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He should probably feel worse about this, honestly.
Leo blows his nose again, grimacing at the chunks of vomit that come out onto the tissue even though he’s kneeling in a puddle of the stuff on the shower floor. It’s the same exact substance, but somehow it feels grosser in a tissue he’s holding than coating his hands or on the floor, and he thinks that maybe it has something to do with where it came from - the fact that it came out of his nose rather than his mouth. Though it’s not interesting enough for him to truly care about, it’s certainly better than thinking about the alternative.
There was vomit. On the shower floor. He had vomited in the shower, after swearing he was not going to vomit in the shower, and was now sitting in said vomit.
“Crap,” he mumbles, too much laughter bleeding into the sentiment. “Oh, crap. I’ve done it now.”
Swiping up a puddle of puke with the tissue, he shakes his head and snorts. Karai was right, way back when - he talked out his thought process way too often. It was probably annoying to anyone around him, but there was no one here to hear it, so he kept going. “I - like, this is bad, right? This is a bad thing.”
It didn’t feel like a bad thing, now that he was sitting in it. Before it had seemed like this big milestone, this benchmark he could point at and say this is when it really got bad . But now that he’s actually here, it just feels… It feels like a Tuesday. Maybe it feels like a Tuesday where he pulled a couple of sick donuts in the Shellraiser with his brothers and was still riding the high, but a Tuesday nonetheless, and he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to feel about that. Is being sort-of excited about vomiting worse than actually vomiting?
And this was the start of something, wasn’t it? Skipping meals could be explained, exercising more could be explained - everything else could be explained. But making himself vomit? Leo can’t think of an excuse for that one. So - logically, he should be more concerned. He should be worried - scratch that - he should be terrified . This is a problem, right? This is really, really bad.
The tissue picks up the last of the vomit, and he can’t muster up anything more than a dull spark of unease.
“I’m a failure with an eating disorder,” he mutters to himself in the mirror as he cleans up. And then he says, “I have disordered eating habits,” because disorder doesn’t quite fit. “I’m a failure with disordered eating habits.”
His reflection smiles back, twisted the way reflections are when you stare at them for too long, and he turns away.
The first thing he does upon leaving the bathroom is shove the vomit-covered tissue in the hidden trash bag he keeps whatever food he can throw away in, and then he chews so much gum it feels like his jaw is going to fall off just to get rid of the sickly-sweet taste and sour scent of puke. It’s not enough, it will never be enough, but it’s a start, and he can keep improving the clean-up as time goes on.
(Maybe he should stop and think about what he’s implying by that, because he had sworn up and down he wasn’t going to vomit, and then rationalized it by promising it would be only once. But that’s a scary thought and Leo doesn’t
do
scary thoughts, so he shoves it all away for later, even though there’s a small - but oh so loud, almost deafening - part of him that wants to talk about it.)
Because deep deep down, he’s
scared.
He’s
so
scared, vomiting isn’t
normal
, skipping meals isn’t
normal,
throwing away dinner wasn’t
normal
.
But it’s fine. He’s fine. He’s the oldest, the leader. He has to be fine, right? And even if he’s not, he has way too many things on his plate to worry about something as silly and easy as food right now. He can quit whenever! He’s just a little too busy at the moment.
Glancing once more in the mirror, Leo tries to bring up any emotion he can. Anger, disappointment, fear, regret. Nothing comes to the surface, except maybe a hint of exhilaration he squashes before it can snowball (because no one wants an eating disorder , and excitement is for disorders), so he pokes at his face a bit, plasters on a smile, and steps out of his room praying he doesn’t smell like vomit covered up with watermelon gum.
He doesn’t say anything when he sees his brothers, no matter how much the small screaming voice inside of him is begging him to. And he doesn’t say anything the next day, when he spends thirty minutes in the shower because he’s vomiting just once more , just one more time and then he’ll never do it again, or the day after that because he accidentally ate too much, or even a week later when he does it a fourth time just because. No matter how much the unease grows inside of him, it’s always tamped down by the overarching numbness of it all, the inability to care , and he smiles right in his brother’s face and lies like it’s fun.
Having all of the extra practice works out a week later, anyway, when Mikey sits at the table with him until Leo’s plate is clear because he’s worried . Even with a clean plate, he doesn’t feel the bone-crushing guilt that he normally would, because as soon as Mikey leaves to do whatever, Leo hops in the shower and spills his guts.
And he should probably feel worse about this, honestly. But he can’t bring himself to care.