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Shady Belle wasn’t quite like any other camp the gang had stayed at over the twenty long years they’d been on the run. No this was different. For once they had a roof over their heads, if you ignored the missing wooden slats on the floor or the holes in the walls it was almost a home. They could pretend to be people again. Well, it seemed that’s all Hosea and Dutch had been doing for the past two decades. Pretending they were people, pretending they weren’t outcasts. At least they had a couple of walls to hide behind now, Dutch reasoned with his own mind again.
Floorboards creaked beneath his weight as he approached Hosea's room, he was simply making sure the gang had settled into their new abandoned abode. Without a trace of hesitation, Dutch’s ringed fingers rapped the weathered door. When there was no indication that anyone was stationed in the vicinity, he gave the handle a swift twist and invited himself inside. Inspecting Hosea’s simplistic approach of decorating his room led to a familiar picture frame being situated in his hands again, the same one he had spent hours gazing at. A simple picture of Hosea and his late wife Bessie, but Christ did it strike an uncomfortable jealousy within him. Dutch never felt any true resentment toward Bessie, he loved her dearly, but he couldn’t help but wish he could show his love for Hosea brazenly in the same way she had. He was an outlaw, why should he restrict himself to a clandestine kind of love? A sick kind of desire to want his dearest companion to show him off as he’d done with his wife. Sick.
“Dutch, you got a reason to be in here? A good one I mean.” Hosea questioned gingerly, uncertain of what Dutch had in his hands. There was no reaction to Hosea entering the room nor his question. Yet as he got closer he knew, of course he knew they’d had this conversation before more times than he could remember.
“Do you love me, truly not just some-” only then did the younger of the two lift his head, granted it was to stop the tears from falling, heaven knows they had been building up ever since he laid eyes on the photograph once more. “Not just some side thing to cure your boredom?”
Surely he couldn’t be serious. All those years Hosea had put his life on the line for him and he had the cheek to question his love? The question didn’t quite register in Hosea’s head before Dutch pivoted to face him, hands dangling awkwardly at his sides, picture frame still firmly in his grasp. It was clear by the glossy eyes that pleaded for an answer that he was serious. Serious but more importantly hurt. Without a second thought Hosea reached into his best to retrieve an age old picture of them both, attentively offering it to Dutch who could only gaze at him with pure disbelief plastered across his face. A small quiver of Dutch’s bottom lip was all it took for Hosea to discard the photograph on the crate next to them and bring his hands up to cup his face. Unbegrudgingly leaning into the touch, Dutch settled slightly.
“How could I not love you?” The older man soothed, his lips hovering over his nose before placing the softest of kisses upon it. “I’d drop everything at your call and you know it.”
He knew it.
“I know it, I just don’t want to have to hide this anymore. I want to love you out loud, Hosea.” His hand coming up to the back of Hosea’s silver hair, fingers running through it as his forehead bumped against his own.
“One day, my dear. One day I promise.”
He promised, and Dutch foolishly believed his every word. They wouldn’t make it that far.