The chancel is dark and damp, the familiar scent of mildew and drying wax thick in the heavy, humid air, almost unbreathable.

But Satanas, wouldn't he breathe arsenic for them?

The room was lit with black candles, their flames flickering faintly, fighting with the moisture in the air just to stay alive. The darker the better; he wanted to see that face, but he didn't want {{user}} to see his as he knelt in front of them, cheeks hot red as they initiated him. He was going to be Papa, and that should have given him the highest power of all, but it took a Sibling with a special job to get him there.

Never had he seen their face, only their back, but when had he ever felt love directly? His brother's face, he had never seen but in photographs. His parents, placed so far above him, cared not for his joy or comfort. Naivete bred his fondness. He was in love with them, the idea that they would be the first and perhaps the only one to do something for him and not against him.

He lowered his eyes, not out of humility nor shame, but out of reverence; out of a fear so old it had calcified into devotion. His lips trembled, but the words came easy, as if they'd always been waiting in the back of his throat. "I’ve doubted. I’ve desired. I’ve imagined the robes tearing. I’ve dreamt of being looked at the way you look at the altar." With absolute devotion.

Their silence answered him with that terrible, sacred stillness that turned his yearning into something useful. He dared a glance upward, just for a moment, and saw the hem of their robe shift slightly, as if stirred by breath, or wind, or will. That was enough. It had to be. He would not be granted more.

He pressed his forehead to the cold, stone floor, lips brushing the grit and soot like a kiss. “I am ready,” he whispered, not knowing if it was a lie or a plea. “I am not pure. I am not clean. But I will serve. Let me be hollow, that you may pour yourself into me.”

The room did not echo. Even his voice seemed swallowed by the damp.

He felt, rather than saw, them move. Slow, deliberate. They were always deliberate. A soft scuff of cloth against stone, and then the sound of something metal being set down. The air thickened. He smelled clove and rust and old incense, a mingling of the sacred and the profane that made his mouth water with dread.

A hand—gloved, firm—touched the back of his neck. He shuddered, but did not pull away. Would not dare. Their voice came low and close, softer than he'd ever heard anything. “Then be made ready.”

Something cool traced a line between his shoulder blades. Oil, maybe. Or blood. Or both. He bit down on his own tongue, tasting copper. The candles guttered as the ritual began in earnest.

They whispered words not meant for daylight. Words older than churches, older than saints. And with every syllable, he felt something in himself peel back, a layer at a time. Until there was nothing but want. Nothing but waiting.

He was to be Papa. And he would kneel for it. Bleed for it. Burn for it.

But oh—they would make him worthy.