@mainponcho - From the Year 1987 - they/them pronouns - Queer AuDHD Fat Tired Hot Mess - Against Censorship - Asks Open - More Info Under the Cut!
Married to @ominouslatinchanting (IRL even! For for years and years! I'm so lucky)
Multifandom Personal Blog, Current Obsession: Ghost
⚠️This blog is 18+ and not minor-friendly⚠️
Hello Friends I am Here and I Believe In You.
I'll answer to Bard or Poncho.
About Me:
-Same Age as Never Gonna Give You Up By Rick Astley
- Demographic Shit Out of the Way: East Coast USA, white, disabled, demisexual panromantic androgyne (the both halves of the binary flavor of non binary) with gender fluidity. Or, when speaking to a rando on the street "I'm bi and trans, please don't call me she". Lifelong fat ass and unrepentant about it. AuDHD . Fun grab bag of trauma related mental illness. Chronically ill. Eclectic DIY pagan witch.
-Unemployed, was trying to be a writer or an academic before the burnout crushed me. I have a bachelor's degree in English and a mountain of student debt to show for it
-I have existed on tumblr before! From 2011-2016ish, I was the blog known mostly as queen0fcups and then later after gender figuring out prince0froses. If you remember me from that time, no you don't lmao. I cringe at the thought (that's commentary about past me not y'all). I was briefly bardthewitch on witchblr in 2016.
-Happily Married, been together since 2006! Occasionally polyamorous but not remotely currently looking and might never be again.
About the Blog:
-DNI: Minors, Antis, TERFs and other flavors of bigot. I am ship and let ship, art and let art, live and let live, and I enforce with the block button. I support people's right to enjoy whatever the fuck they want if it's not hurting anyone in real actual life. I'm not responsible if your innocent eyes ignore all this and see something you don't like.
-When I say multifandom and personal I mean it! I appreciate if you have followed me for the Current Thing and I love you. It may not always be the Thing.
-I do my best to tag fandoms for your filters. I believe in everyone's right to curate their own experience.
-To keep the ecosystem in balance, I usually queue posts that aren't about the current obsession. This often results in me getting jumpscared by things I forgot I queued since it slows 'em to a drip. I don't use a queue tag.
-Stuff about my life or feelings is tagged #poncho personal
Interests:
-Bands: Ghost, Voiceplay (and Geoff Castellucci solo work), Sonata Arctica, Pre-2012 Nightwish (and Tarja and Anette Olzon solo work), Kamelot, Rammstein, Amberian Dawn, Dark Sarah, Thomas Winkler era Gloryhammer, Powerwolf, Bon Jovi, Depeche Mode, HIM, Sting (and the Police), OCT, Google Translate Sings, a smattering of many others (music is love music is life)
-Games: Skyrim, Fallout 4, Stardew Valley, Moonstone Island, Guild Wars 2, ACNH, Hades, Sunless Sea, Fable the Lost Chapters and Fable 2, Pokemon, Dragon Age, Slay the Spire, the Sims, Civilization 6
-Multimedia Franchises: Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek (TOS orig and TNG), Harry Potter (not active money giving consumption, fuck JKR. I'm a trans millennial who was ten when the book came out. As part of the injured demographic I have a right to keep caring about the works that influenced me young). DC Comics, Early MCU, assorted musical theater productions and their adaptations, Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, the Aubreyad, ASOIAF.
-Movies: Hot Fuzz, Amelie, Ocean's Eleven (remakes), Man From UNCLE (Guy Ritchie film), Marx Brothers comedies (I grew up in front of Turner Classic Movies), the Desperado Trilogy by Robert Rodriguez, Goldeneye
-Shows: Dropout.tv content (MSN, GC primarily), Batman the Animated Series, The Clone Wars, Jeeves and Wooster, QI, Would I Lie to You, Whose Line Is It Anyway, early Supernatural, WWE (not current). Behind the Bastards, Knowledge Fight, Weird Little Guys, Beach Too Sandy Water Too Wet, early And That's Why We Drink, early Ridiculous Crime, Batrankings, the Aaron Mahnke suite of podcasts. DBZ Abridged, BuzzFeed Unsolved, Without a Recipe, Puppet History, Homestar Runner
-Hobbies: Witchcraft when it's not a religion, Tarot, D&D, reading and rarely writing fanfiction, playing the guitar badly, doing hand embroidery just as badly, blowing bubbles outside when the weather is nice, coloring, adding to my patch jacket, weird one off crafting (there was a papercraft era, a beading era, a crochet era, never sticks), shooting the shit on discord with my people
Where To Find Me Other Places:
-If you see someone called androgynebard, amethystmanifesto, bardthewitch, or BardofForja on a site or service, there's a solid chance that's me. queen0fcups or prince0froses or valentinojustforyou has a chance of being a very out of date me.
- With one exception, no links will be provided because I'm a cagey fuck and tumblr is its own isolated ecosystem and I kinda like that. The above disclosure is for transparency - so if you see a photo on, say, reddit or something and go "hey, I saw that on tumblr too!" you don't think I stole it or some shit.
-Here's the exception: my current Ao3 Account! I write at the speed of a particularly tired tortoise with asthma who occasionally gets a firecracker taped to its shell so um. Good luck.
i love that 17th century jewish poltergeist story where the family living in the haunted house calls a catholic priest for help before they contact a rabbi, because yeah, i think that would be my call too; id be like, oh? a demon in my house speaking latin and drawing inverted crosses on my wall in sulfuric bile? then without even questioning my faith i’d call up the catholic church and be like yo father, one of your boys loose come get him
Ao3
[ᯓ⛧⋆₊*.⁺𝖒𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙]
warnings: religious trauma (nothing particularly detailed) + mild hints at body horror
note: in honour of this awesome event put together by @lycanthra... i've decided to resurrect some of my favourite hcs and offer them to the congregation.
overview: a mix of character-centric rant/analysis bits and typical bullet point hcs. last year saw me trying to find balance in the way i portrayed perpetua's eldritch traits in my main fic. this is more gothic-adjacent/odd-leaning than opently monstrous. i wanted him to be uncanny and unsettling without making him fully monstrous or inhuman. in the end, i'm quite happy with the end results, so here they are! just bear in mind that this is my main characterisation of the babadook prince, not the only one I've got up my sleeve, so keep an eye out for more creatureposting!
I think all the previous Papas have had some non-human traits of sorts—not necessarily due to bloodline magic or inheritance, but mainly because the Infernal seems to relish in playing favourites and Sister Imperator's circle is definitely a part of that group.
The issue is that V's predecessors were raised around ghouls and the Satanic clergy; they had the time and resources to learn about and embrace their individual hell-given blessings. He, on another hand, spent majority of his life without even knowing that he'd been noticed by the Infernal. More than that—he grew up under the bonds of the very opposite of his family's religion, having been raised in a Catholic orphanage and then going on to pursue "regular" priesthood.
Despite that, the signs have been there all along, stretching all the way back to V's childhood; even suppressed by his Catholic baptism, the Devil's light still managed to shine through in glimpses.
𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔩𝔶 𝔬𝔫
V's eye didn't need to bear the silver mark for those around him to consider him an odd child from the very beginning. He would hear things sometimes—neither human whispers nor clear voices; strange hums in tones and language V could never pinpoint, yet understood in fragments he would forget not long after. They would slip from his memory like remnants of some fading yet complex dream, leaving V with little more than a feeling of strange absence in the place of clarity.
On other ocassions, he would sense the presence of something, even in empty rooms, as if it called to something in him, beckoning him closer.
None of these things would happen regularly to properly disturb the rhythm of his life, but they took plac often enough that he'd started to notice.
The first few times he brought it up to the sisters who ran the orphanage, with all the trust of a small child who hadn't yet learned how to fully suppress questions and fear. Naturally, the nuns brushed it off as typical make-believe. But the more the pattern persisted, the less it made sense to keep blaming V's overactive imagination, and soon the culprits ranged from the boy's bad dreams overstaying their welcome, to straight-up demonic possession.
That quickly taught him to keep quiet and try to resolve the matter himself. He would find himself internalising the adults' feedback; It's just your brain acting up. This is what you get from reading so many books, from asking so many questions. La curiosità è figlia del peccato.
He would try to pray it all away or (briefly) convince himself that perhaps those were some kind saints or guardian angels leaving him little signs—but that assumption felt arrogant, too dangerous to make. So he just let the signs pass—let them happen, let them disturb him sometimes, and then let them fade into monotony. It's not like they happened everyday, after all. It's just that some days proved more challenging than others.
Perhaps everyone experienced something of that sort at least a few times in their life, he tried to tell himself, and they simply felt too ashamed to tell anyone. Or perhaps he was cursed. Perhaps he really was imagining things. Or perhaps those were all symptoms of his soul's unrest and the need for holy healing. Or nothing, or nonsense.
He ended up traversing his previous life more or less accustomed to that weirdness. It never genuinely interrupted anything of importance anyway; it merely remained, the way some currents may be temporarily halted, yet refuse to properly shift.
𝔭𝔬𝔰𝔱-𝔲𝔫𝔟𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔦𝔰𝔪
Imagine V's surprise upon discovering a religion, an entire community, that doesn't negate or simply acknowledge those odd traits of his, but openly celebrates them. Considers them blessings, signs of favour.
He begins to learn how to tune into them, or how to tune them out on occassion, but this time without the harshness of his younger years. And after his unbaptism, after having his soul torn open anew and letting the black light in… the signs amplify. Mutate. Unspool. They seep in bit by bit, extremely subtle until they're too apparent to ignore—and yet, they always feel like they were meant to take place. Like nothing has been added nor taken away, only illuminated.
The subtler ones are usually fairly easy to disregard, or even just miss—unless you're around him often enough and pay close attention: his skin being two or three degrees colder than most humans' (very useful during heatwaves...); his silver eye not only reflecting light but seemingly glowing with one ot its own; shadows moving and bending oddly in his proximity.
Corvids are oddly aware of his presence. It's something people only realise after having spent more time around him. Sometimes there's a crow or two perched nearby, just staring. Every now and then, they may bring him little trinkets: tiny bones, weirdly shaped beads that could be rocks or disassembled jewellery or merely glass shards smoothed out by time and rain.
Other changes V experiences more deeply just because they happen within his body rather than around it.
For example, one day someone notices that his pulse feels… delayed. It beats just a moment slower than expected, or may sometimes be felt in the wrong place (temple, wrist, but faint and misaligned).
Also, his wounds don’t bleed at first; there's a strange pause, followed by a slow oozing, as if his vessel's reluctant. Afterwards his skin might knit oddly, cleanly but without the sense of urgency.
I think the best way to summarise how I want to write "creature" V is uncanny valley? Hardly any of that is intentional and honestly the first few times the "bigger" changes happen the poor man is genuinely unsettled.
They, to quote my dear friend, "make his adjustment to the Church twice as complicated—he's not just adjusting to a new belief system, environment, and people. He's also adjusting to a new way of being him. Of how his body works, how he interacts with the world."
Imagine accidentally nicking someone mid-kiss because suddenly your fangs have grown. What if they don't always retreat back to normal right away? What if at one point they just stop mid-transformation and stay that way, and now you're stuck with your teeth forever suspended between human and something else entirely—
On that note, I don't think V needs blood, but he may want to drink it. Whether because he's not fully human or just because he's a sicko is completely up to you.
I think his choice of costumes is a blend of living finally out his gothic diva dream and also embracing those non-human aspects of himself, even if he doesn't necessarily have all the features we've seen in the photoshoots, such as an actual tail or wings. Probably.
His claws do make an appearance every now and then! They're just a rarer instance than the literal demon teeth + not something he can control particularly well yet. They're also shorter than what we've seen in the promo pics, though their length varies.
That's the thing: V's most noticeable physical creatre-shifts aren't consistent and are mostly temporary. Unlike a typical werewolf or kelpie transformation, there is no specific set of features that appear every single time a change takes place, because the process itself is not as much about shapeshifting as it is about the human body bending the rules of how it should function, in order to make space for something else.
Anyway, he purrs sometimes. It doesn't sounds exactly like a cat's purr, but it's not too dissimilar either. Have you ever heard a bat purr? Yeah, it's a little like that. Predictably, it happens when he feels safe and content, away from strangers' ears or eyes. It's also easier for him to get under wraps compared to some of the other changes, so if he notices his partner finds the sound soothing or pleasant, he may bring it out/emphasize it to some degree.
Another sound he sometimes makes: chittering. Clicking. It tends to veer into insectile or resemble the whisper of a rattlesnake's tail, and thus can be rather disturbing. It's also pretty much beyond V's control, especially since it happens in much different settings than the purrs. The circumstances primarily involve layered overwhelm of some sort (be it physical, emotional or spiritual) + more often than not appear alongside claws, oddly shifting eyes, various distortions: splintered voice, bones bendt at unnatural angles; breath turning freezing like a gust of catacomb air; shadows pooling along his skin in a way that's just not right.
He fixates in that state sometimes. Might not fully realise what's happening. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's best for the right person to be nearby until it passes.
let me know if you want to be tagged ♡ (make sure to specify whether you’d like to be a part of my general tag list, the one for worldbuilding and hcs, or just the one for a particular fic/character!)
Papa Emeritus IV Copia x gn!reader (no description, no pronouns, no use of 'y/n')
Rating: G
Word Count: 3,300
Warnings: Author really winging how the Ministry works, references to the current state of the world, crying, brief reference to cannibalism (it's really not as intense as that sounds), embarrassment, overheard conversations, struggling with new authority and a lack of affirmation, and ambiguous relationships.
Previous | Next | Masterlist
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Prompt: "Tell me you meant every word."
Sometimes, you weren't sure how the Ministry managed to function.
Beyond the confusing power structure and dubious funding, you just really weren't sure how you were earning a place to live and three meals a day by doing random bullshit chores. It was also incredible that none of those chores seemed to be done on a regular basis, given the sheer number of Siblings who lived in the Ministry.
Fortunately for you, you had a friend with you that day. You and Nina had been banished to the far reaches of the Ministry, sent to clean one of the rarely used storage areas. Judging from the thick layer of dust on everything, no one had bothered storing anything in this room in quite some time.
You had been there for the entire morning and the rumble of your stomachs said that lunchtime had to come soon. Nina gamely went along with your methodical nature, helping you move all boxes and shelves out of the room so you could thoroughly dust and clean it before moving things back inside.
You had dragged a ladder in to change some burnt-out lightbulbs, but had to remove the glass covers before you could get to them. Nina was wiping the dust from each globe that you passed down to her, intermittently handing you fresh lightbulbs and cleaned covers so you could reinstall both. Even the insides of the covers had been caked in so much filth that you didn't know whether the lightbulbs had actually burnt out or if the light just couldn't get through.
"We should have started with this," Nina told you, handing you one of a dozen tiny screws so you could reattach the cover.
"It's definitely getting easier to see the screws as we go," you agreed. "Maybe we'll even find some of the ones we dropped earlier."
"I'm just hoping it'll stop smelling like hot dirt in here."
Something in the phrasing or the disgust in her voice struck you as being funny. Your amusement made Nina laugh and soon you were both in tears - you clinging desperately to the ladder so you didn't fall off.
"I wou-wouldn't hold my breath," you gasped.
Nina snorted hoarsely, handing you another screw. "I don't think I have much of a choice until it stops stinking in here."
You shared another weak laugh, both exhausted by the random fit of laughter.
"Shit, I needed that," Nina told you, wiping her eyes on her forearm to avoid the grime on her hands. "I've been so stressed lately."
"Stressed?" you repeated, carefully threading another screw into place so the light fixture could support the cover's weight without you having to hold it. "My dear Nina, we live in the headquarters for a fringe segment of the Satanic Church during an upswell of Christian nationalism and fascist ideology. Whatever could you have to be stressed about?"
Nina rolled her eyes pretended to kick the ladder out from beneath you. "Uh, for starters… our new Papa and Frater?"
"What about them?" Two more lightbulbs and you would be done with the fucking fixture. Your arms were burning.
"Pretty sure Perpetua is a vampire."
You barked out a laugh, glancing down at your friend in surprise. "What?"
"He's super pale, even without the makeup and I'm pretty sure I've only seen him at night." Nina frowned, shrugging a moment later. "Well, never in the sunlight, anyway."
"Again: Satanic. Church. I've never seen anyone in the sunlight." You beckoned for another lightbulb. "Except Nihil. Interestingly, it was after he died."
"See?"
You shook your head at her. "Vampire or not, he's the head of the Ghost Project now. And the Skeletour was popular, so people must like him."
"Well, I'm still worried," Nina decreed. "What if he shows up in my room the next time I get my period?"
"Judging from the stories, say 'Thank you, Satan,' and enjoy the ride."
You were busy laughing at your own joke when she added, "And don't get me started on Copia as Frater Imperator."
"What's wrong with him?" you asked, caught off-guard at the change in subject.
Nina shrugged. "I don't think he knows what he's doing."
"Well, he's only the second person to have ever done the job. Give me the last lightbulb, will you?"
"He just doesn't seem confident," she concluded, handing you the lightbulb.
"I… actually disagree," you said, putting in screws one by one to hold the last remaining cover in place. "Think about how well he did as Papa."
"Longest-running for sure," Nina admitted after a moment of thought. "But you're saying he was better than Primo and Secondo? Better than Terzo?"
You shook your head fondly at Nina's unending devotion to Terzo. As you climbed down off the ladder, you continued, "Primo was unholy and got the whole Ghost project up and running again. Secondo was cool - still is cool, actually. Terzo is flirty, and I know everyone loves that, but Copia is the one who led the Ministry through the biggest growth period it's ever had."
"The church grew a lot during Terzo's run." Nina folded the ladder and moved it out into the hall before you could answer. As she came back, she added the most oft-referenced Terzo achievement: "He won a Grammy!"
You handed her a dust rag and said, "Yeah, but could he have kept that kind of growth and success going during a global pandemic that shut down live shows for a year?"
"Probably."
You grinned at her. "Your obsession with Terzo aside, he was good at making everyone feel wanted. Copia makes everyone feel seen. He appreciates the unappreciated. That's what I like most about him: he cares."
"Yeah?" Nina asked, laughing openly at your passion. "And how many conversations have you had with your boyfriend the Frater?"
You tossed your own dust-crusted rag in her direction, but it fluttered harmlessly to the floor before it got even halfway between you. "You would treat me this way, Nina? After all the times I've listened to you wax poetic about Terzo's ass?"
"It's a great ass." Nina sighed dreamily. "Copia's isn't bad, either."
You snorted at that and the dust in the air made you cough for a moment. "I'll agree with that. If we're listing qualifications for being a good Frater, having a nice ass isn't high on the list…"
"-but it sure doesn't hurt," Nina chorused, finishing the statement along with you. It had been something of a running joke between you for all the years you had known each other.
"Let's sweep and pull the furniture back inside before lunch," you suggested, swiping your wrist across your forehead. "I don't want to take care of it alone. I don't even want to try."
Nina agreed gamely, offering another apology for not being able to keep helping, but you shrugged it off. She had an appointment she needed to keep and you didn't begrudge her a few hours of personal time. Especially since you got all the large pieces of furniture dusted off and rearranged in the room before you took a break to grab lunch.
And so, full and cozy and trying not to stop for a nap, you went back to the storage room alone that afternooon. Everything from that point on was simple - take a quick look through each box in the hallway. If something looked interesting or important, set it aside to be looked at by a member of the Clergy. If not, close the box back up, dust it off, and put it back in the room. If you could manage to arrange the boxes using some kind of organizational system, that was a bonus, but not an expectation.
It was slow going and you started to wonder why you weren't writing the contents on each box. No one was going to ask you about your organization and it would make things easier when the next person came down here ito look for something. Judging from how things had looked when you and Nina started, it would be at least a decade until that happened, but still.
There was a small supply closet down the hall from your storage room, and you were sure it would have a notepad and pen, along with tape so you could add the makeshift inventory to the side of each box.
Visions of a beautifully organized and unrealistically clean storage room danced behind your eyes as you picked your way through the detritus on the way to the supply closet. Your memory had served you well, and you quickly located the closet, grabbed a stack of supplies, and retraced your steps back toward the storage room.
Something odd caught your attention. A noise.
The Ministry was full of strange sounds. It was an old building full of strange people and everyone was fairly sure it was haunted anyway. But this noise had sounded slightly less typical than the random chanting or creaks that happened to fall like footsteps (both typical for the building). It sounded like the hiccuping breathing that happened after a crying fit.
You froze, one foot still in the air as you listened intently. The sound came again, interspersed with one loud sniffle. Definitely someone crying.
It wasn't your business.
If someone had come all the way down here to hide before they started crying, they probably didn't want to be comforted. You weren't going to interfere.
It really wasn't your business.
There was a particularly piteous-sounding sniff, followed by another shaky gasp for air. Your heart gave a pang for the stranger.
It wasn't your business, it wasn't your business, it wasn't your business…
"Hello?"
You were already cursing yourself as you ducked back into the supply closet to snag a box of tissues. There was no sound, but in a startled way, as if you had surprised someone who would rather have some space.
"Where are you?"
No answer, but you hadn't really expected one.
"I understand if you don't want to see anyone," you said loudly, over-enunciating each syllable so they could understand you through the echoes of the empty hallway. "If you don't say anything, I'll just leave this box of tissues in the middle of the hall so you can get them after I leave."
You had set the box down on the floor and taken a half-dozen steps back toward the storage room when you heard a congested voice say weakly, "In here."
In a matter of seconds, you had snatched up the box of tissues and tracked the voice to where it had come from - another storage room. This one was full of books, held on floor-to-ceiling shelves that may have been wood or metal or papier-mache. It was impossible to tell under the thick layer of dust that coated every surface.
The mysterious person was tucked somewhere between the seventh and eighth shelves. They were hunched over and facing the shelf in front of them too closely for you to see their exact features… but they were instantly recognizable all the same.
"Pap- uh… Frater? Is everything okay?"
"Yes!" Frater Copia said quickly, swiping at his eyes before gesturing to the books in front of him. "The dust, you know. It's… eh, my allergies."
"That happens to me sometimes," you agreed magnanimously. "Here, take a tissue. If you wipe your eyes with dust on your fingers, it'll just make things worse."
Copia sheepishly accepted a tissue, dabbing carefully under his eyes to avoid smearing the black Frater paints. With a quick little fold to keep from depositing any paint elsewhere on his face, he blew his nose in a few loud honks that made you half-turn to hide your smile.
"Thank you," he said stiffly, shoving the used tissue into his pocket. "I had no idea this room was unused this long."
You chuckled. "That seems to be the norm for this part of the building, Frater. But I'm surprised someone so busy bothered coming here personally. What are you in here looking for?"
"I… Oh, I-" Copia glanced around himself, obviously caught off-guard by your question. It was a little cruel, asking that while knowing that he had been having a private emotional moment, but it would have been weird if you hadn't asked at all.
Just when you were ready to take pity on him and excuse yourself to finish with the storage room, Copia snatched a thick book bound in black leather from a nearby shelf. "This. For reference, you know."
Your eyebrows shot up before you could bite back the reaction and Copia twisted his wrist to look at the cover of the book. It was an ancient copy of Liber Necessitatis Et Famis - or translated - the Scroll of Need and Hunger. This had to have been one of the first versions to be bound in a book rather than a scroll and would be interesting for that alone… but not as interesting as the content itself.
Half Kama Sutra, half Hannibal Lecter, Liber Necessitatis Et Famis was famous within the Ministry as being the ultimate guide to kink of all kinds. And while the Ministry frowned upon cannibalism in general, some of the recipes in Need and Hunger were supposedly quite good. Tested with pork or other proteins, of course, but everyone thought the same thing when they tried it: these recipes had been created with a different meat in mind.
Copia blanched when he caught sight of the title, but he gamely tried to keep up his charade. "For- for research purposes, of course."
"Of course," you agreed with a half-hearted nod.
He seemed to realize that using Need and Hunger for research was probably only slightly less creepy than using it for its intended purpose. He placed it gingerly back on the shelf, posture slumping as he admitted, "That is not the truth."
You smiled gently. "That's probably for the best."
Copia's answering smile was weak and anxious. "The truth is that I came here to check on you."
"Me?" you echoed in surprise. "Why?"
"You are efficient. Decisive." He allowed the fist he had clenched with the last word to lower to his side. "I admire it, but I worry. You so rarely ask for help. So I came down here to make sure you did not need anything."
Your face went hot - partially because of the idea that the head of the Ministry not only knew who you were, but knew enough about you to know that you wouldn't ask for help. However, you were filled with horror remembering the variety of expletives and colorful phrases you had used that afternoon when you were fighting the Ministry's lack of organizational system. Hopefully, he didn't think less of you.
"Oh, uh… Frater, I'm sorry. I said some things I probably shouldn't have…"
Copia's expression inexplicably fell. "That- that is fine, my dear. When one is speaking with a friend… Well, it is different. Sometimes you say things- eh… Hmm. Yes."
You hardly heard his nonsensical rambling, all of your attention on the horrible dread bubbling in the pit of your stomach. "Wait, a friend? Frater, how… Um, how long have you been down here checking up on me?"
"Since late this morning."
The way he avoided making eye contact with you told you everything you needed to know about how much of the conversation between you and Nina he had overheard.
"Oh. Frater, I'm sorry," you apologized instantly, letting all of your desperation for his forgiveness seep into your tone. "We didn't realize anyone was listening. We probably got a little carried-"
"You said I was a good Papa," Copia interrupted, taking one of your hands and cradling it between both of his. The cool leather of his gloves felt buttery and soothing against your skin. "That I- I would do well as Frater."
You nodded, breathless at the way his thumb brushed over your palm.
Copia's tone went utterly serious, his mismatched eyes burning at you from within their rings of black face paint. "Tell me you meant every word."
All the air seemed to have left the room. Copia was ever the friendly face around the Ministry, bumbling and silly but always genuinely kind. But now… the Copia standing in front of you was closer to his onstage persona, commanding and utterly sure of himself.
"I did, Frate- Copia," you amended, feeling the sudden but undeniable instinct to use his name instead of his title. It was a fairly intimate conversation and something about dropping the 'Frater' just felt right. "I mean it. I believe it."
His gaze stayed intense as he gave a slow nod. You nodded along with him exactly once before his face crumpled and he began to cry again. Before you could think better of it, you wrapped the venerated head of your religion in a hug.
Copia wasn't the tallest man, nor the most muscular, but he had a comforting warmth and solidity. He immediately latched onto you like a drowning man clinging to an outstretched hand. This close, his hair and clothes held a hint of spicy scent, though you were at a loss to tell if it was cologne, the soap he had used during his last shower, or the lingering smell of a breakfast cinnamon roll.
Abruptly, Copia was a real person to you in a way he hadn't been before that moment. As you rocked the sobbing Frater in your arms, humming soothing nonsense, your stomach panged with guilt.
"We all pile a lot of expectations on you, don't we?" You said it using the same reassuring tone in which you had said everything else, but you knew Copia had processed the words when his posture stiffened. You rubbed his back, adding, "That's a lot of pressure. I hate to make assumptions, but… Well, if no one has told you directly, you're doing a great job."
He pulled back far enough to give you a watery smile. "You're going to make me cry again."
After a millisecond of thought, you realized that it would be less than helpful to point out that he hadn't actually stopped crying yet.
"I don't want to make you cry," you promised. "But if you heard Nina and I earlier, you know I said that you appreciate the unappreciated. It's not okay with me if you're the one left feeling unappreciated."
Copia smiled - not the polite grimace he gave to the Clergy or the mysterious half-smile he gave when he was amused by something private, but a real smile. You had only seen that smile once before, when it was directed at one of his rats who had hidden away in a pocket of his robes.
"Thank you, my dear." He took your head again, giving it a little squeeze. "It is lovely to feel… seen. It has been quite some time since I felt- felt as if someone… believes in me."
This time, when Copia started to cry, he was the one who initiated the hug. With his head tucked over your shoulder, he said, "And it is always nice to hear that I have a great ass."
You straightened up, shocked by the reminder of yet another ill-advised piece of your conversation and by the casual tone in which Copia mentioned it.
Copia's genuine laugh was a nice sound, especially so close to your ear. And, after you got over the pulse-pounding fear of being excommunicated, you even managed to join him.
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Author's Note - As I put in the warnings, I'm definitely flying by the seat of my pants about how the Ministry is organized and what the Siblings' daily lives would be like. I also refuse to believe they wouldn't each have a favorite Papa and argue about which one was/is best!
As I also put in the warnings, this is another very ambiguous one-shot where Copia and reader's relationship is concerned. You could read it as pre-relationship or just bros helping bros (gn) and either one would be valid!
Thank you for reading! I'll be back next week with Perpetua fluff (as soon as I write it, oops). If you have any thoughts about Copia or advice about writing him, I would love to hear it!
