**CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNING** Reader discretion is advised. Brief mention of molestation.

The sound of crumpling metal makes me wake up. Amy is screaming again. I blink several times, trying to focus my eyes, trying to just stay awake.

There's bright light. I look over and I'm confused. There's a door where there wasn't one, and people are coming in.

"Them," Gloria tells the people. She's pointing to myself and where Amy is.

I must black out again or something, because then someone is in front of me, shining a light in my face, holding open my eye. I blink and cringe. I understand what's going on now.

There's more people. It's a bit chaotic. Amy's gone silent again. There are people by Ben trying to free him. I don't know where Gloria went.

"G-Gloria?"

"Sir," the medic in front of me says, "can you tell me your name, please?"

"Tristan," I mumble. "It's Tristan."

"Where are you hurt, Tristan?"

"My side..." I grab the guy's wrist weakly. "Orion...you have to save Orion..."

I look down and Orion isn't there. I panic. "Where is he? Where's--"

"He's safe. He's being airlifted to the hospital."

"I have to go with him--"

"You have to worry about yourself, Tristan."

"No!" I snap and attempt to move. But when I try to lurch forward my vision blurs and I nearly pass out again.

"Hey, don't move, okay? We'll get you out of here, alright?"

"I have to know if he's okay," I say desperately, trying not to faint as another emergency responder comes over.

They're muttering something between themselves. I only catch bits and pieces. "Have to move quickly." "Some sort of internal hemorrhaging." "Going to need surgery."

"Please," I beg them, willing myself not to cry. "Please, you have to tell me...Tell me if he's alright..."

One of the medics puts his hand on my shoulder and smiles. "You're in good hands, Tristan. It's going to be okay."

But what about Orion?

I don't know if I got the words out because everything is black.

The next thing I know I'm outside. The jostling from being transported made me wake up. Every little bump hurts. I'm on a flat slab of plastic--it's rather uncomfortable. They've hooked me up to an IV, and four people are running me to a red helicopter.

As I'm moved I look around myself. Gloria and Jake are being treated temporarily by the side of the road. I assume they wanted to get the more critically injured out first. 

Then I notice the bus. I understand now why Orion, Amy, and myself got the worst of it. Our side had been completely smashed against the mountainside.The front of the bus isn't even recognizable anymore.

I shudder, understanding how lucky we are to be alive. I just hope it stays that way. And as they load me onto the helicopter, and I look down at the boulders, the smashed RV that hit us in what I can only assume was an attempt to avoid the boulders, and our decimated bus, all I can think about is Orion.

I'm delirious and I know that. I say his name over and over. I don't care what happens to me, he needs to be okay; otherwise I've failed him. And as I feel myself passing out again, his name is the last word that passes through my lips.

~

Orion and myself are sitting at the kitchen table. His siblings are elsewhere. Orion made it a point to make extra sure Amy wasn't around anywhere--apparently she has a bad habit of eavesdropping when she really shouldn't be. Even when he was sure she was gone, throughout the conversation he would periodically glance over his shoulder.

"So," his mother spoke, holding a cup of steaming tea. I'll never understand how people can drink caffeinated beverages in the evening. Personally if I did that, I'd be up all night. "You said over the phone there was something you wanted to tell me?"

"Y-yeah," Orion replies.

Under the table, I slip my hand into his and give it a squeeze.

She raises her eyebrows. "Is it serious?"

"No. Well I mean yeah. I mean, for me, anyway."

He takes a deep breath, and I give his hand another squeeze.

"Go on."

"I've decided to legally separate from my adoptive parents."

His mother blinks. "Oh."

We can hear the crickets chirping outside. I shift uncomfortably in my seat. It squeaks loudly, so I just stop moving.

"May I ask why?"

"Because they sucked," he tells her immediately.

She chuckles. "Well, if you're going to such a drastic measure years later, I gathered as much."

Orion looks down. "It-It was mainly my dad. He, uh, well, he used to beat me."

His mother's hand goes to her face. Orion glances at her. "I'm sorry--I know how much you care about me, and how shitty you feel--"

"Orion," she says sharply.

"Sorry, how bad you feel about giving me up, so if you don't wanna hear this--"

"I do."

He pauses. "Are--are you sure?"

She nods. So he takes a deep breath and continues.

"Well, erm, he also used to say I wasn't worth anything. That I should stop going to school because it was just a waste of everyone's time. And it became this self-fulfilling prophecy because--well, because I didn't believe in myself. Instead of getting angry and trying to prove him wrong, I got angry at myself."

"That's why--"

"Y-yeah," he cuts her off softly and looks at his lap. He then looks at her and the expression on his face kills me. It's like a wounded child. "There's...something else, but that I really don't want to get into with you about."

I wince. He's started to squeeze my hand beneath the table so hard it hurts. I look at him but outwardly he's giving no suggestion he's practically crushing my hand out of sight. So I just take a slow, soft hiss of a breath.

"It's really messed up, and, well--"

"It's okay," his mom says with a soothing smile, "I'm not here to make anything difficult for you, sweetie."

He stops squeezing my hand and sighs. He then nods.

"I am curious though...Why are you telling me all this?"

"It's important to me," Orion replies, looking at his mother right in the eyes. "Plus I just--I don't know. I wanna make sure that, well, you don't think it's weird."

She laughs lightly. "Why would I think it was weird, dear?"

"Because I know I didn't have to tell you any of this. And plus if I sever my ties with them, well..." He looks at his lap, but then raises just his dark eyes to her. "Then you're all the family I have. And after not being here for twenty-nine years, that's a lot."

To my relief she gets up, goes to Orion, and pulls him into a hug. She kisses the top of his head and then strokes his hair. "Oh sweetie..."

"I just wanna make sure it's what you want," he says quietly, staring off into space and not hugging her back.

"Why wouldn't I?"

"I d'no," is all he replies with, and it feels like someone just stabbed me in the chest.

--

A bit later, Orion and myself are outside on the porch. The subject of Amy hadn't even been broached while we were inside, like was originally planned. I could tell the conversation just now had jostled...something within Orion. Something had been knocked free. Something had bobbed to the surface. Something dark and unpleasant, it's whispering tendril sneaking out and threatening to take a hold of my own neck.

I was waiting patiently for him to initiate a conversation with me. Instead all Orion did was stand there, ebony eyes fixated on the evergreen trees that shielded the house from the main road. As I watched him silently, I came to realize it was like he wasn't in there; zero expression on his face, eyes dull and unfocused.

He was on his seventh cigarette in a row. I had never seen him chain smoke that much before. Plus he was visibly shaking. I couldn't take it anymore.

"Wanna go for a walk?"

Orion blinks a few times and looks at me. "Sorry, what?"

I can't help but frown a bit. "Did you want to go for a walk, Orion?"

"Sure," he replies, immediately snuffing out his cigarette. Orion flips up the hood of his jacket, stuffing his hands into his pants pockets while jogging down the steps.

It's drizzling, so I pull up the hood of my blue jacket, too. I follow him as he leads me to the back of the house. There's another line of trees here and he walks across the yard, heading straight to it. Even as we break the forest line, I follow him wordlessly.

"Orion," I say after about a minute of tromping through underbrush. "Is it okay to be back here?"

"Yeah. There's an old hiking trail we're gonna hit soon, don't worry," he tells me. "Amy showed me. It's not far, we won't get lost."

I trust him so I don't say anything. Sure enough we start walking along a pathway. It's a bit over grown in some areas, but it's still very clearly a trail. As we walk the rain picks up. It's not pouring or anything, just a nice, peaceful rain.

"Do we have to worry about bears?" I ask.

"No. We're fine."

"It's night."

"No shit, Sherlock," he grumbles at me. "Amy and I have come out here at night plenty of times. It's safe."

I grunt in reply. We go back to walking in silence. After awhile the path opens up even wider, and now it looks like a proper trail. It seems as though other trails converge on this path.

It makes me feel a little more at ease, knowing that it's not completely backwater. Maybe we're not going to die via bear or serial killer at any given moment. I feel a little silly at my jumpiness, but I've never really been a forest-y type of guy.

"So what's up?" I ask him softly.

"What do you mean?"

He's been periodically stopping to snuff out his cigarettes, putting the butts in his pockets to not make a mess. It's a sweet gesture--I love his love for nature and animals. However, at this particular moment, it's not quite as adorable as it normally is.

"You're on your tenth cigarette, Orion."

"But who's counting, right?"

"You've been visibly shaking since talking to your mom."

"I'm cold."

"Orion." I start speaking strictly, but then soften my voice. I need to approach this as a clean start. I can't hold past transgressions against him. I shut my eyes a moment. "Please be honest with me."

"I am."

"Were you cold at the house?"

A pause. "No."

"Because you were shaking there, too. Plus you damn near broke my hand."

Orion isn't looking at me, he's staring at his feet as we walk. "If I tell you something, do you promise not to tell anyone?"

"Of course," I say immediately, and I mean it.

"Never?"

"Orion, I would never."

"And once we talk about it, we can never talk about it again, understand?"

My heart starts to beat faster. "If that's what you want, Orion, of course. Anything you need, love."

"Never hint at it. Never even elude to it."

"I promise."

"My dad molested me."

I nearly trip.

"It was only once. I was thirteen. And I never told my adoptive mom. And, besides you, I've never told anyone, except my therapists."

"Orion," I say, tugging on his wrist to stop walking.

He turns his body to face me. And when I look at him, even though it's dark and even though it's raining, I'm pretty sure he's crying. My face crumples. I put my hand to his cheek and hold it there.

Orion shudders, his bottom lip quivering. Unexpectedly, he collapses to his knees in the mud. I immediately kneel with him.

"He touched me. That's all he did, but still. My mom wasn't home. I had been crying after a fight, and he reached into my pants and cupped me and said, 'Are you even a man?', and then walked away. And afterwards I just felt so dirty, but no matter how much I washed myself I just couldn't get that feeling off."

He sinks onto the backs of his legs and he's gone back to staring at nothing, like on the porch. "And I still can't. And that's why I claw at myself, because I just get so uncomfortable and my skin feels so prickly, and it feels so gross, and it just feels wrong..."

I watch him twitch. He's holding his forearms, clearly fighting the urge to dig his nails in, even through his jacket.

"I just feel like I could crawl out of my skin. I just--it just sometimes feels like there's bugs under my skin when I get uncomfortable about something...I just want to get them out."

"Orio..."

"And the pain feels good, because it's a distraction from the bug feeling, and from my thoughts..." He blinks and focuses on me. "What was there about me that would make someone want to do that to me? I was a fucking kid, Tristan."

I pull him into a tight hug. "Love, it's not your fault."

"We're never talking about this again, understand?" he growls at me through gritted teeth, unblinking, staring off into some void again. "Never."

I kiss his forehead. "Never."

I vow in that instant that no matter what happens between him and I, I am never going to let anything bad happen to him again. If there is living breath within me, I will protect him. I don't care if we break up down the line; he is my top priority, and I will always check in and make sure he's okay.

I don't know how much time passes in the middle of the forest, doing nothing but kneeling in the mud and rain, holding Orion.

But I don't mind. Whatever he needs.