Chapter Text
Be afraid of Jesus, because he’s going to fuck you up old school style.
Contrast to popular belief, Ryan Bergara had little to no interest in reassuring middle aged men that God would forgive them for having an affair.
In fact, at the end of every day he would lie on his couch and think of those men with such an intense burning in his chest he would be rendered immobile for hours.
It wasn’t just the men, though. Mothers would come to him cursing their teens, teens would come cursing one another, and regular patrons would come and spout hatred that only lies within the emotionally stunted.
There was little that could be done about any of this, of course. If Ryan criticized those who came to the head pastor in need of a false sense of security, it would immediately besmirch the name of the church and himself.
This train of thought was one of Ryan’s least favorite, as it usually lead to a wave of guilt that would flood into his stomach and make him nauseous. He should be focused on doing God’s work because it’s his moral obligation, not because of his reputation.
It’s my moral obligation.
He repeated this as he began slowly moving his fingers, then arms, eventually working his body to sit upright. There was about a second or two of silence before he heard a faint jingle of keys followed by the apartment door swinging open.
***
To say Sara was worried would be an understatement.
When she first met the dude she had agreed to share an apartment with, he’d come off as a sheepish college student with bisexual tendencies and a strange love for running. Upon living with Ryan for a month, she discovered he radically contrasted her expectations.
He was insightful but reserved, rarely speaking of his personal life or, god forbid , his sexuality.
The most important revelation, however, was that of his occupation. At a younger age Sara would have laughed at the thought of herself living with a pastor, but after two years of actually doing it, her perspective changed. Ryan didn’t have Bibles strewn around his room, he wasn’t controlling or bigoted, and he would never make Sara feel inferior for her beliefs or identity.
They would binge Netflix for weeks on end when they first reached that “I’m now comfortable around you so suffer” milestone in friendship, eventually bonding over more intimate things like political stance and surface level memories from childhood.
Despite the progress Sara had been making in getting him to open up, lately she noticed Ryan becoming more and more distant, not just from her but from the world itself. It was like he was in a videogame and she was just another flat character; the only dialogue between them being “I can make dinner tonight!” and “Did you feed Pangea or is she just trying to get seconds?”
This is what Sara expected upon coming home from a successful donut shop trip Sunday afternoon; Ryan would greet her, thank her deeply for the food, then remain silent for the rest of the evening. She had been waiting in her parked car for a few minutes, not prepared to face the stress of walking up a flight of stairs balancing a box of pan dulce, two coffees, and her phone, when something adjacent to terror bubbled in her stomach. There was no obvious source, and it wasn’t enough to cause immediate distress, but the feeling seemed to suggest the presence of a horror unknown to her yet.
I need new meds.