DEH Oneshots/drabbles/shitposts

Chepskate (Jared angst)

Hurt me.

Jared Kleinman was staring out of the window, his eyes glassy and dull, the brims shades with a crimson shade, fading into a light rose colored ring. His heart pounded against his chest like his ribs were a prison cell and it was an angry convict, willing to stop at nothing to get out.

It was halfway true.

He let his gaze fall on the emerald horizon, wondering what the world would be like out there, if he hadn't let his mind trap him in his very own room with nothing but a mini fridge with half spoiled Swiss cheese and a couple expired sodas. His sister was gone, his mom was too afraid to talk to him anymore, and his father hadn't batted an eye since Jared turned seventeen.

He felt like a monster.

Dark clothes, baggy since he got them when he was still, well, okay, sickly sunken eyes, cheekbones that protruded past where he thought was healthy. Probably a deformation, accentuated by the sunken nature of his cheeks, a joint pressed loosely between his lips, his untied vans shoelaces hanging off of his second story bedroom balcony, flapping in the wind.

He let the salty wet coating atop his eyes slip down to his cheeks, taking a puff and breathing in, the drug trying its best to take over in his mind, but it was to no avail, for the creatures in his head; those vile things, had built a kingdom, protected like Alcatraz, a prison, surrounded by concrete and barbed wire and water for miles on each side. Even if marijuana were to reach it, there was no way it would be able to get any of the good in his mind to escape.

Maybe it was everyone else; so perfect, with pretty houses and precious sports cars, trying to offer it to Jared as a token of their friendship, but undeniably trying to show off all of their belongings; their happiness. To bare witness to watching all of these people grow around him, and flourish, while Jared gets buried deep in the mud that they wash away from their things.

They could never see that Jared needed their help, not just their precious diamonds and church funds and twenty-seven-hundred-dollar rehab vacations.

Rehab.

You know what that said to Jared? When they sent him to rehab?

"I can't deal with you anymore. Maybe someone else can."

They didn't even ask what was wrong, why his kind worked the way it did, why he was so... so broken in the first place. They just sent him away, leaving him to fend for himself in a place that he didn't know with people that he didn't know, while they prayed to god every Sunday that he would be blessed, that he would be fixed.

How's this for fixed?

His friends come by occasionally, his family doesn't bother, no one actually cares about Jared Kleinman because... why would they?

Why would anyone give a single flying fuck about Jared Kleinman?

He was the kid who seemed with Connor Murphy to throw a printer in second grade. He was the kid who got so aggravated with a bully at school that he poured chocolate milk over her head. He was the one who French kissed Zoe Murphy while he knew Evan, his only fucking friend, had a crush on her. Jared was the type of kid to show up late and leave early, spend all his money on weeds and tic-tacs to hide the smell after the fact. He was the kid that, for some reason, had a rumor started about him that he ate bath bombs, and he didn't do anything to shut it down. Jared Kleinman was the type to run away for a day, and come back needing money. He was the type to get a job and get fired on the first shift; get his license and get into an accident immediately after, on the drive home. The kid who hurt himself to feel something, but only put himself into more pain.

He was the kid who watched his little sister get fucking murdered by his father, and couldn't do anything but cry because;

"If you move, boy, I'll hurt you."

So, maybe it was him; not everyone else. Maybe it was all his fault anyway. Maybe he should have just tried to get better initially. Maybe he should have kept himself happy, gracious, accepting. Maybe he should have accepted their sorry attempts to help him.

But one thing was for sure.

He was too far gone, now, too afraid to run away, too unmotivated to end it.

So here he sat, his eyes flicking from that emerald horizon to his shoelaces, the chill of the air piercing through his jacket like what he hoped the weed would do to his mind-Alcatraz. He could feel his tears freeze to his face, his hands wrapped around the bars of his bedroom balcony like prison bars. He was shivering, knowing snow would soon fall, but he liked the snow.

He liked the cold.

Maybe it was because when it was cold, most people tried to get themselves safe, or maybe it was because, when it snowed, it was silent. The soft, fluffy ice blanket absorbed everything, and suddenly the chaos was gone.

And it was peaceful.

Even if it came back the next morning when the snow melted.

He could spend hours in the cold, still staring at that one pointed pine tree on the emerald horizon, hoping that one day he would know what it would be like to fly away, out of his house, out of his mind prison, and go meet that tree for himself, with every little critter inside of it.

He had spent hours in the cold, laying against the concrete on his bedroom balcony, until he exhausted himself, and he managed to close his eyes, his body, his heart, and his mind, falling asleep, and setting the good free.