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Judas stared blankly at the empty road where his teacher had been moments before.
He felt like hours had passed, but it had to have been minutes, just minutes, for if it had been hours, surely the men who had paid him his blood money would have left him by now? But no, there they were, staring the same as he was at the settling dust of the road.
He wondered what they were thinking. If any shadows of doubt had started to creep into their minds yet. But they couldn’t feel like he did, how could they? Did their hearts constrict with every breath, did every piece of their soul want to cry out in unbearable agony? He remembered the look upon Joshua’s face as he was dragged away, and he knew with a terrible certainty that look would haunt him until the day he died.
Joshua, whose gaze had been steady even in the face of his betrayal. Joshua, who had always been as steady and sure of his place in the world as anyone could be.
After all, who has their purpose of existence spoken to them in the almighty voice of God himself? Judas felt the bitterness on his tongue even now. Judas, who never knew anything with any certainty, whose life was spent questioning, probing, unsure, his soul begging silently for some kind of conviction.
He thought he had found that with Joshua and his ideas. Judas was entranced with Joshua's utter sureness in what he must do and who he must be. Judas had followed him, and over time Joshua had become more than just his ideas - he became the one Judas loved most in the world.
That afternoon, when he saw that same certainty shining from behind Joshua's eyes when he'd told them all of his own imminent death, Judas had felt his heart turn to stone.
Judas had loved Joshua the most, had given him everything, and now Joshua was abandoning him. He hated Joshua in that moment, and hate that had once been love is the blackest, most despairing hate of all.
Judas refused to be left behind without a second thought, he refused to have the one sure thing in his life crumble to dust. He'd left that night after supper to find the priests that had been looking for the blasphemer that had made even the eldest among them look like fools.
He led them to the garden where Joshua sat in prayer, and handed the priests the only man he'd ever loved with one hand and his broken faith with the other.
“Judas.” Joshua's voice was gentle.
Judas had kept his eyes averted from Joshua’s for as long as he could, fearing the terrible condemnation he would see in them. But upon hearing his Joshua, so hated and so beloved, whisper his name, no power on earth or in heaven could keep him from looking up.
Joshua's eyes were locked on his. Judas stared directly into those eyes he so feared, unable to look away. Whatever he was expecting – rage, hate, despair, loathing – this wasn’t it. He saw…pity. Pity and regret and love. The look a parent gives a child who does something he had been warned against; not for the parent’s sake, but for the child’s.
Joshua placed his hand against Judas's cheek. Softly, so softly, Joshua drew Judas in until he could feel Joshua's sweet breath ghost against his lips. In a low voice for him alone, Joshua said, “Judas, my love." His eyes searched Judas's as if looking for something. Whatever he saw on Judas's face made him close his eyes and rest his forehead against Judas's own.
"Oh, Father," Joshua breathed, "Must it have been him?" and Judas heard something unidentifiable in his voice that he had never heard before. Joshua took a deep breath, and steadied himself. He cradled Judas's face in his hands and brought his eyes back to Judas's.
And then he said, with the inevitability of reciting a prayer, his eyes still terribly soft, "Do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?”
-===-
Judas kept staring down the road, even after Joshua was long gone. The sun was setting in a blaze of pure molten gold and crimson shot through with black, turning the coins in his shaking hands to the color of blood.
He heard a terrible keening sound, and it took him several seconds to realize it was coming from him. He cried out, dropping the coins to the dust as if they had burned him. He fell to his knees, and looked up at the priests beseechingly.
“Please…I have sinned against my brother, against the one I loved most in all the heavens and earth. I have betrayed an innocent man.”
The priests looked down at him coldly, and the eldest among them spoke. “Judas Iscariot, this man you have sold for thirty pieces of silver will die tonight.” The priest looked back up at the dust of the road, just beginning to settle, and was silent for a long moment. “It is done.”
With this, the priests turned and followed the road, followed the soldiers, followed the Son of God to his death.
The pieces of silver lay strewn across the dusty earth like shining stars in a dull sky, spilling out of their silk purse.
Judas felt a great wrenching in his heart and carefully picked up the coins with shaking fingers, placing each one back into the bag.
He clutched it to his chest as he lurched to his feet and staggered, as if he were carrying a hundred pounds instead of a bag of silver, towards the temple. Away from the dusty sunset. Away from his treachery. Away from Joshua.
The temple doors banged open, the last ray of sunlight filtering into the room through the open doors.
He stumbled in, so wrapped in grief as to be barely recognizable.
All of Judas Iscariot’s easy grace and languid movement was stripped away as he lurched into the center of the temple and dropped to his knees, his head bowed with the weight of his own crushing guilt.
Slowly, he raised his head and began to speak, soft, faltering words to God. The words shriveled on his tongue, garbled beyond recognition.
Again and again he tried to pray, to ask for forgiveness, to wish for a merciful death. Again and again, his words were distorted and corrupted.
He fell to the ground; he could feel the Devil himself twisting his words, not leaving him even the comfort of prayer. Hot tears spilled out of his eyes, and in a fit of black rage, he threw the silk purse as hard as he could. Silver skittered across the stone floor, clinking loudly and filling his ears with a sound like a heart breaking until, at last, the temple fell silent.
For hours that seemed like an eternity, Judas lay still. All that could be seen of the man was a faint huddled form in the middle of the rapidly darkening temple; the lengthening shadows threatening to swallow him up.
Some hours later he rose stiffly and walked to the door, catching himself twice as he almost fell, as if his legs had decided to disobey him as well. He slipped out of the temple and into the night, not bothering to take a torch along with him. Where he was going, he wouldn’t need light.
A shaft of moonlight sliced through the trees in the grove, transforming the gnarled branches of the olive trees into long, twisted fingers that grabbed at Judas in the dark and tore at his clothes.
He had been here what felt like years ago, but was only hours, spying on Joshua and waiting for the right time to fetch the guards.
He had appreciated the irony of spying on the one person who would have told him anything he asked without a second thought. Earlier, this had amused him. Now, it made bile rise up in the back of his throat.
Judas lifted his head and was able to see stars through the branches of the trees in the garden. Gethsemane, it was called.
That afternoon, Joshua had asked Peter, James, and John to accompany him to this very spot, so they may sit with him while he prayed. Judas, whose blood had boiled at the slight, followed them. He'd heard Joshua’s lamentations and grief, heard him cry out to his Father for deliverance.
Any other time, he would have rushed to Joshua and cradled him to his chest, whispering words of comfort and strength. But his heart had been turned to stone, and he had merely been disgusted by Joshua's weakness. The sight had only strengthened his resolve, and he had slipped away to lead the priests and their guards to Joshua’s place of prayer.
A black well of grief washed over him as he stood there again now.
With numb fingers, Judas bent down and untied the laces of his fine sandals, taking them off and placing them carefully next to the gnarled trunk. His knife, jeweled and beautifully engraved, he rested next to them. He untied the sash from around his waist and pulled off his robes, richly dyed in ochre and indigo, and folded them neatly atop his sandals. Judas watched his hands as they worked, curious and detached. They looked just like his father's hands.
He watched his hands pull his sash over a stout, high limb of the tree and tie it tight. He recalled the knotted and deft fingers of the fisherman at Galilee, endlessly repairing holes in nets. He and Joshua had gone out on one of those fishing boats, taking unsteady steps across the rolling deck and laughing at each other until they'd finally had to sit down or risk pitching themselves over the side. The sun had shone so golden on Joshua's hair, he had been so beautiful he hurt to look at. Judas had laid out his cloak on the sunny boards and pulled Joshua down next to him. Judas pointed out shapes in the clouds and pretended it wasn't just a reason to look somewhere else. Joshua had only smiled at him, taking his hand and entwining Judas's fingers with his own without saying a word.
Judas pulled himself up onto the gnarled, crooked trunk and slipped the other end of his sash around his neck. He closed his eyes. He knew that he was going somewhere Joshua could not follow, and he despaired and was comforted in equal measure. He did not try to pray.
Judas closed his eyes and thought of sunlight glittering on the sea, and then he stepped off the branch into the cool night air.
Pain exploded behind his eyes, immediate and blinding. His neck strained against the sash and his feet kicked, spinning him in place. His lungs reflexively gasped for air, but he was choking, drowning. Every torturous second felt like an eternity. Darkness began to creep over his vision, and Judas welcomed it.
And then, between one slow heartbeat and the next, the pain disappeared. Judas found himself standing once again on the firm earth of the garden. His sandals were on his feet. His robes hung on his shoulders, and his sash was looped around his waist.
A nameless, gibbering fear threatened to overcome him. He grabbed at his knife and ripped it from where it was slung against his waist once more. He bared his teeth and thrust out his arm, the soft skin of his wrist washed pale in the moonlight. He drove the blade hard into his flesh and drug it ruthlessly up his arm, opening up a fountain of his life blood, dark and shining in the night. The pain was white hot and flashed with every pump of his heart. He sank to his knees and his vision again started to go dark. He tipped back his head and stared blindly into the heavens. His blood slowed as the space between heartbeats grew longer and longer, until finally he knew nothing at all.
Judas opened his eyes. He was standing in the garden once again.
He knew then that the relief of death, like the relief of prayer, was open to him no more.
He had killed the man he loved, and he would carry that stain like a curse upon the world. He was a living wound that would never heal, and that would never die. He realized anew that he would never see Joshua again, that this time it was Joshua who would go somewhere Judas would never be able to follow.
Judas collapsed to his knees, and from his throat was ripped a guttural cry of agony that was matched by a man dying on a cross, miles away.