Broken Adonis
Part 2 / If The Darkness Is To Keep Us Apart

Summary: Poison...Potent whether a mindset or a venom, is always a dangerous thing.
In an emotional journey, Ken and Yolei are about to find out that insecurities and pain can take away the very world around you...

Wow! I love this one! It's the Kenlei for Kat-chan!
Mistress Kenlei's is next! (The title is from Walk On by U2)

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Yolei slept. A fearful, haunted sleep.
Agony tore at her heart, crushing the gentle depths of her soul with a bony fist of torture.
She moaned, terrified by the images of blood and the sound's of Ken's scream.
Bathed in firelight, The Digidestined and Wormon stood vigil over the boy.
Bringing him closer to the fire to see if they could sweat out any remaining toxins.
Still he slept...
And in darkness...He dreamed...

"Sam!"
The sickening thud of boy against vehicle...
The obvious victor...
The screams and the sirens...

The crashing thunder of a thousand terrified Digimon as they screamed..

The echoing wails of pain as he sobbed in the darkness...
The hollow black that was his soul...
His memories, a cacophony of loneliness and sorrow poured over him like physical, draining misery.
He screamed without voic, wept without tears.
He was lost within a hazy sea of ebony and shadows...
And he was hot...So hot...
It was if the fires of Hades scorched his flesh...The bones blackening and crumbling beneath the roar and din of flame.
He couldn't move...He couldn't breathe...

He couldn't see...

The Digidestined crowded round the ex-emperor, unable to do more.
"He has a fever! We need to bring it down!"
The soft, clogged whisper of the Digidestined of love and sincerity shook the others, and they backed away, allowing her access.
She knelt, tearfully picking up a cloth from the bucket Davis had thoughtfully supplied.
She bit her lip as she stroked it over his face.
The blood faded, still staining his gray uniform
The slice across his shoulder was bandaged and clean. Kari putting her knowledge gleaned from Joe to the test, and he appeared peaceful...
Save for the glazed vision and beading sweat.
She wept even as she smiled slightly. The sweat was good...The eyes were not...
Yolei turned away from his handsome face, weak and tired, cursing her own stupidity.
"Why did he..did he do it?" She murmured, running the cool cloth over his chest.
Tk shook his head, shrugging. "We don't know Yolei. One minute he was standing behind Davis...The next he was-"
"Realizing the full extent of his feelings..." finished Davis, who stared at the fallen comrade.
The others turned surprised, and glanced at the girl beside Ken.
Yolei turned back to the Digidestined of kindness, hiding behind her hair.
"Then he should have kept them unrealized...If it meant this, he should have let me die!"
Kari knelt beside the girl, who turned into her sisterly arms, Tk taking the cloth from loose fingers.
"I-I just felt so alone! I-I-I just wanted to run away from my pr-problems for a bit...I felt so useless and u-ugly...And I may have just killed the boy I love!"
She clenched her fists, tilting her head back in anguish.
"I may have just killed him!" She wailed again...
And Tk looked into the devoid eye's of their friend.
Not killed...Lost...

Ken could hear voices...An echo and call of the new friends belonging to him..
Davis...
Takeru...
Cody...
Kari...
Yolei...

Yolei...
They would die! It would be his fault...If he could just keep it away!

Ken bolted upright, a jerky, course movement. Blindly searching the darkening shadows of the peaceful clearing.
But he saw none of them...He saw nothing...
"Don't leave me here alone! Don't leave me in the dark!"
Kari, who had been sitting beside him, pushed on the shoulders that refused to go down.
"Don't leave me in the dark!" The blue haired boy screamed again, roughly grabbing hold of the girl by the shoulders.
Davis made as if to go for the teenager, but Tk stopped him. Shaking his head.
"Don't leave me in the dark!"
The blonde looked nervous. "Ken can't see Davis...He isn't looking at Kari...He isn't looking at 'anything'!"
The boy on the ground growled as he screamed the mantra again, waking Yolei and Cody.
"Don't leave me in the dark!"
Tears accompanied the shout and he bared his teeth, weakening.
Yolei backed away, fearful at the blindness of Ken's eyes.
"Where is she?! What about Wormon?! Where is she?!"
The brunette he fiercely gripped tried to pull away as she whispered.
"Who, Ken? Who!"
The boy shook her, and Davis could stand it no more, he darted forward, wrenching Kari from his arms and drawing her back.
"Where did she go! Where did she go! Where is she!!!
The leader looked fearfully at his friend, swallowing.
"I-s Ken l-losing his mind, guys?"
An answering roar met his ears.
"WHERE DID SHE GO!!"
Taking a step forward, Tk knelt beside the raging teen, who looked more like the emperor then ever before.
"Ken, you gotta tell me who!"
The boy launched forward, surprisingly strong, and grabbed the Digidestined by the shoulders.
"Yolei! Yolei! Where is Yolei!"
Gasping, the girl continued to move away, even as she summoned her courage.
"Where is she!" The boy broke, relinquishing Tk and covering his blind eyes with his hands.
"Don't leave me in the darkness, Yolei! Wormon! I don't want to be alone!"
Startled by the vehement pain, the girl took a step forward, reaching a hand to him.
"I'm right here Ken..."
Davis made to move forward, blocking her way, and Ken had no reaction.
She moved closer, kneeling beside him.
"Ken..."
Suddenly, he lunged for her, knocking her backward with himself on top.
His arm's wrapped around her, and he buried his agonized face against her collarbone. His sobbing grew in crescendo, and his hands mauled her body and face, all the while as he whispered her name frantically.
She would have been embarrassed by the blatant sexuality of his movements or words, but she understood that it was pain, not pleasure speaking for him.
She whispered sweet nothings, tearfully, in his ear, stroking his indigo hair and calming him.
The others looked on in confused fascination as Ken writhed and clutched at Yolei.
"What's going on!" whispered Cody, anger in his voice. "Why isn't somebody helping them!"
Kari shook her head, tears filling her face. "She's helping him Cody."
Davis watched, wide eyes, as Ken gently bit at Yolei's neck, whispering her name harshly.
The purple haired girl closed her eyes, her hand stilling on his neck.
It almost looked like they were making love...
But the pain crossing both their faces, one blind, one afraid, spoke differently.
Yolei brushed her hand along his skin, crying as he whispered bitter, painful things into her ear.
"You want to know me? You want me?"
She closed her eyes, biting her lip. Stones ground into her back, dust crept through her hair and on he hissed, like a thousand snakes of Lucifer.
"You love this...Monster I am! I killed my brother...I killed Wormon....I hunted the Digital world like it was a game! I hurt innocent Digi-"
He continued to hurl epithets against himself, tearing at her body as if trying to melt into her.
"Where are you, Yolei? You're so warm...Gentle...Where are you?"
"I'm right here Ken."
His whimpering quieted and his breathing seemed to calm, his wild, blind eyes searching the darkness.
"Where are you? I'm so...Dirty...I'll taint you all...So dirty..."
He swiped his hands along her frame, sighing as he did so.
"Like blood...I'll contaminate you like tainted blood...So dirty..."
Ken swallowed as he leaned his sweaty forehead back against her neck.
His muttering turned into wracking sobs, wetness trickling down her throat.
"Dirty...I can't find you in the dark...I'm so alone..."
And this is how they stayed until dawn, when the ex-Kaiser drifted off to torturous sleep.

Yolei's guilt was supreme as she cradled the broken, unseeing form of Ken Ichijouji.
She sighed and stroked his face, sweat beading on her fingers.
Carefully, she rested his unconscious head in her lab, freeing her hands to touch him.
Tk nodded to the others, who retreated to a respectable distance, wary of an outburst.
The lavender haired girl combed her fingers through his straggly indigo hair as he shook gently.
Her soft voice, hoarse from tears, painted a beautiful picture for the sleeping figure.
She hoped to...Well, to help him...Calm him...Save him.
"...And then we can go to that little ice cream parlor on fifth...Do you know the place? It's called Ice Cream de la Crème, and it's really good...And Davis will order the Peanut Butter Brittle Nut, waffle cone double like always...And Tk will get the Cookie's and Cream...Kari will get Strawberry Mango...And Cody will get Vanilla Lime...I'll get the Devil's Food Cake, (I like the cherries) And you could get...Well, I don't know...We've never gone out for Ice cream. I think you might like the Blue Ice...It's a sherbet...Or maybe the Chocolate Chip Cherry Chunk...Maybe...We can do that..."
She smiled weakly, drawing a shuddering breath.
"And then we can all go to the park...And you and Davis will race your boats...We both know who will win...And then Kari will give the victor a kiss...And I can pretend it didn't happen (Sorry) And then I-I can help Cody with his kite, and we'll fly it...And the sky will be so blue! It will be like a all the angels have opened their sapphire wings, just to shine upon us..."
Ken's face showed no sign of anything, but Yolei continued to weave her adventures, hoping against hope, that maybe...Just maybe, she could reach him.

The grasping darkness clutched at him with shriveled fingers...Tugging him back within the deceptively warm, black depths.
But a ray of light, accompanied by a soothing voice, etched itself across his inner eye...Caressing his face within it's white purity, and holding the wretched hands at bay.
A voice that bespoke of sunlit glades and cotton candy carnivals...soft, moonlit nights and a million ice creams....A sunshine smoothed sailboat, wind-whipped and crisp cascading across silken seas, and a thousand times and places...
And it kept him tied to the light...Anchored him gently to the hazy reality that eluded him.
And he was grateful and anguished as he drifted farther and closer from it.
Ken tried to cry for the voice...Tried to lift his fingers towards the light.
'Please stay!' He whispered to the glimmer 'I need you to be with me!'
Sadness overwhelmed him as the voice faded, then returned.
'Don't leave me in the darkness...Please!' His voice echoed across the empty hollowness, retreating back to him...
'Yolei?! Is it you again? Where are you Yolei?!'
He cried inside himself, the burning pain surrounding him as flames seemed to lick at his limbs.
'I'm sorry...I don't want to taint you, or the others...So sorry' His voice drifted away like mists and his voice dimmed.
'I killed Wormon...And Sam...I'm worthless. Forgive me if you can...I won't bear a grudge...Just don't leave me in the darkness..."
His whisper faded...And he sank between the light and beyond, again...

"Is he any better?"
Davis nervously wrung his hands, scuffing his feet against the dirt, as he edged towards his best, human friend.
"Yolei? How is he?"
As he looked closer at the two, purple head bent over indigo, he realized she was asleep.
"Oh man, Poor Yolei!"
Tk, coming up behind him, shook his kind head.
"I don't understand what's going on...But we both know we can't let Ken go back to Earth!"
Davis clenched his fist. "I don't understand that! He's sick, we have to help him!"
Shaking his head, Tk looked at Kari, snuggling up beside a frightened young Cody then Wormon and the other little Digimon, huddled protectively around the tiny green bug..
"Davis...We don't know whether this...Poison, Ken had inhaled..Is infectious! We don't know if it's been transmitted to any of us! And we can't, we can't risk infecting normal people!"
He broke off, frightened and brave. Bearing a cross no young boy should have to bear
He gestured to Kari, comforting Cody, or Yolei, huddled against Ken.
"We're all alone on this one, Davis...We can't even let the others come help us..."
The blonde hung his head, his shoulders sagging. He breathed out for a moment, before raising anguished blue eyes to the other boy.
"We have no one on this but each other and our Digimon, Davis! And I just don't know what to do..."
Davis swallowed, pain flowing through him as he looked at all his friends.
He was scared...This wasn't a fight you could use physical force with, and he was at a definite loss...He turned towards the fire.

It was at 2:00 the next afternoon, when Ken awoke again.
"Stop iiiiiittttt!!"
Ken's scream tore across the weary clearing, the companion Digimon brought to attention, Wormon eagerly looking at his friend.
Fear vs. joy.
"Stop it now! Just leave me alone!"
Fear triumphed.
The boy flailed, wrenching from a tired Yolei's grasp. Gasping, she backed away, leaving the blue haired teen to fall to his knees.
A mirror image from the forest, he drew in a pulling, dry, drought of air, and hacked blood over his lips...Though this time it was accompanied by black fluid.
He periodically coughed and screamed, swearing and crying and blind.
The other Digidestined watched as he collapsed again, and Yolei sobbed as she drew his crumpled form back into her tired embrace.
She cried so hard she couldn't speak...

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Onward to chapter 3!!