Teenage Baby

Chapter 21

Chapter 21:

Leo's eyes weren't sad. They were wild.

Blue color dark and shadowy like a stormy sea at midnight, gold flecks that resembled golden ingots long dead beneath the raging war. Aaron didn't think he'd ever point out the difference in the state of someone's eyes so clearly until now.

"Leo, you're not bad. I promise. You're the best." Aaron was panicking, and he couldn't deny it, but he wanted to keep the situation under control. His mind was too wooly with shock to even bring up a decent reason for Leo's outburst and it didn't even cross his mind at that point. All that constantly echoed in his brain was that he needed to calm him down. "Leo, look at me. I'm not lying. You're not bad. You're great. I swear. Believe me."

"No, Aar, no!" Leo screamed this time, each word sharp-edged and filled with frustration. Suddenly, he grasped a thick tuft of his hair and tugged down, pulling onto the roots and heedless of how his own knuckles whitened with the intensity of the grip. Aaron felt an ache form in his own scalp as he watched Leo do that to himself, and he cringed because he knew how terrible that pain was. "You don't know, Aar. You don't know anything. I'm bad."

Aaron couldn't sit there watching Leo tear his hair out of his scalp. Just as he made a move closer towards Leo's side, he burst out into tears: full-on sobbing, loud cries of ambiguous grief that made Aaron's chest tighten. Even as Aaron scrambled towards Leo's end, a part of him wanted to turn away and block out the noises. Crying usually made his head hurt and now it was stinging his heart too.

At that second, the door flung open and the three captors hastened inside, all hurrying towards Leo's crib with their eyes wild and worried. Daddy was the first to make a move and he quickly bent over the railing to pick Leo up.

Leo fought against Daddy at first, jerking and squirming away, screeching until his throat tore apart each time he touched him. Daddy allowed him to fight until he waned, gradual exhaustion overwhelming his need to cry. Eventually, Leo lost the battle and lost his breath and let Daddy pick him up, one hand clenching Daddy's sweater tightly in his fist.

"I-I'm bad."

"No, you're not, baby. You're the best little boy ever. Daddy's here, baby, always," Daddy whispered each word directly into his ear, and Leo's chest heaved slower as he listened, almost like the captor's voice had a calming effect on him.

The sobs died down a little, save for occasional sniffles and audible shaky breaths, but then Leo suddenly mumbled bad bad bad to himself and started crying all over again, whimpers gradually growing in volume until they shook the walls around him.

"Baby, Daddy loves you so much. You're a good boy. Good, good boy." Daddy sighed when Leo continued crying, barely even listening to him over the sounds he was emitting. "I'm taking him out. Aaron needs to sleep."

And so Daddy left, followed by Mommy. Aaron's shoulders sagged from the tense position they'd stiffened to, and he sat there, his mouth slightly agape and his eyes wide. Lou turned to him, and taking in the shocked trance, he was sure he wouldn't be able to sleep easily. "Baby, I'm so sorry you had to watch this. Are you fine, love?"

Aaron stayed silent for a second, frozen and completely unresponsive. "Did you hear what he said? Bad. Bad. Bad. He's traumatized," he said, his eyes wandering beyond Lou to stare at the door. "Why does he keep calling himself bad?"

Lou gave him a sad look, but Aaron inferred nothing from it. He wouldn't tell Lou but he still suspected Daddy. Even if it sounded far and impossible, something in his gut told him that maybe that psychopath had constantly called Leo 'bad' before he'd learnt to behave correctly, and it had been burnt somewhere deep in his subconsciousness. But if it were from him, why would Leo even allow him to hold him?