He’s never been a light sleeper, but he learnt to be, especially now, when he’s still in danger mode and anything could be out there. These times, he usually lies awake, staring at the ceiling, with Jenny nearby or asleep. She isn’t here, there’s only the blanket curled up on his legs like a lazy octopus. He kicks it off. As Ion he barely needed food or rest, the bed at Kaaterskill’s Notch was a formality.
To go from that to being human again had been a shock, but he’d adjusted.
And then he’d spent a few days in that cell and, as he squints at the window in the half-darkness, he realises he misses the cacophony. There was always someone awake, someone singing, or crying, or dreaming, and he could latch on, follow it.
Here, there was only silence, of the belligerent kind.
He hasn’t adjusted to being back in a bed, and for the first few nights, he sits, back to the wall, keenly staring at the various objects in the room (Zatanna fixed his paintings. Kyle makes a note to buy her ice cream of her choice, and then more, for healing his hands). He doesn’t start at any of the sounds outside, instead, he nearly dares them to enter. Come, he thinks, jaw tight, tone fierce. I don’t need an army. Come and test me, if you dare.
His ring doesn't leave his sight for several days. In fact, he’s fiddling with it when he starts. There’s no noise, there’s just... an instinct. Honed sharply from years of being the only person watching his own back in a strange place (and the room is strange, he still smells the blood and sweat of the cell). Kyle starts, even more on edge, takes the knife from under his pillow and treks slowly to the window, intent on hurting whatever is outside, if it intends to hurt him.
DAMIAN;
To go from that to being human again had been a shock, but he’d adjusted.
And then he’d spent a few days in that cell and, as he squints at the window in the half-darkness, he realises he misses the cacophony. There was always someone awake, someone singing, or crying, or dreaming, and he could latch on, follow it.
Here, there was only silence, of the belligerent kind.
He hasn’t adjusted to being back in a bed, and for the first few nights, he sits, back to the wall, keenly staring at the various objects in the room (Zatanna fixed his paintings. Kyle makes a note to buy her ice cream of her choice, and then more, for healing his hands). He doesn’t start at any of the sounds outside, instead, he nearly dares them to enter. Come, he thinks, jaw tight, tone fierce. I don’t need an army. Come and test me, if you dare.
His ring doesn't leave his sight for several days. In fact, he’s fiddling with it when he starts. There’s no noise, there’s just... an instinct. Honed sharply from years of being the only person watching his own back in a strange place (and the room is strange, he still smells the blood and sweat of the cell). Kyle starts, even more on edge, takes the knife from under his pillow and treks slowly to the window, intent on hurting whatever is outside, if it intends to hurt him.