Hosea had never found faith easily.
He'd wanted to be a priest, sure, but it weren't for the faith of it—it'd been for the show, the theater, the dramatics of standing at a pulpit and dishing out salvation to hundreds of fine folks. For the sheer thrill of enthralling them, of having them clinging to your every word. To believe in something higher, something divine, something that would guide you and protect you felt far away, unfathomable. To think there may be a place where your soul rests eternal, happy and at peace, a paradise reached through this ever-enigmatic thing called faith felt laughable. Like a fairy tale.
And yet, as he lays here, he thinks he understands now.
There's a weariness that settles deep in his bones, one a good stretch might shake off if he could move but he can't, and he's alright with that for the moment. Everything is hot and sticky, especially where he ends and Dutch begins—their legs entangled, his own arm slung over broad shoulders, Dutch's cheek against his heart.
Something divine: the stickiness between his thighs. The dark lashes that Dutch peers up at him through. The soft snores when he finally dozes off.
A paradise: this bedroll, thin enough to feel rocks through. The threadbare tent above them. Dutch's weight keeping him here, grounded, restful.
He'd gotten as far as seminary school. Lied, of course, and told them that he'd converted, done it all, the baptism, the confirmation, just to see if he could. He did, for about a week. Endless sermons, endless preaching, though he supposed that was the point—and all of those speeches he sat through, passionate biblical promises of love and joy never rang true to him until the man sprawled across his chest had kissed him.
If there is a faith to be had and kept and held high, it must be in Dutch van der Linde.
