Work Text:
Leo really was an idiot
Leo hadn't felt good, not all day, to be fair the night before he hadn't felt particularly good either, he had done badly on an exam and usually that sort of thing didn't bother him anymore but the feeling that he could have gotten a better grade, that was within his reach if only he had read his notes just a few minutes longer, but in the end he didn't and that left a pit in his stomach, because despite his best wishes, his classmates had already formed the mental image that he was smart even if he's not and breaking those expectations was always painful.
But that wasn't why he felt so particularly bad today, it had been a sequence of past events that had his stomach churning and wanting to numb himself with whatever was at hand, he started reading, mostly autobiographical or fanfiction with characters he liked, it was the easiest way to connect with his feelings, to give them form, but again he had gone down the wrong branch, he knew what his triggers were but the desire to share his misery even if it was through angsty writing about fictional characters had won out.
The pain of school rejection, the lack of help, the self-loathing, the revictimization all combined into an ugly cocktail that had not helped to numb him, it distorted his perception of reality yes, but the awareness of himself was still painfully present.
He tried to address it, to get away from the most disgusting and painful part that had spiraled him and simply concentrate on the small things that had affected him, it was easy to make an introspection from that, safer.
Leo had been guided by a sense of social inadequacy, that he was being left out again and tried to have a romantic interest in a peer. On closer analysis, all that "falling in love" had just been a desire to talk and be heard, to be able to share his thoughts and feelings with someone. He gave him a birthday gift with the desire to generate some good feeling from the boy to him, the boy had been very happy and even moved, but, Leo had seen the true, he was not even among the contacts saved in the boy's cell phone, he was at most another human being with whom he would share space until they finished their school cycle, the idea devastated him, not so much for discovering that there was really no possibility of an affective bond, like a friendship with this boy, but for the fact that Leo always did this, he fought desperately to win someone's affection, doing everything he thought that could bring him closer to that person until he got a bond, to realize later that those efforts were fruitless because he never meant anything to other people, he was just another person on the way, all those disappointments hurt in the past and even though it used to be a long time between each of those disappointments it never stopped hurting, on the contrary it seemed that it only hurt more and more, it was horrible.
It was horrible to know that he never stopped being that little worm that need of so much attention or recognition, that, despite what he made himself believe, he really hated being alone, he wanted company, closeness, he didn't need an army of people, he only needed one, but apparently that was not meant to be.
So as much as it hurt him at this moment he decided that the best thing to do was to give up, to accept that no matter how much he wished it, something like this was not going to happen, there are people who are destined to be alone.
Just as he reconciled himself with the idea that his father would never be as he would like, that his dad would never have those gestures or genuine words of affection, he would reconcile himself with the idea that he would be alone, that no matter how much the idea of sharing an intimate and genuine relationship with someone made him smile, it would not happen and that was okay, there was nothing in the world that dictated that his desires had to come true, it hurt like hell, he would be lying if he said he was okay with it, but he could accept it, even if he didn't like it, even if it was uncomfortable and painful he could take it.