I tried a thousand times
I'm frozen to the core.
Your son is a glorious mess,
Who wrecks anything he adores.

-The Good Life, What We Fall For When We're Already Down


"Hey, where ya goin'? I thought you wanted to have a party."

Antoine laughed, letting Jason's arms around his waist pull him back down on the bed. "I do, but not tonight," he said in his stilted English. "We can not have party on Sunday night!"

"Why not?" Jason asked, nibbling playfully on his collarbone. Antoine squirmed in his arms but didn't try to get away.

"Because," Antoine sighed, "it is...I do not know word. Against God. Not sacred." His brow furrowed in thought.

"Sacrilegious?" Jason supplied absently, listening with only half an ear, his attention largely focused on the tempting curve of the French boy's shoulder.

"Oui!" Antoine exclaimed, pleased. "That. Not right. We will have party tomorrow."

"Whatever you want, pretty boy," Jason said, syrup-sweet. He pressed kisses smooth as honey to Antoine's shoulders, and it was more of an effort than it should have been to pull away.

"Jason, stop," Antoine protested, trying to free himself from wandering hands. "I have to go, I'll be late."

"Five more minutes," Jason mumbled against his skin, pouting when Antoine finally slipped from his arms.

"No," Antoine denied him, leaning over despite himself to kiss the pout away. "I will be late to Mass. You can still come with me, you know?

"All that chanting and genuflecting? No thanks," Jason declined, making a face. "Bad for my knees."

"I thought that would be your last concern," Antoine smirked, pulling on a dress shirt. "They have special padded bench and everything."

"That's true," Jason mused, watching the older boy dress with unmasked admiration. "Maybe I will, then, if I can..." he tugged Antoine close and whispered the rest into his ear, delighting when he pulled away with a scandalized shriek.

"Jason!" Antoine squeaked, face hot. "In church? You are terrible." He slid on his suit jacket and busied himself with his tie while he waited for his blush to die. "How do I look?" he asked when he could meet Jason's eyes again.

"Very proper," was Jason's verdict. "I could do all sorts of wicked things to you in that suit," licking his lips for emphasis. Antoine felt his blush returning, as well as other, more embarrassing reactions, and he grabbed blindly for his wallet, mumbling a goodbye as he beat a hasty retreat.

***

Oh please, Antoine prays silently as his lips form the familiar words of the litany, Please, I know it's wrong, but I've never wanted anything more. I've tried to be a good man, I've tried to pay You honor, but it's hard, I'm weak, and he is all I want.

***

He navigated the neon-lit Anaheim streets back to the hotel to find an empty room. There was a note on his bed in Jason's boyish scrawl, and his heart sank.

'Toine,

In Marty's room. Don't wait up.

Jason

He didn't have to wonder what he was doing there. They were in Anaheim, which meant Petr, which meant--

He went to bed so he didn't have to think.

He'd actually managed to fall asleep by the time Jason returned, much earlier than expected--it was barely midnight. He heard him stumble and swear as he tried to make his way through the room in the dark. "It's okay," he called out softly, "I am awake."

There was silence for a moment, then Jason turned on a lamp. "Sorry," he apologized. He looked tired.

"It's okay," Antoine repeated. He sat up in bed, watching Jason's eyes follow the sheets as they pooled around his waist. He knuckled the sleep from his eyes. "You are back early," he said, pointing out the obvious.

"Yeah," Jason replied. He paused, as if reluctant to continue, then offered haltingly--"I think they wanted some time alone."

Antoine didn't miss the bitterness in his voice, couldn't play dumb if he wanted to. He swallowed his own hurt and opened his arms. "Oh," he said, but he knew and Jason knew that he really meant I'm sorry.

Jason fell into his arms, bodies tangling beneath the sheets, and Antoine hated that he smelled like sex and liquor and other people's cum, but it was okay, because underneath all of that he still smelled like Jason. And it was okay that his body was marked by other mouths, that his stomach tasted like others' sweat, because Antoine made the marks his own, replaced the foreign sweat with his sweat, filled Jason's mouth with his taste. It felt wrong to do this when he'd come from mass only a few hours ago, but it was past midnight now, it was a new day, and God would have to forgive him. If this was His answer to his prayer, maybe he was the one who had to forgive God.