anywhere but here {theo one!shot}

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