slasher!John Price x reader: this choice will have consequences (teen john and teen reader for this backstory)
The days were hot, they were always hot and dusty, so dry at times it would burn your throat to breathe. The dirt rolling in the wind as the scent of wheat and heat would linger in it. You always had sweat on the back of your neck, rolling down your chest and pebbled on your low back.
It was like that now and it was like that when you were young.
It was like that when you’d walk down the road, face warm and skin sweaty as you wandered down the long road from town. You’d lived far, not unbearably, but it took about an hour to walk there and back if you were fast. You’d never cared much, would have a bag in your hand watching the same land you’d watch almost every day.
Your shorts would be slightly damp, and your legs dirt covered and bruised. Even now they were perpetually dirt covered and bruised. Loose tank top meeting the same sweaty fate. Boots clomping as they sat too big on your feet as you walked. Nearly reaching your knees with how high they came.
Old boots your mother would wear out in the mud when it would rain.
As a child your hair was always short, your mother cutting it with kitchen scissors into some sort of pixie cut. She never seemed to mind when you'd take the haircut into your own hands, no matter how bad it was.
As a teen you grew it longer, never any neater, but you were keen on keeping it in your face, the front of it at least, the rest was usually up because of the heat. While the look didn’t gain you many friends, there were many other things that put people off about you. Not to mention it was a small town (population wise) and people were set in their opinions.
As you would walk down the hot road back home. You’d walk slowly with your cd player clipped to your waistband on your short polyester shorts, and you’d pretend you were in a movie as you looked out at the vast fields full of yellow and brown. Passing into trees and houses in the distance, far from the road. Cattle in fields, and cars rolling past.
None ever stopped, a few would slow down and drive with you so your classmates inside could shout profanities or catcall you or something of that nature.
The only time anyone would stop was when it was an old truck that had creaking brakes and smelled of smoke and gas, and always had too much stuff weighing down the bed of the truck. Missing a mirror on the passenger's side and carrying a gruff classmate you knew well.
John Price.
The boy who always looked years beyond his age, and had big thick hands that were much too rough, but a surprisingly warm smile, and he smiled all the time. He was someone you knew well, not really a friend, but, not not a friend. You never spoke in school, and you never really ‘hung out’. But it seemed every time you were walking that road he’d find you there, and he would drive as fast as you were walking and talk to you. He’d talk about anything, and he’d never speed up when people would honk up a storm behind him. He’d never pull over when people could pass him on the two lane road, and flip him off as they’d pass.
John would sometimes not even talk, he’d just play the radio loud as you walked beside his truck and he’d watch you. Like some sort of weird barrier or protector from the road.
The first time he’d done it you’d thought he was about to shout at you. Hell when you’d looked over you thought you were about to get picked up by some creep. But after a moment you'd recognized him.
After about a summer of this, you two had grown close. You’d never tell him when you were walking, but he’d always know, and he’d be there. It was strange to you. Like he had someone who would call him and tell him when you were walking. Or he was psychic.
(What you didn’t know was that he did have someone calling him, the lady who ran the local grocer was his aunt, and she knew he had a little crush on a certain someone, and she’d tell him when you’d leave and he'd hop in his truck and catch up to you.)
The day that changed things was the day that it had rained, unexpectedly, it had been hot the day before, so you’d dressed for hot weather, but you were halfway home when it started raining. By the buckets it seemed. By the time John had pulled up, you were soaked wet, clothes sticking to you and hair plastered to your face and neck. He was in work clothes when he’d screeched to a halt beside you.
“What’re ya doin’ out here?” he’d asked, panicked. His cap messily pushed back on his head, eyes looking you up and down.
You’d quirked a brow, holding up the items in your hand, “Wha’da you think genius?”
John rubbed his face, “Git in, you’ll get sick out here, or git hit or somethin’.”
You huffed, looking at the long stretch of road in front of you. Then back to John, you’d remembered the way his throat bobbed as he swallowed looking at you, brows pinched. You remember the way the air chilled your skin and the surreal feeling you had walking in the silence as letting the water soak you down.
You never would have guessed that getting in his truck would’ve led to where it had, but no one can ever really guess what the consequences of their actions will be.
“Fine, but I get to choose the station.”
