#1

The buildings in the tiny near-deserted town lined themselves around the main road, cramming for space, leaning into each other. They seemed to be peering in one the only action that ever happened in the heat; the shopping strip that was made up of failing businesses and liquor stores that never seemed to have any problems staying afloat. 

The pharmacy leant to the left while the rundown cinema leaned to the right. There was a bar for the old men who played cards and checkers in the summer heat which found itself surrounded by second-hand shops with ‘For Sale’ signs plastered in the windows.  

A boy walked past all of this on his way towards the bus station. He was wearing only a ratty shirt and jeans, both in need of replacing from one of the few surviving stores he passed. Maybe when his next pay check came through. 

His blonde loosely curled Afro hung down past his shoulders, the filth in it was almost visible. He was pale and slim, jutting cheekbones and full lips combined with his albino features left him looking otherworldly. 

As he walked, he sang hymns half remembered from his time in church with his mother, whose dark skin gleamed with sweat as she sang along and praised Jesus for things that He probably hadn't done, and the lines he didn't remember he filled from his own imagination. 

The bus station was a crossroads about a ten minute walk out from the centre of town, and he wasn't sure what time the bus he was waiting for was coming, or even what the time was at the moment. He had a watch once, but he had lost it somewhere and had never bothered finding it. He sat himself down cross legged and waited for the noise of a vehicle coming down the dirt road. 

The boy pulled a sheaf of papers from his pocket, fumbled in one of the other pockets of his jeans for a roll of filters and a pack of tobacco, American Spirit, and busied his hands while he waited. The repeated actions, folding the papers, placing the filter and dumping the tobacco into the curved paper, sent him into a trance. The dryness in his mouth didn't matter as he ran his tongue over the edge of the white, turning it translucent. He piled the finished product inside the hollow of his crossed legs, piling them like an altar tribute. 

After his tobacco was finished, he picked up the last cigarette he had made and lit it, waiting for the paper to burn white under his lighter’s touch. The first drag made him cough, the dust had entered his mouth and made everything sticky. He swallowed hard, and took another deep breath. This time, he felt it reach his lungs instead of scraping at the back of his throat. He smiled and collected the unlit cigarettes into the empty tobacco bag, folded it and put it back into his pocket. 

It had been nearly an hour since he arrived. The waiting was dull, but what he was waiting for was definitely worth it. He hoped. 

The dust coated bus pulled up to the stop at the side of the road. Jackson found himself stumbling down the aisle towards the door with a joy in his chest and nerves writhing in his stomach. As he clambered out of the rusty doors he felt the first fresh air caress his face in nearly twenty four hours, and he was grateful. The stale air of the bus had smelt like puke and cigarettes. He was aware of his body odour, too. 

The bus driver opened the hatch on the side of the bus and literally climbed into the hole to retrieve Jackson's bags, which were dumped unceremoniously at his feet. He looked down at them and then up at the sky above him.

The sky was a mottled purple, the bright sun that lit the blue was a distant memory, growing fainter by the minute as he stood watching the colours change. The bus made some noises and disappeared off into the distance as Jackson stared up. 

He remembered doing this once before, trying to memorise the sky instead of looking at the town. He brought his eyes down to the horizon and smiled. The buildings were still there, still ramshackle, still barely upright. He smiled, a bitter-sweet smile that caught at the edges of his wounds and dragged out the stitches. This place was always going to be home. 

"Jax?" The voice behind him was sleepy, and the tiredness in it seemed to return it to youth that he knew the speaker had surpassed. 

He turned around slowly and came face to face with his oldest friend. The boy was half asleep beside the road, an unlit cigarette behind his ear. Jackson felt his smile spread like wildfire across his face and the boy responded in like. They found themselves wrapped in each other's arms before he was even aware that David had moved. 

Jackson leaned back and looked David in the face. The same broken nose, milky white eyes and moonlight blonde hair, only he had an added scar across his left eye that struck through his eyebrow. Jackson's thumb traced the strike and his face contorted itself. "How did you get this?" 

David shrugged, "I don't remember.” 

Jackson smirked, pressing his lips to David's forehead before releasing him. David nodded, his blush fading slightly in the cold night air. The neon lights were harsh on him, he looked like a ghost. 

The boys were different heights, almost a foot of difference between them. Jackson was the taller, brushing six foot four, but David’s unearthly beauty made him the more attention grabbing of the two. Jackson was perfectly okay with that - he preferred being in the background. 

When he bent at the knee to pick up his bags, he found that he only had one left. David seemed to have scooped up his belongings and begun walking without him. 

Jackson caught up easily, following his friend down the familiar dusty road towards the run-down farm house that had remained in the Folsom family for decades, generations even. He remembered running home this way, getting back to the house after David, where his grandmother was waiting for them both with cloudy lemonade and a list of chores. 

The house, as they turned the corner, looked much worse for wear. It was a sprawling farmhouse, easily twice the size of any place he had lived in when his father had moved them away to the city. The green paint around the window frames and on the door was pealing and the shutters were half ripped from their hinges. The white paint was more of a grey brown and there were holes in the roof with tarp stretched over them and nothing else.

The door was unlocked, of course. What was the point of locking the door in a neighbourhood like this? The two of them walked into the large farmhouse followed by air and dust. 

David put the bags down in front of the stairs and turned around, the darkness only letting the sharpest points of his face be illuminated. Jackson found it funny how his face as so much rounder than his best friend's, despite them both being ridiculously slim. 

"Home, sweet home," David smiled, "you want your old room?" 

Jackson nodded, still looking around at the semi familiar house. The furniture was all the same, but the walls had been painted manic colours with wild murals and beautiful poetry scrawled across them. This was probably what it looked like inside of David's head. 

"Alright," David smiled with the deep drawl that he had learnt from his father. Jackson felt his heart hammer at that drawl, he’d missed it. David didn't seem to notice as he had picked up the bags - all of them this time - and was hauling them up to the second floor. 

Jackson followed, guiltily enjoying the view. He remembered the reasons his father had them move away from the small town, all of them came back to the boy in front of him. When they got to the top floor David kicked open a door and placed all of Jackson's belongings inside rather more carefully than Jackson would himself. 

The boy grinned at him, full lips stretched across his perfect white teeth. "Get comfy, we'll eat and then I wanna show you the club."

"The club?" Jackson frowned, vaguely recalling the town's dingy bar. He didn't remember any other club like building around, but he had been gone for a long time. 

"The club is awesome." 

He nodded, enjoying the tone of voice David was using. Wistful yet certain, something only he could make sound natural. "I'm sure it is. I'll just change." 

David leaned back in the doorway, arms crossed across his chest. His shirt raised itself over his waistband, despite it being one of those tunic style long sleeve disasters. 

He was thin, not the kind that Jackson was either. David’s thinness came from a life of never actually eating enough food and constantly getting high, which allowed his ribcage to introduce itself in the shadows under his shirt. The hollows of his collarbones told their own story, and the jutting hips that held his jeans up.

Jackson realised he was staring and hastily turned his back, fiddling with the contents of one of his bags. He pulled out a shirt and some shorts, laying them on the bed. He wasn't sure why he was doing this, but he couldn't look at David for another minute. The boy brought back a lot of memories. 

"Wanna shower?" 

"God yes." Jackson let the words slip out of his mouth before he was even aware he had thought them. Damn. His manners slipped at the prospect of a long, hot shower after a day of bus riding and hitch-hiking. 

David smiled, Jackson heard it in his voice. "You know where it is." 

"Thanks." said Jackson, already pulling his shirt over his head. The smell coming from him was pungent, rich and flavourful. He could almost taste it. The Cajun chicken he had for lunch oozed through his pores and his natural smells, and even the deodorant, had done nothing to improve the stench. 

David pulled a grotesque face. "Oh god, you reek!" 

Jackson bundled his shirt up and threw it at David's head. "I travelled here for you, so shut up Mister ‘I haven't showered for a week’." 

The other boy smiled, a wry smile that lit up his face. He shook his head softly and flipped the shirt in his hands out the right way. It was a faded black band shirt, so faded in fact that if he hadn't been aware of it pre-fade, he would never know it wasn't just a dingy greyish blackish shirt. 

David raised it to his nose, aware that the pungent smell was mostly from Jackson himself, and not his clothes. The worn fabric smelt of him, strong but not bitter. A rich lemon and ginger scent, topped off with faded deodorant and hair cream that echoed the smell of cocoa butter. It was comforting, a homely smell. 

Jackson padded past David wearing just his boxers; the way they used to when they were kid and the summer heat had started to invade every inch of the old house. David remembered those days when the air grew so hot it was visible. When it rained after weeks of heat, the water poured down from the sky like it would never stop. They would dance in the backyard, a catastrophe of screaming and singing. 

The house had been old even then, falling apart already. But now, he looked around and saw signs of wear that had not been here when he was young. Age changed things. He wondered how age had changed Jackson.