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Father Flynn yawned as he pored over the notes for the upcoming mass, "Who Is God?" It wasn't his proudest sermon, but for an auditorium of teenagers who wouldn't be paying attention anyway, it would have to do.
He glanced at his wristwatch. 11:43 PM. Probably time for him to head to bed so he could get a decent sleep before the morning service.
As he was stacking his papers, he was startled by a soft knock on his office door. Who could be coming to see him at so late an hour? Well, sleep would have to wait a few minutes, he supposed. "Come in!"
The face that peered around the heavy door was pale, wild-eyed and tearstained, and belonged to none other than Jason McConnell. Ah, so it was going to be a late-night emotional crisis, was it? He could only hope it was some silly thing that could be quickly soothed. The feather pillows in his room were calling to him.
"I know it's late," Jason said quietly as he sank into the chair across from Father Flynn. "But I didn't know where else to go."
"You know you can always come here," Father Flynn said, putting on the soothing-father-figure voice as he folded his hands on the desk. He was good at that voice. Maybe that was why he got quite so many late-night emotional crises knocking hesitantly on his study door. "What is it, my son?"
The boy breathed in, hands wringing in his lap, eyes darting everywhere but the priest's face. He bit his lip. He breathed in again. Then, so softly Father Flynn had to strain to hear it - "I'm gay."
Oh, heavens. It was going to be that kind of emotional crisis, was it? Well, no matter, that was his job as a priest, even if he wished it could be happening at a slightly earlier hour. "Thank you for telling me."
Jason exhaled and squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing a hand over them hard to push back the oncoming tears. Oh, how Father Flynn hated the culture that discouraged boys from crying, told them to push down their emotions or they weren't real men. Jesus himself had wept openly; why couldn't ordinary men?
For a long time the room was silent, broken only by the ticking of the clock and Jason's suppressed sniffles. Father Flynn waited, knowing there was more to be said. Finally, Jason choked out through a voice strangled with repressed tears - "Is it wrong?"
Father Flynn let out a hefty sigh. He had been dreading this question, dreaded it every time he was faced with a distraught young student struggling to come to terms with their same-sex attraction (and, despite what Jason surely thought, that sort of thing had happened more times than he could count). He would have to choose his words carefully.
"As a priest and a Biblical scholar," he began, "I have to tell you that the answer is yes, it is wrong. The Bible says it several times over: man shall not lie with man as with woman. It is a sin."
Jason rubbed his hand even harder over his eyes. "I knew it."
"But," Father Flynn continued, holding up a hand, "as a follower of Jesus, I'm not so certain that that's what the answer really is."
Jason looked up at him for the first time, face blotchy. Father Flynn went on.
"What Jesus preached was a message of love. Love for your neighbour, love for your enemy, love for yourself. Jesus said, 'Judge not, lest ye be judged.' Jesus went against the old scriptures when those old scriptures didn't hold enough love for his taste. And Jesus never said a word about homosexuality being a sin."
"Really?" Jason whispered.
"Really. Comb through the Gospels all you like - you won't find a single word against it. So though it might get me cast out of the church for saying so - no, Jason, I don't think that being gay is wrong."
Jason's face crumpled and he buried his head in his hands, making no attempt to hide the shaking of his shoulders this time. Father Flynn pushed a box of tissues across the table to him and waited quietly, hands folded, for his sobs to subside.
"Is there anything else, my son?" he asked.
"I- yes. Yes, there is." Jason took a deep breath, and spilled to Father Flynn a tale of the level of complexity that can only happen among repressed Catholic high schoolers who have never learned to cope healthily with emotions or to communicate openly in relationships. He wasn't sure he'd caught the minutiae of the plot, but he'd managed to figure out most of the main points: students were using drugs (well-known), Jason had been dating Peter Simmonds (well-known), they were no longer together (suspected), and Ivy Robinson was pregnant (this one was news, though among horny teens with an abstinence-only education it wasn't exactly surprising).
"Thank you for telling me," he said once more when Jason was finally done. He snuck a surreptitious glance at his wristwatch: 12:27. Mass started in less than nine hours. Time for some generic reassurances. "My son, God sees what is happening, and He loves you. Trust that He will show you the way. And trust," he added with a wry smile, "that things will look better after a good night's rest. I imagine you haven't been sleeping much between exams and play rehearsal?"
"No, Father," Jason admitted with a grin of his own.
"Well, why don't you go and do that, then. And I'll make sure to speak to Ivy. She's not the first student of St. Cecilia's to get pregnant, and she has more options than she thinks."
"Thank you, Father," Jason said.
"Of course, my son. I'm always here if you need someone to talk to."
"Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Jason."
Jason stood and headed for the door. Halfway, something fell out of the pocket of his backpack, but he kept going as though he hadn't noticed. Father Flynn called out to him, but he was already out the door, and with a sigh he stood up himself and walked over to pick it up. He'd keep it safe for the boy and give it back when he saw him next.
He moved to put the small bottle into his pocket - and stopped dead when he read the label.
Xyrem. Enough for a lethal dose.
"Dear God," the priest whispered.