Chapter Text
He only sees the tweet because “Thomas Lawrence” and “cock” are not words he’s associated together in about 20 years.
Aldo Bellini, newly-installed head of PR in the Innocent XIV papal administration, is trying to go for a run. It’s the only time each day he gets any peace or quiet or really any break at all from the stifling pressure of Curia politics. Aldo loves running. If he can’t escape his new hard-won self knowledge, at least he can make it chase him for an hour or so.
And PR is hard. Every day he’s fighting for his life. Apparently Innocent thought secretary of state was too simple for a man of his talents and wanted to see him do something really hard. Like manage emails.
He’s literally just trying to stretch, checking his personal account, when the algorithm spits up some raw trash.
“His Eminence Thomas Lawrence woke up this morning and got f*cked in the ass by His Holiness Innocentius XIV.
He sucked Lawrence’s cock and the balls too.”
Which, okay, sure. Poor Thomas would have some kind of fit if he knew anyone was thinking along these lines — how could a fallible, doubt-riddled wretch like him possibly aspire to receive obscene attentions from their Holy Father, just look at the sincere and holy goodness and purity of soul beaming from his fathomless brown eyes and tender, all-embracing smile, so on and so forth. But Aldo’s in PR now. He’s even got an associate just to tweet for the Vatican. (Lovely gal. 24. Mean as three snakes.) He knows all about the ridiculous nonsense people post. He’s not a normal cardinal. He’s a cool cardinal.
The account handle is @REALDeoOmnisGloria, which, ew. He certainly didn’t vote for Escrivá — indeed, he's leaning on Vincent to consider fixing that little lapse in judgement on the part of his predecessor. But more importantly, the profile image is some not-very-distinguished marble bust, possibly a really grainy David.
That means it's some kind of trad, apparently an Italian trad. That narrows the field basically not at all, although it's a nice change to not have American Catholics pissed off, this time. Inevitably some feathers were going to get ruffled no matter what they did, and it is probably more useful for dirty-minded little twerps to be fretting about the specter of homosexuality in the Vatican than about anything really happening.
He’s not particularly worried. They can say all the gnarly, homophobic-homoerotic shit they want. He’s been around the block a few times and he's heard it all before, and more importantly, Thomas doesn’t have a Twitter.
So he goes on the run. But he also, unfortunately, fails to scroll, and the algorithm clearly thought it was something special, that he stayed on that tweet for about 57 minutes or 4 miles — who’s counting.
He must want to see a lot more of this kind of thing.
@REALDeoOmnisGloria
What used to be an air of frociaggine in the Vatican has reached its grim maximum and become standard policy with the election of His Holiness Innocentius XIV. The Holy See is filled with gay sex! SAD!
@REALDeoOmnisGloria
In all of their public appearances, His Eminence Cardinal Lawrence and His Holiness are eye-f*cking. Can’t wait to get back to commit sodomy in the confessional booth, huh? Shameless!
@REALDeoOmnisGloria
Our seminarians aren’t safe! Not only are they being pressed to serve as catamites — they are being used as bulls for effeminate queens — bishops (AND HIGHER) — to enjoy! END THE GAY SCOURGE.
@REALDeoOmnisGloria
There are other offenders but His Eminence Cardinal Lawrence is particularly bad because he should know better. He is an accomplished man! A respected Dean!
The fact that His Holiness Innocentius XIV is a handsome upstart stranger gives Lawrence NO EXCUSE for soliciting a soft-handed reach-around while bouncing on the papal cock!
@REALDeoOmnisGloria
Wondering where @CardAbuja or @FrJoeTremblay are lately? Playing Judas, Jesus, and The Flail of Pilate in the basement of the Apostolic Palace! Even this fine tradition is corrupted. Protect Holy Mother Church!
@REALDeoOmnisGloria
Nuns! Eating pussy! Sucking on titties and playing with titties! Holy Father is too busy “praying” with his “closest” “confidantes” to address this plague of lesbian witchcraft! @PatrickBuchanan
“If this sad little loser tags us one more time I’m gonna doxx him and have him killed,” says Judith. “I can’t keep reading these words put together in this order. My eyes are going to start bleeding.”
She's great, even if Aldo’s joke about her being one of his Good Judys went down like a lead fart. Youths!
At least the post in question is relatively unremarkable: it’s just that old photo of Sabbadin in San Fransisco with a Sister of Perpetual Indulgence. The shot’s 10, 12 years old. It was in the paper. Sabbadin keeps a framed copy on his desk.
Still.
“Am I insane,” Aldo says, “or does it seem like a read, at this point?”
“Of?”
“Of me. I was the first openly gay archbishop in New York City, I’ll have you know. I think I deserve a little credit for that!”
“In the form of homophobic, homoerotic cyber-bullying?”
“Yes! Do you have any idea how shallow my legacy looks, if Raymond O’Malley is considered the Vatican bicycle?” Aldo shakes his head. “When I am literally right here, in very good trim for 64, not that anyone’s deigned to mention it recently.”
“It’s the insistence on calling them by their titles that kills me,” Judith murmurs. “Like, he commented on that photo of you giving communion at NYC Pride 2012. When someone called you an F—"
Aldo rolls his eyes. “Just say it. I’ll know you’re only quoting.”
“—and Gloria told them that ‘frociaggine’ aside, you were to be addressed as His Eminence Aldo Bellini and that the guy should put respect on your name. I mean, why isn't he mad there? You’re being out and proud. Isn’t that what he’s upset about? Shouldn’t he be praising them?”
“He cares about the church, clearly. Maybe the gay stuff is secondary to the hierarchy. People get like that.”
“I think we’re going to have to make a statement,” Judith sighs.
“No. It's worse to acknowledge it at all. It’s clearly just some crank—"
“Yeah, but now...“ She hands Aldo her phone. “It’s also one of our cranks.”
“Jesus fucking wept.”
@PadreDiVenesia retweeted @REALDeoOmnisGloria
Why does His Eminence Cardinal Lawrence always look at His Holiness Innocentius XIV like he’s gently kissing and sucking Lawrence’s taint? Must be memories of last night! We demand a chaste church!
“Oh my utter God,” Aldo grumbles. Listen: it’s one thing for the entire fucking Curia, except, notably, the object himself, to be aware of Tedesco’s weird horrid crush on Thomas. But we didn’t need tweeting. It didn’t ever have to come to tweeting!
“Okay, draft something in His Holiness’ tone. An acknowledgement that the Church is made up of people of all walks of life, and we are all one in Christ, but cardinals in their personal capacity do not necessarily reflect the position of the Papal Authority. Pray for unity and understanding, etc etc. Zhuzh it however but make it sound good. Allude to absolutely nothing specific. I’ll bounce it past him so he’s not caught by surprise but he’s used to internet slapfights being beneath his attention, so I don’t think I’m going to have to show him this.”
Judith narrows her eyes as Aldo passes her back her phone. “…it wouldn’t be the Patriarch, would it? Tweeting from a sock puppet.”
Aldo snorts. “Tedesco? Fuck no!”
“Fuck no?”
“Fuck no. I mean, that username alone… just about the only thing we ever agreed on is that Josemaría was a grifter scumbag.” Aldo shrugs. “I want to say it was the sucking-off-Franco stuff Tedesco didn't like, but I think it probably was just that Goffredo felt like he was being upstaged. You know. Same outfit to the party and all that.
“Besides,” he adds, “even Tedesco would realize that this isn’t exactly straight-sounding, and I think his machismo couldn’t stand for someone to think he was relishing the fantasy. The man thinks it’s gay to look at nude statues. He thinks it’s gay to eat eggplant. This is someone having some kind of personality crisis, I grant you, but it isn’t his kind of thing.”
Judith clicks her tongue thoughtfully. She’s never met Tedesco, Aldo recalls. She only knows him from the internet, and from Aldo’s stories.
“He’s only retweeting it because he thinks rapturous sexual ecstasy is demeaning if it’s between two or more men. And his ambition is always to demean."
“Fun dude.”
“Super fun.” Aldo swipes a pen off her desk. “I’m going in for my 10 a.m. Text me the copy and I’ll get it cleared.”
Judith salutes him very imprecisely and Aldo fires up the Zoom link in his office. He’ll assign her to spend some hours looking at America magazine and West Wing clips on his phone later today. Cook that algorithm back into something productive.
Two minutes later Aldo sticks his head out the door, briefly worried he’s living a nightmare. “Quick follow-up: His Holiness gets his cheesy Good Morning And God Bless, Beautiful memes from Instagram, right?”
“Yes,” Judith says authoritatively. “I monitor the accounts His Holiness follows — when he follows — and it’s not many. There’s been no overlap.”
“Good,” Aldo says, hand over his heart. His heart rate is tumbling back down fast enough that his knees are going weak. “Fantastic. Keep up the good work.”
Tedesco leans back in his chair, holding his phone in one hand and his third espresso of the day in the other. He’s spent every minute since terce terrorizing his staff, and now at last he has a guaranteed moment of completely uninterrupted peace to check in on his campaign.
His latest post is getting some good traction — he knew talking about Tommaso’s elegant, swanlike throat and how doubtlessly Innocentius would love to cum down it would get some mileage.
After all, he's merely saying what everyone's thinking. It wouldn't foment nearly so much outrage if his words didn't ring with verisimilitude. His goal isn't to slander Tommaso per se, but he is a very easy and very visible target, if one is aiming at the papal authority. If they don't want someone to use them to cause trouble for the administration, all he and Innocentius have to do is stop giving each other the Bambi eyes 25 hours a day, 8 days a week.
He has 63 new followers since yesterday. This one-man whisper campaign has been a staggering success, even by his standards. He can only imagine the delicious chaos and finger-pointing going on in Rome at the moment. Of course someone must suspect that it’s the work of an insider, but that’s a wide net to cast. Anyone with an internet connection might be responsible! The whole city could be talking like this!
There’s just one thing that bothers him. Goffredo opens his list of unpublished drafts and scrolls, and scrolls, still not feeling terribly inspired by any of his previous attempts. He sets his coffee down on a laminated page from his large binder of Aldo Bellini Opposition Research.
He still doesn’t quite have the right thing to say about Bellini. Part of it’s the lack of an obvious partner — Tommaso’s a beauty, but a vixen like Aldo Bellini would pick that serious and wistful man up by the scruff of his neck and swallow him whole. Bellini couldn't possibly be satisfied by a sweet lover; he's a ruthless, hot-blooded apex predator, a louche liberal sexpot. It's written all over him, how he knows he's gorgeous and knows how to use it, how he walks: prowling around the Vatican like a well-fucked jungle cat.
The only question is, who’s doing the fucking?
Goffredo’s worked with these men for years and he knows there just isn’t anyone in the Curia up to the task of keeping that virile beast sufficiently entertained. And until his spies finally figure it out what’s actually going on there, Goffredo simply cannot post. It’s a torment, when Bellini is such a prime subject and he’s given it so much thought. But he has a standard to maintain. This is an important operation.
He takes a sip of his coffee and discreetly adjusts himself.
Well, there are other fish in the sea! He hasn’t said anything about Woźniak in a while. That little snurge was probably up to something with His Late Holiness.
He just needs to get out the dossier and have a look.
His Holiness Innocent XIV, né Vincent Benítez, sighs as he closes the door to his private chambers. The lock screen of his personal phone is covered with notifications, conversations with friends back home, with updates, with a quick message from Thomas asking if they can meet for a moment’s chat by the pond before dinner. He smiles and reacts to that one with the gift-wrapped heart emoji. He likes that they find ways to give each other their time, even when they're busy like this.
And, lovely to see: one of his favorite Twitter accounts has updated.
He doesn’t approve of the call to action, but the author does have the most interesting ideas.