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The closer they get to Jerusalem, the greater the anger inside him grows. It’s this growling void tinged with hopelessness and fear, and it feels as if every time he blinks, Jesus sees those three crosses looming over him against that red, red sky. And as the anger grows, he sees it more and more, until it looks as if there is a great cross always watching over himself and his disciples no matter where he goes.
He wants to scream and cry and rage, but there is no where for the anger to go. How do you fight Him? That faceless entity that has always been there, his father, himself. It’s him, and yet its not, and there is nowhere for the anger to go.
As the void grows within him, he sees it grow within Judas too. That same anger and fear of what is to come.
He cannot bear looking at him.
And as he pulls away from his friend, his confidant, his Judas, the anger in his lover only grows greater, but to see the mirror of himself and Himself inside him his too much, and Jesus continues to turn away.
Somedays, it feels as if Mary is the only one he can look to. Judas full of hopelessness, Peter full of fear and Simon full of rage are all just mirrors of himself, and only Mary is full of the kindness and gentleness to others he wishes he could feel once more.
And yet, each night Jesus finds himself falling into Judas’ arms. Letting his lover push his anger into himself with every touch and thrust, as those silver tinged hands that only he can see push bruises and kisses into his skin. More often than not, he finds himself fleeing as soon as they're done, not being able to bear another second in those silver arms, as the phantom rope around his lover's neck brushes against his skin with every touch.
These days, it feels like every one of his disciples is stained red with blood, and he knows it’s only by virtue of knowing him that they have been tainted with it.
Jesus has always known how he would die. From that very first day in that lonely barn, the cross had been looming over him. The end of his road which he has never seen past, but occasionally he’ll see the ghosts of his closest confidants' deaths wrapped around them too. The rope tied round Judas' and Andrew’s purpling necks, the blood bisecting Simon’s torso and James’ neck. The hooks that drag behind Phillip’s ankles as he walks and the scent of olives that waft around Luke as he tends to the ailments of the 50,000. Worst of all, it’s been decades since he was last able to look to his half brother and see anything but his face and body caved in from clubs.
The work they’re doing is good, it is right. They only seek to make a better world, and in doing it, he has condemned all these good, beautiful, selfless people to death. It makes him want to scream and cry, and sometimes he can’t keep it locked away inside himself any more. Thirty three years his death has been looming over him, and as it grows ever closer, there’s nowhere else for that rage to go. It feels so pointless. They're making the world they dream of become reality already, why must he die? Why must they? Will it make their messages more known?
How can these be their rewards?
All to often, he’ll find himself fleeing back to the sides of Mary and John - the only two who seem to have escaped the pain of knowing him. But even that is becoming hard now. John’s skin too often now splattered with burns and oil. The scent of it makes him want to expel his insides, and he finds himself struggling to keep food down the closer they get to the end.
Judas will wrap his hands around his ribs and spine, stroking down the length of them as the make love, the look in his eyes one Jesus can barely bring himself to comprehend. His lover will often try to ply him with food, but Jesus can’t bring himself to eat it as that endless silver fog swirls around them both.
If he’s doing his work, preaching and teaching and making miracles, he doesn't have to look at those he loves most. Spending time around them has become so hard these final days. Eating with them, singing with them - it has become nothing less than torture. The wine tastes like blood and the bread like flesh and it’s impossible to keep down. The ghosts of the nails in his wrists become ever more real, and he sees it mirrored too often in the hands of those around him. Peter, Bartholomew, Jude, Andrew, Simon.
Too many.
He would never ask that sacrifice of them.
How can his heavenly father ask it of him? Of them?
How can this be their reward?
When they arrive in Jerusalem, it is the first time he has ever called himself the Son of God. His heavenly father named Judas as his betrayer, but it doesn’t have to be the case. Now, the silver on his hands is stronger than it has ever been, but as he had called forth for a donkey, he had seen that same silver tracing up the arms of Peter and Thomas.
It is not only Jesus’ faith in his heavenly fathers plan that is to be questioned here, but all of his disciples.
Judas comes to him immediately afterwards, angry and questioning him for his supposed blasphemy. Judas asks him how he can dare name himself the messiah, calls him arrogant and foolish. Judas has always been content with affecting change in the smaller circles around them, helping those they can whenever they can, but never expecting global change of the Twelve. He is the most giving, never wanting recognition for himself but only for those who need more.
Their God is not so kind.
He expects Jesus to be the seed that will change the world, spreading far and wide on the wind of his disciples. He expects him to be something more than a man.
Judas has never asked him to be anything more than human, and for that he loves him more than words can say.
But God wants so much more.
That gaping void within him is mirrored by another now. A void filled with power and energy, one that lets him curse that empty fig tree until it is but a barren shrivelled husk of itself. Judas laughs at that, the silver gone from the arms he slings around Jesus’ shoulders, the rope vanished from his neck like it had never been there at all. It had never been there. As the tents of the 50,000 are pitched around them, they make love beneath that clawed tree, and he feels more peace than he has ever remembered, since those first days in his mothers arms and playing in the fields with his siblings. Since being sat by his father Joseph’s side, the scent of freshly cut wood filling their home and wishing that this was all there was.
Judas holds him and fills him and he is content, the urge to flee and scream to the Father he despises now, gone as if mist. He thinks back to those forty days in the desert, where the only things he had to worry about where his growing hunger and thirst, and the way he missed being in his lovers arms. If he could go back there now, he thinks that yellow eyed devil would be able to truly tempt him this time, just by allowing him to stay in this moment for ever.
Of course, it is not to last. Jesus teaches, as they travel to the very heart of Jerusalem, Judas by his side as he speaks of vineyards and wedding feasts, but maddeningly far away as the camp rests. A desire to help others has always been a thing that the two of them have shared, but when they rest at camp, that desire fills Judas with a restlessness. They should be doing more, helping more, giving more. Any moment of rest has becoming a moment of selfishness.
But these days, it feels like resting is all that Jesus can bring himself to do. The chanting crowd yelling for him to die only seems to quiet as he sleeps, where he always finds himself in front of that empty red sunset, those three crosses drowning him in their shadow. In the silence.
Later, when Simon comes to him, begging for them to enact mad vengeance against Rome for the many travesties they have carried out, Jesus allows him to give words to the terrible vision that he has seen of what Jerusalem will become. The crumbling temple that is all he can see when he looks at the city around them. As he gives voice to what he has seen, begging for less violence, he sees the silver wrap itself around Simon’s arms. In a moment of selfishness, he finds himself wanting to continue. To make it so that Simon will be the one to betray him, that Judas will continue to look at him with those same loving eyes that he has turned to him now as he preaches peace.
But then, in a blink the moment has passed, and the silver is gone.
That night, he goes to the temple with Judas for a moment of prayer, but when he arrives he is only greeted with a den of thieves and sinners. The rage consumes him like a tidal wave and before he can stop himself he finds himself throwing the tables across the room, screaming at the patrons who are debauching themselves anywhere he looks. He’s glad that Judas had not been let in, because he knows the other would try to stop him, and in this moment he only wants to tear down the false idols and gold that glint from every corner of what should be a place of prayer.
When the temple is empty, and he is only surrounded in shadows and flickering candlelight, he lets himself cry. Lets that bitter rage curdle into a feeling of intense sadness that threatens to consume him. It’s only been three years since he was just an innocent child at his mothers side, but it feels like its been so much longer that it leaves him feeling empty inside.
And then, in a heartbeat, he is alone no longer. The lepers crawl from the shadows until he is surrounded by them like ants, chewing up bread. He feels as if he is being chewed up. Brushing his hands over their clothed heads and sores until it feels like there is nothing left. They claw at him, his arms and clothes, begging for more miracles, even as so many of them are cured in an instant. He feels like he can’t breathe.
Last time this had happened, Judas had been there to wade through the mass to tear him free of the crowd, but now he is alone. It feels like he will always be alone now. He knows that will be how he will die but in this moment, as he is swarmed, it almost sounds like a good thing.
He finds himself screaming for them to heal themselves, and they scatter back into the shadows, and as breath fills his lungs once more, he hopes that they will live well with their new healed bodies. He can’t bring himself to chase down those still unhealed, though. The claustrophobia still threatens to fill him, and he finds himself racing back to the warm fires or the campsite where the twelve await him.
As soon as he arrives back, Mary and the twelve are upon him. Begging him to say that the rumours they have heard aren’t true, that he hasn't truly attacked the temple. With the miasma of silver surrounding them all, he can’t bring himself to answer at all.
And then, seemingly in a blink of an eye, it’s done.
Judas is hunched over in the corner of the camp, refusing to look at him. There's a red pouch around his waist, the clink of the coins within like drum beats to Jesus’ ears. Silver dust coats his hands and feet and throat, and theirs a hopelessness burning in his eyes, his blonde hair hanging limp around his face. Every inch of him practically filled with despair.
He screams at the twelve. He screams at Judas and Peter. And then he screams at God. And his mind fills with images, clearer than they have ever been of nails through his hands, a crown of thorns around his head, blood gushing over his face and back. The crack of a whip is clear in his mind, the weight of the cross crushing against his shoulders.
And then Judas is there again, his kiss a brand against his lips. And it hurts more than anything else, that Judas would twist this thing that used to be so pure and loving between them. And yet, as he wraps his arms around his betrayers shoulders, he forgives him in a moment. Judas was only wanting the best for him, he was never to know how badly this will turn out. Even now, he doesn't yet know that he has signed the warrant for Jesus’ death.
And for Judas’ own, and that is what ends up making Jesus cry, as the soldiers tear him from his lover's arms.
And then, there is only pain.