Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Drifting Pieces ❯ Spin ( Chapter 6 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Author’s Note:
This fic was originally partially posted at the end of 2010. Since then, I have rewritten every single chapter and done a serious edit as well as finished the story. If you have not visited since October of 2010, I recommend that you start over. It’s worth it (05/2012).

A review is like hot soup on a cold wet day: It warms you from the inside out and makes you smile. Hope you enjoy and please review.

Chapter 06: Spin

Ken sat on the floor holding an ice pack to his head while Wormmon fussed at him from the bed. Veemon sat next to Wormmon attempting to keep the little virus type from having a complete conniption fit.

Daisuke sat across from Ken with his arms crossed and what he probably considered to be his famous Motomiya intimidation glare.

Ken avoided the glare as he shifted the ice pack to the cooler side and kept his gaze down on his lap. He’d had worse injuries in his life, but Wormmon had made such a fuss that he had consented to the ice before the whole house had been woken up. It was probably for the best, he could just imagine what his mother would say if she saw the angry lump the next day.

Ken didn’t think he could handle having to explain to his parents why his best friend had apparently had to head but him off the bed in self defense from sexual advances.

Daisuke cleared his throat loudly and Ken shook his head slowly with a wince. “I don’t know.”

It was the truth. He didn’t know what was happening to him or why he had done what they said he had done.

“How long has this been going on? How long have you been ‘losing time’? Why didn’t you tell anyone? Why didn’t you tell me?” Ken winced at the hurt tone in Daisuke’s voice at the end. Just one more thing to feel guilty for. Add that to everything else in his life…

“I’m not sure… Yesterday was the first time. I think… Then again today in class and… Just now up there.” He refused to meet Daisuke’s gaze.

“Wait, what happened yesterday? What happened today?”

Ken closed his eyes to fight back the pounding headache. He didn’t want to tell Daisuke about the note.

“I lost some more time. I was taking notes and…  Suddenly class was over and I had taken about ten pages worth of notes.” That was enough, wasn’t it?

Wormmon made a small sound from the bed. He didn’t know about the letter, but he knew something had happened to spook Ken.

Daisuke arched an eyebrow. “Ken…” It was a plea, a warning and a demand all at once.

A sudden hot spike of anger flowed through Ken and he clenched his eyes tightly shut, pressing the ice pack to his head harder in an attempt to smother the emotion before Daisuke could recognize it.

Why was he angry? If anything, Daisuke should be angry at him. What was this emotion that threatened to bubble over and drown him?

“Ken please…” This time it was a soft and full of something that pierced his heart. Daisuke reached out and lightly placed a hand on Ken’s arm.

Something snapped and Ken felt his control being ripped away. The ice pack hurtled across the room and splattered against the wall, leaving a wet smudge where it had impacted.

“I don’t know!” A familiar growl slid through his too tight throat as he got to his feet and towered over the smaller boy.

Wormmon shrank back as an old instinct kicked in while Daisuke stared up at Ken with utter surprise. The surprise must have been mirrored on his own face as Daisuke’s was quickly overcome with worry.

Ken could feel the room spinning around him as he looked down at Daisuke. It was wrong. Everything about this was wrong.

Stop it.

He felt like he was drowning. He could hear the waves slowly starting to swirl around him and rising.

Daisuke, not one to ever be without action, jumped to his feet in an effort to meet the challenge head on. This only left him looking lost as he realized he had no idea what the challenge was.

Ken watched as Daisuke’s lips moved, asking questions and demanding things of him, yet it sounded so far away.

It’s inside you. There was a soft hiss that tugged at his mind almost playfully.

He spun around on his heels, his eyes frantically searching for the source. He knew this sound. He knew this feeling. He had been there before and he knew that it was no longer possible for it to pull him back in. They had closed it off and he had gotten rid of that darkness…

I’m tainted.

The waves roared louder, threatening to tear apart his world at any moment.

“Stop it.” His voice was brittle as he fought back the rising panic.

He knew that Daisuke, Wormmon and Veemon were now watching him the way one might observe a rabid animal from a distance but he didn’t care. All he cared about was finding the source and forcing it to stop.

Daisuke opened his mouth to speak but Ken held up a firm hand, silencing him as his eyes darted around the room with extreme concentration. It was in his room. It just had to be.

His eyes settled on his desk and he knew it was there.

“It’s here.” Ken moved to the desk quickly and started to frantically search through it.

“What’s here? Ken? Ken, I think maybe I hit you harder than I thought. Maybe you should sit back down and let me get you a fresh ice pack. Okay? Ken?” Daisuke slowly approached as if he was approaching a wounded animal.

Ken ignored him as he knocked things aside and off the desk. “It’s here. The ocean. It’s in here.” His things clattered to the floor in a chaotic disarray that his room had never experienced before.

The waves grew louder and he knew he was close. With a flourish, he ripped the drawers from his desk and turned them upside down with a clatter.  Was it his digivice? His D3? No, they were silent and still.

Daisuke walked up to him and lightly placed a hand on Ken’s shoulder, causing him to jump and pull back. “Ken? I don’t hear anything. There’s no ocean.” His concern was almost more than Ken could handle.

Ken was about to reply, the hysteria threatening to spill out, when his eyes fell on his backpack sitting neatly under his desk.

“There. It’s in there.” Unzipping it hastily, he dumped it out onto the floor to join the rest of the forming mess.

There, on top of the papers and books and pencils, sat a neat pair of glasses.

Slowly, he knelt down and picked up the glasses with a trembling hand.

Silence. The waves had stopped and the room was quiet and still once more.

Looking down at the glasses in his hands, the calm was suddenly shattered by laughter. It started as a soft giggle and slowly built into a roar that Ken knew deep down was only in his head.

He was vaguely aware of Wormmon and Daisuke at his sides, a hand clenched on his shoulder and little pods clinging to his leg in an effort to get his attention. He was aware that Daisuke sounded more desperate than he’d ever heard in his life as the boy pleaded for an answer.

An answer that Ken didn’t have.

All he could do was stare down at the glasses that were so familiar and cold in his grip.

Osamu.

The laughter swallowed him up greedily and the world started to fade away.

His eyes slowly shifted to a crumpled piece of paper that sat ominously on top of his upturned school work. A crumpled piece of paper that he thought he had thrown away.

“Are you awake, Ken?” He suddenly knew the answer.

“No. I don’t think I am…”

--

Daisuke had no idea what was going on. He had no idea why the object of his affection had been someone else and tried to do things with him that he only wanted to do with Ken. The real Ken.

He had no idea why his partner had suddenly gone off the deep end and torn his room apart looking for ‘the ocean’ and he had no idea why a boy with perfect eye sight had a pair of glasses in his backpack or why they seemed to have set off a panic attack so severe that it had left the boy trembling and nearly catatonic for a good fifteen minutes.

Daisuke had finally managed to convince Ken to just sit with him for a while as he slowly returned to himself.

What was worse was that Daisuke had no idea what to do to try and fix what ever was wrong. He eventually settled for sitting against the wall with an arm tightly wrapped around Ken’s waist to keep him from slipping away and his other hand lightly brushing the hair out of Ken’s eyes as if he could just as easily brush all of Ken’s problems away.

Wormmon had settled into Ken’s lap, curled up like a cat and clinging to Ken as if he was afraid the boy might suddenly jump up and run off.

They all sat in silence for several minutes before Daisuke spoke up. “You’re thinking again. I can see it in your eyes.” The statement was punctuated as Daisuke pushed back a lock of hair and Ken’s eyes glanced up before quickly looking away again, appearing lost and hallow.

Ken was still clutching the glasses in his hand tightly and he had refused to let them go.

“Osamu…” Ken’s voice sounded strained and he stopped to lick his lips before continuing. “They were my brother’s. I… I don’t know how they got in there. I don’t remember taking them.”

Great. More lost time. Daisuke made as if to take the glasses but stopped when Ken’s eyes widened in alarm and he pulled back.

“I don’t get it.” Daisuke settled for just stroking Ken’s hair again and sighed. “You think the glasses are to blame for the time issues?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I… I could hear the dark ocean, Daisuke. It…” Ken stopped and shook his head. He was hiding things again. Always trying to fight his demons alone and failing.

“But we know that’s not possible. We sealed it. What’s his name is trapped in there and he can’t get out. Gennai told us so.” Daisuke hated this chapter in the book of Ken. It was filled with pain and so well worn that the pages were starting to crumble.

It didn’t help that Daisuke still didn’t fully understand all of it, either. This chapter was still mostly in that mysterious Ken language.

“Yes… That ocean… That world is gone.” Ken agreed with him. “But-”

“No! No Buts! There’s no but! It’s gone, Ken!” Daisuke cut in sharply.

“It’s inside me. The darkness is inside… It never left. Maybe…” He trailed off and Daisuke was actually glad for once. He didn’t want to know what horrible ‘maybe’ Ken had been about to explore.

Daisuke was about to dive into his own special Ken lecture mode when Wormmon suddenly spoke up.

“You can’t keep thinking like that, Ken.” Everyone looked down at the little digimon in surprise. “That’s not you anymore. You’ve changed and already suffered enough.”

“Oh Wormmon…” Ken pulled his partner into a tight hug. “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Why I can’t just let go and move on like everyone else…”

Daisuke frowned. He hated it when Ken apologized. He was always apologizing. If he had it his way, Ken would never have to apologize for anything ever again.

“Maybe it’s just stress. I mean, you had a million tests and Wormmon told me you weren’t sleeping well and then there was Wednesday…” Daisuke trailed off at the look Ken was giving him.

“I saw your calendar, Ken. After seeing you like that in the park the other day… I may suck at math, but I can at least put two and two together.” He felt like he’d accidentally trampled something delicate and sacred.

From the look on Ken’s face, this was a subject that was not something he was ready to discuss and would not be forced into discussing.

The room fell silent as Ken looked down at the glasses he’d been clutching.

“Daisuke, I…”

“If you apologize one more time I’m going to throw Veemon at you.”

“Hey!” Veemon bounded over and poked him with a sharp claw. Daisuke made a mental note to give him some kind of treat later for being so good and patient during all of this. He knew it must have been hard for the little chatterbox to stay quiet while he was having one of his more intimate ‘Ken moments’.

“You have a really hard head, Veemon! You make an excellent projectile!” They shared a smile only a Digimon and his Digidestined can share.

Ken let out one of his Ichijouji deep soul filled sighs and suddenly looked exhausted. “Daisuke… Maybe you’re right. It has been a… A really bad week. But what happened up there when I…”

“Well it wasn’t that bad…” And suddenly they were both blushing. “I mean… Not that I... Not that you… Just if it happens again I’d prefer it if you weren’t in some sort of daze or sleepwalking… er… sleep-something.”

And just like that, the sweet, shy, blushing Ken is back and Daisuke just wants to hold onto that small embarrassed smile for the rest of his life.

“Let’s get back to bed, okay? You’re going to relax and I’m going to be right there all night. If you start hearing the ocean or sleeping while awake or sleep molesting… Or doing any other weird things, I’ll just head butt you again.” He relished in the scandalous look Ken shot at him.

“Does it have to be with your head?” Ken rubbed his head lightly and winced at the forming bruise.

“You’re always telling me to use my head more often and when I finally do, you complain about it!” He grins and Ken rolls his eyes before slowly getting up.

Hesitantly, Ken sets the glasses back on the desk then skirts around the mess on the floor as he carries Wormmon back to the bed.

Flicking off the lights, he moves to help Veemon back up to the bed then carefully climbs after. Daisuke slowly moved to stretch out right up against Ken, draping his arms around him and pulling him close. He’s not getting away this time.

Ken sounded like he was about to protest but was cut off with a loud yawn and squeeze as Daisuke let him know that there was no way he was going to escape from the Motomiya death grip.

As exhausted as Daisuke is, he is far too worried to fall asleep. He could practically hear Ken beside him thinking again when he should have been sleeping.

He silently wished that he was smarter so he could figure it all out and Ken wouldn’t have to think so much.

As the minutes ticked by, he couldn’t help but start to hope that maybe all of this would simply melt away in the morning.

Daisuke gave another tight squeeze and eventually Ken’s body relaxes into the other boy and his breathing slowly starts to even out, blending with the snores of the digimon.

Once satisfied that Ken really was sleeping and sleeping soundly, Daisuke finally let his eyes close as he drifted back to rescuing his Ken damsels. If only he could rescue his real Ken like he could in his dreams…







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Discla imer: According to Wikipedia: Akiyoshi Hongo was the creator of the Digimon concept. Bandai, Saban Entertainment and various other entities that are not me own Digimon. I am in no way making money off of this and am strictly using the characters and world for my own fan based fiction.

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