When Different Worlds Collide ✔️

Stains- Erik's POV

Erik's POV-

I was stained. I was tainted. The blood on my hands wouldn't come off. No matter how hard I scrubbed, wiped, or washed; it was permanently there. I stained everything I touched. I ruined everything that I laid my hands on.

That day had been extremely grueling. T had been getting worse and worse. He called me out on runs and collections all the time now. I hadn't had a full day away from him since Christmas. It was so screwed up. He knew how much I didn't like doing those things, so he made me do even more of them. He made me hurt more people.

I knew that it was his way of punishing me. Punishing me for having something that I believed in... For having more. He wanted me under his complete control. After all, what use is a soldier if they didn't take commands? As long as I believed that there was more to life than this, I was hard to control. I would never fully be under his command because I had something more in my life. Kat was my more.

So, he was doing the only thing that he knew how to do... He was making me work like crazy and do things that I hated doing. He was trying to separate me from my more. He was trying to remind me that I was not more than I have ever been.

I wasn't more.

Suddenly, Theo's drug addiction made sense to me. If he had been making Theo work like he was making me work, then I totally understood. I understood the deep and real guilt that he must've felt. I understood the way he must've hurt when he hurt them... I felt the same way. Theo had wanted relief. Theo had wanted the blood gone, and the drugs must've helped him make it go away.

I wanted the blood gone.

I slipped on the hoodie over my bloodstained clothes. I had blood covering me. Blood from people that I hurt. I had beaten, maimed, and injured people, sometimes beyond repair. I hurt people.

I finally exited my car from where I had parked it in the driveway. It was pretty late, and I was supposed to have been at Kat's at least a couple hours before. We had planned on spending the night together since she was going to be leaving the next evening to go to Italy.

Unfortunately, T had called me out on a collection a bit before I was supposed to leave to go hangout with her. It was like he had done it on purpose. It was like he knew that I was going to go spend time with my girl.

I still planned on going over to her house to spend the night with her. I knew that she could use all the love and affection from me that she could get. I knew that she'd be subjected to too much hate and criticism in the next days. I knew that she could really use any encouragements that I could give her to combat the surely shitty days ahead of her while being surrounded by equally shitty people.

However, I also felt like I shouldn't go to her... I felt too tainted and screwed up to even be near her. I felt like I would ruin her. I would taint her just as I have tainted everything else. I didn't want to permanently stain her as well.

I stuffed my hands deep into my hoodie pockets. They had blood stains all over them, figuratively and literally. All I had to do was get to the restroom to scrub myself down to rid myself of the crimson stains all over me. I had to get the blood off.

I had to get the blood off!

"Erik," I heard greeted to me as soon as I entered my house.

"Baby," I heard greeted by a different voice.

I heard them, but I hadn't really comprehended anything. I just kept going. I had to get the blood off!

"Erik..."

I had to get the blood off.

As soon as I got into the bathroom, I ripped the hoodie off my body. I threw my blood-stained shirt to the ground, followed by my jeans. I was still so covered. I was so bloody. I was so stained.