grimeshound

Lawrence’s intent was set in stone.

To finish the Conclave, leave the Vatican. To resign.

To never look back.

He was spiritually exhausted, hollowed out by all the years of quiet disillusionment. The once sacred had become political; what was once divine, transactional. He knew it best for him to walk away, and Vincent Benítez’s ascension to the papacy shouldn’t change that. If anything, Pope Innocentius deserved a fresh beginning, a clean slate. A Secretary of State who hadn’t already made peace with leaving it all behind.

And yet, it seemed as history had a cruel affection for repetition. Because once again, as always Vincent Benítez saw something in Thomas Lawrence that Thomas simply could not, no matter how hard he tried.

It brought Thomas back, unbidden to one of their earliest encounters. The day Benítez voted for him.

“I don’t want your vote,” Lawrence had said plainly.

But he’d had it anyway.

When faced with the prospect of appointing his own Secretary of State, Benítez had suggested Lawrence’s name—briefly, almost tentatively, only to be swiftly dismissed. Now the morning after the Conclave, the new Pope had barely a moment to himself. The day had blurred, public blessings at Saint Peter’s, the Apostolic Palace meetings, confidential briefing—the world’s eyes bearing down from every screen and every square.

And still, as dusk gathered and the marble halls softened into quiet, he returned not to the Apostolic Palace but to his modest quarters in Casa Santa Marta, where he had made his temporary residence as a cardinal. Where Thomas Lawrence walked beside him in step, a familiar presence. A steady hand in shifting tides.

They stood in the doorway of Benítez’s room, shadows stretching long behind them, the weight of the day clung to their shoulders.

“I’ll take my leave then, Your Holiness.” Thomas offered, voice tired but not cold. A smile flickered—small, genuine and worn at the edges.

Benítez didn’t return it at first. He looked at Lawrence in that still searching way of his, dark eyes taking him in like scripture in need of interpretation.

Finally, the pontiff returned it with something deeper. His eyes crinkled with quiet affection, something akin to reverence.

“Tomás,” he said finally, with a quiet gentleness. “Would you… stay a moment longer? I don’t mean to keep you, I just—” He faltered, something flickering in his voice. “I’m still trying to feel like myself in this… this skin they’ve dressed me in.” Benítez smoothed the cuff of his sleeve, as if retreating into habit.

Lawrence hesitated. The doorframe was safe, familiar—an exit. But something in Benítez’s expression made him nod before he could even think twice.

The room was spare. The kind of monastic plainness only a man like Benítez would keep, even on the eve of a papacy. They sat at the edge of the bed, a respectful distance between them. Benítez’s hands were clasped between his knees; Lawrence’s remained still at his sides.

Benítez spoke slowly. “Today, I looked into the eyes of cardinals who think they already know who I am. Who believe they’ve won something. Who are waiting for me to be… one of them.” He exhaled sharply, taking a brief pause to carefully collect his next words. “But you—you looked at me like a man. Not a symbol.”

Lawrence didn’t speak. His brows knit together, eyes shining with something unvoiced.

“I know we haven’t known each other for long,” Benítez’s voice dips, gentler now, as if afraid to scare the moment away. “But during the Conclave, I watched you. How you moved through the shadows of this place. Not hungry for power, not playing a game. You carried something heavier.”

Lawrence let out a dry, soft laugh. “That’s not virtue. It’s disillusionment.”

Benítez turned to him, more earnest now. “Or perhaps, it’s clarity.”

Lawrence shook his head. “You hardly know me.”

“And yet,” Benítez replied, “I trust you.”

Thomas looked away, the words almost painful.

“I’ve told you, I’m not the man you want,” he murmured. “I’ve done things. Believed in things I no longer do. I’ve served this Church so long I can’t tell where duty ends and compromise begins.” He turned to Vincent then, brow furrowed. “I’m not worthy of that kind of trust. Not anymore.”

Benítez’s voice softened further.

“Maybe that’s why you’re the only one I can ask.”

A silence settled between them. Almost holy, the kind of silence only felt in confessionals and empty cathedrals.

At last, Benítez reached out—tentatively, and rested a hand over Lawrence’s.

“I need someone who will not be dazzled by the title. Who will tell me when I am wrong, who will not let me become what I fear.”

Lawrence’s throat tightened.

“You really think I’m capable of saving you from that?”

Benítez’s eyes met his. Dark, tired, unwavering.

“I think you’re the only one who might try.”

Lawrence didn’t pull his hand away. But he didn’t answer either.

Not yet.

He couldn't help but feel the way his breath hitched, it’s something he only felt with Benitez, something that never went away since he had started speaking to him during the conclave. A connection he had to the cardinal of Kabul. And yet, part of him wanted nothing more than to run. Vanish off to some monastery in Ireland or Italy, far from the Vatican’s gleaming illusions and bloodstained traditions.

But now, and only now—as the moonlight slipped through the blinds in solemn bands of silver, Thomas Lawrence saw with a sense of clarity that terrified him.

The thoughts he had of Vincent were damning. They clung to his soul like unconfessed sin, unapologetic and unrepentant. Yet, impossible to let go of. He didn’t understand it, this devotion to a man he barely knew. Whether it was some sacred pull or something far more human, far more dangerous, he couldn’t tell. He only knew it permanently branded into him, quiet and consuming like a prayer he shouldn’t dare to utter.

He had tried to bury it beneath duty, beneath silence, beneath God Himself.

As the light crept across the stone floor and onto the sheets where Benítez presented himself before him, Thomas didn’t see the life of resignation he had once chosen, the quiet severance.

He saw a cross he hadn’t meant to carry, and a man he could no longer walk away from.

Vincent Benítez, Pope Innocentius sat in front of him, cloaked in soft rays as if God Himself had anointed him in that light. And somehow, for the first time in years, Thomas Lawrence’s path never looked so clear. So right.

Lawrence couldn’t help the soft gasp that broke from his lips, unintended and almost prayerful.

It wasn’t desire in any simple, earthly sense. It was a plea, a craving he hadn’t known could be answered. A hunger etched into the hollow of his chest. Holy, aching, wordless.

“Innocentius…” he breathed, not as a title, but as something closer to a name in scripture. Revered, spoken through trembling breath.

Benítez couldn’t help but smile. That same quiet, devastating smile, so tender and calm. The kind that didn’t demand, only invited and forgave. It undid Thomas in ways no other temptation ever had.

He had faced false idols. Survived the wilderness of bureaucracy and pride. But this—

This was a longing only Vincent could answer. A thirst only he could name. As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God.

God has mercy on all His creations, Lawrence thought distantly. Even on the ones who taste fruit not theirs to touch.

Even on the ones who look back when told to walk away.

“Tómas… Mi Tómas,” Benítez whispered.

He cupped Lawrence’s face with both hands. Weathered palms, worn by prayer and time and yet so impossibly gentle, as if Lawrence were something sacred.

As if he weren’t already falling.

Thomas inhaled shakily, instinctive, as he leaned into the touch. His eyes fluttered half-shut, meeting Benítez’s gaze.

“I’d do anything for you,” Lawrence said before he could stop himself. The words tumbled out—unearned, unrepentant.

And then, like gravity obeying something more than science, more than sense, he leaned in.

It wasn’t rushed.

It wasn’t loud.

It was quiet in the way miracles often are.

Their lips met—gently, reverently, like a secret sacrament passed between them. As if this was something that had been promised long before either of them arrived at the Vatican. As if their souls had known each other in some garden older than memory.

How could this be wrong, Lawrence thought, if it felt so much like grace?

Like fire from the bush that would not burn away. Like the prodigal son, not shunned, but embraced. They were men of God, and yet in this moment they were simply men. Flesh and breath. Spirit and longing. Two aching hearts in the hollow of a city that had forgotten how to love without condition.

They pulled apart just slightly, their foreheads resting together, breath mingling in the quiet space between them. Thomas stood there, tense and still. A man poised on the edge of a life he never thought he’d reenter. Lawrence let the kiss linger, eyes shut, breath soft against Benítez’s. He hadn’t meant for it to happen. He hadn’t known it could. But now, now that it had, it felt inevitable, as if this moment had always waited for them at the end of the path they didn’t know they were walking.

“I don’t believe in the Church the way you do,” he said without preamble, almost breathless. “I don’t believe it deserves to be saved.”

Benítez didn’t interrupt. He simply listened, eyes clear, face unreadable.

“I am not the best man for this,” Lawrence continued. “I don’t believe I ever was.” He swallowed hard. “But I believe in you. And that has to be enough.”

“So you’ll stay?” Benítez couldn’t help the way his voice wavered slightly, feeling more vulnerable than he ever had before.

Thomas nodded once. “I will be your Secretary of State.”

Benítez’s eyes glistened, just slightly, in the filtered evening light.

Then, softly, Benítez inched closer. “You’re not doing this for the Church?”

“No,” Thomas said. “I’m doing it for you.”

The words were not romantic—not overtly. And yet, they carried the weight of devotion all the same.

Silence hung between them, although not heavy by any means. Thomas’ mind ran rampant with thought. This devotion, wrong as it may be—how can something so quiet and consuming, so certain—be wrong?

It can’t be. Not when it’s for him. Not when it’s for Vincent.

He is everything the Church should be, gentle and unshakable, burdened and still full of grace. He sees the world not as it is, but as it could be. And somehow, he sees me.

If this is a sin, then let it be mine to carry, Lawrence concluded.

When Jesus revealed himself after the resurrection, he called her by name—‘Mary.’

She turned to him and cried out, ‘Rabboni!’—Teacher in Aramaic. In that single word, ‘Mary’—she was seen. Known. Chosen. And in speaking his name, her love was laid bare.

So too with Vincent and me. He called me back to life, and I turned toward him.

Because it’s not rotten work, not when it’s for Vincent.