putting this out here because I've been thinking of it thoroughly however I want to write other things first, and thus this is the most efficient method of expelling this thought from my body,,,
I quite like the idea of two men who grew up together, in a very catholic-victorian esque time era, suffering repression of their sexuality. As they grow older, one only becomes more and more chaste - he struggles with his emotions, or it feels like his lack thereof. There's not a woman who catches his eye.
Meanwhile, the other man feels like he's losing his mind. He can see it so clearly in their friendship. They're meant to be more, aren't they? But then he disappears.
Everyone assumes he's dead, eventually, and the man who was once his best friend becomes cold and lonely; he can't bring himself to marriage, maybe it's just his grief, but truly, there's still not a woman he loves, so a vow of celibacy and the duties of a friar suit him better.
The friar falls deeper into fanaticism without his old friend to ground him, and he climbs ranks, and builds something of a reputation. People find it enrapturing when he speaks. His only love is his faith (or rather, it was the only love he was ever allowed to express). His hair grows peppery and grey.
But that old friend of his didn't die all those years ago. It's complicated, but it led him down quite a comfortable road. He lives the life of something of a pirate, a vagabond, a plunderer, and more interestingly, a vampire. The night he disappeared was the night he turned, and he couldn't stay.
The church hated vampires, monsters, whatever his kind were. Always unholy, always unwelcome. He was Satan-spawn now, and soulless, and belonged in hell. And maybe he fell in with the wrong crowd, robbing and killing and drinking from the innocent, but if he was already evil, why did it matter?
In that way, he also becomes more comfortable with his sexuality; if existing is a great sin, then loving a man is child's play. Through the decades, he learns plenty about himself, and becomes increasingly more comfortable with the idea of being completely, utterly, morally repugnant by standards of the Church, and even by standards at large.
Some of it's good for him, but some of it is definitely morally dubious, to say the least.
All of that to say, someday, the friar finds himself in the midst of an awful raid - a group of monsters are helping themselves to the church's wealth, and there's nothing he can do but hide and pray. He hears footsteps prowling about the corner, and he begs his god more.
But then he sees him - that old face, those eyes, unmistakable, even when blood red, and the friar calls out a name the vampire hasn't heard in decades.
It's him, they both realize.
