Archive of Our Own ^beta

Once the masses had meandered their way out of the church grounds, there remained only one man amongst the pews. A silent onlooker, hands clasped atop dark, hole-ridden wood and shrouded from his wrists to his neck and yet further down in deep brown knit. He was haloed by the light of a stained-glass window, one which depicted a scene Jayce was particularly fond of.

The man, it seemed, was awfully fond of the scene as well. He gazed upon it with a careful eye. Not a scholar, not a historian. Just… warm.

“I’ve always wondered how long a craftsman would have to toil to develop a hand steady enough for those tiny details,” Jayce spoke as he neared the man.

“For such a craftsman, I suspect it is no toil at all,” the man replied, turning toward Jayce. His smile did not dim, nor his eyes lose their softness.

“Father Talis,” Jayce greeted. “Jayce, if you’d prefer.” He held out a hand, which his companion took.

“Jayce,” the man replied. “I enjoyed your sermon. You have a way with words.”

“Oh, I’m not so sure about that. After all, the book does half the work.”

“Eh, well,” the man shrugged. “I have heard good things about the author.”

Jayce chuckled.

The window depicted a river, crisp and blue. A young woman was stood in the centre, her back to the scene, and in her arms lay the body of a man, half submerged. The water rippled around them in defiance of its otherwise stillness.

“Is this your first time attending our church?” Jayce asked.

The man hummed. “I recently purchased a house in this village, only a short distance from here. My previous home was… loud. Overcrowded. As I understand it, towns such as these often provide peace amid tight-knit communities.” He cast his eye back to the window. “I wanted to experience that.”

He was beautiful. The thought came unbidden to Jayce but once it had been created, it could not be destroyed.

“Father,” the man continued, turning back. He tapped the seat beside himself in clear invitation. “If it is not too much trouble, I would like to hear more about this place. Would you stay with me a while?”

And, truly, amidst the sermons and services, the weddings and funerals, sordid confessions and celebrations alike, this right here was Jayce’s favourite part of the job.

He took the seat. “I’m sorry, I never asked your name.”

The man turned and from this position Jayce was no longer simply looking at a man on a bench. No, shrouded in the intricate backdrop of the stained-glass window, pronounced at its centre as though it was him the artist had toiled so diligently to create, he was illuminated.

“It’s Viktor.”

---

Over the years, Jayce had grown accustomed to rising with God and the sun. There were many perks to being an early riser, after all. His body always had ample time to adjust to the start of the day, no coffee frantically gulped down, no shirts mis-buttoned. His commute through the park to the church was blessed by birdsong before it became lively with the clamour of families and dogwalkers and young couples on first dates. And then there was the market.

The market stalls opened their metaphorical doors on a farmer’s schedule, which is to say, at the crack of dawn. It was populated by faces that Jayce was particularly familiar with by now, faces that were just as familiar with him. Not that there were many in the town that didn’t know the pastor. There were few, if any, that did not find their comfort in the church walls and sermons and pages of the book.

Wandering down the aisles of old tables and awnings, Jayce found himself often on the receiving end of both the first sunlit smiles of his satisfied township, and the first pick of their wares.

Jericho handed Jayce a bag of fresh vegetables in odd sizes and shapes, his grin toothy and wide. He never said much, but Jayce had come to understand that his smiles were his thank-yous, his hellos, his polite enquiries. Jayce always gave him exact change.

The bag bustled against his thigh where it sat in the crook of his elbow, soundtracking his well-trodden path between stalls. Eggs from one table, milk from another. Knitted jerseys and patchwork quilts and pottery. He rounded on an assortment of handcrafted sweets, smiling to the vendor.

“Morning, father,” she smiled, readying a striped paper bag for his selection. “Bright and early as always.”

“Good morning, Lest,” Jayce greeted in return, “Can’t have the privilege of first pick if you don’t arrive early.”

“Well, today, you can’t have it at all. That gentleman over there just beat you to it,” Lest corrected. She pointed with the tongues she used for the sweets at a spot behind Jayce’s left shoulder, and when he turned, he found himself looking at Viktor.

Viktor had his weight propped on the crutch beneath his arm, a worn but sturdy thing, well-loved. It freed his hands to compare apples that Jayce knew had come from old Heimerdinger’s orchard. Heimer himself had rounded the table and spoke to Viktor with the same strange sort of familiarity that he seemed to bring to every conversation.

Then, as if he knew, Viktor looked right at Jayce, smiled, and waved.

Heimerdinger followed Viktor’s line of vision right to him. “Ah, Jayce, my boy!” he shouted across the gap as he gestured for Jayce to join them. Jayce swapped hands with Lest, cash for wares, a quick exchange and a nod of thanks, before wandering over to the apple stall.

“Good morning, professor.” Jayce smiled politely at the older man.

“A good morning it is indeed! Please, allow me to introduce you to Viktor here, he’s a newcomer to our quiet town.” Heimer gestured to Viktor as he spoke, always seeming to carry himself like every conversation was an event.

“Ah, we are acquainted,” Viktor corrected, hitching his bag of apples over his shoulder to hold a hand out for Jayce to shake. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Jayce.”

His smile was something else. There were few people at the market that morning that didn’t don one of their own, and yet Viktor’s smile seemed to bend the sunlight around him, coaxing it into highlighting his skin in all the most flattering places. It flowed around him like the liquid manifestation of joie de vivre, or perhaps Jayce was just smitten.

“Viktor,” Jayce greeted, tipping his head.

“Ah! A churchgoer, Viktor?” Heimerdinger asked. “Then it should be no surprise that you’ve encountered the most devout member of our community.”

“Indeed. Though, it seems as though there are few in this town that are not familiar with you, Jayce. In fact, most vendors I have spoken with this morning have mentioned you in one way or another.”

Jayce flushed. “I am something of a creature of habit,” he joked.

“Jayce is what you might call a ‘local legend’,” Heimer chimed in, tilting his head conspiratorially.

Jayce laughed. “That’s quite the statement coming from you, sir.”

“And yet I think it bears some truth,” Viktor replied, impish. “I was speaking with a lovely woman at the bank yesterday and she had many stories to tell about you.”

Jayce’s brow furrowed, his smile turning inquisitive.

“Like how you are a talented artist and a skilled cook. Your years of experience with metalwork. Your penchant for magic tricks.” Jayce’s smile strained a little. “That before joining the clergy you wanted to be a, I believe she said ‘hammer-wielding superhero’. That you once celebrated her birthday an entire day early because you mistook the dates on your calendar.”

Jayce winced. “My mother.”

“Ximena Talis,” Viktor confirmed, a blissful smile on his face. “A wonderful woman. Very friendly.”

“Very chatty,” Jayce grumbled.

“Now, now,” Viktor tapped an admonishing finger against Jayce’s chest, “do not speak ill of your mother, Jayce.”

“My!” Heimer interrupted, and that was the moment that Jayce realised how close he and Viktor had become, gravitating towards one another through the course of their conversation. He didn’t jump back, but did take a healthy, subtle step away, clearing his throat as he did. “Acquainted? I’d almost believe you two were old friends!”

Jayce scratched the back of his neck. He was at a loss for what to say. He could say, ‘Viktor is just very easy to talk to’, but the phrasing didn’t sound quite right. If he was being honest, it was more like, ‘I feel as though I have always known how to talk to Viktor’. The sentiment of it, though he was sure Viktor wouldn’t take it the wrong way, felt a touch too close to the warmth that bloomed in his chest at the sight of the other man.

They’d barely met. Viktor was just… something else.

“Jayce,” Viktor pivoted the conversation, bringing Jayce back into the moment, “am I to understand that this is a regular routine for you?”

“Visiting the market? Yes, I come twice a week. Though I must admit, I am always awake at this hour.”

“Well…” Viktor smiled, tilting his head a little. He hesitated, just for a moment. “I do not wish to impose upon you, but if you were in search of company, I would be amenable.” His brows knitted together and his smiled pulled just the wrong side of taut. “I suspect that we will be running into one another regardless.”

If Jayce was thinking straight, he’d say something like, ‘I’m sure we could co-ordinate once in a while’, or, ‘perhaps if our schedules align’, or just about anything less eager than:

“I’d love that! When are you available?”

Viktor’s eyes grew wide. Heimerdinger, the menace, snickered.

“I, ah, I can align to your schedule,” Viktor fumbled out, to Jayce’s absolute mortification.

“That’s not necessary,” he attempted to recover, certain that a darkish hue was blossoming beneath his beard (and hopefully not above it, in plain sight). “We can just, we could maybe text if you want to come, and I want to come…”

A light, gentle hand landed on his arm, smoothing an easy path from just below his shoulder to just above his elbow over the fabric of his jacket.

“Jayce,” Viktor spoke, just a touch lower than before, “please do not change your plans. Do as you normally do. If you wish for company, I will be there.”

And Jayce thanked his God that Viktor was benevolent, because as easily as that, it became their routine.

---

The door to the confessional booth slid open and closed softly. It clicked shut, sealing them in this bubble of time. The wooden walls had a strange effect, seeming to entirely deaden any reverberations. It made the sound of this confessor settling into their seat flat and deep.

“Forgive me, father, I believe I may have done some terrible things.”

The voice on the other side of the wood was very familiar to Jayce, as they so often were. It was polished, smooth, though bitten slightly by the gnawing canines of guilt.

He frowned, a reaction only for himself. “I’m listening.”

A dull sigh came from beyond the wood. “I said some… inappropriate things to my sister-in-law. I told her…”

Then followed the noise of shuffling, as though the confessor was physically preparing themselves to admit their mistakes.

“I understand that it is not Powder’s fault what happened to my mother’s lungs. We have had this conversation over and over; my mother and I, Powder, my wife,” she paused. “My brother.”

A failed experiment, toxic smoke inhalation and a disquieting few months in a hospital bed. Cassandra had recovered to the best of her ability, but her voice, once so soft and lilting like her daughter’s, has never truly been the same.

“I want not to blame her,” the confessor continued. “After all, she wasn’t to know there was anybody else in the building. I’ve told her so many times that I forgive her.”

Another pause. When she started speaking again, something in her voice had dropped.

“But this past weekend, we were having dinner together. We were already bickering about something else just like we always do. And I don’t know, something changed. I lost my cool as Vi might say. I accused her of intentionally harming my mother.”

She sighed. Jayce could picture her perfectly, dropping her head into her hands.

“I already apologised, but there’s something else. Something in me that I think needs to be fixed.” A humourless laugh. “No matter how much I assure myself and, honestly, anyone that will listen than I have forgiven her…”

He could imagine her turning her face towards him behind the booth.

“Have I?”

Just as she’d said, it was a conversation they’d had many times.

“Forgiveness isn’t a mandatory experience,” Jayce answered. “Choosing not to pursue it isn’t a fatal flaw, or a misdemeanour, no matter how it appears to present itself in your mind.” The corner of Jayce’s mouth crooked up. “But you know that.”

“Forgiveness is a gift that you choose to give,” the confessor agreed.

“What you need to understand is that forgiveness is a gift you choose to give to yourself. Yes, to Powder but not only to Powder.” He rubbed his thumb against his palm. “It’s a conscious thing. There’s a learning curve to it. Emotions are messy, feisty, uncontrollable things,” he chuckled, “kind of like my sister.”

She huffed a laugh.

“You can’t brute-force them into doing what you want. It’s not just unhealthy, it’s impossible. You have to do exactly what you’ve already been doing: look at the facts, look at what you both want, and decide for yourself if you’re going to forgive her.”

“It’s not that easy,” she sighed.

“If it was easy, it wouldn’t be in the book.” There was some shuffling from the other side. “By choosing to forgive Powder, you’re choosing to give her a place here, in the community, but also in your family. Weigh up how important that is to you next time you find yourself a little out of control.”

Caitlyn smiled. “Thanks, Jayce.” She swore under her breath. “Shit, I mean, father who I don’t know. Bollocksed that up, didn’t I?”

“Don’t swear in church, Cait,” Jayce smiled in return. “My mom baked this morning. Go have some pie and think things over.”

She laughed, and it was lighter than he’d heard her in a while. “You always know just what to say.”

---

Nestled into the crook of Viktor’s right arm was a wicker basket slowly filling with fresh fruit and vegetables, and in the crook of his left arm was Jayce. Jayce’s elbow, to be precise, flexed and folded and held firm. He was acting a replacement for Viktor’s cane, which Jayce held in his own left hand. It had become a routine of sorts. Twice a week, Viktor and Jayce would wake at the crack of dawn to wander through the market, perusing the finest selection of fresh produce their town had to offer, and amusing themselves with one another’s company.

The linked arms, though. Those were new.

“I am not convinced,” Viktor mused. “It is an interesting theory, but I do not think, even with the aid of the fire evacuation, Mrs Dempsey could have hidden the dagger completely unnoticed.”

They were also reading the same crime novel.

“But the evacuation has to be Chekov’s gun, right? It’s been mentioned six times since the body was found. It has to serve a purpose.”

“It did serve a purpose, Jayce.” Viktor gestured with the basket-laden arm and the fruits inside clattered against one another. “It ensured that there could be no accounting for the whereabouts of any person at the village hall.”

It was about a priest that solved murders in a quaint English village.

“Well, yes,” Jayce huffed, maybe a little petulantly, “but that can’t be the only reason, right?” He glanced helplessly about the stalls as though the vendors would or could argue his side. When he received only silence, he repeated himself. “Right?”

Viktor didn’t reply. His attention had been drawn by a stall to their right, stacked on the left with jars of honey, rows of paper-wrapped bouquets lining the right.

“Those flowers are beautiful,” Viktor mused.

They course corrected towards the stall without a word, Jayce resting Viktor’s cane on the table as they stopped there and Viktor coming to rest against Jayce.

“Good morning, Felicia. A jar of the lavender, please,” Jayce asked of the vendor. From his pocket, he fished the correct change, memorised after many such a transaction. She swapped with him, petty cash for a jar of lavender honey, dropping it into his bag when he held it open. “Thank you.”

“Anytime, Father,” she smiled back, “and what can I get for this handsome gentleman?”

Jayce turned back to Viktor and found him the picture of serenity. His eyes flicked from petal to petal, admiring each as though they were hand-painted, as though he should wish to recognise them again in the coming days, as though he were proud of them.

“Good morning,” he greeted, turning his smile to meet hers. “My apologies, I was admiring your collection.”

Admiring was a word for it. Jayce might have used ‘besotted’, although he supposes the pot must sometimes know that it is calling the kettle black.

“Not something to apologise for,” Felicia waved Viktor off.

“You did not have these on display the last time I saw you here, no? Is this a new business venture?”

“Hardly,” she laughed. “Powder grows them, uses them for her paint. She’s been experimenting with new colours so she planted a crazy amount. Her garden, my garden, Vi and Caitlyn’s garden, it’s like the aftermath of a paintball tourney.” She plucked a bunch of flowers from the back row, blue and red and purple. “She has all these spares. Figure if I sell some I can use the money to buy her the watercolour set she’s been eyeing.” The bouquet twisted wistfully in her hand.

“She’s an incredible artist,” Jayce affirmed.

A bellowing laugh puffed from Felicia’s lips. “Oh, I know! And so does Powder. Modesty does not become her.” A light chuckle. “That’s my girl.”

“An eye for colour and a green thumb. She will go far,” Viktor agreed.

“Do you have a favourite flower?” Jayce asked him.

“I suppose I appreciate them all. They are truly very beautiful.”

“No… fond childhood memories? Something your mom grew?” Jayce suggested. “Gift from an ex?”

“Not quite.” Viktor smiled sheepishly, meeting Jayce’s furrowed brow. “There were no flowers in my childhood home and eh, nobody has ever bought me flowers.”

Jayce’s mouth drooped at the corner. Well, that wouldn’t do.

He skittered his eyes across the display in front of them, skipping over green, pink, red, until he found something just right. He scooped up the change in his pocket, certainly much more than Felicia was charging, and without further ado, gave Viktor a first.

Sprays of blue, teardrops in yellow, white dotted throughout like stars. He held the bouquet out to Viktor.

Viktor reeled, startled. “What- Jayce?”

“For you.”

Taken aback, Viktor’s stared down at the thing. His eyes skipped from blossom to bud to bloom and Jayce watched, keenly, through every flicker. It wasn’t possible, not at this angle or in this light, but Jayce thought he could see the colours of the flowers reflecting in Viktor’s eyes. He thought he could see them swirl together, then redistribute as a clear, starry night sky, where no black was truly black but deep, entrancing shades of blue, and stars were not pinpricks, rather they took the form of miniscule petals dancing across the sea of space. And for a second, as Viktor’s gaze was redirected onto him, he thought he could still see it lingering there. If only he wasn’t a smitten fool he would see Viktor for the man he was and not the man Jayce held in dreams.

“Thank you,” Viktor replied, softly.

He seemed to notice, then, that he had no free hands to accept them. With a chuckle that just edged on nervous, he held one arm aloft and asked, “could you please put them in my basket?”

Jayce had been putting things in Viktor’s basket all morning. When the question came, he started to move without thought, but his eyes caught on one sprig of colour in the bunch, and he had an idea.

“Wait. May I?”

He handed the flowers back to Felicia for a second just to free his hands so he could pass Viktor back his crutch. Then, with empty hands, he took them back and plucked a cluster of mayflowers from the edge. Viktor’s brows furrowed.

“Trust me?” Jayce asked.

“Of course,” Viktor responded despite his confusion.

Jayce rounded behind Viktor.

Viktor’s hair was long, wavy, and beautiful. It normally fell in rivulets down to brush the tops of his shoulders and Jayce had noticed before that he was forever tucking it back behind his ears. Some days, as Viktor sat there in the first pew with his head bowed over the book, curling errant strands back with fingers adorned by simple rings, Jayce thought he could lose track of the sermon. If not for the years of his life spent memorising each line, embedding them so deeply in his psyche that he was sure he could recite them even in death, he may have faltered over God’s divine guidance and sought instead a devotion to one man.

And on some other days, Viktor pinned his hair back. Half of it cascading down his neck, half drawn into a tie. This was one of those days.

Jayce slid the mayflowers through the hair-tie until they sat snug against gathered hair. He found the stem poking from the bottom and snapped it, letting Viktor’s hair hide what was left.

Not that Jayce was looking, but Felicia smiled knowingly at him over jars of honey.

“There, sorry, all done.”

Viktor didn’t answer. He was blushing when Jayce came back to face him.

“You know,” Felicia hummed, “Jericho’s changing his menu for the new season. You should go, Father. I just know he’d love to have you and your partner drop by.”

Viktor looked away.

“You don’t have to,” Jayce tried. “I mean, would you like to? Go with me, I mean?”

Then, under his breath, Viktor chuckled. He turned back, something like delight in his eyes.

“I would love to.”

---

If Jayce hadn’t grown to become a good cook, his mother may well have had him genetically tested. She’d been adamant in his childhood that prosperous young boys must eat well. Varied, healthy and delicious diets that she learned from her parents or sometimes stole from wise older ladies at her book club.

When Jayce left her home to join the congregation, he departed with a notebook of handwritten recipes and a kiss on the cheek. He’d littered it with grease-stained fingerprints, marks made by both machine oil and olive oil. He wasn’t perfect, he found himself so engrossed in his studies and his work that his food grew cold more often than his mother would have liked, but at least the food was homemade and seasoned well with a hearty combination of spice and love.

His favourites were easy to identify for the sooty smudges where he’d turned the page over and over and over again. He’d cooked everything in the book at least once, and yet there were around seven recipes that he had cooked so frequently that opening the notebook was more of a formality than a requirement, its text firmly embedded in his memory.

He was going to cook one of those recipes for Viktor, tonight.

At least, that had been the plan. He’d bought the ingredients. He’d cleaned down his kitchen. He’d washed the dust from his fancy crockery. They’d had plenty of meals in restaurants and café’s throughout the town, now came Jayce’s turn to play chef.

He stared down at a heaping pile of peppers.

“This is a terrible idea,” he said aloud to nobody except perhaps his God, who was always listening.

One of the caveats of living in a small town where everybody knows your mother is that, by hook or by crook, the average spice tolerance of the population will rise. There were few people left in their community that hadn’t tasted Ximena’s award-winning dishes, or been gifted a container full of something strong to combat a bad cold, or sampled her finger-food at the church potluck. The thing about good food is that the pain will not stop most people from coming back for more. It’s addictive, like sugar and coffee and Viktor’s laugh and having your cheek pinched by Ximena Talis.

Viktor, notably, is not from around here. And he’s white. Can’t forget that he’s white.

Jayce took a bite out of one of the chillies, making a vain effort to reduce the overall heat index of the pile.

“This is a terrible idea,” he lamented through a spicy mouthful.

But it was too late now to go shopping for a new recipe, and when Jayce had mentioned his notebook at the market that morning Viktor’s eyes had shone with a fascination that had Jayce a little weak at the knees. This was Jayce’s favourite recipe, the thought of cooking it for Viktor raised his pulse in the same way that Jayce imagined this menagerie of spices would raise Viktor’s.

“Maybe I’ll just leave some out…”

Jayce prayed that his mother would never know what happened here today.

The sky was beginning to dim by the time Viktor arrived on Jayce’s doorstep, ushered inside quickly from the evening breeze and guided to the kitchen table while Jayce put the finishing touches on their meal.

“It’s, uh…” he gestured to their loaded plates, “it’s a family recipe, but my family is pretty…”

Viktor smiled politely at him from his chair.

“My mom likes spicy food.”

“I like spicy food,” Viktor replied, mildly.

“Yeah, okay,” Jayce scratched the back of his neck and laughed through his nerves, “that’s great! That’s awesome, but I just want to warn you that our family has never been known to, to pull our punches, so to speak, when it comes to heat.”

“Jayce…” Viktor placed a hand on Jayce’s arm. “Please don’t apologise for your family recipes. I am certain that it will be delicious.” He smiled, broader, more playful this time. “You never know! I might surprise you!”

Viktor cried his way through dinner.

“These are happy tears,” he argued, sniffling something rotten, trying to make sure the tissue he dabbed his eyes with didn’t make it anywhere near the food. “I am truly,” he coughed, “ecstatic to be tasting your mother’s recipe.”

The sentiment was dulled somewhat by the loud, trumpet-esque noise of Viktor blowing his nose.

Jayce’s head found his hands. “This was a terrible idea.”

Viktor sniffled defiantly. “Absolutely not. You were so kind as to cook your favourite meal and allow me a taste of your family’s history. It will not be diminished because my spice tolerance happens to be slightly on the lower side.”

Jayce winced. “I took out like two thirds of the chillies, V.”

“Two thirds?” he choked again. “Are you lined with volcanic rock?”

At a glance, Viktor had managed about half of what was an admittedly overfull plate. They could try something else, pizza, noodles, but Jayce sincerely doubted Viktor would be able to taste any of it anyway.

“Let’s call it here,” he suggested, then straightened in alarm. “Viktor, you’re shivering! Come on, let’s move to the couch, let me get you, uh…”

And then Viktor was bundled onto Jayce’s sofa with a box of tissues in one hand and a tub of ice-cream in the other.

“This might help,” Jayce muttered as he draped his blanket over Viktor’s shoulders. “Why don’t we watch a movie until you’ve regained equilibrium.”

“Okay,” came Viktor’s response, garbled by the cold spoon pressed against his tongue. “Do you have Frozen? Not actually, that was a joke.”

They didn’t watch Frozen. They also didn’t watch Blazing Saddles, Viktor’s other suggestion. They watched Some Like It Hot, and as the plot and the night progressed in tandem, Viktor slumped further and further into the warmth of the sofa, until eventually he’d fallen completely into Jayce. His head drooped onto Jayce’s shoulder, his body falling slack against Jayce’s side, and Jayce found himself wrapping an arm over Viktor’s shoulders just to make sure he was comfortable.

“V,” Jayce murmured, just in case Viktor was already sleeping. He needn’t have worried as Viktor chirped in response. “You could stay the night if you like? I have a spare room.”

Viktor hummed. He didn’t move, if anything seeming to relax further into the warmth of Jayce’s body. Jayce took is as a ‘yes’.

“Thank you for letting me try your mother’s recipe,” Viktor said quietly into the room, “I am sorry it didn’t go as expected.”

A moment of silence, then Jayce replied, “my mom has some dessert recipes, too. They’re sweet. Next time I’ll stick to one of those.”

Viktor smiled just as quietly. “I’d like that,” he mumbled. “Next time.”

---

It was with copper on his tongue that Jayce Talis came to understand that he was falling in love.

He’d developed this habit, see. When he thought about Viktor, when Viktor’s face came unbidden to Jayce’s mind, the crow’s feet that were beginning to develop beside his eyes and the imperfections in his toothy smile. His soft knitted vests and comfortable slacks, his buttoned-up button-downs. His hair, sometimes half captured in grips and ties but sometimes left to curl gracefully around his cheekbones. The size of his hands compared to Jayce’s own. The moles Jayce could see and the moles he could not.

When that happened, Jayce bit the inside of his mouth. Not hard, just… just enough to be grounding. It wasn’t about causing pain, rather just a distraction, a Pavlovian response. Don’t revolve around him, you will fall out of orbit, you are not the symbiosis of the moon, you are a meteor waiting to happen. When you are biting your cheek, you will remember this.

Viktor sent him a text of an odd-looking strawberry. The seeds had clumped together to make a face.

[Viktor 07:24pm] My friend wants to say hello. I told her that you’re a busy man but she was quite insistent.

Jayce had just stared, aware that he was leaving Viktor on read for a long, long time. And then he bit, and he hadn’t meant to, but his cheek started bleeding.

It was an accident. Jayce's intention had never been to hurt himself, but he was cognisant of how these things could spiral out of control and knew that this method of distraction must stop. However, stopping his little ritual meant that meant he'd be thinking about Viktor. It was inevitable, Jayce was always thinking about Viktor. Not a day went by that Jayce didn't think of Viktor. 

“What am I supposed to do?” Alone in his bathroom with blood in the sink, he asked aloud, and it didn't need to be said who he was asking. “I can't deny I've curbed many a selfish desire in my time, but nothing has ever broken me down like… him. Am I wrong for this?”

Nobody answered.

Viktor had a favoured pew from which to observe mass. The pew where they'd met, Jayce tried not to think about that too much, but Viktor’s diligent habitualness and Jayce's selfish infatuation meant that Jayce's eyes would always glide to that spot as he spoke from the front of the room and, invariably, Viktor's gaze would meet his in return. 

Except for today, when Jayce looked and Viktor was looking away. Jayce ran his tongue over the steadily-healing inside of his cheek. He continued his sermon as though there was no gaping maw emerging from his lungs to crush and swallow his heart. When Jayce followed Viktor’s line of sight, he saw that it was a statue of the lord that was keeping his troubled attention.

Viktor was so distracted, in fact, that he failed to noticed Jayce approaching the pew after the rest of the clergy had shuffled away.

“That’s quite the furrow you’re wearing,” Jayce remarked. Viktor all but jumped out of his skin.

What am I supposed to do? Jayce thought. He’d asked it again that morning, and multiple times on his way to work. The leaves falling and the children laughing and the sun cutting lines through the bars of the iron park gate conjured the fantasy of Viktor’s arm in his on a bright day. What am I supposed to do, was the last bastion keeping his poor choices at bay.

Viktor frowned. “My apologies, I was miles away.”

“So I see,” Jayce answered with good humour, only to avoid betraying his genuine concern. “I noticed you were distracted during the sermon, too.”

“Ah, I hope you aren’t offended. Your words are always thoughtful and kind, Jayce. I suppose these stories are just familiar to me.”

Jayce longed to reach out and take Viktor’s hand. “I’m not offended,” he reassured.

For a moment, Viktor’s eyes seemed vacant. There was something there that Jayce couldn’t reach or see, floating on the surface of the river in Viktor’s mind, illuminated only by occasional reflected starlight and swallowed time and again by shallow waves. Then, as if having steeled himself, Viktor looked sharply towards Jayce and spoke.

“There is a bar in town. The Last Drop, I’m certain you’ve heard of it. It comes highly recommended and I intend to visit, but I would welcome your company.”

“Oh, um,” Jayce was surprised by the change in topic. He knew the bar, they all did. Everyone knew everyone in this town but especially Jayce. He thought sometimes that the people of this town were probably not all that religious, but that the church was a place that a person was guaranteed a chair and a drink and a friend, and that was all a town like this needed. He hoped that it made his God happy. Maybe this clergy were not devout disciples, but they were good, and they had come together in his home, and if a storm was to devastate the town with roofs torn asunder or floods washing treasured memories downstream, the people would come here and know that a welcoming hand would find them.

Jayce was a pillar of this community, whether he liked it or not. He could not have enemies. He was everybody’s friend. To break a tie with Jayce was to break a tie with the entire township. He tried not to think about this and Viktor in the same thought, but he was always, always there.

“When were you thinking?” He asked, and it must have been the right thing to say because Viktor’s severe expression softened just a touch.

“This Friday, perhaps?” That meant they would spend the Friday evening sharing company, only to awake at dawn on Saturday morning and meet at the market, and to know the ache of only the sleeping hours in between, where Jayce would miss Viktor fiercely and selfishly and stupidly and to no longer have the luxury of biting his cheek to ward off unbidden thoughts of Viktor in his bed.

“That sounds like fun,” he answered with a lifelike smile. “The bar is closer to your house than mine. I could meet you on the way? It’s a short walk.”

Viktor may have smiled in return, but the thing in his eyes that Jayce couldn’t reach was still there. Perhaps not a river, perhaps the endless void of space. Stars that spreckled his insides.

---

Beyond the curtain, the confessional booth door clicked open and quickly closed, and with it came the heavy sound of a body landing on the wooden seat.

“Father,” the voice on the other side greeted quickly. There was a light tapping that Jayce imagined was the agitated pitter patter of her feet against the floor. Her short plaits rubbing back and forth over her shoulders while her head darted around, trying to decide how to start. “I bit my sister-in-law’s head off again. Figuratively,” she amended quickly. Her hands were probably wringing together or grasping and relaxing and grasping again at the wooden bench. “She got me this gift. It’s uh, well, you probably know.”

He did. A kind of lightweight generator, a newer model of one she’s owned for years. As skilled an engineer she was, even she’d been unable to fix it when it broke.

“I mean, I get it,” the woman continued, “sometimes things break, and they have to be changed. No choice in the matter. It’s just natural decay, you can’t encrust everything in titanium and expect it to outlast the sun.”

She often spoke with a humour to her tone, but it could be akin to an ornate golden frame on an artist’s interpretation of a heartbreak.

“Decay is not the word I would have used,” Jayce said.

“Oh yeah? What do you think, then? Wear and tear? Planned obsolescence? The sandpaper of the universe?”

“I think you should stop comparing yourself to inanimate objects.”

She didn’t say anything for a while.

“That’s not what I came here to talk about.” She’d stopped shuffling. “This is about my sister-in-law.”

Everyone tended to respond differently in these situations. Some closed off the more they wanted to be open. Some needed to be led by the hand to the confession. Some needed a friend. Jayce knew this town; he knew how most of its people reacted.

“Okay,” he replied. “Tell me about your sister-in-law.”

Her shoes skittered against the floorboards. “That generator is crazy expensive and she just… dropped it on my kitchen table like it was a fresh-caught fish. Vi was proud of her. Proud. For what?” A steady rhythm of taps sounded, nails against wood. “For flashing a little chunk of trust fund? I told her she could  shove her fancy generator right up her-”

“Not in church,” Jayce admonished.

There came a long, deep sigh from the other side of the wall, like a balloon deflating. The woman’s head was not unlike that generator at times. It buzzed with electricity and turned simple fuel into an end product worth witnessing, understanding, building upon. If Jayce was very quiet, he might hear those synapses thrum.

“Why couldn’t I just say thank you?”

Jayce smiled sadly. It was a story he knew in and out, the endless clash of personalities that were Powder and Caitlyn. Their relationship was built on a tentative bridge of second-degree affection passing through the conduit that was Violet. They had little in common and yet, in some ways, were so much alike. They were the same polarity of magnet, attempting to reach out one olive branch after another and repelling and repelling and repelling.

“You still can,” Jayce suggested. “I mean, I can’t guarantee that she’ll give you back the generator but you can thank her for the thought at least.”

“She left it on the table. I almost sold it for scrap,” Powder laughed. “…Aren’t you gonna tell me to apologise?”

Jayce chuckled. “I probably should. That’s the thing with pastors, we’re supposed to preach kindness. Respect is one of the rules, after all.” He pulled a kind of ‘what are you gonna do?’ facial expression that he was sure Powder could feel through the wall. “I can’t make you do it, but it does get easier every time.”

She huffed. “Urgh… Next you’re gonna tell me that eating vegetables and sleeping eight hours makes you feel good or some other shhhhhh- stuff. Things. I didn’t say it so it doesn’t count as swearing.”

Fondly, Jayce shook his head. “If you want her to be a part of your family, you’re going to have to be nice to each other,” he said instead. She groaned, he imagined she dropped her head into her hands. “It’s just as hard for her as it is for you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” More shuffling came from her side of the partition, the sound of her standing. “Alright, pastor what’s-yer-face, see you for dinner on Monday.”

---

On an old and stained wooden table in a booth where they’d slotted in side-by-side to talk over the din, Jayce learned that Viktor’s drink of choice was a rum and coke only because he’d already had three of them. One of those might’ve put Jayce into an inebriated trance, but Viktor seemed mostly unaffected. It might’ve been a regional thing, maybe that’s just how things were in… wherever it was that Viktor was from. Jayce didn’t intend to ask.

He had his own pint between his hands on the table and he’d stopped doing much more than taking the occasional absentminded sip a long time ago. They were talking. Jayce loved so dearly when they talked.

That sadness and hesitation that had hung over their last interaction was nowhere to be found in this secluded corner of the Last Drop. From here, they could see most of the bar, but the shadows cast by the rafters and beams meant that the bar could not easily see them. Not that it mattered, their heads were bowed together anyway, neither interested in anything but the other.

At least until a drink thunked onto the table and spooked them out of their bubble. Another rum and coke. Jayce had no clue when Viktor had ordered that.

“Well hey, look who’s in our house for once,” the waitress drawled with a sharp grin. She had her gaze directed at Jayce but flicked it pointedly back towards Viktor every couple of seconds.

“Ah, Viktor, this is Vi,” Jayce replied, “my sister-in-law. She’s Powder’s older sister.”

“I can see the resemblance,” Viktor smiled as he reached a hand over Jayce for Vi to shake. “Viktor,” he introduced. “I have had the pleasure of meeting your sister, your wife, and your mother, I suppose it was only a matter of time before we crossed paths.”

“Oh, so you’ve met the whole family?” Vi punched Jayce's arm. “And you’re only bringing him ‘round the Drop now? What the hell took you so long?”

“I thought he might not be fond of bruises,” Jayce retorted. There was no chance that Vi’s little sock to his arm could have caused any damage, but he rubbed against it and winced all the same.

“You’re just made of paper, Father. The Last Drop is not liable for any scrapes and boo-boos you obtain on the premises.”

“Yes, Jayce,” Viktor teased, thumping lightly on Jayce’s other arm with his fist, “Miss Vi’s handshake may be one of moderate strength but surely it is not her fault that you bruise like a peach.”

Jayce rubbed his other arm for show. “Haha. She was holding back.”

“I was holding back,” Vi confirmed. “Now, can I get you boys something to eat? I’m counting three empty glasses and zero empty plates. Vander is a gentleman and a friend to Jayce, Viktor, but if he finds you hiding back here drunk as a skunk he sure ain’t above putting an early end to your date.”

Jayce turned beet red. Viktor took a long and pointed eye-contact-avoiding sip from his fresh rum and Coke.  

“This is a date, right?” Vi’s eyes flicked back to the empty side of the table, then the space between them (or lack thereof. You would struggle to fit a credit card in the gap between Jayce and Viktor’s arms).

“N-no, no,” Jayce stumbled to correct. “Not a date, not-,” as if only just realising how close they were, he shuffled a couple of inches to the side, “not a date.”

Vi raised a brow.

“Oh, you know me, Vi.” Desperate to quash this new strange and tense atmosphere, Jayce chuckled in the most unconvincing way possible. “Not much for the dating scene.” He tugged on his bracelet, one he had worn since childhood which bore an effigy of the lord. “I’m married to God.”

Viktor choked on his drink. Jayce would feel bad about it later, but as he turned to fret over Viktor, he privately thanked the lord for the distraction from his heinously unfunny joke.

“You good?”

“Yes, yes, I think it-,” a pause to wheeze, “went down the wrong pipe.”

Vi said, “let me get you some water,” and as she turned to leave she noticed that the comforting hand Jayce had placed on Viktor’s back was working its way up and around Viktor’s opposite shoulder. She rolled her eyes. “Not a date, my ass.”

“Married to God?” Viktor rasped. Jayce mentally rescinded his prayer of thanks.

“I just meant, like, ‘promised to the church’!”

“Married to God.” He was laughing through shallow coughs. “I wasn’t aware that the church employed jesters.”

“Forget I said anything,” Jayce replied with his face in his hand.

“I will absolutely not be forgetting this.”

Truth be told, Jayce found it difficult to be embarrassed over the whole thing, because despite his wracking breathing and the tears of exertion forming in his eyes, there was not one ounce of tension to be found on Viktor’s face. In fact, he was smiling. A fleeting thought passed Jayce’s mind that court jesters had once existed to bring joy to their kings, and, if the circumstances were right, maybe Viktor’s little insinuation wasn’t so far off.

Viktor’s chest was really rattling, not just from spirit inhalation.

“Hey, did you hear back from the doctor yet?” Jayce asked.

It was probably some kind of lung condition, Viktor had said. Something he was born with, probably. Something difficult to treat, probably. Something that had become worse recently. Something that he’d never bothered to seek treatment for, but Jayce had been so upset to learn that Viktor wasn’t taking care of his health like he deserved, and so Viktor had promised Jayce he’d visit a doctor soon.

“Ah, yes, it’s eh,” Viktor’s mouth pinched upwards in the corner, “nothing to worry about.”

Jayce’s brow pinched. “V…”

“Jayce,” Viktor admonished. “I’m fine. It is an annoyance, but it isn’t life-threatening.”

Another glass thunked to the table.

“Vander says no dying in the pub, if you’re gonna choke to death do it outside.” Vi set her hands on her hips. “So, food?”

They started with a bowl of pasta and some kind of stew, then mopped it up with half a grilled cheese each, and eventually found themselves gesturing with shared portions of chips and onion rings as they debated the ending of their latest sleepy-town crime novel.

“It was not obvious! Stop saying it was obvious!” Jayce exclaimed. He felt keenly the buzz of alcohol smearing its way through his veins and a piece of batter that had lodged itself between his teeth.

Viktor cast him a pitying glance. “It was obvious.”

“From when?”

He winced. “Page eleven perhaps? Jayce, we have read dozens of novels by this author. Have you not come to recognise the way they leave hints in their work?”

“Maybe it’s better not to know,” Jayce argued, erring on the side of petulance. “You get to the big reveal, and you feel pleasantly surprised.”

“You mean, you gasp at the pages and go ‘no. The mailman? How could it possibly be the mailman!’ even though you are by yourself?”

Jayce inelegantly thrust a finger into Viktor’s face. “You do a terrible impression of me. And don’t pretend that you knew it was the mailman. You told me,” he implored, “you said it couldn’t be the mailman because he was in Egypt at the time and I looked back and nowhere is it mentioned that he was travelling at all.”

Viktor bit back a laugh.

Slowly, Jayce’s eyes widened in realisation. “Did you lie to me?” he accused. He gasped. “Did you read ahead?”

All at once, Viktor lost his composure. He grasped Jayce’s wayward finger and doubled over, laughing in that quiet, genuine way he did, and they were inches apart. Jayce only just noticed, but they were sitting so close that their inebriated breaths were mingling. There were pretty strings of lights wrapped around the beams in the bar and they reflected in the mist of Viktor’s eyes. From this distance, they looked like stars, like galaxies and constellations that Jayce wanted to map. And they were aimed at him. Viktor was looking at him. He was smiling, and laughing, and joking, and teasing, and looking right at and into Jayce and my God, please but we are inches apart.

Jayce kissed Viktor.

Alcohol is said to slow reaction times, yet neither had wasted a second on the decision to reciprocate. Like meteors, they fell from orbit into the gravity of one another, and kissed slow, so slow, to savour every moment.

Their hands were still clasped, Viktor’s fingers wrapped over Jayce’s at their side. Jayce’s other hand found Viktor’s cheek. He exhaled into the kiss, and felt Viktor’s palm come to rest on his shoulder like ballroom dancers. Viktor’s hand grasped and pulled him closer. Closer was the only place Jayce wanted to go.

A beautiful, high-pitched sound escaped from Viktor’s nose, sweet, wanton, and desperate. Jayce disentangled his hand from Viktor’s fingers and captured his jaw between the two cradles of his palms as though he might catch the sound itself. When they moved, it was in perfect tandem. Why had Jayce ever denied them this?

Somewhere in the rabble of the bar, a cork popped from a bottle of wine, and a group of old friends cheered for a happy occasion.

Jayce kissed Viktor, and he kissed, he kissed, and he broke the kiss. He dropped his hands from Viktor’s cheeks to mask their shaking. Now uncovered, Jayce could see that Viktor's cheeks were rosy underneath, though from the kiss or the alcohol, Jayce could not tell. Viktor’s mouth was still parted slightly, a door Jayce had opened and could not close. A perfect fuck-up, looking at him like he was proud.

Jayce shuffled away.

“I shouldn’t have done that.”

Alcohol affected reaction time. Viktor flinched, a moment later.

“…But it was nice,” he spoke. His voice was quiet. If not for their sequestered corner and the natural amplification that inebriation brings, Jayce might not have heard it. “I want you to do it again.”

Jayce looked away. As such, he didn’t see Viktor’s eyes widen.

“Do you not want to do it again?”

Yes, he did. He hated already that he would not be taking Viktor’s perfect face between his palms again, to know, as he so desperately wanted, if Viktor would make another high-pitched sound if Jayce would just stroke his thumbs over Viktor’s cheekbones, if Viktor would relax into Jayce’s hold and be loved, because he was so loved. Not one word of this sentiment left his mouth.

“I’m a bastion of God in a religious town. I’m not allowed to have favourites.”

Viktor pulled away in disbelief. “That’s not in the book.”

“It’s not about the book,” Jayce spoke not a beat later. Each word felt forced out of him on a laboured breath. They weighed his body down, his eyes too heavy to meet Viktor’s. “It’s not about the book, it’s about these people. They all confess to me, all of them. To me, not God.” He tapped his chest, trying to drive the point home. “It’s the worst kept secret of that confession booth that I’m on the other side.”

“Don’t you think that they would want you to be happy?” Viktor… well, it sounded like begging.

“They’re people, V. They’re flawed.”

“They may be flawed but they’re not spiteful.”

Jayce looked up. “And what if it doesn’t work?” He gripped his thighs. “These are supposed to be your people, too.”

“Why does that matter?” Viktor pleaded. He looked as though he wanted to say more, but something, perhaps his inebriation, stayed his tongue.

“There’s not one person in this town capable of leaving their bed that doesn’t come to church on Sunday. If I screw this up,” a pit opened in Jayce’s chest around the words, “if you don’t want anything to do with me anymore…”

Just as Jayce had only moments earlier, Viktor placed his trembling palms on either of Jayce’s cheeks. “And what if it works?” he asked. “What if this is what I came here for?”

Jayce grasped his wrist. “You came here for a community. You came to the church for community, just like everybody else in this town.”

“And you? Do you come to the church for its community? Are you married to God, Jayce? Why are you a pastor?”

Jayce flinched back. “What?”

“What kind of a God can you worship that would put you in this position, where you are not allowed to love? Do you honestly believe he would put you on a pedestal like this? If I was your God,” Viktor swallowed, “I would sooner see you forsake me and live happily than watch you die slowly under a promise to the church.”

Jayce felt sick. “You don’t mean that.” The pit had expanded to a gaping maw. “We met in that church,” he reminded Viktor. “If you can’t accept my devotion to God, then perhaps you don’t want me at all.”

To the discordant tune of an old love song on the Jukebox, Jayce watched Viktor lose his will to fight in the way his face fell and left only devastation in the lines of his skin. His hands, still aloft in the air by Jayce’s chin, withdrew until they could wrap protectively around his own torso, and there was nothing left to say. Any spirited response had been burnt by the acid of their nausea.

“Please move,” Viktor muttered, “I need to leave.”

Jayce’s eyes stung. Like a sucker punch, he realised he could still feel Viktor’s lips against his own. He feared it might become emblazoned there, scar tissue that pulled taut with every sermon he spoke.

“Viktor…” Jayce attempted, but truthfully he was unsure what he was asking for, only that moving from the bench and allowing Viktor to shuffle past would mark the end of something.

“Please.”

Limbs like lead, Jayce shifted aside and stood, and watched through a haze as Viktor did the same. Half their food remained uneaten, their glasses half-empty. Viktor paused by the table’s side and pulled a stack of bills from his wallet. They hit the table with dull finality, it was enough to cover the entire cheque. Jayce wasn’t sure how long he stood looking at them after Viktor left.

---

In the end, it was Vi that ushered Jayce home. He had no recollection of the three further drinks he’d taken in quick succession after Viktor walked away, waiting for Viktor to come back. Nor could he recall stumbling through his front door under Vi's arm. He had no memory whatsoever of sobbing into sofa cushions before eventually falling unconscious there.

But he remembered the kiss.

There were no messages from Viktor on his phone that morning.

As his vacant eyes stared into nothing, Jayce poured himself coffee at the kitchen counter and slowly became aware that he'd missed their trip to the market. And yet, there were no messages from Viktor on his phone.

“Oh,” he said, surprising himself with the crack in his voice. 

A sob followed, clamped behind the hand over his mouth. Quiet crying, the kind that's supposed to go unnoticed. Maybe if his sadness and their separation went unseen, there would be no need for their community to pick sides. Nobody would step into the church with bitter-tasting words of reassurance and the ill-fitting camaraderie of an unwanted alliance. Perhaps if nobody ever saw them kiss, nobody would see them disconnect and become strangers, and there would be nobody left to shoot Viktor the full spectrum of inquisitive-to-disgusted glances in every corner of town. 

He stood shivering for a while, though it could hardly be considered standing, half-collapsed against the counter as he was. Eventually he calmed enough to shift into a kitchen chair with his drink. 

Elbows on the table, Jayce steepled his hands, closed his eyes, and tried to steel his voice before he spoke. 

“I drank too much and I did something stupid.”

Guilt hit him as a punch, forcing him to stop. It hollowed his chest and left it a dark, damp cave. He blew out one long and unsteady breath just to try to keep a fresh onslaught of tears at bay. Steam rose steadily from his untouched coffee. He tried again. 

“I did some things that I hope you can forgive me for.” 

When struck with hardships in life, Jayce had often fallen back on the same tactic to categorise and compartmentalise the buzz in his head, and so, he did as he always had. 

“One. I kissed him without asking.”

Respect.

When Jayce had been too young to know any better, he'd kissed a pretty girl on the playground, and she'd cried from the moment his lips touched her until the moment her mother had come to collect her. An argument could be made that it wasn't his fault, he was only the product of his generation, the boys-will-be-boys empire in its shiny ivory tower, but Jayce had always remembered how his actions had cost him a friendship. Throughout his life many times over he'd learned respect the hard way. All of that just to break it. 

“Two. I kissed him,” his voice broke, “shouldn't have done that at all.” 

Restraint. 

“Three. We were drunk at the time.”

Responsibility.

“Four. I jeopardised his place in this community.”

Selflessness.

“Five. I still want him.” Like punctuation, the ragged breaths and tears returned. “I didn’t mean to let him leave like that, I just didn’t know what to do. I swear it, I wanted him. I'm not supposed to want people, I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” His lungs saturated with pain. “Please show me how to atone,” he begged. “I don’t know how.” 

Sacrifice. These are the teachings of the book to which Jayce has dedicated his entire life. The concrete foundation of his person. It should not have been so easy to fracture and yet, in one fell swoop, Jayce had hammered cracks into every inch. Perhaps there was no atonement for someone like him.

---

Softly, the door opened, and softly, it closed again, and with a familiar tap, tap, tap, someone sat down in the other side of the confessional booth. Jayce feared that he would hear that sweet, unhappy voice saying, “forgive me, Father,” in his dreams for many years to come.

Never in his life has he been speechless in this chair, but just as the booth seemed to muffle all sound from the outside, Jayce felt as though all sound from inside him had been dampened, too.

“The book,” this person spoke, instead, “it teaches that we must be content in what we have.”

An uncomfortable shuffling on the wooden seat.

“I am familiar with this lesson. I take too much. There is no… no grace in good intentions. When you want for things that are simply not yours to have, the pain will find you, no matter what.”

Those final words, no matter what, they sounded as though they had been chewed on and spat out time and time again. As though the speaker bore them as a burden they wished to stomp into the pavement like used, flavourless gum and damn anyone that might be uncomfortable with the ugly sight of it.

“I cannot change what I am,” the speaker continued, “and I fear that I have attempted to take something once again that is simply not meant for me.” Then there was a long pause, punctuated by a deep and awful sigh. “And in doing so, I have hurt someone very dear to me.”

The pinch in Jayce’s brow was his only response. He knew it was not enough. There in the booth he was bound by his promise to his God to observe and bestow a borrowed wisdom. Jayce’s own reassurances, his desire to break the wooden wall between them and hold the man until the sun set could not supersede the comfort of his lord. Yet, the lord’s reassurances didn’t find him either. Perhaps neither of them knew what to say. 

He remained silent, but the other man carried on.

“This man…” he spoke heavily, “he’s holding himself back.”

Quietly, shakily, Jayce inhaled.

“You cannot understand how it feels to be so… adored, and at the same time, in the same breath, feared,” he continued with a humourless laugh. “I am accustomed to adoration and I am accustomed to fear, but in my experience people pick sides. This man, he cannot seem to decide.”

After a second, the bench creaked, the unmistakable sound of the speaker standing.

“I suppose I am waiting for a sign. I only wish that he could understand that this feeling is the best part of my life.”

The door’s latch clicked as it was undone. There was a moment, a pause for thought. The tap, tap, tap of two shoes and a cane.

“I’ll give you some time, Jayce.”

And as the door closed, the walls seemed to close in with it. Jayce swallowed and felt like nothing at all.

---

It was sat in the church pews following a difficult and distracted sermon that they finally spoke.

“Hi,” was how Jayce greeted Viktor.

“Hello,” was how Viktor responded, before silence settled back between them as it had for the last few days.

“This is the place we met,” Viktor muttered, staring at the stained-glass windows on his right. “Right here, you showed me kindness.”

“It’s part of the job,” Jayce replied. He tried to inject good spirits into his tone, and even to his own ears it sounded plastic.

Viktor didn’t laugh, and the silence returned.

“…I should not have come here. I will be leaving soon.”

All at once, Jayce froze. He clasped his hands together in the hopes to disguise their shake. “Please, don't. This is my fault.”

Viktor scoffed. “The fault lies with your God.” Biting words in a house of worship. “He is the thing that comes between us.”

Jayce knew that Viktor was not as devout as he’d originally believed, but to hear his open disparaging of Jayce’s faith in the house of Jayce’s lord was so unexpected and cruel, Jayce wasn’t sure he had the words to respond.

“What?” he asked, sounding just the idiot he felt like.

“For every moment we have grown closer you have run to your God: a man that never answers.” There was an anger in the pinch of his brow that Jayce had never seen before. “How do you expect me to compete with that?”

“I don’t,” Jayce promised, meaning ‘there is no competition’, and ‘it’s me, not him, that stands between us’, and, quietly, in the back of his mind, ‘how do you know that?’

“No, you don’t,” Viktor’s agreement is cruel, as well. It bites and takes chunks of Jayce with it. “You just ask for a sign over and over and over that you are certain you will not receive. And so you continue not to choose me, the man that loves you.”

Viktor’s trembling dies down to a simmer.

“You are a good person, Jayce.”

The change in tone doesn’t make any sense.

“You have been asking your God again, and again, every night, every moment that you spend with me whether you are a good person, whether you can atone. We cannot breathe in the same room for fear that loving me is a sin.”

Viktor looks up, and the stained-glass windows behind him pulse with iridescent light, and suddenly Jayce can see everything. Not the bitter tears that were beginning to prick Viktor’s eyes but a splash of cosmic dust cascading down his face, drifting away from their path to his chin and becoming the stars themselves. Not the neat brush of hair that Jayce had admired seeing half-pinned and adorned with flowers, but a long, soft mane he knows only in worship, that seems to defy physics just to frame his figure. And behind it, a halo, like shards of ice.

Viktor’s comfortable clothes, his pressed button-downs and soft woollen vests, are gone. In their place his body is draped in Jayce’s blanket, and it gives way to jagged, yet perfectly symmetrical scaring down the centre of his chest. A scraped out, shimmering pit above his breastbone, layers upon layers of scar tissue. A wound reopened and closed and reopened again.

And the worst part, the most damning part of all, is that he smiles and reaches out.

When he speaks, his voice is distorted. 

“You are a good man, Jayce Talis. Your God has decreed it.”

Then in an instant it was gone, and in its place remained his Viktor, crying into his shirtsleeves. All at once, Jayce understood exactly what Viktor was. 

“Please don’t say it,” Viktor said, sounding like himself again.

But what else was there to say? What other explanation could there be for the tremor now cascading outwards from Jayce's chest. He saw Viktor with perfect clarity and yet his eyes felt unfocused. An almighty power vibrated the particles of air in this holy place. 

“…You heard my prayers.”

Viktor didn’t deny it. His hands fell away from his face, his jaw cocked as though he was swallowing his sadness. Jayce followed his line of sight to the statue that stood proud against the back wall of the church, looking down and casting judgement.

“I was once just a man, Jayce. Only ever a man.” He cast his eyes downwards. “Thousands of years have passed and every moment the memories of that time slip away. I believe that one day, he,” he looked pointedly back towards the statue, “will be all that is left of me.”

Jayce swallowed.

“And I was not a good man, despite what you seem to believe. There are many mistakes for which I am being punished.” Viktor toyed with his damp sleeve. “I have been… emptied, for public consumption. I can want but I am not allowed to have. I am upset and I cannot cry. I am given joy and nobody to share it with.”

His gaze shifted back to Jayce’s.

“I am capable of love, loss, pain, but not death. I hold the hopes of a species. Your fears, desires. I am a box that cannot break.” His gaze hardened. “That is what a God is. I couldn't take it anymore. So, I created a body and I searched for... something real. But I,” he swallowed, “I never should have come here.”

Jayce’s breath caught.

“At some point in time, the almighty forces that bestowed me with this punishment disappeared. Now, the shell that you worship is all that’s left. This religion, it is a bastardisation of everything I tried to teach you. It has been warped inexorably by time until good, kind men like yourself become convinced that joy is a sin. Don't worship me, Jayce.”

His voice distorted just slightly, granting those four final words the weight of the lord.

“I think often about taking that shovel, the one that you keep in the back office for snowy days, and using it to rend that statue to dust.”

The statue of a deity that Jayce had loved, and a shovel that Jayce had never mentioned.

This would mark the Before and After of Jayce’s life, yet despite the unbearable weight of this revelation and all the things he was certain would later come to taunt them, when Jayce looked at his almighty God biting his lip in his favourite pew, all Jayce could see was Viktor.

He tugged his dog collar free, rubbed his thumb over it. A simple strip of white that had defined his place in the community for the better part of his life.

“Maybe I should denounce you, then.” 

Viktor flinched. His fingers twitched against one another. “These are your people.” 

“They don't need the church,” Jayce responded. “It's an excuse, that's all. All we need is each other.” 

He twisted in his seat. 

“That includes you, you know.”

“No, it doesn't,” Viktor argued, laughing humourlessly.

“Yes, it does,” Jayce answered softly, “it does.” He reached for Viktor's jaw, trying to tilt their gazes back together but Viktor wouldn't budge. If anything, he turned further away. Jayce sighed. “Do you know why I was so scared to be with you?”

Viktor didn’t reply, but his grip shifted, hands falling to the wood of their seat and clenching as though he expected to be dragged away. 

“On the day we met, you told me that you came here in search of a community. That’s why you came to the church, right? At least, that’s what I assumed.” Jayce’s brow twitched, just a hint of visible concern. “You seemed like you were running from something.”

As the words sat heavily between them, Viktor’s hands slackened and tensed a few times. Despite his turned head, Jayce saw his frown. 

“You don’t have to explain,” he assured. “What mattered to me was that you ran here, to us. You needed people.”

He cast his eyes around the empty church. The pews he was so used to seeing lined with familiar faces. The fold-away tables that were pulled out for bake sales and potlucks and craft fairs. The stand that the choir took to and the organ they sang in harmony with. The food bank donations. The spot where couples made their vows. The confessional. 

“We became your people. I just couldn’t stand the thought of,” he sighed, looking down at the dog collar in his hands, “of taking that from you just because I coveted your attention. I knew that losing you would break my heart, and I’m not a very good liar when it comes to these things. I wear my heart on my sleeve, it would be obvious if it was broken.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “The people in this town, they aren’t bad, but they all rely so heavily on one another, and they all rely so heavily on the church.” 

He paused. Gathered himself. 

“On me. It’s easier for them to seek peace and forgiveness here without the fear of judgement or,” how to phrase this, “or my feelings muddying the water. Don’t get me wrong, I think they like me, but they don’t know me. Not like you do.” 

To compare himself… he couldn’t believe he was saying this. 

“I think we might be a bit alike in that.”

When he looked up, Viktor was already looking at him. His eyes were wide and wet. 

“I would never ask that of you.”

“I know,” Jayce replied, this corner of his mouth twitched upward for a second. “It was never really about the church or,” he looked pointedly at the statue, “him. If we tore this place down and built a community centre, things would probably be exactly the same. Eh, there might be some teething issues, but drop me at the front of the room and there’s your new religion.”

“Having their leader with a broken heart on his sleeve would cause some… divisiveness,” Viktor said. 

“Yeah.” Jayce flexed his eyebrows. “I couldn’t let that come back on you. You know, selflessness.” Viktor cast him a confused glance. “It’s one of the rules in that book of yours.”

At that, Viktor looked disgusted. “In my defence I did not actually write the book,” he countered, pulling a short laugh from Jayce. “It sounds like a stupid rule.” 

“Yeah, I’m beginning to see that,” Jayce agreed. “Maybe it’s better in moderation.”

“Oh, fuck moderation,” Viktor replied bluntly, turning Jayce’s laugh from light to full-bellied. It shifted slowly, and out with the sound came his disbelief at their situation. From the corner of his eye, he saw Viktor's lips twitch upwards, too.

By the time he’d wiped the tears from his eyes, his cheeks hurt from smiling. “V, you’re a menace,” he teased. 

Viktor’s hands flexed against the wood again. “Would it be okay if I was?” He met Jayce’s eyes with trepidation, his mouth somewhere between a smile and a careful blankness. “Would you still want me?”

This nervousness, this fear of rejection and all its caveats, the openness of Viktor’s gaze, the slight shine of hope there, Jayce felt as though he was truly seeing Viktor for the first time. 

“Can I kiss you?” he asked instead of answering. “It’s just, I didn’t do it right the first time.”

Understanding flickered across Viktor’s face. 

“Please.”

For the second time, Jayce kissed Viktor. Only this time, he stayed. It was long, slow, but every part of Jayce that had wanted and been denied could be found in it. It was there in the slide of their lips and butting noses. There in the air that was inhaled and exhaled between them. When Jayce pulled back it was still there, with their faces only barely inches apart because the urge to still and look at Viktor was too strong.

“You should take no advice from me,” Viktor whispered, “but if you would want to be selfish from now on, I would welcome that.”

Jayce thumbed dried tear stains from Viktor’s cheek. “I’ll try it if you will.”

He pressed their foreheads together. 

“There’s something I need to promise you,” he murmured. “Let's have a life together, and when we die, let's have the eternity that follows, too. If you have space for me in that heart of yours.”

“Of course,” Viktor insisted, his hand finding Jayce’s wrist just to hold it.

“Then for as long as we're together, you’ll still be you.” His mouth twitched upwards at the corner. “My Viktor. I won't let you lose yourself as long as I can help it. I'll stay with you if you stay with me.”

Viktor laughed, wet and disbelieving. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

Jayce smiled. “It’s my favourite part.”

---

“Father!” Felicia called from her stall at the church bake sale. She’d been setting up her wares, an array of honey pastries, with leftover dried flowers decorating the spaces between them. “Over here, I have a present for you!”

Jayce, who himself had been helping his mother with her cake stands, ambled over to Felicia’s stall with a smile. “Good morning. This is a beautiful display, the flowers are a nice touch.”

“I’m glad you think so, because…” Felicia reached below the table and produced a cardboard cake box, “ta-dah!” With a flourish, she opened the lid, showing off the cupcakes and dried flowers inside. “I packed some for you and your partner. Just a little thank you gift for his help with Powder’s project. Gotta satiate that sweet tooth of his.”

It warmed Jayce’s heart to see how known Viktor had become.

He accepted the box, bowing a little in gratitude but taking care not to damage the goods inside. “Thank you, Felicia, I’m sure he’ll appreciate this. In fact, he was very disappointed that he couldn’t make it today and requested ‘one of everything’ to make up for it.”

“Well, I can assure you the feeling is mutual. There’s not one face in here that isn’t wishing he’d made it.” She clicked her fingers. “That reminds me, you free this Saturday evening? My girls were complaining that we don’t have enough ‘family dinners’ these days.”

“Ah,” Jayce grimaced, “not this Saturday. My apologies, we have plans.”

Felicia waggled her eyebrows. “A date?”

A feast of takeaway pizza and a movie ignored in favour of sex on the couch, probably. Just a little bit of selfishness. 

“Yeah, a date,” Jayce beamed. “Another time, though.”

—

Viktor wasn’t careless, but he could certainly be forgetful. Of all the things Jayce had learned about the man since they’d moved in together some months ago, this was a favourite. Sure, it could be frustrating at times when Viktor’s absentmindedness inconvenienced Jayce personally, but every little bugbear was just a reminder of how real Viktor was, and how lucky Jayce was to be in his life.

This was one of those times. Viktor had long since finished his work for the day. He was in an entirely different room, curled into the sofa watching a reality TV show about mall cops or How It’s Made or something, and yet all of his paperwork remained sprawled across the kitchen table. Jayce sighed ever-so fondly with a shake of the head, then started tidying.

That was when Jayce saw a particularly conspicuous letter. A confirmation that Viktor was now officially registered to the town’s GP practice. Not a change of address notification, not an updated emergency contact. No, a registration. Dated three days ago. Huh.

Viktor was halfway down a Pringles tube when Jayce walked into the doorway of the living room.

“You signed up with the doctor.”

Viktor peered up with the countenance of a comfortable cat.

“Yes,” he confirmed, muffled slightly by the crisps. “I had a small allergic reaction and required a test.”

“So you signed up with the doctor, what, a couple of weeks ago?”

“Yes,” Viktor repeated. “I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed your surname, I do not have one.”

Jayce filed that away in his mind for later.

“I asked you two years ago whether you’d seen a doctor for your lungs,” Viktor winced, “and you told me it was ‘nothing to worry about’.”

“Ahaha, so the thing is…”

“That you didn’t go?”

Jayce flourished the letter in his hand, it crinkled under his grasp. There was only one GP surgery in the town, after all.

Viktor sat up on the sofa. He paused his programme (an antiques show? Storage Hunters?) as if to prove to Jayce that he was giving his full attention.

“I know this body, Jayce. I made it from magic and atoms and things that are difficult to explain. A scan is unnecessary because I already know all of this body’s ailments.”

Of course it was a weird God thing. Jayce collapsed into the armchair next to the sofa. It made a satisfying puff sound under his weight.

“Okay, so what is it?”

“Tuberculosis.”

Jayce was glad he was sat down.

“Fucking tuberculosis?”

Viktor leaned back in his chair. “Eh, it’s okay.”

If Jayce’s eyes opened any wider, he was worried they might pop out of his head.

“In what world is that possibly okay?”

Another one of Viktor’s extremely human traits that Jayce loved, even though it was often to his own detriment, was Viktor’s uncanny ability to perfectly raise an affronted eyebrow.

“Jayce, I am God. I cannot die of tuberculosis.”

Inhaling to voice his concerns, Jayce raised a finger.

“No, it isn’t contagious,” Viktor interrupted.

Jayce lowered his finger.

“Why would you make a body with…” he trailed off.

“Tuberculosis, the leg, the wrong genitalia…”

“Yes,” Jayce handwaved generally at Viktor, “all of that. Which I can’t imagine is much fun.”

“Well,” Viktor replied, matter-of-factly, “once human evolution was instigated it became something that nothing and nobody had any control over. Human bodies are strange and varied. When I created this body, it was not purely a vessel for my existence, but a true, essentially random human body. It was evolved to be like this. I added the magic and the bonding of pieces of stardust but what I received was like a lottery.” He smiled. “A very human experience, I think. Many thousands of years ago I had a human body of my own, and I seem to recall that it was quite similar to this. Eh, imperfect.”

“Okay, well, I think you’re perfect but let’s not start,” Jayce argued. Whatever. Weird God things. It didn’t really matter to him that much, God was for working days and this was just his strange and beautiful boyfriend. He slumped back into the armchair, letting himself be distracted as Viktor unpaused whatever he was watc- Celebrity Pointless!

“Hang on a second,” Jayce blurted about ten minutes later. “Why did you sign up for this allergy, then?”

“I still need medication to stop a reaction,” Viktor replied. He pinched his cheeks between a finger and thumb, pushing them forward so they squished his mouth oddly, garbling his words, “Or my face will puff up like this.” There were twin white marks on his cheeks when he let go. “It takes a long time to go down on its own.”

---

Over the years, Jayce had grown accustomed to rising with God and the sun. These days, though, God doesn’t tend to rise until closer to 9:00am.

Jayce’s alarm sounded at six just as it always has. It pried Viktor slowly from sleep and just far enough toward cognisance that he could nuzzle further into Jayce’s shoulder and hum, deep and low, his distaste at the hour.

“Good morning, Viktor,” Jayce, who naturally woke before the alarm anyway, muttered into his hair.

“I hate your job,” Viktor grumbled, much to Jayce’s amusement.

“Would that be the job in which I worship you and aid our community?”

It was true. Jayce had come to accept since Viktor that the church stood in their town to provide shelter for its people more than anything else. He’d also become quite adept at reciting passages from the book whilst picturing Viktor’s sleep-drunk smile and the texture of his skin beneath Jayce’s lips.

“That would be the job that takes you from our bed,” Viktor argued.

“Hey, it’s your church, change the opening hours,” Jayce laughed, but made no attempt to move just yet. “So, uh, I was thinking about something.”

Viktor hummed his response.

“Before… before you told me,” Jayce laughed, but it was far away, “I was so infatuated with you. I thought you were perfect. I still do.”

His thumb stroked over the so-warm and so-real skin of Viktor’s arm.

“When I was with you, I saw and heard things that I couldn’t explain. Like a galaxy in your eyes, or… or swelling music that sounded like your voice.”

Viktor pulled back then, to meet Jayce’s eyes.

“I thought it was just me, just… completely besotted like I’ve never been before…” Viktor smiled widely, yet Jayce’s own cracked a little at the seams. There was a question, there, one he was too afraid to say.

Viktor heard it, all the same.

“That wasn’t me,” he answered, brushing hair back from Jayce’s face. “That was all you.”

Then he curled himself back into Jayce’s embrace, and together they relaxed into the mattress. Jayce Talis and the man he loved.

He didn’t need the church today. Just once, just for once, he decided not to go. These were the halls of Jayce’s worship. His God was a man.