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The fight where it all came to a head didn’t start off as anything special, just another one of their regularly-scheduled, mundane and only slightly hackle-raising. The rest of the day they could more or less make it through but there was about a 30% chance of one kicking off whenever Dev dutifully pulled up to the counter to watch him swallow down his bounty of meds. Something about the scheduled nature of it. Well, it used to be 30%. Cameron wasn’t counting, but it felt like that number was growing as the weeks wore on.
The voice was quiet this time as he tipped the pills down his throat, but that made him feel worse. There was nothing to distract him from the way Devon watched his throat pulse with the swallow, or the nervous way he shifted his weight as he loomed in the corner of his vision.
“Can you at least give me some space?” he snapped. “Or, I don’t know, pretend to do something else while you’re monitoring me?”
Devon didn’t even flinch, but self-consciously raised his hands in defense, both of them knowing it was a hair’s breadth from sliding out of control as usual.
“Sorry, sure! I just…” he quickly looked around the kitchen and then visibly struck out on finding a more inconspicuous reason for appearing at the noise of the blister packs like he was conditioned for it, and deciding on a half-hearted smile to smooth it over. It just rankled more
“Never mind” Cameron replied, skin crawling and tail lashing with mounting irritation. Every time the medication was brought up, or his new abilities, or the more visceral events in Echo, he could feel Devon tiptoeing around him. He’d felt it before Echo, but this was so much worse - there was a fear there now, and Cameron hadn’t fully figured out whether it was him he was afraid of. “If you have to be here every time, can you make less of a show about it? It feels like you’re breathing down my neck.”
“I can do that, sure, babe,” Devon replied, his tone soft and calming.
And, of all things, that was the final straw.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Cameron barked, raking claws through the fur at his jaw in frustration. “Can you stop treating me like a child for just one moment? It’s endless - between the hovering, the fretting and the sheer fucking avoidance you’d think I was going to break any moment. I would have thought you could trust me that much!”
It felt like ripping off a band-aid, the weeks and months of mollycoddling building pressure day after day, and finally the words were out. There was no stopping the rest of them, and the first burst of feelings that followed. Real, true feelings too pent-up for even the chemical numbness to wipe out.
Devon’s voice is small but measured when he replies, pointedly not making eye contact.
“I’m not trying to… I don’t want to take any risks with you. You’ve been through a lot-“
“And so have you, but I don’t go around smothering you!”
That was unfair - they both knew that Cameron’s latent abilities meant that he got the short straw when it came to repercussions, but the imbalance had been gnawing for so long. Smothering, suffocating under tender words and level voices and knowing what’s best.
Conscious forever while you suffocate for what made you happy when you were alive
He couldn’t suppress the shudder at the association, and the accompanying urge to vomit started a tic in his shoulder that jerked it up, again and again. He could see the fear begin in Devon’s eyes, and the small movements towards him like you would a small child you didn’t want to startle.
“Hey, Cam, let’s just sit down and-“
“No, fuck that. Can’t you see it? Between the poison and the millions of invisible guard rails you’ve put up around me, there’s no space to live. I’m being torn apart the same way as I was by teeth and claws but so slowly, bit dying every day, and you won’t even let me think about whether I want that or not. I need to breathe, I need space!”
Devon recoiled like he’d been physically slapped. He reacted every time Brian’s attack was brought up, and Cameron hated doing it but he needed what he was saying to sink through the cotton wool layer he’d wrapped himself in. It needed to hurt.
“Cam, don’t… don’t say that. We can make it, we just need to take it slowly. Things are serious enough that we need serious help, and I don’t know if you’re in a place to...” He shook his head, thinking, eyes wide. “We’ll be fine, I can’t lose you…” he trailed off, voice shaking.
His senses had been weaker away from Echo, and thrown off by the medication but he could still feel the panic spiking from across the room. The bear came into clearer focus for him; it was never control out of wanting power over him, it was an internal fear of powerlessness.
For a second, he wondered whether that was the reason he had heard Lupita all those months ago. It was a wild guess that demons were manifestations of human hang-ups, and Devon’s guilt and shame and the trauma it had left him with would be a buffet for a place like Echo to amplify. That would be something to bring up later, once Dev had that promotion secured and they could afford another therapy regime.
The anger cooled, congealed in his chest as he watched Devon crumble on the other side of the island, unsure with eyes wet and searching. He relaxed his shoulders, fists clenching through the last of the anger as it drained. He knew that Devon thought he was doing the best for him, but this was the one thing he needed to do for himself.
“I don’t…” he started, then discovered he didn’t actually know what he wanted to say. He hadn’t planned any of this at all.
“I know it sounds weird, but it feels like I’m alone with this,” he tried again. “Not that you aren’t here, obviously. But sometimes you feel like you’re part of the medical team, just here to check up on me and making the decisions on my treatment.”
That wasn’t right either, but it was a foot in the door. He ignored the heartbroken look and pushed on.
“I want to choose. I’m not trained in psychiatry, or chemical balances in the brain but I want to consider all the options for treatment; I’m not ruling anything out on that front even if it means a permanent prescription. But I want to be the one in the driving seat, and I want you to be there to support me rather than enforce me.” A flinch. “You’re trying, I know that, but you’re walking on ice around me when you should trust me enough to tell me things straight, and then railroading me if I fuck up. If you see me struggling, believe that I can do the work to get back and help me get there rather than taking control.”
Devon slumped into one of the bar stools, his eyes unfocused but expression intense. Quiet.
“And I want to find out about my new… abilities, and that part of myself. I can’t even tell anymore what’s a psychic vision, a medical hallucination or a schizophrenic delusion, but I can’t ignore the very real probability there isn’t going to be a pill that can stop that, so I need to figure it out myself. Which means we need to stop ignoring it.”
“I’m so sorry, Cam,” Devon says, defeated. “Somewhere in me knew it could mess up playing with ESP with your history. I was so stupid, but surely it’s better to leave it alone, after everything that happened?”
It rankled, and Cameron pulled himself up straight.
“I think it’s about time you took responsibility for what happened, rather than stewing in guilt.”
Devon gasped and whipped his head up to catch Cameron’s level gaze.
“Look, Dev, you’re the best person to help me with this. You’ve put so much research into all this, you must have some ideas. I wasn’t lying back there when I said I wanted to find out about this part of myself, and it’s even more important given how screwed up the rest of my head is. I need to know which parts are coming from inside my head and what isn’t. I want to be myself, all of me. Even the weird psychic bits.”
He slid his paws across the counter pads up, a peace offer, and strong, solid fingers gently held his own.
“Okay, babe.” Devon was breathing heavily, his eyes still wide as he processed. “This, this is not going to be easy for me, but I’ll try. It’s your health, I’ll follow your lead, but if things start going to shit I’ll step in. We just need to…” he stopped himself. “Please be careful. I love you”
“I love you too,” Cam sighed, squeezing those big paws. It didn’t feel like he was drowning any more; he was taking his first breath on the surface of the water.