Chapter Text
A starry, cloudless night projects high above the church. An elegantly crafted structure, created from fine stones and glasswork that God would surely approve of.
It's too bad that God would disapprove of the man stepping into such a fine work of art.
Roman pushes open the grand wooden doors, trailing his hand along the intricate details of it as his boots click along the cold marble floors. His shadow danced past the others reflected from the glass windows, which depicted different biblical scenes, though he couldn't be certain about which ones. He wasn't exactly an avid reader of that particular book.
The walk up to the alter is a particularly heavy one, and his knees and shoulders seemed to be aware of that tension as he collapsed just in front of it. His kneecaps had a dull thumping within them now, but that wasn't what he had come to concern himself with.
His hands tremble as he gathers them into an interlocked state, burningly aware of the wrongness of such a position.
"Good lord in Heaven, hear me when I call to you…" Roman mutters with shame, crawling across the defined ridges of his spine. He knew no one would reach for him, certainly not God. He was only embarrassing himself— this he knew. But he knew too that he must do this, lest he crumble with his burdens. These mental bricks and stones.
It's only when Roman feels a heavy hand upon his shoulder that he finds it in himself to tear his gaze away from the floor. Just there, connected to the hand, was the Priest of this church. Father Thaddeus. Those warm brown eyes seemed to tear into him and comfort him all at once, crows feet curling just past them and down his hooked nose in a show of the man's age. Forty two, if Roman's memory served.
His hair similarly played in the telling of his age, having several strips of gray mused in within his dark locks. It was cut neatly, though a few wisps were crowding his forehead under air pressure.
"Thaddeus," Roman murmurs, almost reverently. Almost.
"Roman," Thaddeus responds in kind, albeit more authoritatively. "What, exactly, are you doing here? I never expected to see your… face.. again."
"I never quite expected to find myself back in a church."
Thaddeus's face morphs from patiently peaceful to a more malicious state. "Well, what are you expecting to find within this church? A god who holds no love for you?"
Roman's breath catches in his throat. He had known he'd be met with less than kind words, but to actually hear it from Thaddeus's own mouth…
"Perhaps I should leave and find someone who does hold love for me, then," Roman huffs, removing himself from his knees and on a path towards the church doors.
A force grips his arm, and Roman glances back to find Thaddeus's there, muscles flexing underneath with a quiet, underlying strength that rarely is shown beneath the man's calm demeanor.
"Why have you come here this night, Roman?" He inquires, a gruff quality to his voice present now.
Roman had no response prepared for his question. "It was a fleeting thought, it held no meaning. Let me by."
"It held no meaning, but you were just on your knees, pleading to God?" Those brown eyes narrow in suspicion.
"Funny that, I remember you doing the same but with a different name." Roman quips, entirely unappreciative of the suspicion thrown at him on a night he had tried to bare his heart. Best to make the man as defensive as he.
Thaddeus acquires a faint redness to his face, and jerks his hand away from Roman. He retreats deeper into the church, the marble resounding under him as he goes.
"You shouldn't speak of such ill things inside the house of God," he all but whispers.
Roman can't prevent the anger that boils over at that statement. "You and God shouldn't have forsaken me in such ill ways, then expect me not to speak of them!" He yells, gaining a temper that is usually absent.
"You have only ever forsaken yourself. You know this." Thaddeus murmurs softly to him.
"You forsook me all those years ago when you left without a word!"
The Reverend then storms up to him, their proximity so close that he could feel the other man's hot breaths falling upon his face.
"It was for damned good reason, that— I cannot show my face next to that of a- a monster." Thaddeus hissed, provoked beyond recognition of his former self.
"You didn't find me to be a monster when you held me to your chest, in the afterglow of your sweet release," Roman mocked.
The church Father's face grows nearly a disturbing shade of puce as he lowers his tone. "Leave this holy space immediately, and do not return. You bear no right to enter anymore. You lost your chance when you devolved into a being lesser than the devil."
The man then turns sharply on his heel, and flees back into the side passage of the church that he emerged from.