Chapter Text
The train ride to Siena had been long enough for Thomas Lawrence to finish his espresso, his emails, and half of a crossword Raymond kept leaning over to correct.
“‘Roman virtue,’ four letters?” Thomas murmured.
“Exit,” Raymond replied without looking up.
By the time the skyline of the medieval city appeared through the window—towers rising like fingers in prayer—Vincent was already massaging his temple and muttering something about celibacy being easier than clergy travel.
“You know,” Raymond said softly, propping his chin on his hand, “if we threw them both into the same well, would anyone notice?”
Thomas didn’t look up. “Yes. The echo would be deafening.”
“I meant permanently.”
Across the aisle, Giulio Sabbadin snapped his cigarette case open despite the sign overhead that very clearly said No Smoking. “Can we not plan a murder before we even arrive at the summit?”
“I’m just saying,” Raymond went on mildly, “how long are we supposed to tolerate this cold war? They’re supposed to be men of God, not—what do you even call it?”
“A hiss-off,” said Thomas.
“A Latin hiss-off,” Giulio corrected, lighting the cigarette with all the spite of a man who had chain-smoked through five papal transitions. “With choreography.”
The Siena Intercontinental Ecclesiastical Summit was, as always, too much. Too many cassocks. Too many bishops. Too much politeness soaked in veiled papal ambition.
It was hosted at the Palazzo Vescovile, a stone’s throw from the Duomo. Cardinals and bishops spilled into the ancient city like murmured prayers and thinly veiled agendas.
And in the middle of it all:
Cardinal Aldo Bellini.
Rome’s darling. Secretary of State. Every line of his cassock pressed, polished, and pre-approved. Silent. Sharp. Always flanked by aides with tablets and holy water breath mints.
And ten feet away:
Cardinal Goffredo Tedesco.
Patriarch of Venice. Chaos in a cassock. Late, of course. Sunglasses still on. Beard trimmed, but just enough to remind everyone he didn’t care. He looked like he’d kissed someone’s husband on the train platform and then stolen their lighter.
Their eyes met at the base of the Duomo steps.
Silence.
Then:
Aldo inclined his head. “Cardinal Tedesco.”
Goffredo gave a smile so tight it could cut glass. “Cardinal Bellini. Still allergic to joy, I see.”
“Still allergic to punctuality.”
“I see your sense of humor’s still under embargo.”
“And I see you still think sarcasm is a personality.”
“I learned from the best,” Goffredo said, voice like smoke and vinegar. “Oh wait. No—I learned from you.”
Vincent Benitez, arriving just in time to catch the tail end of it, sighed like a man who needed aspirin and possibly divine intervention. “Jesus Christ.”
Thomas, beside him, clapped a hand to Vincent’s back. “You know what they need?”
“Two therapist referrals and a separate continent?”
“A room,” Raymond said.
Giulio gave a slow, dangerous smile. “Exactly.”
By evening, chaos had mysteriously struck the hotel registry.
“Oh dear,” Giulio said, deadpan, peering at the paper that definitely had not been forged five minutes ago. “It seems there’s been a clerical error.”
Aldo narrowed his eyes. “What kind of error?”
“One room,” Thomas said lightly, hands folded like he wasn’t the architect of this chaos.
Goffredo blinked. “For whom?”
Raymond handed over a keycard. “Room 406. Top floor. Corner suite. With a queen-sized bed. We’ll send up extra pillows.”
“I’m not sharing a bed with him,” Aldo said, voice like a papal decree.
“You don’t have to,” Giulio said, exhaling smoke in the direction of the crucifix. “There’s a couch. And a window ledge. And possibly the floor, if you can both stop sulking long enough to figure it out.”
“This is ridiculous—”
“You two are adults,” Thomas interrupted sharply. “Supposedly. You will survive one weekend in one room without excommunicating each other.”
Silence.
Then Goffredo, voice lazy and sharp: “I call the couch.”
Aldo gave a dry laugh. “Figures. Always running from discomfort.”
Goffredo smiled. “Oh no, Aldino. I’ve just already spent one relationship curled beside someone cold. I’m not doing it again.”
A flash of silence. Deeper than before.
Thomas rubbed his temples. “And so it begins.”
By the time the first wave of clergy had checked in, the registry at the Hotel Santa Caterina was humming with names and clerical titles. Everything was organized. Everything was precise. Everything was very Vatican.
Until Giulio found the list.
He lit a cigarette inside the lobby.
“Can you not?” Raymond murmured.
“I can,” Giulio replied. “I’m simply choosing not to.”
Raymond sighed. “Do you at least have the room assignments?”
Giulio waved the printout. “Of course I do. And I also have a pen, a working knowledge of Cardinal Bellini’s crippling emotional repression, and the ability to lie under pressure.”
Raymond leaned closer. “You didn’t.”
“I did.”
From the velvet armchair beside them, Thomas looked up from his planner. “What did he do?”
“He reassigned Room 406,” Raymond said mildly, because someone had to be the voice of God’s patience.
Giulio exhaled smoke toward the chandelier. “Consider it divine intervention.”
Thomas blinked. “Isn’t 406 the suite with the—”
“Queen-sized bed?” Giulio grinned. “Yes.”
Raymond: “The couch is unforgiving.”
Giulio: “So is heartbreak.”
Thomas glanced between them, then back at his planner. “…Just make sure no one dies before Friday.”
DINNER — THAT NIGHT
The private dining hall of the Palazzo Vescovile was all soft candlelight, clinking cutlery, and doomed hope. The six of them had been seated together—deliberately, because the staff believed them all to be friends.
The waiters poured wine. Bread baskets were passed. Peace was… tenuous.
Raymond sat at one end of the table, serene as a monk and silently counting how many ways this could go wrong. Beside him, Giulio was buttering his bread like it was the Vatican’s greatest political scandal.
Thomas was midway through a very neutral monologue about the bishopric reshuffle in Antwerp when—
Goffredo stabbed his bread roll.
Not sliced. Not torn.
Stabbed.
With a butter knife.
Repeatedly.
Everyone looked up.
Giulio didn’t even flinch. “That roll cheating on you, tesoro?”
Goffredo didn’t look up. “Just disciplining it.”
Aldo, across the table, set down his fork. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“Am I?” Goffredo said sweetly, still impaling the bread like it was a metaphor.
“You always do this,” Aldo said, very calmly, slicing into his own dinner like it didn’t matter. “You deflect with theatrics.”
“And you deflect with silence,” Goffredo snapped. “How’s that working out for you?”
Thomas cleared his throat.
Raymond murmured, “Gentlemen.”
“Don’t ‘gentlemen’ me,” Goffredo said, raising his wine glass in Aldo’s direction. “To the man who taught me that even silence can be cowardice.”
Aldo’s voice dropped. “And to the man who can’t tell the difference between drama and devotion.”
Thomas set down his napkin. “Right.”
Giulio exhaled, long and deep. “I give it two days.”
Vincent, who had arrived halfway through and already looked like he regretted it, whispered, “Two days until what?”
Giulio’s smirk returned. “Until one of them kills the other or kisses him. Either way, we win.”
The walk to the elevator was…
Quiet.
But not the holy kind.
Goffredo led the way, his cassock moving like a storm front with every sharp step. Aldo followed two paces behind, his silence honed into a weapon sharper than any blade Goffredo had ever handled in a sacristy.
They didn’t speak.
They didn’t need to.
The elevator dinged.
Inside, the light was too warm, too intimate. The kind of light meant for reconciliation. Or confessions. Or sins not yet committed.
Goffredo leaned against the mirrored wall and crossed his arms, jaw tight.
Aldo stood with his hands behind his back like a statesman at a funeral.
They didn’t look at each other.
The elevator began to rise.
“…You always did like theatrics,” Aldo muttered.
Goffredo’s laugh was low, humorless. “And you always liked pretending you weren’t part of the act.”
Ding.
Fourth floor.
They stepped out without another word.
Outside on the terrace, beneath Siena’s cool night sky, Raymond found Goffredo lighting a cigarette behind the archway.
“You know,” Raymond said gently, “one day you’ll run out of bread rolls and metaphors.”
Goffredo didn’t turn. “Let me know when you start running out of pity.”
“I don’t pity you, Goffredo.”
Goffredo exhaled, smoke curling between his fingers like incense at Vespers. “Don’t love that tone, Raymond.”
“It’s not a tone. It’s just a quiet observation,” Raymond replied. “You stabbed a roll tonight like it was penance.”
“He deserved it.”
“The bread?”
“…Aldo.”
Raymond joined him at the stone ledge, their shoulders just shy of touching. “You’re allowed to still be angry.”
“I’m not angry,” Goffredo said.
Raymond gave him a long look.
“…I’m livid.”
“There it is.”
Silence.
Then, almost too softly:
“He left,” Goffredo said. “No letter. No goodbye. Just Rome. And nothing.”
Raymond nodded. “And now you’re sharing a bed.”
Goffredo looked at him. “No. I’m taking the couch.”
Raymond smiled. “Of course you are.”
Back in the lounge, Thomas was sipping from a small glass of amaro when Giulio returned from his own smoke break.
“Well?” Thomas asked.
Giulio shrugged. “He’s either going to murder him in his sleep or finally deal with it.”
Thomas leaned back in his chair, ever composed. “Ten euro says they don’t last three nights without cracking.”
“Twenty says someone cries,” Giulio muttered.
Vincent, who’d quietly joined them and was halfway through a cannoli, raised a brow. “Thirty says it’s Aldo.”
Giulio narrowed his eyes. “You think he’ll cry?”
“I think he’s been holding it in for three years.”
Thomas considered this. “Make it fifty. And I’m doubling down: Aldo breaks first.”
Giulio lit another cigarette. “You’re on.”
—
Goffredo had already gone upstairs.
Naturally. He had a talent for disappearing when it was dramatic, and reappearing when it would ruin Aldo’s day.
Which left Aldo—furious, stiff-backed, and mildly unhinged—marching up to the reception desk at the Hotel Santa Caterina, cassock immaculate, rage quietly simmering just beneath his cincture.
The concierge looked up, smiling with the bland cheerfulness of someone being paid to endure bishops with WiFi complaints.
“Signore… Cardinal Bellini, yes? How may I assist you?”
Aldo smiled tightly. “I’d like to request a room change.”
“Oh.” Click-clack on the keyboard. “Was there a problem with the suite?”
“No problem,” Aldo said coolly. “Just a preference. I would prefer to stay alone.”
Another few taps.
“Unfortunately, your Eminence, the hotel is currently at full capacity due to the summit. All single occupancy rooms have been allocated.”
Aldo’s jaw ticked. “Perhaps you might check again.”
The concierge blinked. “Of course.” Tap tap tap. “Yes… still full.”
“I am the Secretary of State of the Vatican.”
A pause. Then:
“Yes, Eminence. And we’re very honored to have you. Unfortunately… you’re also in Siena.”
Aldo smiled in a way that made aides tremble in Rome. “Do you know how many foreign dignitaries I’ve had reassigned mid-flight?”
“I’m sure it’s a very impressive number,” the concierge replied brightly.
Aldo straightened his cuffs. “Could you perhaps move my current roommate to another suite?”
“Ah. I see. And your roommate is…?”
“Cardinal Goffredo Tedesco.”
The concierge froze for exactly half a second. Then resumed typing with new urgency.
But it was too late.
A familiar voice drifted in from behind.
“Well, well, well.”
Goffredo.
Warm like espresso. Sharp like the edge of a relic.
Still in cassock. Still smug. “Look at you, Aldino. Pulling rank like a child who doesn’t want to sit next to his ex on the field trip bus.”
Aldo didn’t turn around. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“I’m the roommate in question. I think it concerns me a lot.”
The concierge slowly, delicately, took one cautious step back.
Goffredo leaned against the counter. “What’s wrong? Worried I might drool in my sleep? Or that I might remind you that you still have dreams about me?”
Aldo didn’t answer.
He didn’t have to.
Goffredo’s grin was cruel and close to victorious. “That’s what I thought.”
A beat.
Aldo inhaled. “One bed.”
Goffredo shrugged. “One couch. I’m not a monster.”
Aldo turned, finally facing him. “You’re something far worse.”
Goffredo tilted his head. “You always say the sweetest things.”
They stared.
And the concierge, very quietly, picked up the phone to request security on standby.
—-
Thomas was already halfway through his chamomile tea. Raymond had folded his napkin into something resembling a dove. Vincent was fidgeting with a toothpick.
Giulio strolled in like a man who knew he was about to win a bet.
He dropped into the armchair beside Thomas and raised two fingers. “Whiskey, neat.”
Thomas raised an eyebrow. “You don’t even look smug. That’s how I know you’re about to gloat.”
“I come bearing updates,” Giulio said, exhaling smoke like a Victorian villain with better tailoring. “Our dear Secretary of State just tried to bribe, charm, and intimidate the poor concierge into reassigning Goffredo’s room.”
Raymond blinked. “Was it the threatening silence, or the smile that looks like a confession about to happen?”
“Both,” Giulio said. “And he dropped the ‘Secretary of State’ line in full papal tone. I nearly choked.”
Vincent looked up from his espresso. “Did it work?”
“Of course not,” Giulio said. “The concierge is Sienese. Unimpressed by Rome. She actually smiled and told him they were out of rooms but full of grace.”
Thomas set down his cup. “So what did Aldo do?”
“Oh,” Giulio grinned, “he didn’t have to do anything. Because guess who walked in during the middle of the whole scene?”
Raymond groaned. “No.”
“Yes.”
Thomas sighed. “Goffredo?”
“Like the ghost of every bad decision Aldo’s ever made,” Giulio said. “He even leaned on the counter like he was posing for a fresco titled Saints Who Stayed Petty.”
Vincent leaned forward. “Did they fight?”
“They stared,” Giulio said. “So long I think the concierge actually considered calling an exorcist.”
Thomas looked down at the table. “You win.”
Giulio picked up Raymond’s wine glass without asking and toasted smugly, “To chaos. And to the last room in Siena.”
Raymond muttered, “I should’ve bet tears. I really should’ve.”
—
By the time Aldo and Goffredo reached Room 406, the hallway was dim, the sconces flickering like they knew better. The silence between them was heavier now—not just sharp, but familiar. Like a silence they’d worn before, in another city, in another life, when things were still soft between them.
Aldo slid the keycard into the lock with the clinical precision of a man filing away emotion. The door clicked open.
The room was beautiful.
Too beautiful.
Warm amber lighting. A large crucifix above the headboard. One queen-sized bed. One velvet armchair. One couch that looked like penance with upholstery.
Neither of them moved.
Goffredo clicked his tongue. “Look at that. Just like old times.”
Aldo walked in first, not looking at him. “You take the couch.”
“Of course,” Goffredo said, dropping his bag by it with exaggerated grace. “I wouldn’t want you to dream too vividly.”
Aldo didn’t reply. He took off his jacket, hung it carefully, and sat at the edge of the bed like a man who hadn’t slept in years.
In the quiet, Goffredo watched him.
And in the quiet, Aldo did not look back.