ANTICHRIST | phan ✔️

summer comes to salem

sorry i had to split it into 2 parts but i PROMISE next chapter is the last and i'll try post it tonight x

TRACK THIRTY ONE
"choking on flowers"
fox academy

👼🏻

1997

summer in the town adrian had last seen in 1989 was nothing like the cold winters he could only remember. the trees rustled in a warm summer breeze he had never felt on his bruises as a child, the sky was forget-me-not blue and sunshine yellow flowers bloomed on the grass across the river. the 14 year old boy lay on the riverbank with dew soaking into the back of his t-shirt and the warmth of sunlight spreading over his closed eyelids, listening to the sounds of the woods that he had always been scared of, amongst other things.

"what happened to the church?"

adrian opened his eyes as he asked the question, to see the boy laying by his side with the dirty blonde hair and white t-shirt sigh sleepily as he stretched. a lot of things about the village both adrian's brother and phil had dubbed "salem" jokingly had changed over those 8 years since he'd left, but tommy hadley hadn't much.

and adrian was so fucking glad about that.

"they had it pulled down," tommy replied, squinting through the summer sun to get a better look at the brunet boy next to him. there was something so comfortable being around him, adrian felt, and even though years may have gone by, he felt like he and tommy had been talking like this for days there through all those letters he kept under his bed.

"pulled it down?" he echoed, having trailed off into thinking taking in every detail of tommy's face to remember for when he had to leave again; everything from the shadows his eyelashes left on his cheeks to every small mark on his lips.

"mhm," tommy nodded, and adrian watched as he closed his eyes again. "tore the whole thing down."

"then what?"

"then they built a new one."

"shit," adrian laughed at tommy's sarcastic tone. tommy was the only one who'd ever been able to make him laugh like that; laugh in a way he hadn't in 8 years. "so...so you still have to go pray every day? is there a new priest?"

"some people do," tommy said, raking his hair back through his fingers. "but i don't, really. and yeah, there's some new priest but i don't go to church as much as my mother used to make me, do you?"

in the same way adrian had read all those letters and tried to imagine what tommy looked like now he was older (and he'd been right, because tommy was pretty), he had tried to imagine what his voice might sound like now; it was a little deeper than adrian had thought it would be, but he preferred it. he still thought his voice could calm him down when the nights were bad and there was smashed glass all over the bathroom tiles.

"no," adrian shook his head, after realising he still had to answer and couldn't spend hours just staring at tommy hadley like some work of art. "i don't pray very much but...i don't know if i'd call myself an atheist. i'm not sure."

"that's okay," tommy replied, sitting up and shaking the hair out of his eyes. "my aunt says it's okay not to be sure about things like that now. we're only 14."