![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hexmixmostly tho i wanted to torment chris c:<
It’s the first time he’s been in a Catholic church for an actual service. He sits in the back on the hard wooden bench–pew, it’s a pew.
He sits in the back on the hard wooden pew and tries not to look directly at the members of Piers’ family, his friends, who cry silently with heads bowed, shoulders shaking.
He looks at the walls instead. The windows. The crucifix of dying Jesus, eyes upturned in a kind of pleading, his pain rendered exquisitely out of a dark wood, out of the somber colors of the paintings surrounding them, a circle of suffering hemming them in.
They believe something about drinking Jesus’ blood, Chris remembers. Catholics.
He stares at the dark purple-red drops of it on the painting nearest him, like little jewels almost, hanging off Christ’s crown of thorns.
It’s figurative, Chris knows, but he can’t think of what it’s supposed to represent right now, it just seems sort of distant. It all does.
He didn’t even know Piers was Catholic. Or if it’s just his family. And he should know that, Chris thinks. He should know that much at least. There’s a dearth of things he never knew about Piers–will never know, now–but that’s…it’s something so basic, and he should know it, and Jesus’ eyes look like the eyes of a sad cocker spaniel, Chris thinks, and starts to feel like he might vomit.
There’s a small framed picture of Piers up at the front of the church, near the altar. There’s a beautiful array of lilies behind it, but Chris sat so far back he can’t make it out, and he’s not sure what the rules are for this. Doesn’t know if he can just go up and look if he wants. Music has started now, something mournful, something dreadful. One of Piers’ family is crying audibly.
The priest comes out in flowing robes and Chris follows him with his eyes. Finds him easier to look at. Loses time for a while letting the man’s words wash over him. Standing when he’s told, sitting when he’s told. He feels stiff in his black slacks and button down, in the suit jacket. Stands again when he’s told and feels as starch-pressed as his clothes do. Everyone is chanting something, or reciting, he doesn’t know, is finding it hard to parse the words. He looks at the framed picture again and still can’t make it out.
He shouldn’t be here, Chris thinks. Doesn’t just mean the church.
Bottom of the sea, he mouths the words silently. Is told to sit again so he does. Stares at the lilies and the picture of Piers he can’t actually see. Why the hell did they pick one so small? He doesn’t understand it, is it a Catholic thing?
The church smells strongly of incense, there’s a heavy kind of feeling to it, like velvet. Chris presses his palms firmly into the top of the pew. The priest is talking about Piers now, like he knew him.
And maybe he did, Chris thinks, but he doesn’t want to hear it. Wishes they’d go back to the chanting. He stares straight ahead at the little framed picture. One of the vases with the lilies is slightly off center. He nearly jumps out of his skin when the priest mentions him by name.
“--dfield, his captain and friend,” the priest is smiling at him. Chris thinks it’s meant to be reassuring but he feels a little as if he’s being condemned.
Finally, he thinks. Someone should be doing it.
“...who he served alongside in the BSAA, fighting to keep the rest of us safe. Fighting every day. Dangerous, unthinkable battles. Fighting in the darkness so that we can all of us remain in the light. Remain untroubled, untouched by monsters. A sacrifice none of us can comprehend, that only those who fought alongside him as brothers, those like Captain Redfield, can even hope to fathom.”
Chris grips the edge of the pew as if it’s the only thing keeping him afloat. Keeping him from marching to the front of the church and strangling the man. He doesn’t know where the anger is coming from but he can hardly keep it at bay. How dare he, he thinks, but he doesn’t even know what he means by it.
How dare he, what? Talk about Piers? Get a grip, Chris.
None of you can comprehend it, he thinks a little later. None of you will ever know what he did. None of you will ever know him, like I’ll never know him, because he’s gone.
Bottom of the sea.
Chris, not for the first time, wants to scream. Wants to beat his fists into the wood of the pews, the stone of the walls. Beat them bloody until that’s the only pain he can feel, the raw, bruised mess of his knuckles, something simple. Something he could do something about.
“...can’t receive Communion,” the priest is saying now, “but you can come to the front to receive a blessing. Just hold your arms across your chest–like this.”
And so Chris rises, latching onto his chance to get closer. Couldn’t give a damn about communion, about a blessing. Just needs to get closer to that picture, needs to see–
He shuffles up the center aisle at the end of the line. An organ is playing, and people are singing, and the distance, gradually, diminishes between himself and Piers.
When he–finally, finally–gets to the front he forgets for a moment that he was supposed to be doing something with his arms, and stares awkwardly at the priest, who is staring back at him with a small, practiced smile, something that might be gentle. He remembers, suddenly, and jerks his arms up, almost knocking the goblet the priest is holding, almost sends it flying.
He remembers where he is. Looks down at the photo of Piers and the priest is blessing him, but he’s getting farther and farther away now. Like something opened up inside him and he’s falling into it, and he’s never known a depth like this, never knew he could hollow out so suddenly, so completely.
The priest has to prompt him to leave.
He sits back down on his pew and stares fixedly at Jesus with his sad cocker spaniel eyes, body contorted by torture.
The picture they had of Piers must have been from years ago, he looked so young. Younger even than–
Chris bites down hard on his lip to keep the noise inside. He holds onto the pew. This is all just something he has to weather.
When it’s done he’ll go give his condolences to Piers’ family. He’ll nod to anyone he knows from the BSAA. He’ll drive home to his apartment and he’ll sit there in his stiff clothes and he’ll still feel, no less strongly than he ever does, that he should not be here.
Piers is beautiful in that picture. And he can’t see it anymore, not from this distance, but it’s a pain more real than anything painted on these walls, or carved out of wood and affixed high up, above the altar. Venerated.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-17 02:00 pm (UTC)I really do love this one though, and I love the comic it's inspired by too. I can't say I don't enjoy the warping of religious imagery even if I often find aspects of religious horror played out in mass media. I trust you. <3
no subject
Date: 2024-11-18 12:21 am (UTC)i'm glad!! gotta return to it sometime, that backlog tho -_-
(and thank you! i hope that i shall not disappoint *salutes*)
no subject
Date: 2024-11-20 06:50 am (UTC)