VOICELESS SCREAMING

Blaine brings the girl home on a cold winter night, and despite all the talking that preceded the event Leo just can’t help how annoyed he feels about it. It’s not just the mere fact of having to welcome a complete stranger into his own home out of the goodness of Blaine’s heart – if goodness is just what it is, though; Leo has heard him talking about her countless time, and there’s no philanthropic desire alone behind the spark the lights his eyes, or the sweet note that softens his voice.

It’s something else, and Leo doesn’t hide it, he’s not ashamed – he’s dead jealous of Connie.

Before her, the only time he had seen Blaine lighten up so much about something, has been about him. It’s not like he feels unloved, now, he’s pretty good at understanding Blaine’s volatile and somehow annoying way of expressing love, and he’s sure Blaine still loves him. That’s not the point, he’s not scared of Blaine leaving him, he knows it’s not about to happen and it may as well never happen at all. But Blaine’s heart is not a single thing, it’s divided into small pieces, crumbs and bits he left on the way with every single person he’s been with and who has meant something for him. Now, Leo knows the biggest part of Blaine’s heart is with him all the time. But losing a bit of it always hurts him more than he feels inclined to tolerate, and he’s seen that bit getting lost over Connie easily, in the last few days.

That knowledge alone was enough to hurt over. Now, having her around in his own house, is only making things worse.

“You’re angry at me, aren’t you?” Blaine smiles, turning over and placing an arm over Leo’s chest, getting closer to him on the bed.

“Yeah,” Leo answers with a sigh, his hands moving over Blaine’s forearm, lazily caressing it, “Is it so obvious?”

“It is,” Blaine smiles again, leaning in to place a soft kiss over Leo’s cheek, “I want you to know I’m very grateful for the way you’re handling this.”

“Yeah,” Leo snorts, “Definitely husband-of-the-years award worth winning. I’m so understanding, so faithful I even accept the presence of your wannabe lover in my house.”

“Whoa,” Blaine laughs softly against his skin, his hand running down Leo’s side in a tender caress, “Now, you’re not my husband, Connie’s not my wannabe lover and I’m pretty sure you’re not accepting her presence here particularly goodheartedly, so…”

“Shut up,” Leo cuts the argument, turning on his side and pressing his lips against Blaine’s. He lets out a deep sigh, closing his eyes as he feels Blaine’s hand press on the small of his back, pulling him closer. If he only concentrates on the warmth emanating from Blaine’s skin, wrapping him up like a soft blanket, he can pretend none of this is happening. That the girl isn’t here, that her being here doesn’t make him feel weak and insecure, that Blaine’s resigned smile doesn’t mean that he can’t help wanting her here, because he just does. Leo loves Blaine so much, but dealing with him sometimes just hurts in deep, secret ways he almost can’t stand. “Is she gonna stay long?”

“I don’t think so,” Blaine shakes his head, and by the sound of his voice Leo can tell he’s not lying, “I’m trying to arrange for some other place for her to stay. Sam says there’s a flat up for rent in her condo, she’s in talks with the landlord. It’ll be free in a couple of weeks, and then I think she’s going to move there.”

“But you’ll have to pay the rent,” Leo sighs, rolling his eyes, “Seriously, how much is she going to cost us?”

“I’ll make it work,” Blaine answers with a short laughter that means a lot, but you won’t even notice.

“Whatever,” Leo sighs, resting his head against Blaine’s shoulder. “Seriously, though. This hero complex of yours. Stop saving people, already.”

Blaine lets out a small, amused laughter, hugging Leo closer as he kisses him affectionately. “Don’t you want me to save you from your anger, now?” he asks, his hand already traveling down the curve of Leo’s spine, aiming for his ass.

“Mmh,” Leo bites his bottom lip, trying to conceal a smile and failing, “You can stop from tomorrow, then.”

*
The bandage covering Connie’s wounds is thick, but every single morning, when Leo looks at it, he finds it stained with blood. It’s like her body wouldn’t heal. She doesn’t cry, never does, but her wounds keep bleeding. Leo has no idea how this works – when he cuts himself mincing parsley, whether he puts a band aid on the wound or not, it always stops bleeding in just a few minutes; he can’t see why it should be different for Connie – but he knows he finds the thought unsettling and disturbing.

He asked Blaine about it, in the past few days. “Shouldn’t she have stopped, already?” he said, watching curiously as Blaine threw away the dirty bandages after changing them, “Isn’t she gonna bleed out, if she keeps going like this?”

“It’s not her wounds that are bleeding,” Blaine just answered. Leo didn’t got what he meant, but he’s pretty sure he didn’t mean Connie’s transpiring blood or anything. It must have something to do with a bleeding heart and so on, but to be honest Leo’s never been much of a poet, and as much as he understands about human suffering – especially considering he takes his own in great consideration – he’s not inclined to think so poetically about Connie’s condition.

She’s a girl who suffered. But she attempted to do something stupid. She failed at it – or better, Blaine was stubborn and good at his job enough to bring her back despite her efforts – and now she’s got to face the consequences of her actions. She’s got to deal with them. She’s got to live with them. And herself. That’s all. That’s not what makes her bleed. Her wounds make her bleed. The rest is inside. That’s the hardest part, Leo thinks. The wounds inside, the ones you can’t see. They’re not making her bleed, they’re destroying her from the darkness of corners of her mind that she probably isn’t even aware of.

Leo’s scared of Connie. She’s a tiny, pretty, fragile thing, her skin so pale sometimes he thinks he could take a peek underneath it, her shoulders-long dark hair falling straight down her cheeks, framing her delicate features like a Renaissance picture lady; she’s quite and discreet and her voice is soft and charming in its own way, but Leo’s scared of her. Scared of the darkness inside her, of the way her always dry baby blue eyes seem to double their size with fear and loneliness.

She’s a breakable thing. A breakable thing sometimes he wishes he was able to break.

And that’s what scares him the most.

*
It’s weird, almost comical to think about it, but it’s way easier to deal with Connie when Blaine’s around. If he’s home, both their attention – Leo’s and Connie’s – is completely absorbed by the man. He’s a filter between them, he’s also the North both their compasses points towards. When Blaine’s home, Leo deal with Connie through him, which basically means Blaine’s the one dealing and Leo just keeps asking questions to try and get up to date with the whole situation without having to experience it firsthand.

It’s easier, safer, and Leo’s more comfortable with it. He doesn’t have to step out of his comfort zone to reach out for her, forcing her to step out of her own too. Blaine’s better at reaching out for people – he never pulls them in towards himself, he’s the one getting closer, he’s the one adapting. So you can basically keep being yourself as he molds himself around you to better welcome your shape inside his own.

That’s what he did with Leo right from the start, at least, and judging by the way Connie reacts around him Leo has all the reasons to believe that’s what Blaine did with her too.

She even smiles at him.

She’s the prettiest thing, when she smiles. She’s got thin, well-shaped lips, the corners of which barely curl upwards when she does it. Hers is a sweet but sad smile. “It makes me hurt,” Blaine said one of the first times he told him about her, back when she was still recovering at the hospital.

“How’s that so?” Leo asked, unable to understand how could it be possible, “Smiles mean happiness. They should bring happiness to others too.”

“Not every smile,” Blaine answered, smiling sadly. There Leo understood what he meant, because Blaine’s sad smile, it didn’t bring him happiness at all, only a strange, desperate urge to wipe it off his face with kisses.

“Do you want something else to eat?” he asks, breaking the silence in the living room for the first time in hours.

Connie looks up at him, surprised to hear his voice. She looks down at the table covered in trays and plates filled with only half-eaten food – Leo finds it easier to just shower her in food during meals; he has no idea what to do with her, most of the time, so when he found out she actually enjoyed eating, as much as her recovery let her, he decided that would be his way to compensate with all the other things he had no idea how to provide, because he had no idea what could them be – and then looks back up at him, shaking her head. “I’m stuffed,” she answers.

“You feel sick?” Leo inquires, standing up as if to be ready to rush to her aid if necessary.

“No, I’m fine,” she hastens to say, shaking her head, “I’m just full. Thank you for taking care of me.” Leo just nods, and silence falls heavy and uncomfortable over them again. “I’m a little sleepy,” Connie says after a while, slowly standing up, “Can I be excused?”

Leo nods, feeling as always awkward and embarrassed when Connie acts so ceremoniously with him, which often happens. He’s used to her getting sleepy all the time, though. Her meds tend to have that effect on her. And it’s good they do, because every time she’s awake Connie seems to have no idea what to do with herself, and she just spends hours sitting on the couch, staring at the void, her eyes lost who knows where, who knows when, someplace that isn’t here, isn’t now. Also, her wounds are always bothering her; sometimes they itch, sometimes they hurt, sometimes she feels the bleeding and it makes her sick. Yes, it’s better when she sleeps.

Connie tried to kill herself three weeks ago, right in between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. As Blaine said, she probably wanted to have one last Christmas, but she didn’t want to wake to face a new year, knowing it would probably just be worse than the one that just passed.

Leo can’t even begin to understand how deep one’s suffering must be to bring them to the point of preferring death over the thought of living to see another day. When he’s hurt by something, he usually gives in to it completely, because he believes in being self-absorbed in one’s own pain. He thinks it’s better to just sink in it open-mouthed, drink it all until there’s none left. Swallowing sadness makes people sick, but it’s a dealing process faster than denial. When he feels pain, he never denies it. He lets it win him over. He surrenders to it. Then he comes out of it.

He’s aware that he only manages to get on with it because all his pain is mild and bearable. He’s a happy guy. He lives with the man he’s in love with and he feels loved back, he feels taken care of, he’s in good terms with his parents and relatives, he’s got friends who makes him feel comfortable and understood, he’s studying at the college, he’s close to get his degree, he looks forward to the rest of his life with excitement and curiosity. The pain he feels every now and then is fleeting, temporary. He values it, but it’s not deep enough to scar him. He knows that’s why he can afford to sink in it and then emerge from it unscathed.

Connie’s abusive boyfriend made sure she couldn’t, instead.

Leo has no idea how Connie managed to live with him for three years. He couldn’t stand the thought for three minutes. And the sickest part of it, the thing that Leo just can’t bring himself to understand in any way – she didn’t try and off herself while they were together, because he was hurting her; she did it after he was gone. When he left her, when he disappeared from her life, that was what she couldn’t stand. She was in constant pain when they were together, she felt worthless and hurt and misused and unloved, but what really broke her wasn’t this. It was being left behind, discarded after three years of endurance.

“She was thinking all her efforts would amount to something,” Blaine tried to explain him when Leo asked him about it, “She kept herself going thinking if I go through this, if I manage to survive it, then he will love me. When she understood it was never going to happen, when she realized she’d been lying to herself all along, when she realized all her efforts were for nothing and she was broken and empty and alone… she couldn’t take it.”

“I couldn’t stand it,” Leo told him, horrified by the mere thought, “Why didn’t she leave him first? Why didn’t she report him? I would have.”

“That’s why I love you,” Blaine answered, smiling sweetly.

Then why do you love her too?, Leo wanted to ask. Scared by every possible answer, he didn’t, though.

*
One day, Connie just faints.

She’s been shaky and trembling on her feet the whole morning. She sat at the table with them for lunch, but she wasn’t hungry. She was paler than she usually was and she barely touched any food.

Then she stands up, thanks Leo for taking care for her, offers a small, wary smile to Blaine – who instantly frowns when he sees it – and then, after taking just a couple of steps, she falls to the ground.

The sound she makes is the scariest Leo’s ever heard. It’s a hard thud, similar in every detail to the ones objects do when they’re dropped and fall to the ground.

It’s a lifeless sound, and Leo instantly associates it with death. She’s dead, he thinks, a rush of blood running to his head, awakening his every sense, forcing him to jump up quick as he’s never done.

Blaine’s faster than him, though, also because his experience makes him readier to face these situations. Leo doesn’t know what to do with his own sudden hyperactivity, with his own sudden awareness of every detail of what’s happening, but Blaine does. He rushes to Connie’s side, kneels near her and turns her over, lifting her from the ground. She hit her face and is bleeding from her nose, but that’s not what worries Blaine. He quickly pulls Connie’s sleeves up, uncovering the bandages. The bloodstains are bigger than they usually are. Way bigger.

“Leo, call 911,” he instantly tells him, and then he mutters under his breath, “She’s been picking at them.”

Leo freezes on the spot, a wild shiver digging inside him, heading to his very center. He always had quite a vivid imagination. The words Blaine used formed violent, perverse images in his mind, awakening a kind of physical pain Leo wasn’t even aware he could feel. He feels his own skin itch and burn, and he clutches his fists violently to stop his hands from shaking.

It must have felt like this, he thinks, trying to stop himself from wanting to crawl out of his own skin, That’s how it must have felt to her. That’s how it must feel to want to tear one’s own skin apart.

“Leo!” Blaine calls out for him, raising his voice. It’s so unexpected and unusual for Blaine to address him like that, that he instinctively takes a step back, focusing on him with wide eyes filled with terror, “Come on!”

What happens next blurs away in front of Leo’s eyes. The ambulance arrives, Blaine explains what happened, he goes with the paramedics when they lift Connie off the ground on the stretcher and take her away. In just a few moment, Leo’s left alone in the house echoing with his own silent, horrified scream.

It dawns on him, violent and fast like a slap. He doesn’t need to break Connie. She’s perfectly able to do it on her own.

*
When Blaine comes back home, a couple of hours later, he’s tired and his eyes are red with tears. Leo rushes towards him, hugs him tight, clings to his shoulders. “Tell me she’s fine,” he says. He doesn’t even know why it means so much right now. He thought he hated her for stealing away pieces of Blaine, now all he wants to know is that she’s alive, and that she’ll get better.

Blaine nods slowly, hugging him back, hiding his face against Leo’s neck. “They’re keeping her for the night. I’ll go pick her up tomorrow.”

Leo pulls away, looking at him. Blaine’s face shows his age, tonight. The weight of the years make the lines on his face deeper, darker. He looks ready to give up. “Don’t cry,” he tells him, caressing his cheek, his thumb wiping away Blaine’s tears.

“I don’t think I can help it,” Blaine answers, his voice broken.

“She’s gonna be fine,” Leo says, trying to believe in the words.

“That’s never going to happen,” Blaine answers. It hits hard. Harder than Leo ever thought it could.

*
When Connie comes back home, Leo can’t even look at her. Not really a problem, considering she can’t look at him either. They dance around themselves for a couple of days, slipping into old habits easily. They only communicate through Blaine for days. Blaine barely leaves Connie’s side. He talks to her at every waking hour. He’s constantly asking her how she feels. She only answers yes or no, and she keeps her eyes and voice down. She talks in whispers, and Blaine’s more worried by what she doesn’t scream.

At night, when he lays down beside Leo on the bed, Leo wraps his arms around his shoulders and passes his fingers through his hair, trying to soothe him. “It’s useless,” Blaine says, “Everything I’m doing is useless. I’m useless.”

“It will be fine,” Leo whispers to him, “She will be fine.”

One night, Leo asks Blaine “What’s wrong with her?”, and Blaine doesn’t answer right away.

After a long silence, he says “I can’t fix her. Nobody can. And she doesn’t know how to fix herself on her own.”

“Can’t we teach her?” Leo asks in a low voice, “How does one fix oneself?”

Again, Blaine needs a few seconds to answer. “I have no idea,” he says then. Leo tries to understand how painful it must be for him to admit it. He doesn’t manage, and he thinks it’s better this way.

*
Connie looks at him as if she’d rather die than talk. She doesn’t leave the room, doesn’t stand up from the couch, doesn’t even back off, but all of her body’s screaming, begging for him to leave her alone.

He sits on the couch right next to her, and she understands he won’t.

“I can’t understand you,” he tells her, “You’re so beautiful. I don’t know if you’re stupid, but I don’t think so. Truth is, stupid people usually lead pretty happy lives. So why? I don’t get it. This man you were with, why did you stick with him? Why can’t you stand the thought of being apart from him?”

She doesn’t speak for minutes. Five pass, but Leo doesn’t move. He keeps looking at her, waiting for an answer. Connie’s eyes are troubled, there’s a lot stirring deep inside them. She seems to be hoping for him to forget it and walk away for as long as she can, but ultimately she understands this is not going to just stop.

She curls on the corner of the couch, hugging her knees to her chest. She’s so thin and flat she doesn’t take up more than a small square of it. “I’m way past that,” she says, “William’s not the problem anymore.”

“So what is?” Leo asks, turning to look at her, “How can we fix it?”

She sighs deeply, closing her eyes. She tilts his head down, hiding behind her knees. “I just want the pain to be over. At this point, I’ve been hurting so much, so long, that I can’t even remember why, or how did it happen, or how could I endure it for so long. I want it over, but there’s no such thing. I can’t feel anything else but pain. I’m filled to the brim with it and I can’t find a way to let it out. It’s just… there. There’s no space for anything else.”

Leo looks at her, this fragile, messed up little thing. He feels so small, so useless. But for the first time, possibly in his life, he wants to do something. There’s something inside Connie, something resonating with him. The way she let herself sink into her own despair is so similar to what Leo does with all his little daily pains. Except, he always manages to swim himself up to the surface again. Connie just drawn.

He wants to protect her. He wants to fix her.

“Blaine cares so much about you,” he says. Connie nods. “Can’t you feel it? The love he pours over you. It’s selfless and pure. Doesn’t it feel good?”

“I can’t feel it,” Connie answers, her voice breaking. “I don’t know love. I lived for years believing what I felt for William was love, what he felt for me was love. It wasn’t, and I don’t know what love is now.”

Leo swallows hard, reaching out for her. His fingertips touch the back of Connie’s fingers lightly, and she turns to look at him. Her eyes are filled with tears on the verge of falling down her pale cheeks. There’s something different in her, she looks like she’s been uncorked.

“Let us teach you,” he whispers, moving closer to her, holding her hand in his own, “We can teach you love.”

Connie’s eyes grow wide, as she turns to look at him.

The tears start falling, and she starts moaning softly as she cries. It’s the first time Leo sees her cry, and she does it for what feels like hours. Leo hugs her close, hides her against his chest, passes his fingers through her hair and whispers soothing nothingness to her ear. When the tears finally stop, she looks up at him, and she looks so beautiful Leo can barely believe his eyes.

Only then he notices she’s smiling.

*
“Are you sure?” Blaine asks, looking at him with unbelieving yet amused and quite proud eyes. He listened to the whole story as Leo told him about it, and when finally Leo tells him he doesn’t want Connie to move out too soon he feels the need to ask for confirmation, even though Leo’s voice and eyes were sure enough the first time.

“Don’t ask me twice, I hate to repeat myself,” Leo answers with a pout, hitting him lightly on his shoulder. “And I didn’t say she won’t move out ever, mind me.”

“I got it, I got it,” Blaine chuckles, shaking his head. “But are you alright with it?”

Leo shrugs, searching automatically for Blaine’s body under the covers. “I think I like her,” he answers, “I wanna help her. Is that so strange?”

“Not at all,” Blaine says with a sweet smile, stroking his cheek and then moving closer to kiss him lightly on his lips. “It’s gonna be weird, though. Don’t you think?”

“Maybe,” Leo admits, “I mean, I don’t know the rules. I feel drawn towards her, but I don’t know how deep that goes. Do you?”

“I have no idea,” Blaine answers with a small laughter, “But then, you know me. My feelings are pretty messy. I care for her, I like her. I don’t know if there’s more. But I feel drawn towards her too.”

Leo gives in to a soft smile, leaning against Blaine’s shoulder. Sure, it’s going to be pretty weird. “Are we together in this, then?”

Blaine nods easily. “Of course,” he says, “As always.”

It doesn’t get better than this, Leo thinks to himself, closing his eyes and surrendering to Blaine’s tight grip. Now they just need to let Connie know.