FIC - Contrition
title: Contrition
pairing: Angel/Wesley
rating: R-ish
a/n: A tiny little ficlet I wrote a long time ago. Any errors in language are mine, as that part was cobbled together by help from a friend who knows more Latin than I do and the things I remember from Catholic school.
summary: Wesley’s part in Angel’s search for redemption.
”Wesley”, Angel thinks, immediately, ”my heathen Protestant boy”, as he walks into their living room and sees his lover dressed in black except for that one patch of white at his neck, the Roman collar so familiar to Angel, to Angelus, all the way back to Liam, more than two centuries gone but still right there.
He takes the brief moment to reflect on when Liam was cast out of him, after he was turned and went immediately back to the Irish countryside to drain and murder his own family. Angelus was born from the sound and sight of his sweet baby sister Kathy, because she mistook him for an angel as he returned from the dead to suck the life from her.
Those memories are shaken off, however, in just an instant, as Wesley stands and Angel instinctively kneels.
Wes cards his fingers through Angel’s hair, gentle for a moment, and then waits for Angel to say what he is expected to say, ask what he is expected to ask. Closer to three hundred than two hundred years have passed, but it’s never left the man-vampire-soul who is Angel, the inherent instinct to beg forgiveness, to begin the ritual with the Act of Contrition in the way that he learned it when he was a boy.
“Deus meus, ex toto corde poenitet me omnium meorum peccatorum, eaque detestor, quia peccando, non solum poenas a Te iuste statutas promeritus sum, sed praesertim quia offendi Te, summum bonum, ac dignum qui super omnia diligaris. Ideo firmiter propono, adiuvante gratia Tua, de cetero me non peccaturum peccandique occasiones proximas fugiturum. Amen.”
O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because I fear the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve with the help of Thy grace to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen.
Wesley is fluent in Latin, but saves it for when he knows his lover really needs it. He assures Angel that he is convinced of his sincerity, and knows that Angel truly wishes to sin no more, but that penance is an obligation, and Angel wants to fulfill that obligation more than anything else he’s ever wanted since his soul was forced back into him more than a century ago.
Angel pushes forward slightly, hoping to show his very real devotion in a physical way, but Wesley holds him back with the most gentle touch of his hand on Angel’s shoulder.
“Stay where you are, sinner, and work for absolution.”, Wesley calmly tells him, as he settles himself back comfortably in his soft brown leather armchair, taking a sip of the 30 year old Macallan in his glass tumbler and watching his lover on his knees with his head down in supplication. He pulls a rosary from the drawer in the table beside him and hands it to Angel. The burn of the crucifix in Angel’s fingers fades while the smoke continues, but within seconds he falls back into the familiar litany. He makes the sign of the cross, and sinks into the comfort of what has always been his.
“Credo in unum Deum,Patrem omnipoténtem, Factórem cæli et terræ, Visibílium ómnium et invisibílium…”,
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all things seen and unseen…
Angel continued in a natural transition to the salutation to the Virgin, “Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae.”
Hail Mary, full of grace, our Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and in the hour of our death.
Over and over, the Hail Mary as his beautiful fingers slid over the beads without a sign on his face of the physical pain of contact, then the Glory Be, followed by asking Christ to save us from the fires of hell.
Wesley sits and listens as Angel recites the entire rosary, knowing that as always he is contemplating the Sorrowful Mysteries. He knows that this act brings an equal amount of comfort and sadness to the man he loves, but he also knows how much it means to Angel that Wesley, who was of course brought up and educated in the Church of England, understands this need.
When the recitations are finished, Angel kisses the crucifix despite the pain, then hands it back to Wesley and waits for permission to stand.
As he does every time, not that it makes Angel feel any differently about his past, Wesley assures him. “Dominus noster Jesus Christus te absolvat; et ego auctoritate ipsius te absolvo ab omni vinculo excommunication et interdicti in quantum possum et tu indiges”.
May our Lord Jesus Christ absolve you; and by His authority I absolve you from every bond of excommunication and interdict, so far as my power allows and your needs require. Wesley, of course, had no such authority, as far as he was concerned, but he said it because Angel needed to hear it.
Wes holds out his hand so that Angel will stand and follow him to the bedroom. These are the times when there is no fast and hard and rough sex, no purposeful marking of each others’ bodies, only the two of them touching, kissing, making love slowly, each showing the other the breadth and depth of their feelings. Angel’s guilt, Wesley’s forgiveness, their combined passion laid out as they contemplated the nature of sin and could not imagine a God who would damn them for the love they shared.
pairing: Angel/Wesley
rating: R-ish
a/n: A tiny little ficlet I wrote a long time ago. Any errors in language are mine, as that part was cobbled together by help from a friend who knows more Latin than I do and the things I remember from Catholic school.
summary: Wesley’s part in Angel’s search for redemption.
”Wesley”, Angel thinks, immediately, ”my heathen Protestant boy”, as he walks into their living room and sees his lover dressed in black except for that one patch of white at his neck, the Roman collar so familiar to Angel, to Angelus, all the way back to Liam, more than two centuries gone but still right there.
He takes the brief moment to reflect on when Liam was cast out of him, after he was turned and went immediately back to the Irish countryside to drain and murder his own family. Angelus was born from the sound and sight of his sweet baby sister Kathy, because she mistook him for an angel as he returned from the dead to suck the life from her.
Those memories are shaken off, however, in just an instant, as Wesley stands and Angel instinctively kneels.
Wes cards his fingers through Angel’s hair, gentle for a moment, and then waits for Angel to say what he is expected to say, ask what he is expected to ask. Closer to three hundred than two hundred years have passed, but it’s never left the man-vampire-soul who is Angel, the inherent instinct to beg forgiveness, to begin the ritual with the Act of Contrition in the way that he learned it when he was a boy.
“Deus meus, ex toto corde poenitet me omnium meorum peccatorum, eaque detestor, quia peccando, non solum poenas a Te iuste statutas promeritus sum, sed praesertim quia offendi Te, summum bonum, ac dignum qui super omnia diligaris. Ideo firmiter propono, adiuvante gratia Tua, de cetero me non peccaturum peccandique occasiones proximas fugiturum. Amen.”
O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because I fear the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve with the help of Thy grace to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen.
Wesley is fluent in Latin, but saves it for when he knows his lover really needs it. He assures Angel that he is convinced of his sincerity, and knows that Angel truly wishes to sin no more, but that penance is an obligation, and Angel wants to fulfill that obligation more than anything else he’s ever wanted since his soul was forced back into him more than a century ago.
Angel pushes forward slightly, hoping to show his very real devotion in a physical way, but Wesley holds him back with the most gentle touch of his hand on Angel’s shoulder.
“Stay where you are, sinner, and work for absolution.”, Wesley calmly tells him, as he settles himself back comfortably in his soft brown leather armchair, taking a sip of the 30 year old Macallan in his glass tumbler and watching his lover on his knees with his head down in supplication. He pulls a rosary from the drawer in the table beside him and hands it to Angel. The burn of the crucifix in Angel’s fingers fades while the smoke continues, but within seconds he falls back into the familiar litany. He makes the sign of the cross, and sinks into the comfort of what has always been his.
“Credo in unum Deum,Patrem omnipoténtem, Factórem cæli et terræ, Visibílium ómnium et invisibílium…”,
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all things seen and unseen…
Angel continued in a natural transition to the salutation to the Virgin, “Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae.”
Hail Mary, full of grace, our Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and in the hour of our death.
Over and over, the Hail Mary as his beautiful fingers slid over the beads without a sign on his face of the physical pain of contact, then the Glory Be, followed by asking Christ to save us from the fires of hell.
Wesley sits and listens as Angel recites the entire rosary, knowing that as always he is contemplating the Sorrowful Mysteries. He knows that this act brings an equal amount of comfort and sadness to the man he loves, but he also knows how much it means to Angel that Wesley, who was of course brought up and educated in the Church of England, understands this need.
When the recitations are finished, Angel kisses the crucifix despite the pain, then hands it back to Wesley and waits for permission to stand.
As he does every time, not that it makes Angel feel any differently about his past, Wesley assures him. “Dominus noster Jesus Christus te absolvat; et ego auctoritate ipsius te absolvo ab omni vinculo excommunication et interdicti in quantum possum et tu indiges”.
May our Lord Jesus Christ absolve you; and by His authority I absolve you from every bond of excommunication and interdict, so far as my power allows and your needs require. Wesley, of course, had no such authority, as far as he was concerned, but he said it because Angel needed to hear it.
Wes holds out his hand so that Angel will stand and follow him to the bedroom. These are the times when there is no fast and hard and rough sex, no purposeful marking of each others’ bodies, only the two of them touching, kissing, making love slowly, each showing the other the breadth and depth of their feelings. Angel’s guilt, Wesley’s forgiveness, their combined passion laid out as they contemplated the nature of sin and could not imagine a God who would damn them for the love they shared.