Chapter Text
Theo stood, pissed, duffel bag in hand, staring at the bullshit sign that awaited him. True Directions. The building in front wasn't much better—it looked like a church, big, extravagant, but dressed in blue and pink, boy and girl colors.
Truely, what did his dad expect of this place? Better yet, why was he even here? Sure, Cavanaugh and his asshole friends had called him faggot and gayass and tried to shove a stick of deodorant up his ass and had told him to 'fuck off, fag', but his dad was barely even there for that. Plus, Theo didn't even really remember telling anyone about that, especially not his parents.
Before he could process that this was a two-month-long stay (as his dad had told him) in a place where he knew no one, and (probably) wouldn't like anyone, he felt the sharp press of acrylic nails dig into his arm.
"Welcome, welcome. I'm Mary, founder of True Directions, and you are... Theodore, yes?" the lady said, using what he presumed was her most polite tone. When he'd looked up, he'd noticed a very icy looking woman—Barbour-esque—with her cold, blue eyes, and her curled up, platinum blonde hair. Additionally, she was decked out head-to-toe in pink, pink headband, pink skirt, pink flats, pink nails, and a cropped pink jacket, a True Directions logo embroidered onto her right breast pocket.
"I said, you're Theodore, yes?"
"Uh. Yeah."
"Well, thank God you're here now. You know, with all of this... 'progressive' brainwashing going around, we can never be too sure what you little rascals are getting into, no?"
He nodded.
"I knew you'd get it. Here, let me take that." She grabbed the bag out of his hands, then guided him into the lifeless, dull inside of the building.
———
As soon as they'd gotten into the entrance, Mary handed the bag to some strong, bimbo-looking dude, who walked away with it to some other room that Theo wasn't all that interested in. Mary still had an unnecessarily tight grip on his arm while escorting him to an ugly green room, her office, probably. When was this ever going to end? All he could really think about during the atonishing 30 minutes he'd been here was Why can't I just up and leave already?
When they'd arrived in the green room, he pulled up the seat in front of Mary's desk—Mary J. Brown's desk, according to the nameplate—and stared at her.
"Well, the others all got this speech yesterday... But I'm glad to catch you up. This program is two months long, and goes through five simple steps." Her voice was like nails against a chalkboard, and her cadence was akin to that of a school counselor's. As if he hadn't had enough of those back in New York.
"Let's just pay attention to the first step. Let's address your problem. When you see a boy in tight pants... or, perchance, with his shirt off... or putting eyeliner on the bottom of his eyes, or, maybe, in the locker room, water dripping down his penis, do you feel any unnatural thoughts?"
Oh dear God.
"No, not really."
"AHAH! No, no, no, Theodore," she raised a thin eyebrow, then slid a pair of slippers and a hospital gown (?) across the table, "you'll have to wear these until you confess. Civvies aren't for the sinners."
Theo sighed. God. This had to be some kind of assault to his brain.
"See, it's always hard to admit your sickness, yes? Unfortunately, at some point, you will. You will. It's a long, long journey to be forgiven, but when you are, you'll know."
———
During the hours where Mary and/or Mike weren't yelling into his face, he was getting tutored by this kid, Joel, or whatever his name was. He was basically just laying out the schedule and whatnot, which would've been fine, if Theo weren't wearing a fucking hospital gown. It was, in fact, very annoying to have to walk around a bunch of gay guys with what was essentially a dress on. He could barely even bend over without the stupid lace on the back of the ugly, army green garment undoing itself.
"And that's basically all there is! Uhm, like, have fun in here..." Joel chirped, cutting through the other's thoughts. He walked away right after, leaving the door to the boys' dorm open. It was obnoxiously quote unquote 'manly', a white-and-blue army print plastered onto the walls, blue rectangular beds, blue, blue, blue. Nobody was in the room except for some emo-looking kid, leather bands layered on his arms, hair messy and long, nose-deep in some book that Theo didn't care to check the name of.
The kid lowered his book, glaring back at Theo.
"Eh? Do I look good, Harry Potter?"
"Fuck off."
"Have you not been listening to Mike, Potter? He is very much against profanity, no?" His 'profanity' came out much more like profanity, probably due to the weird Australi-Russian accent he had.
Theo rolled his eyes. Yeah, right. As if this dude gave a singular shit about what their counselor had to say.
"I heard you could not pass step one, is that hard?"
"No, I'm just not gay. I know I'm not. I like girls. I've liked girls before—being here doesn't automatically mean that I'm gay, dude."
"No, you are here for one reason or other, don't lie... Did you get caught blowing some boy? Making out? No judgement, Pot-"
The door slammed in the boy's face, leaving him and his dumb book standing as the only remaining things in the dorm. Christ. So much for 'new opportunities' or whatever bullshit his dad and Xandra (with an X) had spewed at him. He relayed the schedule in his head, feet pressed against the hard, concrete ground. Wake-up at 7... Breakfast at 7:30... free time? Shit. He already forgot. Sorry, Joel the Jew.
Well, maybe he could just... walk around a little bit. Take some edge off. When he took walks, he noticed that he had the tendency to get distracted by buildings, animals, people—especially people. Perverted thoughts would creep into his mind, like, what do they do for work? or I wonder what's happening in their life right now. He had never forgotten about these people, like the lady and her poodle, or the Italian shopkeeper, or basically anyone else you'd find on the street. It was almost like a past-time. And, maybe, he'd meet someone like that here, if he was lucky.