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Pins and Needles	By : libek Category: Digimon > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 5186 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon: Digital Monsters, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Prelude
- 2-Daisuke
- 3-Yamato
- 4-Ken
- 5-Yamato
- 6-Miyako
- 7-Ken
- 8-Yamato
- 9-Takeru
- 10-Ken
- 11-Yamato
- 12-Ken
- 13-Yamato
- 14-Hikari
- 15-Ken
- 14
- 15
DISCLAIMER: See previous parts.

A/N: This chapter is probably a little bit confusing. I'm sorry about that. Ken isn't in the best state of mind for coherency, just at the moment. Don't worry too much. Very shortly, his POV will be crystal clear. There's one other thing that I should probably explain, but explaining it would also spoil this entire chapter. I guess it'll have to wait 'til the end. ^_~

Pins and Needles

Part Fifteen

by Libek

He fell through warm sticky air. He fell through empty blackness. He fell endlessly, and knew nothing. Nothing except that he would hit bottom someday, and that so far he liked falling better.

A voice whispered to him as he fell, and he didn't recognize it. "There, you see?" the voice asked him pleasantly. "I told you so."

For a moment, he stopped falling. He twisted around and round, searching for the source of the voice, but he was blind. The blackness was the only thing he could see. If there had been someone there with him, though, that person seemed to be gone for now. So he went back to falling.

"Didn't I tell you?" the voice whispered again, right into his ear. "Didn't I say that boy would betray you?"

He didn't bother trying to look for the source of the voice a second time. He recognized it now. But he wasn't so sure what it had meant by that boy. What boy? Betrayed him how? No, he hadn't been betrayed -- not recently, at any rate. No one would dare betray him now. He had made sure of that.

"Have you really?" the voice enquired, still pleasant. "Then why did he pull the trigger? Do you think he meant the bullet as a sign of affection? Are you that much of a fool?"

Bullet? Trigger? What was the voice babbling about? He frowned, and slowly spun in the air so that when he landed, he would land on his head. He didn't care. It moved his head away from where he thought the voice was coming from, and he didn't want to listen to it anymore. There had been no boy to betray him. This was meaningless. He wanted to wake up now.

Was he falling faster?

"No boy?" The voice grated on his ears suddenly. "Is that what you humans call self-delusion? I'll show him to you."

The falling stopped, and he found himself sitting in a chair, hunched in on himself with his fingers digging into his eye sockets. No wonder he couldn't see. He released his own grip on his face and looked up haltingly, for the world around him was no longer warm and dark and he wasn't sure he liked the horribly bright colors that now surrounded him. Everything was so cold here. He felt exposed.

Across from him, there was another boy sitting in a chair like his own. The boy's colors were so brilliant -- spun-gold hair, ocean-blue eyes -- that he could only bear to look at him through the veil of his own dark lashes. As he watched, the boy tilted his head to one side, as if considering, and then smiled. Even then, he only vaguely recognized him, but he did find the boy extraordinarily beautiful.

"Do you know him now?" the voice demanded. "His face and his name -- do you remember them?"

He stared at the boy, but still couldn't be sure. "What is your name?" he asked.

The boy stared back for a moment, still smiling. "Do you know who I am?" he asked back, in a voice that quivered and refracted and sounded very little like it belonged to him. "Do you know where you are?"

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out, and when he tried to look round to see where they were, his chair tilted back and he slipped and then he was falling again in darkness. He started to pull his hands away from his face, remembering, but they wouldn't come. Maybe he didn't really want them to. He was safer in the dark, wasn't he? Safer away from the colors and the boy?

"Did you recognize him?" The voice again, dripping sweetness. "Should I show you more?"

That was an odd question. He found he wasn't sure. Did he want to see more of the boy?

Falling and falling, ever downwards.

So long as he didn't hit bottom, he liked it here. Nothing hurt. There was no one, no one except for him -- the voice didn't really count, after all -- but being alone wasn't so bad, once you got used to it.

He had been used to it, very used to it, years ago. Before. And being alone, even lonely, was so much better than being hurt. Pain...he curled up tightly...pain was bad. Pain was hard. So much easier to just keep falling.

"That's right," the voice murmured. "It is easier, isn't it? Too bad you can't just stay here forever."

He couldn't? No, and he knew that. Everything was so warm that he had trouble remembering much of anything, but he knew the voice was right. Sooner or later, he would hit bottom. Then this would end. The thought scared him. He had never been very good at dealing with others.

Children laughing at him.

With a shock, he opened his eyes. He was on a playground, in the rain. A little boy tried to climb to the top of the slide, but another boy, a bigger and tougher boy, shoved him out of the way so that he landed painfully on his side. He felt the wet sand on his own skin and clawed to get it off. Everyone was laughing, laughing at the little boy, laughing at him.

Everyone always, always laughed.

He'd kissed him. He remembered it now. He remembered the first one. The kiss, it hadn't been anything big -- only on the cheek. He'd loved the taste of the other boy's skin. He'd tried to kiss him properly. He had been pushed away, gently.

"What're you doing?"

He hadn't known how to answer. "I thought..."

"It's okay. We can still be friends, can't we?"

"Daisuke..."

"I'm still your friend."

And he'd laughed, punched him in the arm, so playfully. Hadn't thought it was serious.

"The first one never took you seriously, did he?" the voice whispered.

Falling again, he thought he hadn't. No one ever really took him seriously, though. They found his pain so funny. But that was okay. He understood. They hated him, didn't they? That was why they laughed. And he hated himself, too. From anyone else, it wouldn't have been a problem. He had just -- just liked the first one so much. His words had hurt so very badly.

"What did you expect?" the voice asked, very reasonably. "What else could he do?"

Right. That was true. Anyone else would have reacted exactly the same way, wouldn't they? And the first one, he was no different from them, really. He was an anyone else.

Well. He supposed he wasn't very good at dealing with others, then.

"No, you're not." He liked the sound of the voice right now. Soft on his skin, like silk. "But you have to. You'll have to leave this place sooner or later, and then you'll have to deal with them, won't you? The world is teeming with people."

No. He tumbled end over end. He didn't have to leave, not ever. He didn't have to stop dreaming. He could just die. Dying would have been almost as easy as falling. All he had to do was stop suddenly at the end, right? If you fell long enough and fast enough, stopping could kill you.

"Is that why you did it?" the voice asked, sounding curious. "Because you thought he would kill you?"

The boy? The boy with the spun-gold hair and the ocean-blue eyes? No. He would never have killed him. He was too weak to kill anyone. That was part of why he'd chosen him, or rather, why he'd agreed to choose him. Because he had known the boy would never pose a threat. The boy would never dare hurt him, was too afraid of him to even try. Just like all of the other prisoners.

"If that were true, then you wouldn't be here right now."

He saw the boy again, no longer across from him in a chair. Now the boy didn't smile. He looked angry and terrified. The gun in his hands exploded again and again, the sound of it deafening him, and then he was falling, but in so much pain that he couldn't even see the blackness. His stomach burned, it was on such fire, and he cried hot tears but couldn't feel them rolling down his cheeks. For the very first time, he knew he was dying. It didn't feel as easy as he'd thought it would.

"No," the voice agreed, almost eagerly. "Dying isn't easy. Dying is hard. It hurts. You don't want to be hurt, do you?"

Because he could barely breathe, he had to shake his head instead of speaking, but he wanted to speak. He wanted to sob. He wanted to cling to something, anything, to feel someone's arms around him -- anyone's arms at all. He wanted someone to understand how desperately he didn't want to be hurt, someone who would then promise to keep him safe. Maybe he didn't want to die, after all.

"That's right," the voice said. "You don't."

Bit by bit, the pain subsided. His stomach ceased to burn. He was falling again, and the whistling air felt so good on his bare skin that he sighed with pleasure and relaxed. Just a little bit. This was so nice. Why couldn't he stay here forever? Away from the others, away from pain. But...if he couldn't escape them by killing himself, what could he do?

"Kill them."

The voice's suggestion was so simple, made so much sense, that his fall slowed. He considered. That didn't seem like such a bad idea, but...no. No, he was pretty sure that he didn't want to kill anyone. Killing people was wrong, wasn't it?

"You've done it before," the voice whispered coaxingly. "If you do it again, you could be alone. No one else would ever laugh at you again..."

Not a good enough reason for killing. Was it? He...couldn't remember. Weren't there laws, and things like that? Killing...killing was bad. Killing people was bad. Had he really done it before? He would never have done something bad, would he? He didn't think of himself as a bad person...

"Oh, but you are. You are a bad person, Ken. Why else would the first one have rejected you?"

Rejected?

"I'm still your friend."

Rejected?

"We can still be friends, right?"

Rejected? Him? No. No, he didn't get rejected. Rejection wasn't something that happened to him.

"Then what about the boy? You know he never really wanted you..."

He could see the boy's face. They were sitting across from one another once more. The boy was smiling still. Again. Still. After a moment, he tried to speak.

"You rejected me?"

The boy stared at him, unflinchingly. "Did I? Would I? Could I? Can I?"

He had no idea how to interpret that. "I...don't know."

"Do you know who I am?"

Briefly, he thought he did. Then he wasn't sure any longer. "You...you betrayed me?"

The boy stared at him, unflinchingly. "I didn't. I wouldn't. I couldn't. I can't."

"Why can't you?" he asked, puzzled. "Do you want to?"

A smile settled on the boy's pale pink lips. "I can't tell you that, Ken."

He couldn't? No, of course he couldn't. Only...why couldn't he?

Colors were so bright. They hurt his eyes. He wanted the darkness back. In the dark, he had clarity. Here, the boy only smiled at him more widely, showing off his perfect, gleamingly-white teeth.

"I can't tell you that, Ken."

He couldn't? The colors hurt. But why?

"Because," the boy replied, flashing pearlescent teeth. "You still aren't sure."

He hit bottom. Struck it, so hard and so fast that he was sure he'd die. But the bottom wasn't what he'd thought it would be, and it only slapped him like stormy water and swallowed his nearly-broken body whole. He sank like a stone through beautiful blue and, for just a little while, knew nothing more.

"Is there something wrong with you?" the voice demanded, suddenly. Even though he could feel the cool sweet water all around him, it sounded perfectly normal and horribly clear. "Why don't you remember him?"

Opening his mouth, he tried to say that he did, at least a little bit, but he swallowed water and could not speak. Was he going to drown here?

"You do, yet you don't. What sort of answer is that supposed to be?"

The only one he could give.

"...Fine," the voice muttered. "I suppose it makes no difference, one way or the other. So long as you kill him as soon as possible."

Kill. Kill the boy? He frowned. No. He was fairly certain he didn't want to do that.

He had never wanted to kill anyone at all.

But the boy...the boy was different. Better. Worse. He didn't want the boy to die.

"He betrayed you," the voice hissed. "You must."

No. He didn't want to. He wasn't going to.

"What are you talking about? Of course you will."

No. No, no, no. Never. He didn't really like the idea at all.

In response, the voice turned sickly-sweet. "Don't be silly. He hurt you badly. Don't you want revenge?"

Had he started sinking slower? Strange. Still, he was pretty sure he didn't want to kill the boy.

"Not even for revenge?"

The sinking stopped. He was floating. Floating, and almost rising. Back towards the surface. But he liked it here and he thought he rather liked the boy and he wasn't going to do this, he just wasn't, so the voice would have to shut up and leave him alone and let him --

He wasn't rising any longer, but he wasn't sinking either. Something, he realized slowly, was there with him in the water. It had an almost painful grip on his neck, and it wasn't about to let go. He tried to sink, tried to pull away, and the grip on his neck felt suddenly like fingers. A hand instead of a vague, substanceless thing. He twisted and tried to pull free.

A noise like a pop.

Chairs again, and colors too, but now they were grainy and dark. They didn't hurt his eyes as much. He looked up and around, searching for the boy -- wanting to see whether he would still be beautiful if his colors were dirty -- but he was alone here.

Except for the hand that was still wrapped around his throat.

"You think you can fight me?" the voice whispered. "You have no idea what I am."

He ducked his head and scrambled from the chair and stared at himself.

The other him smiled. But it wasn't him, not really. There was something subtly different about its face. "Do you get it now?" it asked quietly, its voice like a distorted echo of his own. "Why you can't fight me? Why you'll never be able to fight me?"

"Who are you?" he demanded, confused and frightened.

"I am you," the other him responded, lightly. "The best part of you. The only part of you that was ever real."

He hesitated. He wasn't sure he believed that. "I'm real," he said.

"You think so?" The other him laughed. "You're just the shell. I am the core."

He paused. He didn't feel like a shell. "You're wrong," he said. "I am me."

"Then who am I?"

The voice. Not the him that wasn't him. And that part, he wasn't so sure about. He tried to take a step backwards, tried to distance himself a bit, but his back slammed into a wall and then the wall melted, wrapped its arms around him, and he felt breath on the back of his neck.

"I am the seed that has blossomed," the voice whispered. "I am the full flower so kindly nurtured by your hatred and your fear and your guilt and -- most deliciously of all -- your desires. You wanted the first one, didn't you? Wanted him so much you were ready to do anything for him...and now you're willing to do anything to him. Anything at all, so long as it's painful. So long as it helps him to understand the pain you felt."

He struggled. That wasn't true. It wasn't! The other him was watching, watching as he moved sluggishly and tried so hard to break free. He thought the other him was laughing soundlessly, while the voice hissed in his ear.

"You wanted him."

Yes, but...

"You needed him."

Yes, but...

"You were so badly hurt by him."

Yes, but...

"You lay awake at night, sobbing, because of him..."

He shook his head and screamed, screamed so loudly that it shattered him. "I NEVER WANTED TO HURT HIM!"

The world broke apart, into a million pieces, and he was sinking again, faster than before. Still, it wasn't fast enough. He had to go faster, if he wanted to leave the voice behind. The voice and the thing that had looked and sounded so much like him.

As dreams went, this wasn't one of his better ones. He would have liked to wake up now.

"You think you're dreaming?"

He frowned. Stupid voice. Of course he was dreaming. What else would he have been doing?

"Dying. That boy killed you."

It was almost jarring enough to stop him from sinking, but he knew better. He sank faster, kicked and flailed and fought his way deeper into the blue. The voice lied. It lied about the boy. Everything else, too, but the boy especially.

Except --

Wasn't that the image in his mind? The one with the boy aiming that exploding gun at him? Wasn't that the image that made his breath catch and his heart stop and his belly bleed?

Bleeding black into the blue.

Was he really dying?

On his back. The floor was cold, but the boy had his arms around him and the boy was warm. He opened his eyes or tried to and couldn't quite make out the boy's expression. But he could heard his voice, his soft soothing voice, his real voice, and he met the boy's beautiful blue almond-shaped eyes. He was speaking now, only backwards. He couldn't understand his own words, but felt it when the boy let him go, felt himself sliding to the floor and then to his feet and back across the floor. All in fast-motion suddenly.

Then he was slipping, his back hard against the wall, and clutching his stomach. Funny how the pain wasn't as bad as the sudden horrible knowledge that really, the voice had been right all along, and that the boy had killed him, had betrayed him, after all. He felt sick staring at the boy, so sick.

Had he just asked the boy for death?

Seemed like something he would have done. Only, if he had, why did the boy look so upset and hurt? Why did he look like he wanted to cry? The boy was much too pretty for tears.

The boy's lips moved, but something else came out. "Do you know who I am?"

And he did. He knew the boy now, with utmost certainty.

"Good," the boy said, and smiled. So softly. "I'm glad."

Did it do him any good to know who the boy was, now that he was dying? Probably not. Yet strangely, he felt better. He never wanted to forget again.

"You won't," the boy told him, like a promise. "But you should go now. He's coming for you."

He? Oh, yes. The voice. He frowned. He didn't really want to leave, not right now. The warmth of the boy's arms was even nicer than the darkness. Nicer than sinking in cool sweet water. He liked it here.

The boy laughed. As he watched, the boy straightened a piece of hair, tucking it neatly behind his ear. "You can't stay here. Do you know where you are? Go. If he finds you..."

But the voice had found him before, right? How back could it really be?

For half a second, the boy looked terrified. "Yes. He has found you before. This will be the third time."

He wasn't sure what to make of that, but then he was sinking in the boy's arms, into his chest, into his body. Again, he found himself in water, but now there was sunlight on the surface. He hesitated, liking the way it shone through the water, liking the way it had caught and held in the boy's golden hair. Wanting to feel it on his own cold skin.

But the voice was coming for him. Maybe even coming with the sunlight, because he thought he'd been deeper before -- to deep for the light to reach him. Had to get deeper now. Had to, even if it wasn't what he wanted any longer. Even if he would have much rather stayed in the boy's arms.

He sank. Deeper and deeper, away from the sunlight. He didn't want to be found again. Found for the third time. Whatever that meant. He didn't want to talk to the him that wasn't him.

"The other you? He's not so bad, really," the boy whispered in his ear. "I've spent a lot of time with him, you know. While I was looking for you."

Had he really? He didn't notice when his sinking slowed again, too busy craning his neck around to see the boy. But he was alone, so he kept sinking.

"Oh, yes." The boy was floating easily beside him now, but fixed. Neither rising nor sinking. They would pass one another completely in a moment. "You were very hard to find, you know."

He would have liked to ask, "And you've found me now?" but of course he couldn't speak. They were underwater, after all. So he contented himself with smiling and turned round, kicking the sun's light and the light's light and the boy away. Deeper and deeper, until all he could see was the brilliant blue, even if he held his hands in front of his face or closed his eyes, and any other color was a distant memory.

There was no sense of time. Hours/minutes/seconds/days passed. He went deeper still. He could have kept going forever, it seemed. The blue was almost black now. Maybe he had filled it up with enough of his blood. He was almost falling.

A hole appeared in the endless blue/black. It was growing and shrinking at the same time as he drew nearer and got further away. Looking at it directly gave him a headache, but he couldn't close his eyes. The lids were transparent. Closer and closer and always more distant, the hole sucked him in while pushing him away and he was suddenly on his knees in a place he had never seen before.

He stared at the ground and found that he cast no shadow. He lifted his head only to see that there was no sun in the sky but no ceiling overhead and nowhere for the light to come from. He felt sick and weak and when he clutched his stomach, his hand came away bloody.

"Do you know where you are?"

Although he twisted round and round, the voice had no source. When he replied, his own lips did not seem to move.

"I've reached the heart."

The boy stood in front of him, and smiled. "Your heart and his," he said without speaking. Then his smile vanished, and he looked very frightened. "He's here, too."

"I have always been here," the voice whispered.

It came out of his own mouth.

The boy backed away, his ocean-blue eyes wide with alarm. As he watched, the boy vanished.

He was alone.

"No," the voice countered. "You're not alone, Ken. You've never been alone."

He clamped his own mouth shut, but it was hard. "What do you want from me?!"

Something moved behind him, and he spun around to see the other him standing there. The expression on its face was something between smugness and irritation, but not quite either.

"I want you, Ken," the voice murmured sweetly.

He froze up. "You can't have me."

The other him laughed, and this time the voice came out of its mouth. "Isn't it a little late for that? I have almost all of you already. I just need more time. Won't you go back to sleep? It was so much nicer when you weren't fighting..."

"Back to sleep?" He felt confused, and took another look around. Wasn't he dreaming now?

"No," the other him snapped. "You aren't dreaming, you're just dying. Like I said before. Besides, this would be a nightmare. I made sure that all of your dreams while you slept were pleasant ones." For a moment, his face flickered, and there was something old and dark and angry underneath. "Why did you have to wake up? Didn't you like your dreams? Wasn't sleeping better than being hurt? I made all the pain go away. Why wouldn't you stay asleep?"

He stared at the other him, but had no answer. He didn't know why he had awoken. He didn't even realize he'd done it before.

"Don't lie to me!" the other him hissed. "Of course you knew! You told the boy to kill you!"

Had he really? Oh, yes. He remembered that. The memory made him smile.

But the other him was scowling now. "Your mind," it muttered. "Your mind is suffocating. You really don't have any idea what I'm talking about." Again, the flicker. "No. Not yet. You can't die yet. It hasn't been long enough. If you die now, I'll die with you."

"I thought you were me," he shot back. "Wasn't that what you said? The real me -- the best part of me?"

All at once, the light went out of its eyes, and the other him crumpled to the stark, colorless floor. He stared at its limp body, confused and frightened. Then he heard the voice again, in his ear, on his neck, and he had trouble understanding the sudden harsh whispered words with his heart slamming so violently against his ribcage.

"No," the voice fairly snarled. "Not of YOU. That's only HIM. You stupid, stupid, hateful fucking child! You'll DIE! Don't you understand? Why did you have to go in there unarmed? Why wouldn't you listen to me? Didn't you trust me? Wasn't I moving slowly enough, hadn't I been so good and quiet? Haven't I protected you from everything, made you stronger, punished those who hurt us? WHY WON'T YOU GO BACK TO SLEEP?!"

He frowned. "Hurt us? Don't you mean, hurt me?"

"SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP! I know what I meant!"

The other him was scant centimeters from his face suddenly. It smiled, soft and sweet.

"But that doesn't matter. Even though you woke up, it doesn't matter. It's much too late now. I was almost ready anyway. The other you is very nearly complete. And you were right when you spoke to the boy. Wormmon won't let us die. He loves you too much."

The eyes that looked so much like a mirror reflection of his own blinked, and he blinked back. "The other me..." he began, confused. "I thought you were the other me."

Laughter ripped free from his own throat, and echoed harshly. "No, Ken. I am you. The other you is a shadow puppet. He will finish what you've started, while we become something else."

He wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't come. "What are you going to do to me?"

"Don't worry," his own voice whispered soothingly. "It's nothing I haven't done already. Just much, much faster. Oh," the voice added, after a moment, and he felt his own lips curl distastefully. "I'll also be killing that boy."

The boy. The boy with the warm arms and the smile and the beautiful blue eyes?

No. He didn't want that boy to die.

"He won't be the first or the last," his own voice replied. "Everyone in both worlds is going to die now."

No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no! He didn't want anyone to die! He'd never wanted anyone to die!

"You don't have a choice," his own voice hissed. "You've let me come too far already."

The floor underfoot turned to quicksand, and he started to sink, but stopped again just as quickly. The other him had him by the hand, and now twisted his arm, pulling him free.

"No. None of that. It's been an amusing chase, but you can't run any longer. You've given up too much of yourself, Ken. You were so eager to get rid of the pain the first one caused you, you would have let anyone in. And for someone who was already here, buried deep within your heart...the task was twice as easy."

He struggled, but could not shake the grip the other him had on his arm. Sucking in a breath that was almost painful, he stopped trying. "Easy?" he asked, and stared at the other him. Watched as its lips moved around his words.

"What else would you call it?" the voice replied. "You wanted someone to take over. You didn't care who, so long as you didn't have to live for a while. So I did it. I ate for you and slept for you and went to school for you and whispered in your ear while you slept, until you started listening to me."

His own mouth curled into the cruel smile that matched the voice.

He would have cried, if he'd had any control over his tears. "Are you...are you really going to kill him?"

"Kill who?" the voice wondered indifferently. "The boy, or the first one?"

For a second, he really wasn't sure which one he had meant. "Either of them," he mumbled, and watched the expression the other him was making -- the sudden warm flush on its cheeks, because even as he'd spoken, he'd been thinking of the boy's arms.

"Hmm..." Lazy, and horribly playful. "I suppose I don't really need to, if you're so attached. But wouldn't you like me to? They both betrayed you, hurt you deeply in different ways -- don't they deserve death?"

Confused, he bit his lower lip. Death seemed...a little extreme for the one. The other...

Again, the expression on the other him's face changed, but this time it laughed. The sound startled him, because he hadn't felt like laughing. Had he?

"Perhaps Daisuke does. His transgression was so mild, comparatively. Yamato-san, though..." It paused, and for a moment, he thought it looked confused. "Yamato-san...tried to kill us. He deserves something nastier and more lingering. We should -- I'd like to -- he can't die." The confusion deepened, darkened, and vanished. "At least, not until we've made him kneel at our feet. We should make him destroy his precious little crest, as we have -- turn his back on his friends and help us torture them. That...would be ideal. If only he weren't too dangerous to train any further like this..." It let out a slow, watery breath. "I suppose we'll have to break him first."

When he tried to shake his head, he watched the other him follow through, but he still thought he hadn't been the one to make it speak. Those weren't his thoughts or feelings.

Right?

Nothing here made sense, and it was so hard to concentrate. He missed having the boy's arms around him. He didn't think he would ever feel them again.

Not that he deserved to.

Would he have felt them after the boy was broken?

One thing to look forward to, if he couldn't stop any of this?

No. No, he couldn't start to think that way. Couldn't.

"Why not?" The voice laughed, a soft laugh. "It's not as if he would ever touch you otherwise. No one would, not if you gave them a choice in the matter. The first one certainly didn't. And that was before you'd done such awful things. The boy will never want you now."

"Unless?" the other him prompted, sounding eager and hungry.

A quiet, almost bitter sigh. "Unless," the voice agreed. "You could -- persuade him, I suppose. If he's really worth the effort."

Persuade him? He hesitated, feeling uncertain. Persuasion didn't sound so bad. He could talk to the boy maybe, explain everything -- and surely, being with him, being held by him, was better than being dead. If what the voice had said was true, and that really was the only other option...

"Persuade how?" the other him questioned, guardedly. "With Black Matter?"

He recoiled at the thought, but his body was laughing once more.

"Not exactly," the voice murmured, soft and seductive. "Black Matter would make him a soulless little doll. I suppose that might be nice, for a little while, but...that won't make you happy in the long run, will it? I know of something better. Something which will...open his eyes. Make him understand. Then he'll realize why you've had to do the things we've had to do. I believe that it...would do the job quite nicely."

Still the other him looked skeptical, but at the same time the desire was so plain on its face that he was embarrassed for it. "We could have him? But...he'd be broken." Its tone of voice sounded almost resigned.

"No," the voice said quickly, surprising them both. "If you did this, you wouldn't have to break him. He would come to kneel at our feet of his own volition."

And the him that wasn't him cocked its head to one side. "Sounds...not quite as fun as breaking him ourselves," it replied unsteadily. Obviously not meaning the words at all. "But I suppose that would do, in a pinch."

They were laughing, both of them, but he didn't feel connected to them anymore. The voice's laughter no longer seemed to be coming out of his mouth.

"What about me?" the other him murmured. "The real one. What are you really going to do with him?"

A good question, he thought vaguely.

"Don't be a fool," the voice said at once. "He isn't the real one. He's the fake, don't you see? The one who's caused us the most pain. You are the real one."

"Am I really?" The other him sounded flattered, but he had trouble seeing its face in the dim light. "So, what should I do, then? Will we kill him?"

There was a very long pause, and in it, he found that he was floating. He wondered if that were a bad thing, but he didn't really care. Caring...took a lot of effort. He was so tired, suddenly...

"Not yet," the voice whispered. "I'm not ready yet. He'll just go back to sleep now, and by the time he wakes up, he'll no longer exist." A few seconds' thought. "You really ought to kill the boy, you know."

So very tired -- but even then, he hesitated and almost stopped floating. He didn't want the boy to die.

Fortunately, the other him murmured casually, "Yes, I know, but I don't think I will. He shouldn't be a problem anyway, once we're through with him. How do I make him kneel at my feet?"

He smiled and went back to floating. One thing he and the other him had in common, it seemed. He wondered, idly, if the other him still thought it was only in lust with the boy. Maybe they were both fools.

That made two. Two things in common. So sleepy...

But when the voice spoke again, he realized something.

"It's your choice, in the end. Just be careful. There is no Ryou to save you here."

He knew that voice. He knew it. He knew who it belonged to.

Floating swiftly now, into warm soft darkness. His eyes were closing on their own, and he could not stop them now. Sleep would come. Even if he'd had the energy to fight, sleep would have won.

There were arms around him suddenly, and he craned his neck back to see the boy -- to look into his eyes and smile. "Do you know," he murmured absently, "it's very funny."

"What is, Ken?" the boy asked, stroking his hair and returning the smile and looking, even in darkness, radiantly beautiful.

"Just, that I know him now. I know the voice. I've known him for a long time." He gave the boy a mock-scowl. "You know, it took me longer to recognize him than it did to recognize you. Why is that?"

The boy laughed, a low and gentle laugh. "Well, to be fair, you have lost a lot of blood."

"Am I going to die?" he asked, hopefully. If this was what dying felt like, he wouldn't have minded -- for this didn't hurt in the least -- and his death would stop the things he could no longer stop himself.

"I don't think so, Ken. You were right about Wormmon. He's going to use the Noisy Room to heal your body."

That figured. In fact, he was almost proud of his digimon for thinking of it. "Too bad. That means we're all going to die, sooner or later. Probably sooner," he added, thoughtfully, and reached up to stroke a finger over the boy's full lower lip. He liked the way it felt, even if it didn't quite have a texture. "I don't want you to die, Yamato-chan."

"Why are you so sure I will?" the boy whispered, his eyes wide.

He shrugged his shoulders as best he could. "Millenniumon has been waiting a long time for this."

As the words slipped past his lips, he just had time to wonder whether it had been him or the voice or the other him speaking before the world around him faded to black, and he knew nothing more.

To be continued...
- 14
- 15
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Pins and Needles