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“I don’t want to eat.” Leo stares at his plate and shakes, feeling his breath get caught in his throat. He can’t tell if it’s a sob or not. “I - I don’t want to eat.”
He had been doing so good for so long, eating diligently and working through any thoughts of relapse with compassion for himself, even getting to the point to where he actually, truly didn’t care about what went into his body for the first time in a long time. He had been on the final stretch, had seen the light up ahead through the brambles.
He hadn’t been scared for so long - and now, he’s… he’s scared again. Can’t touch his plate.
“I know, but you gotta. Come on, just a couple bites.” Raph pushes the food towards him and pulls the water glass slightly farther back - the most common set up for night when eating was hard. But those nights were months and months and months ago, and Leo is here and now when he should be recovered, and he hates himself that much more.
God, even Raph being here was a testament to how far he was slipping back. He knew dinner was going to be a struggle tonight, and had sought out his brother to make sure he couldn’t slip back into “accidentally,” skipping a meal. He would have never done this before. But now he’s starting to regret it, and that thought scares the shit out of him, too.
“No, I don’t think you get it.” Leo stares at the plate again. His hands shake harder. “I’m scared , Raph. I’m scared, I haven’t been scared in so long! Resentful? Anxious? Angry? Embarrassed? Sure, but I haven’t been scared since - since…” since last December, when the cheer of the holiday season gave him a distraction from what he was eating and he magically didn’t die from food consumption. The realization had left him so giddy he marked it on his calendar with a fat red marker. Now he’s throwing that all away.
He reaches for the fork, hoping to just shove a few bites down his throat and get it over with, but his hand stops itself.
This isn’t fair . He’s been doing so good! Why is he doubling back now , when he finally seemed to be out of the thick of it? He hadn’t even done anything remotely triggering, too focused on getting better to let himself slip back that far. But now he’s watching shitty food-themed reality TV, eating at odd times, checking labels almost on instinct… It’s like he never got better at all.
Raph swallows at the aborted grab for the fork, and Leo thinks he’s finally catching on to how bad this all is. “If… if you don’t eat, who’s gonna lead trainin’ in the mornin’?” he asks.
And, fuck, Leo had just been asking himself the same thing. If he didn’t eat, how would he have enough energy to function throughout the day? If he didn’t eat, how would he get out of bed? If he didn’t eat, how would anything around the Lair get done? He was an active person, he needed the calories to get through the day without blacking out, he knew that well enough. In a deficit it was a struggle just to exist , and he hates it. Is he really going to just throw that all away for - for what?
But. Something numbs in his chest, spreading to his arms, and they feel like lead as he sits there. He can’t. He can’t .
“Leo,” Raph pushes, scooting closer. “C’mon, man.”
“I know Raph, fuck! I don’t want to be sitting here with my thumb up my ass!” It takes him a second, but as soon as he hears how much anger is in the words, Leo slaps a hand over his mouth. He - he hadn’t meant that. He hadn’t meant to snap at his brother. He hadn’t meant to get so angry.
But now the simmering heat of it is warming him up, thawing whatever numbness had taken hold of him, and it’s so familiar he wants to sob. Fuck, he had forgotten about this. He had forgotten about all of this - about how mean he was, how nothing was ever good enough, how all he cared about was food . Remembering it leaves him mortified, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to embrace the comforting familiarity of it all, just a little bit.
Raph takes a deep breath, turning away for a minute to cool down before looking back. “Do you want me to go get someone else? No hard feelings if you do.”
“No,” Leo whispers, feeling guilty as hell. Raph was just trying to help, and honestly, Leo needed it. Mikey would do a good job of pushing his own feelings aside, but just knowing the disappointment and pain his baby brother would be feeling would make Leo too nauseous to eat, and Donnie was too methodical and would want to get to the bottom of it all while Leo was still flailing at the top of the water trying not to drown. He needs Raph right now.
But a vicious, warped part of him wants to push his brother away so badly. If no one wants to be around him, there’s no one to make him eat.
Raph waits patiently for Leo to say something, and Leo swallows the lump in his throat before choking out an apology. “Sorry. I - I don’t know why I’m so upset. I just - I was getting better . I promise, I was.”
“I know,” Raph hums, snatching a piece of broccoli off his plate with all the ease in the world. Leo watches him for a moment, riddled with envy, and Raph meets his eyes. “Now you just gotta keep doin’ it. I know you can.”
“It’s not that simple,” Leo grumbles, averting his gaze. “I’ve been sitting here for an hour.”
Instead of egging him on, Raph softens. For a second Leo’s brought back to the farmhouse, when Raph was his own personal cheerleader, and he realizes there may have been another reason he chose Raph to help him tonight. Raph - he was rough around the edges, and usually he pushed people to do great by annoying the shit out of them (or, at least he did for Leo, anyway) - but he had this side to him that knew when he needed to be sweet, knew just how much pressure to apply, and knew when he needed to become a safety net rather than a pusher.
Tonight, he’s full safety net. And Leo doesn’t know how to deal with that.
“I’ll be with you the whole way, bro,” he assures, scooting close enough to finally lay a hand on Leo’s shoulder. He knows Raph has been itching to do that for a while - he’s definitely better with physical support than words - but Leo usually hates to be touched when he’s fixating on food and everything else. Right now, though, Leo finds it’s not so bad. “It’s not hard,” Raph says. “You’re building it up.”
“I am building it up,” Leo agrees with a sad little sigh. “And you’re treating this like P.T.”
Raph stops for a moment, mulling over the words. Honestly, Leo’s a little worried by Raph actually pausing to think about a response - either it’s something he’s not going to want to hear, or it’s going to lead them into a tricky conversation. Finally, Raph responds. “Mental health, physical health - same thing, really. You just need a supporter to get you out of that thick head of yours.”
Leo sits with the words for a moment, carefully chewing on them. Raph was… right, unfortunately. He hates it when Raph’s right.
Sensing his victory, Raph grins and holds out the fork to Leo. “Space Heroes is on in thirty minutes. Think you can eat at least a quarter by then?”
Leo glances from the fork to the plate and back again, mentally preparing his plan of attack. If he just portioned out the plate now, a quarter would feel so much smaller than it really was, probably just a couple of bites, really, and he’d have eaten something before giving up, right? So as long as he didn’t think about it too hard, he’d be fine.
Pushing aside the rapidly-spreading numbness in his arms and static in his head, Leo fists the fork and triumphantly spears a piece of broccoli onto it. “I’m going to eat this,” he declares out loud, not really sure who he’s talking to. “I’m going to eat this, and then I’m going to eat another one.”
Raph already has his T-phone out, making sure his attention is elsewhere while Leo eats. “You tell that broccoli, Fearless,” he quietly cheers, bumping their feet together under the table.
And, you know what? Leo does.