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After the Saturday evening mass, Father Jason stands by the door and wishes the congregation goodbye. It’s a meager crowd – St. Catherine’s Church is a small one in general, the people coming mainly from the surrounding neighborhood and usually showing up only for the Sunday mass. Jason doesn’t mind it. He likes knowing the people by their names, likes hearing about their lives, about their joys and sorrows, even outside of the confession booth. Tonight he briefly converses with Mrs. Moreno, who always has something new to tell about her grandchildren, before waving a goodbye to a whirlpool of altar boys, who he is going to see again at tomorrow’s morning mass.
The sexton is waiting by the sacristy door with a thick bundle of keys in his hand, as Jason locks the front door. When Jason realizes that he’s waiting for him, he smiles over his shoulder and says: “You can go, I’ll blow out the candles and lock the back door.”
The sexton nods, wishes him goodnight and disappears into the sacristy with a jingle of the keys. There’s the distant sound of the back door opening and closing, and then Jason is alone, only the quietly flickering candles as his company. He lets out a quiet breath, smooths a hand down his chest, over the buttons of his cassock and the cross of his rosary, before walking back down the dark nave and to the candlelit altar. It never gets quiet in Gotham, especially not in a neighborhood like this, but as he kneels by the altar, Jason feels a strange sense of peace settle over him.
He never used to feel it as a child, sitting next to his mother in his Sunday best, both of them as bored as the other and sitting there only out of habit and a sense of duty. Still, the rosary around his neck used to belong to her, and Jason can’t help but to wonder what would’ve happened if after her death he had sought comfort from faith instead of succumbing to the vices that Gotham had offered him. It might have spared him from a lot of things, but he doesn’t think it would’ve led him to become a priest.
The candle flames flicker a little. On the altarpiece, Mary Magdalene watches an angel roll the stone away from Jesus’ tomb. Jason keeps his crossed hands over his heart and waits.
Faith is a comfort, it’s his savior, but every morning when he wakes up, he has to search for it. He’s sure that someday he’s not going to find it anymore and then he’s going to find himself right at the beginning; sleeping on a moldy mattress with bruises like purple flowers all over his arms.
“Remember when we used to sleep on the pews at that one church on 87th street?” a familiar voice asks from somewhere behind him.
Jason blinks at the altarpiece, his hands still clenched together. Something like relief rushes through him. Slowly, he stands up, smooths his hands down his cassock and turns around. Roy is sitting in the third row on the right, half hidden in the dark with his elbows propped up on the back of the pew in front of him. Even with his face obscured by the shadows and the brim of his hat, Jason can see him smiling.
“Our Lady of Pity’s. Yeah, I remember,” Jason says, letting his tone slip out of the formality of a priest’s. Roy’s teeth shine in the dark.
“Those were the times,” he says with a dreamy sigh. Jason scoffs.
“Tone down the nostalgia, Harper. We almost froze to death.” It had been winter, as cruel as they come, and Jason’s fingers had almost turned white from a frostbite. The church had been cold, too, but at least the pews had been warmer than the frozen ground. The altarpiece had depicted Jesus’ crucifixion. Jason hadn’t slept, instead listening to Roy’s coughing bouncing off of the statues on the walls for the entire night. It’s not a good memory, but then again, most of Jason’s aren't. Roy only laughs, as if that only makes the whole thing better.
“Take off that hat,” Jason says to him, even though what he really wants is for Roy to come closer so that he can see him more clearly.
“Or else? He is gonna be angry?” Roy asks and points a finger towards the high ceiling with an expression of faux-concern. Jason doesn’t bother to get offended.
“No, it’s just ugly,” he says and smiles at Roy’s genuinely offended look.
“How dare you? You love my hats,” Roy says and finally stands up with slow, languid movements. When he steps on the nave, Jason can finally see him and his ratty jeans fully. He looks the same as the last time Jason saw him, standing there like he knows how much Jason has missed him and purposefully not stepping forward. For a moment they just stare at each other.
“C’mere already,” Jason says, finally giving in to the desperation clawing at his insides. Roy does, albeit slowly, making a show out of taking off his hat and running a hand through his hair before shrugging off his jacket and leaving both on the front row pew like he owns the place. He used to do that everywhere, back when he and Jason were running around – leaving his things all over the place, no matter where they were; at the library, the pharmacy, a chinese restaurant, a crackhouse, someone’s home. Some things just don’t change.
“Close enough?” Roy asks, walking up the altar steps until the toes of his almost disintegrated sneakers are touching the leather tips of Jason’s shoes. The candlelight softens his features and catches onto his lashes, making them look almost transparent.
“Almost,” Jason breathes, his mouth suddenly dry. Roy gives him a sly smile before lifting his arms onto Jason’s shoulders and crossing his wrists lazily behind his neck. He’s wearing a loose tank top, definitely not warm enough for the weather, and when Jason looks down, he can see his collarbones and the delicate lines of a half-hidden tattoo on his chest. It’s a name, Jason knows. He looks back up, meeting the forest green of Roy’s eyes.
(He had asked about the tattoo once, years ago, when he and Roy had been lying in the bed in Roy’s old apartment. Roy had been smoking a joint, because he was claiming to be California sober, and Jason had been tracing his finger over the cursive letter L tattooed over his heart. “Who’s this?” Jason had asked him, and Roy had put his hand over the name.
“That was my baby,” he had said and even though he had been smiling, Jason didn't think he had ever seen him that sad. “I think… I could’ve gotten better for her. If she’d made it. I think I could’ve been a good dad.” Jason hadn’t brought it up again after that.)
“Whatcha doing here so late?” Roy asks him and tilts his head, a couple of copper strands falling onto his face. Jason resists the urge to tug them behind his ear.
“Could ask you the same,” he says instead. Roy raises an amused eyebrow and shifts his weight from one leg to another, slowly swaying side to side as if to the rhythm of inaudible music.
“What? Can’t I come see you when I miss you?” he asks, leaning closer, his freckles dancing in the candlelight. “Besides, you called me, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but that’s… You know,” Jason mutters, unable to look Roy in the eyes. Still, he can feel Roy’s eyes on his lips. “I missed you, too.”
Roy’s smile is soft, but there’s a look of mischief in his eyes. He tilts his head to the other side and the loose strands of hair swing across his face.
“Are you gonna kiss me, Father?” he asks with a grin. Jason makes a face.
“Don’t call me that,” he says and gets to catch one last glimpse of Roy’s canines, before Roy leans in and presses their lips together. It’s a soft kiss, nothing like the ones they used to share against bathroom walls at dingy dives, graffiti rubbing off from the walls and onto the back of Jason’s shirt, or against the sunset on the Trigate Bridge with their legs dangling over the Gotham River and a tab of acid melting between their tongues. Roy’s lips are soft, too, like they never used to be, none of the familiar chapped rasp left. They’re not warm but not cold, either, just a mellow press against Jason’s. Jason ignores all of those differences and lets his hands find their way into Roy’s hair. It reaches almost down to his shoulders and runs between Jason’s fingers easily, corn silk smooth and cleaner than Jason has ever felt it. He scrapes his fingers against Roy’s scalp, and Roy sighs against his mouth, leaning against him like he’s trying to melt into him.
Jason remembers Roy asking him to buzz his hair short every summer (“You look like the guy from Trainspotting. ” “Yeah? Except I've never put Valium up my ass.”) and then letting it grow out for the rest of the year, until cutting it again when the weather got hot. For quite some time, Jason had measured the passage of the time by the length of Roy’s hair. The winter came when it was long enough for him to pull on.
“I think this counts as breaking the vow of celibacy,” Roy says, finally breaking the kiss. He looks way too proud about it, glossy lips stretched into a grin.
“Not like I was ever gonna become the Pope,” Jason says, not really bothered by the revelation.
“Wouldn’t that be a world,” Roy says, his fingers lazily combing through Jason’s hair on the back of his head. “I’d become a believer in an instant.”
His pupils are blown wide, the green of his eyes just a ring of moss around a well. It’s a look Jason knows well but which he’s rarely seen on Roy’s sober face. It makes him think of the taste of cough syrup, the orange of prescription bottles, and the smell of warm metal and lighter fluid. The momentary relief of the kiss melts away, and suddenly the high collar of his suit feels suffocating.
“This is a bad idea,” he says, the words threatening to catch in his throat. Roy smiles, this time sadly, and takes half of a step back so that his hands are resting on Jason’s shoulders.
“Yeah, well…” he says with a shrug, glancing past Jason, probably at the altarpiece, and then back at him. “You know I’m not good at making great decisions.”
Underneath his gentle touch, Jason feels the weight of their shared history; the years spent half on the streets, half in apartments with paper-thin walls and no heating. Always hungry, always aching for something, their hands never clean. It makes the scars hidden underneath his cassock itch and his gnarled veins ache, blood running through them into his bleeding heart, which feels like it’s going to give up on him. In a way, he wishes it would, but that’s just another wish that he can’t even think of unless he wants to take off his clerical collar for good.
Instead, he leans in and kisses Roy again, this time urgently, his hands coming up to cradle Roy’s face and pulling him closer. Roy doesn’t respond to his urgency. He only wraps his arms around Jason’s neck completely and kisses him like he’s trying to apologize. Jason doesn’t even notice himself crying until he tastes salt.
“Oh, baby,” Roy coos with a sorry look on his face and cradles Jason’s face in his hands to wipe the tears from his cheeks. His hands are soft and clean and cold. They never used to be. “You should go home. Can’t have you fall asleep in the middle of the Sunday mass.”
Jason looks at the floor and shakes his head like a stubborn child, tears dripping from his lashes and ruining the leather of his shoes. Outside, a distant ambulance siren wails. Jason can almost smell the hospital waiting room.
“It’s not a home. There’s no one there,” he says, his voice thick with tears. He doesn’t want to go back to his empty apartment where his only company is the kitchen light and a cross on the wall. Roy’s thumb brushes over the tip of his nose, wiping away a teardrop threatening to fall, and Jason closes his eyes, silently wishing that they could go back in time to an abandoned building waiting to be torn down, where they slept in the same sleeping bag with a bottle of Popov between them. It was a horrible time, dirty and cold, with so many deaths in the building, but at least Jason wasn’t alone. At least Roy was there and at least he was warm against him. God has never kept him that warm.
“It’s still better than any of the dumps we used to bunk in,” Roy says and slides his hands down Jason’s neck before running them down his arms. Despite his words, there’s still a hint of nostalgia in his voice. Jason opens his eyes reluctantly and meets Roy’s wavering smile. “Oh, c’mon, Jay, don’t be sad. I would’ve made fun of you if you had started talking about finding God. You would’ve never gotten better with me around.”
Jason’s face twists. What a horrible thing to say.
“Oh, fuck you! That doesn’t mean you should’ve left me,” he snaps at Roy. He knows that there’s no reason to be angry, not anymore – Lord knows he’s been angry for the most of his life – but it’s a familiar feeling and much easier to hold than the grief that keeps on crushing his bones even after all these years. He takes a breath and looks at Roy. “You left me.”
“You know I didn’t do it on purpose, baby. You know I love you,” Roy says, his eyes glossy. There are no track marks running up his arms, no signs of Jason’s helpful touch. Only smooth, pale, freckled skin, never touched by cold or sickness.
When the body is buried it is ugly and weak; when raised, it will be beautiful and strong.
“Well,” Jason says, quiet and strangled. “You loved something else a bit more.”
He knows it’s cruel – knows it, because he used to be there, too, and he knows that it wasn’t something either of them willingly chose. Still, he had kind of thought that he would know when they were in too deep. That at one point he would get some sort of sign and be able to pull Roy and himself out of the water so that they could both start again. He guesses he got the sign. It was just too late by then.
The smile has disappeared from Roy’s face, and there’s nothing but sadness left. He’s still slowly swaying from side to side, looking down with hair falling onto his face, and even after all these years, Jason can’t help but to wonder about how long he had still slept in that sleeping bag after Roy’s body had gone cold next to him.
(It had been late spring. Roy’s hair was still long, and Jason had to brush it to the side to kiss the crook of his neck. The skin underneath his lips had been cold.)
“I'm sorry,” Roy says, his hands cold against Jason’s. He used to be so warm. Jason can only shake his head. Even though he spends his days preaching about loving and letting go, he himself has never actually let go of anything he loves. Words mean nothing, because every night when he lies down to rest, he can feel the weight of Roy’s body on the mattress next to him, cold and still and always there. And Jason can’t get him warm again. Can’t even look at him, but he still feels him there, a familiar weight pulling him into the dark until the sun rises.
That’s why every morning Jason has to search for his faith. Because as long as he has it, there must also be some place beyond time, where there is no pain or sickness and where Roy can hold his daughter again. A place where Jason could one day see him and touch him and where they can both be warm forever.
Roy’s hands let go of Jason’s and one of them briefly fiddles with the single golden hoop on his left ear. The real one is lying at the bottom of Gotham River – the same place where his ashes went. (Jason had wanted to go to Arizona to sprinkle them on the desert, but he didn’t have a car or money, and couldn’t stand the idea of walking around with the small wooden box they had given him at the crematorium. He knows Roy understands.)
“I should go,” Roy says, almost whispering. Jason wants to tell him no – to tell him to stay with him forever, because he already left once and why would he do that over and over again? – but the rational part of him, the one not as blinded by grief as the rest of him, knows that he can’t really live with the dead, and so he only nods.
“I love you,” he chokes out when Roy leans in to kiss his tear streaked cheek. He can feel Roy smile against the skin.
“I know,” Roy says and places a soft peck on his lips. “And I’ll love you for eternity.”
He holds the cross of Jason’s rosary in his hand and presses one last kiss on it. Jason can barely make out his features through his tears. Slowly, Roy turns away and walks down the altar stairs, taking his jacket and hat from the pew and putting them on before turning to look at Jason over his shoulder one more time.
“Sleep well, Jaybird. I’ll be watching over you.” Even in the dark, Jason can see his smile. There is no noise when he walks up the nave and towards the door, but even outside the bubble of candlelight, a soft glow remains around him. It dims with every step, and even though the door doesn’t open or close, once it’s completely dark again, Jason knows that he’s gone.
Jason wipes his face on his hands, blows out the candles, and changes out of his cassock before locking up the sacristy and leaving. And when he finally gets home and lies down in bed, there’s that familiar weight again.