Chapter Text
Lord, am I truly unfaithful when I beg you to give him to me?
Lord, am I truly unworthy of Heaven when he makes me feel like I am reaching Your heights?
Lord, am I truly unforgivable if I stay true to what my heart longs for?
“Father, may I speak to you?”
Dan Heng turns and meets the man in the uniform. “Oh. Good evening, Officer.” He offers a smile. “Of course. How can I help you?”
There is no valid option of choice; the politeness is a formality, the tone is welcoming and trusting, but the order is clear. The man appears uncomfortable with the tired expression—dark circles under his eyes, constant blinking, and fallen shoulders. His stance indicates that something is off.
“I want to apologise for cornering you,” he starts, removing his hat. “I’m not here to ask anything about the Lord, I’m afraid.”
“Fear not, Officer.” Dan Heng spoke to him a few times only, and trepidation falls in his stomach that he knows what the subject of their conversation might be. “I’m glad you waited for the mass to end before seeking me. That means it’s not as alarming and desperate, no?”
The smile the man gives is embarrassing, even. “You could say that, but not for the right reasons, Father.”
They sit at one of the first benches close to the altar, and Dan Heng ignores the frantic need to puke that is slowly setting in his stomach and ascending to his throat.
“I’m sure you heard the late gossip…”
Of course, he has. He nods. “Horrifying to a fault. Such a display and for something so horrific…”
“The people are unsettled. These strange murders have become normal, and the people expect them to happen from time to time and actively look for corpses in the missing person’s list. They come to me and say their relative or friend disappeared one day, and they don’t even consider they might be alive anymore. The latest left a terrible impression, worse than usual.”
Dan Heng agrees that the killings were uniquely, picturesquely cruel. Touching, he only knows that through a confession.
“One of the victims was last reported to have come here, Father, the late mass a month ago. Do you have any idea of it? Do you remember it?” He mentions the name of the dead, and Dan Heng suppresses a sigh.
“I can’t say I recall it in specifics. I remember I could not see him anymore and wondered without prying.” And two days later, I knew how his limbs were cut off.
The Officer stares at him, a slight frown on his expression. “Are you sure, Father? Was nothing… out of the normal or that I should know?”
“No, I don’t think so.” He lowers his head, fidgeting with both hands on his lap. “I’m just not… used to it. I believe I still feel like a newcomer around here, and I can’t help but ask myself if it’s safe. I stay in the church for a feeling of protection, but should I happen to leave, what would happen to me, I wonder?”
Never mind, it was in the church where I sinned before God.
Dan Heng never needed to leave the warmth of the chapel to meet the charming grotesque.
“I understand. This town feels more like a hole in the middle of nowhere than a true community…” says the Officer, motioning a dismissive gesture with his hand. Then, narrowing even more his gaze, he asks, “Are you sure you know nothing, Father? A confession he made in particular, perhaps?”
I know the killer by name. He confesses to me every time he kills. He confessed to this murder a month ago. And he makes me feel like God. “I wish I could help you, Officer, truly, but I know nothing. The confessions are between God and the soul alone, though I tell you he was no different than the rest. I can only pray that his soul rests in peace.”
The Officer eyes him for a few seconds before nodding, exhaling in evident exhaustion and getting up from the bench. “It was worth trying. Of course, you wouldn’t know.” Before he turns to leave, he smiles with weakness. “I’m sorry for doubting your word, Father. The parish is lucky to find solace in your words.”
I begged to be used the other night. “Don’t apologise, please… I understand why you would come here. I just wish I could do something more than tell you he was a frequent believer.”
“…Have a good night, Father.”
“You too, Officer.”
When Dan Heng finally sees the Officer’s silhouette disappear under the pouring rain, his hands tremble to close the church’s doors.
When Dan Heng kneels before the edge of his bed, looking up at the cross hanging on the wall, he can only wonder if his burning unholy fire was planned all along to happen or if the Devil tempts him, for if he considers the Devil to be made for him.
His knees are in living red flesh, tingling in faux numbness, and he knows he will be trembling when trying to stand up. He will want to fall on his knees again or lay back and bend his legs, breathing underneath. He hopes he will not like to keep them hurting, for he knows he enjoys it more than he should.
“Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned,” he whispers, shivering from the sight of the cross. It judges him. It chastises him. It knows. “I lied for greed, Lord—greed not for riches and wealth, nor gluttony of abundance, but for idolatry. I’ve been having avaricious feelings. Selfish. I’ve discovered something about myself as of late, and it is that I am incredibly, utterly selfish, Lord. I want to have, and I want to be had.” It is almost as if the hand of God grazes on his nape, and it is beyond what his mind can conjure. “You have me, my Lord. You’ve always had me. I’m… I’m scared it’s not enough for me, though.” I want to be someone else’s, too. Or simply someone else’s.
As usual, no one speaks to him. He confesses, and there is no one to hear him. The cross offers silent judgement and a ghostly caress far from welcoming.
He listens to me, Dan Heng thinks with bitterness. It is also sweet; the image of his Devil brings comfort each day, but it is a different kind than the sweetness of many—it is sour as it is addictive, slowly overtaking his tongue and sticking into his throat.
“Forgive me, my Lord, I fear I’m not wholly loyal to you,” I fear I haven’t been loyal for too long, “and I know I will sin again. And again. And again.” He swallows, hurting his palms by how tight he holds the rosary between his hands, all to ignore intrusive thoughts to set his belly on fire. “I can only ask—beg of you—that you let me confess and… that you let me bring him with me.” Wherever I may go. If not, cast me for nine days and nights until I meet him.
Once more, his confession is given to silence.
Were he confessing to another reverend, he could receive a proper anisty for his sins. He has bestowed many penitences upon himself, from the early days at the convent to the servings of the church; perhaps he needs to scrap his knees with intent.
“Thank you for listening, my Lord.”
Dan Heng was correct in his first assumptions—his legs quiver, and he leans on the mattress for support at first, kneecaps stinging from staying on the hardened wooden ground. Breathing in and out, he gets up, slowly forcing his mind to ignore the ache. They are not bleeding excessively, not yet, but the bruises stain in livid red with tiny droplets of blood.
Some of the red is painting his white nightdress every time his movements forced his knees and fabric to meet despite its loose form. He will have to clean it first thing in the morning. Its almost-diaphanous fabric is close to revealing the bruised knees.
Cold wind blows, flickering a candle almost to extinguish itself and causing his body to shiver where it stands. Winter days approach; he does not remember when he opened it. The morning felt beautiful despite the temperature. It could have been then.
Lacing the rosary around his neck, he walks towards the window and closes it.
Only to feel a knuckle run down his spine.
Dan Heng grips the edges of the windowsill, restraining the uncouth sound that is being pushed by his nerves to leave; his attempt is that of a fool, though, for the knuckle rests on the slight curve of his spine, his sacral blossoming with the touch.
“You smell delightful,” murmured against his neck, deep inhales with the nose trailing the skin from the collarbones to under his jawline.
It is all reason for Dan Heng to want to bite his lips, but tiny breaths instead are what he offers. He desires to lean back and tilt his head so his neck is fully exposed. He wants it delivered as a gift, for the mouth taunting him to sink its teeth and fangs into his veins.
“I could drown in you if you let me.”
However, all he can do is let his head fall forward and gasp when the knuckle turns into a fingertip, becomes five, and an entire palm possesses the small of his back, feeling the heat through the thin fabric of his nightdress.
A hand descends to his leg, steadily lifting the fabric so the palm touches the naked skin—the contact sends Dan Heng to push himself back against the firm chest, grasping tighter on the windowsill. “Ren, Ren, Ren—”
“Keep chanting my name like that, Father, and I might mistake myself for God.”
Because you are the closest thing to God that I have. There are many things he wants to say: profanities, praises, questions and mercy. He wants to beg for comfort and wants to demand where his lover went, abandoning him for another three days.
Ren’s reflection on the window glass is but a silhouette burying itself in his neck. How should one not think of him as a demon when he appears as one?
Dan Heng moans when cold air brushes against the midst of his legs but becomes even more pliant when the cold turns into flesh, fingers grazing the interior of his thighs and moving upwards. He would have fallen if not for an arm catching him, holding him still by the waist.
“Where—where have you—been?” It’s hard to speak when the skin of his neck is being bitten and kissed so frantically, so desperately. It is almost as if Ren longed for him just as much as Dan Heng missed him. “Ah—you—”
“Been around.” Ren turns the priest to face him, pressing him between the window and his figure. “If I didn’t placate myself, I'd have gone insane. Needed soothing.”
Are you not insane already? What is Ren, if not madness incarnate, the lucid one stating his sanity by new laws?
From the little light of candles, Ren’s face has no sign of blood for a change. It has a shadowplay, and Dan Heng might be incorrect—but as he touches his lover’s cheeks and brings him nearer, he smells no iron and feels no thick scarlet fluid stain his digits.
There is blood in his mouth, though.
Remnants of it, at least, and Dan Heng fights the need to pull away from the kiss—not that he would go far. The back of his head is against the window, and Ren has cornered him with his frame.
So he makes himself pliant, taking what is given and abiding by new laws of worship.
He knows the taste of blood by now. The church made him know of its consistency, importance, and taste through Christ. Ren makes him savour it as a delicacy beyond awe—no, it’s even more profane; Ren makes him taste it like divine bloodlines running down their throats.
The remnants of it are not enough to sate the consummation they seek in a single kiss. Dan Heng bites and is bitten. He tries to gather all the remnants he can. If Ren can bite his tongue until it stings and drops blood, then so can he. How else would they revere God if not consuming each other?
“Tell me,” pants Dan Heng after they separate, lips tender and salivated, a thin thread of them connecting their mouths. “Tell me what sins you’ve committed since you left me.”
Ren does not answer him right away. He takes his sweet time nipping at the priest’s jawline, hands on his waist and still venturing where the legs part, and Dan Heng… he parts his legs and lets him have his fill.
“They won’t find the bodies this time,” murmurs Ren, inhaling his scent. Dan Heng had just come out of a bath before prayer, hair damp and with a few humid pieces of skin. Does Ren truly like his scent? “They ruin every scene I make. They never think about how much labour it takes to plan them.”
His lover is an artist at heart. Entangled with devilry, transforming that which is God’s most beloved creation into his own affair, claiming as his possession. Even though the murder triggers different springs, Ren sees beauty in the act of power, playing God.
How absurd, a man thinking of himself as the utmost divine.
Dan Heng should not indulge, and yet—
“Truly?” He embraces Ren’s neck and sighs. “They came looking for…”
“I know,” Ren interrupts him, not unkindly. “Saw them questioning you. Didn’t like it, though. He stares at you too much.”
Good. I didn’t like that he stared at me, either. “You ought to be careful, Ren.” But the man grunts and pulls their bodies even closer, as if they could become one, sucking hard at his neck. “You—ah… I’m… I’m glad you’re here…”
He doesn’t care if his lover moves them away from the window. Ren lifts him still in an embrace, and Dan Heng lets him, savouring how the prominent bulge in Ren’s pants brushes against his soaking, aching middle, how his thighs are gripped with painful will, and his neck is viciously devoured. Could Ren be drawing blood off him? Let him have his priest’s blood as wine instead of someone else’s—wouldn’t it be better, holier, even?
There is a strange care when Ren lays him down anywhere before ravishing him. The man who often manhandles him as his personal doll and takes his fill, surprisingly, can lay him down on the benches with open doors and make the priest’s delight a priority rather than closing the entrance. Apparently, being seen is not that much of a concern.
When laying him on the bed, Ren does it so Dan Heng breathes in relief for the comfort of the mattress and whimpers at the weight above him. Be it against the wall, the altar, the confessional or windows, Ren always has him where he wants; under his mercy if not God’s.
“I should get rid of him, too,” comes in a hoarse whisper on his neck, causing Dan Heng to shudder. He tries to taut his legs to soothe, in vain, the throbbing heat below, but he only manages to envelop Ren’s waist and press the bulge against himself. It does not help the shudder. “He bothers you.”
“…you shouldn’t…” From his position, he can see the judgemental cross hanging on the wall, just above his bed and head. He swallows dry, wondering how many mistakes it will take so God will forsake him for good. Indulging his devil of a lover seems dangerous enough. “Everyone comes and asks for my help. It’s my job to help as much as I can.” Even though I lied for you. I want you as the consuming, fiery jealousy of the divine.
“Hm.” Ren gives him a much-wet kiss under his ear. His figure is a painting above Dan Heng—loyal to baroque, dark and light make him something beyond mortal, as if Dan Heng needed more doubt to regard his innamorato as unnatural. Shadows hide half of his face, but the molten blood of his eyes is a shine of their own. Dan Heng even forgets to observe how his body is equally tempting when Ren removes his shirt, unbuttoning the trousers. “I harbour hatred as much as veneration for what you offer them. I feel this hideous need to steal you away, for they don’t deserve you. And I want to disembowel myself as if I were one of them, for I moon over you as a god.”
There is something about being the object of devotion of an infernal. They won’t pray to God, they will pray to you. How can the saint stay humble when they are turned into the most divine by those who reject it?
“And is death the answer you want to deliver them?” Would you deliver it to me when it is your affection turned sin?
“Not as a gift, I do.”
Trust Ren to play God and sound more almighty than the holy words.
Dan Heng holds onto the bedpost, attempting—and failing—to control his breathing as Ren descends his kisses downwards; Ren bites his collarbones as if he wishes to break them between his teeth, rip his flesh, tear the tiny cross of the rosary as glass, and the skin is red and tender when the culprit moves to lift his nightgown. The priest doesn’t fight the quiver or the whimper at being exposed to the cold air and heated gaze of another, solely shutting his eyes and letting his body be worshipped (or marred. Is there something remaining holy in him by now? He would rather not know).
Ren hums as he trails his lower and lower stomach until he nips just above his most fragile region, just below his belly, which continues to burn in excitement and dread.
He can never indeed hide away from fear when it comes to Ren.
It takes little to nothing for Dan Heng to let the pool of heat become true rapture, with Ren syphoning and pecking at his bud while stretching him whole with long fingers, squelching sounds mingling with the priest’s shattered whines. His pleasure drenches the sheet, the digits inside of him, and the mouth gnawing him entirely.
You’re beautiful, Dan Heng would say if he could overcome the scarlet shame because Ren kneels between his legs and frees his cock. The priest is too embarrassed to acknowledge that his cunt throbs at the mere sight of it.
Before Ren properly possesses him, Dan Heng prays—not for forgiveness when he regrets nothing and is aware he will desire it, he will do it again, but for the chance of having Ren for himself alone for quite longer, preferably longer than beating hearts and breathing lungs. He inhales deeply and tugs at his rosary, keeping it close to his frenzied chest.
Ask, pray for it, and you shall receive it, or so the scriptures say.
He has already begged until his knees hurt and his stomach distraught—what else should he do to be listened to?
As with all their other encounters, the pain ignites his innards all the way to the base. He is breached and ruined each time.
Both he and Ren groan, heave and hiss. Their mouths tempt to enlace, their noses graze on each other and their cheeks; Ren encloses his hand above Dan Heng’s on the bedpost, with no way to circumvent or abandon it. It twinges—Ren has tough fingers with an even tougher hold.
“Take a deep breath, Father.”
Everything in him is tough. Dan Heng abides and chokes when Ren moves, taking him raw and enervating, pulling until only the head stretches his rim, pushing as if aiming to fracture him. It stings. It feels more than he can bear, filling him beyond what his breathing seems to bear. Every inhale is cut short with a thrust and a whimper he pathetically lets out.
The bedpost hits against the wall in rhythmic thudding; it crackles as their bodies move back and forth.
He doesn’t know if the ache of gripping the rosary is worse than that of being torn open, but he gives up on the beaded necklace to tighten his hold on the sheets rather than the cross. If God didn’t want him to be degraded, He would have done something by now, right?
Or maybe He listened to me and is giving me exactly what I asked, begged for,
If Dan Heng is doomed for being tainted, he might as well do it with the man that turned him into the filthiest whore for devilry.
With a fiendish bite on his neck, Dan Heng curls his fingers and wails in despair for the warmth and heaviness huddling in his belly, worsened every time Ren forces himself in—and with a harsher thrust, the bedpost hits the wall with a louder crack, and Dan Heng raptures with an aching sex.
“Ah—!”
Ren pulls him up to his lap and thrusts impossibly deeper than before.
“Maybe I should steal you from them, too,” says Ren, embracing his waist and piercing his fingers into the skin of his hips. Dan Heng can feel his hair damp with sweat, and Ren is no better, but all he can do is hug his shoulders and bury his face into the man’s humid neck. “Keep you away from their undeserving sights because hewing them off is not enough. To which circle of Hell would you send me, Father?”
None is worse or deeper than the circle for those who betrayed God, is what he should reply. Still, the frenzy impedes him from thinking straight—or thinking of anything at all that is not Ren agonisingly hard inside of him, twitching and enveloped by his tensed, wet muscles.
So he groans in response, vision fogged from unshed tears gathered in his eyes; his only true answer comes in the form of clutching around the cock speared in him.
Ren seizes him with more zeal, to the point of inflaming flesh, rasping breathing against his throat. His thrusts are steadier, but not less callous, stout and thumping.
Dan Heng accepts what he is given; he lets Ren have him the way he wishes—use him as he sees fit, possess him as something from the Testaments instead of solely sinning for the sake of wretchedness. His body doesn’t belong to him, but a man who esteems and chastens him to his pleasure.
What is God’s cherishment if not pain? Then, the Devil sees the solace.
Ren comes with a heavier pounding, snatching another orgasm from Dan Heng, who weakly gasps on his shoulder, throbbing and flooding once more.
There is not only a hardened cock to fill him now when he tautens around it; he feels heaving, filled to the brim, unbearably imbued and lascivious.
He indeed turned me into a whore, he thinks, heart beating nonstop in his ribs. Not only that, but a loyal harlot, to make it worse.
“Would you let me steal you, Father?” Ren whispers, hot breath on sweaty skin, palms slowly coming to caress his sides. “Let me plunder you from the lesser lambs, thieve you from Him for His mistreatment towards such a devoted one. They don’t deserve you.”
And do you ? Dan Heng fears the answer is yes.
“I’d adore as you deserve. Offer you fresh gifts, treat you as He never did and never will.”
You should do it regardless of what I want. It is fitting that Ren takes, and takes, and never stops taking. “Is that what you want?”
“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours,” Ren quotes as if the scriptures’ words were his own. Too fitting, too sinful, profane in nature. “Is that true, Father?”
“…then you should do it,” Dan Heng softly utters, nipping at Ren’s nape and acquiring the courage to nip at his earlobe. That’s why he enjoys it so much. “Let me beg for your mercy, instead.”
One kiss becomes countless, raptures are sought, and the candlelight becomes the comforting darkness for mutual idolatry.
(Neither care for the fallen cross.)