ending up in a rural town in upstate new york was never a dream of yours, nor was your ex-boyfriend who you're very much still in love with becoming a priest and ending up in the same rural town. cws brief discussions of religion and religious guilt, moderately happy/open ending, brief mention of masturbation (directly referencing the movie), contains spoilers but takes place before the murder wc 6.1k
i actually meant for my grand return (it’s been like a month) to writing to be about dominic sessa in now you see me: now you don’t but in fact i am so very father jud pilled that i wrote most of this hours after i saw the movie and im seeing it again tomorrow
Truthfully, you had never envisioned ending up in a place like this. A town that felt so empty, devoid of opportunity.
You’d tried a few different types of places. Smaller cities, bigger cities, places where you had an easy time making friends, and places where you spent most evenings and weekends sitting around by yourself because you had no one to really talk to.
Each place seemed to be missing something. Something that you couldn’t place. But something that, deep down, you understood.
Growing up, you were a bit rough around the edges. Perhaps it was the company that you kept, perhaps it was your physical location that influenced it. Regardless of why you ended up the way that you did, you were often a bit… difficult. It was what made you get along so well with Jud - your first, and closest, friend.
He was rough; he made mistakes. But you were close, and eventually that closeness that you formed as children turned into something wholly different as you got older. It was when you were fifteen that you figured out that you wanted to kiss him instead of hug him, and half a year later that you figured out that he wanted the same when he did it without thinking.
When he made those mistakes, you were there for him. But one of the mistakes was… impossible. It was something that most people simply don’t come back from without having changed. He boxed. It allowed him to get out some aggression, to make some money, and to be seen by people. But he made an enemy. An enemy whom he saw in the ring one day.
Even with underground boxing, fighting to the death wasn’t something that was encouraged. It was more possible and more likely that it was with fully sanctioned, fully legal events. But this was a big deal. Killing a man wasn’t something that a person comes back from, not normally. Not unless they can desensitize themselves to it. Killing a man wasn’t something that you could encourage, and it wasn’t something that you could say didn’t scare you when you heard of it, when he told you what happened.
The rift in your relationship was undeniable, and where you often tried to comfort and help Jud with what he was going through, this didn’t seem like something that a gentle touch could fix. So he left. He claimed that he needed to get in touch with the Lord, and you knew that you probably weren’t going to see him again. But if this was what was best for him, you would undergo the pain of losing what was left of him, because you knew that keeping the shell of the man that you loved just to have him near would be an unforgivable thing. Unforgivable, and unfulfilling, because it wouldn’t be a full, happy version of him.
It wouldn’t be the version of him that you fell in love with.
Over the following years, you tried to put some of that pain into creative endeavors. You were rather successful when it came to writing, but you had a hard time finding good places to do it. Cafes with too much noise were difficult to focus in, and writing in a high-rise apartment was only nice when you didn’t look below and see people fighting on the street, or listen too intently and hear the people above you walking far too noisily than what was probably necessary.
For a long time, you ended up in New York City. That should have been the place where you found your best creative outlets, right? There were countless cafes, countless different types of people that you could encounter, and countless opportunities that you didn’t have in other parts of the country.
All of those positives were true, but not a single one of them fulfilled you personally. Creatively? Somewhat. Enough to get a novel published, enough to make enough money to consider moving elsewhere. But most of that creative energy didn’t come from where you were, but from the pain of your youth. From the pain of having every good memory you had be intrinsically tied to the person you missed more than anything.
At some point, you had heard word that your parents had settled in a small town in upstate New York. You hadn’t had much contact with them since you were younger, but you went to visit them regardless. You figured that maybe seeing your parents, fixing some of what could be fixed, might give you the peace that you need to fill that void that you felt in your chest.
It helped a little; it gave you some peace. But it wasn’t really that peace that allowed you to flow creatively. It was the trees, the woods. The nature that surrounded you during the one afternoon that you went out looking for a place to write was what allowed you to find a creative ease.
Whenever anyone asked why you decided to uproot and move from such a large city to such a small town, hours away, it was easy to claim that it was just as simple as finding a muse in nature. Or, to tell people who knew you that you wanted to rekindle a relationship with your family that you had been lacking. But it really just felt like something was calling you, beckoning you in ways that you really didn’t understand or know what to do with. Something, or someone, was calling you to fill the void in your heart that you didn’t understand.
For a while, you weren’t sure why. Every worthy question got its answer eventually, though, didn’t it?
Just like any other Sunday afternoon, you were meeting your parents for lunch at a local restaurant. You didn’t see them most days of the week, but you made an effort to see them every Sunday for lunch, to catch up. They didn’t attend church in this town; they claimed that the man who leads it is too extreme. While you knew nothing about him, you presumed that they were probably telling the truth.
But it was a small town, and word gets around quickly.
There was a new Father who was coming to help with the church. A man of the cloth said to be the same age as you. Of course, you thought nothing of this. But the subtle hints that your parents kept dropping made your eyebrows furrow in confusion for long enough that your father eventually just gave up and told you that it was your ex-boyfriend. Or, he was pretty sure that it was.
A man from the same town as you, with the exact same name as him, and the same age as you? The facts of the issue at hand were too compelling for you to simply write them off as a coincidence. But coincidence wasn’t impossible, and you were predominantly compelled by the fact of why you were drawn here in the first place.
To fill the void.
The void that hadn’t left your chest since you allowed Jud to leave. The void that hadn’t stopped aching since you kissed him for the last time, since you saw him smile for the last time, since you came to the conclusion that you were never going to see him again.
So, the very next Sunday, you let your parents know that you would prefer Sunday dinner, because you would be late for lunch.
The air was hot and humid when you arrived at the church. It had been a long time since you stepped foot in one, and you were quite sure that it hadn’t been the same denomination as the one that you were stepping into right now. But it didn’t matter. That wasn’t why you were here. You were here to see if the rumors were true. You were here to see if you, after all these years, had somehow ended up in the same small town at the same time under some pure stroke of luck.
Or perhaps divine intervention.
From the moment that he walked in, it was unmistakable. Jud was there, seemingly nervous because it was his first service at this church. But he was there, and he seemingly recognized you a few moments into the service. But as distracted as he was, he said nothing. Not yet, not during the service, not when the older man standing far above everyone else was speaking.
In truth, your parents were right about the Monsignor. He was utterly rude and painfully out of touch. He had antiquated ideals and a clear sense of pride in believing that he was better than every person who walked through the doors of the church. But it was his pinpointing of newcomers that irritated you the most. First, he pinpointed a woman who had come alone with her child. The woman, after enough scrutiny and being compared with his mother, whom he called a ‘Harlot Whore’, left the church before the end of the service.
But after a while, his attention turned to you. An unmarried woman, bringing and bearing no children, and sitting alone in the pew. He claimed that such a lifestyle was against God, that God’s purpose for women was not to be working members of society, but to be homemakers and wives. His views were antiquated, and his words were biting and rude. But you weren’t here for him, or his approval. You were here to have just a moment to speak with Jud outside of the service.
Some of the others in the room were surprised that you had stuck around, and one member even said as much after the service. Vera, you learned. She let you know that most people did the same thing that the other new woman had done when being singled out by the Monsignor and left halfway through the service. But you stuck it out, you stayed.
Halfway through the conversation, you felt a tap on your shoulder. You didn’t need to turn back to know who it was; you could recognize his presence from a mile away. The way he smelled, the way his soul seemed to linger in every space that he filled. Despite every change that you had both undergone, despite the time that had passed, he was still Jud.
Turning back, you politely excused yourself from the conversation so you could follow him to where he led you.
His private quarters, you presumed. There was a bed that wasn’t fully set up yet, and boxes that had yet to be fully unpacked. But it was uniquely his, even without being ready.
“Sorry, it’s not proper to bring a woman here, I know.” Jud started, rubbing the back of his neck before sitting down. “I just didn’t want anyone to eavesdrop.”
“I certainly wouldn’t want the Monsignor to eavesdrop.” You responded after a moment, your voice holding just a sliver of the irritation that remained from his beratement from earlier in the day. But you weren’t too focused on that, you were more focused on the man who was sitting in front of you. “How’d you end up here?”
Jud was quiet for a moment, seemingly contemplating whether he should tell the truth or come up with something that might cover up what had actually happened. Clearly, it was something that he was a little bit ashamed of. But just as you were going to tell him that he didn’t have to share, he finally spoke again. “I punched another man of the cloth, so… they sent me here. I thought it’d be a promotion.”
“Is it?”
“Technically, I guess.” He didn’t seem all too convinced, but if he was letting it bother him, he seemingly brushed it aside before smiling up at you from where you were still standing. “Sit, it’s weird talking to you from this angle.”
Sitting might be a… bad idea. It had been years since you were near Jud, and the last time you had made out with him in a bed not too dissimilar from this one before committing yourself to the horrible reality of never seeing him again. But you were seeing him again. Right now, presently. He was sitting right in front of you, even if it was different.
But it was also that very difference that made it a bad idea. He was a priest. A catholic priest. A priest who couldn’t date, who couldn’t marry, who had promised himself to celibacy and the bible. And he was also your ex-boyfriend. The man who you loved more than anything, who was there for you when no one and nothing else was. The man who meant the world to you for a time, and the man who you missed more than anything.
Eventually, his pretty eyes looking at you with a bit too much hope was what made you sit beside him.
“What about you? This doesn’t seem like your scene, city girl.”
There had been… some connection to him while you were away. Jud had a private social media presence, one that you followed because he seemingly looked for you and followed you first. He didn’t post often, nor did he interact with anyone often. But you knew bits and pieces of his life, and he knew more of yours than you knew of his. But this move was recent for you. You’d only moved a month ago, and moving to a small town wasn’t something that you posted online for privacy reasons.
Perhaps it would be easier to tell him the very same thing that you told everyone else when you explained that you were moving. That you were looking for a place with more creative vision, or that you wished to be around your parents, with whom you never had much of a relationship. But giving everyone else a half-truth was easy, especially when you were trying to convince yourself of it, as well. Giving a half-truth to Jud wasn’t so easy. And besides, lying to a priest was probably some kind of sin, right?
“My parents moved here about six months ago and I… I don’t know. I’d been having a hard time finding a place that helped me think when I write, and something about the woods here just brought out something in my mind that I hadn’t felt in the city before.” You explained, but from the way that you spoke, from your tone by itself, it was clear that there was more to what you were saying than just that. “But… I’ve had this void, I guess? Like I’m not sad, but something’s missing. I figure maybe I could fill it here, I guess. Something beckoned me here that I don’t really understand.”
It felt like something supernatural, at the time. Like your soul was tied to this place in a way that made no sense. Until you found out that Jud would be here (or, more realistically, until you saw him with your own two eyes), it continued to make no sense. But now? Now you were beginning to determine that the void had been him leaving all along. The ache that had developed within your heart when he left had been the sole cause of it, and the universe, or God, or some sort of higher power brought you here because he would be here.
As much as you wanted to deny it, that void seemed to be caused by the absence of Jud in your life. And now he was here, and he didn’t seem like a bitter shell of himself anymore, and you knew deep down that you had never felt fulfilled because you didn’t have him in your life.
It would never be the same as it was; it couldn’t be. He was a priest, he couldn’t be your boyfriend again, but he could be there. He could be there, just in a different capacity. Maybe that would be enough, or maybe you were just here to find the peace that you couldn’t find within yourself without closure. Without knowing if he was okay, or how he was doing.
“I’m sorry.”
Jud’s words were quiet, but honest. Honest, because he was sorry. He seemed to understand that the void you felt after he left was caused by him leaving, and he seemed to feel some sort of guilt over it. But your eyes softened when you met his, and you merely shook your head.
“Don’t be,” You spoke quietly as well. Even if there was no one to really overhear you, even if that was the whole reason that you were speaking in his room and not somewhere closer to where the other were lingering outside or even within the church itself. The conversation felt too personal, too precious to you both, to allow even the privy ears of a mouse in the walls or a bird beside the window to hear it. “When you left, you weren’t you, you know. I’d rather have not had you at all than to have had you miserable.”
Because loving someone is a sacrifice, and you both know that. Even after all of these years, you do still love him, and that was one of the few things that you had come to have peace with in terms of the emotions that you didn’t want to think too much about.
“Are you happy? Does being a priest make you happy? Does it give you purpose?”
“Yes.”
His response was quick, but gentle.
“Then I’m happy.”
Jud didn’t really have much purpose before everything happened. He was violent and rough, and he was never the full version of himself that you had fallen in love with when you were both younger. He was broken and self-hating. He turned to the faith to bring him peace, and it seemed to have done just that.
“But-”
“Can I give you a hug?”
He didn’t really think about your question for too long before he pulled you against him, your face resting against his shoulder. For once, you didn’t deny yourself the relief of crying as your arms wrapped around him. But it wasn’t because you were disappointed in him, or disappointed that he had to be the one type of person that literally couldn’t date, even though he was still the most beautiful man you had ever met.
But because you missed him, because he was real.
“I missed you, Jud. I missed you every day, and I’m so happy that you’re okay.”
“I missed you too, every day.”
For a long while, you both remained like that. But the sound of someone entering the building eventually broke you apart, both of you deciding to clean up the tear stains before anyone could come in. It was improper to be in his room, but it was quite clear from the sniffling that you were simply catching up, and not doing anything that would actually be considered inappropriate.
So, despite the verbal beratement from Monsignor Wicks during the first week, you came back the following Sunday. After that Sunday, a new ritual every week was created. You would attend the service, have lunch with Jud, and eventually meet your parents for dinner, granted that lunch didn’t run late. It wasn’t the exact same relationship that you once had (obviously), but after the first few weeks, that void that you felt was something that you entirely forgot about altogether.
The new start was good. It was healthy. But there were… issues that would eventually arise. Not with you, really, but with the way that Jud felt at the church, the way that Monsignor Wicks made him feel. The same way that the man seemed to make everyone feel, just because he could.
There were certain dynamics that you learned on your own. The doctor was a drunk. He had been with a woman who was present at the first service that you attended, but soon became a distant memory in his life. Martha had a relationship of sorts that she probably wasn’t allowed to have with the groundskeeper, though you had agreed to say nothing about that because being close friends with your ex-boyfriend who was now a priest would probably make both of you a bit hypocritical.
One of the boys was an influencer, the young woman in the wheelchair was really only encouraged by Wicks because she was giving him enough money that he was willing to be kind to her. Everyone had their reasons for being here, but none of them seemed even remotely willing to admit that there were certainly better places that they could be. The almost codependency that they felt upon the approval and closeness of the Monsignor was an unhealthy dynamic to have with anyone, let alone with a priest.
His following was almost cult-like. The cult of personality that surrounded him was nothing short of disturbing. Perhaps it was that very disturbance that you felt in your gut that allowed you to flow more creatively. To express some of that almost outdated horror with an unwavering modernity interwoven within it in the sentences that you wrote while you were sitting amongst the trees.
But besides creativity, your meetings with Jud happened more frequently than just Sundays, after a while.
The first weekday had been a Tuesday afternoon. He had come to you to complain about being forced to take the confessions of Wicks again, something that he had apparently been doing since his very first day at the church. He had told you everything. From the disturbingly detailed discussions of masturbation onto religious magazines, to the way that he made sure to shake his hand afterwards. But he had later explained that he read his medical records, even though he knew that he wasn’t supposed to.
Jud had explained that Wicks was clearly lying about these detailed stories, that each one was a fable meant to disturb him. Each one was made to make him feel unwelcome in the flock, to make it clear that he was an unwanted addition in the church. You knew that Jud had been sent there because of something that he had done, but you hadn’t known that Wicks seemingly hadn’t consented to his being there whatsoever.
Perhaps that was the reason the man seemed to avoid you. Likely, it was.
He knew that you were only there for the man who he didn’t want to be there, and he knew that his religious scolding during his sermons meant nothing to you. But for as long as Father Jud would be there each Sunday, you would be sitting in the pews. You would be a part of his holy communion so long as you had a reason to keep going, and he eventually gave up trying to influence you away.
But you were never welcome, not in his eyes. Some of the members of the church took more kindly to you, mainly Vera. She wasn’t as devout as the others; she seemed to have reasons that she kept close to her chest for being this way. Others weren’t overly fond of you. They only seemed to associate you with Jud, and they didn’t really see him as an insider because Wicks didn’t see him as an insider.
It didn’t complicate things, though, not really. You knew why you were here, and you knew that it had nothing to do with wanting to be a part of a community of closed-minded individuals. Being around them, even in association, sometimes puts a bad taste in your mouth. But it had nothing to do with them, so you often found that it made things less complex that they viewed both of you as outsiders.
The complexities came from elsewhere.
This instance was no different from the others that had transpired since Jud had come to your home in the early evening without warning. It had been four and a half months since he first arrived in this small town, and each week, you found yourself getting closer to him than what you knew was appropriate. Each week, you found yourself wondering if you should sit down for your own confession, to admit that some of the feelings that you had toward him were more lustful than what was appropriate.
It wasn’t that you were acting on any of these impulses; you weren’t even hinting at them. But sometimes it was difficult, because you were still in love with him. That wasn’t something that could just go away, especially not when he was still such an integral part of your life.
It was early December by now, and Jud seemed content to sit with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders while you sat beside him on the couch. There was some show that you weren’t paying attention to playing in the background, but you were more focused on the man beside you.
“I’m starting to think that this is a cult, or something like a cult,” Jud commented, his voice a bit solemn as he turned to look at you. “It’s like they hang off of his every last word, even though most of the things that he says are disgusting.”
This week, it had been a gay couple that he had berated. The issue with Wicks and the things he said was that they were pointed, but never blatant. The person he chooses to target always figures out that he’s trying to get under their skin, but because he never looks at them, because he never once says their name, they can’t really prove to anyone that he was speaking directly to them rather than saying something that he would generally say. But everyone knows, even if they choose not to acknowledge directly what’s happening.
“It’s just not what the bible really teaches us. He uses it to make himself powerful and to make people love him, but nothing that he says actually has anything to do with God.”
Jud often came over simply to vent, and it was something that you couldn’t blame him for. But right now, it seemed like he was looking for guidance, and you were almost entirely unsure what guidance you could offer him with this issue.
“You’re right,” You finally responded, your eyes meeting his as he watched you. There was a need for answers in his eyes, a desperate one. He wanted to stay with the church; he wanted to make things better, but he didn’t have a single clue how. “He wants to make people angry, to keep people angry so they go looking for comfort. But…obviously the only one who can give them comfort is, well, him.”
There was a moment where neither of you really said anything, because what were you supposed to say? Jud didn’t want to just give up; he wanted to help people and do what he set out to do when he became a priest in the first place. But this didn’t feel like the right way.
“You can’t overturn him, you know, but you can work towards it. He’s not a Godly man, and people are going to realize it eventually.”
Wicks was more of a conman than anything. He knew just how to manipulate people to get what he wanted, and he knew just how to make people feel like he was the only person who could give them what he wanted. Whether it was because it made him feel powerful, or because some of those people were providing him with money and fame. It didn’t really matter why; it just mattered that he didn’t have good intentions in his heart when he did what he did, and that was something that everyone knew, even if they wanted to claim that they didn’t.
But if you had more to say, your brain had other ideas when it became painfully blank. You had hugged Jud more than once. But you hadn’t felt him rest his head on your shoulder, or wrap his arm around you as he leaned into you like he just needed to be held.
It wasn’t inherently romantic; it wasn’t inherently anything like how you used to hold him after a particularly bad fight. But it reminded you of what you had together all those years ago, it reminded you of how everything had changed so drastically. He was looking to make his life better, looking to improve upon who he once was, but this issue with the church that he was operating within was making it difficult for him.
You merely wrapped your own arm around him and let him be held, your fingers brushing through his hair.
Nothing needed to be said or acknowledged. Not now, at least.
Weeks would pass before there was an incident. It was early into the new year. It was freezing, with snow up past your ankles and a chill that made it difficult to breathe if you were outside for more than a few minutes.
Being the middle of winter, the sun set rather early. It couldn’t have been later than seven in the evening when you heard someone jingling keys outside your door. You presumed that it was Jud, given that he was the only other person who had keys to your home. But the sound of him dropping them, picking them back up, dropping them, and then seemingly falling over got your attention.
Within a moment, you were at the door and helping the snow-covered man up and into your house. Wrapping him in a blanket and sitting him down on the couch with promises of hot chocolate and to punish the snow for making him fall face-first into it. But it was his face (and his newly split bottom lip) that made it clear that the snow was not the culprit here.
“Have you been drinking?” Jud wasn’t a drinker, or he had been trying not to be. Ever since you had first seen him here, he had never done anything more than pick up a glass of water, even when he was sitting at a bar. But right now it was beyond clear that he was drunk. Even if you could argue away that it was possible that he had a concussion from falling over, the smell of liquor when you got closer to him deterred any other line of thinking that you could have possibly had. “Okay, okay. Give me a few minutes, I’ll be right back.”
Not really giving him time to say anything (not that he would have, his reaction times were too short right now for any of that), you made your way into the kitchen. The first thing you did was keep your word and make him hot chocolate, but you made him food, as well. You figured that he could use it, that drinking on an empty stomach when he had been staying away from alcohol in general was going to wreak havoc on him in the morning. The best thing that you could really try to do was counteract it.
So, you did.
But after about ten minutes, you would come to learn that the reason he had been drinking in general was more issues with the church. Though, his issues were all to do with Wicks, as they always were. Every time Jud seemed to want to try to do something for the community, or connect with the regulars who were becoming acquainted with him, Wicks seemed to want nothing to do with it. He would shut him down, make it clear that the church was his and his alone, and that the people who attended it regularly belonged to him just as much as the building did.
Jud, who had entirely different ideals than he did and certainly wanted more responsibilities than he currently had, just seemed to… be there. He was allowed to cover up the secret of Wicks’ alcohol problem, the fact that he hid a flask in the area where he would often wait toward the end of service or when he generally needed a ‘break’. He was the one to cover the service only if Wicks felt like he couldn’t, or didn’t want to. But he was never treated as an equal, never really seen as someone who anyone (besides you) wanted there.
It got to him, that much was clear. As much as he didn’t want it to get to him, as much as he certainly didn’t want to show that it was getting to him, it was.
Right now was worse than it usually was, though. He was drunk and pulling you down onto the couch with him so he could vent his frustrations. But his inhibitions were too low; he seemed to want too much. Far more than he could have, far more than what was appropriate for him to ever have.
Jud’s venting died down after a while.
An hour of venting seemed to tire him out. As improper as it felt to not wake him up, you also didn’t know what to do. He would try to bike home if you suggested that he leave, and in his state? You certainly weren’t comfortable with that. So, you got him another blanket. You set a pillow beneath his head. It should have been that simple, but you made a mistake when you leaned down and pressed a kiss against his forehead. Comforting, reassuring. It wasn’t meant as anything more.
But Jud was drunk. He was drunk, and he tried to kiss you on the mouth. Maybe it was instinctual, it was no where near the first time that he would have kissed you. Or, maybe he just wanted to. But regardless of the reasoning, you didn’t let him. You wanted to, desperately. But he was drunk, and he made a vow that you wouldn’t let him mess up. He was already being treated like an outsider by another priest; it would be far worse if he genuinely believed that he was unfit because he couldn’t uphold his vows.
Perhaps in a moment of weakness, you didn’t deny him when he stumbled to the bed like he owned it and flopped down on it - passed out with his face pressed into the pillow. You would try to convince yourself that it was because you were nervous that he would fall asleep in the wrong position, something that could be potentially dangerous with him being as intoxicated as he was. But even after you turned him onto his side and helped him get into the bed, you knew that you were sleeping next to him because you wanted to.
It didn’t complicate things, not really. You didn’t have much time in the morning to explain to him what had happened because you didn’t really need it. He knew. He knew when he had a throbbing headache and also happened to still be fully dressed that you had just let him share a bed with you because he was hungover. But you both knew that it was more than any of that, and you both knew just as well that it didn’t matter.
Maybe something would change someday. Maybe the pining for a certain type of relationship that you once had would be allowed, for one reason or another. Or maybe it wouldn’t.
All that mattered was the first time that you eventually got him to laugh despite being so hungover, the way that his eyes looked when they sparkled beneath the golden sunlight that poured through your window, even though he hissed away the moment it made contact with him. Because for once, you knew why you were here. You knew why you had ended up here, and how he had ended up here at the same time as you.
There was no point in time that you had envisioned any of this. Not a town like this that was filled with people who were utterly disagreeable. Not pining over your ex-boyfriend who was now a priest who you were still in love with, and who was also still in love with you, even if he only confessed it during the few and far in between confessionals that he had. None of it mattered, not really. Not to you.
But even if it couldn’t have been envisioned, you knew that you were in the right place. You knew that things would make complete sense someday. For once, you found yourself content to not know all of the answers.
theartofmadeline
yousharknotpass
