Beloved: A Henry Dawncraft Novel |boyxboy| Sequel to Lover for Pay

VIII - Wounds.

When Henry pulled up to his house, he pulled into the drive and killed the engine. He'd been worried about Dorian the entire drive back. His brother looked a little too tired, and whenever he spoke, it sounded like he was forcing himself to stay focused. Getting out of the Lambo, Henry kept his eye on the concussed boy as they headed up to the door.

"That was cool, right?" the Dorian said, stepping through the open doorway. "My head hurts sometimes after fights, but I know it's nothing serious."

Locking up the house behind him. Henry nodded for his brother to follow him. He gestured then into a spare bedroom. "Concussions can be serious. Just sit down, I'll be right back."

Henry left the spare room and headed down the hall for his and Daniel's room. As he would have thought, his husband was still awake in their bed, a laptop open and was laid down, watching videos for now. "So you waited up for me, after all," Henry said, taking a moment to kiss his husband. He then entered their bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. "Give me a minute."

Watching Henry take two white tablets from their bathroom, Daniel sat up from under the coverings. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, just hold on."

Henry then took the two pills to Dorian after retrieving a water bottle from the kitchen. His younger brother was sitting at the foot of the full-sized bed, bared down to his underwear now, and he was counting a stack of twenty dollar bills. "I made seven hundred tonight," he said, stuffing the money back in the package it'd been in. "That's two hundred more than I usually make. What did you think about it?"

After handing Dorian the pills and water, Henry sat down beside him. "I don't know, man. Cage fighting is pretty scary, and you could get seriously hurt in there. These concussions could catch up to you someday, and I'm sure their lasting effect won't be pretty. You can fight, I saw that, but that shit is dangerous."

Dorian met his brother's eyes after swallowing the ibuprofen. There was honest worry for him in the older boy's eyes, and when Henry touched a soft hand to the top of his hair, Dorian suddenly felt small under his brother's concern. "I care about you, man, and I don't think it's a good idea for you to keep fighting like that. Especially for someone like Tucker." Henry leaned forward, touching their foreheads together, "I just want you to be safe."

Coming away from the fraternal intimacy, Dorian breathed a sigh and shook his head. "I can't just leave Tucker. He practically owns me."

"Then I'll have to convince him to fuck off."

Dorian shook his head, feeling as the current headache worsened. "No one just walks away from Tucker. I can't decide by tomorrow I don't want to fight for him anymore. Besides, the posse you saw following him like lap dogs, I live with them, so they'd notice me being gone like I'm sure they will tonight."

Henry definitely didn't like the sound of this. Whoever this Tucker guy was, it seemed like he had a lot of leverage and control, and to think it was holding Dorian back was upsetting. Nervous for his brother's safety and health, Henry just stood when the boy laid down. "Get some sleep," he said, "I'll see if we can sort things out later."

Seeing Dorian off, Henry then headed back down the hall to his bedroom. All the lights in the house were off now, doors locked, so he shut him and Daniel inside and began to undress. The thought of his brother returning to a place like The Black Sheep irked him to no end. Tucker hadn't seemed too bad of a guy, but he was using a teenage boy like a dog, as a means to an end: money.

Tossing his shirt to the floor, Henry hoped his brother would listen about how dangerous head injuries were. He remembered back to when him, Dorian, and London had all sat down together. It'd been said that the teenager had once suffered from a concussion due to the bullying he'd gone through. So, he was used to it. Back then, no one must have told him of the possible problems that could occur. If anything, Dorian would no longer "be himself" if he kept treating it like it was nothing.