Work Text:
“It’s fucking bullshit,” Simon hissed.
“Such bullshit,” JJ groaned in agreement. The hallway was flooded with other kids their age leaving the youth group. Ratty grey carpet, cinderblock walls. It reeked of indoctrination there in the “youth wing” which was really just the basement.
“How about ‘praying doesn’t guarantee you’ll get something because it’s God’s idea what he does.’ But God’s planned the universe out from the start?” Simon shook his head and backed his way out the push door with an almighty racket. JJ followed, smiling a bit. Simon loved to fire himself up over things that didn’t ultimately matter.
“Ridiculous. Fucking ridiculous.”
Simon still sounded a little self-conscious using the swear in a church building. Not that JJ was any better. His mum had swatted him for saying he had to poop one time, just because they were inside—no matter that it had been for a bake sale fundraiser.
Simon looked over, sharpness in his expression. “You game?”
“When am I not?” JJ retorted, and Simon grinned. Strode ahead, up the stairs and rounding a couple of corners until they reached the sanctuary. JJ’s heart quickened. And maybe Simon had a third sense for the tingling of JJ’s blood, the involuntary bite of his lip, because Simon backed through this door, too, and the eyes that followed JJ were intense, a mix of cautious expectance.
Simon followed JJ into the vestry, carelessly letting the door slam, sealing them into this in-between space, almost holy, or maybe holier—where prayers were uttered in privacy, where no audience bore witness to moments of weakness or strength. Where man became priest and priest returned to man.
It smelled of lemony wood polish, just like JJ’s dining room table.
Simon smiled, a beckoning, and JJ advanced. Crowded him into the ornate low table, now empty, that housed the communion silver on Sundays. Grabbed his face between his hands and kissed those lips that were sweeter than any communion grape juice JJ had tasted.
He felt in free-fall with Simon; despite the certainty that Simon would catch him, it was invigorating all the same, JJ’s heart hanging in the space between them, mind hovering somewhere closer to heaven than the steeple point.
“Defile it,” Simon whispered, and JJ’s mouth was on his neck, leaving marks the hiding of which would get Simon off in class tomorrow, cause JJ to receive dirty texts he’d delete with a glance over his shoulder and gratitude to the empty sky.
Simon hopped onto the table and JJ tilted him back. Simon was JJ’s offering, spread out there. His sighs represented the sweetest aroma imaginable; JJ drank them up, worshipped Simon with his hands.
They never did much more than that. JJ’s mouth traveled where it might, hands just as far. Sometimes the two of them were horizontal, sometimes vertical. Sometimes hasty, sometimes slow. Sometimes both, like today, but it was always beautiful. Kissing until lips went numb and eyes stayed shut, heads tipping together.
Now, they sat against the door, Simon leaning into JJ. It was nighttime, and no light came in the windows. Just the soft lights around the old Bible on display, lighting up the crucifix on the wall. And yet, the light seemed misplaced, hovering over the two of them instead, as though God smiled upon them.
“Do you think the priests feel a difference?”
Simon always knew what JJ meant. He knew JJ felt the softness of the space, how dark walls bowed around them, protecting them. The stillness of the air, the utter quiet. JJ couldn’t imagine the vestry on a Sunday, the bustle of parishioners outside, and the anticipation prior to a sermon. Tucked-in shirts and reading glasses didn’t belong back here in this temple of love.
Simon tucked closer into JJ’s arm, which never failed to make JJ smile. “I don’t think they do. The room’s meaning doesn’t exist for anyone but us.” Spoken in that low voice, lazy, intimate, it was a challenge for JJ to focus on Simon’s words.
He managed, “I think it’s changed. There’s obviously not, like, spirits, but there’s maybe energy. Or something.”
“You’re part of this room for me,” Simon said, “and this room doesn’t exist as it is without me and you. My skin is a part of this table. Your breath mingles with the air. It’s molecular, our influence here. This room is changed for us. We’ve re-made it together.”
“We should fuck here,” JJ said. “With the black robes beneath us.”
Simon grinned. “Spread our seed.”
“Do it during the service. Don’t hide our light under the bushel, or whatever the fuck.”
Simon laughed out loud and tugged JJ closer. The small room heated so quickly, nicely-painted wood insulating, but JJ was never over-warm in there. He was never uncomfortable with Simon next to him.
“You’re the holiest thing I can think of. You make me a better person. You are the reason I exist.”
“God is scared of how much I love you.”
Simon laughed. And there, together in the semi-darkness of that space between the sacred and the profane, rested in tranquility two devotees of the intrinsic, eternal religion of humanity.