unholy faces

🌿

It's late June and Josh feels like his summer has been completely waisted. Although he spent a majority of his time sulking in the art studio his aunt owned, he was getting tired of the smell of acrylic paint and brand new canvases. It also smells like pot there, his aunt believed most artists were high while they created shit. So she is just following the footsteps of dead people.

He's sitting in the pink stool, spinning in circles again and again, while his aunt stomps on one of her canvases, not out of anger, it's just something she does when the paint doesn't mix right.

"Hey josh?" She says, and starts putting her hair up into a ponytail. "Would you mind going to the farmers market and pick up some fruit? It's hot as hell 'n I can go for some watermelon."

"You want me to bring a whole ass watermelon?"

She laughs, and punches her nose. "I mean, buy that shit in the cups where they chop it up. But one for me yeah? And for Mia, too."

"'Kay then!"

Josh smiles, and springs up from where he's sitting, the stool nearly falls over as it spins in a circle and almost loses its balance. Josh is grabbing the ten she is barely pulling from her pocket, pacing out the door like there's no tomorrow.

"See ya in Twenty!" He shouts as he gets on his bike, the sun is scorching but luckily there's trees larger than the two story houses. "Imma guy myself some peaches!"

"Josh, peaches are an extra dollar!"

Josh pretends not to hear, scurries off into the gravel road, past the large pink, white, blue, yellow houses with the largest overgrown flower fields. He crosses the wooden bridge, through the short cut, even though his auntie hates it and thinks it's dangerous since it's right beside the largest river know to mankind. That's an exaggeration, it's just some kids have drowned in there.

The farmers market is open most days, and there's always things to buy and sell, it's lovely to attend. Also because Josh just knows everybody. This town isn't that large, but it's small enough to recognize most people. And it's also enough for him to recite the same three lines every day.

"Yes my mom is getting better. Thank you Miss Green. No I don't have a girlfriend. Your daughter is beautiful but I'd rather not have a girlfriend right now." He says, conversing with Miss Green, the librarian who is also a good friend of his mothers.

He also says things like this.

"No ma'am, my father isn't home yet. He's still at war. Yes my aunt Elis is doing fine. Yes she attends church. Yes Mia is still her girlfriend. No, that's not tragic at all."

Josh is kind, he remembers to be, because that's what his mother wants. She just wants josh to go around town and be the kind guy, the guy that doesn't get mad when you say mean shit to him. Or the guy that won't pick a fight with you just because he called you a faggot. The guy that will cooperate, not keep his head down but high enough to show he's not that guy, you know?

Whatever, overall, josh just makes sure to be sweet to everyone because he doesn't want everyone to think he's troubled. People expect him to be, with his dad at war and his mother with a rare condition, who he never really sees anymore, and the fact his aunties are gay lovers and some townspeople what to hang them like it's 100 years ago.

Josh is tired of being nice.

This town is just isolated, and small, but big enough to be afraid of what people think or how they look at you. Sometimes Josh worries about who's going to save it, or in better words, save him from this town. He hates how alone he feels.

"Two please." He says, and pulls out his ten dollar bill. "And could you charge me for this peach?"

"A'course. How're ya doing Joshua? Not going to summer school like the other kids?"

"No sir." Josh smiles. The cashier, Lance, is always praising josh on his basic abilities. "Passed all my classes. But I might hafta get a job if i get too damn bored."

"Too young for a job." He sighs. "When i was your age I was working. I was forced to, I didn't want to work at all, I just wanted to be a kid and go ride my bike and go places I wasn't suppose to."

Lance hands him the paper bag of watermelon and leaves his peach aside.

"Don't get a job kid."

Josh smiles, he likes Lance because he says weird things that don't fall into his exact situation but, they always seem to make sense.

When josh is walking out a girl from his school is walking in, her names Nancy, she's got big curly hair and a summer dress on, she's also wearing too much blush.

"Josh!" She smiles, and hugs him tightly with her arms around his neck. "Ya haven't called me back!"

"Oh, I'm not really home much. Sorry about that."

"That's okay. I understand." She says sincerely, she only knows of josh's situation since she caught him crying in the school library on the phone with his mother, who told him he needed to pack his bags and live with his aunts for a while.

"Most kids in our grade are goin to the river at five later today, if ya wanna come by, it'll be so much fun!"

"At five? Dunno, might have to do something my aunt needs-"

"You're always there." She whines, then pouts, then pushes past josh. "If I don't see ya there, I'm not baking you anymore cookies."

Before Josh can protest she's down one of the aisles fast, he's sighing and retreating to his bike where he places the fruit. Heading back into the gravel rose, he hums a tune to some song he heard on the radio. As he's passing the pretty two story homes, Josh notices a new family moving into the pink home.

There's a woman, who's wearing a funky green T-shirt and jeans, holding the heaviest looking box while she yells at a little girl who looks about four, to stop eating the flowers. There's also a dog that's ginormous and black, barking at thin air and jumping up and down, running in and out of the house.

"Katy! For fucks sake that's a leaf! Spit it out!" The woman says and drops the box, which has a name on it, just josh can't read it from all the way where he's standing. "God, you never learn."

It's chaotic, all the boxes and the girl starts crying real loud, the mom is sweating and the dog just found out he can jump out the window and is just creating a mess. Josh, on the other side of the road, pulls up slowly, places his watermelon cups and peach in his bag and tucks it into the small basket attached to the bike as he stands it near their home.

Jogging up to the odd family, josh puts on a warm smile. "Hello ma'am, do you need any help?"

The lady turns, quickly, and gives josh this look that makes him stop dead in his tracks. It's like a force field was put up and he no longer could move. Suddenly, josh was cold, his fingertips began to freeze but then her eyes went warm, soft, so did his limbs and he was no longer frozen, she laughs nervously and shakes her head. "No we're fine, just... sorry if we disrupted you-"

"Not at all!" Josh says quickly, and gulps at what had just happened to his body. "Just, I saw ya struggling and I wanted to know if you needed any help lifting some boxes. I'm pretty strong so it wouldn't be any trouble."

She laughs a little, she thinks it's cute that josh had this confidence, and she kind of though he was joking. But she nods anyway.

"Uh, sure then okay. Would you take all the boxes that say 'Tyler' up to the second floor? My boy is up there picking out a room."

"Sure thing! My name is Josh by the way!"

"I'm Samantha. This is Katy, and well, Tyler is upstairs. I believe he's about your age." She sighs. "Also don't mind the animals, they might get loud."

He smiles and begins with the box she had been previously holding, it's not so heavy, so he grabs another from the back of the pickup truck parked in front of their home.

When josh walks up the marble steps, he can feels the woman's eyes on him but he doesn't want to turn around. It's weird, the aura she has, how he feels cold around her. When he enters the home, it feels colder, worse, he feels more eyes on him. There's boxes everywhere and josh notices some labels he can't even read. The dog, who was jumping out of the window, spots josh and starts barking loud. That's when he notices the bird in the room to his right, screeching at the top of its lungs, almost in pain. They sound distressed and hopeless, the dog starts whining and almost crying. The bird is flying around the cage and hitting itself. Everything is so odd, Josh feels so cold and watched, so he quickly runs up the stairs, once he touches the last step the dog stops crying and the bird isn't screaming.

He comes to a conclusion that animals just don't like him, he hopes it's that, but there something off. That worry in the back of his head only gets worse when he finds Tyler.

Josh is walking down the hallway, the sun being the only source of light throughout the second floor, he hears humming. Soft, soft singing, the voice is a bit squeaky and it oddly reminds him of the peach in his bag. Josh is quiet, footsteps are quiet, as much as the floor freaks josh wants to be silent, doesn't know why. There's something interesting about the voice, it sounds angelic, like a girl but also like a guy, Josh can't explain, it's just an interesting and different sound. The song, it's not in english, he thinks it's French.

Josh reaches the doorway, where this boy stands, unpacking clothes from a large box, his cheeks have freckles, dusted with pink prettiness. Eyelashes long and curled, nearly touching his sweaty cheeks. He has this large white T-shirt on, with these itty-bitty shorts that show his pudgy little legs, and Christ, josh has never seen such a nice butt before. The boy, he's a caramel pretty sun-kissed fucking God, he's the prettiest thing Josh has ever laid his eyes on, his hair, it's brown and straight but the very tip above his forehead has these tiny little curls that lean foreward. Josh's knees almost buckle, because this boy looks so different, he sounds so different, nothing like this damn town and all these damn people that just want to get out. He's singing like it doesn't matter too, when it does matter, it matters so much, he's got the sunset shining on his beautiful face, his eyes, god, he hasn't even seen then but if he does he might fucking faint.

This boy, Tyler, he's warm. Everything feels so warm and sweet, like waffles and honey, like summer, like the time he learned how to ride a bike, or when his grandmother came to visit. It feels warm, not in his heart but in his stomach and guts, there's a fire that just lit up and it's not going out anytime soon. Josh thinks he's about to pass out, or faint, or maybe he's just going to get another nosebleed because he's overwhelmed.

That's when he's spotted, when he takes a step back to recollect himself, the floor creaks. The boy, his singing stops quickly, he turns around quickly and gasps. Josh gasps too, because holy fucking guacamole his eyes are brown and they're the pretty kind of brown, the sun is hitting them and they're glowing, whyre they watery? Is he going to cry?

"Um!" Josh stammers, nearly drops the boxes, he placed them on the floor. "Um.. hello. I'm josh."

The boy doesn't say anything. But instead he nods, he bites his pretty pink bottom lip, shyly, his cheeks are getting more red, and when that happens josh's stomach feels like it's on fire.

"I'm just uh, helping with t-the boxes." Josh clears his throat. Fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. "Did I scare you? I didn't mean to-"

"Were you just standing there?" The boy says, Josh nearly cries, his voice is so sweet, sugar sweet, as sweet as the fat peach in his basket. "You know, lurking is for perverts and pedos."

Josh blushes, hard, and starts stammering a lot he nearly chokes.

But Tyler starts laughing, no, he starts giggling, like a damn child and it's adorable.

"I'm kiddin! Jeez, you're not a pervert and you're too young to be an old creep." He smiles, his cheeks are so cute and chubby, he has dimples and his eyes get squinty, cute when he laughs. Then he goes up to josh. Josh just stared, stared as Tyler's bare feet were next to his as he bent down and picked up one of the boxes he brought, two of Tyler's toes were on top of Josh's shoe, touching him.

"I just- um..."

"Are you okay?" The boy asks, josh feels hot, warm, like he's going Dizzy, like he's about to faint. It's so dramatic, the boy just smiles and touches josh's face with his finger. Traces his cheek with it. "You look kinda hot, are ya sick or somethin?" Tyler kind of, smirks, it's odd, the way he looks at Josh. Like he's up to something. Josh feels like he's being controlled. Fondled with, like a puppet.

The boys toes and fingers are off of him in less than a second, Josh isn't frozen anymore, this odd feeling in his chest.

They don't say anything else, josh continues to go up stairs and downstairs retrieving Tyler's boxes, it's miraculous how much stuff he owned. He had a lot of boxes labeled 'clothes' and some with weird words that he couldn't make out. Maybe Tyler speaks another language?

When he brings the last box up the sun is nearly set, Tyler isn't in the room anymore. Josh still feels warm but odd.

"Thank you so much for your help Joshua!" Samantha says, as she holds the little girl, almost upside down. "I'm sure Tyler appreciated it as well, he's a little nervous since he doesn't know anyone."

Josh doesn't know why he says it, but it comes out before he can bite his tongue. "He's lovely."

He's never described something as lovely, he doesn't even know where the word came from. But he already said it. Samantha however, doesn't mind it, she just smiles and laughs.

"Yeah. He is." She smiled, holds josh's cheek stares into josh's eyes softly. "You should be friends with him. I know he's odd, but he's a good kid."

Josh nods, doesn't say anything else, and leaves on his bike like nothing happened.

Samantha watches him leave, puts the little girl down who runs upstairs, Tyler was sitting by the large window in the living room; watching him leave, with tears running down his cheeks.

"Did you touch him?" Samantha asks, sitting beside Tyler.

"Yes."

"I did too."

"Did you see what happened to him?" Tyler asked, wiping the tears off his cheeks. "Did you see what I saw?"

"I did." Sam says, she looks down at her hands. "I saw."

"He didn't deserve that." Tyler's eyes got dark and sad, He starts crying real hard, hard enough that the house began to shake slightly, and the animals got distressed again. His socked feet were pulled up, his knees tucked beneath his chin. "They're going to pay for what they did to him. I'll make sure they do."

🌞

When Josh gets to the studio, his aunties hug him and Marie throws her toast at his forehead. They explain how worried there were, but Josh brings up the watermelon and they're content once again, sitting and watching some nineties movie. Josh pulls out his peach from the basket of his bike, takes a bite out of it and thinks if Tyler's sweet voice, his beauty, his laugh, the way he took over josh's body just by touching him.

When josh is about halfway through the peach he goes upstairs to the apartment, into his small room he continues to eat his peach, on his last bite he bites something hard, hard enough it hurts his tooth, he spits out the fruit into his palm and gasps.

It's a rock, not just any rock, a gemstone, it's lilac and shaped like a heart. It's so tiny, tinker thanvhis fingernail.

"What the actual shit." He whispers, places the rock on his desk. "Rocks in my peach. I'm hallucinating."

He falls asleep, fast, not like any other night, usually he's awake and sulking about his past. Luckily, Katy, the little girl who was eating flowers, swapped Josh's peach with a different one to help him sleep. She sensed how tired he was.

That night Josh dreamed his mother was better and his father was nowhere in sight.

A/N haha I love cryptic shit. but not that much so lemme clear this up Incase you're confused, when Tyler and Samantha touched josh, they saw the worse thing that ever happened to him.

i love this fic more than I love peaches, and that says a lot <3