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He couldn't bring himself to do a single goddamn thing.
Part of him felt terrible, leaving all this on Langstrom's shoulders when he was clearly hurting almost as much as Benoit was. But he just couldn't make himself pick up the phone, make arrangements, or do anything at all to move things forward.
Because then it would be real.
So he just listened as Langstrom laid out the plans, everything like it should be, all the rituals observed. Benoit stared blankly ahead.
He wouldn't be going.
It seemed Langstrom didn't expect him to. But he made one final push as he was hanging up.
“Do you want to see him?"
Yes, desperately…but fucking alive. Alive and walking in the door and laughing and stretching for high things I can’t reach and frowning over a book and eating the food I made and digging in the garden and laid out in my bed.
Not on some fucking table, or in a box.
“I don't…know “
“That's fair. But it's tomorrow.”
Had to be quick, because Jud hadn't wanted to be pumped full of chemicals…was clear on that the one time they'd talked about it.
“Pine box, in the ground. Simple” and Benoit had told him to stop.
“This is about me, honey. I'm not going to need to know that.”
“You never know.”
“Shut up and never say that again. I'm…I mean it, Jud. Please don't.”
And they hadn't. He couldn't bear the thought.
And now he had to bear the thing in its entirety.
Forever.
However long that was.
There were moments when he'd had to acknowledge the only reason he hadn't just availed himself of the dozens of methods he knew to end this was that Jud wouldn't have wanted that.
And not just in the “he loved you and wanted you to be happy” way, but also “do that and he believed you'd go to hell and never see him again.”
Which was bullshit. Not just because there was no hell, but because Jud of all people believed in compassion over dogma.
And it still stayed his hand.
Benoit Blanc didn't believe in an afterlife and never wanted to be wrong about anything so much in his whole damn life.
That question aside, Benoit Blanc knew what he wanted to become of his mortal remains, and that hadn't changed.
Give what you can, burn what's left, then scatter the ashes all the places he loved: New Orleans, New York, Paris…Chimney Rock.
But, however far he flew, he wanted some part of Jud with him.
So he swallowed.
Made a choice.
He got in his car and drove out of town and pointed North. It had made sense, Jud had loved that town, and he'd more than once said that it was the most holy place on Earth to him.
Benoit knew why.
On the way, he stopped at an antique store. He didn't mean to pull over, but as he walked in the door he was drawn to a display and found exactly what he wanted.
He was back on the road in ten minutes.
Pulling into the Rectory, he found Langstrom sitting on the porch, smoking.
Not his first by the look of it.
“Hey.”
Langstrom looked up. “Blanc.”
There wasn't anything else to say, really. “How are you?”; “You holding up?”; “I’m sorry.”
They were both too old for those empty platitudes.
“I'd…like to see him.” Langstrom nodded. Gestured to the front room.
Jud was there, only not. Plain box, like he'd wanted, no adornments. Laid out in simple clothes, rosary in one hand.
Benoit's monogrammed handkerchief in the other.
Benoit sobbed, couldn't help it, but walked closer.
From his pocket, he draw a pair of small scissors.
Getting close enough to touch, he leaned forward, kissed Jud's cold forehead. It felt so different, it was almost worse than hearing the news, more final.
He took a deep breath, ruffled Jud curls back from his face. Besides the lack of warmth from his skin, these felt almost the same. No wonder this was what folks had done for ages, when they couldn't bear to fully let their loved ones go.
Selecting a few longer curls, Benot snipped them off with the scissors, careful to catch every thread.
Then he took out the locket he'd found that day.
A simple oval, silver. The front has been engraved so long ago that it had almost worn away.
Someone had touched this over and over, for years.
The decorations consisted of two lines of delicate filigree to either side of the plain initial: J
How he'd found that, of all things, he'd never be able to fully explain. But there it was, waiting, as he'd walked in.
He wondered how it had ended up in the shop, loved as it had clearly been. But, maybe it was just one more lost thing needing a soft place to land.
And it had found one.
He opened the lid, lifted the glass and carefully tucked in the locks of hair. Settling the glass back over, he looked once more at the spiral of chocolate curls it held safe.
Then he closed the clasp and slipped it around his neck.
He'd never take it off, not once, not even when they put him in a box like this and he went into the fire.
He imagined the piece of silver melting into whatever was left of him, sparkling and perfect.
Like the heart of the Steadfast Tin Soldier.
It wouldn't work that way, whole thing would be ash and dust…but still.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the photo that had previously adorned the locket. Someone's wife or sister or sweetheart, she had a smiling face and wore a white dress and large summer hat.
Jessica? Jennifer? Jeanette?
Whatever her name, she deserved a good end as well. He slipped her into Jud's cold hand, right next to the rosary.
He'd look after her.
Benoit contemplated saying something, but what was there to say? The ‘I love you’s had all been given when Jud was there to hear them. The ‘I miss you’s would be coming for years.
So he just looked one last time and turned, walked away.
He found Langstrom still on the porch, sat down beside him. The Bishop looked sideways, offered a cigarette.
Benoit shook his head. If he were going to do it, it would be fast, not slow.
Still, he stayed. The two of sat in silence, until Langstrom finished his smoke and stubbed it out onto the ground, shoe grinding it to powder.
He sighed. Turned.
“Blanc?”
“Yeah?”
“You wanna go destroy a fucking church?”
Benoit startled himself with his laugh. His hand flew to his neck, but he felt nothing but warmth and love from that quarter.
And you know what?
“I absolutely, unequivocally, positively do.”
Langstrom nodded, resolved and pained and angry all at once. He stood, stretched, and started walking towards Our Lady.
Benoit followed, but then stopped and turned back toward his car. Langstrom paused, watching…and gave a grim smile as Benoit pulled out a tire iron.
Blanc resumed his course, passed Langstrom and strode determinedly toward the Sanctuary.
No point in doing these things by halves.