#christian guilty

[weaselofchaos]

AU where Shane is still a hockey player, in Sochi for the Olympics. He’s having a crisis because he accidentally checked out Scott Hunter working out in the sluttiest compression shirts known to man. My boy Shane is freaking out and maybe David grew up Catholic and the grandparents insisted on Shane getting baptized and all of the jazz, but the Hollander family doesn’t really practice religion like that.

So, Shane is walking around Sochi, midst crisis and intense internalized homophobia and he thinks “hey maybe God will fix me”. Only, he is in Russia, he doesn’t have his phone and also it’s 2014 and he doesn’t really know the difference between Canadian Christians and Russian Orthodox Christians.

He sees a white church with some icons, thinks “good enough” and goes in fully expecting to do confession and maybe get absolution for the massive amount of guilty he carries, hoping and praying someone in there speaks English.

And then first thing the priest says when he walks in is “you are Shane Hollander!” Because, surprise surprise, Father Ilya speaks English and loves hockey and “hockey is important for Russia and you are important for hockey so everyone one here knows who you are Shane Hollander”.

And what are the odds right? Shane goes in expecting anonymity and faith and he finds a hockey fan and a menace.

Still, they talk and Shane finally gets the courage to ask Father Ilya to take his confession and “are you Russian orthodox, Shane Hollander? No? Then I cannot give sacrament, but I can listen.”

All Shane cares is if that’s still confidential, and Ilya promises it is, but offers to get him in touch with the priest at the only Catholic Church in Sochi, but Shane panics and refuses.

Shane finally tells him all of it and it feels like exhaling for the first time in years and Ilya tells him god made him exactly the way he was supposed to be, but to be careful while in Russia. “Don’t go around telling strangers that, Shane Hollander, even if they are priests. Especially if they are priests.”

And Shane is freaking out that he will be outed and Ilya reassures him that he won’t tell anyone and then, to assure mutual destruction says “it would be hypocritical yes? We have same secret”.

Because when Ilya was 15, his father caught him with Sasha and it was either religious path or who knows what really??

He chose religious path because his mother was devout when she was alive and he choose celibacy over having to marry a random woman chosen by his father or the church.

And it was going really well, until Shane Hollander walked into his church.

[petrichorletters]

You know what fascinates me the most about the saints? It's the penitence. The whole idea of purposely depriving yourself of something you yearn for, because that's how you can find God. Well, sometimes I wonder if I'm better than a saint. I've found God in a bottle of wine, I've found God in a orgasm in the middle of the night, and I've found God when looking at my reflection on the blade of a knife. Was it supposed to be hard?

[petrichorletters]

I devour them with bones and all.

When I say "I love you", I don't mean that I do it in a bouquet of roses and a box of chocolates. I mean, the roses fit your scent, and the chocolates are a perfectly acceptable dessert. But when I say "I love you", I mean that rubbing my lips against your smooth mouth isn't enough. I need to bite you, my love. I need to drink the drops of blood that flow out from where my teeth rip your skin. I crave the taste of your beating heart on the tip of my tongue. I'm so hungry. In fact, I'm starving. I need to be fed from you, babe. At this point being yours isn't enough. I need to be inside you. I need to be you, darling. Oh, how I wish I could be in your bloodstream like a virus. The idea of being with you isn't enough, all I want is to live inside your ribcage and make my bedroom between your bones. Maybe you should have me as your main course. Chew me like I was your favorite dish. Taste me slowly. Swallow me with certainty. You should devour me with bones and all.

[petrichorletters]

I'm obsessed with Jesus. every time I see him, he's suffering, bleeding, or dead. People worship this man hanging on a cross, doomed to die every time in the name of others. Well, I'm not christian, I don't pray for him or I'm glad that he died so I wouldn't, but there's something about him that always gets my attention. I think it's because his own father put him there, I don't remember God asking him for permission — maybe that's just what every father does, I guess. Well, I just hope Jesus had someone to kiss his forehead and hug him when the night was too cold. I'm carrying crosses that I don't remember deserving, too, but I don't have anyone to dry the sweat on my face when the road gets tough. I'm sorry, Jesus, I won't be praying for you tonight, but I do wish you had a life that wasn't about dying for sins that you never had the chance to commit.

[petrichorletters]

I texted them, saying, "I had a dream of you," and they said, "Really? What happened in your dream?"

My cheeks blushed. How could I tell them that in my dreams, they were holy? In my dreams, they were a saint, and I was a god. I put them on a shrine, and I fell on my knees — I could barely see with their divine halo shedding light, bliding me with the smell of roses and the taste of honey. But I wasn't scared, so I stayed there. I got closer, I bent my body, and my mouth touched their skin, and their hand touched my hair, pulling me closer, until there was nothing around my face that wasn't flesh. I never knew how to pray, but I never had so much faith before as I did between their tights. In my dreams, they were a saint, and I was their god, and I found heaven when they melted inside my mouth.

[petrichorletters]

I don't have a lot of memories. Most of my childhood were long forgotten in the depths of my own consciousness, and sometimes, I craw over the despair of not being able to remember — but there's a single memory that haunts me, and I wish this one was the one that I could throw in the fire. My mom was a singular character. She liked mirrors and playing with dolls, and I see myself as her favorite porcelain, the frame of her glasses, and my mom was a woman of faith — God was her lover, and she constantly reminded me that I was doomed to punishment. God made me the imperfect version of His favorite saint, and she wouldn't allow me to walk in the shadows of ignorance. I am a projection of my mother. I am a version of what she could be. How flawed is the copy when standing next to the original creation? And I was doomed by the Creator, even though He made me imperfect as He wanted us to be. She fed me with guilty, and now I'm hanging from the rosary around my neck, coming back like Jesus from the deads, carry the guilty like divinity inside of me.