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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
- 7
- 8
- 9
DISCLAIMER: See previous parts.

A/N: See Yamato. See Yamato angst. But isn't he pretty? Hee. Lira-chan, this should answer your question about the rest of the missing Chosen Cadets. Or at least, prove that there is an answer and that it wasn't just a random inconsistency. Whichever you like. >D

Pins and Needles

Part Eight

by Libek

If anything, the Digimon Kaizer's personal quarters were even more obscenely lavish than the bathing room had been, but Yamato barely noticed them. He had a vague, distant impression of shadows and light and fine silk gauze in colors like red and black and purple. Beyond that, there were metal things that glittered. It was probably the nicest room he had ever seen in his entire life, and he didn't care. He was tired and cold in places where he really shouldn't have been cold and more miserable than he could ever remember feeling in his entire life. Hearing his parents scread swd swear at each other, having his mother walk away from him, losing his little brother, almost dying countless times, or even that horrible moment when his crest had simply refused to glow -- even when his own despair had physically swallowed him -- they had nothing on this.


Bright spots? He knew now that Taichi was still alive. That was a good thing to know. Too bad it wouldn't do him much good until he knew where to look, until he had some idea of which one among the thousands of cells in this horrible place held his best friend captive. Assuming, of course, that the Keeper of Courage was even in a cell. So far, he hadn't done anything bad enough himself to merit a real punishment -- but suppose the Digimon Kaizer had a dungeon or something like that, a special place for the more...disagreeable prisoners? There had been a sort of keypad on the lift they had taken to reach these upper floors, with glowing numbers thaunteunted to sixty. Sixty floors wouldn't have been that bad to search.


Except that it probably wasn't sixty floors. The ride had taken too long for that. They were probably all tiers, like the one with his cell on it -- enormous hollow boxes cut into five sections like the layers of a birthday cake with about a hundred cells to each layer and -- what, five hundred to each side? Yamato closed his eyes unhappily. Five times sixty was three hundred o. Th. Three hundred floors with a number of total cells that he didn't even want to begin figuring out in his head. He would never be able to search this entire place on foot, not even if he managed to get away from the Digimon Kaizer for a quiet hour or ten.


Then Yamato had an even ier ier thought. Three hundred floors, he realized slowly, would never have been enough to hold all of the missing children no matter how spacious they were. Did the Digimon Kaizer have more prisons like this one, in other remote corners of the Digital World? If so, Taichi could have been anywhere, and if not...if not, what was Ken doing with his surplus population?


He felt sick. Sick, and fri frightened than he would have liked to admit. He listened to the water running in the adjoining bathroom, and dug his fingers into the bed's heavy coverlet. After his shower, he had tried to convince the Digimon Kaizer that they both really needed their sleep and that he would be in the way, but he might have just as well saved his breath. Ken had only laughed and told him to lie down on the bed and wait. He was supposed to be 'making himself at home', but there was little chance of that. At home, he usy woy wore more than a thin cotton yukatt hot home, his clothes didn't vanish mysteriously while he was rinsing off so that he had no other options. Yamato closed his eyes and huddled in that yukata. It was better than nothing, and he really, really did not want to be naked in Ken's bed.


Although...for those few minutes in the shower, the younger boy had touched him in a way that didn't hurt -- had held him almost gently...


Yamato shoved the thought away violently. Probably just trying to lull him into a false sense of security, but he knew better than that. If he started looking for Ken in the Digimon Kaizer's eyes, he would only succeed in getting himself killed. He wasn't that suicidal. Maybe a little curious as to why Ken was playing at being the boy emperor again, sure, but he could suppress that curiosity. Yamato had the sneaking suspicion that, far from revealing his vulnerable underbelly to the enemy, asking him a question like that would have been painting a target on it and telling Ken to kick.


Unless he already had. Unless the Digimon Kaizer already knew exactly where to aim. It was working, wasn't it? Five minutes in the shower and here he was, lying awake in Ken's bed and trying to understand him when he should have been looking for the nearest sharp object. With the element of surprise, he might just have been able to --


Too late.


Behind him, he could hear the water stopping, and he probably would have heard the door openifterfter it if he could have heard anything over the suddenly thunderous beat of his own heart. Fuck, fuck, fuck. There was a desk on the other side of the room, old-fashioned with a fountain pen and a small bottle of ink. Maybe the pen -- or no, the letter-opener...


"Yamato-san?"


The Digimon Kaizer's voice sounded odd; quiet, and almost sort oftioutious. As though he thought Yamato might be asleep and didn't want to wake him if he were. The blond had half a second to decide how to react, his eyes darting frantically from the shining silver letter-opener to the coverlet under his fingers and back again while in the distance he listened to the muffled noises that brought Ken around to the opposite side of the bed where he would be able to see -- oh god, he'd be able to see -- the then Yamato shut his eyes.



He wasn't sure he would be able to pull this off. He had never been much of an actor, but this once...this once, he had to be asleep. This whole setup stank of sex, and as fond of the activity as he ordinarily was, Yamato did not want to see what sort of awful, sick fantasies the Digimon Kaizer entertained. So he stayed perfectly still, held his breath, and even prayed. Just this once...

&n&nbs
"Yamato-san?" Ken asked again, more softly this time. There was a brief pause, and then something bld oud out most of the dim, faintly-red light in the room. Yamato could feel the younger boy's presence in the air above him, heavy and suffocating. "Are you still awake?"


He had to force himself to breathe. Slowly and deeply, the way Takeru had when they were kids. When he felt the Digimon Kaizer's weight on his part of the bed, realized that there was a hand on either side of him digging into the mattress, it became much, much harder to maintain that peaceful rhythm. He tried to remind himself of all the reasons why ripping away from Ken's invasive touch would have been a bad idea, and couldn't think of a single one worth letting this happen. Shit, but if the Digimon Kaizer so much as breathed on him...


Something had changed. Without moving at all, Ken no longer seemed to be hovering over him. Then, quite abruptly, the Digimon Kaizer withdrew completely. "Well," Yamato thought he heard the younger boy mumbling indistinctly while the bed creaked under his shifting weight, "I wasn't really in the mood anyway."


At first, Yamato thought he must have misheard. Then, when he felt the blankets being tugged little by little out from underneath his body -- well, he thought it must have been a trick. He hadn't fooled the Digimon Kaizer at all, and in a few seconds, he would feel the younger boy's arms slipping around his waist. After pulling a stunt like this, he might even feel something else. Something worse. Yamato held his breath and waited, but the Digimon Kaizer just reached over and turned off his bedside light, plunging them both into darkness.


And god, was he glad of it.


Time passed. Seconds? tes?tes? Hours? He wasn't sure. Watches weren't really necessary if you had a digivice, because all of the digivices had clocks built into them that kept time in all the different zones at once and changed from one to the next automatically. He had never meant to be without his digivice.


After a while, Yamato opened his eyes and stared sightlessly through the Digimon Kaizer's back at where he thought the letter-opener would have had to be. He imagined slipping out of bed to retrieve that semi-knife and stabbing it repeatedly into the other side of the bed until he hit somethintal.tal. It might have worked, but almost as soon as the plan had formed, Yamato felt nauseous. He was going to kill one of his friends?


A part of him went cold at the use of that word. They weren't friends anymore. He knew that, but the sickness wouldn't fade. A fellow human being, then. Real blood on his hands. Funny, Yamato thought. When they had been children, when it had been the life of an evil digimon on the line, the decision had always seemed simple enough. Even before they'd understood that digimon didn't really die. So why couldn't this have been like that? Why did his stomach have to clench up now? He had never been one of the pacifists. Kill or be killed. That was just the way the Digital World worked.


Except...



Ken wasn't like them. He wasn't inherently, irredeemably evil. For the last four years, he had proven that. For the last four years, they had been friends. Yamato didn't want that to change. He wanted this to be like the last time, when all Ken had needed was someone to explain things to him. The blond boy would have been that someone gladly, if only he'd known what to say. How did you remind a person of things you couldn't imagine ever forgetting yourself?


Creaking from the bed as the Digimon Kaizer rolled over to face him, and Yamato tensed htlyhtly but saw with eyes that had started to adjust to the pale sliver of light from the cracks around the door that he was still asleep. Yamato eased his weight onto one of his elbows and rested his chin in the palm of his hand, gazing thoughtfully at that face. By all rights, there should have been something there that he hadn't seen in the full light of day -- maybe some hint of malevolence in the way his lips curled that would have made killing him easier. But there was nothing. Even in the intimate dark, the Digimon Kaizer's face remained smooth and utterly, utterly expressionless. No, he didn't look evil, but he wasn't an innocent angel, either. He was just...asleep.



Not fair. Not fair at all. Yamato closed his eyes and swallowed. What was he supposed to do? The smart thing would have been to go ahead and get the letter-opener anyway, to end this now before anyone else got hurt in the vague horrible way his berienriend had been hurt that Ken refused to specify. Before any other digimon were tortured to death for their skins. End it now and never wonder whether he could have stopped the Digimon Kaizer in some other way and kept them all alive.


The smart thing. Ruthless, but so simple. It was what Taichi would have wanted him to do. It was what Taichi would have done himself.


Besides, what other options were there? He could wait a little longer and have to do the exact same thing. He could have waited years without ever finding out why Ken was doing this, what had happened to fuck him up even more than the death of his brother. And in the meantime, more people getting hurt, more digimon getting murdered while he satisfied his curiosity. Damn it all. He was one of the Chosen Children. Sworn to protect the Digital World no matter what. Growing older hadn't changed that. Retiring hadn't changed it. Dying probably wouldn't have changed it, either. How could he even hesitate?


Again, Yamato imagined getting out of bed and going to the desk. He imagined how cold the metal of the letter-opener would be in his hand. He imagined standing over Ken, the Digimon Kaizer, and taking careful aim. He tried to imagine bringing his arm down, and couldn't.


Not like this. Maybe in the middle of a fight, he would have felt differently. In the middle of a fight, he might have been able to tell himself he hadn't had a choice. He might have been able to believe it, at least for long enough to land the fatal blow. But in cold blood? When Ken wasn't threatening his life or anyone else's? No.


Shit. The blond boy sucked his lower lip into his mouth and bit down as hard as he could, but nothing changed. He wasn't going to do it. He couldn't, not just to make himself feel safer and not for the sake of the Digital World, either. He was going to make the stupidly sentimental choice -- valuing one life more than countless thousands just because that life happened to belong to someone he knew. But for the love of god, he had to at least try to figure out why Ken was doing this. If he managed to find the trigger, then maybe...maybe... Yamato knew it probably wouldn't work, but he had to try. That slim possibility of keeping all of his friends alive was worth more to him than almost anything.


The romantic thing to do. Foolish, but so comforting. It was what Daisuke would have wanted him to do. It was what Daisuke would have done himself.


Yamato smiled faintly. He was searching for imaginary orders, wasn't he? Trying to decide what the leaders would have told him to do so that he didn't have to do it by himself. How cowardly and selfish of him. When the bomb dropped, when the shit hit the fan, when it came time to apologize for what he had done, he could at least be man enough to take the blame himself. He would owe everyone else that much, wouldn't he? But oh, what he would've given for just a minute alone with his best friend.


That was when the door to the bedroom opened. Involuntarily, Yamato sat up and stared at it, watching the door close again without anyone seeming to enter. He blinked, wondering if he were imagining things and briefly night-blind from the light, but then he heard it. A small sort of scuffling noise from the end of the bed. When the blankets moved, he made a grab for his mystery assailant instinctively, and his fingers brushed something smooth and warm and hairless. The thing made a sharp, startled sound and Yamato recognized its voice at once. Wormmon.


"Hello?" he whispered, still nervous but feeling much better. Virus-attribute or not, there was nothing intimidating about this digimon.


"Ken-chan?" Wormmon ventured.


Spirits sinking, Yamato shook his head before wondering how good the Insect-type's night vision was. "No," he said, vocalizing to be safe. "It's just me."


"Yamato? Oh..." the tiny digimon murmured. "Oh, dear. He took my advice. I'm so sorry, Yamato-san! I never thought he would really listen to me...only, I had to say something -- Taichi-san was bleeding, and he's never made any of the others bleed before! I thought he was going to kill him..."


When the blond boy touched him gingerly, Wormmon's feelers were quivering -- in fact, his whole body seemed to be trembling -- but Yamato could not be brought to care just at the moment. "You've seen Taichi?" he demanded, almost forgetting to whisper in a rush of excitement. "Where is he? How badly did Ken hurt him?"


The Insect-type whimpered. "I don't know. Ken-chan had one of the other guards move him out of his old cell and didn't tell me about it. I...I just went to give him his dinner, and he was gone. When I asked where he was, none of the others seemed to know -- and when I found one who did, he said he had orders to take anyone who spoke of it to the Qu - Quiet Room..."


"The what?" Yamato repeated uncomprehendingly. It didn't sound very intimidating -- more like a library reading room than a fearsome dungeon.


However, judging by the borderline-reverent voice that responded, Wormmon would have disagreed. "The Quiet Room. It's his f - favorite of the t - torture chambers. I don't know why, s - some of the others are b - better equipped..."


He was starting to cry, Yamato realized in a slow, helpless fashion. "Where did it get that name?" he asked, trying to be more gentle.


"I...I think it's because you can't hear people in it screaming when you're outside...but I don't really know." Wormmon ducked his head as much as he was able, and seemed to almost sink into himself.



Giving the blond boy the distinct impression that he didn't want to talk about it, but...Yamato pursed his lips. "Wormmon, do...do you remember which guard?"


"Yes. I only just got away from him." The tiny digimon fidgeted, then added more quietly, "You don't forget someone like that."


He started to ask what Wormmon meant by that remark, but then shut his mouth. The Virus-attribute was still shaking. He probably didn't want to relive the experience this soon afterwards -- which made the next question even harder. "Can you take me to him?"


Abruptly, the quaking stopped. Actually, Wormmon stopped moving entirely. "Yamato-san..." the little digimon began apologetically.


"No," Yamato interrupted, not caring if he sounded pathetic. "Please don't tell me you can't. Taichi...he's my best friend. I need to make sure he's all right. I need to talk to him. Maybe if we put our heads together, we can come up with a plan..."


"I didn't hear that!" Wormmon squeaked, squirming suddenly in the blond boy's grip. "I did not hear that."


"But we need your help!"


Something within the oversized caterpillar appeared to break at that. A dam, maybe. "Yamato-san, you don't understand," he said softly. "You don't want me to be a part of whatever plans you make. The only reason I haven't woken Ken-chan and turned you in for plotting against him is that my Black Matter collar is a little bit too loose. I've been trying to act like nothing's wrong, but he's going to figure it out any day now. When he does, I'm going to tell him all about this conversation... I won't have any choice." He gulped noisily. "It's worse than an Evil Ring. Worse than an Evil Spiral. So much worse..."


Yamato felt a frustrated scowl coming on. "All the more reason to help us now! If I can get to Taichi and we manage to escape before Ken figures out that you aren't completely under his control, then we'll warn the others and maybe find some way to bring out the kind Ken again. Don't you want that?"


To his surprise, Wormmon only sighed quietly. "Of course I do," he said. "I want that more than anything else in the world. But it won't be so easy this time. There's no Dark Seed to destroy."


"Wormmon..." The blond boy paused, plucking at the embroidery on the coverlet with his fingers as though the words he wanted were nestled there. "What's wrong with him, exactly? Why is he doing this again?"


He shouldn't have asked. Almost immediately, Yamato knew that he shouldn't have asked. He had gone too far, and now Wormmon could only shift his many legs uncomfortably and whine in a voice so low that it was almost inaud -- -- but then there was silence, and he seemed to shake himself out of a spell.


"I don't know," Wormmon admitted then, subdued. "He just came home one day and wouldn't look at me or talk to me or anything. When his mother brought him dinner in his room, he said he wasn't hungry. It was his favorite, and he just tipped the whole plate into the trashcan..." The Insect-type lowered his head so that it was resting on Yamato's arm and sniffled quietly. "After that, he started going into the Digital World all the time and not letting me come with him. When he got home, he shoved me out of his bed and made me sleep on the floor. He -- he felt different, I knew there was something wrong, but when the children started disappearing...I never thought..."


No, of course he hadn't, Yamato thought, rubbing the tiny digimon's back reassuringly. None of them had ever suspected. But... "You mean he didn't tell you what he was doing?"


"He never breathed a word of it!" Wormmon protested heatedly, his feelers quivering like mad, but the anger faded as swiftly as it had come. "He...Ken-chan said it was because he didn't trust me anymore. He waited until he was ready to move in here full-time before letting me know anything. Ken-chan thought I would tell you or one of the others and r - ruin his plan. He s - said I'd betrayed him once, b - but that he wasn't going to l - let me do it again. S - so now, he keeps me in a c - collar all the t - time...unless he's p - punishing me..."


Vision blurring, Yamato shook his head and scooped the Insect-type into his arms. He hugged that fragile digimon as tightly as he knew how without hurting him. And he hated the Digimon Kaizer with every last atom of his being. "Don't you worry about that," he whispered fiercely into Wormmon's warm dry skin. "You did the right thing when you helped Daisuke and V-mon. Do you hear me? The right thing. If Ken can't see that, then --"

Wormmon cut him off and wriggled away. His strange, scratchy voice shook with emotion. "You d - don't understand! I was born for Ken-chan! Whatever he w - wants, whatever he needs, I'm s - supposed to stand by him! I'm supposed to help him. But he's right! He was right not to trust me! I would have told. I would've!"


And in his mind, Yamato heard someone else's words.


"I'll stand by you, no matter what."


Wasn't that...what Gabumon had said to him? Wasn't that what Gabumon had done when he, Yamato, had decided to attack his best friend and tear their group apart? His digimon had helped him, even when he'd thought what they were doing was wrong. The blond boy stopped dead and tried to imagine how he would have felt if Gabumon had turned his back instead and run off to warn Taichi. Betrayed didn't really cover it. He had been so lost already back then, so frightened and confused and -- more than anything else -- so deeply hurt. Going to Taichi would have been the right thing to do, surely? And yet, Yamato was sure it would've left some distance between he and his digimon. A rift, just like what Wormmon was describing. What Wormmon was suffering from.


It's not the same thing, Yamato reassured himself hastily. He had only wanted to square off against a friend, prove which one of them was better. Ken was hurting people and killing digimon. Gabumon wouldn't have helped him to do that, either. Right?


He hated the fact that he wasn't sure. It was unnerving to think that if he had been the one to go crazy, maybe no one would have been there to pull him back from the brink the way Wormmon had pulled Ken. It made Yamato want to see his own digimon so that he could ask. It also made him reach out again to draw Wormmon slowly, gently, to his chest.


"Maybe Ken sees it that way, but I don't." He tried to fill them up with meaning, but knew that no matter what he said, the words would ring hollow unless they came from Wormmon's human partner. "We needed you back then...and so did he. I'm not sure what would've happened to any of us otherwise. So...don't feel bad, okay?"


The Insect-type relaxed about a hair. "I still wish he'd talk to me," he said gloomily. "Just a few words, without any Black Matter. If he'd do that, I might know how to make him better."


"You've known him for most of your life, haven't you?" Yamato prodded uncertainly. He had never really gotten Ken's entire back-story, only knew that the indigo-haired boy had been much younger than him when he had first visited the Digital World. "Don't you have any idea?"


"Sort of." There was a long silence, and Yamato got the distinct impression that Wormmon didn't know exactly how to answer. "It's like his heart is in shadow. I can't see him anymore -- not really. Only the bad things get through, as if...as if they're all he has left."


As responses went, cryptic and unhelpful was not his favorite kind. Yamato rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to say something to that effect, but then the bed gave another loud creak and the Digimon Kaizer mumbled fitfully, lips pursing. He turned over onto his back.


"...ais...ke..."


Oh, god. Was Ken waking up? They were fucked if he woke up, fucked beyond the telling of it. Vaguely, Yamato knew that he should have been lying back down, hiding Wormmon, pretending to be asleep once more -- but that was only in his mind, and his body was having none of it. His body was going stalk-still like a deer in the headlights of an oncoming car. If deer ever realized how stupid they were being and yet couldn't make themselves move. Shit.


He counted to ten, then to twenty. Thirty. He was having trouble with his breathing. Forty. Specifically, the part where he drew oxygen in through his mouth. Fifty. He was starting to feel dizzy. Sixty. Was he going to pass out right there, from nothing more than his own fear?


Almost two entire minutes had gone by in this suffocating fashion before the Digimon Kaizer settled down again and Yamato could breathe once more. Slowly, he relaxed what he realized must have been a mildly-painful grip on Wormmon and whispered an apology to the little digimon. An uneasy silence fell between them. He wasn't the only one who had been afraid that they were about to be discovered and possibly killed, or the only one watching the Digimon Kaizer carefully now for any sign of further movement. Neither of them spoke for a long time.


"I should go," Wormmon said at last. "I only came in here to see him. For a few minutes, you know. I...I do it whenever I can, but if he ever woke up and found me here..."


Again, his feelers drooped noticeably, and Yamato was torn. He didn't want to send Wormmon away. Biting his lip with the foolishness of what he was about to suggest, he put a fingertip to the Virus-attribute's mouthparts. "Stay. I wasn't planning on getting much sleep anyhow, so I can just wake you up in a few hours and he'll never know."


"You'd do that for me?" Wormmon sounded as though he had never heard of such a wonderful, selfless thing. "I...thank you." He ducked his head and scuttled over to rest contentedly in what looked like a very bumpy half-perch on the Digimon Kaizer's hip without waiting for a reply, like he thought Yamato might change his mind if given half a chance.

&;
T;
That much gratitude for a simple favor... The Keeper of Friendship shook his head, resting back against an enormous satin pillow but being careful at the same time not to get so comfortable that he would risk falling asleep. Beside him, the Digimon Kaizer turned over once more and Yamato had a glimpse of his face in the near dark while Wormmon adjusted to the new position. The expression there would have looked almost peaceful if Ken's eyebrows hadn't been drawn toge sha sharply. Bad dreams, maybe. Yamato stared at him, and couldn't help but wonder what would have given the Digimon Kaizer nightmares. Innocent digimon going unharmed? He would have to ask tomorrow.


Tomorrow...


His mind was drifting, his thoughts were slowing, and Yamato sat up again quickly. The last thing he needed was to doze off and get his only potential ally in this madhouse into serious trouble, but god how he wanted to sleep suddenly. Tomorrow was another chance to wake up and find that this had been a nightmare, that Ken was still a good person and that he h#039#039;t just spent half an hour having layers of his skin ripped off. Yamato drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them slowly. When Taichi found out about that, he was going to laugh. He didn't feel like being laughed at.


Though, it might have been nice to make lauglaugh or even just smile in a way that wasn't cruel or mocking. The blond boy rolled over and gazed blindly at the blackened ceiling overhead. Yeah, he thought. That might've been nice.

TRANSLATIONS:


A yukata is a traditional Japanese robe, much like the well-known kimono. The difference is that they are lighter, oftentimes worn in the summer heat or after a nice, relaxing bath. As the bathing room in this little fortress is quite...well-equipped, it would have a collection of them hanging up near the entrance.

To be continued...
- 7
- 8
- 9
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Pins and Needles