Work Text:
“Papa, do you regret it?” A ghoul asked, sitting on the ground against the chair where Copia was sitting, staring into the fireplace in the Abbey’s library.
“Regret?” Papa echoed, “I… I do not know. I cannot look back now, my little ghoul. I’ve gotten this far, I cannot think back in ‘what if’s.” The fire crackled, and one could faintly hear the howling outside the ministry. Copia let out a breath he wasn’t aware he had been holding.
“Sister Imperator said Papa Nihil hasn’t been the same since then. Have you told her?”
“No, I have no plans to. What we did is what we had to do. For the church. For Satanas. They had to go for us to rebuild.”
The ghoul nodded and went silent. The fire spat out and the ghoul busied themself with getting up and shoving a piece of wood in. This was their only light after all, as it was midnight.
“Do you regret it?” Copia asked, watching the ghoul with keen eyes.
The ghoul stopped in it’s tracks, staring straight through Copia. The papa noted how even with eye holes, it was near impossible to tell what the ghoul was thinking. He could hear it make a noise, as if contemplating something it hadn’t thought of yet. It took a minute before it responded.
“I served along side him for many years. I was summoned to be his servant, and I failed,” The ghoul returned back to its spot sitting against the chair, “I saw his every high and low. I sat beside him when we received the Grammy. I watched as he took the verbal beatings from Nihil. I think I do regret, but I do not understand these emotions.” Copia nodded, patting the ghouls head subconsciously.
“Then that makes the two of us. May Lucifer guide us, eh?”
The ghoul nodded.
Every year, the two of them met at the same time like clockwork when the brothers were killed. If, for nothing else, to comfort each other. They might’ve done it, but they did what they felt was right. Plus, they couldn’t undo it now. No matter how hard Copia tried, it just didn’t work for the brothers like it did for Papa Nihil.
The two wouldn’t admit it that this is what this was though. Their meetings, Copia had said, was vital to touch bases and make sure nothing was found in Sister Imperator’s investigation into who had done it. Copia would never tell the ghoul how many nights he spent, looking up spell after spell in the library to find resurrection. He would never explain the unadulterated agony of the joy of making a rabbit come back to life, only for it to fail on Terzo. Neither would he say how many nights he spent sobbing next to the casket, screaming at any God that would listen to bring him back, if only for a moment to tell him how sorry he was.
Copia remembered when he brought Papa Nihil back to life as a phantasm, and then into his body. He remember how giddy and excited he was the night he went into the basement to the three caskets; hope showing through his skips as he walked. Hope would be his down fall though, because as much of a high as he experienced, he felt an equal amount of low as the ritual he had done on Nihil, fail on the three.
None of this he’d tell the ghoul though. Even if he knew that it knew.
The ghoul remembered the drunken nights after rituals, sitting next to Papa as he drank himself to death as the new era of ghouls walked right past him. The ghoul remembered helping Copia to his hotel room, only for him to break down sobbing about Terzo and how “he’d have the cure for the hangover” if he were still around. They remembered bringing Copia to the toilet as he puked. Then when he’d pull back, he’d tell the ghoul stories of how when Terzo and he were young, Terzo would constantly make fun of him for being a light weight. And then he went on about how Primo was always so kind to Copia, allowing the young cardinal to take shelter in his garden whenever Sister Imperator and Papa Nihil were mad at him. He’d tell stories of how Secundo taught him Latin, even if he was a strict and rough teacher.
At the end of the night, Copia would be passed out on the bathroom floor and the ghoul would disappear, only after doing what Terzo had done for Copia after every drinking binge. Which was have a copious amount of water bottles beside him and acetaminophen for the head ache.
Neither of the two would let the other know that they knew how much pain the other was in, nor would they ever admit to how much pain they were in. At some point, the saying “We did the right thing” had become but a monotonous mantra with no real meaning behind it. It was supposed to comfort the both of them but it no longer did. Their blood was on their hands, which was a much more literal statement for Copia than the ghoul.
Copia couldn’t own up to what he did to the brothers physically. Not because he couldn’t accept it, but he couldn’t even remember tearing off Terzo’s head in a rage. He knew it happened, as the ghoul told him so, but the memory was like TV static to him. He does remember however was meticulously sewing his head back together with golden thread. He’s tried to block that memory and shove it deep into his mind now. He doesn’t want to think about the repercussions of his actions and how they might affect resurrection.
The ghoul themself had not done anything like that, only helped in knocking the brothers out and talking to the mortician. They had worked out the other ghouls that would be used, and then disposed of them after they were done. It knew what it had done, but tried it’s best to forget.
The sorrow and despair ran deep, but every year on the anniversary of their murder, at least Copia had the ghoul and the ghoul had Copia.