/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."
I would rather die than hurt you he almost says, but does not.
He insists that he's the one to move rooms. Lee protests (It was your room to begin with, Orion, don't be silly - ) but he wins out in the end.
And then he is alone.
It is its own kind of darkness; to some extent, it is worse to be without her than to face the darkness. Her absence was the only thing entirely constant about his time away. When the nightmares wake him thrashing in his bed, his claws tearing through whatever they can find, it takes so much longer for him to really wake when Lee isn't there to help him. On these nights, it takes everything to stop himself from going to her to make sure she is here and he is alive and they are safe.
But in the morning, when he takes in the extent of the damage, he is relieved that he didn't. He cannot hurt her.
Besides, now he can sleep with all of the lights on without worrying about Lee, and he tells himself that is better.
Maybe the Order was right.
Maybe there is something evil about him.
-
Lee has too many broken people to balance.
Lucy is in the middle of physical therapy. Lee pours every ounce of time and support to her as she can. But Orion is taking too much of her for himself, for his personal catastrophe, and it's beginning to wear down on her. He can tell.
Orion is doing his best to minimize himself.
Lee missed Lucy's first steps. She was too busy looking for him. There is so much he has taken from her. If he had been strong enough to escape on his own - strong enough to fight back while they were hurting him, hurting her -
If he had died, he wouldn't have to watch Lee wish he had.
She would never say it, but. He is certain that she - she must. She must wish that he hadn't come back, all torn apart. If she doesn't think that now, she will. He can't even touch her without doubt creeping across his mind. He is not what she signed up for.
He is no worse than her father. They are the same. Explosives just waiting to combust.
He knows she is coming before she says anything.
"Hi."
Orion turns to find Lucy, leaning heavily on her crutches as she walks towards him. Strange that she would find him here, standing in the portrait hall alone. He's almost embarrassed that she found him, looking at a painting of himself when he was young and whole.
"Couldn't sleep?" he asks.
Lucy sends him a sarcastic smile. "Didn't want to bother Lee," she explains. "So I came here." Her eyes fade out of focus. "For some reason."
Orion knows that the physical therapy is wearing Lucy down. It's so much more exhausting to be broken physically, Orion knows, but a small, struggling sliver of himself wishes his body was more broken. Because then the outside would match the inside, and there's stability in unity.
"Yes," Orion says, agreeing with both statements.
It has been long enough that his hair has started growing back. It doesn't make sense. How could it have been weeks when he closes his eyes and he is still there?
Together, they look at the portrait of the Royal family. Orion hates it. It seems a testament to what he's lost.
"You know she loves us."
Orion starts, looking back at the frail girl beside him. "I know."
Lucy looks down at her legs. "If she can love me," she whispers, "then she can love you."
Orion doesn't say a thing.
"But," Lucy continues softly, "I want it to be easy for her. I wish it could be easier for her."
His hands tighten into fists.
"Nothing's easy."
Lucy leans her head on Orion's shoulder. The moon shining through the window highlights Orion in the portrait.
-
Touching is like sleeping.
He needs it, but he is afraid of it.
Lee makes it seem so easy. She pretends that he doesn't hesitate. She touches him all the time, his hair, his hands, his shoulders, and Orion wants this and he wants to touch her but he can't stop thinking of that moment, that moment when he woke up and she was just another thing to destroy, the place where her head was lying massacred.
She kisses him.
He holds very still.
It is so impossible for him to trust himself. Especially when it was so easy, once. He didn't have to worry about hurting her because he was in control of himself. Because he was whole. But he can't, any more. He has to worry about what his hands will do without him.
Perhaps that is the worst part.
-
The scars are disappearing. Not Lee's. His.
It's this damn - this damn alpha blood - this damn healing -
He still has the ones on his wrists from the chains. Those were constantly rubbing his skin raw with wolfsbane. But the lines on his back, his legs, his chest - they are disappearing faster than he can keep track of them. He barely has time to see himself, all torn up, before it's gone.
Orion's therapist tells him it's understandable that he is sad to see them go. She tells him that many wolves experience this, a dissonance between their mental and physical healing. She tells him that it is normal, that it is apart of healing to want to look ruined. Orion nods and he promises, he swears, he tries to believe her.
He wants to get better. He does.
Goddess, it's too hard.
Time with Cooper helps the most. He's not afraid of hurting him. And Cooper understand what it is like to be different than you are - to see yourself as something other than reality.
Within a few weeks of returning, Orion is back in peak physical condition. He can beat Cooper in every fight, race, and competition. Except - he's becoming reckless. Sloppy.
Orion growls as he falls to the mat, again. He was caught off-balance. Again. He grits his teeth when Cooper offers his hand.
"Again," he orders.
"Orion - "
"Again."
So Cooper sighs and dodges Orion's first punch without much difficulty. Then, turning, he sweeps under Orion's legs while he realigns; Orion trips, throws himself into another blow; lunges at Cooper; and with one dodge and a blow to his stomach, Orion is down on his knees.
And this time he can't seem to get up. It's like there's an anchor in his stomach that keeps him down. He leans forward, on his hands, breathing hard and ignoring Cooper's extended hand.
"Is this what it was like?" he asks weakly. Cooper looks at him.
"To have a piece of you missing?" Orion chokes out. He presses his hand to the hollow of his chest, like he can feel the space there. "Was it like - like they didn't just take something away, they left something inside of you?"
He feels like he's in the concrete coffin, again, darkness on every side, darkness inside, growing out from his lungs.
"You know what you said to me, Your Highness? After I lost the leg?"
Orion hangs his head, exhausted.
"You said," Cooper says patiently, "that you would take care of me if I never walked again. That you would give up being an alpha before you would give up on me as your beta."
Cooper holds out his hand again. "Alpha."
Orion blinks hard. He takes Cooper's hand.
-
There is a point where the healing becomes more kind than cruel. Where he is full enough to realize that the emptiness could have gone on forever if he didn't start the first painful steps.
Orion, at first, never thought this would happen. He thought he was broken. But he knows better now.
Because one day, he kisses Lee's forehead and he doesn't even feel afraid.
It looks so small, on paper. It seems like such a small thing. But it is so much. To take her hand, to trace her scars, to love her.
It makes him feel more like himself than he has in a long time.
"How long has it been since you woke up and had caused damage?" Orion's therapist, Dr. Stewart "call me Lacey" asks him in their biweekly session after he tells her this.
Orion shrinks. His voice is soft when he says, "A few weeks."
He does not like this question because he knows what Dr. Stewart will say next.
"Have you talked to Princess Lee about updating your sleeping arrangements?"
His jaw tightens. He struggles to keep the anger out of his short reply. "No. It's too soon."
Goddess, he misses sleeping in Lee's arms. He thinks of how nice it would be, to have her there when he wakes from the nightmares. How much more it would feel like home.
"You're at a crossroads in your recovery, Your Highness," Dr. Stacey says in that understanding, encouraging way. "It's an important time to keep in mind how far you've come - and how much of that was because you were willing to trust yourself. Perhaps you want to take this next week to open up the conversation."
Orion wants to ask why Dr. Stewart wants Lee dead so badly, but he bites his tongue.
It takes him two more weeks before he can even bare the thought of bringing it up to Lee. But, eventually, he does.
Like a guilty criminal at the judgment bar, Orion asks Lee if it would be okay with her. Lee agrees immediately (Of course I'm not worried, Orion) and he moves back the next day.
He holds her softly, softly, that night. Lee left the lamp on. He almost told her that it was okay, that she could turn it off. But then he thought that the darkness might bring the panic back, and he might hurt her. She falls asleep.
For a moment, Orion just feels the warmth of her body with his, breathing in her scent like it's air. Then - most surprisingly - his mind really does quiet, and he falls into a shallow sleep.
It takes less than an hour for him to wake up, his heart thundering in his chest, panic filling his lungs like helium.
Lee's legs are tangled in his, and he has to move carefully to separate himself without waking her, but he finally does, scrambling for the door. They left the light on in the main living room, because he's a three year old, apparently, and can't handle any shadows anywhere, so Orion can see perfectly as he closed the door behind him and stumbles to the kitchen sink, trying desperately not to throw up.
He scrubs his face with the cool water like he can wash the nightmare out of his eyes. Then, for several moments, he just breathes, holding himself up on the edge of the marble countertop.
Inhale. Exhale. Breathe. Live.
Each step is painful.
He pours water into a glass, downing the contents quickly. It helps calm, a little bit, the adrenaline in his veins.
He catches movement out of the corner of his eye, in the small shadows that always lurk in the corners of rooms, and he breaks the glass in his hand. But it's nothing; there's nothing there. Another ghost, an imagined phantom. With shaking hands, he begins picking up the glass shards, grateful that none of them cut his hand.
Orion hears rustling from their bedroom, and he holds very still. Lee's voice is bleary and confused when she speaks.
"Orion?"
He closes his eyes, cursing himself.
"Orion?!" Lee calls more frantically. He hears her feet land loudly on the carpet. "Orion!"
"Lee, I'm in here."
Lee wrenches the door open, inertia sending her several unsteady steps forward into the living room. Orion can see the panic still dying in Lee's eyes when they lock on him.
For a moment, she just breathes hard, taking in the broken glass on the floor. Without a word, she pulls the shirt up - it had slipped down - over her shoulder and moves toward him, kneeling down to help him pick up the shards.
"You scared me," she breathes as they throw away the last bits of glass, almost as if in defense.
"Sorry."
Lee bites the inside of her lip. For another moment, Orion avoids her gaze as she looks at him. Eventually, the worry in her shoulders unties into understanding.
"Do you need to be alone?" she offers softly.
Orion isn't sure if his voice will be strong enough to be audible.
Finally, he whispers, "Yes, please."
"Okay. You know where I am."
So Lee goes back to bed.
It takes a moment - ten minutes, an hour, three, Orion doesn't know - before he trusts himself enough to follow her.
When he walks into the room, he expects to find Lee fast asleep. But to their mutual surprise, Orion lights upon Lee, sobbing silently into her arms. When he enters the room, she quickly jerks her head up, wiping away the evidence as best as she can.
"Lee?"
"Hi," she says pathetically.
In seconds, Orion is at her side. He really must be the worst mate in the world, putting Lee through everything like this.
"I didn't mean to scare you," Orion laments, "I won't do it again." Reluctantly, he adds, "Maybe it would be better if I moved back - "
"No! No," she says sternly, "no, it's just - "
She folds her arms, making herself smaller.
"I'm sorry," she chokes out, "I'm just - " She sniffs. Takes a breath, but it doesn't seem to calm her. "Just - it took me back, when you - I'm sorry - "
She covers her face with her hands, trying to wash away the tears.
If Orion struggles to talk about what happened to him, Lee is absolutely mute about what happened to her. He can't imagine. If Lee had been the one they took, if Orion had been the one unable to stop her pain -
"Come here."
Orion tugs at her hands. She pauses, but then all at once she dissolves, falling into him in a mess of half-dried tears. Their legs tangle together, a jumble of each other.
He waits until Lee is asleep.
Like a sinner at confessional, he whispers all of his transgressions. He knows it's cowardly that he doesn't do it while she's awake, but he doesn't think he'll be able to with her eyes looking at him.
"There was a moment," he whispers into the still air as Lee's steady breathing keeps time, "where I wished you were with me. Even though I knew you were safe. I just wanted you. I thought, if you were there, nothing could really hurt me."
And then they are all rushing out, a guilty tsunami.
"It took me two weeks - I think it was two weeks, it was so hard to tell - to give up. I thought you would never find me. Can you forgive me for having so little faith?"
She presses closer to him in her sleep. Orion chooses to take it as a good sign. Still, it is hardest to say this last one, to verbalize such darkness.
"When you - back when we first met, and you ran, the first time I knew for certain you were real is when you were hurt. When they had me, I wanted - wanted you to get hurt so I would know I was still yours." His hand goes to his mark, here. It is as dark and clear as ever, a permanent tattoo of her on his skin.
Then, he feels clean.
For the first time in weeks, he sleeps with Lee's heartbeat near his.
And he thinks, this is what healing is for.