Extras

Cinders: Recovery

/This takes place around chapter 55 and a little after/

Orion can't fall asleep without the light on.

The few moments he had with darkness were in what he calls the coffin. The dark was oppressive, there, a part of the walls that kept the air from his lungs. The light had never been off, in the Order's compound. Always the fluorescents. The light had gone out, minutes before Lee had found him, but he barely remembers that. He knows the dim, cold lights. Not enough to see. Not enough to sleep.

So he can't fall asleep in the dark. They trained that out of him.

He doesn't want to tell Lee this. He remembers all of the times that Lee had opened up to him, all of the times she had illuminated slivers of her trauma. He had admired it, even then, but he had no idea how impossibly hard it would be to be weak to her, like that. How had she ever managed?

It takes days before he is even awake enough to be insomniac. At first, he is too tired, too flooded with drugs and medicine for the darkness to keep him from sleep. But eventually, when he lies beside Lee at night, carefully, carefully, the air begins swirling into phantoms of terror, and Lee wakes up to his horrified heart thundering in his chest, his body as still as a corpse.

"Dark," he finally chokes out as explanation.

He gets what he needs, this time, with barely a word. Lee turns on the lamp and keeps it on, every night. She understands it. Orion loves her for this.

He hates himself for this, too.

-

Lee's hands.

The thought is almost enough on its own.

Orion knows it bothers her.

"It's nothing," she assures him. It is not nothing. For the first few weeks she can barely use them. For the weeks after, she can barely look at them.

"Lee," he begs.

"Look at me," she commands him, and he does. "I don't hate these scars, Orion. They happened because my hands were finally useful for something. The scars are nothing."

He looks at her. Takes her hands, softly, softly, barely pressing into the skin, pulls them up, faces her palms towards her so that her eyes are set on them.

And that is the fourth time Orion ever sees Lee cry.

-

He promises himself he won't fall asleep.

Not after what he almost did to Lee.

Goddess, it makes him nauseous with revulsion. What he could have done to her with his bare hands. She was right to be afraid of him, when they first knew each other. He's a monster barely restrained by a thin, slicing veil of sanity. Orion does not want to touch her. He does not want to hurt her. She is so good, too good. And he is lost.

So, he tells himself he will not sleep. Maybe ever again. But for the first few weeks, he needs so much sleep. He can hardly stay awake throughout the day. There's this exhaustion that seems to press inside his skull, getting heavier and heavier with every hour.

Orion doesn't like sleeping alone.

But he does, now.

"I'm so sorry," he keeps repeating. The words are not enough. "I'm so sorry."

Lee reaches for his hand and he holds hers back, lightly, lightly. She smiles at him, that kind, soft smile that he fell in love with.

"I'm happy to do it, Orion. We won't be far. I want you to feel safe."