Work Text:
May 2015
Conclave: Day Three
Goffredo Tedesco shuffled tiredly back to his assigned room in the Casa Santa Marta. It had been a long, long day of increasingly acrimonious campaigning, and they were no closer to electing a new pope than they had been on the first day. The liberals were split between Cardinal Tremblay of Canada, the cardinal over Dublin, and some guy from the US- Goffredo hadn’t even bothered to remember his name or where exactly he was from (probably California, he did kind of have that look that he would be at home on a surfboard). The moderates seemed to have settled on one of the cardinals from France, a relatively boring man whose two passions in his life appeared to be building ships in bottles and giving long-winded sermons on the book of Acts. As for the conservatives, they seemed to be stuck between the loudmouthed and rather indiscreet cardinal from Berlin (seriously, for all the man loved to rant about the traditions of the church, would it kill him to be a little sneakier about the looks he was giving the younger nuns?), the dour and gloomy cardinal from Manila, and Goffredo himself.
As much as he would love to be the pope (he’d picked out the name he would use when he was sixteen years old, for crying out loud), Goffredo was getting really tired of it all. It was clear that he wasn’t going to be elected- every time the vote came in he had fewer voters- it seemed that despite having al the warmth and personality of a gargoyle, Cardinal Banaag from Manila was peeling off his voters each time. There were probably some defectors going to the moderate, too… as the days dragged on, it seemed like some from the traditionalist side were starting to consider just going with the moderates in order to get out of there faster.
And frankly, Goffredo was starting to agree with them. Even messing with Aldo Bellini was starting to get boring. Everyone was starting to flag. People were starting to skip the communal meals to retire to their rooms, just so they didn’t have to look at each other anymore. As soon as the doors to the Sistine Chapel had opened, Cardinal Lawrence had rocketed out of there like the devil himself was chasing him, with Tremblay and the cardinal from Hanoi not far behind. Goffredo, too, had made his exit with haste.
Reaching into his cassock, he felt for the rectangular box he’d hidden in there, making sure it was still there. Just feeling the cigarette container was enough to steel Goffredo’s nerves as he made the final steps to his room. He’d been deprived of nicotine all day, and he was really starting to feel the jitters.
Once he was safely locked behind the door, Goffredo made a quick scan of the ceiling until he found what he was looking for. The “house rules” poster affixed to the door proclaimed that no smoking was allowed, but that was no obstacle. Goffredo smoked wherever he wanted- he had ever since he was a boy. He’d even once disabled a smoke detector on a United flight- nothing had happened to him then, and he was able to enjoy his cigarette in peace. The room’s detector wasn’t even hidden well at all- it was just above the bed. It wasn’t even a challenge to access. All he had to do was stand a bit precariously on the bed. When he’d disabled the plane’s smoke detector, he’d had to wedge himself into the corner between the sink and put a foot in the toilet, and he’d had to quickly sever the wires before it started screaming at him. This one just popped right off of the ceiling. It was almost too easy!
Without the pesky beepy thing to interrupt him or cause an inconvenient evacuation alarm, Goffredo happily lit up a cigarette. Taking a long drag, he allowed the nicotine to soothe his nerves.
Once he’d finished his cigarette and the jangling cravings in the back of his brain had quieted down, he allowed himself to think about tomorrow’s plan of attack. While he’d made his peace with the fact that he wasn’t going to become pope this time, he at least could put some energy into making sure that one of the other conservative contenders got the vote. He could probably convince a few of the moderates to go for the Filipino cardinal, and he might be able to get a few of the more traditional liberals to go for the moderate from France. It was probably a lost cause to get anyone who was backing the California cardinal to switch, and nobody who had eyes and even pretended to care about the Church’s celibacy rule was going to go for the ogling German. It might be enough to sway the vote one way or another. As he considered who he would approach in the morning, Goffredo lit up another cigarette and quickly wrote down a few names on the notepad- Lawrence was usually a pretty reasonable man, he could probably be persuaded to vote for the moderate if he could get him away from Bellini. Most of the other Italians were already voting for either the Filipino or the Frenchman, and the Africans were a solid conservative voting block. The Asian cardinals were a bit of a wildcard, but he was pretty certain that most of them would vote for the moderate at least- definitely not California Cardinal.
Once he was happy with his list, Goffredo decided to make a trip to the ice machine at the end of the floor. It had been a long day, and he was pretty tired. A nice glass of ice water, then a shower was just the thing he needed before he retired for the night. He opened the door to his room… only to walk straight into a nun.
A very severe-looking, scowling nun.
“Ah, Buonasera, Sister Agnes! Is there something I can help you with?” Goffredo asked, turning on the charm.
Sister Agnes was not charmed.
“Good evening, Your Eminence,” she said. Goffredo could practically feel the ice dripping off of every syllable. “I was coming to make sure you were alright, given that I smelled smoke.”
“Ah…” Goffredo said. “Well, as you can see, there is no fire here!”
“Indeed,” the nun said, peering past the cardinal and into the room. Her eyes seemed to focus on something on the dresser, and Goffredo swore internally. He hadn’t thought anyone would be looking into his room, so he’d just left the disabled smoke alarm sitting on top of the dresser, right out in the open. If he’d been thinking things through he would have stuffed it into a drawer or something. “You are aware that this is a five story building, and we are at full capacity? A fire in this building, particularly during conclave, would be catastrophic?”
“Of course, of course!” Goffredo said quickly.
“And that smoking is strictly forbidden inside the building?”
“It is only natural,” Goffredo replied quickly, starting to have flashbacks to he time he’d been in elementary school and had kicked a soccer ball into the school window. Sister Lucia had glowered at him before unleashing a verbal barrage that had made him feel about two feet tall, then dragged him back home, where his mother had beaten him into submission with her house slipper, then repeated the nun’s rant herself. At least this time, Goffredo was fairly certain that Sister Agnes would not be able to resurrect his mother. Fairly certain.
“I could smell the smoke from a floor away, and now I see that your smoke detector has been disabled.”
Before Goffredo could think of anything else to say, the nun switched into lecture mode. Unlike Sister Lucia from his childhood, Sister Agnes did not need to resort to screaming and waving her arms around. Every single word she spoke during the lecture landed with the precision slashes of a stiletto knife, and was colder than Siberian winter. If Sister Lucia had made him feel about two feet tall as a boy, Sister Agnes’ rant made him feel about two millimeters tall.
In the end, all Goffredo could do was apologize profusely, and connect the smoke alarm back up to the ceiling under the nun’s supervision.
“I trust we will not have this problem again, Your Eminence?” she asked once he was done.
“No, Sister,” Goffredo replied, completely cowed.
“See that you keep your word,” was all she said, before turning on her heel and striding off down the hallway.
Ice machine forgotten, Goffredo just closed the door behind her.
Once they had a pope, he was going to check out that little shop he’d seen on the way in, next to the train station. Apparently these new “vape” things were less detectable with cigarettes. And apparently had more nicotine, anyway.
/END