Take Me to Church (Valan)

Chapter 3

Vic's POV

I let out a sigh and fixed my tie before I pulled my hair back into a low ponytail. My dad kept insisting that I needed to cut my hair, especially considering I was a stupid pastor now. But, I couldn't bring myself to do it, I liked my hair long, I thought it suited me and my personality better than anything else. He also hated my nose ring.

I hated the fact that I was twenty five years old and I still let my father influence my life in as many ways as he does. He was the reason I had done everything so far. He was the reason I went to bible college, he was he reason I was a pastor and most importantly, he was the reasons I was refusing to be happy and just love whoever I wanted to. I knew I was gay since I was fifteen but, considering the family I grew up in, taking in account who my dad was, it meant that no matter what, I could never, ever, in a million years be gay. And since I didn't want to force myself into an unhappy relationship with a woman I would never love or ever be turned on by, I found myself twenty five years old, still a virgin and lonely. Of course, that was still partially my fault as well. I didn't want to have sex before marriage, with my parents, it was drilled into my head at a young age that sex was sacred and what could I say? I was an old romantic and I wanted to wait. But, since I would never actually be able to marry who I wanted, it just meant I was going to probably die a virgin. It was a little sad, but I'd slowly learned to accept it.

Once I deemed myself ready to go, I grabbed the stupid sermon I wrote as well as my bible and headed out of the house.  I didn't wanna do this one bit, but I was going to and I was gonna do my best to make my family proud.  All I ever wanted to do was make my parents proud, they only ever seemed to be proud of me when it came to religious stuff. So if this is what I had to do then I'd do it. Once I got to church, I looked around and smiled at a few people when I saw Wendy standing awkwardly to the side with a scrawny ginger boy standing next to her. He was new here and Wendy usually came alone here.  I smiled and walked over to her.

"Hey Wendy," I said, giving her a reassuring smile. "How are you today?"

She smiled, "I'm doing great. Are you excited to run things today?" 

I shrugged. "Can I be honest?"

"Of course," She said glancing over at her friend who was looking everywhere, but at her or myself. He was constantly wiping his nose and playing with his hands.

"I am ridiculously nervous," I told her and looked at her friend again. "Who's this?"

"This is my friend Alan. I brought him today, he's been having a hard time lately and I thought this might be able to help him." 

I nodded and gave Alan a small smile. "It's nice to meet you," I said and pulled my handkerchief out of my suit and handed it to him. "Here, maybe it'll help with that runny nose," I said with a wink. It wasn't hard to tell that he was on something. I knew what Wendy did when she wasn't here, and I knew how most of the people at the church looked at her, including my family but I didn't care. She was nice and she clearly cared about Alan.

"Thanks," Alan said taking it from me. 

I shrugged. "It's no problem. I'm Vic," I said, holding my hand out to him.

He looked at my hand for a second before he shook it, "Uh, um, Alan."

I smiled at him again, sure he was so messed up on drugs it was ridiculous, but he was cute. "I know, Wendy told me."

"Right, sorry, sorry," He said closing his eyes as if he was waiting for some to hit him or something.

"Hey, it's okay," I said softly, giving him a concerned look. "Are you okay?"