Dominance and Submission (boyxboy)

Chapter 20: Our Vulnerabilities

Chapter 20

~Damion~

One thing was for certain; Cam's sleeping habits hadn't changed much in the three weeks that he had been absent from my bed. I was starting to accept the fact that his starfish mentality would never change.

He still somehow found a way to drape every part of his body over mine as he slept. His arms and my face had very quickly grown accustomed to each other throughout the night and the one time I'd worked up the energy to roll him carefully back over to his side of the bed, he'd unconsciously latched onto my arm and curled his body around it.

I was considering getting him a human sized pillow, just to see if it would make a difference, but I had a strong suspicion that it wouldn't. It was as though the cells in his body somehow sensed that I was near and found every way possible to get close.

Too tired to do much more, I watched him for a while as he slept. This was the first night since his ordeal that he hadn't been woken by a nightmare and I was grateful for it. With the early morning light streaming in through the curtains, I looked up to the ceiling where the dream catcher hung. I didn't believe for one second that the thing could actually catch bad dreams, but I had hoped that its presence in the room would have a soothing effect on him. Maybe it had.

I glanced at his hands which were still bandaged after he'd somehow managed to accidentally slice them up with broken glass. I looked at his split lip and swollen, bruised eye. At some point between meeting him and the incident, I'd come to care about him.

I cared about his thoughts, his dreams and his eating habits. I cared about what he was feeling and whether he was hurting. I cared about what happened to him and what paths he would choose to take in life. At some point, I'd come to think of him as more than just a sub in training.

At some point, Cam had wormed his way into my head, and I had a feeling he would be staying there for a long time. I didn't exactly know how to cope with that. I dropped a hand on my chest when I felt it begin to tighten, and took several deep breaths.

"Fuck." I whispered into the silence, and Cam curled tighter around my arm.

Taking responsibility for person's well-being was a serious thing, but when that person was as broken as Cam was, it came with complications. I could admit to myself that I wasn't one hundred percent sure that I could help him.

I knew without a doubt that therapy wasn't working. He didn't think he needed help and had only been attending because I had asked him to. Without that interest or motivation, I didn't think he was going to get very far, no matter how good his therapist claimed to be.

An idea had been forming in my mind for awhile, and the more I thought about it, the more I began to believe that maybe it would have some effect. It would require the help of friends and family but I had no doubt that they would be on board with it. I only hoped that it would work.

"Damion?"

I glanced at him when his soft, sleep-filled voice broke the silence.

"Hmm?"

"Is it time to wake up now?" he freed my arm and rolled onto his back.

"No. Go back to sleep." I urged him.

He rubbed his forehead, yawned and rolled back onto his side. I watched as he pulled his pillow in front of him and wrapped himself around it, then blinked up at me.

"I'm not tired anymore. How come you're awake? There's no sun out or anything." He yawned again.

"Just thinking."