Teenage Troubles (Prequel for Teenage Baby)

Chapter 8 | Leo

Trigger warning: attempt at assault (no rape tho). nothing too serious or graphic happens but caution is still advised.

Chapter 8 | Leo

Leo was six the first time he stepped outside the basement.

The first time the sunlight struck his blue eyes like it'd strike the oceans every morning. The first time the brisk air kissed his skin and skittered along his neck and down to his collarbone like a desperate lover. The first time he stepped on rough prickly ground rather than flat planks marred with dried splotches of his own blood.

He didn't like that, though. He didn't like how the pebbles pricked the bottom of his feet, how the soil mushed against them. But he couldn't nag when he was enraptured with the world before his eyes. So magnified, so different. Almost like the glass had been absorbing half the brilliance. Or maybe now the world was hit with a splash of paint; sunlight brighter, blue sky striking.

Leo looked back at Amy, grimacing. "It hurts," he mumbled as he pointed down at his feet.

"No, it doesn't hurt. You're just not used to it. Come on." Amy pushed the back of his shoulder, urging him forward. She glanced back at the door to the basement. Jayden wasn't home and she'd decided to let Leo out even if only for a few minutes. But she could already imagine how the place could turn into a slaughterhouse if Jayden found out, God forbid.

Leo crouched tentatively at first until his knees hit the ground. He reached his hand to the grass, frowned. When his fingers hit something solid, he grasped it and pulled it out of the dirt and closer to his face. A pebble, small and hard. Dirty, soil-swathed. Brown reminded him of chocolate—the edible thing he remembered Amy had snuck in and fed him. Everything was silent until Leo brought the pebble up to his lips, just about to taste it.

"Oh shit, Leo, no!" Amy lurched forward and caught his wrist then pulled it back with urgency like he'd been about to swallow poison. "You can't eat that."

For a moment, Leo seemed startled, but then a smile broke the rigid expression and soon he was giggling. "Why? Wanna try it." He tried putting it in his mouth again but Amy huffed and threw it from his hand. He picked it up. She threw it again. And so forth until she gave up and watched as Leo gingerly brushed the pebble against his lips.

The moment his tongue touched the dirt on the surface, his face crumpled like a wrinkled paper and he thrust it away from him. His eyes were slits that shone with revulsion underneath the scorching sunlight this noon.

Amy laughed. "Doesn't taste good, does it?"

Leo shook his head frantically. "No." He leant forwards on his elbows, eyeing the grass that churned through the dirt with the combined curiosity of a child and a puppy. Did this taste bad too? He tilted his head first, then subtly stole a glimpse at Amy and plucked a single grass out. He let his teeth touch the very tip. The taste that swamped his tastebuds brought a distasteful frown to his brown brows, maybe not as sharp as it'd been when he'd eaten dirt. Grass was a little more tolerable, he realized.

"Done eating everything you see, Leo?"

"No."

Something boiled his back. He craned his neck, tried glimpsing over his shoulder. The skin was a faint rosy hue and when he tried touching that spot it hurt enough for him to hiss and quickly withdraw. When he looked up, he found something large and fiery hung in the sky staring indifferently back at him whilst burning his eyes. He'd seen that through the glass but now he realized it wasn't nice.