the moment, but he couldn’t imagine a sweet old meditation-loving lady knowing what to do with a pack of battle-hardened sister warriors. Wouldn’t it be better to promote even a less-experienced Sister from within the Order?
Vincent had squinted at the newcomer’s habit. Shit, really? Under the guise of observing the sparring drills, he’d turned just far enough away from Duretti to shoot a skeptical glance toward Shannon and Suzanne. “She’s a . . . second-order Discalced Carmelite?”
“Just watch,” Shannon had whispered back, and he’d gotten the sense that she’d still be whispering even if Duretti weren’t there. The awe radiating off her had surprised him. She respected her Sisters, of course, but she hadn’t been this wide-eyed since she’d been a novice, watching Patty drop fourteen drunks and a police officer in a bar in Ljubljana bare-handed.
Clare had been so still, on the challenger’s end of the sparring ring, that she’d stood out. Other than the faint twist of her habit in the spring breeze, she could have been an ocean, or a gravestone. Her eyes were downcast, her face neutral.
Since this was a demonstration only, Mary had been mostly disarmed, down to a nightstick and whatever was hidden in her boots. She’d moved restlessly along her arc of the circle. Intellectually, Vincent couldn’t imagine why she wasn’t attacking yet. Intuitively, though, he knew. She was looking for a way to win, and there wasn’t one. The fuck? She’s fighting a 78-year-old member of an enclosed order. How can she not win?
It had been over before Vincent could catch up. Mary had advanced on Clare, feinted right, and crumpled to the ground unconscious immediately. Just the slightest flutter of a sleeve from Clare. No blood. No blood?
Clare had knelt beside Mary, her head tilted curiously as she took in the woman she’d just dropped. She’d lifted Mary’s body, laid her out flat on her back on the ground. She’d set her fingers on Mary’s temples, manipulated Mary’s jaw with her thumbs.
“What the fuck is she doing?” Vincent had hissed to Suzanne as Clare’s fingers had traveled under Mary’s head, across the back of her neck, down to her shoulders, prodding and adjusting.
“That,” Shannon had answered, in hushed tones, as Mary’s eyes had sprung open and she’d roared back up to a sitting position.
“The fuck?!” Mary had shouted, utterly failing to draw any response from Clare, who remained at her side, eyes turned to the ground near Mary’s feet, unmoving.
“She took you down,” Suzanne had called back, smirking. She’d always been arrogant, but never humorless.
“I know that!” Mary had thumped the ground on her other side, risen angrily to her feet. “How the fuck did you do that?!” she’d demanded of Clare, who remained kneeling, not making eye contact.
“Language,” Vincent had shouted, crossing himself. Seemed like somebody should. Seeing as how the aged Sister currently on the ground could apparently knock out anybody she wanted through sheer force of will, and her feelings on the f-word were as yet unknown.
Clare had looked up at Mary, then, her face as neutral as it had been all along. After an uncomfortably long period of eye contact, Mary had reached down to Clare and helped her up. Vincent had found himself exhaling, unaware until that moment that he’d been holding his breath.
“All my days, I grew up among the scholars, and I have found nothing better for the body than silence,” Clare had murmured. She and Mary were still holding each other’s forearms. Their eyes were opposite ends of a glowstick, something bright and almost-tangible sizzling between them. After another long moment, Clare had simply nodded, and let go, and stepped away from Mary. She’d clasped her hands behind her back and faced the Sisters, feet together, gaze still directed downward.
Vincent had felt Duretti’s flat eyes roll from Sister to Sister, finally settling on him. “Sisters, Father, please welcome Clare, Mother Superion of the OCS.”
The sound of Adriel behind Vincent brought him back to the present. He glanced back over his shoulder to see Adriel tearing open a small, square packet with his teeth and rolling on a condom. Who knew if the protection was really needed. Scripture was notably silent on the ins-and-outs (heh, ins-and-outs) of STI transmission where angels were concerned. But Vincent had never discarded the practices that had accidentally kept him from an early grave, and Adriel had never asked him to.
Reaching back, Adriel brought forth the bottle and squeezed lube onto his fingers. He spread it first across himself. Moving on to Vincent’s ass, his fingers massaged slickly around the pucker, sliding gently inside. “What do you want, beloved?” he asked, voice deceptively calm even as he began fingerfucking Vincent.
To fucking shatter you. To feel you losing control. To take you, all of you, and take you and take you and take you, everything you can give, until I shatter too. To be not just animalistic but actually elemental again, broken down, a new creation. “I want your dick,” was what he settled on, outside his head.
“Such a gracious wordsmith,” mocked Adriel, lightly, his middle finger pushing close enough to Vincent’s prostate that he almost yelped. Vincent turned to look back over his shoulder, shuddered at Adriel’s sneer.
“Please,” he moaned, dropping his head back forward again. “Please, sir.”
“Please what?” Adriel’s hand stilled, but the teasing didn’t. “Please stop? Of course, beloved, happy to—”
“Please, inside me, please,” Vincent keened, a wave of tension rippling through his belly. “Sir, your dick, inside me, please.”
“I don’t know if you’re ready for that.”
Vincent didn’t need to look back this time. He could hear the smirk in Adriel’s voice as sure as he could feel the second finger pushing into him. “Yes, sir. Please, sir,” he panted.
A third, and a sudden flare of intensity, not quite pain. Hanging his head, Vincent breathed, steadied himself. “Now,” he murmured, his eyes welling up, and Adriel rose on him like a sun, pushed into him and filled him.
Every moment before this had been loss. Now, gain. No more zero-sum, he thought vaguely. No more tit-for-tat. No more you break it you buy it--
“You know why you’re here,” he’d murmured. You fucked up, and you got her killed. Not even the motherfucking Nazis could kill her, but you could, and you did. Your sister tried to stop you, but you ignored her, and Haloed her, and fucking killed Clare.
Suzanne had only nodded, eyes on the floor. She’d looked so much like Clare, suddenly, that it had stolen his breath. “I know any apology is beyond insufficient. Just please, please let me stay within the Church. Anyplace I need to be reassigned. I know I can’t stay here.”
His laugh was a seal, barking out of him before he could stop it, nearly as agile and slippery as the woman before him. Oh, so you think you’re off the hook now? “Sister, thanks to you, there’s more work to do here than ever before.”
“I’m not sure I . . . ?”
“Suzanne, the OCS has no Mother Superion,” Duretti had announced, leaving the window to turn toward them. He’d paced forward, slow shark drifting through the waters. Vincent had waited for the strike. “You know why, of course.”
Suzanne’s tears were less gratifying than Vincent had hoped. Maybe at least the salt would sting that gash on her face. “Because of my fault. My arrogance. My poor judgment. If I had waited, or accepted counsel from another Sister, Clare would still be here.”
Smiling, then, Duretti had turned away from her to face Vincent. Duretti’s eyes had been dark against his, and for a moment, Vincent had found himself praying he wasn’t the prey. Come on, I wasn’t even there! But then, Duretti had spoken, and the smirk had made sense. “Father Vincent, I believe you may have an idea of how to resolve this.”
Ah, you want me to do it. So you’re not the one punishing, or playing favorites, depending how we look at it. “The final decision is of course yours, Your Eminence,” he’d replied, making smooth glass of his facial expression.
Suzanne had glanced between them suspiciously, but then simply dropped her gaze, waiting. The hollow feeling returned to Vincent’s chest. She was the tiredest and least impetuous he’d ever seen her, here in this room, expecting to be sent away. He’d dreamed of a day like this. Well, not quite like this. He’d always thought that Dora would get the drop on her, or she’d get outshot by a new recruit, or he’d finally figure out how to trip her in the hallway. But the marrow would be the same. Suzanne would finally fucking quit acting like she ran the whole fucking world. Would finally be shamed into calm. But now, just like her crying, her quiet provided no relief.
“Certainly. But come now, Father Vincent. Weren’t you about to make a suggestion?”
“Your Eminence, there are many possibilities,” he’d hedged, consciously ironing out the tiniest wrinkles from his poker face.
“Such as?”
Ugh, he’s really going to do it. He’s really going to dick around until I can’t take it anymore and I cave. Fine. Vincent had sighed, then, and brought his cut-aluminum eyes up to meet Suzanne’s, hating what he was about to say.
Something had flashed across her face before he could do it, though, a comprehension weighted with shock and suffering and hope. “Surely you’re not—”
“You’re taking her place.” He’d pushed the words out through a tightened throat. “You’re going to be the next Mother Superion.”
The thought triggered an involuntary bite-down reflex in real time, and Vincent came back to himself, teeth buried in his own lower lip, tasting blood. Adriel slapped his ass, hard, and the sting somehow sweetened the sensation. A rough hand in Vincent’s hair hauled his head back. Adriel’s beard tickled at his cheek.
“You know all you have to do is say the word and I’ll stop,” Adriel growled in his ear. “You’re choosing this.” A sense of his power, his control rolled over Vincent’s whole body, leaving Vincent shuddering. Because it was true. As potent as Adriel was, he was under Vincent’s command, here and now.
“Do you want me to stop?” challenged Adriel.
“No!” Vincent gasped. “No. No. No,” until it became a mantra, timed to Adriel’s thrusts.
“You don’t? Whyever not?” A harsh hand in Vincent’s hair, fingers knotting close to the scalp and pulling his head back. A bite to Vincent’s shoulder, teeth sinking in near his neck.
Breath rasped out of Vincent harshly, a wheezing prayer. Adriel felt so good, stroking into him. He couldn’t respond. Good thing he didn’t need to.
Sure enough, Adriel answered his own question, voice lethally low. “Because you love it.” He released Vincent’s hair, allowing his head to fall forward again. Slamming roughly into Vincent, slowing his pace, he raked his fingernails down Vincent’s back. The pain and the pleasure melded. He’d never felt this before Adriel. Intensity of pain, sure. Intensity of pleasure, never.
Adriel shifted ever so slightly, withdrawing almost completely before ramming himself balls-deep into Vincent. Sparks of sensation lit, racing up Vincent’s spine. A low groan escaped him involuntarily.
He didn’t know how to say it, the craving that still itched behind his teeth. Something like “fucking destroy me,” but what did he mean by “me”? The edges blurred as Adriel continued crashing into him, stretching him, opening him. Let me out, let me out, bring me back into atoms and let me scatter.
Wasn’t that what everyone wanted, really? To touch and taste and feel the often-too-abstract connection between themselves and the rest of the universe? To remember their place, dust and ashes, for whom the world was created? To know, bone-deep, that this transient life matters, and that whatever comes next is more to be loved than feared?
He thought of Beatrice, then, the barely-contained kid she’d been when he’d met her. The Dominicans had been quite partial to her, hesitant to give up on her despite everything. They’d only tried to talk him into taking her so she could stay within the Church. “Yes, it is unfortunate that these . . . incidents . . . continue to occur, but truly, even aside from her brilliant scholarly work, I believe there is something very special about her,” the Mother Superior of her convent had told him. “It’s clear that she needs extra care and spiritual guidance. But I hesitate even to contemplate what might happen if she were to leave the novitiate. I would not wish to see her in harm’s way.”
It had taken a well-timed breath to avoid a snort of laughter. Mother, she is harm’s way. Or did you forget why I’m here? “Certainly,” he’d responded gravely, managing to make his nod look serious. “None of our Sisters’ lives are to be regarded lightly. I believe that a transfer to our order may enable her to use her unique set of skills to the highest benefit of the Kingdom of God.”
Unconvinced, she’d stared back at him for a long, pensive moment. Fuck, nobody told me this future sister warrior would be guarded by a high-school principal. Give me a Tarask instead, goddamn. He’d met Mother’s eyes, willed his knee to stop jumping. Teacher tactic, teacher tactic, just wait her out without incriminating yourself. Finally, she’d nodded once, faintly. “I’ll ask her to meet with you.”
A few minutes later, he’d been pinned to the floor, Beatrice’s knee in his belly and her forearm across his throat. He’d tapped frantically at her hand to beg for air. Her expression hadn’t changed, eyes heavy and curious on his, only watching. She’d jammed a finger into the pulse point in his neck instead. Ok, so this one’s a yes, had been the last thing he’d thought before swimming through hazy gray into nothing.
Fierce, feral, frightening. Unutterably beautiful in her rage. She’d fought, still fought, like the sharp-toothed daughter of God and a jackal. The madness under all the careful words and inexorable precision, that was what made her special. She’d never liked Vincent, either, which made him paradoxically fond of her, but she’d still sided with him over Duretti, and thereby played a role in Adriel’s salvation of the world. Even if it was just out of suppressed sapphism. Maybe she’d end up a Thomas, doubting until she saw.
Who knew, maybe she’d finally admit how much she wanted Ava, how thoroughly unsisterly her affections were. She’d see that she’d never actually been the problem. She’d grab the undead waif by the unkempt hair and finally fucking kiss her, finally fucking hold her, finally fucking accept the particular way the unending universe flowed through her, the way she’d always been meant to live and love and—
Behind him, Vincent heard Adriel’s breathing change. “Oh, fuck, you’re gonna cum,” he moaned. “You’re gonna cum so fucking hard inside me.”
A low growl escaped from Adriel. “Not unless you ask for it.”
“Oh, fuck. I want it so bad. I want you to cum.”
He could hear the smirk right alongside the strain in Adriel’s voice. “Excuse me. My earlier statement was unclear. Not unless you beg.”
“Oh, fuck, please, please,” Vincent whimpered. “Please. Please, I need it.”
“Did I say ‘whine’?” Adriel leaned forward, his hand in Vincent’s hair again, his mouth pressed against Vincent’s ear, his hips still snapping forward and back, his breathing heavy and hot.
“No, sir. No,” managed Vincent, an involuntary grunt puffing out of him.
“What. Did. I. Say?” gritted Adriel, before his teeth latched on to Vincent’s earlobe, lightly, just enough to sting, just enough to make Vincent gasp and push backward.
Vincent did his best to find any bass he could still muster. “Beg.” That was encouraging. Confidence growing, he continued. “Beg. I’m begging you. Please. Cum in me.”
“Cum in you?” confirmed Adriel, short of breath now, his thrusts losing rhythm, stuttering toward Vincent’s wish.
“You better fucking cum in me. You better fucking give it to me. You’re going to fucking flood me. I need to feel you exploding.” Dominance in his voice now, the curious flip of kink complete, Vincent’s begging becoming a demand, the illusion thinner than ever. You have all the power, sure, but really, it’s only yours because I gave it to you, and I can take it away again anytime I want.
Past words now, Adriel only shifted his grasp, one arm under Vincent and across his chest, holding him tight as one final push made Adriel shout and surge, crying out in a long-lost language even Vincent didn’t speak. Vincent reached back, held Adriel to him with both hands. Unity.
After a long moment, Adriel collapsed to the ground next to Vincent, pulled him in to his side, tugged a blanket over them both. Vincent dimly registered Adriel’s breath, found himself floating away on it. Steady, serene, acute.
Ava smiled, in his mind’s eye, a wild-haired, wild-eyed Second Coming. He wasn’t sure why Suzanne had ever thought Ava would obey them, would slot neatly into their plans. Vincent had known better. Prophets never wanted the job.
“You know I think all of this is complete bullshit,” Ava had said to him, once, her feet tucked up under her in an armchair. She’d been gazing into the fireplace at Cat’s Cradle, awake much later than she’d needed to be. Proximity to Beatrice tended to do that to everyone, but Ava had proven especially susceptible. Even when it involved something as mundane as a translation session with recently-unearthed OCS texts.
It had taken three separate stern commands from Suzanne before Bea had reluctantly retired, leaving the source texts and references behind in the library. Suzanne had tried to bully Ava into resting too, but she was neither as obedient nor as personally critical to the mission as Bea. So when Ava had shrugged and curled up near the fire, Suzanne had only sighed, rolled her eyes, and departed.
“All of what?” Vincent had asked, an archaic dictionary in hand, standing on tiptoe and craning his neck to try to locate the gap on the shelves where it fit. Lord knew there’d be hell to pay tomorrow if he misshelved one of the library books tonight. Either Bea’d get him, or Lawrence would. He knew better than to imagine that anything as trivial as death could present an obstacle to a librarian.
“God. The universe. Everything.”
“How very emo of you,” he’d murmured, still scanning the shelves. He’d hefted the dictionary. “Do you see where this came from?”
She’d turned, squinted at the wall of books. “No.” A beat. “Maybe it doesn’t go anywhere,” leaving the ‘like me’ unsaid. She was surprisingly similar to every other 19-year-old he’d ever met. The same trite, life-defining questions of identity rose up regardless of circumstance. Who am I? Why am I here? How am I going to use my one singular life?
Nodding, he’d kept his back to her, had idly notched out and put back a few books. He’d pastoral-counseled enough teenagers to know that if he gave her enough silence, she’d fill it. Sure, there was benefit in keeping the Halo in an unworthy vessel. Lilith was sharp, strong, decisive, battle-hardened, tactical, everything Ava wasn’t. If she became the Warrior Nun, Adriel’s chances of rising would be significantly reduced. This alone made Ava worth keeping.
But Vincent was pretty sure he’d have stood up for her regardless. She was just a kid. Couldn’t they give her a chance just to live? To enjoy half a second of the miracle that had not only brought her back from the dead, but given her a chance to live a life she’d been craving for nearly two decades? Surely there was enough time in God’s wide world both to defeat evil and to eat ice cream while walking on the beach. It didn’t profit anyone to continue the established pattern of taking away her self-determination. Let her come into service on her own.
Not to mention, if there was one part of the Bible he still agreed with, it was care for the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the impoverished. Which, you know, seemed to mean not risking murdering them by ripping out the divine artifact that had resurrected them. He’d sighed, internally. Wasn’t it time for a different world? Wasn’t it time to move beyond hypocrisy and oppression, toward truth and liberation? He’d thought of Adriel, languishing in a Church crypt, and longed.
“I just want to be left alone,” Ava had blurted a moment later. “I don’t want to punch people, or stab demons, or be stalked by a huge international organization that thinks it knows the will of God. I just want to see the world and eat some decent food and meet some interesting people and do what everybody else does. Go to bed in a giant nest of blankets and get up in the morning. Go for a run. Go to work. Get stuck in traffic. Fall in love. Clean the bathroom. I don’t know. Doesn’t that matter? What I want?”
He'd paused, setting the dictionary down on a table, but hadn’t spoken. She had more to say. He could wait for her. Even if no one else would.
“I mean . . . why does all of this keep happening to me? It’s one fucking firestorm after another. Everybody wants something from me. Nobody cares what I think. Like, listen, I’m sick of being your token or your object or whatever it is. You don’t even treat me like a person. And you don’t understand how lucky you are. You get to choose. Why don’t I get to choose? Why do I keep getting hit with the shit? Why can’t I have a normal life? Like everybody else? Come on, this isn’t fair! Everybody keeps telling me I’m selfish, but I didn’t ask for any of this, and I’m not the one who makes everything conditional! I’m sick of people telling me I owe them just for being allowed to exist! That’s what’s fucking selfish!”
Vincent had turned toward her, taken in the heat from her voice, breathed in the trauma and rage and fear wafting off her. Then he’d shrugged, breathing out acceptance. The alchemy of this moment always drew him. Bring me all the pain. I can take it. I’m strong enough to sit in your suffering without getting scared, without getting anxious. And you are too. “I’ve thought the same thing,” was all he’d said, shifting his gaze to the windows behind her.
In his peripheral vision, her shoulders dropped, ever so slightly. “Yeah, and kept fucking capturing me, like I’m a goddamn escapee from the animal shelter. Kept letting Mother Superion tell me I’m a dick for killing myself, when just being in the shit and wanting out doesn’t make you a bad person, and I obviously fucking couldn’t have killed myself anyway, what with the catastrophically disabling spinal cord injury and all. It took me a fucking year and a half to get enough control over my shoulders to flip off Sister Frances. A fucking year and a half. My shoulders, not my fingers. I couldn’t even fucking move my fucking fingers. How the fuck was I supposed to OD?”
Vincent had softened his eyes, loosened his jaw, relaxed his shoulders, let off her tension from his own body. “I know.”
“Whatever. You could call these assholes off me, Father Patriarchy. You just won’t.”
He’d barely been able to stifle a smile, then, bringing his eyes back to hers. “I think you’re overestimating my power. You’ve met the Sisters. I’m just here so Suzanne doesn’t have to deal with the cardinals alone.”
“Yeah, sure. I’m gonna believe the guy who sits around watching people tell me I’m an ass for having human reactions to terrifying, overwhelming shit. ‘Oh, you ran away, instead of saving me, you’re such an asshole.’ No fucking shit I ran away, Lilith, I was scared, I didn’t know what was happening, of course I’m going to startle and flee. You’re a fucking black belt in everything. Including not being a person with person instincts, apparently. How the fuck was I supposed to help you?” She’d exhaled, sharp and angry, before starting to settle further, despite herself. “Who’s Suzanne?”
“Mother Superion. As you’ve seen, she’s a better warrior than diplomat. Might want to ask her, someday, how she ended up where she is now.” He’d paused, leaned back against the table. “But your point stands. It isn’t fair, of course. That you’re being judged as if you’d been born into this, as if you already agree with other people’s assessment of the situation and can just instantly pivot. That everybody wants something from you, and nobody cares about you. You’re trapped and misjudged. Who wouldn’t be upset about that?”
Ava had regarded him suspiciously. “Ooooo, pulling the reverse psychology, very devious. ‘Yeah, sure, I agree with you,’ then trying to manipulate me into buying your bullshit.”
Like arguing with myself, he’d grinned, internally. On the outside, he’d only rolled his eyes at her. “Yes, you’ve discovered my evil game, there’s no such thing as empathy.” Let it sit, things are moving. He’d kept his breathing steady, a square with sides two seconds long, and moved his gaze to the floor. If she needs a fight, she can pick it.
She’d flipped him off. Already getting more comfortable. That was promising. “Fuck you,” she’d grumbled, voice starting to wobble, and then repeated herself louder, as if to drown out the real agony under the words. “Fuck you!”
His breath had been all that mattered, that two-second box spinning in and out and holding. He’d swallowed against the lump of her anguish in his throat. Whatever you need, he’d prayed, barely noticing how he never supplicated for anymore, only to. He’d imagined his breathing merging with Ava’s, keeping opposite time together, giving her a chance to inhale the thought his exhalation carried. Whatever you need.
“If you’re so fucking empathetic, how can you just sit there watching this? How? What gives you the fucking right to do this to me? Any of you? I hate you!”
I’ll let you, he’d agreed, slow, gentle. You can hate me. Give the hate to me. Put it where it belongs. He could feel his head starting to nod, small, smooth adjustments as her distress rattled into him and his care flowed out toward her. Wide-open chest. There’s room for all of this.
Huffing, her face tight, she’d turned away from him, eyes back to the fireplace. When she’d finally spoken again, her voice had been almost inaudible, steel-solid. She had her own mettle, and metal, but the forge was dimming, heat evaporating as steam. “I’m going to find a way out. You can’t stop me. None of you can.”
Vincent had almost smiled, then, feeling his eyes start to crinkle and his lips start to curve. “Well, come on, isn’t that a tactical error? Informing the enemy of your intentions?” After a moment of silence, he’d continued more seriously. “I hope you will. Really.”
“You’re such a fucking dick,” she’d muttered, starting to tear up.
Assessing the statement, he’d found it to be true, so he’d only nodded, making what he thought of as his “fair enough” face. As she’d dropped her face to her hands, shoulders starting to shake, he’d crossed to her. He’d given her some space, but sat kneeling on the floor in front of her, eyes down, submissive and silent.
Their breaths were incense, faint but filling the room. A pleasing aroma to “God,” whatever that was. Vincent found his own eyes blurring, his own cheeks wet, and still he waited, and still he felt, and still the small voice could be heard, a wind through the trees outside and a soul stirring between them.
“I’m so sorry,” he’d murmured, at last, not specifying why. If only he could explain. If only he could exempt her. If only this could all go differently, with more sweetness and less suffering. But there was no progress without pain. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m so sorry, but it’s time for me to go, beloved.” Adriel’s voice vibrated through Vincent’s own chest, refocusing him. When Adriel tapped his arm, Vincent rolled away, let Adriel rise. He dimly registered Adriel moving him onto his back, covering him with layers of blankets. “Stay as long as you’d like.”
Stay, Vincent thought drowsily, the word echoing with each of Adriel’s footsteps as he stood and left. Stay, stay, stay. Maybe that was why he couldn’t get the OCS out of his mind, even now. He’d stayed there. They’d kept him, for decades and decades, with all his fierceness and all his failings. If only they would finally let him reciprocate.
Because they were beautiful, all of them. Even in their constraints, even in their grief, brilliant colors dashed against the Church’s monochrome world of good and evil. In Adriel’s world of freedom, true freedom, what could they become? Nothing less than the salvation of the world. Nothing less than the image of God. They didn’t see it, not yet, but he did.
Camila, so young, so bright. She should be the Banksy of hackers, somewhere out there, gorgeous graffiti code spinning off her fingertips. She could unravel an unjust knot like none other. Except maybe Yasmine, a queen with knowledge of a Crown. Heritage and how-to. Light in touch, and light to the nations. She should never have been hidden under the barrel of a convent.
And so many others, so many women, so many warriors, so much wisdom. If only they would rise, if only they could see their fulfillment rather than fighting to keep their prison. It wounded him every time he worked against them, but he couldn’t stand their subordination anymore, either.
See, the psalms had it right. “You prepare a table before me, in the presence of my enemies,” but the Hebrew word wasn’t quite “enemies,” oivai. It was tzorerai. “The ones I am bound up with.” Vincent was as bound to the OCS as he was to Adriel, two contradictory complements to make him suffer, and to make him whole. The love resonating through his body at this very moment demanded he keep them both. An Iscariot in reverse, without silver, laying in the potter’s field more alive than he’d ever been before.
Shifting slightly, he noticed the internal ache mirrored externally. The memory of the past few hours lingered in every muscle. Psalms again. “Bless the Lord, o my soul, and all that is within me bless His holy name.” Because now, love no longer required leaving anything out. His body, not just his heart, could truly be a temple, touching on the Divine in tandem with Adriel.
Which was the sacrament he’d been denied for so long, right? Communion wafers weren’t Christ’s body until they’d been consecrated. But they didn’t taste any different after. Wasn’t such a far stretch to apply the same logic to handies or blowjobs or rimming or anal or whatever else.
All those boys, all those men, all their dicks and asses and mouths and cum had offered him the raw ingredients. But it was only here, with Adriel, that the transubstantiation he’d sought had happened. With Adriel’s body and his own, in sacred space and time, Vincent could give and receive the Infinite. In the same actions, reconfigured, over and over and over again.
No wonder the Church was so concerned with sex. It was a way to internalize divinity, a much headier one than some imitation matza and Manischewitz becoming corpse parts. Who needed an anti-semitic tradition’s play at Passover when transcendence could be rooted right here, as close as your own breath entangled in a lover’s?
Place your host on my tongue. Let me drink your wine. Let God enter me as you do.
Vincent shivered with it, for all the layers Adriel had taken care to wrap him in. Shaken by the sudden awareness of infinitesimal Order as it thundered through his veins in each cell, atom-deep. He was awake, alive, aware. And in his living, he played a small part in the eternal process of Becoming.
Years ago, some corner of his mind would have started in on some bullshit about absolute and relative immanence, God and man as separate or not and how that related to pantheism. Tonight, though, he only felt. The stretch in his limbs. The air in his lungs. The bite of the breeze, the world breathing back at him. I love you, he thought, eyes prickling with tears. He didn’t know who he meant to address. He didn’t care.
The sun set. Reds, oranges, the fade to inky purple. After some time, Vincent fell asleep softly there. Grass, blankets, stars. Wide-open sky, black but not blank. Rustle of leaves in the wind, aromas of the herb garden and the flowers and the man he loved.
Wild. Part of. Free.