Inspirations and Thanks: Ryce-chan and Misty… Thank you Misty for making me read the book; you did something wonderful for me, and I don’t even think you realize it ^-^

Sanctuary

Thin and watery, it covered him like frozen love, complete and utter and shocking. It slid down the breastbone of his narrow chest, caught up in the trap of dark hair around his temples, and was softly tangled in the tender fur nestled between his long legs. He didn't mind the effect, the way it cooled in still air, the way it bathed his lips and tasted of salt and hidden natural things, the way it slammed into his head that he was alive, alive and sitting in a rented room off some whore of a road.

The images clung to his retinas, rewinding and playing in a repeated, broken record fashion as his black lashes met his cheeks. The torn thighs spread wide open, coated in blood that flooded from a naked, tattered cavern; the crooked, loose smirk that gripped blue lips and loose hair; the fetus held close to a ripped breast while it suckled straight to the beating muscle beneath, gumming struggling ventricles.

"Look, Steve," her voice whispered, lost on a drug he couldn't place while stroking the alienish head of the child. "Isn't it beautiful? The greatest gift that anyone has ever given me. Much better than yours, you fucking asshole! RAPIST!"

And the rolling blackened eyes seemed to smirk as it clenched the meal within its pink gums, as it pulled back, as she screamed and sighed while new dams were broken and torrents crashed through caverns and through the milky thighs once more.

Beaded sweat brought him around once more, that saving liquid that soon trickled along the rough path of his tongue as he licked his broken lips. Beer, that satisfying relief, was gone, and this night in the cheap motel was a luxury that seemed only too rare on their forced road trip. Another gig wasn't for a week, and their last one had proved decent, but nowhere near as extensive as he had hoped, needed. Clove cigarettes still whispered along his clothes that sat bundled in a corner, while the pads of his digits remembered the brutal cut of the strings.

Ohio loomed outside, somewhere outside Perrysburg in flat land and quiet neighborhoods. Roads never ended, releasing themselves to all that came along with a gallon of gas and a decent set of tires, but the drivers certainly did, when the hypnotic Morose code of lanes drew eyes and minds from the important to the tiring trivial. Stars secreted somewhere; the moon away on hiatus until the following month. Silence stifled the sound, more tangible that the waves that reacted as he moved among the crisp white sheets there were crumpled and strewn across the agonizingly old mattress, complete with dips in the corners and a scent that he chose to ignore.

Liquid lights screamed inhuman hours, and with one fumbling hand, he clutched the display of time and flipped it down. The urge to toss it through the bay window, hidden behind beige stained curtains, almost overcame him, but he pushed it back as the soles of his feet found the comforting thick shag carpet, slightly matted down with hundreds of feet from a hundred nights. His eyes succumbed to the lack of light, molding vision until he could see the shapes looming just inside consciousness. The flat length of blocky wood for the dresser, along with the color television that if hit the right way, could get the porn channels both lurked in shadows, along with a darker void that led towards a mildew sparse bathroom. And lying between that hole and the tainted bed was the doorway to salvation with a cheap metallic knob.

The carpet was warm, calming, against his balmy soles, and he found himself digging his toes down deeper into the thick masses. Ignoring the lack of clothes on his own shimmering body, he took several steps towards the door, wondering just exactly he was going to do once he slipped into the other room, into the other calming bed and rented crisp sheets. What would he say? Would he need to even speak the words? Knowing his roommate, one look at him, and he would know.

After all, Ghost had that gift, that sweet empathic gift. Magick, if he believed in such, was the simplest and most complete way to describe him, and one look at the pale visage of the vocalist and all those doubts would be brushed aside.

"Fuck." Easy semblance, a single syllable that set his muscles, synapses, body into liquid motion. The metal circle felt inhumanly cool against the hot inside of his palm, seeping its frigid kiss down deep into his lifeline. It had been so long since the last one, but Ghost would understand, would know how to take the situation and make it safe.

Idly, he wondered if it was the pure horror of seeing her that night, strewn out and torn to shreds that haunted him, or his own guilt.

The question faded away to blissful white noise in the back of his mind when he opened the door. A room identical to his own was neatly arranged before his eyes, with a thick coat of vibrant pink filtering in through a crack in the curtains brought on by a sign that screamed vacancy outside in a nearly deserted parking lot. Clothes, nothing extravagant and bearing the same sweet, tacky smell of cloves, were neatly arranged on the back of a tattered chair in a lonely corner. A book was sitting on the floor beside the bed, and without looking, Steve knew words and notes that only held meaning to the owner decorated the tight margins of every page.

And lying in the middle of starched sheets, his own chest covered in a starlit sheen of sweat, was the momentary owner of the room. Lips were slightly parted, glistening, moving slowly while caught in the middle of dreaming murmurs. Pale hair was strewn across the pillow he had captured, colored gently with stroking neon fingers.

"Ghost." His voice cracked, trying to keep itself between a whisper and a waking call.

The lashes peeled forth, achingly slowly, and eyes that cleared more by the second landed on the silhouette of the man in doorway. His look, one that threatened to inquire as to what was happening exactly, calmed to a silent acceptance and understanding that brought about the beautiful qualities in his lips, in his eyes. The silence was slain by the sound of him moving to his left elbow, leaning up onto it, while tugging the sheets up.

"Again?" Ghost whispered, his words thick with fading sleep. Then, as an afterthought: "It was another bad one."

Simplicities of nudity were forgotten, laid to death in the backs of minds that cared not either way. The pads of bare feet slipping across the filthy carpet whispered his intentions, carried him to the other's side while slipping beneath the sheets that the boy held propped up for him. Fine boned fingers found sanctuary deep in the raven tresses that sat tangled atop his head while breath slipped across his jaw, hot, thick with sleep and Love and Nature.

"You're holding onto it even now, after everything's that happened," the breath whispered. "You need to let go, let it slip away, otherwise it'll be tied to you forever on gossamer threads."

The neon was shocking against the smooth planes of endless pale fields, a harsh stroke, a gentle kiss, a full flush. Bloodshot eyes curled upwards to the opposing pair, those calming lagoons of matching sets. Roads loomed naked outside, the need to move, to play, to exist overwhelming and igniting the tight passages of his veins, and yet, those pallid iris', rimmed with unnatural shocking pink, pushed all obligations away, smoothed them from the deep wrinkles in gray matter.

"We have a lotta driving tomorrow," Steve muttered, changing the subject. He knew full well what he should be doing, knew that this would drive him eventually insane, even now a year later. But he let it sit quietly, let it fly in the back of his mind as he felt the tightness in the muscles, the blood that roared through his blue tunnels like a freight, calm to the tainted whisper that lingered just beyond his range of hearing.

"Are you going to be up to it?"

"Have to be," was the quiet response, muffled slightly through laxing lips. "Gotta make it home before we head out west."

Out west. It sounded like a cheap cowboy movie, and such a thought brought the languid smile to the pale visage. Fine-boned fingers twirled raven locks, round and round, as he took in the scent of the other. Home, home for a brief moment, to the familiar shades, the customary fragrances, that feel that never left him inside the cool sanctity of his humid house. Idly, he wondered if anyone had crossed over the protective symbol that lay upon their porch, curious on how many people had traveled over the threshold in their absence. Not that it mattered much to him; he had left their haven in good hands and trusted those he and Steve dealt with.

"Excited?" Ghost inquired, moving his lips to rest where his hands lay.

Silence for a moment, before, "Mmhm. New place. New people. New gigs. New memories."

New memories to block out the old ones, but that was left unsaid and well known. One thin pale leg slid up and looped around the other contrasting set, two limbs downed with wispy black hair that was softer higher up the thigh one traveled. The same vibrant light had devoured the darker skin, had washed away the scruff brought on by a few days of not shaving, and had made the eyes glow with a radiant incandescence.

They were both bewitching, appendages soon tangling one another in the dim room, the neon like washes of blood upon the sheets. Perhaps suicide lovers they were, with some clichéd note speaking volumes of cruel worlds and even crueler people hidden somewhere in the depths of deposited jeans. Perhaps murdered in the path of love, with some random encounter of bigots that happened upon such an act of homosexuality. But under the glow, their faces filled with peace rather than horror, they looked as if they passed from the world, let it linger behind them without any desire to return.

Nothing had told them to leave, and they had obeyed with little argument. Home seemed a memory, some Heaven to the Hell that had been New York, that twisted play of Poe's with people that seemed less than human and street urchins that had laid vile touches upon their ego. Sweet as it was, it was a lingering mirage until feet settled onto breathy steps, until the thick southern layer of heat and moisture settled against his skin, his clothes, and caused both of them to become one. It seemed so far, yet close, something fingertips could not touch, yet was tangible enough to taste.

They would leave the confines of this borrowed room tomorrow, the neon to be replaced with the natural once the sun slipped over the road. Steve's breath was hot against his pulse, already slow, already quiet, smooth and even as sweet sleep let him rest. Digits uncurled from the depths of his hair, moving down his back, tickling the ridges of his spine, and he knew that he if touched those lips with his own, he would taste the lingering beer that sat on the tip of tongue.

Morning would be cruel the next day, but until that arrived, Ghost basked in the quiet comfort of the night and the hushed world that surround them enough to stroke their hair, but remained far enough not to swallow them. For the moment, for his life, this was all he would ever truly need.

The End?