✞33 Days since my Last Confession✞

[13th_crusader]

[†]Ecclesiastes 11:9

You, O Lord, reign forever; your throne endures from generation to generation. Why do you always forget us? Why do you forsake us so long? Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may return; renew our days as of old. Unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure.[†]


'Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.'

[☨]In the comfort of his four-post fortress, his respite and single place of solace, Maxwell curled in his pristine white sheets and dozed as the afternoon light spilled in and gleaned off his thick lashes.

There was a whiny mewl as he rejected the sun, turning over and crushing the communicator with a downy pillow. The week prior had brought him nothing but emotional trauma the likes to rock his granite foundations and leave him rubble on the floor.

Sleep. It was all he wanted. If he could sleep forever without the prospect of Purgatory, Heaven, or Hell, meeting him as his eyes shut, perhaps then he could finally find his true repose.[☨]

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[sanctus-cineris.livejournal.com]

[Illumined in the doorway he entered the sanction of his bishop's chambers, hefting a large pack under his arm. Then, quiet as a church mouse he made his way to the front and left it there, taking one last look back at his superior before closing the door.

He himself was exhausted, and would've liked nothing more than the comforts of the slumber his chiel seemed to be enjoying.]

1/???

[13th-crusader.livejournal.com]

[What stirred him from the comforts of sleep was not the sound of the crate dropping for heavy footsteps leaving his chambers... but the smell of tomatoes, fresh garlic, and rosemary drifting from the box and tickling his nose.

Maxwell snapped awake with a frigid start.]

[13th-crusader.livejournal.com]

[Rousing swiftly, he fanned his hand in front of his face... sure the smell had to just a lingering dream.]

Che... that.. cannot be..

[13th-crusader.livejournal.com]

[Bleary aquamarines panned across the virtually empty room, until they settled upon the massive gift box.]

How did that...?

[Bare feet slid on the bed and padded over to the crate to meticulously examine it. It was real... And everything within it was everything he had prayed for... except for one thing...]

Done!

[13th-crusader.livejournal.com]

[A sudden lance to his heart re-awoke his guilt. Dreams of a world imagined without Heaven, Purgatory, no Hell below him, and above him only sky, were long gone. With that anguish came rosette splashing abashment across his vanity as the realization of who could have brought this came to fruition.]

No... no, no he couldn't have.. why would he ever...? After what I...?

[Skeletal retractiles gripped his own withered shoulders, grasping to regain himself before he ended up as shrapnel on the ground again.]

[sanctus-cineris.livejournal.com]

[Having retreated into his own humble quarters the priest simply collapsed, giving no thought in the interim as to what could be gleaned from here. His body seemed to throb with a passing emotion, but he let it pass him by...Sliding down into the sheets and closing his eyes.

What more could there be done? What more had he been asked of? It was finished.]

[13th-crusader.livejournal.com]

[There was no escaping it. With the way this world laughed in Death's face, Anderson was to be brought back in time. Resurrected just as he should have been, even in the world before this one. Maxwell hessitated as he had moved soundlessly to the priest's quaint chambers, and stood at the open threshold.

A hand at his mouth stifled his gasp to see him there, in what surely had to be a dream. He looked far too peaceful, far too saintly even for a man that deserved a seat in heaven. A few quavering steps and the ward was at his teacher's bedside, fearful to even breath, that he might shatter the brawny serenity before him.

Yet he could not allow himself to settle for the notion that he was still in reverie... and shivering digits reached out... and caressed along the paladin's brow.]

[sanctus-cineris.livejournal.com]

[A pair of silver-framed glasses remained perched on the bridge of his nose, pressed into the ridge of skin so tightly that every time his light, soundless snore stirred his cheek from the sheets the red marks appeared practically grafted into his flesh. Moving onto his side part of his bare muscular torso unveiled from beneath the slipping sheet, his fair lashes slightly aquiver.

Grappling with the Devil had all but severed his soul from this plane, leaving him desolate and empty. Now, left to rest...At last...He wanted nothing more than that.

But the hand to awake him drew his exhausted eyelids up to peer directly into his chiel's, still caught blissfully unaware in that half-waking state.]

..Nn?

[13th-crusader.livejournal.com]

[So small. He felt so small and insignificant standing by that man's side. A familiarity that took him back some 20 years, where his younger self reach up on tiptoes and gasped for the sleeping priest on his squeaky mattress... and asked him if he could put his loving wings around him, and shield him from the night's fearsomeness.

There was never any need to beseech him. For his arms were always open and ready to receive him, should that raucous little boy ever return to him.

Thin brows twitched and knitted as his bleak heart constricted and squeezed out his weakness in the form of his childish tears welling. What a fool.

Such a fool.

Everything he had ever wanted and craved for was right in front of him. And his hatred and pride had damned him to be blind to it.]


Father...

[sanctus-cineris.livejournal.com]

Yer...Grace?

[A slight twinge of irony in his grainy sounding words, heavy-lidded hues of pristine jade questioning in their muted shade. He had sacrificed his heart for a shield of steel, but still his humanness would remain a fatal flaw. The good Father could no more guard against his silver-tongued leader now than he could the day they'd met.

But how could he speak truth when all that the Archbishop could see was his own..?

A steely-eyed silence fixed between them before he lowered his peridot gaze, fighting off the exhaustion that laid waste to his defenses. He was not Regenerator, nor Paladin. He was man.]

....Aye?

[13th-crusader.livejournal.com]

[Pernicious lips opened to speak, yet not even a respite left him. The weight of his regret smothered his withered form and rendered him without voice to lament.

With a graceful bow and a veil of untied tresses curtaining over them, his arms were quick to speak for him. An embrace laced about Anderson's form, cradling him so tightly and so strenuously, it was at if he knew not just how to have and hold another.

Willowy bends shuddered violently as he clutched to his knight's body, desperate to feel the shield of those loving wings again.]

[sanctus-cineris.livejournal.com]

[Like the pressure of a thousand buildings falling in upon him he too could barely lift his sore limbs to wind around the tiny frame of his superior, embracing that void into his doubting soul even when he began to fall apart.

Oh...oh Maxwell...

A deeply-lined tremor of his own before he could press his lips to the other's hair, automatically accepting and worshipful even if he couldn't bear the thought that for once this might genuine...For once he wouldn't have to think that this was pretend...]

E...en..rico...

[13th-crusader.livejournal.com]

[The caressing pressure that weaved it's way about his agonized soul, seemed to coax his vocals apart, and allow his quiet dulcet to quiver past imperturbable lips.]

Mi dispiace... Pater..

[Never had those words passed his teeth in sincerity or even begrudgingly. They were almost foreign on his tongue, yet spoken with such a chilling passion that it fit his demeanor like a sheathe.]

Mi dispiace tanto.

[Never. Never had he felt more sorry than he did the moment those church doors had slammed shut, closing off the last sight of his coveted protector. Leaving him to know that without him, he was truly alone in the world. And never had he wanted forgiveness for this grave trespass more than now.]

Ti ...prego ...perdonami.

[sanctus-cineris.livejournal.com]

[What more could he offer than the fulfillment of a child's love? What more could a Prince ask of him?

He held his thoughts adrift while the Italian words filtered in..Remorseful...Penitent. Dear Lord, how could he keep from letting the floodgates to his heart burst? How could he remain strong for this poor, lost lamb?]

...Ah luv ye. Canna trade...thaet fer all th' world, ye ken?

[His voice cracked and he had to swallow back a torrent of emotion, kissing his golden haired head with such worshipful lips.]

...Es...et..Sae mooch...

..O-o'...Course ah fergive ye...Ah joos'...Ah canna....Et's bin sae hard...

[13th-crusader.livejournal.com]

[And there were the words that assured him that his touch of empathy was true. Three simple words he had deafened himself to; refused to allow himself to hear them, refused to believe they had been said in any context that pertained to him. How could anyone love the demon that was he?

Sea-misted eyes flitted up through thick dampened lashes, reflecting in his shepherd's ever kind gaze.

'Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?'

'I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven!'

Maxwell was sure this much has been the seventy-seven-thousandth time... that Anderson had shown him forgiveness... And so easily, he would do it again and again. No more perfect and devout man was on this earth or upon any other. And how lucky he was to have him say those three tantamountal words.

I love you. Lord... if only my mouth knew how to return those words...

Teach me?]

Allow me.. Teacher.. to chasten my transgressions against you... Even if it takes me for the eternity we are in Purgatory together.

[And so his touch graced his shepherd's cheek, smoothing over thick stubble and a well weathered scar... before his lips, yearning to me taught, brushed a paramour's kiss across Judas's mouth.]

[sanctus-cineris.livejournal.com]

[To yearn...To pine...For years. Decades. He had wanted to hear some semblance of that acceptance, that mutuality in affection. But even as a man of God, even as the Right Hand of Judgment he had known that there'd been little hope for that dream, that it might as well have been foolishness on his part.

Yet he would've never stopped trying if it hadn't been for Maxwell's insatiable ambitions.

Yet all that...It hardly mattered. It...Nothing compared to this..This moment.]

M-maxwell...O'....A-ah joos'....C-ca—

[A hush as that pernicious mouth engulfed his own in a lover's embrace, his arms clutching so tightly around him he feared he might've crushed his near-skeletal frame if he'd been too vigorous.]

[heinesangel.livejournal.com]

[Nill was in the sanctuary -- the familiar haunt, leaning back on one of the church pews with her legs dangling slightly over the wood, and her eyes gazing up toward the rafters.

She was thinking, and sometimes wondering where Aisling went. The two always seemed to barely miss each other, but the winged girl was always interested in learning more about the fairy... Hol Horse helped save her, but then what happened after that...?

Nill had an inkling that the Archbishop was still sleeping, and she didn't dare disturb him, whittling away the hours by picking a few flowers to decorate the altar or trying to read the Bible with... less-than-stellar success.

But there were simply too many hours in the day, and she was running out of things to do with herself.

...And she was lonely.]