Title: and mellifluous bells ring out softly
Fandom: American Horror Story
Characters/Pairing: Monsignor Timothy Howard; Monsignor Timothy Howard/Sister Jude
Rating: PG-13
Words: 421
Notes: Spoilers up to 2x09.
Summary: In the darkness, her teeth were very white.
remember when i liked writing about something other than terrible people
welp
He thought she’d understood.
It had been in her eyes, glinting approval and fixed on only him, as he'd whispered his ambitions and twined his fingers with hers, wine lingering in his throat and pleasantly settling in his belly, the hour late enough for possibility -
(his touch lingered on that scrap of lace silk, the same obscene red of freshly spilt blood)
- but it had all been a clever lie, obviously.
(young Sister Mary Eunice snatched the fabric from his grasp, wondering aloud which foul secular men Jude secretly dreamed of dirtying her bed with, and he feigned innocence as to that train of thought, heart stuttering as much his pathetic tongue did)
She must have thought his words the ramblings of a crass young fool.
-
It had been a mutually beneficial companionship - she’d admired his potential, his appetite for greatness, and he’d admired that she’d kept such a magnificent… spirit, for a woman her age. But she’d grown rambunctious, nosing where she really shouldn’t have, and it was with a heavy heart that he crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s on that condemning sheaf of paperwork.
Gone, now, were the fantasies of her by his side at Rome, strolling down the halls of the Vatican together. He hadn’t expected overnight success, no; many more miracles would need to rise from the ashes at Briarcliff before anyone in Rome would begin to take notice. Shame that such a promising relationship had soured and died already.
He’d been the one to realize her proficiency for overseeing the asylum, was proud to have been the one who first recognized it.
(every time she'd turned down wine, refusing to elaborate why, each imagined offense only made it that much easier to cast her as his own Mary Magdalene, stronger because of past sins, kneeling before him in perfect reverence, honey-colored hair loose and doused with her own tears and so soft on his skin as she gently cleaned his bare feet with it, warm fingers brushing the thin flesh of his ankles--)
He did not judge her for her past transgressions.
-
"You son of a bitch," she snarled, hair wild, legs long and bare, sanity finally faded, withered by age-- and after enduring such abuse, he’d leaned against the wall, taking in deep, shaky breaths, ignoring those threats spurred by madness, trying so hard not to take it personally.
(“You’ll be my Mother Superior,” he’d whispered, and she’d smiled. In the darkness, her teeth were very white.)
Pity. She would have loved Rome.