Chapter Text
Living on Crockett Island was supposed to be temporary. With being unable to keep up with rent and being depressed from your music dreams crashing down, it wasn't uncommon for people in this day in age to live with their parents until they had their shit together. After moving in with your mom into this isolated Catholic community, you did take on work and made a little extra money to the side. Alas, you did not expect yourself to get along with a few of the locals. Your students adored you, some teenage residents consoled you over things they didn't feel comfortable telling their parents, a few people around your age group or older kept you sane while some devout folk tested your religious trauma...and most of all, you found love there.
It was obviously one of the least likely candidates to share a courtship with, due to Father Paul Hill (or his real name of Monsignor John Pruitt, if you will) being a Catholic priest with a most complicated past that led him to tread on dangerous waters to try and save his family with his previous lover, along with the entire parish. You still remained together after guiding him away from that danger.
Once you finally did have some financial stability to live independently from your mother, you had a tough choice. Despite the locals you grew close to, you knew that this place wasn't for you. Being who knew how many hours away from the mainland shore as if you were literally off the map, predominantly Catholic, as opposed to your practice in the Left-Hand Path occult and other eclectic elements of witchcraft, and dealing with the few devout who saw you as an unfit influence on the children were amongst the reasons for your discomfort. Not to mention the uneasy energies at certain places and certain times. That house where the angel harvested on innocent blood still gave you massive chills, and even though you've braved it at this point, despite extremely rarely attending these days, St. Patrick's church with its age and bleak trees in its background also gave you that equivalent feeling.
But your magic was protecting this island from the angel....including the man you've fallen in love with over the time you've been here. You didn't mean to sound like a hopeless romantic, which you hardly were, but your relationship with Father Paul did give you comfort. Not to get yourself wrong, laying with a man of the Christian God was still intriguing shadow work in some eccentric way, yet the relationship itself was quite healing. The duality of your natures sitting down and discussing things like how was your day, are you okay, how's the weather, etc, which would lead to unique discussions about different points of view on faith, philosophy, and what not.
Everything mentioned, especially over Paul did seem like a decent collection of reasons to stay, despite being your true self in this quiet, conservative Catholic town.
Besides, the island was honestly pretty cheap to live on, and you do tend to go off to the Mainland on most weekends or when you had to. And when you did come back, the town Monsignor was always waiting after Mass with open arms.
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as you unpacked the boxes in your new home, a noise that sounded like a mix of a sigh and a chuckle uttered from the roof of your mouth. It was a simple trailer-like place, akin to where Joe Collie was living, but there were some tweaks here and there to make it more comfortable and it was bigger, so you had plenty of room for your art, music, and rituals. By this point, you had mostly your room and kitchen in enough order to present as livable enough. Today was the good day for the living room, which was bigger than the other 2 main rooms mentioned.
"Are you alright, my dove?" a familiar comforting voice came from the handsome priest next to you, also carrying a box of your belongings. He was a massive help to your move, though he wasn't along on it, with Sturge, the town handyman lending you equipment to move some furniture from point a to point b. Riley was also a help with the heavier stuff on some occasions.
"Yeah." you then replied to your lover. "I'm just wondering how to make this work." you laugh softly and shyly as you place a box on the floor by the bookshelf, beckoning the priest to follow you to that area. It was one of those rare moments that he wasn't wearing his usual priest collar top, but a plain t shirt and hoodie, along with those types of jeans he always liked to wear. It makes sense to wear that if he's doing to be covered in dirt and sweat all day, but his appearance still made your heart flutter, even though it's weird to see him not look like a priest.
He went over to the entrance door and brought over two other boxes that had the words "y/n books" on them. You then gathered the remaining boxes of your bounded pieces of literary work before opening them with the pocket knife you were carrying. As you did this, Father Paul gazed at your doing quite curiously. Then, you caught him in the act and winked before he chuckled and kissed your cheek. Such a loving dork!
Though he was showing affection, many of the works you collected over the years appeared to have caught his attention. You did always love to read. Your love for all things intellect was likely a contribution to how you've grown curious about the unknown.
As Paul's chocolate orbs observed the array of binding designs as his hand seemed to subconsciously be drawn to them.
"Uhm..." he muttered sheepishly before turning to you. "May I?"
You nod. Despite chatting about your respective practices, the idea of a priest looking into your personal library was both amusing and terrifying. Another mental quirk, no thanks to your ongoing religious trauma.
With your permission though, he slowly picked up what was in the box, one by one.
One in particular, did catch his eye. It was an old, almost decrepit with the back almost de-tatched. However, it was clearly a dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin.
"I...I've read this same exact edition back in seminary!" His voice showed various elements of enthusiasm, excitement, and curiosity. "Where did you get this?"
"Oh.." you giggle. "My old band was in Baltimore for a festival and there was an independent bookstore with a sale. Got this for a quarter!"
"A quarter...I feel older now"
You couldn't help but burst into laughter as The priest thought to himself as he flipped through the familiar pages, bringing himself back to when he studied to be the man of his status. He chuckled before presenting it to you, doing his best to preserve what was left of the old book. "Where do you want me to place this?"
You pointed to a shelf. "I keep my intellect stuff on the top shelf"
"Top shelf..?" he repeated looking up curiously. It was clear that he could reach more to that level, due to his taller height.
"Well..." you reply as you open another book box. "The top two, I guess...? I must confess that I'm not too organized, in all honesty" In your hands, was a copy of "Three Books of Occult Philosophy" by Henry Cornelius Agrippa, as you spoke.
In a playful manner, Paul couldn't help but shake his head. "I can help you with that. I did ask though just to make sure you could reach"
It looks like some work won't be as done as you wanted today, merely due to the cuteness of laughing with each other over the smallest things.
"Oh, no worries, babe. There's a stool specifically for that I have somewhere!"
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Throughout the next few moments, Father Paul did his best to help you organize your shelves. Though being exposed to the clutter you were once used to from your days of living on the mainland, he was very patient as you presented what you owned. It mostly ranged from Japanese manga, history, philosophy, horror, historical fiction, fantasy , band biographies, CDs, Vinyls, and of course, ye old occult literature. As he helped though, he couldn't help but look at some copies, being fascinated. He knew you were pretty intelligent to begin with, but this...all this material could lead to many more interesting spiritual conversations, thus expanding his experiences as a priest.
A part of the process was handing you what was left in the boxes, which he neatly unfolded to the side, so you could save them for other future purposes.
Out of some random instinct, the priest did end up reading the book titles quietly to himself.
" Chicken Kabbalah...Grimoirium Verum...Necronomicon...Pseudomonarchium Daemonum...Demonolatry Goetia...Tarot for Beginners...Book of Shadows...The Zohar...Lesser Key of Solomon...Book of the Law..."
His little trance was interrupted as his long, holy hands reached out to another text. "The Bible?"
Forehead wrinkles furrowed as his right eye squinted very slightly as he examined what he was holding.
You turned your head to him, unsure to be either embarrassed, amused, or some other sort of reaction one religious trauma-ridden occult worker would likely have if a priest discovered you had the sacred text of his religion in your personal library. You play it off though. "Oh...yeah! Sooooo this one has footnotes explaining the context of each verse, it gives more information about the direct Hebrew and Greek translations and what was going on during all those time periods that gave the writers the idea to say what they did. Helps me understand and deconstruct, if that makes any sense."
Paul asked for your permission to flip through it as he listened to you explain more. "Hmm. This seems a lot more than what they taught me back in Seminary. It doesn't seem surprising that you have one of these though, considering how much you've told me about what you know about the faith...
"Outside it being the word of God for me and many others. I've seen it being a passable piece of literature for people interested...I suppose if you understand what I mean. .... But, you are right! It was definitely written in a different time. One of the most interesting, but difficult parts of priesthood is very indeed trying to make parallels to living God's word in modern day. I wouldn't tell Bev this..." he chuckled before continuing. "How to handle slaves...marrying your rapist...not eating shellfish...all in Leviticus, I believe. Imagine that, I'm sure that would put most of the island out of work...the latter, of course. "
You nod. A similar sad smile sort of eyes appeared in his direction. "Yeah...I have to admit, one of the reasons I questioned the faith to begin with, if i may be honest."
"I understand. I still ask God all these questions, if I also may be honest. If time changes, morally changes, as does God, I suppose.
"Going from a vengeful and jealous God, drowning the world before starting again, sending plagues so his people may go, and many other insane atrocities. Then, God the Son comes to teach us love and compassion, though he will judge the living and the dead."
You go silent for a second, after he speaks. There he was going sounding like a man of that same god! Of course, you knew he had a knack for this. Not only because of his occupation, but you've witnessed the passion and charisma in his sermons; despite all his mistakes and breaking his vows, he did his job well and church-goers still looked to him. You agree have your disagreements, but you respected his right to practice as a man of the cloth in the way he did.
"It's definitely a collection of writings from various different times, older than what we're used to, for sure. You should see my small collection and Nag Hammadi Library stuff in the other box!" your laugh earned you an adorable smile from your lover, likely enjoying this little chat. "But to stay on topic, for a moment. I mean, if we're going to look at Semetic lore, Yaweh replaced El as chief deity, before Jews became monotheistic, if I'm not mistaken. He was a storm and war god, I believe. So, I know that's where the archetypes of his mythos in the Bible comes from. As for Yeshua the Christ...I've been reading on the whole Messiah fever phenomenon in first century Judea. The concept of the messiah is the leader that lead Jews to liberation. And being under the Romans invited all these doomsday cult leaders to have different ideas that made priests and politicians uneasy."
Paul nodded once more, though a bit uncomfortable that you referred to his god as a cult leader, but he forgave you, knowing that you meant well and tried to explain what you believed you knew, as he did moments before.
"Loving your neighbor isn't a bad thing. Honestly, anyone should be able to tell right from wrong, just every culture and time period will have different views on morality, similar to what you said earlier.
"Though...Jesus said some things about wanting obedience... and..." you thought to yourself, merely in order to mentally look for the proper words to annunciate.
"yes, you have mentioned that verse from Matthew before. Not coming for peace, but a sword and divide mother and daughter..."
"I can assure you,he definitely won't divide us." His tone was sappy, but he meant what he said. At this point, you still enjoyed each other's company, though he was still breaking his vows with you, (and of course, Mille before you). Your hand gently began to slip into his, a few seconds of a super tiny intimate exchange interrupted your conversing (and his assistance with putting your new home together)
Your usual snark almost prompted you to say something like "that would be awkward" , but you decided to savor the current moment before reverting to conversation.
Despite your religious trauma, there was something healing about chatting about this kind of stuff with him. How it started with this priest asking you to come over to the rectory for some coffee to explain your beliefs, and how it ended up with more depths of interest, finding some common ground and digging up the surface from both parties of belief.
"Also! The Old Testament was basically the first grimoire. and people used psalms for bibliomancy."
"Hmm" he nodded with a somewhat understanding, yet confused smile. "Have you used Pslams for that?"
You shook your head. "Nah. Honestly, I thought you'd be interested in knowing that people have done that before."
He nods once more, looking amused. "Well that is pretty interesting though."
You then smile sincerely as you took the book from him and place it in a corner on the second top corner of your shelf. "Though from what I heard, it's not a bad way to be in touch with the divine." A cute little fluttering wink then followed suite of your words.
"I might try it " he gives a soft smile; it resembled the same kind of smile he gave at the first Mass you ever laid eyes on him. Damn him.
"Really." His witchy lover couldn't help but smirk at this. "I can't say I'm experienced in that, but I can give you whatever pointers I know"
"That, my dove" he says as he continued helping out. "Would be great"
"Oh, and you just previously mentioned apocrypha?"
You laughed. "Ah yeah! Book of Enoch, Books banned from the Bible. I have Gnostic texts too, suggesting God is the demiurge. stuff like that... don't tell the Diocese though!" you gave a flirty and cute little titter along with a wink.
His reaction was a laid-back version of the what-am-I-going-to-do-with-you sort. That came with a soft sigh as he playfully rolled his dark eyes. His thin, muscular arms crossed gently as he stood in a casual stance, unknowingly making his jeans pop well in his appearance. "Don't worry, dove. You're safe with me."
You playfully stuck your tongue out then kissed him before going back to work.
Once you were done, you took a small beer break, sharing a can or two while watching something on your laptop. The next sets of boxes for this room was for your decor and some altar spaces. You could do that on your own.