In the dark, against one another, the mismatched beating of two hearts together was the only sound besides the feathery breathing. Half asleep, his cheek pillowed on Zara's naked chest, Kyotoshi nuzzled absently in her white fur, inhaling the scent. She should have smelled like a hospital, like disinfectant and illness and white cloths. But Zara didn't, she had a smell all her own that he wrapped himself in like a blanket and refused to climb out of. They'd have to bring in one hell of a pair of scissors to rip him out of here, especially after all they'd done to him on the outside. Zara's fingers, lithe and perfectly shaped, tapering smoothly without bumps over her knuckles or nails slid smoothly over Kyotoshi's resting arm. Only the very tips of her perfection dared touch his fur, trailing up across the yellow Hekshanian's shoulders and snaking around his neck, Zara pulling him into an embrace Kyotoshi could only return with closed eyes.

"Let's get the hell out of here," his voice moved like a moth around a lightbulb, erratic and nearly a figmant of the imagination, muffled against Zara's body. The crook of his elbow moved across her stomach, a delta drifting sideways until his hands reached her ribcage, moving to cling closely too her under the sheets. Zara's cheek brushed the top of the yellow feline's head, resting there, her even breathing raising both their heads up and down. The light brushing of her eyelashes against his hair, the ruffling so slight only in their singlemindedness would he have been able to recognize it...it was the only signal she was still awake until she spoke.

"I hate to run," It came out the same soft tone, two moths dancing against one another. Step, point, turn, step in the light, trying not to be burned. "If I run too far, it'll never make things better. Standing and fighting it through means you were strong enough to survive it..."

Kyotoshi shifted against her chest, his free hand reaching behind his head to close around her chopstick perfect fingers, Zara glowing like a ghost in the dark, her pure white the only thing making her visable. "This isn't a fight, Zara, this is a torture. They don't make people better here, you know that as well as I do. It's not running. It's just leaving."

Zara locked her ice chip eyes against his, opening her mouth to speak, the perfect white of her teeth and small canines outlined against the darkness of her throat. She tried, fell silent a moment and began to speak again, softly. The way he looked at her, like a lost animal, she knew what he meant wasn't that he wanted to leave. He wanted her to leave with him, he wanted to be with her. This was unspoken, better left unspoken, as when things are transfered into words they become mechanical and meaningless. The edges of Zara's eyes tilted downwards, a dulling quality entering her irises and swirling, a sort of sore regret of knowing..."I have to stay here for now..."

"Why? You know they're just trying-"

Zara shifted, starting to sit up, the thin hospital sheets sliding away from her lower half leaving her ice white body exposed in the dark, glowing faint. Ghost girl, her tail rippling like a wave to the side. Kyotoshi moved away from her chest a moment but perfect hands moved around the back and sides of his head, the touch ghost gentle too, moving his cheek back into position against her breast. She wasn't pushing him away. This wasn't a rejection. "Sometimes I feel like I'm ready to go back out there, and then sometimes I realize I can't handle it yet...I don't have anywhere to go, to go back into the sea of darkness means I might never pull back out again. You understand," Her soft hands stroked through his hair, ruffling it backwards in waves. "Right?"

Kyotoshi sighed, his breath ruffling the short hairs on her chest, like a field of iced wheat. "You can't take the pressure of being out there," He simplified it aloud, shutting his eyes. It was...understandable. "But you will be able to sometime, right?" His voice was sinking, hopeful but not hoping. It was against odds.

With gentle hands, Zara tilted Kyotoshi's face upwards, smiling sadly as her lips brushed his again in a lingering butterfly kiss. "I'll leave someday. Just wait for me, and keep alright for then, okay?"

"Promise?"

Shattering darkness, silence, solitude, security. The door exploded inwards and crashed against the far wall, rebounding forward as a thick hand slapped against it, stopping its bezerker path. Zara and Kyotoshi, both jumping broke apart with a lightning quick shock. Kyotoshi slipped and fell off the bed on the far side, his hands scrambling for the hospital pants somewhere along the floor, Zara pulling the sheets up around herself like a dress, not screaming as anyone would have thought but glaring her daggers at the intruders. Who in the hell would interupt them? Who in the hell had the nerve?

A doctor, Human, one of the ones neither of them had seen before was at the head of the small army flowing out into the hallway. His face was built of girters of steel, mechanical and unfeeling, returning Zara's glare without a blink. As Kyotoshi scrambled to stand and tie the hospital pants at the same time, already spitting curses at shattering volume, the man moved forwards into the room, his lackeys spilling in behind him. He moved, the man large enough in spirit if not body to encircle them both as he began to speak, his voice a machine's meaningless whine. What they'd done wrong, rules, regulations, security, dangers, abnormal behavior, sick, twisted, what did they think they were-

Kyotoshi cut him off quite abruptly. "I'm checking the hell out of here." If the man was about to say something to stop him, the Hekshanian cut it off by spitting on the floor on his shoes. Were they shined, clean? Didn't matter. "I'm a legal adult, over eighteen, you can't hold me here against my will. So bug off." He sidestepped the human and glared down the others in his way. Zara lifted herself and moved after him without a sound, a white shadow above all the filth and corruption and lies being spilt like vomit in her path. Her white hand enclosed his shoulder as Kyotoshi walked, her voice whispering in his ear.

"I'll be with you soon. I promise. I have to stay...just a little longer, I promise."

Hands and arms moved automaticly, what felt right, turning and closing around her in an embrace that pulled the white Hekshanian softly against his bare chest. Kyotoshi's nose nuzzled through her lightly silver hair and he returned the whisper, the hum of a bee from far away. "I'll wait for you. Every day if I have to, until they chase me off. I promise."

Lab coats chasing up the snake collars of arms and hands, the fingers teeth sinking into the both of them and pulling them apart, the meaningless machine buzz behind them, Kyotoshi held Zara's fingertips until they were pulled too far away to reach any longer. Silently now, he turned and began to walk. Passing through the white hallways now unmolested, it seemed that through the single act of defiance he'd broken their iron grip over him. When he asked for his posessions back, they returned them without question. And so he walked, and walked, through the swinging white glass doors that swallowed like a gluttonos whale. Kyotoshi broke free into the night once again, the streetlamps looking down at him with unblinking eyes.

What if the streetlamps controlled our lives, a streetlight conspiricy...

I gotta admit it's been a long time since I wrote again, but being back here it feels like I ought to. Sitting on one of these damn uncomfortable metal benches outside the hospital whenever I can, with books and open journals, a paper bag with a bottle of kahlua, whisky, whatever. It's become a way of life for me now, maybe this was what Ken Kesey spent his time doing before he finally died. Maybe that's how he got to know this so well. Yeah...I finally learned his name. This guy who's book I've been living this whole time. I carry it with me now, along with Alice, a travelling preist with his scriptures.

Maybe I'm trying to save people, or maybe I'm trying to save myself. I guess I won't know til the end finally gets here and swallows us all up.

I wait for Zara here, every day, like I promised. She does come out sometimes, to tell me how she is. They have to let her now that she's kicked them and shown they only have as much spine as she does. Once I went in, on visitor's day. You should have seen Yulling and Jerrim glare. It was priceless. I ran into Juudai in the lounge. His idea of my oweing him meant that now I had to kiss him. In front of everyone. Damnit Juudai. I think he's incurable. But in the good way, that you hope to god nobody ever gets cured of.

Sometimes he bangs on the glass from floors above before they grab him and haul him off. He's not old enough to tell them off like Zara and I did. But he's alive, and she's alive.

And here I am, not dead yet. Even hell didn't kill me.

So I'm waiting, and writing. Sometimes people ask me what I write about. I tell them it's fiction. Kinda based off real life. Nothing we write is ever really true, no matter how straight out it is. Words never tell the whole truth. One word misplaced means something so different.

The flowers are starting to bloom in the gardens that surround this place, little islands of colour. So the bees'll be back soon. Maybe they won't dig inside this time.

It's nice when your arms don't sting anymore. It's nice to look at scars and know what they mean. It's nice to have a reason to wait, to have a reason to write.

It's nice to have a reason for living.

end