nobody will love you like the devil will//frerard/ferard

chapter one

I was once a child of God
but then the devil kissed me
he gave me fear and said, "my dear,
God will never miss thee."

                                                    --Birdeatsbaby, Tastes Like Sympathy

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned." Frank takes a deep breath. The air is cool and incense-heavy, familiar and reassuring. "It's been... uh, four days since my last confession."

He feels better already. He stops for a minute, just to get his thoughts in order. He fucking hates missing things out when he confesses. The last thing he needs is more shit to feel guilty about piled on top of what he already has. He quickly tallies everything up in his head and finds himself guilty of twelve counts of impure thoughts, two of disrespecting his parents and five of self-abuse in the form of jerking off. Not bad, but not great, either. He runs through the list of his sins methodically, without blushing or stuttering. He's embarrassed, sure, because telling a priest you've been jerking off his always going to be kind of awkward, especially when you're visualizing the priest's judging expression. Judging is basically Father Agostino's permanent expression. Frank thinks it's the eyebrows. But he's used to the shame, and anyway, it's always totally worth it for how light he feels afterwards.

"Fifteen Hail Marys," intones the disembodied voice on the other side of the grate. It sounds bored, as usual, which Frank's always thought is kind of weird. He doesn't think it sounds so bad, sitting in a confessional for a few hours, hearing people's dirty secrets and getting to be the one who forgives them.

That's probably an un-Christian thing to think. He spares a moment to feel bad about it, then thanks Father Agostino and sets off on his way home.

hey!! this is actually not a fic im posting off of archive of our own!! this is my own actual fic how Lit™