And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/64135918.

Rating: Explicit
Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandom: Conclave (2024)
Relationship: Aldo Bellini/Goffredo Tedesco (Conclave)
Characters: Aldo Bellini (Conclave), Goffredo Tedesco (Conclave), Thomas
Lawrence (Conclave)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Enemies and Lovers, old men get hot for
each other’s old mannish qualities, author goes on slight tangent after
seeing pictures of sergio castellitto from the 80s
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2025-03-25 Words: 8,406 Chapters: 1/1
 And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?
by roypeloy

Summary

A soulmate, by definition, was someone chosen for him by God, and whom he was chosen
for in return. It signified love and respect, both of which Aldo never imagined having for
Tedesco, or being received from him. He was confined to a soulmate who would never even
dare try to love him.

Notes

First (and probably only) attempt at a soulmate au! I just like these old men and I think them
hating each other is the best thing since sliced bread.

Title from Whitman’s ‘I Sing the Body Electric’.

See the end of the work for more notes

The sensation has been discussed in many texts, religious and secular both, from Song of
Songs to Catullus to Whitman. Aldo has studied the poems and songs since he was retainer-
wearing bully fodder in middle school, and every time he comes out the other side
disappointed. Poetics were meant to be vague and sentimental, but it wasn’t a very effective
approach when learning to identify one’s soulmate.

How did you know when the feeling is the feeling? The one that people claimed lit up their
entire bodies, that they felt deep in their soul.

Deep in your soul— what the hell did that even mean?

Then there were the people who would shrug at him and simply say, ‘When you know, you
know’, which is possibly the most non-answer response a person could give, and Aldo
despised every utterance of that same hollow reply.

However, if you asked him afterwards, he would probably say the same thing, or something
similar. It is like your whole being is lit up, coming from somewhere inside yourself yet also
from another person’s touch. When he tries to rationalize it to himself, he thinks it’s a bit like
stubbing your toe— you just know. You acknowledge the feeling and then deal with the
aftermath as quickly and painlessly as possible. At least, that’s what Aldo had attempted to
do.

The first time they meet, they do not touch.

Neither the Holy Father nor anyone else at the Vatican had warned Aldo about Goffredo
Tedesco. They merely sent him into the lion’s den without sufficient armor to protect himself
and prayed he would be able to defend himself with a thin veneer of hospitality. Evidently his
late friend either did not care enough to warn him, or thought him strong enough to bear the
struggle without forewarning. Aldo prayed it was the latter.

In 1993 he had been sent to receive the recently-created cardinal to Vatican city, a place Aldo
himself had only begun working in seven months before. The day he received the job Aldo
was endlessly grateful for being singled out for such a special task, a particular favorite, until
he met the man and realized he had actually drawn the short stick among the other new
monsignors and was designated to be the lamb sent up to slaughter. The stories he had to tell
Thomas at breakfast the next morning, good Lord.

They met in the main square of St. Peter’s, a place lousy and too crowded even by Aldo’s
standards. Every month was tourist season here, but fortunately the hoards of pilgrims and
visitors were too busy taking pictures and gawking at the architecture to notice two members
of the Curia off to the side of one of the large marble columns.

Despite the annoyance of the tourists (as a New York City native, the hatred was simmering
and deep-seated and never, ever fully dissipated), Aldo understood their awe. He thought he
could live here fifty years and never once tire of the splendor of it all.
Father Goffredo, Cardinal Tedesco was on the younger side of middle aged— a good-looking
forty, compared to some of their fellows in the ministry who aged as fine as milk. His hair
was dark, peppered here and there with gray and made of deep waves, though the faint beard
on his face was spotless, no speckles of age. Dark-rimmed glasses hid the beginnings of
crow’s feet and under-eye lines. Aldo noticed it all in a quick glance, and swallowed down
impertinent thoughts.

Aldo was wearing only his clerical collar and robe; Tedesco had on the full black and red
cassock. The hierarchy between the two of them had been clearly established even before
they spoke a word.

Despite his background, Aldo had not yet grown accustomed to the Italian greeting, and so
instead he offered his hand in the American fashion. Cardinal Tedesco, looking down at the
appendage as if it had personally offended him, did not take it.

“Where is Rocco?” Tedesco asked him in lieu of hello. “He usually meets me when I come to
Rome. Or has he passed the torch onto you?”

The man’s firmness startled Aldo. Still, he tried to be as hospitable as possible. “Cardinal
Palomba is in Seville for the month with the Jesuit aid group. Did he not tell you?”

“No, he didn’t.” Tedesco narrowed his eyes, an act Aldo would later learn never boded well
for whoever was on the other end of his gaze.

“Your accent is very interesting,” he stated plainly. “What is your name?”

When Aldo told him, Tedesco followed up with, “Where are you from, Monsignor Bellini?”

“New York,” Aldo answered as they began to walk towards the papal office. “And you?”

Tedesco laughed loudly. “I could tell you were an American by your accent. It is your name
that threw me off the scent. Let me guess, you are also an ‘Italian’?”

It was here where he began to understand that his special placement had in fact been more a
punishment than a privilege. “My mother and father are from Venezia, so yes. I consider
myself Italian. Is that a problem?”

“Not at all, monsignor,” Tedesco switched to English. “I speak your native tongue well
enough. I wouldn’t want you to have to struggle to keep up with my quick mouth. We make a
left turn here.”

I know the way just as well as you do, Also fought the urge to mutter. Cardinal Tedesco had
the amazing ability to make him feel like a child and a dog at the same time. It was
infuriating.

The offices could not have been farther away; Aldo would’ve done anything to end their
conversation as quickly as possible.

As they walked side-by-side they brushed shoulders occasionally, due to their swaying gaits.
It was easily dismissible. Both of their arms were covered to the wrist.
For the entire time they traveled, Tedesco grilled Aldo with question after question. Invasive
ones, but not explicitly rude— “How long have you been here?” “What neighborhood is your
father from?” “How do you take your coffee? Dio mio, never mind—“ and so Aldo could say
nothing outrightly dismissive in return.

Eventually the new cardinal asked him, laughing good-naturedly, “Where did you learn your
Italian, and has your teacher been fired yet? I am joking, of course.”

Aldo stopped in his tracks. Job be damned, he leveled a look at Tedesco that he had learned
from his father in only the most unfortunate circumstances. Tedesco did not shrink back like
Aldo wished he would, but instead looked vaguely contrite. Still, he said nothing in way of
an apology.

Aldo’s grandmother had been the one to teach him. She was loud and light-hearted, but hard
and unmoving when it came to his language education. A man should know where he comes
from, she’d told him growing up. You’ll learn and be proud of yourself. She died before he
graduated from seminary.

Obviously there was no way Tedesco could have known this, but the question still stung.
Trying to disguise the heat in his voice, he said with the same overly-joking tone, “Who
taught you your manners? Was your mother too busy to teach you how to treat people with
respect? I’m kidding, of course.”

Tedesco’s posture stiffened, his eyes hard. Evidently he had not expected such a virile
response from a member lower on the ladder than him.

“Let us stop with the small talk,” Tedesco finally spoke up after a tense moment of silence,
“it is not very helpful, no? You can show me to the Holy Father, and we will be done with
this interaction.”

Aldo was only too happy to oblige. They continued on in silence, Tedesco’s gaze stuck
forward and Aldo matching him, though he did manage to sneak several glances at the older
man out of the corner of his eye. He still seemed overly agitated.

Once they reached the papal office Aldo left without further ado, essentially high-tailing out
of there before Tedesco could say any last parting shots. Tedesco didn’t even spare a final
glance at him.

Tedesco, Aldo imagined, probably thought the new monsignor would be gone by the next
time he visited Vatican City. Aldo would prove him wrong, though; he had no plans to be
moved. He would serve the Holy See and bask in the beauty of the city as long as he could,
and one day reach the same rung as that Venetian nuisance. He would make his spot in the
Curia. He just needed time.

Such was the first brief meeting of Cardinals Bellini and Tedesco. Certainly it was nothing
tremendous to remember. In fact, when looking at the years of feuding between their factions,
it was honestly commonplace. Nothing startlingly telling, no way either of them could have
possibly known about their circumstances.
They met many times over the following years, usually in groups of their peers. By the end of
the third month of their knowing of each other’s existence they quickly discovered that any
superficial disagreements they may have had in the beginning were superseded by the deeper
philosophical and ethical differences they continuously argued over at any given opportunity.
They were complete opposites on a fundamental level. Ironically, this was the only thing
either of them could ever agree on.

Aldo never greeted him again as he did the first time. Instead, he left that rite of passage to
newer, fresher meat. It became a sacred tradition of sorts, though he did feel a twinge of guilt
sending some of the younger graduates to meet the man, especially when Tedesco was in a
bad mood because the Pope demanded he, God forbid, treat everyone fairly and stop with his
incendiary and reactionary remarks to his congregation.

When it does happen, it happens in public.

In 1999, the newly-created Cardinal Bellini attended Easter mass along with the rest of the
college. Thomas, who had risen around the same time as Aldo, was in attendance with him.
Things were going very well for the two of them; the Holy Father liked them both, though
perhaps preferred Aldo a bit more— he was the more talkative of the two, but Aldo liked
Thomas’ reticence. It made whatever he did choose to say all the more enticing.

Tedesco was also in attendance, of course. For a man who constantly complained about its
laxness and impropriety, Aldo thought, he was always at the Vatican when he could be, and
often overstayed his welcome.

As Tedesco walked towards Aldo and Thomasm the clouds behind him seemed to darken as
an omen of rain, which summed up Aldo’s opinion of the man succinctly. But they were in
public, and people were watching, and so he could not simply turn tail and run— no matter
how much he wished to.

“Tommaso!” Tedesco cried, laughing. He blatantly ignored Aldo. “Come stai?”

“Goffredo. Sto bene, grazie,” Thomas answered, still shaky in his Italian.

Grabbing Thomas’s shoulder with one hand, Tedesco leaned in deftly to exchange il bacetto
on both cheeks. Thomas received and returned it easily with grace. Aldo looked on the
exchange with a neutral face, but on the inside he was rolling his eyes so hard he was liable
to snap his optic nerve.

Aldo knew how Thomas felt about Tedesco, how they both felt, but Thomas was too much of
a proper host to be impolite or disobliging. Aldo supposed that was why everyone seemed to
be slightly in love with him, even the conservatives. He certainly didn’t envy Thomas for
that.

Aldo watched as his friend and his… brother in Christ exchanged pleasantries in Italian,
something that Tedesco had never bothered to do for Aldo, despite the fact that he knew Aldo
spoke the language better than Thomas did at that point in time. Sure, Tedesco had always
used his native tongue when they met in groups and he needed the ability to argue his point
precisely, but in the few and in-between moments where it was just the two of them speaking,
Tedesco always switched to English, claiming it was for Aldo’s sake. Aldo knew it was the
slap in the face Tedesco meant for it to be.

Then Thomas turned to Aldo, wanting for some reason to include him in their conversation.
He and Tedesco were forced to acknowledge one another. Aldo felt a bit like a child whose
teacher was attempting to help him get along with a fellow classmate.

Either because Thomas was watching, or because there was a sea of cameras twenty yards
behind them, snapping photos and watching their moves intently, Tedesco leaned in to
exchange the bacetto with Aldo as well. It wouldn’t be proper to imply there was division
within the College of Cardinals. Aldo, understanding Tedesco’s reasoning, tried his best to
not move his hands, and leaned forward slightly.

The second they touched cheeks, Aldo felt it. It was like electricity running down his whole
body, a weighted pleasure. You know the rush you might get when you step out of the cold
weather and into a warm house? Take that and magnify it tenfold, and that was as near the
feeling as Aldo could describe.

Added onto that was the odd and faint sensation of a beardless press to his left cheek, even
though Tedesco was pressed against his right, and he had not shaved in weeks. Aldo drew
back quickly at the out-of-place touch, drawing his hand up to the other side of his face.
Constantly aware of the paparazzi behind them, he kept his face a contented blank slate.

It wasn’t until he looked at Tedesco and saw a similar feeling of confusion being pushed
down that the terrible, mortifying thought came to him.

The electric feeling, the phantom touch— when you know, you know, they said. Damn, if they
weren’t right.

He watched as Tedesco’s eyes grew a fraction, obviously reaching the same conclusion as
Aldo had. They could do nothing but stare at each other for a heavy half-minute, both of
them, for once, complete at a loss for words from the revelation.

There’s too many eyes here, Aldo thought to himself. If we stay any longer one of us is going
to make a scene.

He turned from Tedesco and grabbed Thomas by the elbow, gently but quickly. “I think those
clouds mean rain, Thomas,” he said, dragging them both towards the chapel. “We should go
inside before the sky opens up.”

Thomas, confused and curious, let himself be dragged inside. As they walked away Thomas
called out apologies to Tedesco, who still stood rooted in the same spot. Aldo didn’t dare
look back.

Paying attention to the service was a moot point. Aldo felt himself distantly going through
the motions: standing, kneeling, reciting the psalms and prayers. His mind was a million
miles away, and panicking.
What did it mean for him to have a soulmate that he despised, and who despised him in
return? It was bad enough that Tedesco was a man— despite these matches being God-made
and ordained, the church historically had never recognized any matches other than
heterosexual, children-bearing ones. He had resigned himself to that inconsistency, though,
had known from an early age that his soulmate, should he find them, would likely not be an
occasion for celebration like his own parents’ day had been.

Aldo was no stranger to shame; he wore it like a second skin. But to have his match be
Tedesco of all men was absolutely staggering. Sitting faux-attentively as the Holy Father
gave his homily, Aldo recalled the oft-quoted saying when those lucky few found their
match: “I know I am for you, for when you ate I was sated, while you slept I dreamed, and
when you bathed it was I who became cleansed.”

Then another line, for it is in giving we receive, and it is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
It was one of Aldo’s favorite prayers, though he doubted Saint Francis had meant that part to
apply to two members of his beloved Apostolic church.

A soulmate, by definition, was someone chosen for him by God, and whom he was chosen
for in return. It signified love and respect, both of which Aldo never imagined having for
Tedesco, or being received from him. He was confined to a soulmate who would never even
dare try to love him.

Something in this thought made his throat grow tight with emotion, but Aldo pushed it down
before it could make its way into the public. It wouldn’t serve to let anyone see his misery.

Only once did Also dare to glance at Tedesco during the rest of the mass. As they stood to
recite the Lord’s prayer, his eyes followed the line of standing cardinals to where Tedesco
was placed among his kinsman. The glare Tedesco leveled at him made Aldo snap his eyes
back, looking down in embarrassment. He read the message loud and clear, and neither of
them spoke a word to each other the rest of the day.

Time passed, and they continued on as if everything was normal. Which it was, if Aldo did
not think too much about it. They still argued, Tedesco’s group pushed harder and harder
against new interpretations of canon law and church doctrine, and Aldo was there, always, to
push back against him. It was all too easy to not touch him.

It wasn’t until several years after their mutual discovery that anything changed. They had
been debating— discussing is a nicer word, though probably not entirely accurate— the
Pope’s latest initiative on divorce, which Tedesco saw as a personal insult to the tradition and
sanctity of marriage. Aldo had asked him how allowing for divorce in the church would
change his life at all, considering his ‘unbroken vows’ (Aldo made a point to add the finger
quotes), which Tedesco took with as much grace as a bull in a china shop.

Things descended steadily from there. The others, realizing this battle was beginning to go in
circles, left hours ago. Only he and Tedesco were left to talk alone in Aldo’s small office, the
one he practically lived in before he was elevated to Secretary of State. They always made
sure to confine their disagreements behind closed doors, careful to not make a scene in front
of the paparazzi and other members of the Curia who were not in their factions. Aldo will say
this: Tedesco was ignorant, two-faced, and smoked too much, but he understood better than
most the importance of maintaining the church’s reputation.

Aldo had planned for them to be the last ones standing, but not to be in his office so late at
night, alone and unbothered by passers-by. For years they successfully maintained their
inimity despite their little setback, so long as others were in the room with them and they
could focus their attention on their dislike of one another. That was not difficult at all.

This was the first time they were alone together in months, but they had never been alone
together in a closed-off, darkened room. At the time neither of them must have thought much
of it, for they continued on as if all was well. But it was late, and Aldo was tired; his
arguments began to fall off his tongue, thoughtless and half-formed.

“Frankly,” he said in response to another one of Tedesco’s inane rebuttals, “I can’t believe
you’d still reject the idea of allowing divorce simply because you despise the idea of single
parents.”

“It is not only about the children, Bellini. Marriage is not a shopping trip. You cannot buy the
cow and then decide to return it with the receipt the next morning.”

“That’s hardly ever what people divorce for. There’s always legitimate reasons– abuse,
infidelity. You’d let that carry on just to keep the so-called family unit together?”

Tedesco huffed, annoyed and incredulous. “Marriage always comes with bumps along the
way. It’s the natural way of things.”

“Cheating and hitting are not natural, you brute.”

“But that is not always the case, and you know it,” Tedesco returned immediately. “There are
too many men and women who decide to give up without trying to fix what they willingly
agreed to in the first place. It’s an insult to the sacrament, to God.”

“Then who cares? Let the couple divorce and be over with it!” Aldo nearly shouted. Then,
because he was tired and angry and not a little bit stupid, he mentioned the unmentionable.
“What if one of the original couple found their soulmate in someone else, then what? You
would override God’s will just to keep from annulling a single marriage?”

“That is different,” Tedesco said in a low voice. “In that case, the holy sacrament never truly
occurred, and the real pair could be—”

“You can’t pick which matrimonies should be considered valid based on whether or not the
couple are matched by God. Most couples know if they are soulmates or not before the
wedding day, and may I remind you that—” and here Aldo conceded he must have been truly
exhausted, because surely he must normally have a better hold on himself than this—
“despite the fact that fifteen percent of God-made matches are homosexual, the church still
refuses to acknowledge their bond in the holy sacrament? What are these men and women
meant to do, then?”

“Join the church.”

Tedesco said it with such ease that Aldo almost missed the implication behind it entirely. He
stared at the other man, his political enemy and soulmate, the rebuttal on his tongue dying
with a silent finality.

Aldo licked his lips, then shut his mouth into a firm line. Then opened them again, and closed
them again. He wanted to know if— that is, Aldo had joined the seminary because he knew
his options, his family and the time he lived in. Had Tedesco…?

Aldo swallowed his shock. “You– you knew you would be…”

“I am not so ignorant of myself,” Tedesco said sharply, “no matter what other things you
think I am uninformed about.”

He looked over Aldo’s shoulder, checking to make sure the door was closed all the way. “I
knew. I only wish that it did not have to be you. I would have preferred someone younger, or
less irritating and weak-hearted. Mah,” he laughed, “perhaps it is better that God has matched
me with someone I cannot stand to be in the same room with for more than ten minutes. I feel
no desire to break my vows with you, Bellini.”

“We’ve been alone together in the same room for the past hour, Tedesco.”

“Arguing does not count in my mind.”

“No, nor in mine.”

Aldo looks at Tedesco’s hand, the only part of him that’s bare other than his neck and face,
then at his own hand, which is slightly smaller but perhaps more wide. He wonders what it
would be like to touch him one more time. The first time had been too quick, too public, and
although the feeling was not something he could easily forget, Aldo secretly wished for
another try at defining the touch.

“The sensation is something else, no?” Tedesco interrupted his thoughts. He’d said it in
Italian, Aldo realized belatedly. “I could never find the words to describe it, even if I wanted
to.”

Aldo smiled, then remembered himself. Trying to force it down, he said honestly, “No,
neither could I.”

Tedesco’s hand was right there, bare and waiting. He wanted to, and Tedesco didn’t seem like
he would mind, so should he—?

Aldo didn’t bother to ask, knowing Tedesco would laugh in his face for asking for consent to
touch his hand, and so he forwent his manners and slowly reached out for Tedesco, whose
hand was lightly gripping the back of the desk chair. Aldo made sure to give him plenty of
time to pull away. Tedesco did not move a muscle.

At the first small touch, he felt that electric sensation once more, partnered with the phantom
sensation of palms against his own knuckles, which he knew to be the feedback of his own
fingertips.
Aldo’s face felt warmer than it had minutes before; he prayed he wasn’t noticeably blushing
like some useless virgin teenager, despite being two-thirds of that description. He wouldn’t
dare look at Tedesco, but then again, he didn’t need to— he felt the man’s emotions through
the touch itself, could sense that he was taking as much guilty, indulgent pleasure in this as
Aldo was, that he was not alone.

It almost knocked the wind out of him. Aldo wondered what a kiss must feel like, if a simple
brush of hands could be so strong.

“I have heard it is even better with mouths,” said Tedesco, as if he’d plucked the thought out
of Aldo’s head himself. Then he remembered they were still touching, and realized his
impressions were probably being broadcast loud enough for the other man to pick up on.

“Just once, then?” Aldo's voice shook, excited and terrified in tandem. “As an experiment?”

If Tedesco had any qualms, he neither showed it nor felt it. “Bene,” he whispered, and leaned
forward slowly.

Aldo leaned in too, feeling Tedesco’s hot breath on his face and the horrible smell of
cigarettes, and tried not to grimace.

Up close Aldo could spot for the briefest second a look of apprehension on Tedesco’s face,
which was an emotion Aldo couldn’t for the life of him ever remember seeing on his
colleague. At the very least, it made his own temerity feel like less of an embarrassment.

When their lips finally met, Aldo knew this was an experiment that they would need to
replicate many, many times over; it was a thousand times better than hands, than that briefest
exchange of cheeks years ago. It was as if he’d been struck by lightning and lit up in every
nerve ending he’d never even thought about.

A groan caught in Aldo's throat, threatening escape, but he managed to silence himself before
his shame grew any larger, though he could do nothing to stop the noisy gasp that followed
when he tilted his head and their angle changed.

Tedesco had no such reservations against the noise. He moaned into the kiss, loud and
desperate. He brought his hand up to Aldo’s chin and pulled down on it gently, opening his
mouth. Aldo acquiesced without hesitation. He felt a tongue that did not belong to him snake
in between his lips alongside the phantom sensation of sliding his own tongue into the hot
wetness of another mouth. When he realized this was what Tedesco must be experiencing,
Aldo’s knees nearly gave out. The double-pleasure was almost too much for either of them to
bear.

It was an intense exchange, but Aldo did not let it last long. The second he felt himself begin
to rock his hips forward without his volition he tore his face away, surprising Tedesco, who
cut off a muffled gasp when his tongue was forced to halt in its crusade of Aldo’s throat.

They stood in the back of his office, still together, Aldo breathing harshly into Tedesco’s
cheek. His glasses were digging into Aldo’s forehead painfully, but he didn’t have the
wherewithal to mind at the moment. Cardinal Tedesco was too busy catching his own breath
and gripping Aldo to remain upright to notice either. Their cheeks still touched; he felt
Tedesco’s overwhelm even if he would not show it outright.

After a long period of standing close together in silence, they split apart. Aldo couldn’t
remember the last time they’d been in the same room alone and managed to not say a word
against one another. It was almost… peaceful. Like a real soulmate might make him feel
instead of a pest like Tedesco.

Tedesco was the first one to break their reprieve, his face more open than he’d seen in all the
years he’d known the man. “Aldo—”

“It’s late,” he interrupted. Suddenly the thought of descending into another argument felt like
the worst possibility in the world. “I have work I need to do.”

Tedesco’s open look became closed-off and distant. “Alright.”

Aldo cringed internally; he hadn’t meant to sound so dismissive. “Is there a train back to
Venice tonight?” He didn’t know why he asked that, it wasn’t as if he would offer his own
apartment up to Tedesco. But…

“I will figure something out,” he said quickly, and waved a hand of dismissal. “Good night,
Eminenza.”

Tedesco left without further discussion, closing the door behind him with a firm motion.
Once he was out of sight, Aldo let out a heavy exhale he hadn’t known he was holding in,
and relaxed against his desk. The silence of his office was a weighted thing. It’s presence
gave the memory time to sink into his mind, the realization of what they’d just done.

Still sitting, Aldo cleaned himself up a bit, straightening his collar and fixing his hair, an act
he already knew was a privilege with the way his hairline continued to move farther and
farther back each year. His hands shook with the aftershock of the intimacy.

It wasn’t the vows that bothered him— not only the vows, at least. He did have some care for
their oaths, no matter if no one else did except for Thomas. No, the core of the issue for Aldo
was that he’d kissed a man who for years was such a staunch rival of everything he stood for,
who tried to defy his Pope’s orders with any loophole he could find. Sure, Tedesco was
capable of being subtle, sly, and patient, but so was Aldo. And yet somehow their patience
seemed to run out every time they butted heads against one another.

He felt like a traitor. He had betrayed not only himself, but his own principles and the Holy
Father’s hard work that had turned Tedesco into a constant dissenter. But perhaps the betrayal
had first begun that day at Easter mass, when Aldo discovered who his soulmate was and told
no one, not even the Holy Father, so that they could not advise him on how to proceed with
his terrible situation. That, he thinks, was the beginning of the end.

But how would he have explained it in the first place, without giving away Tedesco’s secret?
Aldo knew what it felt like to have that secret ripped out of his hands, to be caught unaware
and unprepared. He wouldn’t do that to Tedesco, no matter how much he disliked the man.
It was interesting, though. Aldo huffed a laugh of disbelief. Of all the cardinals in the college,
Tedesco was the last one he expected to be like him. Suddenly the assumptions he had about
Tedesco shifted to align with the new information.

He now imagined Tedesco breaking his vows from the start, probably in seminary. Those
were likely the first days Tedesco had ever been away from his home, with other men his age
who did not know his family and therefore could not snitch on him so easily as the
neighborhood boys could. And Aldo could certainly see the appeal of a younger Tedesco.
Darker, curlier hair, large brown eyes that had not wrinkled around the edges yet, perhaps a
shyer countenance, before he found his vocation in being a reactionary disaster. No doubt it
was a struggle to have his voice heard in a family of twelve siblings.

Aldo remembered the first impression he’d got when they met outside St. Peter’s almost a
decade ago. Even then, he had fought bitterly with his own thoughts at the well-made figure
of the newly elevated cardinal. If he had met Tedesco when they were in their early twenties,
Aldo was not sure he would have cared so much about guarding his celibacy.

The Tedesco he had now was not unattractive either, which was the only excuse he could
think of to explain why he continued to search him out for more than just discussions on
policy and doctrine interpretation. They never spoke about what they were doing, too scared
that putting a name to their exchanges would make it more real than it already was, but there
were no shuffling excuses or moments of doubt on Tedesco’s part, and Aldo kept his own
reservations firmly to himself.

At first it was simple kissing, an attempt to recreate the sensation from before. Eventually,
though, they discovered the electricity feeling was multiplied tenfold the more places they
touched skin-to-skin. They once spent a whole weekend in Venice discovering new ways to
make each other feel their own sensations in as many places as possible, until one of them
broke down and begged to bring the experiment to its climax.

A year after their original escapade, Aldo found himself in a hotel room in Naples one odd
Tuesday evening, in bed with Tedesco underneath him. They’d done nothing yet except
exchange slow, deep kisses, Aldo having since found the courage to probe his tongue into
Tedesco’s mouth with more technique.

Still occupied with his face, Tedesco slipped a hand between their bare chests, and began to
touch Aldo with a precision that made him pull back from his task of sucking on Tedesco’s
bottom lip.

Aldo pushed himself up onto his elbows, putting space between their upper halves and giving
him a better view of the man below him. Tedesco’s front drooped with weight, his chest and
stomach filled with a healthy layer of fat that had grown as he’d gotten older. Aldo knew how
he felt about eating, and so he said nothing about it, but whenever they touched like this he
knew that Tedesco knew how much he liked it. Just another one of their strange quirks of
repression.

After a moment Tedesco’s left hand brushed lightly against Aldo’s nipple. He did not gasp or
moan, but nonetheless Tedesco knew he had found a new area of sensitivity by the faint echo
of pleasure he surely felt in his own body. Wearing that smug smile Aldo detested and
dreamed of in equal measure, Tedesco drew both hands to his chest and began to touch him
in earnest, finally drawing a high whine out of Aldo’s throat.

As he rubbed against Aldo Tedesco observed him, paying attention to the thick, curly patches
that covered most of his upper body. Tedesco had body hair to be sure, but not like Aldo.

Then, because he could never leave well enough alone, he joked, “I wonder if it is because
you have so much hair on your chest and arms, that there was none left for your head,” and
then pinched Aldo so hard he gasped aloud in a perverse pain.

Aldo didn’t have the sense of mind to get angry at the jab. Besides, he actually thought it was
kind of funny, only because he could feel how aroused Tedesco was by his more masculine
features.

And this, this was the best and worst part of sleeping with one’s soulmate: the feedback.
While Tedesco continued stimulating Aldo simply by stroking his chest, Aldo felt himself
grow harder. The loop started as he felt his own sensitivity, which Tedesco experienced in
turn. That ghost of pleasure made him twitch in his pajama bottoms, and the feeling of
Tedesco’s cock straining against its confinement made Aldo’s own swell and drip down onto
Tedesco’s bare stomach. It was insanity. Neither one of them could stop.

Eventually the pressure had built up to the point where Aldo was able to shoot off untouched,
and the double gratification of both witnessing and experiencing it second-hand had Tedesco
ruining his clothes within seconds of Aldo’s own finish.

Aldo collapsed on top of Tedesco, and was surprised when Tedesco did not shove him off.
They fell asleep like that, chest-to-chest and breathing into each other’s ears.

Intimacy with your soulmate, they discovered, was always as intense as that. The first time
they fucked properly Aldo had slid down onto Tedesco, who had been sitting with his back
against the headboard. Once Aldo seated himself fully, Tedesco dug his face into Aldo’s
chest, breaths ragged as if he’d run a marathon, and clutched his back so hard it almost made
both of them finish before Aldo even had the chance to move his hips.

Every time Aldo thinks about that moment, the first occasion of many other experiences, a
smug grin never fails to grace his lips when he recalls how Tedesco had started the evening
laughing in hedonistic pleasure and ended it whimpering and begging Aldo to let him come.

Outside of this, however, the rest of things stayed fairly the same.

They still fight, of course. Factions are factions, and politics have little to do with attraction
or affection, of which they have plenty of the former and none of the latter. Aldo had no love
for Tedesco, no matter if the Lord decided they should be made for one another. He had better
love and better companionship in Thomas, his closest friend.

Closest friend, Aldo’s mind snarks, but you can’t even tell him about this? Are you so
ashamed of yourself, of your soulmate?
Aldo sighed. He’d come close to revealing all to Thomas many times, but Thomas had never
been interested in matches of the soul for anything other than ecclesiastical purposes. If
Thomas had a soulmate, which he very well may not, then he wasn’t concerned with the
possibility of never knowing them in this life. Perhaps he hoped to know them better in the
next one, in communion with God and all the angels and saints. Even if Aldo had worked up
the courage to confess, he wasn’t sure how helpful his friend would have been in receiving
said confession.

Aldo has had the fruitless thought many times over the years that his life would have been
simultaneously much easier and much harder if Thomas had been his soulmate, and not
Tedesco. At least Thomas loved him, in his own way. At least he could bear to be in a room
with Aldo without bickering or making snide remarks. But Aldo had abandoned that wish a
while ago, and was content to have Thomas’s touch as a warm presence, a helping hand,
instead of the magnetic friction the Patriarch of Venice gave him alongside an endless
conflict.

“What are you thinking about?” Tedesco asked one night in Aldo’s apartment in Rome. They
were in bed and not touching, despite being as bare as Adam and Eve.

Aldo had been silent for the last ten minutes, deep in thought. At Tedesco’s question he
asked, genuinely curious, “How much do you hate me?”

Tedesco turned to press his chest against Aldo’s back. Aldo hated being the little spoon, but
he’d suffer through it the night. After the things Tedesco had done with his mouth that
evening, he was willing to give the man some slack.

“I don’t hate you, Aldino,” Tedesco answered. “I just don’t like you very much. I don’t care
about you. It is you who hates me.”

“You are a pretty terrible person, if we’re being honest. But I don’t hate you either.”

“So kind, caro.”

“Don’t call me that if you don’t actually care.”

“I like to call you that.” Aldo could feel Tedesco’s frown against his neck. “Why not?”

“You’ll give me the wrong idea.”

“I just told you the right idea. And I never lie.”

“No, you just obfuscate and omit,” Aldo rolled his eyes.

“Which is still technically a lie, according to our mother the Church. You omit things, as
well.”

“For the good of the church, and never to the Holy Father.”

Then Tedesco said, “You haven’t told Thomas about us.”

This gave Aldo pause. How did Tedesco know that? Had he said something to Thomas
without his knowledge? The thought was frightening enough to make his blood run cold.
When he spoke up again, he made sure to keep his voice measured and in control.

“I have not. Why does he need to know?”

“I thought he was your best friend. Or is it that you wish it was his touch that gave you this
feeling?” Tedesco drew a hand down Aldo’s chest, brushing low on his navel. His whole
body lit up as he shuddered against the warmth on his back.

“No, not that.”

“Am I wrong? You don’t think about his touch as a phantom on your own? You don’t want to
be his match?”

Aldo’s anger grew the more Tedesco insisted on dragging his dearest friend into their
shameful relationship. “Stop talking, for God’s sake,” he hissed.

“It was God who did this to us, Aldo. You could always pray to Him to change your match. If
you’re a good boy, perhaps He would grant your wish.” Tedesco drew his lips to the shell of
Aldo’s ear, whispering, “Be free of me, like I know you want.”

This spurred Aldo to rise from bed and begin dressing in his lay clothes, slacks and an
inconspicuous pull-over shirt. He couldn’t kick Tedesco out, but he needed to get away from
him. It wasn’t until he reached for his keys that Tedesco finally spoke up,

“Where are you going? It’s late.”

Aldo didn’t answer him, afraid of losing the already strenuous hold he had on his temper.

At the response of silence, Tedesco’s face darkened. He spit at Aldo, “Are you going to
him?”

“You know,” Aldo finally recognized his soulmate’s questions, his back to Tedesco as he put
his shoes on, “when I said I didn’t hate you, I might have been wrong. When I come back,
you need to be gone.” And he slammed the door behind him.

Aldo hadn’t gone far, just down a few blocks and across a couple of streets— the well-lit
ones, of course. He wouldn’t stray outside of his neighborhood at this time of night in Rome.

The wind was coming from seemingly out of nowhere, and Aldo had forgotten his coat,
because God hated him and wished him to suffer. He refused to go back into his apartment,
though, in case Tedesco was still there.

The audacity of that man never ceased to astound him. He always managed to find Aldo’s
weak points, bring them out into the light and laugh at him for them, for the things that only
made Aldo as human as he was.

How could he ever let himself be intimate with Tedesco— in ways other than the physical—
if all he ever did was exploit his weaknesses and sensitivities? Tedesco had his own sore
points, his background, his family, his poor Latin (which paled in comparison to Aldo’s own
private-school education). Aldo steered clear of these when he could, although sometimes the
man himself brought them into their disagreements, in which case Aldo had little choice in
illuminating Tedesco’s shortcomings in front of their colleagues. But these were extenuating
circumstances, nothing at all like the mistreatment Aldo received from his soulmate, the man
to whom he was apparently matched by God.

When thinking about Tedesco only served to annoy him more the longer he walked, Aldo
turned his thoughts instead to the book of Kings. History was another of his passions, and as
he walked he began to methodically try and place each biblical event in chronological order,
as best as he could. Other pedestrians on the streets steered clear of him, likely because they
saw a madman without a coat muttering to himself about the succession of Solomon in the
early hours of the morning.

He wandered the streets for two hours before he felt calm enough to return. It was nearly five,
the sky had already begun to lighten in the east, and Aldo felt more exhausted than he had in
years. He expected another fight with Tedesco, but when he returned he found that the man
had respected his wishes; the apartment was empty.

Aldo very pointedly ignored the hollow pit in his stomach that said he had bungled
everything, once again.

They don’t touch each other for a long time after that, and when months pass and neither one
of them can remember exactly what they had argued about, they still do not seek each other
out, on principle. They are, Aldo will admit, both a little stubborn-minded.

Their fights simmer down to tepid disagreements for a while, Tedesco focusing his attacks
against the Vatican’s ideology from his home base in Venice. Tedesco also slowly began to
stop commenting against Aldo directly and devoted more energy to slandering the Holy
Father himself, a bold move for a man working directly under the Seat of the Holy See.

When the late Holy Father had asked him for the reason Tedesco’s approach had changed so
drastically, why he now stayed away from Rome whenever possible, Aldo had lied, his first
real, true lie to His Holiness, and said he didn’t have a clue.

It comes to a head during the conclave. Tedesco, in an uncharacteristic outburst, loses his
head after the bombings, and with it the majority vote. Aldo could do little but point fingers
and attempt to call to mind some shame, forgetting that Tedesco has none. At least, not until
Benítez, a complete unknown and a man ignorant of the politics of the Curia, had risen and
put Tedesco in his place in a way no one else had been able to for years.

Aldo had made peace with the fact that he would never be pope, but he is even more glad to
know that the papacy will not fall to Tedesco either. That the church has been saved on two
fronts.

After Benítez’ election has been confirmed, the papers signed and white cassock fitted, Aldo
finds Tedesco sitting inconspicuously on a bench in an empty piazza. The other cardinals
were either in their rooms licking their wounds or celebrating, like Aldo should be doing
now, the election of a pope who is bound to be excellent at filling his predecessor’s large
shoes.

Aldo sits next to him without asking or acknowledging him. Tedesco doesn’t even bother to
look in his direction.

“I suppose you are happy now,” Tedesco says in his native tongue. His voice is soft and tired,
nothing like the heat he’d spoken with hours before, when he exposed himself for the radical
he was.

“I saw you clapping for him, too,” Aldo responds in accented Italian. “Who did you vote for
in that final round?”

Tedesco looks off to the side and says nothing.

“You felt it too, then. The spirit.”

“The man is as close to an angel as we could have elected from this college.”

Aldo forgets it sometimes, that Tedesco has taken the same vows as him, that he is called to
serve Christ and the church just as he is. That the Spirit spoke to him as much as it spoke to
Aldo.

Why is it still so surprising, Aldo thinks to himself, that Goffredo feels the same things he
does?

“There will be plenty of people who hate him,” Aldo says honestly, “not just diplomats and
world leaders. Lay people, our brothers and sisters.”

“We will see. There is something in him that makes it difficult to hate.”

Tedesco speaks so admiringly of Benítez that Aldo actually has to fight down… God, was
that jealousy?

Aldo feels embarrassed by himself and his juvenile emotions. Tedesco actually liking their
new liberal pope should be the best news he’s heard all year, not something that makes him
want to cling to his soulmate and mark his territory like a teenage girl.

“I’m glad you like him so much. Thomas seemed overjoyed at the election announcement,
too.”

At the mention of Thomas, Tedesco loses his peaceful look. “You care very much for him.”

“He’s my friend,” Aldo sighs, shaking his head. “Honestly, we fought all throughout the
conclave, about my candidacy and yours. About his own ambitions, or lack thereof.”

“Tommaso thought he was above all of that?”

“No, but perhaps he didn’t realize it at first. You and I, on the other hand, are no strangers to
knowing how far we are willing to take our ruthlessness. I merely didn’t not see how greedy I
had become during this election. I-I feel…”

Aldo remembers himself, who he’s talking to. Tedesco has never once failed to take Aldo’s
weaknesses as cheap shots. He shouldn’t give any more ammunition to the man now.

“Yes?” Tedesco presses. His brows are raised, expectant.

“Nothing.”

Tedesco looks down, and then away to his right. Aldo follows his gaze. There’s nothing over
there except clouds and a blue sky.

After a moment, his soulmate speaks. Aldo listens.

“When I think about how I acted in the auditorium,” Tedesco whispers, “I am ashamed. I…
don’t really know myself, anymore.”

Aldo laughed, out of pity for both of them. “I have been ashamed of my actions as well. And
I know the feeling of being a stranger to yourself. Maybe during this papacy we can both try
to figure out exactly what sort of men we are.”

“There is at least one part of myself that I know. You share it with me, Aldo.”

Aldo looks at Tedesco, not masking the surprise on his face. They haven’t discussed this in a
long time. Frankly, they have never truly discussed it at all, which is likely the root of their
problem. A problem that can start being handled right now.

“Goffredo…” Aldo says, grabbing his clothed arm. “God matched us together for a reason.”

“His plan is mysterious, this I am certain of. Of anything else, I am not so sure.” Tedesco
sighs, then chuckles airly. “Tommaso has rubbed off on me, it seems.”

Tedesco turns his palm up, open, inviting. Aldo, seeing what he’s done and smiling at the
invitation, places his hand in the open space. Lets the sensation envelop him, keep him warm.
The description has eluded him for years, but he does not worry about that at this moment,
simply closes his eyes, basks in it, just as he once basked in the beauty of the city and her
buildings and her holiness. He steadies his breathing. The feeling is— he knows the word,
now.

The feeling is divine.

End Notes

Tedesco: ew you’re so disgusting and weak willed I can’t believe we’re soulmates

Tedesco three seconds later: do u wanna break vows?? 👀

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