Teenage Baby

Chapter 7

"Heard my baby is upset, so I thought these would make it better," Mommy chimed as she ambled into the room, brandishing two highly undesired objects in her hands: a pacifier and a blue teddybear. She climbed onto the bed and sprawled by Aaron's other side, squeezing him between her and Daddy along.

Aaron's chest tightened as their hot breaths rammed against his neck from each side, both ticklish and blood-curdling-an odd combination. Of all abuse he could've been subjected to, they chose this, triggering his touch-aversion. A nightmare coming to life.

Mommy tried giving him the teddybear, and Aaron accepted it reluctantly when he felt the weight of Daddy's watchful eyes on him. Holding it to his chest as commanded, Aaron maintained a straight expression whilst wishing he could chuck it in her face.

Obedience. Mommy smiled before bringing the pacifier forward and forcing it into her baby's mouth. But as she watched it hang motionlessly between his lips, her grin failed and a demanding frown found its way to her brows. "Baby, you have to suck the pacifier," she said. "Why aren't you doing that?"

A piercing edge blemished Mommy's soft voice, and it quickly reminded Aaron of Daddy. Even she can be aggressive sometimes, he thought. At first, he hesitated a little, but then he remembered how they had the freedom to begin physically abusing him if he didn't obey. So he sucked begrudgingly at the rubber.

Both captors watched, their mouths curled with fondness and admiration as they took in how adorable he looked with the pacifier bobbing against his lips.

Grimacing inwardly, Aaron swallowed down the bile that rose up his throat as he watched their loving expressions. The idiots found a teenager with a pacifier cute. Cute. The level of derangement in this could make Freud haters quake.

"Why's my baby so sad?" Mommy cooed, placing a hand on his bare leg. Aaron froze, his throat closing up on his breath as her smooth palm rested atop his bare skin. And then, just when he thought things couldn't have gotten worse, she began stroking, her soft hand gently strolling along the length of his shin.

Every muscle in Aaron's leg stiffened beneath Mommy's touch, but he didn't dare push her off even with the desperate need to do so. Especially not with Daddy just inches away. All but triggering that guy.

It was painfully suffocating for Aaron: the way he was squeezed between the two, Daddy's arm around him and Mommy's hand on him, his personal space long forgotten. He suddenly felt too constricted, and his breath hitched and his lungs strained like they'd been filled with cotton.

He wanted space. He needed it, for his sanity.

Daddy watched warily as his baby struggled in silence, heart aching at how tense and uncomfortable he looked. But then again, Aaron needed to learn how things worked; he needed to understand that they were going to touch him, that he shouldn't be scared of their platonic, parental gestures.

The door edged open and Leo's head popped through the gap, his ecstatic facial expression dropping suddenly. At first, he looked confused-almost like a lost puppy-but then he frowned slightly, lips pressed into a straight line, and Aaron felt that he seemed offended in a way.

"Come here, baby," Mommy said, patting the space beside her. Leo stomped to the bed and clambered over the edge, squeezing himself between Aaron and Mommy, his back facing her. Aaron watched warily as Leo removed the teddy from his arms and placed it away, then curled his arm around his abdomen and snuggled his face into Aaron's shoulder. "Oh, I guess you don't want to cuddle with us, just with Aaron."

"Angry, Mommy," Leo clarified, huffing with furious certainty. "No one called me for cuddle time."

Daddy removed his arm once Leo clung to Aaron, and Mommy had scooted away to make space, the pressure fading slightly along. Aaron would rather have Leo hugging him like a koala than the captors, and he wondered if he'd intentionally done that to help him out. He appreciated it regardlessly. Even with the strange behavior, Aaron found the presence of another victim slightly comforting-at least he wasn't alone in this, but then his heart sank when he thought of how it must've been for Leo at the beginning. He'd gone through all this crap on his own, and he was younger, too. That poor boy.