dream of demons while you sleep

<div align=center>Bill sat bolt upright very suddenly, his head hurt and the pounding of his heart echoing in his ears sounded like it could wake up an army, to him. He was incredibly aware of a warm, damp feeling underneath him, and all of a sudden he wished he was anywhere else but here. A quick glance confirmed that Gabriel was still asleep, if he crawled away now, dressed and snuck out there'd be no embarrassing confrontation. Not this morning, anyway. That sounded like a plan to him, though his body didn't seem to be co-operating with what his head wanted, and all he could do was sit there and feebly quiver, arms hugging his slender frame. He felt vulnerable and self-conscious, it was an unpleasant feeling and all he wanted to do was run away and hide.

A blush crept up his cheeks, he didn't think he'd ever felt so mortified in his life, and he was the only conscious person in the room.That wouldn't last long though. Feeble, frightened little sobs had begun to wrack his body, stop it. Stop crying. Stop that right now, a little voice demanded, William promptly ignored it. The remnants of a nightmare were fresh in his head, he was confused and scared. His quivering had become violent, though whether that was due to fear or the cold wasn't clear. He bundled part of the duvet up and pulled it up to his chin, taking tentative glances over at Gabriel every now and then to check whether he was still asleep or not. Please don't wake up.</div>

<div align=center>William practically jumped out of his skin when he heard his name, he squeaked, and made a move to squirm away, but instead merely ended up leaning forward until his face was touching the duvet. He drew his knees to his chest and whimpered something that merely ended up muffled into the fabric of the duvet. It took him a moment or two before he realized that, I want to crawl into a hole and die. The boy shivered again and burst into a flood of tears, which were most likely due to how mortified he was. He didn't remember being this embarrassed ever about anything.

"I had a bad dream," his voice was a whisker above a whisper, he wanted to run away from Gabe so badly that his mind was beginning to see absolutely no other way to get out of this situation. This had happened before, sure, but not while he'd been with someone else. That made everything about ten times worse than it was already. He wanted to both hide from Gabe and cling to him simultaneously, he felt like a child, tiny and helpless. He made out for a moment like he was going to say something, before shaking his head and hiding his face against his knees.</div>

<div align=center>William shook his head very fast, still not very willing to look at the other boy. In truth, he didn't really remember what had happened, not now, anyway. There had only been remnants when he'd first woken up, but now he didn't remember them. Despite Gabe's reassurance, William could tell he was being lied to, and he didn't like that. He didn't like to be treated like a child, despite himself. William felt exposed and he desperately wished he'd brought pyjamas with him, he hadn't really counted on staying over though, and he certainly hadn't counted on what that had eventually lead to.

Thinking about that, William burned. He was feeling sore and it hurt to shuffle around, a scalding hot bath probably would have served him nicely, for more than one reason. "You're lying." He muttered, his voice picking up an almost dark tone. "Don't lie to me because I know." He didn't want to be in here anymore, his sentences were punctuated with little sniffles every now and then. He had shuffled a ways down the bed, distancing himself from Gabe by a short way. William was still shivering, his skin had come up in goosebumps and he was a little paler than usual.</div>

<div align=center>William went quiet, but he didn't relax at all. He was embarrassed and upset and poor Gabe was as confused as he was. William had no idea if the dream had been about Gabe or not, he didn't really remember it. He wanted to wash himself, perhaps staying the night had been a bad idea, but it was too late now. He pushed himself to his knees, and shuffled to the edge of the bed, more or less back to wear Gabe was. He'd wrapped himself in the duvet and stolen it, mentally cursing the fact he'd fallen asleep naked. "They don't go away if you talk about them." He muttered, spitefully, maybe he'd tried it before and it hadn't worked. He whimpered again, and sniffled, bringing his hand up to rub the tears away from his eyes, only for them to be replaced with fresh ones.

"I need to wash." He mumbled quietly, he felt bad about all this, which was probably why he refused to look at Gabe, a nasty mix of guilt and embarrassment. He didn't like the way Gabe's head felt, it made him feel upset. William didn't want Gabe to feel uncomfortable, it made him tense up very suddenly.</div>

<div align=center>Of course the way Gabe was feeling was practically radiating into William, which caused him to spring a new leak and burst into a fit of violent sobs. Bad dreams had reared their ugly heads recently, but none of them had been as bad as this. What frightened William the most is that he couldn't remember one bit of it, he was terrified of something non-existent, something he didn't even remember. It merely reminded him how much of a coward he was, which in turn made him cry even more. William cried a lot, and rather easily. But it was easy to tell the difference between what was crying for attention and what was crying because something was really wrong.

This was not attention seeking.

He'd balled himself up again and was still quivering ever so slightly. A bath sounded like a good idea to him, William was incredibly unpredictable in a state like this, without his little foil hat there was a chance he'd accidentally lash out, and that could end up being dangerous. He'd never hurt Gabe on purpose though, he absolutely point blank refused to. He simply loved him too much to do that. Accidentally, on the other hand, Bill had no control over that.</div>