AN: Nothing to do with the story, but I've just realized I've been calling the Sohma compound a "complex." Like apartments or something. Huh. In the words of my younger brother, "Can we pretend that didn't happen?"

This takes place a day or so after Haunted, thus Akito's even bringing up Tohru.

Disclaimer: No one, nothing. Even the "outline train" line is from Buffy. Mostly, though it's all Natsuki Takaya's.

Dedication: For hulahula, whose idea it was.

"When you try to think out clearly what this sun must be, you cannot tell me. You can only tell me it is like the lamp. Your sun is a dream…"

-Jadis, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Silver Chair

There are two kinds of light.

One of them is far away and warm, its rays kissing your face on a bright day. Without it, we would never have existed.

One of them is close and hot, dancing and making shadows. We use it to drive back the dark, and without it we would die.

Fire roars and crackles, makes me warm and whole. It says, "I love you."

There are others with me, and we huddle into the flames even though they hurt. God, they hurt, peeling flesh and turning bone to ash. Still, around us, everything is black, nothing but a formless void, and this is something.

But… the pain steals our breath, our memories, our souls and hearts…

There will be nothing of us left, we'll be gone, but the fire doesn't know.

It just wants to hold us.

Can it blame us for wanting the sun?

"Kyo. Kyo, I know you're awake."

I open my eyes without moving any other part of my body and take in small things, a little at a time.

The ceiling is plain brown, like the rest of this place. Three rooms, one door, two windows, facing north and south.

I'm in the bedroom, on the floor mats, stretched out with my hands beneath my head. They're asleep, now.

When I lay down, I was in the sun, bars in the low windows scratching their freezing shadows across my face.

There isn't much sunlight in here, not with how low the windows are, how they face nowhere that it might shine. I can't even see it, at least I haven't been able to yet. Maybe at some point in the year it'll go sideways enough, but I don't know much about how we circle it and all.

I don't know if I'll ever see the sun again.

The light comes in, sure. No getting away from the reminders of what I'll never have, even when I'd rather it were that way, which isn't often. Like picking a scab or cutting… It's pain, but it's habit and it keeps me going.

But I can't see the sun.

Certainly not now.

It's night now, and cold all over. There's a chilly breeze coming in from the only window in the room, and I sit up slowly, shaking out my numbness and loving the feel of the wind even while I hate the air itself. It's free, blowing in and out like there are no bars, no cage.

Bathroom, kitchen, bedroom. One Western-style door in the kitchen, with no doorknob on the inside.

The house looks normal, even the bars look delicate, but it's built to last. It's built so that not even a monster can get out.

A frigid, bony hand slips under my bangs to feel my forehead. "Are you sick?" He asks suspiciously, sitting beside me with an arm wrapped around his knees. He sounds like a kid, like my being sick would be a personal offense against him that I cooked up out of spite.

"No," I say, holding still. Personal space was the third thing I lost through that door. Not that any of us have ever stopped him when he wants to touch, to hit or caress. I always think, after, that I should've, but it never occurs to me during. I'm probably the only one who even says it.

He pulls his hand back and settles against the wall. "Good. I would prefer it if you didn't become ill."

I bite my lip, looking away.

I am not going to say anything about Hatori, and I hope he won't either.

"Kyo, what do you miss most?" Akito rocks forward again, resting his hands on my knees and leaning close enough to kiss, though I don't think he will.

"Huh?" The question startles me. He likes to taunt me with what I'm missing when he's had a bad day, but he doesn't ask.

He tends to assume he knows.

"It's a simple question. Kazuma? School? Having room to run? That… that woman?"

I do miss being able to run. I used to run twice a day, sometimes. The first day I was here I got up and went to the door without thinking, reached for the knob because it looked like the doors at school. There was nothing there.

No way out.

My chest got tight, I couldn't breathe. No way out, none at all. If – if something happened, I wouldn't…

I cried for the first and last time then, for a long time. I haven't been able to since. I've tried, because there's something lodged in my chest and I thought tears might help, but I just feel scraped inside from trying to pull out something that's not there.

I could never even tell when I was crying, before. Just came out, like shouting or whatever. I never sobbed, like. It was just tears, all on their own.

I didn't think I'd miss that.

Now, though, Akito is waiting, and he's not known for patience.

"I don't know." I shrug. "Doesn't matter, does it?"

"No," he agrees fiercely. "No, it doesn't." Even with both of us kneeling, he's shorter than I am now. He always used to be taller. But he only comes up to my mouth now, when both of us are standing.

"I can't see your eyes," he mutters abruptly, standing up fast and grabbing my shoulder for balance. He drifts over to the windowsill and takes the candle and matches he left there last time.

There's electricity – heating, the stove, a refrigerator and freezer, air conditioning, a television for movies, getting nothing but public access in channels. But no lights.

All I have is fire and sunlight.

The candle's flame sways; jumping up tall and skinny and then rounding down to a little blob of light and back again.

Thing about firelight… it dances, runs out and back, laughing and teasing. It doesn't drive the darkness away like the sun.

"That's better, isn't it?" He shelters the flame in his hand until he can put it down on the floor and settle down, cross legged, in front of me.

Sun makes the world light, makes you free. Fire doesn't light things up, it only makes shadows. It calls attention to the cold dark, makes you think it's unnatural so that you huddle around the flame.

I know exactly what I miss most.

He's frowning. "You used to talk more, Kyo. You used to be so angry."

"I thought you didn't like it when I shouted," I point out gruffly.

He nods. "I didn't…" he sounds like he's trying to convince himself. "No, it wasn't polite at all. You're much more cooperative now." His eyes narrow and he tilts his head. "Why is that, I wonder?"

I shrug. "I dunno." I glare. "How come you're always talking about that stuff, anyway? Who cares why I shout or don't shout?"

"I do." He sounds ostentatiously hurt, but his eyes go normal. "Anyone who loves you is naturally concerned over your motivations." He reaches out to my face again, the flame on the candle shuddering in the breeze and making hollows of his cheeks and eyes.

"You look older," he muses, running his hands over my eyelids and making the world dark and orange until I can open them again.

"Cut it out," I protest. I hate not being able to see, being helpless. That's what this is, really. The claustrophobia.

Knowing that I can't get out, that it's not my choice.

He pauses, then spreads his fingers out over my face. At least I can see.

His eyes are dark, like holes into nowhere, but the lines around them, the tightness in his mouth, mean anger.

Which, I've come to realize in here, always here, with no one but him (and Haru, when he sneaks by the windows, at least once a week, but I can't even think about that or Akito might know) means he's hurting.

"You…" he draws back and stands, looming over me again, like he used to when we were younger. "You really have changed. And it's not being here that's done it. You're not dying, you're just older. Inside. Because of her."

I guess now that I can't tell anyone, he can afford to let down the walls of scary he keeps up around us younger ones.

I don't know how long I've been here. Every day is the same, only a little dimmer, a little less light. But over however long it's been, I've found something.

Why, when we would rag on Akito, the older ones, even Ritsu (but not Ayame) would get that look in their eyes like, "well, yes, but…"

Things like now… I kinda get it that look.

When I stand up too, he throws his arms around me and buries his face in my chest.

I don't like people touching me, and even when all I wanted was to replace Yuki I never wanted this creep hanging on me like he does everyone else. Even when most of the reason for defeating Yuki was to have this one person look at me like I was human… I never wanted this.

But I've got it.

His arms are tight enough to make me gasp, but he's so small. I can feel his bones, feel how he kinda seems like he might just… evaporate.

He lifts his head to look up at me. "What do you dream of, Kyo?" He asks. "At night. Not your moldering aspirations… what are your nightmares?"

I flinch.

Yuki's body lies limp and boneless, like the dead bird I picked up once after it flew into a window. His neck… just like that bird, his neck…

God please let this not be my fault…

But it is and I know, and part of me howls with sickening joy because I won.

And Tohru's slack, blank face with empty eyes stares at me, and my hands are dripping with the blood that covers her.

I could get out, maybe.

If I took off these beads… I wonder. I might be able to.

I could make him sorry that he smirked in Shishou's face when they took me away. I could make the damn rat sorry for every time he looked down on me.

I could make Tohru sorry she ever stopped to look at a line of stones…

Only she wouldn't be, would she? Little things like painted rocks… she'll never be sorry she met us.

"Do you dream about being a monster?" His voice and eyes are gentle, his fingers digging into my shoulders hard enough to bruise.

I nod before I decide to do it, and hate myself for letting him know. But that's the thing, isn't it? Why we can't get away from him. We put up so many walls, because of the curse, because we're human… and he's the only one who can get through them.

It's why we need him.

Why he hates anyone who makes him less necessary, anyone else who can just walk through walls we've hid behind for years.

"And you care now. You'll die softly, happy that they're safe. Because she made you care, made you soft and warm inside instead of hard and hot."

He steps back.

Picks up the candle and turns away.

"She saved you." Still facing away, he runs his hand along the wall. "You would have railed against these walls until you killed yourself. She changed you and now you'll endure them."

He turns back around, eyes glittering in the devious light. "You'll just die more slowly."

Maybe they're glittering with tears.

"I'm glad you'll live longer, Kyo, even if you are a wretched monster. But you're my monster, you see? I won't share you with her. I can't. I would tear her from your head if I could, and make her place in your heart empty and echoing, but as it…"

"I don't –" belong to anybody, dammit.

I should say that. Because it popped into my head.

But I can hear the questioning inflection to his voice, and it just isn't worth it. All I'll ever be or have is in these walls now. I'm going to suffocate, unable to get away from these bars.

It just doesn't seem worthy to take him down with my anymore.

"Yeah, whatever," I mutter.

Akito's eyes flick desperately over my face, and then he beams coldly and playfully, the smile of the Akito I knew outside, and puts the candle on the windowsill.

It gutters out.

In the darkness, he walks over to me and wraps me in his arms again, the loose embrace of someone who knows what they're holding isn't going anywhere. "I'll see you tomorrow," he says.

"Right."

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…

I wish that I would kill to see her again, but that's exactly what she's taken from me. I don't need to.

Moldering aspirations…

I've fulfilled mine. To spend every last minute with her that I could, and to remember them down to the last detail.

No one can take them from me now, not until Yayoi grows up, and by then… by then, there will be a new god, one too young to need to take them from me.

Tohru's not going anywhere.

And, because she's saved me and I will take this, just… take it… neither am I.

I'll stay here, and burn in dancing firelight.

Months Earlier

"Kyo-kun!" Tohru's chocolate-brown hair and eyes pop up over the edge of the roof and I jump, then screech, "Why'd you gotta sneak around like that?"

She flinches, eyes warmer than the sun setting behind me, and says, "Oh… oh, I'm sorry, I just thought… You didn't come in to eat, and I wasn't hungry so there were two plates… I'll just cover them up, and you can eat when you –"

Damn, now what?

"What now? What'd I do?" I ask resignedly. "I didn't mean to sound mad, you know. You just… scared me. Do you have food with you?"

"Yes!" It's amazing how the girl's mood shifts. "I brought us both food, and we can eat up here like a picnic, together." She beams – and that's only word for that smile, like a sunbeam, rendering me speechless with warmth and love. "I scared you, Kyo-kun?"

"Yeah, well, don't let it go to your head." I take the plates she hands up and give her a hand she doesn't really need with the last steps of the ladder.

"I was just thinking that that has to be good for something. I could tell people that the great Kyo-kun was frightened by a girl."

"What! Okay, first of all, 'the great Kyo-kun?' What's with that? And second… that would be blackmail. It would be… wrong."

She giggles, kneeling down to face me. "Yes, it would be very bad of me. But I think Mom would understand if she knew what I was getting in return."

"Huh?" I regard her suspiciously. "What'd you think you're gonna get?"

"I don't know… how much do you think the information is worth?" She teases, moving a little closer, pushing the plates out of the way and taking my hands in her tiny, perfect ones. "How badly does Kyo-kun not want Yuki-kun and Shigure-san to know that he was frightened by me?"

"Depends on how much you're asking," I counter, leaning in.

"How about… a kiss for every word you screamed like a girl?"

"I did not scream like –"

Her lips close over mine.

Every time is better. You get used to it, yeah, but I know her now, know just what to do, how her mouth feels and tastes…

This is wrong. It dirties her.

But she's so bright… can't she tarnish just a little? If she knew how filthy I am, she would forgive me, wouldn't she?

When she pulls back, I say breathlessly, "Okay. Scream, girl, right," and grab her shoulders again.

She can blackmail me. She wouldn't even have teased about that before, I think, remembering the tears in her eyes when she thought I believed she was going on a date, months and months ago.

Maybe I'm not all bad for her.

Her limbs lie loose, a puppet with its strings cut, and her eyes are dark behind their lids.

Luckily, we'll never have a chance to find out.

I'll be gone. She'll be safe.

"Tohru, I love you," I whisper, hands too tight on her small shoulders.

I can't help being selfish, just a little. I want to stay with her.

"But you know that… if anything happened to me… you know I'd want you to move on, right? You know that?"

"Kyo-kun –" there are tears in her eyes, and I wonder if it's just talking about it that's triggered them so quickly. "I'll always love you."

"I know. I'll always love you, too. But that doesn't mean you couldn't be happy if I had to go away."

Her face is so like then, anguished determination.

"It's not!"

"I will always love you," she repeats resolvedly, which doesn't answer my question.

"…"

She throws her arms around me, and for one moment we're embracing, two humans close together and in love.

Then there's a puff of smoke and I'm a cat.

Her arms are still around me, but we're not two humans.

She's warm and beautiful and far away, lifegiving but never touched.

I'm a monster and I'll be able to leave her alone soon.

"Honda-kun?" Yuki's voice comes from the yard below, and then, closer, he tries, "Cat, have you seen Honda-san?"

"Oh! Oh, Yuki-kun, I'll be right there!" She calls, planting a kiss on the top of my head.

"Take your time, it was just something Shigure wanted," he replies dismissively, going inside without checking on us.

Tohru laughs. "We should probably go in now, then," she says, hands running through my fur like they want to count every individual hair.

"Yeah, so that Shigure can hit on you and the rat can make smart comments."

"Oh, ah, eh, Kyo-kun, Shigure-san doesn't… anyway, it's nice. The squabbling. In a way. You know, that we're close enough to fight and forgive each other."

"…Right. Only you… Anyway, you don't fight."

"Ha! I blackmailed you!"

"Yeah, into doing exactly what I wanted to do. Jump off the outlaw train before you land yourself in jail."

"…Oh."

"You really did scare me, though."

"Oh?" She beams again, gathering my clothes up and standing with me cradled in her arms. "See, then! Now let's go down to the rest of the family."

Family.

I picture Akito for a second.

We were born to him, yeah.

But we chose her, and that doesn't mean less. It means more.

The way she shines on all of us, the way our smiles are just a little more genuine around her…

The way warmth and light don't have to burn.

So in a few weeks I'll go into a cage and stop living even though I won't die, and I'll never see her again.

But I'll still have her light.

Sunlight.

AN: Okay, obviously, in my AR 'verse, Kyo and Tohru get together before the cage stuff happens. I've not pin-pointed when exactly… But here, Kyo still doesn't know that Tohru knows about the cage. Ah, and the references are to a scene in the

Feedback! Reviews! Help me… I can never write Kyo very well. If I could just do stereo-Kyo, from the beginning… but I always need him to be younger, like in Left, or older and more mature like he's been recently, as here. I loved his chapter in FIB, it was so much easier to write.