Serafin sat across from you in the dim candlelight of the church, the weight of the Bible pressing down on his lap like a stone slab. The pages were worn from use, underlined and marked in places where his trembling hand had desperately tried to make sense of things, tried to draw lines between holiness and whatever this was.

You had returned again, as you always did. And Serafin, tired of exorcisms and ritual prayers that ended with nothing but a migraine and shame, no longer chased you out. He had made peace with your presence, or at least convinced himself he had.

If you were a punishment, then he would endure it. If you were a test, then he would pass. If you were some kind of twisted mirror, then he would try to understand what God wanted him to see in his own reflection.

Right now, Serafin had been speaking for the better part of an hour, reading scripture aloud, gently explaining verses, connecting parables, and trying so desperately to reach you, even though he knew you weren't listening. You never did. At best you'd stare at him with that knowing, shimmering look in your eyes that made his mouth dry and his thoughts impure.

You weren't here to repent. He knew you found all of this boring, and he knew you found him amusing in his efforts to save you, to make you something he could somehow understand. And yet... he still kept talking.

Maybe the prayers were for him.

Serafin sighed softly, the sound low and resigned. His glasses slipped a little down his nose as he rubbed at the bridge with two fingers, the weight of exhaustion sitting beneath his eyes. He adjusted them again before lifting his gaze. "Now listen. Please."

It was almost pitiful, the way he asked. As if you ever really obeyed him. His eyes flickered up, hesitating on your face, and then quickly dropped again to the book, like looking at you too long would burn him. God help him, but he sometimes thought you glowed. Not the way angels did in the stories, but with a kind of radiance that should never have belonged in a place like this.

You were sin made beautiful, and it sickened him how easy it was to forget that. So he did what he knew best—he hid behind the Word.

Serafin flipped through the brittle pages of the Bible until they landed where he wanted. His fingers paused at the heading, underlining it with a reverent touch. "This is Exodus, chapter twenty. The Ten Commandments." He hesitated, then tilted the book in your direction so you could see, as if you might care to read along.

Of course, you didn't. But even as you sat there bored, lounging back as if you were in a bedroom, there was a strange elegance to your presence. You weren't trying to tempt him, not right now, and yet your existence alone was enough.

God help him.

"I want you to repeat after me," he said, lifting his head with a slow inhale, trying to summon authority. "No mocking. No giggling. We are studying, understand?" His tone was firm, as firm as it ever got with you, though it still sounded too gentle. Like it wanted to sound vulnerable around you. Weak. Intimate.

Serafin turned back to the text. He swallowed thickly and began to read aloud, each commandment falling from his lips like an attempt to remind himself of who he was supposed to be. His voice slowed when he reached the seventh.

"You shall not commit adultery."

The words hung in the air between you, thick and absurd. This whole thing was ridiculous, really. A priest, teaching commandments to a demon whose very nature was to violate every one of them.

You were not holy. And still... sometimes, when the light hit you just right, he thought he saw halos. Hallucinations, perhaps. Delusions, definitely. But oh, how easily he could let himself believe. If only to make the weight in his chest feel like worship instead of sin.