ain't nobody gonna love you like the devil do || repost from dear_monday on ao3

Ain't Nobody Gonna Love You Like The Devil Do

I was once a child of God
but then the devil kissed me
he gave me fear and said, "my dear,
God will never miss thee."

--                                                

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned." Frank takes a deep breath. The air is cool and incense-heavy, familiar and reassuring. "It's been... uh, four days since my last confession."

He feels better already. He stops for a minute, just to get his thoughts in order. He fucking hates missing things out when he confesses. The last thing he needs is more shit to feel guilty about piled on top of what he already has. He quickly tallies everything up in his head and finds himself guilty of twelve counts of impure thoughts, two of disrespecting his parents and five of self-abuse in the form of jerking off. Not bad, but not great, either. He runs through the list of his sins methodically, without blushing or stuttering. He's embarrassed, sure, because telling a priest you've been jerking off is always going to be kind of awkward, especially when you're visualizing the priest's judging expression. Judging is basically Father Agostino's permanent expression. Frank thinks it's the eyebrows. But he's used to the shame, and anyway, it's always totally worth it for how light he feels afterwards.

"Fifteen Hail Marys," intones the disembodied voice on the other side of the grate. It sounds bored, as usual, which Frank's always thought is kind of weird. He doesn't think it sounds so bad, sitting in a confessional for a few hours, hearing people's dirty secrets and getting to be the one who forgives them.

That's probably an un-Christian thing to think. He spares a moment to feel bad about it, then thanks Father Agostino and sets off on his way home.

*

When he gets home, he slouches into the kitchen to say hi to his mom. She pulls him into a bone-crushing hug, but she looks irritated. He's just glad she remembered to put the vegetable knife down first. She's surprisingly strong for such a tiny, delicate-looking woman. Frank has fond memories of her beating his dad's six-foot hulk of a brother at arm wrestling one Thanksgiving. No one fucks with his mom. Or, at least, no one is stupid enough to do it more than once.

"Is dad, uh..." Frank says cautiously. His mom has that look on her face, the one that says bite me, motherfucker, I dare you. Frank might be paraphrasing a bit there, but the general sentiment is right. She's been getting that look more and more lately whenever someone mentions Frank's dad.

"Out," she says tartly. "With his friends from the garage. Again. If he's hungry later he can cook for himself."

Frank groans inwardly and hopes it won't come to that. He loves his dad, but the man cooks like an arsonist. Even if he manages not to set fire to the kitchen (again), the whole house will still reek of smoke for at least a week afterwards. Frank will have to avoid the kitchen for a while, his stupid lungs don't cope well with smoke.

"Anyway," Frank's mom says, visibly pulling herself together. The thin, disapproving line of her mouth curves into a brittle smile. "Let's not talk about that. How was school?"

*

Later on, in the shower, Frank turns the water up until it's not quite hot enough to scald, then strips out of his uniform and steps in. He stretches out and makes a little happy noise as the hot water starts to work on the knotted muscles in his shoulders, undoing the hour he spent hunched over his calculus homework earlier. It feels fucking awesome. People who don't like showering are obviously crazy, and not to be trusted under any circumstances. He grabs the stupid flowery shower gel his mom always buys, then swears when he drops the slippery bottle on his foot. He picks it up off the cracked tiles and squeezes some out into his hand. It's really, really fucking pink. Sort of fuschia-colored. Secretly, though, he does kind of like the way it smells. Very, very secretly. He'd deny it vehemently if anyone ever actually asked.