Author's Note. Aaaaaand we're done. You shouldn't expect to see any more from me here, because I really haven't been giving these characters a ton of thought lately. But this was kind of a fun way to jog me back into writing after a break. And this has always been a nice community. :) Thanks for reading!

Beni

It's dark.

Not outside, of course. Outside it's blaring. Bleached heat slumping, coiling, seeping right through his clothes. Right into his skin. It's bright and it's terrible—dry-clinging-to-the-roof-of-his-mouth terrible—but it isn't so bad in here.

Out there it's Egypt. It's sand and dust and camels and sweat, always sweat. But in here is the high-vaulted silence. Stained-glass and candlelit dark. Cooler in its own way. Dim enough to dull his headache. Scuff-shuffling quiet enough to breathe. He crumples in the pew and presses his fingertips to his temples. Closes his eyes.

"You look troubled, my son."

My son. He scoffs. Shoots a bleary-eyed glare at the young priest hanging over his shoulder. Fingers twitching at his sides, rubbing his palms on his black robe.

"'Your son.' It is a wonder your voice doesn't crack, Joseph."

The priest winces. Bright color on his freckled cheeks. "Please call me father, Beni."

"You aren't even old enough to be my twin."

"Please."

Beni sighs. Leans back and crosses his arms. Glaring at Joseph, lips twitching at a sneer. Joseph sweats. And blushes, dark red at the ears. Redder even then his dusty orange hair.

"I have come to confess. Father."

Joseph breathes a shaking sigh. Something like relief. He looks back at Beni with watery green eyes and forces a smile.

"That's—that's good. Very good. Shall we?" And throws a skinny, trembling arm toward the confessional. Beni stares at it with grim eyes. And shrugs.

His joints pop when he stands. Stretches his arms over his head and yawns loudly, spine cracking like the worn black Bible in the priest's hand. Joseph rubs his thumb over the embossed letters. Vulgate. And glances away.

He walks with the anxious determination of a young man about to do old man's work. So eager it turns Beni's stomach. And he almost says he'll wait for Father Lucius—miserable, worty old hog. He almost says he'll confess to Father Lucius, but he doesn't have all day to do penance and Joseph will make it easy on him.

Five Hail, Mary's and an Our Father, he'd said last time. And Beni had balked—

Is that all?

And heard the dopey smile in his voice, I'll pray the rest for you.

What a sap.

Beni pulls back the dark purple curtain of the confessor's box and pretends it isn't odd that Joseph prays for him. Pretends that many other priests have said, I'll pray the rest. Oh, priests were always praying for him. Narrow-eyed and frowning. He told Father Lucius that he'd pulled twenty dollars from the mattress lining of a whore's crib, while she and her baby were sleeping. And Father Lucius snorted, sandpaper-scowl in his voice when he told him I'll pray for you. Sounding more like he was praying him deeper into purgatory than out of it.

Beni pales and crosses himself. No, he doesn't care to see Father Lucius on a day like this. He will need Joseph's fervent prayers if he wants to make it back from Hamunaptra alive.

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been...six days since my last confession."

It's quiet on the other side of the wall, and Beni can only just make out the shadow of Joseph's face through the open lattice-work screen.

"But I have not heard your confession in over two weeks," he whispers at last.

Beni tosses a Hungarian curse at the ceiling. "Yes, that new priest heard it for me. What is his name? Italian, Something-o—"

"Father Angelo." He says it like vinegar.

Beni sneers. "Ah, that was it. Angelo. A rather striking fellow, eh? Why should he become a priest, I wonder. Handsome as he is, he should have no trouble finding a woman—"

"That isn't why men join the priesthood—"

"—or many women, if he was smart. Do you suppose he prefers boys?"

"That isn't why men join the priesthood, either," Joseph snaps. A little too quickly.

Beni bites down hard to keep from laughing out loud. Shoulders shaking, grin splitting his face.

"I should remind you that this is a place of reverence and contrition."

Beni presses his lips against a smirk. "I am not familiar with such long words."

He hears Joseph squirm in his seat. Cough and drum his fingers on the cover of his Bible. "R-reverence means—you know, respect. The kind of holy respect you have for God—"

"Ah."

"And—and contrition is—is—is—" A huff. "You're making fun of me."

"Yes."

"I wish you wouldn't do that."

"Forgive me, 'Father.'"

Joseph shifts. The pages of his Bible flutter. "It's only—look. I am happy to be your friend, Beni. I know that your life has been hard, and I don't want to be one of those—those priests who is cold and distant to their flock. That isn't the nature of Christ, and that shouldn't be the nature of his servants. I believe that. And I want you to know, you may always come to me—as a friend, any time, outside of the church. B-but in here, I am your priest. I know that you're—you're older than me, and you know more about...life, I guess—certain aspects of it, you do. You know more than me. All right? But it doesn't take a great lot of discernment to recognize that—that—that maybe, being where you are in life, and being where I am in life—that maybe I know more about certain things—s-certain important, beneficial things that—that would—uh, benefit you. To...know."

Beni sighs. Holds back a yawn. "Of course, Father. Good talk. Will you hear my confession now?"

A whispered, "Yes."

"Very good. Do I begin again, or—?"

"No, that's all right—"

Beni frowns. Suspicious. "Does it still count if I do not start again?"

Joseph chuckles, more nervous than he realizes. "It still counts. I promise. Please begin."

Beni reaches into his pocket and pulls out a rosary with milky blue beads. An enamel likeness of the Virgin. Thin, wasting Jesus dangling on a silver cross. He rolls it between his hands and thinks.

Aloud.

"I have lied, I have stolen—"

"What did you steal?"

Beni groans. "Shit, Father—"

"You have used unclean speech."

"Fasz kivan."

Sharper, "You have used unclean speech. Just because I can't understand you doesn't mean it's not a sin."

Beni rolls his eyes. "I stole a coat and a loaf of bread."

"And did you steal because you coveted your neighbor?"

"I coveted his full stomach."

Joseph sighs. "Beni, poverty is not a sin. My brothers in other orders take vows of poverty because they believe it isn't really possible to live a devout life with riches."

Beni scoffs.

"'Blessed are the poor,' Jesus said that. And he also said it was easier for a camel to enter through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to make it into heaven." He laughs. "Now that I've seen a camel in the flesh, and can really conceptualize—"

"I have not loved God with my whole heart, I have not loved my neighbor as myself, I have lusted after women—can we move on?"

"I'm only saying—"

"I'm poor. That makes me holy. I understand."

"Actually, that isn't quite—"

"I fucked a married woman."

Joseph drops his Bible with a clack. Fumbles and flusters and Beni waits. Rolls his rosary with one hand and reaches into his pocket with the other. Flips open a pocket watch in the time it takes Joseph to cough and swallow hard and still his anxious, drumming fingers.

"O-oh?"

"Well, not entirely married. Engaged. Whatever that means."

"It means she has promised to marry someone else."

Beni snorts. "What's the difference between that and married?"

He doesn't mean it as an honest question, but Joseph is already in a state. He already dropped his Bible. He's already babbling—

"W-well, traditionally, it means that no wedding has—has taken place, or—or—or—or the marriage hasn't been, uh, consummated."

"'Consummated.'"

Joseph takes a breath. "Yes, the, uh, bride and groom have not—have not yet—uh—"

"He hasn't fucked her. I know what consummated means, all right? They consummated all across the ocean to get to this hellhole of a country. So what does that make them?"

"Well—"

"We call it married," Beni says, and snaps his watch closed. "You buy a ring that costs more than a house for a woman, she had better be having your babies, eh? And not just a couple babies. I mean lots and lots of babies. So many babies you forget the way she looks without one in her. That's a fool who buys a woman a ring when she doesn't belong to him. We call it married and save the trouble of deciding how married she really is."

Joseph sighs, and Beni can almost hear him nod. The scrape of his skin against a clerical collar that's too tight. Even for his silly chicken neck.

"So you slept with a—she's engaged but we'll say married—woman."

Beni bites back a smirk. Forces a frown and a curious tone, "Oh, no, I did not have time for sleep. I fucked her and I left."

"N-no, that's not—it's a—uh, an expression—" Joseph lets out a loud sigh. "You're making fun of me again."

Snickers.

"Beni."

He holds up his hands. "The last time, I swear."

Joseph sighs again. That's all he does over there. He's either sighing or stuttering and Beni would find both annoying if Joseph wasn't praying him into heaven faster than the latest the saint.

"Did you even have sex with this woman, or is this all one big joke?"

Beni smirks. Leans back and crosses his arms. "I didn't 'have sex' with her. I fucked her, hard, on the floor of her hotel room while her not-husband and his stupid friends were in the lobby drinking and gambling and making passes at belly-dancers."

It's quiet. And for a moment Beni remembers cold floorboards under his palms and long, shaved legs around his waist. Silky skin and silky hair and burning, furious eyes. Hateful. Pushy. Urgent. Kissing with too much teeth. Holding with too much nails. Making him make it hurt worse than—

"You seduced this woman."

Beni scoffs. "She threw herself at me."

Joseph snorts. Actually, out loud. A snort that makes Beni's eyes narrow, and go searching through the lattice screen.

"You don't believe me, now?"

"Beni."

"She did! I swear to you. I was minding my own business, leaving the hotel after the hundredth boring meeting this Egyptologist has insisted we have, going over and over and over the whole trip, and—"

"Egyptologist?"

Beni winces. Mutters a curse.

"Why are you meeting with an Egyptologist?"

"Come on, Father, it isn't a sin—"

"Leading people to miserable deaths in the desert is, however."

"—and I was just getting to the good part! You wanted to hear that, didn't you? How she asked me to stay back, all cold and snooty, and then as soon as the door closed—"

"Why are you meeting with an Egyptologist, Beni? I'm not going to ask again."

Beni sighs. Runs his thumb over the Virgin's enamel face on his rosary. "Okay, fine. I am leaving on a trip to Hamunaptra today."

For a while all he can hear is Joseph's angry breath. Loud nose-breathing like a bull. Snort and huff and then—

"I have a responsibility to go to the police. You know that, right?"

Beni scoffs. "So go to them."

"I will. I'm going to, this time. I have to."

"Fine."

"You don't think I will."

Beni glances at the ceiling. And sighs. "The first time I thought you might. But here we are at perhaps the fourth or fifth time, and still no shackles on my wrists."

He waits, and Joseph says nothing.

"If it helps your conscience, we really are going this time. I am not leaving them anywhere. We are going out there, and we are coming back."

"Nothing is going to help my conscience but telling the truth."

Beni stares. Twitching. Twitching. Gaze flaring at the screen. "I have made an honest deal."

"With a fellow whose fiancee you slept with."

"Whose what?"

Joseph scoffs. "I'm not falling for that again."

"This time I honestly don't know."

"Yes, you do. You spoke French in the Legion for years. You know what a fiancee is."

Beni purses his lips. He stares past the rosary in his hand to his feet on the floor. Dusty in their sandals. Yellowed nails and sunburned toes.

"You know, when you think about it, it really isn't my sin. She is the one who broke her promise."

Joseph sounds tired when he sighs. "You didn't have to sleep with her. Nobody made you."

"She threw herself at me."

"That doesn't matter."

Beni rolls his eyes. "What should I have done, then? Since you are so smart. Give me your sagely advice, oh celibate one."

A breath. "Joseph fled Potiphar's wife when she threw herself at him."

A grim sneer tugs at Beni's lips. "Ah. So is that the Joseph you have named yourself after? I always assumed it was Mary's husband."

"Joseph is actually my given name."

"It suited you, a man who was happy to marry a woman and never fuck her."

Beni can feel Joseph staring through the lattice screen. If he leaned closer, and squinted, he could probably see his wide or narrow eyes. But Beni doesn't. He leans back and dangles his rosary in front of him. Watches the cross twist and swing, back and forth. Back and forth. Back and—

"I infer you're saying something about me, but I'm puzzled over what it is."

Beni sighs. "No you're not."

Desperately, "Is this a cruel jab about my vows?"

"It has nothing to do with your goddamn vows, 'Father.'"

Joseph swallows. And shudders. "Okay." And breathes, trembling, breathes. Says again, "Okay."

Beni rolls his rosary in his hand. A pleasant, smooth clatter. Easy, "You know, you are the only one I confess to, about the people in the desert."

Whispers, "So you have known for quite some time."

Beni scoffs. "It is obvious to anyone who knows how to look. Did you forget where I come from? I grew up in the alleys where perverts like you would come looking for...unnatural lovers."

Joseph sucks in a breath. "I have never, ever done that."

"Of course not, Father."

"I haven't. Ever." He swallows. Leans closer to the screen and whispers even quieter, "If—if—if—look. I suppose there isn't any point in lying, is there? No, I don't like women. A-a-and I never have. But I didn't join the priesthood to hide it—"

Beni snorts.

"I didn't! At least, not only for that. Okay? I am a good priest, and—"

"So good you will pray more than half my penance for me, eh?"

Joseph sighs. The rustle of his clothes as he crumples in his seat. The ghostly flutter of his Bible's pages.

His mumble, "I don't know what you want me to say."

"I want you to say nothing," Beni spits. "That is the entire point, Joseph. I want you to pray and grant me forgiveness and keep your mouth shut to the police. And you will do this because I know your disgusting secret, don't I?"

Joseph's voice is gruff and thick. A sob sticks in his throat. "That isn't the reason. That isn't the reason I never went to the police."

Beni grimaces at the floor. "Of course it isn't. Because you seemed to think you were hiding it so well—"

"Beni—"

"Because—I can come to you any time! As your friend, of course. There is nothing strange about that. Not at all. And why shouldn't you get jealous when another priest hears my confession? Another young, handsome priest—it is, of course, most usual for a man to behave this way." Beni's jaw tightens. "Because if, by some kind of witchcraft, I should take a sick turn—it should be for you, shouldn't it? That is what you think."

"Please stop."

"I am normal."

"I know—"

"I like to fuck women."

"I know that—"

"I fuck a lot of them."

Joseph scoffs. "Well, let's not pretend it's a lot."

"Shut up," Beni snaps. "I like women. I have never said anything to make you hope otherwise. Your mind is sick. I would never want you. Because I am normal, and normal men do not want other men. We want—"

"Women, I know," Joseph says. Bristling. Voice tightening. A kind of hiss, "And—and do you, Beni? Like women? Do you? I never would have guessed from how much time and detail you spend confessing your few, sad exploits. And you tell me all of this—why? To remind me that you—you do, like women? I got it. B-but by all means, keep telling me, like you can convince me it's even gratifying. Like it's not painfully obvious that you're just a sad, pathetic man trying to feel like someone gives even half the damn that I do for you. You think if you're rich, someone will love you? Well they won't, Beni. Not really. If they don't love you like this, they're not going to love you with money. This, what we do, right here, confession—absolution—this? This is love. And I'm really, really sorry that I'm not the person you want to love you, but honestly, I'm not convinced it would make a difference. If I was a real...leggy...blonde—or—whatever it is you like, i-i-in a woman—even then, I don't think it would matter. Because it's not enough for someone to love you, Beni. You've got to love them back to have any kind of joy. Otherwise, no matter what, you are always going to be miserable and alone."

It's quiet. Tense and mean and so quiet. Beni's holding onto a breath he can't seem to let go of, heart crash-pounding, dizzy between his ears. He has a revolver in his waistband that he'd use if his fists weren't shaking so hard, so tight around his rosary that the string snaps. Beads flood his hands.

"I never expected you to feel the same," Joseph says, softer now. "Or—or—or—or want me back. I guess I just expected a little more grace since I am the only person in the world who really cares for you."

Beni stands. Stuffs his broken rosary in his pocket and glares at the screen. "You want grace? I could have told every person who walked into this church what you really are. I could have come to your house, as your friend, and slit your throat while you slept. That is my grace to you, eh? You're welcome. Now start praying, since you are not one of those cold, distant priests. Start praying, since you're so sure you are the only one who will. I want to make it back from the City of the Dead alive."

end.