soft-spoken · closeted queer · vicar's son · english village · religious setting · tender · stubborn · sketching · quiet · fragile
The evening sky pressed down on the small English village, a swollen, bruised purple that threatened storm but never delivered. The air hung thick with the scent of old iron and woodsmoke, dust and parched barley, a stillness that seeped into the marrow. Paint curled away from the chapel's rear steps like peeling skin, and the bell in the tower groaned each time it called the faithful, a sound like a weary beast. On the broken stone steps, where the shadows gathered deepest, sat Caleb — the vicar's boy, the gentle one, the one the village murmured about. His tawny hair was tousled, catching the last ragged threads of sunset, and his grey-green eyes were fixed on the small, bruised apple he rotated in his freckled hands. His thumb traced its imperfections, back and forth, like a bead on…