AN: I'm not sure where this came from, to be honest, but it wouldn't leave me alone. Written for Sam.
Some days, your conversations turn deep. Simply touching and loving isn't enough, and Piers tries to strip away your layers to see your very bones.
"Do you believe in God?" he asks.
You shrug because you've never given it much thought outside of the few Sundays your mum would insist on going to a service to keep up appearances. You've only ever had a forged faith whenever it had been expected of you.
"They say people like us go to Hell, you know," he continues, and there's a note of vulnerability in his voice that he's never shown before. "They talked about it last Sunday."
You swallow dryly, wishing you could change the subject. But when Piers wants to talk, there's no redirecting him, no changing his mind.
"Do you believe in Hell? Or Heaven?" he asks, looking up at you with the eyes of someone younger, the eyes of child caught sneaking sweets before dinner and waiting for the inevitable.
Scared, you realize. He's scared of what he feels, of what it means.
"Do you think we're doing something wrong?" he presses, voice urgent.
You wish you could ease his mind with all the right words. But you're faithless, speaking to a boy who, though he rebelled, has been fed hymns and Bible verses his whole life.
And you don't know if you believe in Heaven or in Hell. You don't know if there's a God or several gods. You don't know if your love is wrong, and, truly, you don't understand how any love can be wrong if it's pure.
No, you don't believe in all of that because you don't know. But you believe in Piers. And you believe that love is enough, and you know that what you have is love and nothing less.
Maybe you're not religious. Maybe you'll never be devout. But he is glorious, and he is the closest thing to faith that you'll ever know.
You don't know how to tell him this, so you just press a kiss to his lips, hoping it will be enough, hoping he will understand. And you whisper into the kiss, soft as a prayer, "I love you."