A Lightless Benediction
The priest sat at the table with a stillness so absolute it chilled the blood. Not a twitch. Not a flicker. Just presence. The sheer weight of it filled the room.
Isaiah froze.
The cold from outside clung to his bare legs and nightshirt, but it was the sight of Thaddeus, silent and waiting, that truly made his blood run cold. His heart thundered in his ears. The door creaked closed behind him with a reluctant groan, the sound loud as a bell in the thick quiet.
He swallowed. His throat was dry.
Thaddeus didn’t move.
Isaiah’s feet were rooted to the floor. Something about the way the priest sat, hands folded, body rigid, felt too formal, too restrained. As if he’d been waiting for this moment. As if he’d rehearsed it in his mind.
A dread coiled in Isaiah’s gut.
“Father?” he asked, voice brittle with uncertainty.
The man did not answer.
Isaiah took a slow step forward. The silence was heavy, not absence, but presence. Like a cathedral full of unseen eyes.
“What’s-”
“Where were you?” Thaddeus interrupted, his voice rough and low, the edge of it honed sharp.
Isaiah blinked. The question hit him sideways.
His face twisted, and the emotion poured from him. “Where was I?” he echoed, voice rising. “Where were YOU? I woke up and there was something in my fucking room! Something that shouldn’t exist! You were gone. I was alone. I ran out barefoot in the cold, screaming your name. I searched the woods. The village. I spent the whole damn day looking for you! What the fuck is going on here?”
CRACK.
The priest’s palm hit the table with a thunderous slam, making the candles jump. Isaiah jolted, stumbling a step backward, breath caught in his chest.
“Silence!” Thaddeus roared. The sound of his voice echoed with something deeper than fury, something like dread. “Do not speak of what you do not understand.”
Isaiah’s pulse roared in his ears. “Why not?” he demanded. “You know what I saw. You’ve seen it too, haven’t you?”
“I said enough.”
The words lashed the air between them.
Isaiah’s shoulders shook. He whispered, “What is going on here…?”
Thaddeus stood slowly, and the motion was like watching a great beast rise to its full, terrifying height. His cassock clung tight across his chest and shoulders, the heavy wool pulled taut by the breadth of him. Muscles strained beneath the fabric with every shift, thick arms filling the sleeves, the seams whispering their tension. The candlelight slid along the curve of his broad frame, casting shadows into the dips and valleys of his body.
“You went to him,” Thaddeus said flatly. “That boy from the village.”
Isaiah’s face flushed with color, equal parts anger and shame. Then he stood his ground.
“I did. He found me when you weren’t there. He comforted me while you abandoned me.”
“I expected obedience,” Thaddeus growled, voice thick with something darker than disappointment.
Isaiah stepped forward. “Am I just another sin you punish yourself for? Something to scourge from your conscience?”
Thaddeus’s face contorted. Fury, shame, and something wretchedly human twisted his features. He moved in a blur and struck Isaiah across the face with the back of his hand.
Isaiah stumbled, crashing into the wall and sliding to the floor.
Silence.
Thaddeus stood above him, chest heaving, eyes wide. The violence drained from his face in an instant, replaced with horror.
“I-” He stepped forward. “Isaiah, I didn’t mean-”
Isaiah pushed him away with both palms, breath ragged, cheek flaming red. His eyes were glassy.
“Don’t you touch me.”
“Isaiah, I-”
Isaiah, fists clenched, tears in his eyes from the pain. “Hypocrite. You speak of sin while you fuck your own son in the woods like a man possessed.” He rose slowly, trembling. “You talk about guilt, about punishment. But you’re the one who hides behind the collar to justify every terrible thing you do.”
Thaddeus said nothing. He just stood there, mute, broken, the lines of his face etched deeper than Isaiah had ever seen.
Isaiah’s voice dropped to a hiss. “You tell me to confess. Fine. I will. I loved the way you touched me. I wanted it. I still do. But what I have with Alek is real.”
Thaddeus’s expression twisted, but still he said nothing.
“You don’t what you speak of,” he finally muttered, voice raw.
Isaiah shook his head. “No. I think I do. You’re scared. You say it’s sin, but it’s not. It’s you. You don’t want to look at yourself.”
“I don’t have a choice,” Thaddeus snapped, louder than before.
Isaiah stepped closer, fire in his eyes. “You do have a choice. A choice not to be a coward. A choice not to be a hypocrite.”
Thaddeus’s jaw tensed. His eyes darkened. “Enough,” he growled.
But Isaiah didn’t flinch. He raised his voice. “No. I won’t be quiet just because you can’t stand to hear the truth. Alek is a good man. What I felt with him was honest.”
Thaddeus’s lip curled. “He is filth. A temptation. Nothing more.”
Isaiah’s fury sparked. “He’s more of a man than you’ll ever be. At least he’s not too much of a coward to feel something real. Why do you hate him so much?” Isaiah pressed. “If it’s sin you’re so afraid of, if you truly believe that, then why me? Why did you never touch Alek? Why did you come all the way to find me just to fuck me and cast me aside like garbage?”
Thaddeus’s breath caught.
Isaiah’s voice cracked, rage and pain pouring out. “You act like this is about God. About doctrine. But it’s not. You hate him because he reminds you of yourself. Of what you want. Of what you are.”
“I said enough!” Thaddeus barked.
Isaiah shouted back. “No! Not this time! I deserve answers! I deserve the truth!”
He advanced, fury boiling over. “What did I see in my room this morning? Was it real? Or am I losing my mind because of you and your twisted silence?”
Thaddeus staggered back, hands rising to clutch his temples. “Stop...” he muttered. “Please… just stop...”
Isaiah halted, eyes wide. Thaddeus had fallen to his knees, fingers digging into his scalp.
“Shut up. Shut up. Shut up,” the priest whimpered, voice breaking. “Leave me alone. Please. I can’t… I can’t...”
Isaiah stood frozen.
And then it hit him.
Thaddeus wasn’t speaking to him.
He was pleading with something else.
The air thickened. The windows shivering in their frames, the candle flames twitching though there was no wind.
Isaiah backed away.
“What is that?” he demanded. “Who are you talking to?”
Thaddeus’s face was pale as bone. “You need to leave.”
“You owe me answers,” Isaiah growled.
“You need to leave!” Thaddeus screamed, so loud the windows shook.
Isaiah flinched.
But before he could retreat, Thaddeus surged forward, eyes burning with something feral. He grabbed Isaiah by the collar and drove him back into the wall, the impact jarring, knocking a gasp from Isaiah’s lungs. Thaddeus towered over him, the candlelight snuffed beneath the breadth of his shoulders. Shadows swallowed his face and only the fevered heat of his breath remained. Isaiah couldn’t see his face, only feel it, hot, and just inches away.
“Damn it all,” he hissed, mouth inches from Isaiah’s. “I want you.”
He crashed his lips against Isaiah’s, rough and desperate.
For a moment Isaiah let it happen, the fire of it consuming him. But then his hands rose, trying to push Thaddeus away.
“Stop,” he gasped.
Thaddeus didn’t.
“You want this,” he growled. “I know you do. You’re no better than I am.”
Their mouths met again, hungrier now. Thaddeus turned him roughly, bending him over the table, the wood cold beneath Isaiah’s palms. With a growl deep in his chest, he pressed his body close, grinding his stiff bulge against Isaiah’s exposed backside. He folded his sleeves as much as the tight fabric allowed, thick forearms dusted with coarse hair flexing with restraint. His hips pinned Isaiah to the table, a cruel mimicry of affection and domination.
He yanked Isaiah’s nightshirt up over his hips, exposing his pale, vulnerable flesh to the cold air. Thaddeus’s breath hitched. His large, calloused hands gripped each cheek with a possessive force, kneading the flesh before spreading him open. The priest spat into his palm, slicking his fingers, then forced them between Isaiah’s bare flesh, pressing them in without hesitation. Isaiah cried out, more from shock than pain, breath catching as the slick intrusion stretched him open, trembling muscles giving way beneath the assault.
“Sinner,” Thaddeus rasped, as he squeezed the throbbing bulge straining against his cassock. “You wanted this. You brought it out of me.”
Isaiah’s breath hitched as the words licked at his spine. His body trembled against the table, not just from fear, not just from shame, but from a molten heat coiling low in his belly. Confusion and arousal twisting together. Thaddeus’s fingers dug into him, thick and callused, stretching his entrance with a brutal familiarity that felt like punishment and promise all at once. Isaiah gasped, the pressure intense, the intrusion undeniable, the wet heat of spit mixing with the sweat slicked across his lower back. His hole ached as it opened under the priest’s touch.
He gritted his teeth, biting down a moan that throbbed in his throat. It felt wrong, everything about this moment, but it also felt real. The confusion clawed at him, but so did the need. A need to be seen, claimed, consumed. To feel something, anything, that anchored him to the present and away from the madness clawing at his mind.
His mind screamed sin, screamed betrayal, but his body sang with treacherous pleasure.
With one hand still kneading Isaiah’s trembling entrance, the priest reached for the buttons of his cassock. His fingers fumbled, the tension too thick, the urgency too loud in his chest. With a growl of frustration, he simply hiked the dark fabric up over his hips and yanked his trousers down. He could not wait another second.
He aligned himself, the swollen, slick head of his cock pressing insistently against Isaiah’s vulnerable opening. His breath hitched, heavy and ragged. “God help me,” he rasped. Then with a single, savage thrust, he buried himself deep, stretching Isaiah wide with a force that stole the air from both their lungs.
Thaddeus leaned over him, his heavy body pressing against Isaiah’s back, his hands pinned Isaiah’s wrists flat against the table. Sweat rolled from his temples and dripped onto Isaiah’s nape, each droplet searing against skin. His muscles were unforgiving, carved like stone and slick with heat, flexing with every unrelenting thrust. The cassock clung to his body like a second skin, the seams straining over his thick biceps and wide shoulders, the coarse fabric grinding against Isaiah’s spine. The air choked with the scent of sweat, musk, and something darker, primal. Every wet slap of flesh reverberated through the wood, each movement harder, deeper, driven by desperation and something more monstrous beneath the surface. The sound of his hips colliding with Isaiah’s flesh was merciless, brutal, like a hammer striking altar stone.
Thaddeus’s cheek hovered close to Isaiah’s, breath seething from his nostrils. The priest whispered fragmented prayers to himself. Pleas for mercy, for forgiveness, each word cracked with guilt and hunger. His voice trembled, low and fevered, a prayer tangled in sin, uttered against the trembling ear of the boy he could no longer deny.
“Yes,” Thaddeus whispered, breath catching. “I’m weak. I’m a coward. I can’t control myself around you. Around my own flesh and blood.” The table beneath them groaned in protest with each punishing thrust, until a final jolt sent the candle tumbling. It hit the floor with a soft clatter, and the flame died instantly, plunging the room into darkness. Shadows swallowed everything, leaving only the sound of skin on skin, labored breaths, and the whispered blasphemy of a priest lost to his own damnation. “You make me forget everything. Who I am, what I swore to be. God forgive me, but I want you, and I can’t stop.”
The moans filled the air, damp and desperate. Thaddeus leaned lower, pressing kisses to Isaiah’s nape, his breath searing down the boy’s spine. Each thrust sent tremors through the table, the frame groaning beneath their weight.
Their eyes adjusted to the dark. Moonlight pooled faintly through the frost-laced window, casting thin bars of silver across the floor. In the stillness, Isaiah’s body writhed, his hands gripping the table’s edge, knuckles white. Thaddeus’s cock pulsed deep inside him, angling upward to grind mercilessly into that spot that made Isaiah shudder and cry out, half-muffled against his own arm.
Thaddeus’s breath was a furnace against the back of his neck. “So tight,” he hissed. “So fucking perfect.”
Isaiah whimpered, each drag of Thaddeus’s hips sending another wave of overwhelming sensation through him. The shame burned like coal. But so did something else. Something hotter.
Thaddeus’s hand curled around Isaiah’s, pinning it down. The other gripped his hip so hard there’d be bruises. And still he moved, never letting up, his thrusts deep and relentless. The table creaked. Moans, stifled and strangled, filled the room like incense.
And still Isaiah didn’t stop him. Couldn’t.
Because the worst part of it all was how much he needed it.
Isaiah gritted his teeth, the pressure coiling low and fierce in his gut. His breath came in ragged gasps, the edge of release drawing close. Thaddeus slammed into him again, again, mercilessly, and Isaiah’s back arched. Just before his vision blurred completely, he thought he saw something. An enormous figure, hulking and unmoving, watching from the far corner of the room. A trick of the moonlight, surely. But it felt too real. Too present. He gripped the table as the final thrust pushed him over the edge. His body tensed, and with a choked cry, he came, trembling beneath the priest’s weight.
Thaddeus wasn’t far behind. The moment Isaiah clenched around him, he groaned, a deep, guttural sound that echoed off the darkened walls, and buried himself to the hilt. His body trembled violently as he came, grinding deep as he spilled inside. Each pulse of pleasure came with a gasp, his chest heaving, sweat dripping onto Isaiah’s back as he finally collapsed on top of his boy, breathless and ruined.
After a long, breathless silence, Thaddeus slowly peeled himself off Isaiah’s trembling frame. His limbs felt heavy, as though weighed down by shame and sweat. He didn’t speak, just moved with the reverent silence of a man descending from sacrilege. Carefully, he helped Isaiah to his feet, the boy’s legs weak beneath him. Isaiah didn’t resist but winced slightly as he stood.
Thaddeus guided him to sit on the edge of the table, his touch now strangely gentle. He stepped back and began to strip off his cassock, not for desire but utility. The heavy wool fell away from his body, revealing his slick, heaving chest, the coarse hair matted with sweat.
With quiet, almost penitential movements, Thaddeus wiped Isaiah clean, using the inside of the cassock as a cloth. No words passed between them. Only the rustling of fabric, the shared, labored breath, and the sound of wind pressing against the old chapel walls.
As he wiped, Thaddeus lingered over the same spot on Isaiah’s thigh, the cloth moving in slow, absent circles. His brow furrowed, lost in thought. Isaiah, still catching his breath, reached down and caught his hand.
“Hey,” he whispered.
Thaddeus looked up. Their eyes met.
Isaiah could see it. The torment. But beneath that, adoration. Thaddeus’s gaze drank him in, as if committing every detail to memory. The lines of his face, the softness of his lips, the curve of his collarbone and the way the candlelight, even faint as it was, traced over the smooth expanse of his chest.
Isaiah was beautiful, Thaddeus thought. He wasn’t like Thaddeus. Not broken. He was good. He was light itself.
Isaiah’s throat tightened. He didn’t speak. Just held the priest’s hand, keeping it still.
Thaddeus bowed his head until it touched Isaiah’s, eyes closed, breath still unsteady. “I should’ve been there this morning,” he whispered, voice hoarse. “He can't have you.”
“You mean Alek?”
Thaddeus didn’t reply but his gaze shifted to the corner of the room. Isaiah followed the glance, unease prickling his spine. But he saw nothing there. He turned to face his father once again. “I thought I saw someone earlier,” Isaiah said quietly. “Standing there. Watching.”
Thaddeus’s voice dropped, almost inaudible. “I won’t leave you alone with it.”
Isaiah pulled back slightly. “What?”
His eyes searched Thaddeus’s face.
“Who were you speaking to before?” but Thaddeus did not answer.
“What have you brought into this house?” Isaiah asked, slowly.
Thaddeus looked up. There was something else in his eyes now. Not guilt. Not fury. But something deeper. Grief.
He opened his mouth, closed it. Then whispered: “It’s already inside.”
Isaiah froze. “What do you mean?” He felt a cold rush down his spine. Slowly, he turned to glance back toward the corner of the room again. There was still nothing there.
“I’m sorry,” Thaddeus whispered.
Isaiah turned back to face him.
But Thaddeus was no longer there.
Something else stood in his place.
A shape too tall. Too wide. The moonlight bent around it, repelled like it refused to touch.
Its skin was pitch black, raw and ridged like slick obsidian layered over scales and sinew, leathery and wet, but in places, it appeared to be matted with hair. The face was barely visible, but what could be seen was monstrous. A twisted resemblance of a goat’s head but not quite, contorted and unnatural, elongated at the jaw and crowned with blade-like, horned protrusions that flared from the sides of its head. Its eyes were deep-set voids, sunken and lidless, gleaming with the sick shine of something that remembered being human. Its massive shoulders rolled as it breathed, winged limbs scraping the ceiling. The black strands of its hair hung in ropes, slick like oil and clinging to the sides of its grotesque face.
It grinned.
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