anywhere but here {theo one!shot}

[[nyte]]

T H E O D O R E  H A R T

Sometimes I can forget. It isn't easy. Not with the constant storm raging inside, ravaging my insides and leaving me something more than empty. Not with the bruises that burn my flesh every time I move and the cuts and scrapes where my skin gave way beneath his bejeweled fists. But sometimes I can. Like now, when his fingers trail my spine in such a soothing motion that my eyes threaten to collapse in on themselves. I forget that mere seconds before he was beating the fucking shit out of me and sewing foul words so thickly into my skull that no amount of tugging will remove the thread. 

Everything is calm, my back pressed against his stomach. I'm happy here, in the arms of another. As long as I don't think of whose they are. jordan's, jordan's, jordan's. Silence. Utter silence consumes me. And oh god do I want it to last. The blackness that I am currently drifting through, the beautiful, sweet blackness. Don't make me go back to where the light is. Where harsh beams burn my eyes beneath my lids and living is such a painful thing. 

Thump. Thump. Thump.

That's the beating of my heart. Slow, and unsure. The poisons I've thrown so carelessly into my body must have affected it in some way because it's been making its presence known far more often these days. I can feel it's fists against my sternum, so desperate to escape and to take my life with it. Times when Jordan has forced a thin paper strip onto my tongue and the world dissolved into lonely colors and terrifying sounds I've considered releasing it. Drawing a knife along the middle of my chest and letting every single drop of ruby red drain from an already dying body. 

And after that trip I'd come to with a razor in hand and slashes along my chest. Desperate and shallow. The type that scabbed over in a few days and disappeared into oblivion. I'm glad that they left no mark. I have enough scars to explain, I don't need ones drawn on my own flesh with chemical and blade. At least Jordan told me they were my fault, but he was the one who had shoved the strip upon my tongue with thick fingers.  But I was too scared to ever tell him that. 

He wants to go to a party tonight. I don't, but I'm too scared to tell him that. 

And so I paste a smile upon my lips and let him wrap his arm around my waist. Jordan is stiff and cold. Nothing close to the warm that I need. And I've never much believed in soulmates but I know what we were never meant to fit together. Like two puzzle pieces forced into each other, threatening to fall apart at the seems. 

If I even tried to leave him he'd kill me.

I know because he's told me.

I know because he's held a knife against my throat and cut this skin on my face with so little remorse that I'll never forget the stinging of salt water running over deep wounds. I think that somewhere, deep down, Jordan loves me. And I'm going to get used to the idea of living the rest of my life with maybe love. 

Because I'm stuck with him until I die. 

...oh god please kill me soon. 

"Babe. this is some good shit." Jordan assures me, slipping the needle into an opened vein upon my wrist. It stings and I inhale sharply, throwing my head back as the vibrations of music slipping in and out of the room suddenly grow ten times louder. They peel themselves off of nothingness and wrap pulsating hands around my throat. The drug hurts, like fireworks bursting through my veins. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.

When will it end? 

I want to scream but I can't find my lips. What the fuck was this? 

What the fuck is this?! I try to scream but the music's hands are over my lips. Smothering me softly until the whole of my body is collapsed upon the carpet. I can't feel my toes. I can't feel my fingers. I lay there for a long time, fire ants lining the inside of my flesh and feasting upon me with the ferocity of a lynx not eaten in years. That is all I am, prey. Prey to be eaten. Prey to be used. 

Jordan saw that right away, I think. 

And I'm coming down. Pain evacuating through my finger tips and through the sweat drenching the front of my shirt. The music's overwhelming thuds slipping back into obscurity and I'm once again upon a dirty, stained couch surrounded by screaming junkies and smiling dealers. Jordan's hands are forcing their way through my hair and he's laughing like a maniac and nodding to one of his friends going on about how right he was. "Funniest shit I saw in a while!" And then I realize they're all looking at me. Laughing at me.

"W-what was..." I can barely speak, the whole of myself is drained and I just want to fall into a warm embrace but there is not a friendly soul to be found. 

"Thoroughly diluted tracker-jacker venom." One of the dealers speaks up through his hysterics. "Lasts about twenty minutes, you'll be fine. Don't be a little bitch Theo."

And I try not to let them see the tears welling in the corners of my eyes because I can't look weak. They all already know whose bitch I am, the last thing I want to do is let them know just how weak I am. They'll pick me apart like vultures upon a carcass dead for months. 

Although I am merely a carcass with a heartbeat. 

A feeble one at that. 

And it goes on like this for hours. All parties do. There is idle chatter that means little to nothing to me. I'm high off my ass and Jordan is all over me, shoving his tongue into my mouth and running his hands along my body. I can't move. The world won't sit still long enough for me to do so and so I sit. I let him do what he wants and I don't respond. He doesn't seem to mind. Jordan likes his prey weak and defenseless. 

And finally we're going home and I'm going to escape all the pain with a night's rest and just maybe Jordan won't make me go to another party tomorrow. I'm about so stand when Jordan catches my fingers and he looks scared.

Jordan never looks scared.

I feel sick.

"L-listen Babe you know i'd never willingly do anything like this to you but.. but the higher ups are on my ass and I've made a deal."

I don't understand what this has to do with me. 

"And I need you to-,"

It dawns on me like shadows across a bright plain. 

"I'll see you tomorrow Theo, I'm so sorry. I wouldn't do this if I had a choice but it's my ass or yours and I'm sure you'd rather it this way right?"

There's a guy, maybe two years older than Jordan. As the boy meant to protect me scurries out of the room as though he'd suddenly become nothing more than a mouse, large fingers dance across my own. And he smells strongly of alcohol and something bitter. Like he hadn't showered in years. 

I have to bite my lip to keep from gagging as his lips dance across the lobe of my ear. I need to be anywhere but here and as the man whose name I don't even know rips the shirt off of my chest, I squeeze my eyes shut. 

And I try to be anywhere but here.

you can do it,
don't break
yeah, you'll pull through it,
y o u ' r e s a f e

[[nyte]]

T H E O D O R E   H A R T

He was a stand up guy, really. Brought me a beer after using me up and kicked me out of his house at four o'clock in the morning. The wind bites at my cheeks, draining a sweet high with every heavy step towards my home. But right now I'm sat on a curb, desperately draining the last of the bottle he shoved into my palm. It burns the back of my throat, every heartbeat screaming as my soul slowly slips onto my cheeks. My shoulders shake, too small to brace myself against the wind I'm so cold. I'm freexing over. And I can't feel a damn thing anymore. Not the bruises blooming on my neck in the form of long, lanky fingers. Not the the nails raked down my back so deep into my flesh that I can feel their stinging against my shirt. 

After every last drop is down my throat I reel my hand back, shattering the bottle at my feet. I was done using it after all and that's what you're supposed to do when you've finished. Shatter them into a thousand glistening pieces upon the pavement. I sit 'til the sun claws its way onto the horizon, knees pulled to my chest and sobs burning my eyes. They shake the whole of my body with their cruel fists. They break my bones and sprain my ankles before forcing me to my feet once again. Leaving me to stumble home under the light of the pink dawn. 

Mom and Dad are asleep when I arrive. I'm not surprised they didn't wait up when I didn't return home. I'd give them the same bullshit excuse I have been for years now, if that had even bothered. (They haven't since long before Nikolas overdosed.) Oh, I stayed over at Mew's. Don't worry about me so much. And as thoroughly as I push them away I wish they would hold on tighter. Is it such a sin to crave love? 

Am I that unlovable?

I've never been in love, I don't think. I certainly don't like Jordan, let alone love him. I hate the man he sold me to. And even then the attention they give me hardly has to do with Theo. With me. It's my willingness to do anything they want, to sit there quietly while they hurt me and smile the next morning. It's because I'm there. Because what sane person would love a used, disgusting thing like me. 

That's how I feel, disgusting. More than that. I feel repulsive as I crawl up the stairs and into the bathroom, turning the water to a scalding heat before pulling off dirty, blood stained garments of last night's torture. I cover the mirror with a towel because I can't stand to look at myself and I allow hot water to wash into my open wounds. (Had I not been so accustomed to pain, I'd have screamed.) Instead I curl upon the shower floor, examining my body carefully because I need to be sure of what I must hide. 

There are the marks of rough hands upon my hips so I'll have to wear shirts long enough to cover them. My knees are torn to shreds and the long scratches along my back are near sizzling in the warm water. I'll have to war layers, I decide, to properly hide my shame. Because I can't show Mew or Arsen what a slut I am when they are possibly the only people in the world who would ever care. I can't lose them but if they knew they'd leave me for sure. And I'm so selfish because I don't want that. I don't want that at all. 

I can't get the feeling of him off of me. No matter how hot I turn the water, grime sticks to my skin as though his hands linger, unwelcome, on my body. And I've tried to wash it off so hard that my skin is turned a light pink by the time I've wrapped two towels around the length of my body and made the trek up into my attic room, curling up on my bed, hair still wet and wearing a shirt that hangs like bags off of my skin. 

And it's ten o'clock in the morning before I fall asleep. 

I wonder what it would be like to die. I still remember the night Nik did, after he was clean for a whole week because his girlfriend was gonna leave him and he was telling me how good it felt. He said he was gonna help me quit and we were gonna make it to see twenty together.

We got high in my room before heading to a party a few hours later. And he just kept shooting up. One more needle after another until he threw his head back, moaning and sinking his nails into my arms. "That hits the spot." He'd whispered.

And then he fell. It wasn't anything graceful. His legs crumpled beneath him and his skin started turning an ugly shade of grey, lips turning a pale blue. I was too fucked up to do anything but stand and watch my brother die, realization as to why he was on the floor coming far too late. By that time Jordan had pulled me out of the room, held my head to his chest although I kept telling him I needed to get back to Nik and make sure he didn't take too much because he'd been clean so long.

I overdosed not long after him. 

I wonder if dying would feel anything like that. 

It felt so wonderful. Like I was flying through nothing, every part of my body wrapped in the warmest, softest blanket. And I was happy, for the first time since I'd seen my brother die, I was so happy. It was a high I'd never wanted to come down from. And I thought I wasn't going to until I woke up in Jordan's arms and he was crying and my chest hurt. He told me what happened and he hit me for being so stupid. But I don't think I'd mind dying if it felt something like that.

The next time I overdosed it wasn't so pleasant, wasn't the beautiful freedom I'd once experienced. I was crying, head bent over the toilet as my insides evacuated me so violently that  I was spitting deep red into the water as well. The heroin was like thick poison through my blood, burning my limbs and I know I wasn't anywhere close to dying. I know I fucked it up bad but I was in so much pain before I wanted it all to go away. 

It was a stupid tantrum really, because I forgot that everything, every part of me belonged to Jordan. 

And I wonder how I got up the next morning, how I made sure to cover every part of my broken body and I smiled at a boy too beautiful to be my friend. And I acted like nothing was wrong and I laughed even though I thought I'd never be able to again. 

No, I don't know how it'll feel to die.

But I wonder if I will sometime soon.

I found God
on the corner of first and
a m a s t a d