Work Text:
i.
The priest pulls him in tighter; Bob grimaces as the man’s lips brush his cheek. He hadn’t expected this closeness so soon, so fast, but there are cameras on them and he can’t appear to look ungrateful. In his memory he is a little boy being smothered by an aunt, a bishop withstanding a too-friendly touch from a parishioner.
Touch should not repulse him. Touch is the foundation of connection, and connection is his job. The liturgy calls for kisses of peace, of blessing. His own personal opinions do not matter.
Bob is dead. Leo is beloved. And because Leo is beloved, he is public property—he is Church property, the Bride of Christ, pulled apart into Host-thin pieces to be partaken of by a million eyes. Fenced in by a million more judgements. Pedestalled by 1.4 billion faithful.
Bob is dead; Leo has risen to take his place. The man has receded; God takes precedence.
ii.
And yet, when the last meetings are done—when the last audiences are concluded, and the Vatican offices empty, and Bob is free to return to the newly-renovated Papal Apartments—he is alone, too. Overwhelmed by attempts at connection, only to be left in silence afterwards. Rocked back and forth between touched and untouchable. A holy living relic to be paraded and passed around, and then returned to his gilded box and stored for tomorrow.
I must recede to let Him take precedence, Bob thinks in these moments, because it’s what gets him through the days. Prayer upon prayer upon prayer. Appeal upon appeal. The people need me; I am their Pope. I have given my whole life in the service of God; these are the sacrifices that I must make.
He dines at a lonely table—Edgard still has the luxury of leaving the Vatican on his nights off—and sits on a lonely sofa afterwards. At night the Papal bed is too wide and cold, even though the coldness is all he’s known. The coldness is what he signed up for when he took holy orders. The intimacy of a priest’s love of Christ is as powerful as the one between your Ma and I.
Leo is beloved; Bob is alone.
iii.
Leo is showered with a thousand kisses, captured in fragments on a million screens, while Bob lies forgotten in the past, a name ostensibly dead and burned with the white smoke. Old friends now stumble over what to call him. New friends look at him like he’s the guiding star of Bethlehem. Even the Augustinians have started drifting a little bit, though mostly from the lack of regular contact. He can’t help it that he’s too busy. He wishes it were otherwise.
Maybe that’s why he looks forward to his audiences with Cardinal Tagle most. It’s mostly work-based, but at least it’s regular. Years of working together have brought them closer in a way that can only deepen now as he takes the seat once held by their mutual friend and mentor. Chito is fire and sunshine, capable of turning the driest of doctrines into hilarious homilies; between the math and the philosophy and the sweets and God there is no lack of common ground, or of conversation.
And even when the conversation fades, there is still touch. There is the brush of Chito’s fingers against his on the rosary they share here in the papal private chapel, underneath the dazzling rainbow mosaic of the stained-glass ceiling. Chito’s knee bumps against his in the middle of their thirteenth Hail Mary, and Bob briefly blanks on the words of the prayer itself.
“…now and at the hour of our death, amen,” finishes Chito, before pausing to look at him again. “Are you all right? We don’t have to complete the whole thing.”
“We should,” breathes Bob. Chito thumbs the next bead with a raised eyebrow.
“Still having doubts about the appointment?” he questions.
Bob hums noncommittally, picks up the next prayer. He leans his shoulder into Chito’s, and thrills at the fact that Chito doesn’t pull away.
iv.
Touch is the foundation of connection. Chito’s touch, in particular, is what anchors Bob the most, even when he has to be Leo. A gentle hand on his forearm in the middle of a private audience, a lingering handshake in the midst of a crowd: all this Chito gives, and more.
A returning wave, a secret smile, a longing look. The smell of fresh linen and sugar when he hugs Bob. The warmth of his hand against Bob’s shoulderblades when they pull apart.
Oh, how Bob aches for more.
(Leo’s hands end each day covered in touches and kisses. Babies, pilgrims, newlyweds, priests—everyone has touched him, even during the moments when he doesn’t want them to. People have pulled at him, pushed down barriers to get to him. An elderly monsignor at his last General Audience slobbered all over his episcopal ring. Another priest lingered too long when he went in for kisses on the cheek.)
Leo is loved, loved, loved, but all Bob wants is to love, and for once he understands the conflict that has torn the hearts of many priests before him. To find love in some One, or someone? Is he content to be a vessel for God’s love, the passive Bride, or could he not be active in his love for once?
“Hail Mary, full of grace,” begins Chito on another day, another shared rosary. Bob holds the beads underneath, feeding them between Chito’s fingers, so that they can hold hands and call it holy.
v.
“You could put your foot down on all the hand-kissing, you know,” remarks Chito, his hand pausing over the first bead of the final decade. “Francis used to be very firm about his boundaries.”
“And that was turned into another thorn in his crown,” mutters Bob, already running his finger against the bead that Chito is holding. “Shall we continue?”
Chito’s hand falls to his wrist. “Bob, you can’t let the opinions of other people affect your own comfort,” he insists.
“My security can handle those who act unruly.”
“But what about those who don’t?” Chito shifts in closer, almost as if he’s trying to make a point. “What about the ones who are entitled to meet you, but take that to mean they’re entitled to you?”
“Entitled to me?” echoes Bob, uncertain of the wording or the nuance. All he feels is his racing heart, thudding loudly in his ears.
“To touch you,” explains Chito, his thumb running across the pulse point in Bob’s wrist, causing it to throb even faster. “To kiss you. I’ve seen enough papal audiences now to know…” he trails off, uncharacteristically bashful, and guiltily moves his hand away. Bob’s skin feels colder without his hand there to hold.
“What I want and what the See of Peter demands of me are two different things,” he says, lowering his head back over their shared rosary. “He must increase, so I must decrease.”
“But you are still human,” Chito points out. “And humans have limits. You do not ask your flock to take on more than they can carry; why should you not ask yourself the same?”
Bob swallows. It’s not like he’d never been touched until the day he stepped out on the loggia of the Sistine Chapel. It’s not like he hadn’t been raised with hugs from Ma and roughhousing with John and Lou—not like he hadn’t been touched and patted and had his cheeks squished and arms pinched by half of his archdiocese in Peru. He’s used to giving the people what they want. He’s been so good, for so long.
And maybe, maybe all of this would be worth it, if there was someone he could turn to at the end of it all. Someone he could sit in silence—or in conversation—with, whose presence was peace, whose gaze was faithful and filled with love.
“I suppose we could look for someone like that,” muses Chito, causing Bob’s heart to briefly stall when he realises what he’d just said aloud. Thankfully, or mortifyingly, Chito doesn’t seem to be judging him at all. His dark eyes are twinkling, even, as he shifts back closer and takes Bob’s hand again. “Do you think you have someone in mind, or should we ask the new Prefect for the Dicastery of—”
Their fingers tangle together, the beads of the rosary pulled taut against them both. The first awkward bump of Bob’s nose against Chito’s cheek makes them both laugh. But then the angle is right, and oh, how colorfully the stained glass dances across Chito’s cheeks when they pull apart for air.
Chito laughs when they extricate themselves from the rosary wound around their wrists. “That’s certainly not what I was expecting to do with these when I first showed up here, you know.”
Bob arches an eyebrow. “It’s not?”
“I think I still have enough self-respect not to admit to it,” replies Chito stubbornly, before melting back into a smile and rubbing gingerly at his wrists. “So… does this mean I have to start meeting you more than once every two weeks, then?”
Bob laughs. “How about as often as you can find time to spare? I know I’m already asking so much of you; I should not ask for more—”
“I teach classes to relax, Bob,” Chito reminds him. “Spending time with you would be even better.”
“Praying together,” says Bob, already rewinding back through the beads.
“Well, then, as Shakespeare says: palm to palm is holy palmer’s kiss,” teases Chito, before tangling their hands up in the rosary again.
+ i.
In a matter of months, the Papal Apartments become a little less lonely. Chito’s visits aren’t confined to the chapel, or the office, or even the dining room with its absurdly long table. Sometimes the living room is filled with the sound of his singing, or the library’s books are moved around by their regular book discussions.
(The official story is that the Pope requires the assistance of the Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization in writing his first encyclical. Of course that might mean late nights spent at the Vatican, no further questions asked.)
Of course there is still prayer. But what would have been worked out in confessionals and repentance and a long, persistent cycle of self-hatred and guilt has been hopped over—they are too old, too weary to be tempted most nights, and what matters more is closeness without heat, comfort without urgency.
What matters more is the ease and devotion they pour out into the beads that bind their hands, followed by sweet kisses in the dark, and the joy of waking the next morning to find their beloved in their arms.
Though the rest of the world tries to pull Bob towards them, all he wants is to pull Chito closer. And in these moments, that’s exactly what he gets to do.