In the shadows of the candlelit church, Anacleto was leaning against a pillar while he watched Father Keogh go through his nightly rituals - the priest straightened the altar cloth, checked that the chalice was clean and sparkling golden in the candle light, and finally traced his fingers gently, almost tenderly, along one of the many desert flowers in vases on and around the altar; his congregation kept him in constant supply.

Anacleto was holding his breath as he watched, suppressing a sigh at the quiet dedication with which the priest ensured everything about his church was not merely functional but inviting. The bandit had never understood religious ritual and never would; but he was beginning to understand what it meant to be single-mindedly and utterly devoted to something you love.

He hesitated another moment, then stepped into the faint light and asked softly, "Is it a form of worship - the way you care for your church?"

Father Keogh slowly turned to face him. He looked surprised by Anacleto's appearance, but not unsettled. His calm, steady presence was never shaken, and he was becoming used to Anacleto's way of slithering about in the dark like a serpent; he was the only one unworried by it.

"Yes, I suppose it is." He smiled pleasantly. "What are you doing here, Anacleto? I never thought I'd see you enter the church voluntarily."

Anacleto returned the smile and lowered his eyes, choosing not to tell the priest why exactly he had been coming here every single night since his return to Quantana. Nothing drew him to the church itself, but he never tired of watching its custodian quietly and diligently beautify its muddied message.

"I've come to see what draws you here in the evening." He decided to give Father Keogh his own version of the truth. "I thought, if I saw for myself, I might understand it."

"And do you?" The Father's cassock brushed along one of the benches as he straightened a prayer book left behind.

"No. I don't."

Father Keogh turned and looked at him, his attention at last fully on his unlikely visitor rather than his routine duties. "I will be happy to explain, if I can. What is it you don't understand?"

Anacleto met his eyes - eyes so open, so full of eagerness to help - and was struck dumb for a few moments. His voice was not quite steady when he found words at last. "I don't understand how you can treat cups and plates and all these..." He glanced at the altar, sighing. "... these tools of your trade with such affection."

A frown creased the priest's brow. "Well, they are the tools of my trade, as you put it, because through them, I serve the church and worship God."

"But Father, you spend your life worshipping objects. Myths. Stories!" Anacleto's frustration caught up with him. "They are not flesh and blood, they're mere symbols! That's what I don't understand."

"In worshipping Christ, I worship His flesh and blood," Father Keogh offered cautiously, perplexed by Anacleto's irritation.

"Wafers and wine!" Anacleto corrected passionately. "Even for flesh and blood, you have symbols, Father."

"They must be symbols, Anacleto. And I've told you that priests are not allowed to raise anything above God."

The mild smile accompanying the words did nothing to pacify Anacleto. He leaned his hip against one of the benches and crossed his arms. "No, of course not," he said bitterly. "It would be wrong to worship a mere person. Much better to waste such dedication and passion on symbols."

"Nothing done in the service of God is a waste." Still, Father Keogh's voice did not betray exasperation or impatience. He never took offence and was nothing if not willing to explain and allow Anacleto to understand at his own pace; yet therein lay the problem.

"I will never understand, Father, that a man like you should waste himself on that God of his. Not when--" Anacleto pressed his lips together and lowered his eyes.

"Not when what, Anacleto?" Father Keogh asked gently into the dangerous train of thought; gently and with utmost concern for one unworthy of it. When the bandit sighed, turning away as if to leave, he prompted softly, "Please, Anacleto, tell me why this troubles you so."

Anacleto wanted to scream at the injustice and the terrible irony of it all. And suddenly, his patience came to an end. He spun around and narrowed his eyes at the priest, demanding recklessly, "You really want to know why I am troubled, Father?"

Father Keogh nodded. "Yes, Anacleto. I wish you would confide in me."

Anacleto smiled grimly. "I'm troubled, Father, because I envy your symbols. And I find myself wanting to switch places with that God of yours."

"I don't understand."

"No?" Anacleto stepped close enough to the priest to see the merest flicker of fear in those courageous eyes, and that was almost enough to deter him from saying anything further. Almost, but not quite. "Can you honestly say that you have no idea what I mean?"

"I'm always honest with you." Father Keogh frowned. "Why are you so upset, Anacleto? Please, tell me. It's what I'm here for."

Anacleto huffed out a laugh. "No, Father, that's not what you're here for. I'm not one of your flock!" He averted his eyes when he saw a flicker of hurt cross the other's face. "You must know as well as I do - I'm lost to your church. There's one thing, and one thing only, that I want from it. From your God." His voice had softened while the truth was bleeding out of him, and his last words were barely more than a murmur, "And he would not give it to me."

A new kind of zeal brightened Father Keogh's expression when he moved to catch the averted eyes again. "Anacleto, don't you realize? You've taken an important step! If you can truly say that there is something the church could give to you, something you truly need--" He was silenced by the pain in Anacleto's eyes, daring only to offer, "Let me help you pray for it."

Anacleto shook his head with a tight smile. "No, I don't think you should."

"Yes, I will. It's not difficult--"

"It's impossible Father!" Anacleto exclaimed, adding more softly, "You don't know what you're offering." He looked into those blue eyes, looked into them so deeply and so searchingly that it caused him physical pain in a place where he had never felt anything before this courageous, warm, stubborn man had walked into Quantana. He wanted to hate him for doing this to him, for making him so weak in the face of that courage which, even now, would not allow for a diverted gaze or a change of subject. Humbled and inspired and, in truth, somewhat frightened by that courage, Anacleto steeled himself for what he was about to do. He knew without doubt that if he did not speak - now, this very night - his pain would continue to grow until it rose up to choke him.

His eyes did not leave the priest's while he sank slowly to his knees before the astonished man. He folded his gloved hands awkwardly and began to speak words he never expected to hear from his own lips. "God, if you exist, and if you truly care, even for me..." He swallowed hard. "... give me the love of your most loyal and dedicated servant."

The priest's eyes were wide - he looked moved, surprised, unsure whether to consider the description to be of himself.

Anacleto sighed at the man's modesty, then continued his prayer softly, "Make him see that I don't want his unselfish and charitable love - the love he would give freely, and safely, to anyone." He held the priest's eyes, willing him to understand. "I want the passion and devotion... the love... he reserves for you, God."

Father Keogh gasped, "Anacleto!"

Anacleto shook his head, unwilling and unable to stop. He took the priest's trembling hands between his own; they felt chilled even through his gloves, and he knew the priest was, at last, afraid. Perhaps because he was beginning to understand.

"I ask for the touch of his hands." He tightened his grip when the priest tried to draw back. "I ask for the caresses they give so easily to chalices and cloth." He squeezed both hands tightly and pressed his mouth to the back of first one, then the other, before holding them to his cheek. With a look up into the priest's frightened eyes, he whispered urgently, "God, if you exist - as he believes you do - give him to me heart, body and soul." His grip tightened. "Amen."

The hands were icy against Anacleto's hot cheek, yet did nothing to cool his fever. Father Keogh did not speak for a long time, but his breathing was quick and laboured and his eyes like those of a hunted animal. At last, he managed a broken whisper, "Anacleto, please get up."

"I will not ask you to forgive me, Father." Anacleto did not loosen his grip, nor did he rise, and only his trembling voice betrayed his apprehension. "Not for speaking the truth."

"Anacleto." Father Keogh closed his eyes, shaking his head slowly as if to force the words he had heard from his memory. "You... You can't mean... You ask too much!"

"I have always been greedy, Father, and never more so than when it comes to you." Anacleto decided to throw caution to the wind and make his confession complete. The pain in his heart was more acute than ever; there was no going back. The only thing to do was to find out whether it would destroy or regenerate him.

"I don't want your teachings, your patience, or your forgiveness, Father. I want you. All of you. I want you to belong to me, and I want to belong to you, in every way possible. Do you understand?"

"Anacleto, please!"

The gentle voice was hesitant rather than frightened now, and it made Anacleto look up sharply. He narrowed his eyes, considering. "You've given more to me than to anyone else in this town, Father. You've told me yourself that a priest may not put any one person above all others. Yet you do so, with me, at every turn. You cannot deny it."

The priest parted his lips as if to speak, perhaps to reprimand Anacleto for turning his own words against him, but there was nothing he could say, for they both knew the bandit's words to be true.

Anacleto, encouraged, forged onwards. "Give me everything, Father, and take everything I am. Take me, and keep me, and you can be sure I'll never be lost to you again." He was desperate, the softness and hesitation in the priest's eyes giving him hope. He again kissed the hands he held, with his eyes closed - more reverently than the most devout Catholic.

"You care, Father," he murmured against the tanned skin, then rubbed his cheek there like a cat. "I know you do. I'm your responsibility, and willingly."

"Anacleto, I do care. I care too much for you, far too much, I know that, but--" Father Keogh gasped when Anacleto turned his hands over and traced the palms with his gloved thumb tips. "Anacleto, please don't."

"Do you know that, every single night, I dream of the touch of your hands?" Anacleto ran his thumbs along the heart lines of both palms. "Do you know the things I imagine?" He raised the left hand and pressed his lips into the palm.

Father Keogh swayed unsteadily, yet did not draw his hand away. He shivered at the rasp of Anacleto's tongue tracing the imprint of his own lips there.

"Do you know the touches I dream of when I watch your hands? The way I want you to touch me, and what I want to do to you in return? Oh, Father, you can't imagine the things I dream!" He looked up, his dark eyes blazing. "Or can you?" he breathed.

"No!" Father Keogh denied, too quickly.

Anacleto smiled, more confident now. "Are you sure? Let me help you, Father. Let me help you imagine." He hooked his fingers behind the priest's cincture. "Better yet - let me show you."

Whimpering, the priest made a half-hearted attempt to retreat.

"Let me worship you," Anacleto beseeched. He tore the black band from Father Keogh's middle, then pulled him close by a handful of cassock while rising to his feet at the same time. The motion put them virtually eye to eye, and Anacleto wrapped his arm around the slim waist to draw the priest close. With a sigh, he rested his cheek against the side of his face and whispered urgently, "Let me show you what it is to desire a man." A sharp inhalation filled his senses with the priest's pure, male scent and a hint of myrrh and flowers. "A man of flesh..." He pressed his lips to the side of the smooth neck, close to the pulse. "... and blood." He held the priest tight, his leather hardly any barrier at all between them. Shifting into the abundance of dark cloth, he groaned when he felt the effect he was having, undeniably, on the priest. "But you know desire, don't you?"

At last, with his own body betraying him, resistance drained out of Father Keogh, and he sank into Anacleto's embrace with a softly whispered, "God help me, I do."

The surrender drove Anacleto's need higher. He moaned against the warm skin of the priest's neck, his even teeth grazing it just hard enough to induce a shiver. "I want you, Father!" he gasped. "I need to touch you. Tonight. Now!"

The priest was trembling in his arms, his voice husky, "Not... not here."

"Where?" Anacleto urged. His teeth were making small, shallow indentations, his lips curling into a triumphant smile when the skin between them grew hot.

"The sacris-- no! No, the bell tower."

Anacleto carelessly discarded his gloves, then took the priest's hand and pulled him the short distance around the corner and into the privacy of the tower - out of sight, should anyone enter the church so late at night. He pressed the man against the cool stone wall, then held him there with his own body and tipped up his chin.

"Do you desire me, Father?"

This time, there was no hesitation. Just a soft, defeated sigh before the tremulous, "You know I do."

"Let me hear you say it." Anacleto tilted his head. "Please."

Father Keogh's eyes gleamed an unearthly violet in the cold moonlight streaming through the high window. He raised a hand to hesitantly touch Anacleto's chest, and whispered, "I desire you."

"Father!" Anacleto took the priest's mouth in a kiss that was too hard, and certainly too demanding, but the surrender was immediate. Intoxicatingly innocent lips yielded the moment they were forced apart, and Anacleto groaned into the welcoming warmth. He felt the shivers wracking the priest in his own blood stream, and he pressed forward into the pliant body in his arms, his hardness caressed by black cloth and a need as urgent as his own.

Anacleto gasped against the open mouth and wrapped his arms around the priest, not caring that his knuckles abraded against the rough stone wall where his fingers clutched the back of the cassock. "I've wanted to kiss you since the moment I first saw you," he confessed.

Genuine innocence coloured Father Keogh's breathy murmur, "Even knowing I was a priest?"

Anacleto laughed huskily. "You are a man first." He exerted the slightest pressure at the small of the priest's back, forcing their hips to slide together.

Father Keogh gasped, his eyelids fluttering, and whispered, "You were supposed to hate me."

"I've tried." Anacleto peppered his cheek, his chin, the line of his jaw, with kisses. "I've tried so hard to hate you. It would have been so much easier. Not to have to see you all the time and wish... and want..."

"Why did you come back?" Father Keogh murmured languidly.

"I couldn't stop wishing." Anacleto cupped the nape of his neck and kissed him again, with a little more restraint this time yet still leaving them both breathless. "I'll never stop wanting." He rested his forehead against the priest's.

"I've failed you. I've failed us both, Anacleto," Father Keogh whispered against his lips. "I wanted to understand everything about you. I wanted to get close to you - I thought it was the way to help you and bring you back to the church. I thought... I thought it would be enough." He traced his fingertips along Anacleto's temple for a moment, his eyes soft and a little sad, then dropped his hand. "Instead, we've both lost our way."

"No." Anacleto cupped his face. "No, querido. We've found a new one. The only one for you and me, you know it as well as I do. Haven't you felt it from the beginning?"

"I've felt that, right or wrong, we're each other's destiny," Father Keogh admitted softly, unconscious of even forming the words until they had left his lips; yet he knew they were true.

Anacleto kissed his cheek. "We are. And I would rather die with you than live without you even one more day."

Father Keogh moaned softly, turning his head so their lips connected. His hands moved up into Anacleto's hair.

Anacleto held him tight, his need urging him to seek more friction. He wanted to shatter every last regret and wash them away in a flood of sensation. He slid his right hand between them to cup the hardness lined up alongside his own, silently cursing the unforgiving clerical garment.

Father Keogh gasped softly, his eyes closed and a pained frown between his brows - a frown Anacleto soothed away with his lips even while his hand showed no mercy to the priest's plight of conscience, caressing and squeezing relentlessly.

"I didn't know..." the priest whispered, trailing off in a breathy moan.

Spurred on, Anacleto kissed him again, reaching down to ruck up the cassock, tearing at the buttons from the bottom up until his fingers could burrow between folds of cloth. When he reached bare skin - invitingly warm and smooth - he closed his palm gently.

"Anacleto!" Father Keogh gasped, his hands around the bandit's neck; his fingers twisted, at last with no regard to gentleness, in the black hair.

Anacleto welcomed the pain as the sign of capitulation that it was. He kissed the parted lips, drinking sighs of pleasure from them. "I do understand worship," he uttered breathlessly, stroking slowly, but firmly, up and down. For long moments, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing, punctuated by soft moans and softer kisses.

Eventually, Father Keogh murmured, "How shall I ever save you?" He squeezed his eyes closed when a rough thumb swept across the tip of his erection and spread the moisture pearling there. His helpless whimpers drowned in a current of unfamiliar and overwhelming sensations.

"I don't want you to save me," Anacleto panted harshly. "I want you to love me." He kissed the priest hard, his tongue forcing the soft lips apart and thrusting relentlessly inside. His hand tightened, and he bit the bruised flesh of the priest's plump lower lip, causing a surprised groan. "Love me as I love you!" His hand moved faster, gliding smoothly, while he pressed urgent kisses to Father Keogh's neck and the underside of his chin. "Please, Father."

"Oh, Anacleto, I do love you!"

The words, uttered in husky surrender, echoed sweetly in the cold tower and, just like that, the knot in Anacleto's chest loosened, the pain melting away in liquid warmth. With a sigh, he sank to his knees again, his arms around the priest's middle and his cheek against the warm skin of his partially bared stomach - rising and falling gently, muscles fluttering against the welcome pressure.

Blushing, Father Keogh laid his right hand on Anacleto's head as if in blessing, and for a few moments, they remained that way.

When Anacleto looked up, the fire in his eyes burned more softly, but its heat was undiminished. Without dislodging the hand on his hair, he turned his face and let the priest's arousal slide between his full lips.

Groaning helplessly, Father Keogh witnessed his own undoing with feverish eyes and burning cheeks. His left hand fumbled for Anacleto's right, and he interlaced their fingers to anchor himself.

There was a smile in Anacleto's eyes, and he doubled his efforts, his tongue relentlessly tracing each inch of skin and each pulsing vein while his lips ventured a little further down the hot shaft all the time. He knew the priest was too inexperienced to withstand for long, and he himself had waited so desperately for this, he could not resist rushing him towards climax. But when he opened his throat and swallowed, the surprised cry of ecstasy and the warm surges filling his hungry mouth forced him to press a hand down hard on his own arousal to keep from succumbing himself.

Father Keogh's fingers tightened around Anacleto's while he stood shaking, gasping, watching with half-lidded eyes as Anacleto swallowed again and again, his searching tongue ensuring he didn't miss a drop. "Forgive me," the priest panted, caressing Anacleto's cheek with the tips of his trembling fingers.

After one last lick, Anacleto released him, tucked the priest's clothes back into place, and slowly rose to his feet. He was smiling, his eyes bright in the moonlight. "Don't you know there is nothing to forgive?" He wrapped his arms around the quivering man and kissed him, his lips curling up at the startled whimper greeting the shared taste. When he drew back, his lips remained turned up in amusement at the blush still staining the priest's cheeks.

"I..." Father Keogh swallowed. "I don't know what..."

Anacleto pressed his index finger to the kiss-swollen lips, then stood back a step and unbuckled his belt. He smirked when the stormy blue eyes dropped instantly and fixed on his hands, watching the slide of the thin leather through the buckle and the rapid unsnapping of buttons, and then rose to meet his gaze guiltily when Anacleto sighed with relief.

"Do you... I..." Still lost for words, Father Keogh licked his suddenly dry lips and promptly flushed at the soft groan prompted by the unconscious gesture.

Anacleto took his hand and raised it to his lips. "Not this time, querido." He stepped close again and guided the priest's hand between them, moaning softly when the fingertips brushed his hard flesh hesitantly. "Your touch alone will break me," he admitted.

The priest looked deep into his eyes and allowed him to fold his hand around the hot shaft, grateful for the guidance. They set a rhythm between them, with frequent pauses because Anacleto was so close.

Father Keogh observed every flutter of the dark eyes, every sharply drawn breath, his free hand playing almost absently at the buttons near Anacleto's shirt collar, until the top one popped open. He fumbled with the second and third, and when Anacleto pressed his hand hard against himself, groaning, he leaned in and kissed the base of the bared throat.

"Father!" Anacleto gasped, his head falling back and his eyes closed. He shivered when a rough tongue licked a long line up his throat to his chin, and by the time Father Keogh's mouth met his, their hands - one atop the other - were moving rapidly. And then the priest's hand shifted and tightened unexpectedly and, with a strangled cry, Anacleto came. He came so hard, fluid leaked through the grasping fingers and between his own, and he leaned into the priest for support, his face burrowing into the crook of his neck, his panting mouth open against the side of his neck.

Slowly, gradually, the strokes slowed and then ceased, and Father Keogh drew a handkerchief from inside his cassock sleeve and wiped Anacleto dry gently. Then he wrapped his arms around him and held him close, one hand on the back of his head. They remained like that for a long time, and if any tears were shed - either for things lost or gained - they were silently accepted and absorbed into the other's skin.

"Will you take me home with you?" Anacleto murmured at last, his eyes closed tight. "Will you take me to your bed?"

Father Keogh sighed. "There is nothing I want more, Anacleto, but I have forfeited the right to claim a home in Quantana."

Anacleto raised his head and met his eyes. "The hotel stands empty now. No one dares use it still. Will you..." He swallowed, feeling unaccustomedly shy. "Will you stay there, with me, until we find a place we can both call home?"

Father Keogh raised a hand and touched his cheek, smiling softly. "As God has chosen to answer your prayer, who am I to do otherwise?"

Anacleto looked deep into his eyes. "I do love you." His voice cracked a little. The answering smile was all he needed. When tender fingers traced his lips, he stilled them and kissed the knuckles. "Will he forgive you for choosing me over him?"

"He may. The church will not."

Anacleto's brow furrowed with worry, and his heart clenched at the thought that he may yet find himself abandoned. "She does not deserve you," he said cautiously.

Michael Keogh read him with ease. "She does not need me, Anacleto." He smiled reassuringly. "And I can no longer share my love."

Anacleto understood then that he would never be alone again.