[POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING] Talking about a dead sibling. Reader discretion is advised.

"Hey."

I must have fallen asleep at some point because Jake isn't there. I'm also in a patient room. I look to my right, shocked when I see Orion in the bed next to me.

"Orio?"

He looks a lot better. What little color he has in him has returned, so he no longer seems like a chameleon against the bed sheets. The dark circles have lessened, and he's sitting up.

He grins. "Once you were out of recovery I threw my weight around and convinced them to let us have a room together."

I smile at him weakly. "Thank you."

"My family just landed," he tells me a little sadly. "They'll be here in a bit."

I nod.

"Jake told me you talked to him."

I grin and nod. Orion rolls his eyes. "Finally."

I chuckle but immediately regret it.

"Hey," Orion tells me seriously. I look at him, surprised.

"I know you're the strong one in this relationship, and while I appreciate it, you need to settle the fuck down now, okay?"

I raise an eyebrow because that's literally all I have the strength for right now.

"Seriously. You re-opened your wound from moving around too much too soon. That's why I wanted you here with me--now you don't have to go down the hall."

I mumble a chuckle. "We're a wreck. I can't believe going down a hallway is too much."

"Yeah," he smiles at me, "but it'll get better."

"I appreciate it love," I mumble.

Orion cranes his head to the side and looks deeply worried. "Are you okay?"

I shake my head, and then put my head back and close my eyes. "I just had two surgeries. I'm just really tired..."

"Go to sleep, babe. Rest up. I'll be here when you wake up."

With a smile on my face, I do exactly what he says and go to sleep.

~

We're still in Colorado. The overwhelming majority of critiques Saturn Mutants have received are positive. Their style seems to have been officially dubbed terror rock, because after that Rolling Stone article it's what everyone is calling it.

Soon the harsher critics emerge. "They're trying to hard." "Their sound is disheveled and all over the place." "Sounds like a bunch of thirteen years olds having jam sessions in one of their parent's garage." "Tried to push the envelope, and failed."

Orion and everyone else merely laughs at it. It still shocks me how different professional Orion is compared to my boyfriend. It makes sense to an extent. Everyone tries to act professionally at their jobs. An unspoken truth is that work should stay at work and home should stay at home, regardless of the occupation.

I know Orio is living in constant fear of the band crumbling. I know his insecurities about not being good enough. So it's after we make celebratory love with one another for how well everything is going do I prod him a little.

"I'm happy the negative reviews aren't getting to you."

"Fuck 'em," he mumbles, still groggy in our post-coital snuggles.

I chuckle. "It doesn't bother you?"

He twists around in my arms, looking at me. I love how he looks, pale skin practically glowing against my dark tan, hair mussed and sticking every which way, his eyes wide and doeish. He blinks at me, his lashes fluttering. Even when he's not, Orion always looks like he's wearing faint eyeliner, a byproduct of dark lashes against such pale skin.

"Why would it bother me?"

"It doesn't feed into your insecurities?"

He looks touched, tracing over my cheek again and again with his gentle index finger. "What did I do to deserve you? You always check in with me. You always make sure I'm alright."

I kiss his nose. "I love you, Orion."

"Call me Orio," he says almost desperately.

I chuckle, giving the tip of his small nose another kiss. "I love you, Orio."

"I'm my own worst critic," he tells me seriously then. "I might be an absolute basket-case, obsessively checking and rechecking my work...But that's all that matters to me, Tristan. If I'm doing my best, nothing else fucking matters."

I listen, my full attention on him. I love when he speaks.

"No two people like the exact same things. So why would I expect everyone to like everything I produce?"

"That's a very logical way of looking at it," I tell him, silently proud.

"I know people in the industry who let all that get to them. I have friends that downright obsessively check any article that mentions them." He shakes his head. "That's not healthy."

I can't help it, I laugh. He gives a sardonic grin. "I know, right? Since when am I the epitome of sanity?"

I kiss his nose again.

"But really. If you listen to everything everyone else says, you're going to fucking lose yourself in the bullshit. Now, if I released an album and across the board got bad reviews, then they'd have my attention. But if the majority of people say they like it?" He furrows his brow in resolution. "Then fuck everyone else."

I kiss him passionately. He's come such a long way. He's done remarkably well since him and I got back together. I can feel the adoration pouring out of my eyes as I look at him.

"I'm so proud of you."

He looks at me wide-eyed. Then he grinds his crotch on me and whines. "Tris! You can't fucking kiss me like that and then be sweet! You're sending me mixed signals, dude "

I laugh, narrowing my eyes. "Then let me clear the confusion for you."

And we go right back for round two.

--

"I cannot believe it's still raining," Amy moans.

We're in the entertainment room of the bus. Orion and I are playing a video game. Truthfully I think he's going easy on me. I'm not very good at them, whereas he's really good at them. Or maybe I'm getting better? Doubtful, though.

"So I've been thinking about getting a motorcycle," Orion says as he sits straighter, doing some sort of button combination that sends my character flying off screen a moment.

"Why?" I ask, senselessly mashing the buttons because I have actually no idea what I'm doing.

"I d'no. Because they're fast? They're exciting."

"They're death traps," I comment as my character goes flying off screen again.

"Walking outside is a potential deathtrap," Orion retorts.

"There are unavoidable circumstances," I say, my eyes honed onto the screen, determined to not let him win this round, "and there are situations you have control of. I don't see how getting on a machine that's the size of you and hurtling down the road on hard concrete is something anyone would want to do."

"That's why people have helmets," Orion tells me. "That's why you wear protective gear."

"It's playing Russian Roulette." I tisk. "Yeah, no thanks."

"You do that every time you get into a car, or on a bus."

"Tell that to my brother," I reply, jamming the buttons on my controller so hard I fear I'm going to snap it in half. "At least in cars there's airbags and seat belts."

Orion turns his head. "Wait, brother? Tris, you have a brother?"

"Had," I correct. "He died in a motorcycle accident three years ago."

"WHAT?"

Orion drops his controller into his lap and gawks at me. When I don't say anything, still playing and beating his immobile character's ass, he grabs my controller and flings it off to the side.

"Hey! That was my chance to beat you for once--"

"Why did you never tell me?" Orion demands.

I look at him. "Because I don't like talking about my dead brother? For fuck's sake, Orion, would you?"

"Er, do you guys want me to leave?" Amy asks. "Because I totally can--"

I sigh, ignoring Amy. "I suppose I have to talk about this now, don't I?"

"Damn straight you do," Orion snips at me.

"Seriously," Amy says, getting to her feet, "I'm just gonna go--"

"Stay," I tell her, "I'm sure he'd tell you anyway."

"What happened?" Orion presses.

I look at him evenly. "Well. He decided to get on a motorcycle one day, got into a wreck, and never came home."

I get to my feet and go to the bar that now strictly has nothing but virgin drinks. I go behind it, grabbing a soda. Orion follows me--Amy does not. I take out a glass from one of the cupboards. Orion has more or less cornered me, sitting at the bar while I'm behind it.

"What was his name?" Orion asks me gently.

I narrow my eyes. "Orion."

"It's a simple question."

I sigh angrily. "Tyler."

He smiles faintly. "Cute. Two 't' names."

I roll my eyes, crushing the empty can in my hand. "Yeah, fucking adorable."

"Was he older, younger?"

I pause a moment, simply grinding my teeth. Then I take three big gulps of my drink, finishing almost the entire thing. "Older."

"By how much?"

"Stop," I tell him.

He frowns. "Why?"

"I already said I don't like talking about it," I say quietly. I think if he doesn't shut up, this is going to be one of those rare instances where we have a fight.

"What's the big deal? I just wanna know how much the age gap was."

"The big deal," I growl through my teeth, "is that he's fucking dead."

"What, did you guys not get along or something?"

"Stop!" I bellow. "Just--fucking stop Orion!"

He looks stunned. How he could be surprised, I don't know, it wasn't like I hadn't just told him several times I didn't want to talk about it. I love him, but he can be dense as fuck sometimes.

"What do you want me to tell you, Orion? What do you want to hear? That he was my rock? That he was the first person who I came out to? Do you wanna hear about all the boat models we built together and painted, and how we'd race them every summer?"

Orion, I can tell, has zero idea what to do. So I just rant.

"Or do you wanna hear how after he died things got weird? Wanna hear how my mom started drinking like the entire fucking universe was dying, and how my dad started to work longer and longer hours at the shop?"

"Tris--"

I point at him, still yelling. "I'm not fucking like you, Orion! I don't like thinking about all this, I don't like feeling all this. He's dead, he's fucking in the ground back in Texas, and there's nothing I can do! And if I fucking crumbled like you do every time the fucking wind blew, my brother would roll over in his grave because he just wanted me to be happy. So I make myself happy and I don't think about this shit!"

Orion's dark orbs have turned to fire. I really don't care though.

"I don't like regurgitating pain like you. So yes, I fucking joined up in Amarillo because I was running away from my mom who thinks I didn't know she's drinking mimosas every breakfast, and I was running away from my dad who I know always liked my brother more, even though he'd never say it to my face."

Orion takes a sharp gasp, though he still looks pissed.

"It is what it is! I can't bring him back, my family is never gonna be the same again, so why should I dwell on something that can't be fixed? I've been moving the fuck on and made a life for myself, because why should I do anything but that?"

"Done?" Orion finally says quietly.

Instead of answering him I down the rest of the soda and flounce past him. He doesn't move, simply tracing his eyes with my trajectory as I storm back to the door. I stomp across the entertainment room and throw open the door with a bang.

Everyone in the main seating area tries to make it look like they're doing other things. It's not until I sit down does everyone get up and move farther back into the bus. If I wasn't so pissed, it would've been funny. They practically trip over each other trying to get to the door.

But it's not funny, and I know I hurt Orion with the things I said about him. So I tilt my head back against the seat and breath deeply, shutting my eyes.