lizhanne | Suspension of Disbelief, Part One

Title: Suspension of Disbelief, part one
Author:

anne_elliot
Rating: PG-13 for this part
Pairing: Frank/Gerard, Frank/Ray
Author's notes: once upon a time, I saw the first priest!Gerard pictures, and helped by conversations about Stigmata-esque AUs with

restriction, I started with an idea and ended up writing something completely different. This means you will find no demonic possession here, only a psychic, fucked-up Frank and a tired, disillusioned priest!Gerard.
I would like to thank my Sam for correcting hideous mistakes, giving me good ideas and helping me with research on the Catholic church,

restriction for reading and commenting on it, every single one of you I bothered with this in the last months, and most of all,

acroamatica for the shiny beta job. Thank you. :)
No altar boys were (or will ever be) harmed in the writing of this story.
Disclaimer: this is an AU; you can't get much faker than that, right?

There are things from his childhood that Frank remembers with slight disgust and an odd clarity, memories triggered by a smell or a particular shade of daylight.

Such as now, standing on the front steps of his house while he waits for his father to get the car out of the garage, he smells something in the wind that's whirling lightly around him on the porch, and he’s instantly thrown back ten years at least, when he would climb in that same car every Sunday to go to Mass and visit his grandparents afterwards. He has always suffered from car-sickness, and back then the simple act of getting in the car, the air inside it warmed by the sun and heavy with the nauseous smell of heated plastic and leather, was enough to make him feel instantly sick, his eyes squinting uncomfortably in the bright autumnal light.

“Where’s your father?” His mother's voice rouses him from his reverie as she comes out of the house, eyeing Frank with the cold stare she always reserves for him.

“In the garage. He’ll be out in a minute”, Frank answers, fishing a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it.

“Have you started smoking again, Frank? What did I tell you about that?”

“I’m not smoking inside the house, Ma, and I am paying for my own cigarettes”, Frank answers tersely, trying to keep any hint of annoyance from his voice, because he doesn’t want the car ride to become a nice trip through Dante’s Inferno. He moves to the front lawn so that his mother won’t be bothered by his smoke, and wonders for a moment – it’s a frequent thought, lately – how in hell he has ended up still living and going to Mass with his parents at 24, especially since they’ve made a point of reminding him daily what a bother he is to them.

“The car is going to stink”, a whiny voice from the porch follows him to the lawn, and nervously twisting the cigarette between his fingers Frank fights the temptation for a moment. But he has had a bad night, and he just wanted to smoke a cigarette in peace, for Heaven’s sake – so he turns to face his mother with a cocked eyebrow, and with his most unconcerned tone replies: “You might want to watch your mouth, mother. You’re making them nervous.”

It’s true, anyway. He can feel the tension in the air, triggered by his mother’s anger, but any fleeting protective feeling towards her disappears when he sees her glaring down at him for having broached the one unspeakable subject in their household – the one thing he should never talk about, no matter how much she thinks it’s only a figment of his imagination, a cheap excuse for all his failures. Seeing her getting ready for one of her endless, angry tirades, Frank knows he’s going to regret what he just did, but it was worth it, being able to vent his suppressed frustration for once, so he braces himself against the inevitable outpour of anger as he throws away his cigarette and eventually gets in the car.

The car smells the same as always, and the light is hurting his eyes. Frank sighs as he closes them, and tries to shut his parents’ voices out of his brain.
The ride to the church is mercifully short, but the combined efforts of car-sickness and his mother’s bickering make it uncomfortable enough for Frank, who dashes out of the car as soon as it stops in front of the church, not bothering to wait for his parents. He briefly ponders the idea of having another cigarette, but his headache is getting worse and he’d much rather be sitting down, so he zips up his black hoodie and walks up the high stone steps to the church door and gets in, heading to his usual quiet seat in the right aisle.

The lights are still low and the church is quiet, with only the soft buzzing of old women chanting the Rosary to disturb the silence. Frank remembers doing that with his grandmother once, sitting next to her in that same church, but he’s not sure he would be able to follow it, now. His presence here is only a way to appease his parents, and the whole ceremony became meaningless to him a long time ago.

He sits quietly on his bench and tries to concentrate on something completely trivial and boring to forget the tense feeling he can still sense around himself. Work later today – he’s doing the late night shift this month, meaning that he’ll have the rest of the day to catch up on some sleep before going, if only his parents will leave him alone. Just as he formulates the thought they come in, right at the moment when the lights in the church start to brighten up to indicate that Mass is about to begin, and hearing them sitting next to him Frank opens his eyes. His father is looking concernedly at him, but as he leans in to mumble something about how Frank should really avoid upsetting his mother like that, the light his body had been blocking stabs straight into Frank's eyes like a hot needle..

“Shit!” – He quickly holds up a hand to shield them, turning his head the other way.

His father just throws a hopeless look at him and whispers “Watch your language, son”, before giving up on his case and settling to sit composedly next to his wife. Frank replies with an absent-minded nod, still silently cursing the brighter light that’s now completely filling the church. He can’t keep his eyes closed the whole time, but he tries to keep his gaze to the ground as the priest steps up behind the altar and the whole congregation stands up.

---

It’s his first day, his first mass in the new parish, and somehow Gerard’s sure that his recurring thought at the moment shouldn’t be how desperate he is for a smoke, but he really can’t help it. He’s nervous, and feeling old Father O’Reilly’s eyes on him as the liturgy starts doesn’t help at all. It’s a bit like the first day at a new school, Gerard supposes, but he’s also sure that he would feel more anxious and eager if it were, instead of nervous and slightly annoyed. He wonders if his detachment shows through his voice, or the way he performs the usual choreography - snapping out of auto-pilot and actually putting some participation in what he’s doing would be an interesting experiment, but he’s afraid that breaking the usual routine running smoothly in the back of his head would only make him falter and forget the next line. He’s not sure that he still consciously remembers the liturgy, in fact. Then he scolds himself. Of course he does. That’s only paranoia, paranoia and tiredness. And the fact that he really does need a cigarette.

During the Our Father, right before Communion, he notices a boy staring at the floor, still sitting down even if the liturgy now requires everyone to be standing. Gerard is used to people looking bored or not joining in the prayers, but even the laziest ones usually stand up with the rest, if only to look inconspicuous. That boy seems to be completely oblivious to everything and everyone around him instead, and as people start lining up for Communion the man and the woman sitting next to him – his parents, Gerard supposes – seem to notice this too.

Walking down the front steps of the altar, he raises his gaze and sees the woman roughly grabbing the boy’s arm, her mouth moving rapidly in what looks like an angry reproach. Puzzled, Gerard stops for a moment in mid-step; the boy raises his eyes from the floor and looks up at him – they might have locked eyes for an instant, but he cannot be sure in the distance – and in that moment, the lights illuminating the right aisle suddenly die.

Two

Current Mood: cold

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

quiet000001.livejournal.com

oooh. morenow?

From:

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags