#sacrament

papa nihil coming home after a ritual. he’s exhausted from the show but so so excited to go into the twins’ room to wake them up and say goodnight because he promised them he would since he had to miss out on bedtime. rushes through his regular routine, quickly washing his paints that are bordering on a full-face gray by now and shrugs off his sweat-drenched jacket. there’s still dark rings around his eyes that he’s just too tired to rub off right now and he has to drag himself to their shared bedroom before he passes out right there in the bathroom. he kneels at perpetua’s bedside first, careful hand on his baby’s shoulder to give him a little nudge to wake perpetua up so he can give him a quick hug and kiss on the forehead. except, little perpetua’s sleepy eyes open up and he immediately starts screaming. he has gotten soooo used to seeing his papa in those signature paints between all their time in the ministry playing in nihil’s office during the workday, sitting around the band room while papa practices, and then of course there is the band memorabilia and photos and records all over the house where nihil is all dressed up in the papal paints. for that split sleepy moment, expecting to see his papa immediately after the ritual and still done up, perpetua genuinely is terrified thinking there is a strange man with long hair that is carefully shaking him awake and smiling at him. the reaction scares the absolute crap out of everyone in the house, cardi jolting so hard in the other bed that he falls off, nihil immediately jumping back from perpetua to search for the cause of the screaming (he’s scared too and he doesn’t even know what’s wrong), and sister imperator who is breaking her ankles trying to run to the bedroom before she’s gotten the chance to take her heels off. it is a very classic case of “dad shaved his face and i don’t know who this man is now” but in a satanic sitcom family way.