Disclaimer/Note: I do not own Digimon, or any of the characters in this story. I am not making any money off of this story. Please do not sue me. When I say "football" in this story, please realize that I'm talking about soccer and not American football. Thank you. Also, some people may find things in this story that they don't like. My suggestion to you is to stop reading and go somewhere else. This story was written in one sitting, without a beta reader, or anything like that. So, for everyone who doesn't have a problem with all that, please enjoy.

Everything's All Right

"--And then those damn Hispanic midgets that the Russians had hired started hiding morphine and ecstasy in all of my pants, so I sold them to the Bhutanese mafia," the boy was babbling again, the air in front of him a flurry of dark skin and calloused palms. It was as though he was trying to paint a picture with those rough hands, to show his one-man audience the scenes that he had described so vividly with his downtown Tokyo accent and child-slang vocabulary. Dark eyes followed those rapid movements at their own, subdued pace; that indigo-lavender gaze catching here and there on the boy's body as it twisted with his words: a tanned calf, subtly defined abdominal, soft lips and mocha-brown eyes beneath dark red brows, and those hands. Always, the attention was drawn back to the hands. They were exquisite, beautiful. The boy stopped moving then, clasping his hands behind his back, hiding them from view as if he knew that they were being admired. "So. . .yeah, that's why I don't have any pants."

"That still doesn't explain why you're standing in my living room nearly naked , Daisuke."

". . .oh." Daisuke looked down at the carpet, scuffing his toe on it thoughtfully. A set of fingers came up to his collarbone as if to fidget with a shirt. It was an irrelevant gesture: Daisuke wasn't wearing one. In fact, just as his companion had so eloquently stated only moments ago, Daisuke wasn't wearing much of anything right now. He had on a pair of once-green cargo shorts, but the color had long since faded away into oblivion.

. . .And his goggles, that eternal symbol of leadership. Can't forget the goggles.

"Well?"

"Well what?" for some reason or another, Daisuke sounded suspicious, sounded like he thought the other wanted something from him. But perhaps it was just the audience's own paranoia coming into play; it did that occasionally, after all. A shake of the head, heavy and despondent sigh from thin lips as Daisuke's long-time friend shifted positions on the couch.

"Aren't you going to explain it to me?"

"Shit, man. . ." the second child of Courage swore, rubbing one of those work toughened hands against the back of his neck. Or would he be an adolescent now? Certainly they were not children anymore, hadn't been children since they'd returned from the Digital World for the last time. And that was almost ten years ago. "That's it; I'm never not wearing pants around you again. You're always asking too many damn questions."

"Really? I ask too many questions, you say?"

Daisuke nodded, casually settling himself on the edge of the coffee table, perched precariously with his feet spread apart for balance and elbows on his naked knees as he hunched forward to squint accusingly at the other. Sitting like that, the young man had to lean back and cant his head to the side to continue watching the boy's hands, and even then it would have seemed like he was bypassing the eyes in favor of his belt. Or perhaps just lower, depending on who was paying attention. "Yup. And you just asked another one. I swear, man: this whole question-asking thing is a. . .a. . .an epidemic! That's what it is. It's like AIDS, or something."

"But easier to contract, right?"

"Hey," there was a warning in the boy's tone, but his friend brushed it aside. Labeled it as 'unimportant' in his mind and chose to ignore it. "AIDS is easy to get. I've got it."

The sudden admission of that was startling, unnerving and terrifying. Dark eyes widened, jerked upward and met with brown, but only momentarily before a smile crept onto that narrow face, pulled those too-thin lips up and a fake laugh was breathed out, forced amusement when the one-man audience could manage to speak:

"And who told you that?"

"My science teacher," the response was an easy one, off-hand and relaxed as Daisuke straightened in his seat, stretching his finely toned arms above the mess of gel and spiked red that he had styled that morning. His friend sighed again, this time through his nose, and felt a wave of relief wash over him, watching as the explanation for such an outburst began. "Y'see, we were doing this experiment in class with water and vinegar, and whoever ended up with vinegar in their cup had AIDS--"

"Then you don't have AIDS, Daisuke. You have vinegar. Or rather," the pale young man corrected himself, a delicate, effeminate hand raised as if to ward off an interruption. "You had vinegar, as I assume your teacher didn't allow you to keep the cup."

". . .true."

"And, now that that's settled, are you going to tell me why you're here?"

Daisuke grinned, lowering his head slightly as he did so. It gave him the look of an animal, something wild and unruly. The look of something that needed to be tamed, and it made the other's hands ache for the familiar wrapped pommel of a whip. It was an odd reaction to his question, but he had long ago learned to expect the unexpected. "Which is more important?"

"Pardon?"

"I said," and here Daisuke stood, gesturing broadly to nothing in particular, hands fluttering through the air like birds in flight. "Which one is more important: the 'me being naked' part, or 'me being in your living room'?"

"They. . .they're not mutually exclusive, I'm sure, Daisuke," the young man caught himself, brows furrowing in confusion. "Ah. . .are they?"

His reaction was met with a laugh, a deep-throated sound that filled the room like gunshots, raced through the young man's blood like smoke and violence. It filled the room until he thought that he was drowning in it; suffocating on his friend's happiness. He tried to swallow, tried to drink it like any other candy-coated toxin, and choked. The laughter burned a trail like acid down his throat, like fire and brimstone in his mouth. It slammed against his mind -- so much more delicate than even his own pretty hands -- until he thought he would snap; until he thought that if it lasted just a second longer he would reach out to his dear, dear beloved Daisuke and tear his throat open just to kill that god-awful noise. To kill that heaven-sent music and keep the body carefully preserved for all of time so that he could turn and stare deep into those coffee-brown eyes whenever he wanted, and kiss the cold dead fingers from those beautiful hands. Ah, yes. . .ripping Daisuke's throat out would solve everything, wouldn't it?

"Of course they are! It's like. . .oh, math and sex: totally different and unrelated."

Sex.

What a wonderful analogy for anything, especially with the young man's current mind frame. No, he wasn't thinking about sex, but death and murder stimulated the same part of his brain and made him twitch, made his hands clench into fists at his sides to keep himself in control. To keep him from recreating his fantasy of eternity with his best of friends here and now.

". . .That's not. . .necessarily true, Daisu--"

"Oh gawd," the boy interrupted, smacking a hand over his eyes as if to hide himself from the topic. "Can you just imagine some poor loser math teachers dating, and their idea of foreplay is long division? I can see it now: they've got dry-erase boards in the bedroom and multiplication flash-cards under the mattress where the kids can't find 'em. Man, that's gotta be the only time you'd ever use Calculus outside of school."

"Thank you, Daisuke," it was said with enough sarcasm to kill the average human, but then again, Daisuke was anything but average.

"You're very welcome, Ken."

Ken scowled, glaring off in the direction of the window. "You still haven't answered the original question, Daisuke. Can you please try to stay focused?"

"Huh? Oh," he shrugged, lacing his fingers together on the back of his neck. "Well, let's see. . .I already told you about why I'm not wearing any pants -- y'know, the Bhutanese really needed them more than I did -- and I lost my shirt to Takeru in a game of strip basketball before I left -- I swear that kid cheats, you know? -- and my shoes are by the door, and. . .and I always come to see you! What's so wrong with that?"

". . .even when I'm working?"

"Bah. You work too much," his hands fell from his neck and Daisuke started to head for the kitchen. It made Ken wonder whether or not his friend would go insane if he were tied down and unable to move. "All work and no play's gonna make you a very dull boy, buddy."

"Hmph. I'm sure. . ."

"So, while we're talking about playing," he called back over his shoulder as he opened the refrigerator door, in search of sweets. "I was thinking that we could go out and play some football. You know, just some half-field, one-on-one action. What do ya think of that for a plan, eh?"

Ken finally roused himself from his place on the couch, moving to stand in the kitchen entryway, watching as his friend proceeded to raid the contents of the nearby cabinets. It would be fun, he was able to silently admitted. There was always something entertaining about playing games with Daisuke; maybe it was the humiliation factor. The fact that, no matter what it was or how big Daisuke talked, Ken always won, hands down. But even winning was starting to lose its thrill when the victory came too easily; was starting to develop an old and rancid taste in his mouth. Ken shook his head. "I don't want to."

"Sure you do, Ken; you just don't know it yet."

"I said I didn't want to, Daisuke," he snapped, placing a hand on the white plaster of the entryway. Ken always tried so hard not to slam things. It was a bad habit, and he was dying to get rid of those. "Now drop it. I have work to do, and this isn't funny anymore. Get out."

Before I do something we'll both regret.

Daisuke looked up, stared at him incredulously, before blinking it away and smiling. Because that was just what he always did, wasn't it? Like he thought that if he just smiled, all the bad things in the world would disappear. Again, that scowl found its way onto Ken's face, and he jerked his gaze down to the floor. But that was just the way that Daisuke was: monsters couldn't touch him when he smiled, when his painter's hands swirled through the air in front of him as he made up stories and pretended they were real. Nothing fazed him. "What, am I bothering you, Ken? Geez, next thing you know, you're gonna be screeching like an angry mom, 'You're polluting my children, get out of my house!'"

Monsters can't touch him.

If I touch him, will it burn? Will I bleed?

Everything went white.

"I am not a puppet to be manipulated. I am not an action-figure; I am not a marionette. I will not be placed into your perfect world with its censored conduct. I will not be edited; I will not be deleted if I fail to meet your system's expectations," the mantra was said in monotone, dark eyes fixed on the white ceiling above. He was lying on his back, something wet and slightly sticky seeping in through his button-down work shirt. It was warm. "I am not a puppet. . ."

If you want--

Divert the attention, keep eyes away from the doors and windows. . .keep the curtains closed. . .

--then take--

Good little boys don't think like that, do they? Do they lie like this on the floor, staring up at the ceiling simply because if they look down they know they'll scream? Ken didn't think so. What would come next, once he got up, once he came to his senses? He didn't really want to know.

If you want me--

He was choking on Daisuke's laughter again, though the only sound in the apartment came from him, his own, hacked and dying laugh. It was the kind of laugh that one might hear from a man who's just realized he's gone insane. Ken rolled to his side, red flooding his vision when his cheek landed in the pooling red on the linoleum.

--then take me. . .take everything.

"If you want me, then take me. . ." he said the words out loud like the action might somehow make them seem that much crazier, that much more amusing. He licked his lips, and all he could taste was Daisuke. "Take all of me. Take my heart, and soul, and my whole damn life. God knows I don't need them anymore. Well. . ."

He pushed himself to his knees and looked around with dull eyes, with too much apathy and not enough humanity. Reaching out, he took Daisuke's hand, pulled the sin-stained fingertips to his lips and kissed them, licked them clean. "If you want me, then you can take my blood: I've enough of yours to last forever."