You can't Reason with the Unreasonable (Peter, Dragonetti)

[father-peter.livejournal.com]

When Peter woke up, he felt like his head had expanded to three times it's natural size. He blinked in the dim light, and he lifted a too-heavy arm so he could rub at his tired eyes. When he sat up, a cold sense of dread settled in his stomach. He was not at home. He didn't know where he was.

The memory of what had transpired the previous day slowly filtered back to him as he sat numbly on the wooden 'bed' he had been lying on. He was in a rather large room, compared to the places he had been taken by the Templar previously; and he had no illusions that this was not the work of the Templar. The air in the room smelled stale, and the walls weren't so much walls as rock in an arching shape which curved upwards. At the highest point, it met the obviously man-made cement wall which made up the front of his 'cell'. There was water dripping somewhere and two lights on either side of a door, which lent the room all kinds of creepy shadows along with their dim light. If they were turned off, he would be plunged into blackness.

"Hello?" Peter's voice cracked and he thought rather desperately about the dripping water and if it would be enough to soothe a very bad case of dry mouth. He thought not. His voice echoed off the rock and for a moment, Peter was answered by nothing more than his own voice, bouncing back and forth in his cavernous room.

And then the door opened.

"Peter Kemp."

The man in front of him wore a hood, but Peter would recognise his voice anywhere. He struggled to his feet to face Alessandro Dragonetti and he glowered in the man's direction. "Where's Gavin?" The safety of his friend came first. Besides, he couldn't fight here. He couldn't fight the Templar on his own. If he attacked Dragonetti, he would be put down and he still wouldn't understand what was going on here. Best to play good until he knew the ropes.

"Brother Kincade is in the infirmary. He can't very well face his tribunal if he is suffering from infection." Under his hood, Dragonetti smiled.

"You told him he could go free."

"And he did go free. I never said he would remain that way."

Peter had many things to say back to that, but they all died on the edge of his tongue. Peter's trademark dry wit and bravado hidden behind curse words weren't going to get him very far here. He could use that against demons, but when it came to the Templar, it only made them push harder. "Tribunal. We're in Rome?"

"Ah, so the Antichrist is aware of our procedures. Why am I not surprised," Dragonetti hissed.

"I am not-! ARGH!" Peter sat down again, this time from sheer frustration. "I am just a man! The 'Antichrist' is a figment of your very messed up imagination." Or it was a figment of Bishop Holden's and Dragonetti simply believed everything Holden had said because he was a well trained little crony.

"A man who happened to survive his own execution?" Dragonetti asked, finally pulling his hood off. It was to conceal his identity in the work room from the prying eyes of the sinners. The Antichrist knew him, and Dragonetti would keep it that way. Let himself be known as a warrior of God.

"...yes! But...I can explain that!" Peter bit his lip and he wondered exactly how he was going to explain it, let alone get out of here. Terrifying fear had settled in his chest and he was frantically trying to ignore it, lest he have a panic attack in front of the man who controlled the hot pokers.

"I would really love to hear some of your Devilish Falsehoods, but-"

"You don't understand what you saw!" Peter continued, his voice pleading now. "Yes, I survived what you did to me. That doesn't make me the flipping Antichrist!"

"No one else has ever survived the guillotine." It did tend to leave one headless. And Bishop Holden and Dragonetti had seen the blade pass right through Peter Kemp's neck, without effect. "Not even the most noble of God's warriors. He didn't spare their lives, and yet yours was spared. It was the work of the Devil."

"You...you're so desperate for proof of your own twisted ideals that you see them in everything!" Peter stood again, and this time his legs held without shaking. "If you have issues with 'the right people' not surviving execution, take it up with God. How do you know it wasn't Him who spared me?" It hadn't been, but that was certainly not the point here. It had not been the Devil either. Peter knew nothing definitive of either of them, even after years spent in the Clergy, and he knew that was all he would ever know. He was at peace with that. It was not his fault Dragonetti was not.

"You are a heretic, Kemp. Why would he spare you?"

"Perhaps...because I only stopped your 'Holy work' because it meant the exploitation of people I love and care about? If you think I won't stand between you and people like Rosa...Deirdre...Josie...you're wrong. I will not let you use them to scare people into believing what you want them to believe. They're different. They have wings, they can fly... Those gifts are not yours to use!"

"God gave them those gifts for a reason-"

"Says who!" Peter interrupted, his indignation echoing in his own ears. "I don't remember God saying that! I read the Bible back to front and I don't remember a passage saying 'And verily I do say unto you, he who shall find the winged human, shall place that human on a cross and their torment shall lead the sinful to glory, Amen!'" Peter had pulled a weak Rosa off of one of their crosses in Brazil. She had been put up there as a symbol, used to heal people. And she had suffered greatly at the hands of men who claimed to do God's work. Peter would not let that happen again.

Dragonetti shook his head, his eyes flashing in anger. "How dare you mock the word of the Lord!"

Peter felt like he was arguing with a four-year-old. "I am not mocking the-! He never said that, how is that mocking-"

"This is why we know it was not God who spared you. You believe the word of God is something to be joked about."

"And you believe you have the right to torture people and call it good work! Who is more dangerous here? Hmmmm...."

Dragonetti's expression was lamentable. "I find it sad, Peter Kemp, that you were once a member of the Holy Church. I wonder how many people you cheated out of paradise with your blasphemy."

Peter let his shoulders droop and he squeezed his eyes shut to try to block out the horror in front of him. "I never cheated anyone. I know what it is like to lose your faith. It creates a void that nothing can quite fill up again. Sometimes I envy people like you. Not...not because of the mad torturing, you wingnut. But because you just believe what you do is right. It must be...so easy never to suffer from a conscience." Peter took a deep, steadying breath and he continued, his eyes open. He couldn't hide from this. "I wouldn't rob anyone else of their faith. I told them to search, yes. I told them to keep their eyes open. I never, ever told them 'God doesn't exist'. That is not my place. Nor do I personally believe it to be true."

"You know of God's existence because of who your father is," Dragonetti hissed at him.

Peter was so beyond frustrated he screamed then. His father was a lawyer named Klaus, not Satan, despite many people equating the two. He put his hands over his face and he screamed until his throat felt like it would split open. When he pulled his hands away, his face red and puffy, Dragonetti was staring at him in horror. "Don't worry," Peter gritted out. "I wasn't summoning an Army of Darkness or anything. What are you going to do with me, hmm?" That was really all he had left. Clearly there was no reasoning with the crazy man and his crazy Jesus ninjas.

"Nothing, Kemp. Well, I do intend to use you to prove to the rest of my brethren who you are."

Peter went pale and he gaped at Dragonetti, his mouth falling open in a way that was extremely unattractive. "U...use- Prove...?"

Dragonetti's nod was somewhat victorious and Peter saw that Dragonetti liked Peter's fear. He liked the power of it. "They were impressed by your lover surviving the flames, but-"

"Thomas is not my lover!" Peter protested. "He's my best friend. And...I can totally explain that too...heh.."

"We are aware that Brother Littleton is deceased. We believe you had the Devil send him back to Earth so he could be with you."

Peter blinked. "You...don't even listen to yourself when you talk, do you?" Not that the truth was much less weird, but it didn't involve the Devil, so it automatically won the 'slightly more sane' competition.

Dragonetti ignored him. "You will be brought before my brethren and we will recreate what occurred that day in the work room. And then, since the seven silver stakes and consecrated ground were not enough to keep you confined, you will live out the rest of your days here. This place was created at the beginning of our order. For you. We've been waiting a long time. And you'll be here even longer than that."

There were no words with with Peter could express his fear as Dragonetti turned and left him behind. If they were not in a Templar stronghold, then his friends would have trouble finding him. Peter wasn't afraid of the guillotine experiment. He knew very well he would survive it, as long as he chose not to die. If that was his choice, he would remain here. Underground. Possibly forever.

As the door locked, Peter stared at it hopelessly. Suddenly, being immortal seemed like such a bitch.

"Fick dich!" he yelled towards the closed door, and then he sat down hard on the wooden bench, his head falling into his hands. It didn't make him feel any better.