Title: Kind, Benevolent, and Wise
Fandom: SurrealEstate
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Length: ~625 Words
Content notes: Written as a post-S01E05 "Ft. Ghost Child", it's my little addendum to a story already well told. As this takes place post-S01E05, spoilers for that episode.
Author notes: Canonical couple "Father" Phil Orley/Anthony Tamblin. This seems to be the first fic for them in fandom (at least from what I can tell on AO3/SqWA). Finally, this was deleted and re-added as there seems to be a Dreamwidth/MacOS Safari 15 defect with the cut tag.
Summary: When Phil left the recording studio, he felt as lost as he did when he left the priesthood.


Phil had been around his fair share of death so much that it'd scarred over his normal emotional response. Instead of the loss of a life weighing on his soul, he'd trained himself so that when he'd finished last rites, or a parishioner had taken the final, death-rattled breath, that it was nothing more than a simple transaction. Words muttered over a body that would soon be sunken into the earth or a burning furnace. Ashes to ashes, and all that nonsense.

But watching Luke help George cross over finally broke him. Finally brought back to that moment of him praying over a car accident victim, and yelling at god as the blood of an elderly man seeped into his clothes. Watching George close his eyes and lean against Luke took his breath and left him shaking. George, the lost little boy from a sea of little boys and girls and young mothers discarded by society as easily as a cigarette butt out a speeding car's window. George, whose body lay in an unmarked grave somewhere, but his spirit remained constricted within the four walls of the only home he'd ever known. The sprit of a child waiting for a mother that would never come.

Phil wasn't sure how he'd actually done it, but somehow he'd made it out of the basement recording studio numbly nodding at Luke and the rest of the team. He somehow found his car in the ink-black night and started driving home. The ringing of his phone barely registering and instead echoing off the interior, the call abandoned to the abyss of nothingness, and maybe it could eventually help find his soul. When the phone began to ring again, each bright, cheerful tone muffled by the quiet voices of a radio station he hadn't even remembered turning on but had out of the need to not feel entirely as alone in the universe as he was.

There was a knock coming from the side, and how could that happen when he was driving? Except when he looked out, he realized that he was somehow in his driveway. And that his husband stood just feet from him, separated only by glass and steel. Phil instinctively hit the window switch to roll it down as his mind wondered why Anthony looked as if he were standing in the rain.

Except it wasn't the rain. There were tears in Phil's eyes, tears he hadn't realized he'd shed on the half-hour drive home. Tears that had stained his cheeks, rolled into the thermal he'd been wearing, and puddled in the thick fabric of his pants.

Phil didn't realize what Anthony was doing until Anthony had turned off the car, then unbuckled his seatbelt. He held out a hand for Phil to take, which he did greedily. Anthony pulled him close and held him as the night air chilled them both. And when Phil could finally breathe again, Anthony took him by the hand and led him into the house.

Phil was barely aware that Mozart's Requiem played softly in the background as Anthony guided them into the house. With hands softer than a handyman's skin should be, Anthony led them through the darkened rooms until Phil could feel the bed against the back of his knees. Only then did Anthony's fingers unthread from his own, and Anthony's warm palms were at his shoulders. Phil sat back on the bed as Anthony made quick work of his jacket and shirts, his boots and socks. Nimble fingers went to Phil's waist, and his pants were soon lost to the darkness of a room only lit by a small, flickering candle.

Seconds later, Phil felt the soft cotton material of a warm blanket cascade over his bare shoulders as strong arms coaxed him down onto the bed. Anthony wrapped his body around Phils and squeezed, finally allowing Phil to breathe again.

When his breath was no longer labored, and the tears finally stopped, Phil reached down and laced his fingers with Anthony's where they lay at his waist. "Thank you," he whispered.

Anthony's answer came in the form of a kiss to the nape of his neck.