A/N: Took me long enough. I just lost track of time, what with...well...I can't really blame it on college aps, 'cause I sent them in a long time ago. But, homework...and stuff like that... Okay, I'll try my hardest not wait another month before updating.

Disclaimer: Nope, own nothing...

Chapter Four:

Eclipse's eyes fluttered open as he slowly regained consciousness. He felt sharp pains going up his back, and realized that he was sitting up. None of this surprised him, for he was known to sleep hunched over his desk over piles of paperwork. No, what surprised him was that he felt the warm kiss of the sun on his skin. He couldn't remember in his lifetime ever falling asleep outside. It was a new experience and one he never cared to repeat. His entire body felt frozen in that upright position, the grooves of the tree bark permanently pressed into his back. He groaned as he made to move, but then he noticed a light weight on his left shoulder. He groggily opened his eyes and looked in the general direction. Memories of just a few hours ago flooded his mind and he stopped moving, not wanting to wake the young boy.

His efforts were to no avail, for he felt the blond stir on his shoulder. Eclipse heard some incoherent mumbling, then Raenef's head slowly lifted from Eclipse's shoulder and steadied itself on it's spine, while a dazed and confused Raenef studied where he was with fogged over eyes.

When the barely awake Raenef finished recognizing where he was, he looked lazily over at Eclipse. Shivers went down Eclipse's back looking at the ethereal creature bathed in the sunlight with pale, seemingly glowing skin. His radiant blue eyes look innocent and mature at the same time, and his body was deceptively small and fragile looking. The boy in front of Eclipse's eyes stretched in a completely cat-like way, scrunching his nose up and yawning. When he was done, he slouched and looked back at Eclipse, only then noticing that the older man was staring at him. It didn't seem to phase him, in fact, it looked like he was enjoying the attention. Eclipse was utterly embarrassed when he realized what he was doing, jerking his gaze away and focusing intently on particularly fascinating tree root.

Eclipse relaxed back onto the tree. "I'd like to stay here a little longer if you don't mind. It's not every day I get to go outside."

A pleasant smile crept onto Raenef's face, lighting his glow even more. He crawled over to the tree and placed himself next to Eclipse, leaning on the tree too. He gazed out at the sky, his face changing from airy and carefree to contemplative and sad. Eclipse noticed this change and furrowed his brow. He shifted and leaned forward to look at Raenef's down turned face.

"Is something the matter?" He asked.

Raenef's face changed instantly as he looked up again. He slowly closed his eyes and shook his head. Eclipse retreated, only mildly satiated with the response. Something was wrong, but he wasn't about to push his patient farther than he felt was manageable.

Raenef directed his gaze back up at the sky, positioning his face in direct angle with the sun, closing his eyes to prevent the ever-present damage the UV light could do. Once again, Eclipse couldn't help but look upon the face of what he swore was an angel, all of his features were perfectly symmetrical, soft and smooth on his delicate bone structure. And to be topped off with a halo of golden hair, the boy was just too much. Inside of Eclipse, the soft spot he had tried to harden was growing weaker, against the conscious decision of Eclipse. He wanted it to remain callous, so no one could ever hurt him. If he opened up to one person, would he break like a cracked dam with everyone else? He didn't want to take that chance, yet every second spent with his patient was adding more and more cracks in the dam. The one thing that made Eclipse calm about it was that it hadn't seemed to spread with other people. He was still cut-off from everyone else, maybe with the exception of his assistant, but that was mainly out of pity.

"I like the feeling of sun on my skin."

Eclipse's mind shot out of his thoughts. He hadn't said that. He didn't recognize the voice that said that. It was warm and comforting, sweet with just a hint of masculinity. It made his senses tingle, his heart beat faster, his mind go on the fritz...and he still couldn't figure out who said it. He was the only one that could talk...or, rather, would talk. His mind went blank as he slowly rotated his head to look at Raenef. His mind went completely empty, he could literally see in it a tumbleweed floating in the wind through what looked like a deserted town straight out of an old western television show. He gaped at the smallest possibility that Raenef had just talked to him, staring at the young boy who stared nonchalantly back at him.

"Did you just...?" Eclipse exclaimed in a rather weak, raspy voice. Raenef blushed a little, though Eclipse couldn't find enough neurons firing to wonder why.

"Well, I couldn't let you do all of the talking all of the time," he continued in that honey-voice. "Even if I do like the sound of your voice."

Eclipse didn't pick up on the complement. All he could think of was that his mute patient had just talked. All at once his neurons started sending messages to random parts of his body, making his lips and right eye twitch uncontrollably and his hands shake. The only thought going through his head was: "My MUTE patient just talked." Of course, there were other sub-thoughts that didn't even register in Eclipse's conscious mind, such as, 'his voice is so silky', or 'that's so befitting he'd have a voice like that', and a couple of other less innocent thoughts including a Raenef and a pair of handcuffs.

"Y-you...you...talk...?" The great and infinitely intelligent Eclipse was at a loss for words.

"Uh huh," Raenef nodded his head condescendingly, but only in jest. "No one ever said I couldn't."

Eclipse couldn't get over the sounds that were coming out of the boy's mouth. They were actual sounds, forming actual words. Words that he understood! There were so many questions he wanted to ask Raenef, questions about why he wanted to go mute for so long, what traumatic events had happened in his life to give him delusions, why he had cut himself so many times yet always failed in cutting the vein. Eclipse was completely lost, and he hadn't the slightest clue in which direction he should start probing around. This must've shown on his face, for Raenef smiled childishly and bent over to be closer to his psychologist.

"What?" Such a simple question. 'What?'

There was a long, uncomfortable pause, though it only seemed to affect Eclipse. He kept going around his thoughts in circles, starting at one point, and somehow ending at that same point. It was kind of ironic, the previously mute boy was speaking as though he had never stopped, and the person who was supposed to talk to people to bring them out of an alternate reality, could hardly think, no less come up with coherent sentences. He stared straight into the faced that had amazed him minutes ago with a feat that he thought would take months of therapy to produce. And since he couldn't think of anything more intelligent to say, he just stated what first came to his mind.

"Your voice is lighter than I expected," Eclipse said, regaining the use of his vocal chords. It wasn't the most brilliant or profound thing he could've said, but it was something.

"Is that a good thing?" Raenef's hand went up to Eclipse's shoulder, gently brushing down his arm like there was a bug there. The boy didn't realize what this did, but suddenly all of Eclipse's thinking power appeared and started working overtime for the parts it missed.

"You're talking, to me, and I haven't asked any questions...about anything." Eclipse looked shocked and almost horrified at taking so much effort to do his job.

"Well, that's part of the reason I wanted to start talking again. You show an interest in what happened, not like the other times I was hospitalized. Those guys just wanted to fix me, not get to know me." Raenef said sadly, but then he smile again and continued. "So I want to tell you all about my life."

There was a certain lust for knowledge that Eclipse exuded, he wanted Raenef to tell him everything, and only him. He wanted to guard that information with his life, and make sure no one beyond him had any idea as to what Raenef had experienced. It was a rather bizarre feeling, because he knew he would have to share what psychological damage the boy had suffered with his psycho-pharmacologist, and, if he ever went, with his group psychologist. But that would mean sharing Raenef with all those people, and that's not what Eclipse wanted. Though he couldn't actually think that he could keep his patient from going through that. So Eclipse buried those feelings in the back of his mind, to be revisited when he felt like doing a little bit of self-analysis.

Without warning, Eclipse's mind decided that it was done holding back all the questions he had. His head snapped up to look at Raenef. "Why are you here? What did you do? What happened? Why did you cut? But you're so young. Did you snap? Have you ever followed the voices in your head? What's it like to be you?" All of these were followed in quick succession by countless more that got more and more inaudible, to the point where he was just rambling and Raenef had his head tilted to one side, looking utterly confused.

Eclipse barely heard "too much" before he felt pain on either side of his head. Was Raenef trying to stop him from talking by getting violent? But, if he was going to resort to that, then why did he pull his hair? And why didn't it hurt that bad? Granted it was enough to make Eclipse squeeze his eyes closed, but it let up. And then, when his mind was off of the pain in his temples, he felt something else, a light pressure on his lips. He couldn't grasp what Raenef was doing, his brain had been working too fast, and then to be stopped suddenly like that made him revert back to the one brain-celled creature he was before. He slowly opened his eyes, and saw Raenef's face closer to his own than it had ever been. The realization hit him in the gut with the force of a hard ball thrown by a professional. He was being kissed. Instinct told him to push the boy away, and he followed it, but immediately regretted his decision. Raenef's eyes opened in shock and started to tear as he looked on his therapist.

"I...I'm sor..." He started. But he didn't finish his sentence due to being interrupted by heavy sobbing.

Eclipse didn't know what to do, his mind screamed "UNETHICAL," but he wanted to so bad. He hadn't seen it before, but he wasn't just fascinated by the boy, he was oddly attracted to the awkward, gangly blond. It was disturbing that he was attracted to someone so young, but seeing as the other party in question obviously had no objections, he decided to through his ethics out the window, if only just this once. Gently, not like the previous experience, he cupped Raenef's face in his hands and slowly lifted up the boy's face. For a second, he looked into the watery blue eyes before him. Then he dipped in and pressed his own lips against Raenef's tear-stained ones. He heard a little whimper of surprise, and smiled into the kiss, opening his mouth and sliding his tongue over the other's lips. They parted warily, as if Raenef wasn't sure, but Eclipse grabbed the opportunity. Raenef tasted like, well, like nothing Eclipse had ever tasted before, he was sweet and spicy, subtle and completely captivating. Eclipse literally thought he was kissing an angel. Raenef's delicate hands went up to Eclipse's broad shoulders, trailed tantalizingly down his arms, and covered his hands lightly, his fingertips brushing on Eclipse's own fingers and sending shockwaves to the black-haired man's brain.

Eclipse pulled away, not because he wanted to, but because his chest was starting to burn from the lack of oxygen. He took a couple of deep breaths, and looked back at Raenef. He was adorable. His body was frozen in the position Eclipse had left it, sitting up on his knees, his hands hovering an inch away from his face...and his face...his eyes were as big as saucers, but they were no longer blurred with tears. His petal pink lips were still partially open, just enough to make them look irresistible.

"There's no need to be sorry," Eclipse said. Raenef's lips quivered and, if possible, his eyes got even larger and threatened to release the tears stored in them. Eclipse wished he hadn't said anything sentimental. He stood up and extended a hand to the blond. "We should go, it's getting late."

Raenef took his hand and stood up, swiping at the dirt and grass that clung to him. He hadn't noticed that the sun was starting to set, but then again, he wasn't really paying attention to the sun.

They walked back to the main building in a comfortable silence.

Krayon trampled the plant life on his way back to the main trail with all the power he could muster. He had gone through various stages to get to rage, denial, despair, rationalization. But there was no rationalizing what he saw. Besides being completely unethical, Eclipse was kissing someone else! Someone else! Oh, and the part that got Krayon was that it wasn't just some looney patient that could easily be taken care of, it was the one almost completely sane person Eclipse had as a patient. That dorky little mute blond. Though, Krayon couldn't be completely taken aback by what he witnessed, after all, he had suspected a slight attraction from Eclipse to the boy a while back. But that still didn't change the fact that Eclipse was kissing him!

Krayon didn't know what to do. Usually, a psychologist would be fired for that kind of behavior, but fire Eclipse? That would mean Eclipse would be sent far away, and never have any reason to return. That would make seducing him a very difficult task indeed. He could try and blackmail Eclipse into dating him, but Eclipse would figure a way to get out of it, he was too sharp. So blackmail was out of the question. Maybe he could have Raenef transferred to another hospital? No, there would be no reason, and even he in his infinite power would need a reason. And, to his displeasure, Eclipse was making a little progress with the boy. He could see a difference in the way Raenef carried himself in the dining hall. He was less slouched over, more confident.

Krayon slammed the doors to the main building open. Without stopping for anyone, he walked to his office and plopped down on his couch, his coat falling on the coffee table and sliding off, taking some pieces of paper down with it. His red-haired assistant looked up at him, her face scrunched up in annoyance, but with a little bit of an unsaid question gleaming in her green eyes.

"You messed up my papers," she accused, looking down at the papers now landing on the ground. "You're such a drama-king."

"Am not!" He shouted, but she just gave him a look that suggested "uh huh" and knelt down to get the papers. He sighed and got off the couch to help.

His brain strayed back to the question of what he was going to do about the situation with Eclipse and Raenef. He could find nothing he could do to Eclipse, without Eclipse leaving or fighting back. He really didn't think he was clever enough to have a battle-of-the-wits with Eclipse. But... An evil smile twisted the corners of his mouth up. He could do something to Raenef. Eclipse would never know, and maybe Krayon could get points for being sympathetic to him, be a shoulder to cry on. Though he seriously doubted if Eclipse would cry if something happened to that boy, as he started referring to Raenef. He seriously doubted whether anything could make Eclipse cry, but that wasn't one of his current worries. Yes, he could do something to that boy. Maybe try out a new treatment, a cocktail of opiates might be nice, a little stay in solitary confinement? Maybe he would see if lobotomy really did work, and was abandoned prematurely. Electroshock therapy always did wonders to anything, a quick jolt to the brain. He would have to think up more, but in the time being, he was satisfied with his plan.

"Doctor?"

He was pulled back into reality by the voice of his assistant. He noticed he was laughing quietly, sinisterly, and Erutis had a bizarre look. He thought he heard her say something else, but her lips weren't moving. Then the voices got louder and he knew what they were. Krayon shook his head a couple of times and the sounds disappeared. This happened every once in a while, Krayon didn't know why, and frankly he didn't care to find out, he got some of his most efficient treatments through these voices.

"Nothing, nothing," he replied still smiling with the twinkling stars in his eyes, but Erutis knew what he was thinking, if only the general idea of it and none of the specifics. She knew she was going to be pulled into another one of his "off-the-books" treatments. The thing that got her, too, was that she always enjoyed doing these projects with her mentor, sometimes, he could be a brilliant man.

A/N: Won't wait another month!