Saint's Guide to Sacrilege - noxetic - 原神 (2024)

Despite the complaints of the average Fontainian incel, it wasn’t actually all that difficult to get f*cked by your deity of choice. On the contrary, Wriothesley had found it to be a most simple task. And would say as much to anyone who asked.

(A heavy growl split through the chapel, Wriothesley spread his legs further apart.)

As Teyvat’s leading expert in the esteemed field of Deity f*cking, having been f*cked by the gods in both senses of the term, he had all the necessary credentials to back this claim. Some would even call him overqualified with how truly and completely f*cked he was. Wriothesley would have to agree.

Overqualified or no, it was his divine calling to bring the light of Deity f*cking to the poor masses of poor sinners seeking their own penitence in the form of begging a suspiciously phallic-shaped relic for forgiveness. To get f*cked by god required a bit more than that. Suspiciously phallic-shaped relics could only get you so far, and in all of Wriothesley’s studies, he’d found them to be just one step of three.

(Slender fingers circled his wrists, cuffing them together to push both against the cold marble he was sprawled upon.)

Not to mention, they were perhaps the most variable aspect in the three-part plan, as the relic didn’t have to be suspiciously phallic-shaped. It could be any number of suspicious shapes, really, Wriothesley wouldn’t judge.

(“Monseigneur,” a breathless murmur, “you are aware I can still-“ a groan, “I am still capable of sensing your thoughts… Do you sincerely intend to have a… ‘flashback’ at this very moment?”

“If that’s what you want to call it,” a yawn, “sure.”

“Why would-“

Wriothesley arched his shoulders against the marble, cutting off the question by way of further giving himself to the co*ck f*cking into him.

“I’m just not feeling very hallowed right now,” Wriothesley managed a sigh of sarcasm between the grunts spilling from his throat. “You’re not f*cking me all that hard, so I figure I must’ve done something wrong. Should- Shall I repent? Pray? To reflect is to-“ a sharp inhale, his words immediately forced away by a series of quick thrusts. A command to silence.

“Don’t. You are only mortal, you know I cannot risk-“)

The particulars didn’t matter.

What did matter was the first step on the gilded path to god-f*cking, pivotal as it was.

Pivotal, and –Wriothesley would insist– simple.

STEP 1: Evade Arrest

Crashing through undergrowth and swamp water, Wriothesley spit about a million willow leaves out of his mouth while his feet pounded forward, finding the few stable spots in the marshes that there were.

The wetlands of Erinnyes would swallow a lesser man, one misstep and they’d sink into the bogs and die trapped beneath the mud and peat and decay while the willows waved down at their helpless forms, taunting them with a lifeline they could not possibly reach. But Wriothesley had followed this path a thousand times, his strides were fast and sure, the ground bent to his whims and the marsh grass swept his tracks away.

Somewhere far behind him, trapped in the murk, lost in the willows, he could make out the occasional calls of the Gardes. All shouts of ‘Something over there!’ and ‘That way!’ and ‘Watch your step!’ tainted with exhaustion, frustration, and nerves. This wasn’t the first time they’d lost him in the bog.

Their shouts were growing quieter by the second.

Wriothesley tore forward, skidding over a particularly deep stream and taking a sharp turn to follow it into a familiar thicket. Gnarled woods and tea-coloured leaves bore down on him, clustered together like an open maw waiting to swallow whichever idiot was dumb enough to run through it.

Wonderful coincidence, then, that Wriothesley had never been the type to boast about having any significant intelligence.

Aside from that whole ‘murdered some grown adults with his bare hands as a kid’ thing, he’d considered himself pretty average overall for well over twenty years now. If the average person was an idiot on occasion, it was only fair he took on a little idiocy himself here and there, wasn’t it?

Such logic carrying him forward, he burst from the thicket and into a small clearing, grasses up to his waist, boots squelching against mud, and a small chapel a thousand years abandoned just waiting to welcome him home.

STEP 2: Meet God

The chapel was as f*cked as it always was. Not in the fun way, but in the way any forgotten building got f*cked after being tossed to the winds of time deep in the fens where no one but a desperate man would be able to find it.

Weeds and vines twisted along what of the walls remained; sunlight filtered through unpatched holes in the roof; and the magnificent stained glass windows depicting some holy figure or another in various ceruleans had long since shattered, leaving chipped fangs of blue sand littered across the floor nearest the walls, glinting up in a dazzling display whenever light hit the corners.

Wriothesley had ignored the broken glass entirely when he dropped in through a hole in the wall, his boots thick enough to prevent any bites from that direction. And he was continuing to ignore it, as he had countless times before. There was something far more intriguing to him in that strange little chapel, no matter how many times he’d seen it.

The altar.

A tired whistle and Wriothesley smacked his hand against the dusty, old thing. Except it wasn’t dusty anymore, he’d just finished wiping it down and was shoving a tattered cloth back into an even more tattered bag, threads frayed at every seam. Both scrounged from the Court of Fontaine long ago, he didn’t care enough to seek a replacement. He was a proud scholar of the If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It school of thought.

And he was also broke.

In the guy who lacks money sense.

Came with the job, really. The problem with being on the run all the time was that prospective employers were quite reluctant to get him on their payroll. Explaining to them that, actually, the people he killed had it coming, never seemed to help his case much either. Who would’ve thought.

They did have it coming, though.

But he didn’t come to that old shrine to think about the blood on his hands, he came to do precisely the opposite. Wash it all away. And hide. But mostly to wash his sins away.

There was something therapeutic in the air. Mould. A damp, therapeutic mould. The wooden floors had long since rotted away, leaving a perpetual marsh between the pews –puddles and mud that had moved in ages prior, having grown tired of their perpetual marsh home outside. No one dared interrupt the marshes but him, his footsteps the sole sign of life, the sole disruptor on those sacred grounds.

Overall, it was the type of building that could make a man understand the meaning of ‘dilapidated.’ But Wriothesley found it quite beautiful. Damaged beyond repair, sure. Still capable of beauty. Still worthy of admiration. There was a lot to admire past the wreckage.

The way the blues of the shattered windows still danced across the floor, mixing with dappled light from the golden beams of dusk above. The way nature had so reclaimed the place, the way it seemed to hold the altar in as much veneration as whoever had built it, leaving it mostly untouched while the wilds bloomed around it.

In all his visits, he hadn’t figured out what kind of wood it was made from, that altar.

Far as he was aware, it existed solely in that one abandoned chapel. It was white and smooth and perpetually cool to the touch, no matter the weather beyond. He’d almost think it was some kind of marble if not for the swirling grains so distinctive of wood, slithering across its surface in hypnotic waves. It stood front and centre, long and sturdy, lined with candle stumps, marking the base of a desecrated statue at the head of the chapel.

Wriothesley’s eyes drifted up the statue. Broken still, cracked marble, crumbled stone.

Its skeletal remains spanned the distance between the floor and the peak of the roof, but the only shapes he could make out were the sharp talons gripping the shaft of the column. He often tried to imagine how it must’ve once looked, given how eminent it was even in its disrepair. A grand piece of work, undeniably.

To sit in the pews while the reverend stood between the stone and the altar, preaching to any who’d lend an ear… Or maybe they were more into sacrifices, the reverend standing in whites, sleeves steeped in rubies.

Must’ve been quite a sight, regardless.

Absently, Wriothesley drifted a finger across one of the talons, feeling the tension in his muscles finally wane, the adrenaline of his swamp dash falling away. Relaxing. Except a certain sensation was crawling up his neck like a trickle of water reversed, like a gaze from the depths that he’d yet to notice.

He turned his head back towards the nave, towards the antechamber.

Tucked near the now immovable doors, there stood a basin –a lavabo or piscina or something like that. No one ever taught him the particulars of chapel architecture, and he didn’t care all that much about the semantics of it. Semantics were the type of thing that had gotten him labelled a murderer as opposed to a victim. Why couldn’t he be both?

Didn’t matter. For sh*ts, he’d just think himself a saint and the basin a birdbath.

It sort of looked like one, split stone with an elegant dish, sporting appended talons of marble gripping either side and matching those of the statue.

Leviathan Judicator, was what the carvings along the rim of both statue and birdbath said. It’d taken him a few visits to sort that out, the letters faded and all, but those days he was certain.

Temple of the Judicator, Leviathan.

Whatever the hell that was. Or… whomever? It wasn’t a name anyone knew, and Wriothesley wasn’t entirely sure how the god thing worked. He’d given up on the idea of religion pretty early in life, the gods seemed to favour the wicked too much to save the rest if the state of his skin was to be believed.

Shaking his head, he made his way over to the birdbath, running his fingers over each pew when he passed. Only five of them in that small place. Perhaps if it was larger, perhaps if it wasn’t buried in the thickest shadows of Erinnyes, perhaps people would visit the chapel more often.

Perhaps they’d build more pews.

But a large part of Wriothesley would prefer anything but that. Five pews was enough. More than that even. He only needed one.

That was his chapel, his safe spot, the one haven he could always escape to when the Gardes got too close. They never found him there. They never found the clearing. And sometimes while he waited the nights away, he could convince himself that pieces of the old Leviathan coot’s power had stuck around, warding off those who might seek to inflict harm on his most hallowed grounds.

In that chapel, Wriothesley could convince himself that for once in his life, something out there was trying to protect him.

And so by virtue of being the chapel’s sole occupant at any given time, and also by virtue of wanting to remain as much, and additionally by virtue of wanting to repay this theoretically caring higher power, Wriothesley had been designated the sole Priest of Leviathan. The Cardinal, the Bishop, the Pope. And he’d earned those titles fair and square. Unanimous vote between he, himself, and him.

He carefully dipped his hand into the basin. There was always some water in it, abandoned there by the rains so common to the region. Ablutions, he would call them when he really got into his priestly act. It was a fun act. Calming. A ritual, his only ritual, cleansing himself of everything he’d done wrong, and everything he’d done right.

Tension found his muscles again, though no adrenaline accompanied it. Through clamped teeth, he brought the water to his face, hoping the cold might fix him.

For an odd moment, a pressure swirled through his mind, finding the flow of his thoughts, soothing the course of the rapids.

Then nothing.

The pressure dissipated, the tension left with it.

Splsh.

The faintest of sounds somewhere behind him, back towards the altar, brought Wriothesley to an instant pause, his hands on his cheeks, water plipping softly off his chin to return to the pool below. Moving only his head, he scanned the scene in his periphery.

Nothing.

Nothing there that evening except some motes of dust and a few more thematically sacred beams of light filtering through the ceiling, centring on the altar as if the chapel was a theatre and that odd marble woodwork held the leading role.

Plip.

Plip.

Quiet.

Wriothesley shrugged, returning to his task of washing his face.

Sometimes a squirrel would stop in, skittering past the broken stones and splashing through the muck. Wasn’t anything to panic over. Or maybe a small piece of the ceiling had rotted enough to fall, a few more slivers of wood joining all the peat and glass. Old abandoned infrastructure wasn’t exactly known for being quiet all the time, grumpy as it was while falling apart.

He wondered what the builders of that chapel would think if they returned one day to find it in its current state of part-waterlogged, entirely nature-consumed decay. Would they seek to repair it? Would they leave it to rot?

What would their Judicator have desired?

Probably something like a nail file, those claws in the stonework really were something. Wriothesley paused again, this time at his own bidding as his eyes drifted over to the talons gripping the basin. One of the nails on the leftmost hand (or paw?) had chipped, the broken piece of it sitting at the bottom of the birdbath.

Wriothesley wasn’t sure what prompted him to do it, but he reached a hand down, snatched the piece up, and made an attempt to fit it back in place. Maybe if he shoved hard enough it’d lodge itself there.

It worked. The piece slotted in, precariously suspended, sure, but back where it belonged. Long live the power of brute force.

“There you go, great Judicator,” he said, placing his hand on the stone knuckles. “Good as new.”

No response, naturally. But that never stopped Wriothesley before. He didn’t get to talk all that much those days, he travelled alone for the most part. On the run and all. Wasn’t a huge loss, he preferred it that way. He had to prefer it that way. Safer for others.

But what good was a priest who didn’t commune with their god?

And what good was a man who kept everything inside?

“I think this is the part where you grant me a boon,” he continued, mild and half-hearted, his fingers tracing the cracks in the stone. “For my dedication. That’s how it works, right? Or is there a scripture I need to recite first?”

His finger must’ve caught on a ledge. The stone chipped in response and the piece he’d so Expertly restored returned to the basin with hardly a splash.

“Damn it,” he muttered, producing a forlorn stare and a hum of disappointment. “Sorry, Judicator- or forgive me, Father?” He paused. Then laughed, what the hell was he doing? This silly piety. “Didn’t bring any adhesives to keep it in place. No boons for me, feel free to strike me down instead.”

And then he turned, heading towards the nearest pew, farthest from the altar. Out of habit, he dropped to one knee –a brief, awkward genuflection that he’d seen enacted long ago on the few films he’d been allowed to watch as a child. Just felt like the right thing to do, and he didn’t care to think anything else of it, landing his ass on the bench and digging through his pack in short order.

“Didn’t bring much for food- offerings, I should say, either.” He shook his head. “Looking to be a long night for us both. Do Judicators like salted offal? No worries if not, I’ll eat it for you, you can just absorb the essence of it through my… faith.”

Again, Wriothesley found himself pausing. Considering his actions.

Was it weird to talk to yourself in an abandoned chapel every time you visited in your perpetual state of Evasive Action? Maybe! But Wriothesley didn’t care much to debate the weirdness of his evasive actions. He had more important things to do. Like trying to swallow down stale rations without vomiting them back up. He’d been trained to swallow disgusting things, and yet the older he grew, the less his body found itself willing.

There was no threat of having it shoved back in anymore, so why would it care to keep it down?

“Next time,” he told the air, pushing away his thoughts and gag reflex with the sound of his voice, refusing his memories any foothold, “I’ll try to bring us something less awf- Less offal.”

Silence. Tough crowd.

He tossed his head back over the pew, eyeing the birdbath upside down, listening to a breeze when it hummed against the planks above. Listening to all the sounds of life beyond the walls, owls beginning to stir, doves beginning to quiet. He’d need to set up his bed before the sun dipped too low. Mostly because he was too lazy to build a fire right then. Or use his Vision as a flashlight.

With a sigh, he swallowed the last of his meal, flicked the remains of his fingers, and lifted his head back up.

Then he froze.

His fingers did too, immediately casing themselves in a defensive gauntlet of ice, glistening and deadly.

“Who the hell are you!” he snapped, pressing the weight of his entire body against the wooden backrest.

There on the altar, there in the spotlight formed of stained glass and dusk, a man. Sat there.

There was a man.

Sitting on the altar.

A… nude man.

Staring at him.

On the altar.

Just sitting there.

Staring.

In the nude.

Wriothesley would like to state, as a point of record, that his eyes did not wander.

His eyes did not travel down the intruder’s body, they did not take note of his lean form, nor its almost unnatural smoothness, nor its pale hue that seemed to perfectly match the wood it sat upon. His eyes did not travel down the distinctive lines of the man’s hips, they did not notice the softness around them, they did not notice the limp appendage resting between the legs dangling off the edge. He did not notice the fact it was quite a large limp appendage, either. Large? Yeah, certainly.

And as a further point of record, his breath did not hitch in his throat –in any way, shape, or form– when his eyes slipped back up to those staring at him. When they took in a face that could’ve been carved from marble, a face that most certainly had to have been cast in stone somewhere in the world, for the beauty it held was something that Wriothesley couldn’t imagine any sculptor passing up on.

Wriothesley had never picked up a chisel in his life, he had never once considered himself an artist nor a romanticist to any degree, and still that face brought a fire to his fingers and a flicker to his heart.

So having clearly noticed nothing, as the record so clearly stated, he cleared his throat and exclaimed (clearly), “Archons! Put on some clo-“

“Do not invoke their titles here.”

“-thes!” Wriothesley stumbled. The stranger’s voice was unexpectedly soft, a deep sort of soft, a blanket underwater. A blanket over the spike of panic suddenly pounding through his body.

Brows lowering, eyes never leaving the intruder, Wriothesley whispered in disbelief, “Invoke? I’ll ‘invoke’ who I want to invoke. This is- private property. My property, to be precise. You’re not supposed to be here.”

A pause, his eyes did not drift. For the record.

“By the Seven, clothes!”

“You invoke them again.”

But Wriothesley was ignoring the strange man and his strange invocation complex, instead tearing through his pack at record speeds, finding his coat while a heat crawled up his neck. Why the hell was that happening? It had to be the irritation, surely, the panic at his sanctuary being disrupted so suddenly. By a freak nudist, no less!

Pulling the damn thing free of its roll, Wriothesley slid from his seat and roughly held out his coat, taking a few steps towards the altar and then opting to simply stand there.

Four pews away.

He was expecting the freak nudist to step up to meet him, take the coat and skitter back to whatever hole he’d crawled out of. But the man did not move. Wriothesley squinted over the coat between them. The man squinted back.

Wriothesley shook the coat. Mildly frustrated, “Come on, take it.”

The man tilted his head. “… Why?”

‘Why? The hell do you mean, why? You’re butt ass naked!’ is what Wriothesley almost said, but he’d determined that his visitor had to be in some altered state of mind –nude and invokey, you know– and yelling at him further wouldn’t make things any easier.

So, “You’ll get sick. Catch a cold,” he said all casually, shifting his gaze back to the coat.

“Catch… a cold…” the stranger repeated from the altar, almost amused.

Wriothesley’s lip twitched. “Yeah, a cold. Good, your ears work. Now please just…”

“I do not quite understand,” the man sighed. “Why do your instincts clash so?”

Wriothesley’s lip twitched again, his features settling into an expression only describable as ‘what the f*ck are you saying’ when he lowered the coat enough to peer at the freak once again.

“What?”

“Your instincts,” the freak in question repeated, nodding like his meaning should be apparent. “Your fist, it still brims with ice, you are prepared to fight in a breath or an instant. And yet your actions are… you have offered me your cloak. You have hidden your face, and offered me your cloak. I do not understand.”

Wriothesley shot a glance at the frost circling his hand before taking a breath, narrowing his eyes, and stalking forward.

Three pews away.

“Not that hard to understand,” he stated, dry. “You aren’t wearing anything, in case you haven’t noticed-”

Two pews away.

“-Can’t say I know how things work wherever you’re from, but here in Fontaine, streaking is frowned upon-”

One pew away.

“-Not just that, if I were anybody else-”

Wriothesley came to a halt before the altar, a resounding thud where his boots slammed onto the surrounding dais. The stranger did not react, remaining still even when the coat spun through the air, billowing up and around before landing over pale shoulders.

“-I would’ve had you arrested,” Wriothesley muttered, tasting a hint of an authority he did not have.

Then, with hands on either side of the collar, he yanked the coat together, fastening it dutifully in place. Before his eyes could linger.

Which they didn’t.

For a torturously long second, the stranger simply stared at him, lingering in his own way, pale eyes tracing over Wriothesley’s face in some form of consideration before his head turned down towards his chest. Towards Wriothesley’s hands, right as they released their hold and pulled away.

Examining the fabric now covering his body, he spoke softly, “You possess very few items, this cloak is perhaps the most valuable of what you call your own. I can feel the quality within it, and you have never parted with it before. Why have you-“

“Never parted with…?” Wriothesley felt the words escape him, instantly crossing his arms. “How the hell would you know that?” He took a step back, down from the dais, tone sharp, “Have you been watching me? What kind of-”

“Yes,” the response was quick. Unconcerned. “For as many years as you have visited. You come here often enough that it would be more challenging of a task not to.”

Wriothesley’s entire body seized, weight falling tense over his back foot. The alarms in his head were ringing for war, and the ice in his hands had strengthened before he could think to stop it.

“No,” he said, “that’s not possible. You’re saying you’ve been here this whole time? Haha, no, I would have noticed. You couldn't have-“

“Eight days ago.” The stranger’s eyes tore into him, but everything else in his body read as passive. “You miscalculated a step when you dropped through the wall. You stumbled, but did not fall. You cursed, chuckled, then apologised for your crudity. In a manner most sarcastic.”

Wriothesley could not look away. His mouth opened, the incident flying back into his mind like an arrow from the darkness, but no words could form on his tongue.

“Twenty-three days ago,” the stranger continued, his voice brimming with something Wriothesley couldn’t describe. Something light, something… gentle? “You collapsed over the altar, lying your head upon it and counting your breaths. You asked if forgiveness was attainable, and if it even mattered.”

Wriothesley’s eyes narrowed, his jaw clenched. Seemed his private conversations with a dead god weren’t as private as he’d been led to believe. But still, he made no other moves, only levelling his gaze with this man who was apparently the voyeuristic type of freak nudist. How fun.

The voyeur’s brows twitched there, the first real movement of his features. “I fear you have… misunderstood my intentions. I have not been observing you to satiate any sort of… ‘voyeuristic’ desires, and further, I-”

Now Wriothesley moved, a quick step back into a position that would allow him to throw a punch even faster than the last position would have. He was absolutely certain he hadn’t said any of that–

“Be not- Do not be afraid,” the freak quickly appeased, shrinking into the coat as if to make himself small. “I apologise, it has been… a long time since I have been able to communicate with one of your kind. I have seen to it that no harm may fall upon you here, I would not seek to break my own vow. You are-“

“‘Seen to it that no harm falls upon me,’ the f*ck are you talking about? What vow?” Wriothesley wanted his coat back. “And my kind? Human? You’re a h-”

To his mild alarm, the man on the altar had raised his hands, undoing the clasps while he spoke, “Yes… humans. And it is a simple vow, I am to protect the land this temple rests upon, along with those who seek shelter within its walls. You especially, I find you… You have cared for this place as if it were your own-”

“It is my own,” Wriothesley snapped before he could stop himself, blood running hot with alarm.

This was his chapel, this was his safe spot, his haven. It was supposed to be his. Now he’d lost even that. His fault for convincing himself he could have something like that in the first place.

“Yes, it is indeed.”

“No, it isn-“ Wriothesley’s blood met ice. “What?”

“This temple, this chapel, belongs to you as much as it belongs to me.”

“Well- no, it-” Wriothesley heard the crunch of glass beneath his feet, an unintentional step back. A reminder that he lived in reality, and this man had to be nothing more than an insane stalker with a good read on facial expressions. Or something. Wriothesley steeled himself and shook his head, glowering in the calmest way possible, “Where have you been hiding in here, huh? Is there a tunnel system I’m unaware of?”

And just like that, the man on the altar vanished, taking Wriothesley’s coat with.

Fading light still shone upon the dais, and there was nothing beneath its gaze but white marblewood and untouched candles.

He had not moved, Wriothesley was certain. His eyes had not once left his face. The man was simply there. And then he wasn’t.

Wriothesley swallowed, holding his breath, straining his ears. Owls outside, leaves fluttering. Silence.

“Who are you?” Wriothesley growled, frost spiralling fully up his arms.

Splsh.

He whirled around in an instant, just before the man appeared exactly where he had turned to face, standing in the aisles, nothing but a single pew between them.

One pew away. Again.

“My gods-“ Wriothesley hissed, and this time when he stepped backwards, his heel hit the dais. His back hit the altar.

“God,” the man corrected, both hands clasped around the coat, which he now held in front of him. A much more delicate hold than Wriothesley had presented, but otherwise, they’d found their positions reversed.

“What?” Wriothesley was getting real tired of asking that.

“God,” the man responded without hesitation.

“… Gods?”

“God.”

“God …?”

“Precisely.” The man nodded, relieved. “Yours.”

Wriothesley’s eyes blew wide. “My…?”

“God.”

“My… god?”

“Yes, your god, Monseigneur.” He paused there, an expectant look on his face when he took a cautious step forward, his body painted with scattered beams of blue in every shade –what little light remained of the sun passing through what little glass remained of the windows. “Your… Sovereign, if we were to be precise. But I understand your feelings on semantics are less than pleasant.”

Wriothesley brusquely shook his head, utterly drowning in disbelief, pressing his tailbone against the ledge of the altar and debating how fast he could make it to the exit. What the hell was happening? What, or who, the hell was this man?

“Sovereign, I have just said,” the man answered his racing thoughts, and Wriothesley was struggling to pass it off as anything else anymore. “But in the human tongue, ‘god’ is just as efficient of a term to describe what I am. I am certainly a being of great power, the oldest kind. Though… my power is no longer what it once was. I have been stripped of it.”

A pause. Wriothesley only stared, mind tossed away in the rapids once more.

It wouldn’t be the first time that his state of existence had crashed into him with the force of a Palais’ worth of bricks, but it was definitely the first time Wriothesley wondered if he’d accidentally inhaled some hallucinogenic plant on the run through the marsh.

Because, as the bricks of realisation decreed, it was either hallucinogenic plants… or the man standing before him, clutching his coat in the nude, truly wasn’t a man. That the man before him was the Judicator.

Leviathan Judicator.

The dead god.

The forgotten god.

The dead, forgotten god.

And here Wriothesley was sitting on his altar, eyeing him like he’d crawled out of a pit, and playing house as his priest.

He was starting to regret extending that ‘strike me down’ invitation to the Judicator. Also, that offal joke. He was regretting that too.

The maybe-god huffed.

Did Wriothesley need to bow? Get on his knees? Beg for forgiveness? What was the procedure here?

“Please,” Maybe-God exhaled, taking a cautious step forward, still holding the coat. “You need not bow, you- Please refrain from anything of that nature. I simply-“

“Can you maybe… not do that?” Wriothesley asked against his better judgement, gesturing vaguely at his head with one stiff hand. If he was going to die in that chapel, he’d at least like some internal privacy.

Maybe-God paused, lowering the coat. “If I could simply stop reading your mind, I would, I assure you. And… I have told you, you are in no danger. I do not mean to intrude, but your connection to me is… quite… strong.”

“Connection?” Wriothesley glanced at the birdbath past his shoulders. “Don’t tell me…”

“It is as you expect,” Maybe-God sounded weirdly apologetic for an all-powerful being. His eyes even flickered away. “Your actions within this chapel, as inconsequential as they were intended to be, have connected us. It is your belief which… the extent of my power runs in direct correlation to the worship I receive. And you are…”

“The only guy who knows about this place,” Wriothesley finished under his breath, locking eyes with the broken talon.

Maybe-God nodded slowly in the corner of his eye. He spoke even more slowly, careful, “There is also a matter of… until this moment, your worship, your belief in me, has been rather…”

He paused as if unwilling to offend. Were gods always this socially inept?

Wriothesley supposed it didn’t matter, and with the way this one seemed to deflate as the thought crossed his mind, he already had his answer.

Perhaps socially inept wasn’t the right phrase. Considerate. Considerate sounded nicer.

The god de-deflated.

“Rather… insincere?” Wriothesley offered, finally bringing his eyes back to his coat. And the man –Sovereign, god, whatever– holding it.

“I would have perhaps settled for cavalier, but… yes, in essence. If I were at the extent of my power, I would be able to pick and choose when your thoughts cross my mind, but as it stands…”

“You’re just hearing everything unsolicited, huh.”

A slow nod. “… I apologise.”

A raised brow. “You already apologised.”

“I do not think I will be able to apologise enough. I understand that you feel as though your privacy is sacred, or necessary, and I have… stripped you of that privacy.”

Wriothesley shrugged, pushing down the discomfort more on instinct than anything. He wouldn’t have survived this far if he couldn’t adapt to whatever new pieces of hell were thrown at him. “Nothing to do about it now.”

A beat.

“Besides, can’t call myself a priest if I'm not operating under the assumption of constant divine surveillance. Brought this on myself, really. My punishment for forging that Pope license, wouldn't you think?”

“You have a…?” Maybe-God’s brows knit together. Only then did Wriothesley realise they were no longer a pew away. “You are joking, correct?”

Wriothesley shifted on the altar, leaning back and trying not to let his gaze fall lower than Maybe-God’s eyes. To keep it safely away from the lines of his lips, or the leanness of his neck, or the exposed skin of his shoulders and collar, no longer hidden by a coat. That unnatural beauty was terribly apparent there, standing in the dusk beams just below the dais, staring up at Wriothesley on the altar. At this angle, it was almost like…

Maybe-God shifted too, eyes widening and fingers tightening around the fabric still uselessly in hand.

Wriothesley quickly put on some roguish airs, forcing his mind back on track, “To answer your question, yes, a joke. With all your telepathic abilities, sarcasm still trips you up, great Judicator?”

The great Judicator hesitated, pulling the coat closer to his chest. “It exists in your mind as both a fabrication and a truth, and taints your words in much the same way…” He shook his head, a small movement, scattering some dust particles in the air. “That matters little. I would prefer that you… refrain from calling me such names. Maybe-God. Judicator. I cannot say I am particularly fond to hear you use either. They are quite… distancing.”

“Distancing…?” Wriothesley muttered to himself, adjusting his hands when his thumb brushed wax. “What would you have me call you then?”

“I… suppose I do not know.”

“What name did you have before the Judicator title came about? Leviathan? Or…”

Deus ??? faltered. His eyes flicked down. Then over. Then back to Wriothesley.

“I am… I realise now I do not know the answer,” he spoke, ever quieter, light fading across his features. “The people who once cared for this chapel did not ever ask, and perhaps over time, I have forgotten. It would not be pronounceable in a tongue you could understand, in any case.”

The sadness marking his tone then was deep and encompassing, an impermeable trench with no bottom in sight. Dark and murky, just how much had he lost beneath the waves? How much had fallen with the temple? How much had fallen prior? Wriothesley knew next to nothing about this god he had inadvertently worshipped, and still, the loss was so palpable in his eyes that it trickled into his own chest, into the depths of his own losses.

Maybe he didn’t have to know all the details. He didn’t have to see the murk to throw a buoy into it.

“Then how about,” Wriothesley offered, clearing his throat as if such a human action might pull a god from the depths of despair, “we choose something new for now. I’m good at picking names. Particularly skilled at it. You think people are born with names as nice as this one? They aren’t.”

Deus ???’s eyes flashed then, a glint in the water, starlight violets rising to meet Wriothesley’s blues. “What would you propose? As my… sole priest, I would entrust you above all with the task of designating a new title.”

Wriothesley thought back, prior to his mad dash from society a few hours ago.

He’d been at the Fountain of Lucine when the Gardes started getting antsy. Though, he’d gotten some eavesdropping in before they’d chased him off. He always got some eavesdropping in, had to keep his ear to the ground or else meet death faster than he’d like to.

There’d been a couple rambling about some character in a play, something about champagne and love letters. Wriothesley didn’t know or care, he wasn’t an operagoer. Certainly not because he was a wanted criminal and Opera Epiclese was Garde HQ Number 2 or anything like that. No, he just preferred his entertainment come in the form of all that adrenaline he got to swallow mid-sprint.

But he so distinctly recalled the sparks in that couple’s voice as they chatted about that character there. And with how much adoration had bubbled within the way the name was spoken, then maybe…

“Neuvillette?”

Maybe-Neuvillette tilted his head just the slightest, rolling the name around. Were his ears getting… pink?

Then, “Yes. That- that will do.”

Before Wriothesley could make any further comments, Neuvillette turned his attention to the altar, taking a careful step up the dais and circling around the back.

“You should know there is a reason I have decided to show myself to you on this particular evening, after so long,” he said, respectfully keeping much of his body blocked by the coat in his hands. “Though you… don’t appear terribly curious as to my intentions in that regard.”

Wriothesley turned his head, bringing his legs up onto the altar to pivot his body, to track his visitor.

“Huh,” he replied, terribly deadpan, “sorry about that, got stuck on the whole ‘I have been watching you forever, I can read your thoughts, also I am god,’ part. Sorta figured everything else fell somewhere within those lines, and answers would come as needed. Still not entirely convinced I’m not high off my ass.”

Neuvillette eyed him, shoulders dropping while he positioned between the altar and that big old statue, shadows trying and failing to swallow his form.

“Of course…”

A beat.

“I have been wanting to repay you in some way,” Neuvillette started, rehearsed. “It is only at your bidding that I have had any power restored, and I should-”

Wriothesley waved a hand, cutting in with some regret, “I don’t think I should be receiving any ‘repayment’ here. Even if we set aside the fact all my priestliness was a mockery at best, you said it’s your doing that I’ve, uh, not died here. That would put me in your debt, more than anything... You do know I’m a wanted criminal, right? You’ve done more for me than the entirety of Fontaine would even think to. If you threw me at any other chapel, I’d be labelled a sinner and a heretic and clapped in irons.”

Neuvillette only stared at him, stepping up to the altar and shifting his grip on the coat. Then he… offered out a hand.

Wriothesley leered at it, suspended in front of him over the marblewood. Slender fingers, pale. He tilted his head almost subconsciously. His eyes drifted from the fingers to the face. Neuvillette continued to stare. Expectant.

Wriothesley stared back. Cautious.

“This is not any other chapel.” Neuvillette exhaled, pulling his hand back. “I need the altar, if you would please remove your person from it…”

And suddenly Wriothesley was grabbing his hand, an impulse, refusing to let it escape. Allowing it to pull him off the stoney wood and next to a man who was sporting less clothes and more compassion than he should. His feet found the ground at Neuvillette’s side and–

Wriothesley’s eyes wandered.

Divinity didn’t look so bad. Divinity was just as sculpted on second inspection as the first, soft muscles, delicate lines, lithe.

Neuvillette swiftly turned, facing the altar directly while Wriothesley quickly and poorly tore his eyes away from the spine presented to him. How many sinner points had he acquired from ogling god? Seconds after god had just hand-waved all his sins? Had to be somewhere in the hundreds.

But f*ck.

f*ck, it was hard to keep his thoughts under wraps. Neuvillette’s ass was right there, and it…

Pew.

There was a pew. A pew back there. In the nave. Very pew-like. Wooden.

Neuvillette cleared his throat, Wriothesley moved to the altar’s side, somewhere less behind Neuvillette. Somewhere he could see his face instead, but that, too, was…

Pew.

What the hell was wrong with him? Someone does something nice for him for the first time in his life and suddenly he’s three seconds away from popping a heart boner for god? Possibly a boner boner too with how–

Pew!

Was he really that lonely?

“I should like to repay you, regardless of the past that has shaped your actions,” Neuvillette repeated hoarsely, loudly, practically a cough. Then placed both palms on the altar. “You requested a boon, and I intend to grant it. Please, allow me but a moment. If you truly feel that the compensation I provide is worth more than I owe, then you may protest after the fact, and I will see it returned.”

Wriothesley would have raised a snarky brow, but Neuvillette had closed his eyes. So instead, he just watched. For about five seconds. Arms crossed, brows even.

Nothing happened.

So he watched for about five more seconds. You know, just until the flashbang.

STEP 3: Get f*cked

By the time the world got bored of shanking Wriothesley in the retinas, thus granting him sight and consciousness again, the sky past the roof was littered with glittering specks of stars. He was squinting straight up at them, just barely registering the sounds of crickets chirping and the feeling of a pack beneath his head.

Sitting up, he found himself in the pew he usually slept on, wrapped in the blankets he’d stolen away. He blinked into the darkness of the nave, eyes adjusting quickly to a faint orange glow.

The altar.

The candles.

Lit around the edges, fluttering softly and…

Neuvillette was standing there, back turned to Wriothesley, head angled up at the broken statue. Long white hair fell behind him, mirroring the wisps of the willows outside, tinted with candle and starlight.

He was wearing Wriothesley’s coat again. A stark contrast to his pale skin, the night blanketing the moon.

His ears flicked.

“The hell was that?” Wriothesley asked, pinching at his brows and getting to his feet.

“Apologies.” Neuvillette did not turn from the statue when Wriothesley neared. “It has been some time since I harnessed my power in such a way, I… had forgotten how to properly restrain it. You suffered no physical harm, I can assure, but the ‘shockwave,’ so to speak, was of a nature the human body could not withstand.”

“Right, so you knocked me out. In a godly way.”

Neuvillette cast a brief glance over his shoulder, then back to the statue. He was fiddling with something in his hands. “That is one way to describe it.”

Wriothesley paused near the altar, feeling the heat from the candles lining its edges. The waxes were mostly dark in colour, deep navies like the farthest seas, and the scent they produced also whispered of the ocean, aquatic and sweet.

“What were you trying to do?” he asked, swiping some dust he’d missed off the corner of the wood. “Or was the nap supposed to be my ‘repayment?’ Not complaining if it was, haven’t slept that well in ages.”

“No, I was creating an artefact- a relic… I have done so in the past, but I can no longer detect their presence.” He paused, profile dipping further into shadow. “Meaning they have all been destroyed.”

“Relic…” Wriothesley wouldn’t press for details, the wounds were too fresh, he could tell. “And what do those do exactly?”

“It will allow you to… summon me.” Neuvillette finally turned to face him, cradling the relic in his arms, obscured. His next words were pained, angry and sad and mild at once, “I have been bound here. In this form. To this altar. This chapel. For lifetimes longer than I can remember. But if a priest of mine were to carry this relic…”

“You’d be able to leave?” Wriothesley glanced at the object in hand, only for Neuvillette to hold it tighter, cover it further.

“In a way, and at your will, yes.” The caution in his voice flickered with the candles. “I would be called to your side. I can only sense your presence when you are within this grove, but with this, should you ever need me… As long as it is on your person, a part of me will be with you, and I would be able and willing to assist you as desired.”

Wriothesley scanned his face, those features frozen in the essence of beauty. He didn’t know how binding a god worked, he didn’t know why this one had suffered the procedure. Maybe a wiser man would’ve hesitated. A wiser man would’ve considered what might happen should he unleash a deity that had been chained to the wilds for centuries.

A wiser man wouldn’t have reached out his hand.

Wonderful coincidence, then, that Wriothesley had never been the type to boast about having any significant intelligence.

He was a saint, he was a sinner, and above all, he was a man who’d break a thousand chains. That was the fate that found him the moment he dipped his hands in blood, and he wasn’t about to fight who he’d become. Not when the one being out there who’d ever done anything for him was asking for some freedom.

This ‘boon,’ this ‘repayment,’ was Neuvillette’s as much as it was Wriothesley’s.

“Why would you trust me with this?” Wriothesley asked, palm open, waiting. “You’re not worried I’ll use this to endanger you somehow? Bind you elsewhere? Don’t know about Sovereigns, but gods aren’t invincible last I checked. I could summon you in a volcano or something. Dump you in Mare Jivari.”

Neuvillette almost appeared to shiver, perhaps a trick of the candlelight. “You are my priest, Monseigneur,” he said carefully, “and… as discussed, I have observed you for many years. I find myself wary of humans, I have struggled to comprehend them in the past, but when I look upon you, I-” His eyes tensed, then softened. He shook his head. “Ah… that is… You are my priest, so you should carry my relics. That is all. I would trust no other.”

Wriothesley tried not to think about the thud of his heart there. Tried not to think about the weird hit his soul took, a disappointment he shouldn’t be feeling.

He forcefully wiggled his fingers like some terribly impatient child, just to draw the thoughts away.

“Let’s see it then. Or do I need to wear some special god-handling gloves?”

Neuvillette let out a breath. Then slowly, so very slowly, brimming with so much hesitance that he truly looked more man than god, he lifted the relic into the light and pressed it into Wriothesley’s hand. Cold and smooth, it…

It was…

It looked…

It certainly…

“This looks suspiciously like a penis,” Wriothesley noted with much tact.

Neuvillette’s face flared with an odd dusting of pink. “It is not a penis.”

“Really?” Wriothesley lifted it, gripping the not-a-penis while a disbelieving grin split his face. “Because I think it is. Look, two balls, shaft- it’s even got the glans. This is a penis. You’ve given me a penis.”

“It is not a penis,” Neuvillette insisted, looking quite a lot like he wanted to turn invisible again. Stern, he drew a finger across the relic’s anatomy, “Those ‘balls,’ as you have so crassly referred to them, are Sourcewater Droplets. They are purely religious iconography. As for the ‘shaft,’ it is a jetstream of Hydro, representative of the domain I once controlled.”

“Once controlled, huh?” Wriothesley had sensed the Hydro on him before, only idly registering the phrase while he twisted the definitely-a-penis in his hands, staring at it with way too much amusem*nt for a grown man. “Right. So then why is there a third Sourcewater Droplet at the tip here? Holy spirit or..?”

Neuvillette’s eyes narrowed sharply. “I cannot control how my relics appear, they… they simply are.”

“I’m sure,” Wriothesley nodded sagely, sliding his hand down the shaft. To his awe, Neuvillette’s eyes darted away.

Wriothesley blinked.

Neuvillette shifted.

Wriothesley slid his hand up.

Neuvillette shifted again.

Oh.

Wriothesley distantly started, “Does this…?”

Neuvillette instantly stopped, “Nothing of the sort.”

“I haven't even asked my question yet.”

“I would remind you that I can hear your thoughts so long as you are in my presence and practising. It is not- arousing.”

Wriothesley paused. Thoughts. Right. God.

f*ck.

No, not f*ck. No f*ck.

Wriothesley recovered with admirable speed. He was a real pro at shoving everything he wanted to the side. “Alright, alright, I’m only teasing. How do I use it? To summon you, I mean.”

“…”

“Neuvillette?”

He looked away. “You must press it to your lips. In reverence.”

“…”

And then Wriothesley was laughing. Louder than he had in years. A solid ‘hah’ that echoed through the chapel, bounced off the pews, danced beneath the stars. He could feel his lips curling into a smile, a genuine one, a feeling so foreign it made him laugh again.

Neuvillette’s face somehow grew pinker, glowing under the moon, soft in the candlelight– f*ck, he was so pretty. f*ck, this was bad.

“It is not a penis…” Neuvillette muttered, turning away as if to hide his expression.

Gods weren’t supposed to be endearing were they? All the ones Wriothesley knew of fell more into the obnoxious, arrogant asshole spectrum –but this Judicator, this beast bound in a bog, this forgotten god abandoned by humanity, he was…

Something.

He was kind.

Wriothesley really was lonely, huh.

Or maybe he was just really good at this priest thing. Devotion, right? That was a typical job requirement there? Eyes only for god?

“Wri- Monseigneur,” Neuvillette coughed, looking at anything but the relic. “I could… perhaps create another relic. They are never the same in shape-“

Wriothesley’s eyes wandered. Again. Down to where his coat circled Neuvillette’s otherwise bare thighs. Down to a faint outline between them.

And there it was Wriothesley’s turn to take on the pink dusting. Or at the very least, he felt a heat creep up his throat, drying it out entirely.

Was this the part where he asked for forgiveness before making a decision he knew to be sh*tty?

Was this the part where he demanded absolvence for a sin he could’ve just as easily not committed?

Probably.

He met Neuvillette’s eyes. Wide.

He just wanted to test something. That was it. God forgive him.

“When you say press it to my lips…” Wriothesley lifted the relic. Neuvillette’s eyes somehow got wider.

Wriothesley brought the tip, the ‘Sourcewater Droplet,’ to his mouth, holding Neuvillette’s gaze all the while. He let his lips meet stone, tasting the salt of some divine rock and watching as Neuvillette’s face twitched.

“You mean like that?” Wriothesley asked, all-knowing and innocent. “Or…”

He ran his tongue across the drop. So sinfully amused with the way Neuvillette adjusted on his feet, inventing new shades of pink by the second. And still he did not move away, he did not vanish into the air, he did nothing to stop Wriothesley from making a fool of them both.

“The first… enactment was fine, you do not need to utilise your tongue. And-“ Neuvillette lost whatever words he’d hoped to say when Wriothesley gave the relic another kiss. Right on the Sourcewater.

Pulling his lips away, Wriothesley arched a brow, glancing down at the imprint now quite noticeably tenting the coat between Neuvillette’s legs.

“Gods get horny too, then?” Wriothesley tried to sound unaffected, but his slacks were feeling tight. And his mind was going places it shouldn’t. Neuvillette could tell. “You know… I can grant some boons myself. Seeing how much I owe you. I have skills beyond picking names. Saying them, for example.”

“It would be wrong that I- You are my priest- I cannot-“ Neuvillette squeezed his eyes shut, cutting himself off. “That is not what is happening.”

“You sure?” Wriothesley glanced down again. “Certainly looks like what is happening.”

Neuvillette said nothing, fighting some inner demons that Wriothesley had yet to exorcise. He’d skipped out on the priest training manual after declaring himself Pope of Leviathan, maybe he should’ve been more diligent there.

Whatever. Figuring it out as he went would probably work just fine. Had before.

Taking a bold step into Neuvillette’s space, he braced for a retaliation. He was partially expecting Neuvillette to smite him, partially expecting him to back away. Neither happened. Neuvillette simply kept his back to the statue, Wriothesley turned his own to the altar.

Lowering his voice and never quite touching, he leaned forward, breathing against Neuvillette’s ear, “You said you’ve been watching me for a while, right?”

Neuvillette’s eyes opened in the dark, unreadable.

“I have.”

“Then I’m sure you’ve…”

Wriothesley closed his mouth.

Thoughts.

Neuvillette could read his thoughts. And Wriothesley could control them.

He didn’t have to say it, did he? He could just give him a show.

(About a month ago, he’d been struggling to fall asleep. Nothing unusual. Happened on the daily. But sometimes the cause of his insomnia was something more. Something lacking.

Staring at the stars, hand drifting down his stomach, he’d been thinking about the last time he’d received the warmth of another. A couple years back? He’d offered a f*ck in exchange for a couch that one time, rare to find someone willing to house a wanted man for a few days, but sometimes he got lucky.

Didn’t matter, he missed the feeling, and his hand found his co*ck, half-hard, neglected, as he replayed the event.

Wasn’t an especially memorable escapade, that one, he couldn’t even recall the man’s face. Nice arms though. He’d tried to remember how they felt against his hips, circling rough fingers around his co*ck.

It took some spit and imagination, but Wriothesley had managed to spill into his hand, grimacing when the excess fell to the pew, and wiping it with the same towel he’d used on the altar.)

Neuvillette's eyes were black in front of him, growing darker as the memory dripped between them. There was guilt in there too, Wriothesley could see it.

“You were watching then,” he accused with no malice, his voice low and tempting, “You watched me get myself off. And to think how many times I’ve done that in here… What were you saying about no voyeuristic desires? Is this why celibacy’s so big in other temples?”

Neuvillette’s nostrils flared, but he stood his ground, despite how dangerously little remained between them. “I did not derive any pleasure from those… moments,” he said. “And I did everything in my power to ignore your actions. I have tried to respect you and your privacy, as best I am capable. You- you are my priest, I…”

Wriothesley tentatively raised a hand, tentatively brought his fingers to Neuvillette’s jaw. “All the more reason that I serve my Lord as willed. There’s something you want.”

Tilting Neuvillette’s chin up and finding no resistance, Wriothesley closed the space between them, pressing his thigh against the line of Neuvillette’s erection. And pressing his own erection against Neuvillette’s hips, rocking slowly, drawing the faintest sound from Neuvillette’s throat. Offering something more.

Then he stopped.

This wasn’t some random man he was seducing for a place to stay this was…

sh*t, what was he doing?

Throwing himself at the first person to make him laugh? Throwing himself at a god? His god? He wasn’t even an actual priest, he was the farthest thing from any form of saint, he was just some f*cking guy, some lonely f*cking g–

Neuvillette silenced his thoughts with a single movement.

His lips were soft.

His hands were gentle.

He tasted like a spring.

He felt like the heavens.

Wriothesley’s back found the altar, Neuvillette laid him bare.

PROFIT

“... I cannot help but feel as though you are trying to overload my mind with your thoughts,” Neuvillette was biting back a whine, one arm pinning Wriothesley’s wrists to the altar above his head. He’d stopped his movements entirely, his other hand resting on a knee draped around his neck. “Are you quite finished with your memories, Monseigneur?”

Wriothesley stared up at him through bored eyes, trying to roll his hips against the marblewood, get some more stimulation from the co*ck buried inside him. To no avail.

So he flattened his brows and spoke dryly, “Can’t you see I’m drafting new scriptures here? Recording the life of the great Leviathan, as is my duty.”

Neuvillette’s skin felt warm against the backs of his thighs, still pressed together. His brows flattened too, but in a more furrowy way. “Recording them in the format of a… guidebook?”

“Is that not what all scriptures are? Do this, this, this, and here’s your salvation,” Wriothesley proposed, crossing his ankles behind Neuvillette’s shoulders and pulling in hard enough that the hand on his knee slipped to the altar for stability.

He was trying to distract him. Distract them both.

If he acted blasé, if he forced his thought trains down the memory track, maybe he could convince himself that this was something he deserved.

That he’d earned this moment, this warmth that bloomed wherever Neuvillette touched him. That despite everything he’d done, maybe for once he could have something nice. Because he’d never been f*cked like this before. Neuvillette’s movements –from the way he’d removed their clothes to the way he’d worked Wriothesley open–, were all so conscious, so goddamn considerate of Wriothesley’s needs.

Wriothesley didn’t know what to do.

This was supposed to be nothing more than a quick f*ck, a ‘boon’ to cool them off after some dumb god relic triggered both of their isolated-from-humanity brains. That was all. One and done, no strings, they’d return to a bound god and his sh*tty priest after, and maybe Wriothesley would actually take the time to learn what that meant.

Except this was the seventh time they’d done this.

The third on the altar.

Each time Wriothesley swore he wouldn’t do it again. Each time they’d agree it was nothing more.

A month would pass by of pure civility with his previously unknown churchmate, quiet conversations late into the night as Wriothesley found himself returning to the chapel more often. Found himself falling asleep on the pews with Neuvillette watching over him. Found himself seeking out better food to share with a man who didn’t need to eat. Found himself carrying the relic to the beaches so Neuvillette could feel the sea.

It was a tentative friendship. Of sorts.

And then they’d inevitably do it again.

They were doing it again.

He was enjoying himself. Wriothesley was enjoying himself.

He didn’t know what to do.

He didn’t want it to end, he didn’t want to pass this off like every other quick ‘boon’ he’d provided. He wanted more.

He shouldn’t.

He was nothing and Neuvillette was everything, and this was a decidedly bad idea.

Neuvillette’s grip on his wrists released then, his hand sliding down to find Wriothesley’s face instead, leaving a trail of flame in its wake.

“Monseigneur,” he murmured all too tender, brushing a few stray hairs away from Wriothesley’s brow, “I would prefer my deeds be recorded in hymns. And I would have them fall from your lips, above any.”

Wriothesley’s heart had discovered a hammer in his ribs and quickly decided to start pounding. Who left that there.

“You-“ he started, keeping his tone level, “You should be more careful with your words, Neuvillette.”

Candlelight casting shadows upon his face, Neuvillette’s eyes were intense, focused like a beast finding prey. His words were anything but. His words were horribly soft, “Have I said something to offend?”

Wriothesley let his legs fall slack, nearly sliding off the shoulders supporting them and groaning under his breath when the movement caused the co*ck pressing against his prostate to press harder.

“No, but the way you-“ he spoke through a breath, suddenly quite conscious of how exposed he was there, arms still raised, caged between the weight of a god and his altar. He didn’t mean to fall into a cynical tone, but it tumbled out anyway, “To the ears of us humble mortals, you speak as though you mean to confess your love.”

Drawing a line of feathers up Wriothesley’s thigh, Neuvillette brought his fingers back to the knee against his collar, positioning it closer to his jaw. Then his lips were pressing against exposed skin. A press so brief it felt eternal, a puff of air that spoke of a hurricane.

“Would that be so terrible?”

Before Wriothesley could try to pry the hammer from his heart or stop flatlining in the brain region, Neuvillette resumed the rocking of his hips. A slow pace, but after so much stillness it was enough to send a wave of heat through Wriothesley’s spine and evaporate any thoughts he might’ve managed.

“Apologies, I shouldn’t,” Neuvillette whispered, his voice cracking as he repeated for the nth time, like a mantra, like an edict, “You are my priest. I forget myself.”

“And you… are…” Wriothesley let his words fall away with the lurches of his body. He didn’t know. God, Sovereign, Judicator, Freak Nudist.

Lover.

If only.

Neuvillette brought his lips down again, carefully bending with Wriothesley’s legs, just as gentle and slow as his hips. He tasted like nothing and everything, a sea and a desert, the waves and the sand. Every muscle in Wriothesley relaxed when Neuvillette breathed his own life into him, some he hadn’t been aware he was tensing.

There was that feeling again, a foreign pressure swirling through his mind as if to settle the waters within. Wriothesley opened his eyes, introducing a particularly sharp tooth to the lips pressed against his, and letting his overstretched legs fall from shoulder to hip, trapping Neuvillette in place.

Neuvillette’s head pulled back, hand cupping Wriothesley’s face, eyes concerned.

“What’s that thing you do?” Wriothesley asked, slowly bringing his hands down the marble.

“Thing?” Neuvillette’s brows lowered. His head turned almost comically downwards, staring at Wriothesley’s co*ck between them and his own waist beyond that. “I am unsure if there is a technical term for it, I admit I am not entirely versed in the linguistics involved in the act of copulating… Gyration, perhaps?”

Wriothesley really wished that didn’t make him snort.

He shook his head, his fingers catching on a nearby candle stump. “Not that, I mean the mind thing. Not the reading, but I can feel you in there, doing… something.”

Neuvillette stopped moving again. Much to Wriothesley’s dismay. The bead of precum forming on his co*ck was getting very impatient dangling there on a string. So was he.

“I have not been…” Neuvillette pushed onto both hands, one at either side of Wriothesley’s head. His eyes glimmered with concern, and Wriothesley wished they glimmered with something else. “We may be more connected than I thought,” Neuvillette spoke with as much concern as his eyes suggested. “I find myself wishing to help you relax and- my power- it must…”

He pulled back and out abruptly, carefully breaking free from Wriothesley’s legs and leaving him stranded and splayed on the altar, co*ck twitching defiantly. Wriothesley rose onto his elbows, staring all too blankly as Neuvillette turned, one hand shading his face in distress.

Ah. Well.

Wriothesley sat up fully, legs over the ledge. He wasn’t sure why he expected this to be any different. Everyone he dared drag with him, everyone he made his selfish attempts to keep, they always suffered for it, didn’t they? Maybe he’d thought the bad luck permeating his body would be negated by a god. No, somehow he’d hurt him too.

Somehow he’d–

Neuvillette spun around, eyes taut; he stepped back towards the altar, clasping his hands around Wriothesley’s wrist. “That is not at all the issue. You have not brought me any harm, I…”

He released his hold.

And then he dropped to his knees.

There before the altar, there where Wriothesley sat. Stunned. So low he was to the ground, Neuvillette pressed his forehead against Wriothesley’s shin, bringing his hands up to grace a line down his calf until they clasped around his ankle and brought his leg closer.

His lips were remarkably cold against the delicate skin there, against scars Wriothesley had forgotten, and his breath fell hot when he spoke, “I apologise, Monseigneur.” Another kiss, faint and spectral. “I am troubled, not by you, but by my apparent lack of restraint in your presence.”

Wriothesley opened his mouth to speak, but Neuvillette’s lips were travelling higher, pressing airy touches up the canvas of his leg like he meant to paint a picture with the words falling from his lips, the breath warming his throat. His fingers danced like silk, caressing what of his calf Neuvillette’s mouth couldn’t reach, sending ripples of anticipation across Wriothesley’s nerves that disrupted any coherency he might’ve had otherwise.

“I do not wish to use any of my abilities against you unbidden,” Neuvillette murmured against his knee, bringing one hand to either thigh and peering up at Wriothesley in the candlelight. “I merely wish to serve you, in whatever form that must assume. Perhaps it would be best that you guide me tonight, I will bind my actions to your words.”

Wriothesley swallowed a breath, taking in the eyes glinting at him, the reverence within, an unmistakable want within. God, it burned in waves, waters aflame in Neuvillette’s eyes when he surged forward, slow and controlled as if waiting for Wriothesley to stop the tide.

“Shouldn’t I be the one to-” Wriothesley tried to say, but Neuvillette’s mouth had found the heat of his inner thighs, pressing into sensitive skin on the right while his fingers roamed up and around, kneading into scarred muscle until Wriothesley’s legs were spreading further, trembling, reduced to liquid under divine providence.

And f*ck, he couldn’t bear it, the way Neuvillette’s palms slid across him like he was meant to be worshipped, like he was meant to be loved, like he was the Divine and Neuvillette was but a man.

“I thought I was your priest,” Wriothesley managed to growl, sliding back on the marble when Neuvillette’s teeth grazed skin, his hair brushing the underside of Wriothesley’s co*ck.

Neuvillette withdrew to meet his gaze, and hell, he was a vision, pressing his cheek into Wriothesley’s length, his eyes glistening with something north of pain and west of desire. Those eyes narrowed for but a moment, then lowered.

“You are,” he whispered, and Wriothesley’s heart was hammering again because he knew they both wished he wasn’t, “but the gods should serve man, should they not?”

Wriothesley wasn’t sure anymore. Until Neuvillette, they’d ignored him. That was why he’d paraded as a priest to begin with.

Neuvillette’s hands fell from his thighs, palms to the altar on either side of Wriothesley’s ass, pushing himself up, positioning his lips before the head of the co*ck he’d managed to torture with his mere existence.

“Do with me as you please, Monseigneur,” Neuvillette’s eyes held a resolve foreign to man, his breath a kiss against Wriothesley’s slit. “If nowhere else, while you are on this altar, my power is yours to command. I am yours to command. Please.”

A heartbeat.

They say a siren’s call worked because it offered a promise as beautiful as it was harmless. The sailor could not see the danger, he could not fear his fate, and so he’d toss himself into the depths and let the waves rip him apart.

Wriothesley was certain that was all bullsh*t. He saw the danger, he saw the prize, he knew it was unattainable, he knew it was undeserved. His destruction was plain before him, reflected on the sea, in the foam, on the tides.

And still he dove after the current, he stepped into the waves, his hands slipped through heaven’s crown, and he let the water devour him.

Neuvillette’s lips circled his co*ck like that statuesque face of his had been carved to fit around it. His tongue swirled against Wriothesley’s tip in a deliberate stream, slick with spit and precum, falling slack when Wriothesley gave a small, tentative thrust into the warmth encompassing. Then a less tentative, wholly unintentional jerk when Neuvillette swallowed him further, rumbling quietly while Wriothesley pressed into his throat and muttered enough expletives to strip him of his already questionable priest status.

With a groan trapped in his chest, Wriothesley let his fingers curl into hair, absently looping long strands between his index and thumb while Neuvillette fully took in his length, breaking him down inch by inch until he was falling back onto his unoccupied arm, feeling the gentle heat of the surrounding candles.

f*ck, Neuvillette’s mouth was a paradise sinners weren’t supposed to see, but there Wriothesley was rolling his hips up in poorly restrained waves, heaven washing through him like the gates had blasted apart.

Then Neuvillette’s hands were sliding up his thighs again, and he hadn’t even realised how much he missed the contact until those lithe fingers were working into his skin, tracing across scars with a type of attentiveness Wriothesley hadn’t ever been shown before, and hell– his hips were snapping up, breaking through his restraint, striving for more because heaven wasn’t enough for someone like him. He needed the stars too.

He needed the stars and the waves and the sirens and the hymns, he needed everything above, everything below. Neuvillette embodied it all, above and below, so Wriothesley f*cked his throat like any good saint would. That was all a sinner could settle for.

Neuvillette offered no protests, presented no complaints, only picked up the pace of his bobbing head and dug his fingers into the indents of the hips thrush against his mouth, not bothering to push away the thighs squeezing haphazardly around his cheeks.

His eyes roamed Wriothesley’s face with that same reverence as before; his tongue roaming a co*ck with a ruthless mercy. Sins were swallowed, virtues were praised. Both so terribly intense in their own ways, both so much that Wriothesley had to toss his head back to stare at the stars above and breathe.

Breathe.

He needed to calm down, f*ck, he needed more water. f*ck, his undoing shouldn’t be so painfully sweet. He could cum just like that, he wanted to, he wanted to, but– f*ck–

“f*ck, Neuvillette-“ he stuttered, forcing his hips down before the stars could start spinning. “f*ck, get up.”

Neuvillette pulled off his co*ck immediately, an obscenely wet sound marking the action and almost finishing Wriothesley off then and there. Wriothesley felt every part of his body thrumming as he froze the pool seeping into his gut, his eyes darting hungrily over Neuvillette’s face, still so f*cking beautiful, lips bright with spit, eyes dark with desire.

Eyes travelling down, Neuvillette’s co*ck was dripping with need, and Wriothesley was keen to see those needs met.

He owed him that much, he owed Neuvillette everything tenfold.

“You don’t owe me-“ Neuvillette protested, breathless and raspy when he returned his hands to the altar at either side of Wriothesley, leaning forward.

“If you truly feel that the compensation I provide is worth more than I owe,” Wriothesley threw his own words back at him, panting more than he’d like to admit when his co*ck throbbed between them, “then you may protest after the fact.”

Neuvillette puffed a breath. “You could have… finished first, I would not have objected to it.”

“What, you need a co*ck in your mouth that bad?” Wriothesley asked, doing an incredible job at deflecting how badly he wanted to do that.

Neuvillette frowned.

Before he could start pointing out any thoughts being had, Wriothesley lifted a hand. And pointed.

“Sit.”

A single word, a simple command. He didn’t actually expect Neuvillette to listen, but he planted his ass dutifully on the altar next to Wriothesley with zero hesitation.

Wriothesley swallowed.

Ignoring the overly expectant look on Neuvillette’s face, Wriothesley eyed the flames around them, dark pools of wax forming in every candleholder. The ‘relic’ was sitting off to a corner between a pair of the tallest stumps, and the moment Wriothesley saw it, a thousand images flashed into his mind.

Neuvillette swallowed.

Wriothesley’s hand was on a shoulder in an instant, his lips slotting against Neuvillette’s while he drove him down onto his back, swinging his legs over Neuvillette’s waist, knees to marble, until he could feel a co*ck rubbing against his ass and a stomach thrush against his co*ck. Neuvillette jolted at the sensation, bucking his hips up after having gone far too long without attention.

Wriothesley just kept kissing him, letting Neuvillette hump his ass while their tongues slid together in a frantic sort of dance that Wriothesley wasn’t very good at, but damn if it didn’t send a few torrents of wet heat through his body. Neuvillette groaned into his mouth and it only made things worse, made things better. Wriothesley’s hands dug into skin and marble, resisting the urge to rut against Neuvillette until he added new shades of white to that pale abdomen.

Not yet.

“How do Judicators,” Wriothesley asked between kisses, pulling his lips down to Neuvillette’s jaw and laving his tongue across it with a few light nips for good measure, “handle heat?”

Neuvillette shivered, his fingers looping around Wriothesley’s nape, holding him close and adjusting enough to rub his tip against the rim it so badly wanted to slip through. Maybe gods weren’t all that different from animals like Wriothesley.

Maybe sirens too had their desires.

“My body is-“ Neuvillette lost himself to a keen, Wriothesley having lifted his ass, reaching back to wrap a hand around the co*ck crying for him. “My current form is human, though I suspect I-“

Wriothesley guided his tip in.

“-I suspect my tolerance may be hi-“

A horribly arousing sound between a whimper and a growl as Wriothesley slid back.

“-Higher than average. But, Monseigneur, I…”

Wriothesley ran a tongue across his collar, savouring the sickly sweet taste of unblemished skin and deciding it could do with a little blemishing. Latching his lips around the softest flesh, he sucked in –gently at first then with some force, timing it with Neuvillette bottoming out to draw forth another sound that went straight through the fens and into Wriothesley’s dick.

“Monseigneur,” Neuvillette whined again, every breath an endeavour, his fingernails curling into the nape they’d been so carefully holding onto.

“Hmm?” Wriothesley finally let him breathe, carefully sitting up onto the hips grinding into his ass, both hands flat on a smooth chest.

Neuvillette’s eyes were pleading, wanting, shimmering with the flames of candles and stars. His hands settled on Wriothesley’s thighs once more, splaying his fingers across them.

“How do I convince you?” he begged, up at Wriothesley, up at the heavens.

Wriothesley splayed his own fingers over the chest bared beneath him. “Convince me?”

Neuvillette did not respond right away, sorting through thoughts Wriothesley could only hope to read. The expression flashing across his eyes was not one Wriothesley enjoyed. He’d seen it before on those he’d left behind.

A whisper.

“You think I am your undoing.”

Wriothesley considered lying. Considered deceiving god in thoughts and words. All it would take was some sarcasm. But he’d already given himself to the waves.

A prayer.

“You are.”

From Wriothesley’s fingers came a concentrated burst of cold, cutting off however Neuvillette hoped to respond and yanking a shiver from his body where it spread across his chest. Skin tensed beneath Wriothesley’s fingertips, goosebumps plain on Neuvillette’s arms while the frost whispered through him, and by the way his hips were stuttering, Wriothesley suspected he’d nearly cum from the system shock alone.

“Yeah?” he purred, pulling his hands back.

No response. But the look in Neuvillette’s eyes was nothing short of devoted. Nothing short of adoring. Imploring, beseeching, needing, wanting, all that bullsh*t Wriothesley couldn’t handle. All that bliss the heavens weren’t above.

“If you want me to keep going,” Wriothesley spoke through an empty throat, bringing one hand to squeeze the fingers clawing into his thighs, “close your eyes.”

For a moment, Neuvillette’s lips parted, a movement that froze Wriothesley’s breath and silenced the chapel, the world anticipating whatever he meant to say.

But it didn’t come. His lips and eyes both fell shut, smooth lines nestled between pinks and lashes respectively. Wriothesley’s breath thawed in a way more sombre than refreshing. He rubbed his thumb across a few knuckles, then reached for a candle, finding one that seemed to burn with as much intensity as the heat in his groin and the beating of his heart.

“Keep moving,” Wriothesley commanded when Neuvillette’s hips slowed. “You’ll stop when I’m finished.”

Neuvillette nodded once, releasing a shaky breath while Wriothesley placed a hand on the softness of his midriff, smoothing his palm over skin and feeling the contraction of abs beneath, the thrusting against his prostate seeking a stable rhythm. If he wasn’t riding one, he would’ve been cursing the gods for the rapture spreading out from his spine.

Skimming past the candle, Wriothesley grabbed the relic instead, flipping it in his hand.

Neuvillette opened his mouth before Wriothesley even spoke the words, tearing his left hand off the thigh it’d been stroking in preparation.

“Treat it like it’s mine,” Wriothesley murmured, pressing the tip against those lips still so puffy from sucking him off. “Suck on it like you wish it was.”

He released the relic there, letting it fall into Neuvillette’s hand and watching, rapt, as Neuvillette throated it just as he had Wriothesley’s co*ck, a deep purr vibrating from his chest, f*cking Wriothesley all the while.

Hell. Hell, Wriothesley hated what that did for him, hated how much precum fell from his co*ck as Neuvillette debased himself so easily, so eagerly at his command. God, he– god.

He was running out of time.

Wriothesley pulled a gentle thumb beneath Neuvillette’s lip, wiping away the saliva there before shakily reaching back for the candle. His fingers clasped around wax, offsetting the gentle burn with the Cryo in his veins and lifting the candle over Neuvillette, carefully balancing it despite the jolts of his torso at the mercy of the co*ck inside.

He’d been wanting to try this since that first night. They’d knocked a few of the candles off the altar in their frenzy, and watching the navy blues cascade down the white ledges, a near-black ink trail contrasting so vividly against the marble…

Wriothesley wanted to see it on Neuvillette.

All that skin, pale as the moon and smooth as a dewdrop, draped in darkness, striped in inks. His beauty like a sculpture that Wriothesley couldn’t quite shake, he wasn’t one to chisel but he might like to paint. Bringing his non-candle hand up, Wriothesley traced the lines of Neuvillette’s stomach, leaving a phantom trail of ice against all those sanctified muscles while Neuvillette whined in suspense, so obviously reading his intentions and still waiting for that first drop, that first prick of heat.

Wriothesley decided he was going to drop it over his rightmost pec first. He tilted his wrist.

And then he let the first spattering fall against Neuvillette’s left collarbone, hot and dark and successfully unanticipated, Neuvillette slammed up into him, groaning so loud around the co*ck in his mouth it was almost a wail. His eyes opened for the briefest second, confused and craving. Wriothesley smiled down at him, the picture of purity.

Lifting his hand, he twined his fingers between Neuvillette’s and the relic, pulling it away and returning it to its corner of the altar. He wanted to hear the next cries unobstructed. And he wanted to do that before the heat burning across his length devolved into anything else. To say Neuvillette’s co*ck felt divine in his ass was a bit too on the nose, but it sure did spread some divinity into his prostate, f*ck it.

“Monseigneur,” Neuvillette whimpered, closing his eyes once again and dropping his hand back to Wriothesley’s thigh. His thrusts were growing quite erratic, his whimpers a warning.

“Look at you,” Wriothesley said, not caring how shaky he sounded as he tightened his grip around the candle. “So close already. Not until I’m finished, mmm?”

Neuvillette didn’t have a chance to respond, Wriothesley had tilted his wrist again, a stream of wax pouring across Neuvillette’s chest like chocolate melting in the sun. His entire body juddered, fingers pressing so hard into Wriothesley’s legs he wouldn’t be surprised to find a bruise there come morning. But he didn’t care. Neuvillette was moaning in the truest sense of the word, twisting against the inescapable heat stinging at his nipples and falling from his ribs.

f*ck he looked just as– f*ck, just as perfect as Wriothesley knew he would. He was perfect, he was divine, perfect, beautiful, perfect, everything, and god did Wriothesley wish he was more than a fake priest. He wanted to be more than a fake priest.

Maybe he was, in moments like these. His focus solely on the god beneath him, solely on the wax cooling across his skin in glistening rivulets. He just wanted to make his god scream, make him scream his name until they were both collapsing over each other and swearing their devotion, cursing their prayers.

Stripe after stripe, Wriothesley continued to pour, painting him in navies, dousing him in heat, trapping them both in a paradise they’d been refused. His fingers traced each line, shooting out puffs of ice that had Neuvillette fully wailing with every burst, every nerve in his body suffering pandemonium at the hands of some Cryo and wax and the unpredictable burns of ice and fire.

It was all too much and too little, his hips were snapping near violently against Wriothesley, and Wriothesley felt himself coming undone with every snap, because Neuvillette was his undoing, he was his destruction, he was the siren’s call and maybe that’s what Wriothesley wanted. The waves were tearing him apart, and he’d jumped in again, he’d let them tear him again. He’d come to the altar and god knelt before him, and f*ck–

The candle fell from his hand, harmlessly spilling to the ground. Fire flickered around them, golden under stars. Golden against Neuvillette’s skin, silver under the moonlight, banded in blues. God it was warm. It was so warm. Wriothesley was burning, hell he was burning.

Neuvillette was so warm.

Wriothesley would do it again. He knew he would, he’d say he wouldn’t, but he would. One taste of heaven and he could never go back.

“Wriothesley,” Neuvillette’s voice cracked against the air like a sudden flash of rain.

He’d never said his name before.

“You don’t have to go back.”

Too much. Too little. Everything. Nothing. f*ck. f*ck. f*ck.

Wriothesley fell forward, one hand slamming into marble, the other clutching helplessly at a shoulder beneath him. He was cumming before the brunt of his org*sm even landed in his gut, shaking and burning and arching against the waves ripping through him. Hot streaks of white shot out from his co*ck, adding new streams of colour to the navy wax he’d so carefully laid, and all he could do was curse and swear and smash his lips against those beneath him.

Neuvillette f*cked him through it, thrusting in time with every buck of Wriothesley’s hips between them. And then he was cumming too, and Wriothesley was grinding back into him, and the world seemed to chip apart like a broken stone talon in a sh*tty little birdbath in a sh*tty little chapel in a sh*tty little marsh that Wriothesley called home.

Because that’s where Neuvillette was.

That’s where heaven was.

He belonged there.

He belonged.

Despite the complaints of the average Fontainian incel, it wasn’t actually all that difficult to spoon your deity of choice. On the contrary, Wriothesley had found it to be a most simple task. And would say as much to anyone who asked.

“Monseigneur… would you please draft your scriptures at another time? It is getting quite late.”

Wriothesley ran his hand down a cold arm, burying his nose into a neck that smelled of oceans and stars. “Sorry, thought you were asleep.”

Neuvillette turned his head, gazing at Wriothesley over his shoulder, a glimmer of affection in his eyes betrayed by the moonbeams shifting above.

Wriothesley didn’t need any telepathic god powers to know what he was thinking.

He leaned forward, pressing his lips to the corner of Neuvillette’s eye.

Forgive me.