A/N: This is pretty angsty and depressing. Deathfic. Yes, people die in this fic. Can't stomach it? Don't want to read it? Click the Back button and carry on your way.

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, Takeru, or Daisuke. I got the idea for this from "Ride", a comic by Locke, at . If you like this, go read it, it's fantastic.

When I got out of bed that morning, I hadn't been expecting to open my eyes and get a clear vision of blood on the bed sheets next to me. Needless to say, it woke me up faster than I usually take to fully come back to life in the mornings. I looked around, wondering where my bed partner and best friend had gone off to. I got out of bed and almost immediately felt a stab of pain between my legs. I looked down at my naked body and realized the blood on the bed had been mine.

"Shit," I cursed softly.

Walking into the bathroom, I realized that my first thought upon waking up had not been about him. My second thought had, but my first hadn't. I passed by the broken mirror and turned the shower on.

I tried to shower without causing myself too much pain. My skin was still tender. He'd probably cut me when he got up that morning. I wasn't bleeding anymore, but it still stung vaguely.

After I had dressed, I went straight to the stairs leading up to the roof of my apartment. I knew he would be up there, staring out at the city, the way he always did. I had long since given up on telling him it was dangerous to stand on the edge the way he loved to. It was often pointless to argue with him.

Sure enough, there he stood, the light breeze stirring his spiked hair slightly and making his shirt wave behind him. I walked up to stand next to him, staring forward at the horizon instead of down at the city streets below, knowing that if I looked down, I'd freak out. I'd always been afraid of heights.

He, on the other hand, stared down at the people walking by on the sidewalk running perpendicular to the apartment. He had no problems with heights. In fact, even if he were afraid of heights, he would still stand up there and stare all the way down the side of the building, just to scare himself. He enjoyed the thrill of being scared like that.

"Aren't they stupid?" he asked quietly.

I turned to look at him. He was glaring down at the people passing by, eyes narrowed and shadowed by the tilt of his head.

"I bet they don't even know their lives are passing them by. Don't they know that every second that passes in a day brings them even closer to their own demise?"

"Maybe they do know, but prefer not to think about it. Maybe it's human nature to ignore the dark and inexorable, so that they aren't haunted by it."

"But that's just a cheap escape. You can't just ignore the truth like that. It makes you ignorant."

"They probably don't care whether or not they're ignorant. As long as they can be happy for now, they'll do whatever they must to ignore the misery of knowing their time is drawing nearer."

"It's pointless. You can't stop death."

"They know. They're just trying to enjoy what time they have left."

Daisuke shook his head, turning away from the sight below him. He turned his head to watch a flock of black birds flying through the sky. I watched as he sat down on the ledge surrounding the edges of the roof. He sat with his back facing the open sky and the city below us. He brought his legs close to himself and crossed them lotus-style, rocking back slightly. I fought an urge to reach down and steady him, knowing he was only playing a game of chicken with himself. He loved to scare himself. There was nothing else left in the world that could have possibly scared him, so he made it his duty to terrify himself every day.

"Takeru, in all of our time spent together, have I ever apologized to you for anything I've ever done to you?"

I looked down at him. I was surprised that he would ask something like that.

"I didn't know you could apologize. I didn't even know you could feel remorse."

Daisuke grinned to himself, though it wasn't a happy grin. "I can't. I mean, I never have."

He paused, narrowing his eyes, as if unsure.

"But I have put you through hell, haven't I?"

I looked up at the sky thoughtfully for a moment, then looked back down at the top of his head. "That's putting it mildly, yeah."

He continued to stare forward, emotionless face half-hidden by his hair. "What happened to your hand?"

I glanced down at the cuts and scratches on my right hand. I clenched it into a fist.

"I broke the bathroom mirror. I figured you wouldn't notice because you never look at it. I don't know why we have the stupid thing, neither of us ever use it."

I had punched and shattered the bathroom mirror two days before. I had freaked out because I had seen his face in it instead of mine. My fist had been bleeding for a while afterwards, but I had been quick to pick up the shards of broken glass and wipe the blood from the tiled bathroom floor. I'd kept a particularly large shard of broken glass and stored it under my pillow, in case I ever needed to use it again.

Daisuke rocked back and forth with increasing force. I was clenching my fists and biting my lip so I wouldn't grab him and pull him off of that ledge. He suddenly stopped and my mind eased somewhat. He reached forward to grab a long cord of a metal wire and began wrapping it around himself. I stared at him as he carefully knotted it.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm binding myself," he replied, holding up the several different wires that were sticking out. He placed them in my hand. "Now you own me."

I grinned to myself, staring down at the wires in my fist. I began tying them around my fingers.

"I thought it was the other way around."

He stayed silent, frowning at the floor.

I wondered why he had said something like that, knowing how much he hated anyone trying to "own" him.

"I'm not mad at you for trying to cut off my dick again."

He looked up, face surprised, and then collapsed into strange-sounding giggling, pressing a hand over his forehead and one eye. "That has nothing to do with this."

I sighed and moved to stand next to him. "Then I'm going to drag you down from that stupid ledge."

His eyes suddenly went wide and fierce. He drew his legs up onto the ledge and cried out, "No, don't get near me!"

I paused in my steps, noticing how close he was to sitting only halfway on the edge.

"Come on, just get back down here," I said, my voice a little rushed and nervous.

The black birds rustled the tree branches nearby as they fled from them, probably startled by our noise. I tried to calm myself, knowing he'd never come down with me if I sounded anything but composed and in control.

"Dai, I'm not going to hurt you. Just stop playing this stupid game, okay?"

Screeching suddenly filled my ears from somewhere behind me and I looked back over my shoulder as I heard Daisuke scream. I moved out of the way just in time to dodge the black birds seeming to attack us from out of nowhere, obviously angry with our disturbing their rest.

I suddenly remembered where Daisuke was when I felt a sharp tug on my hands, which were still tangled and wrapped in the loose wire. I closed my fists around them and screamed when I saw Daisuke falling backwards off of the ledge.

Before I knew it, I was screaming bloody murder as intense pain forced its way through my body from my hands, which were bleeding from the pull of the wires on them. Daisuke dangled helplessly, tied up with the wires I was pulling on and using to try to pull him up to the ledge again.

"Stop struggling!" I screamed down at him.

His eyes met mine and I saw the pure terror reflected in the dark pupils.

Everything is meaningless without you.

I cried out again as I yanked upwards on the wires, trying to lift his weight. I didn't want to look down and see him hanging by the wires freely over the sidewalk far below. If I let go, he would fall to his death. My life poured out of my body through the blood on my hands.

One of the wires snapped and I heard Daisuke scream as he was dropped a few more feet. The wires tugged on my hands and wrists even harder, producing more cuts and slices in my skin. My lower body pressed painfully against the ledge as I leaned out farther over the side.

"Takeru, don't!" I heard him scream. "Just let me fall!"

He was finally thinking of someone else before himself. I laughed despite the shock, fear and pain coursing through my veins.

"Why is it always like this?!" I screamed down at him. "Even though I'm holding you, you're pouring through my fingers!"

He had started to cry. Tears poured down his face as he stared helplessly up at me. His eyes held something in them that I had never seen there for me before.

Have to save your life once again.

"Stop it," I heard him say. Then, he began screaming it. "Stop it! Takeru, STOP IT!"

I watched as he grabbed his hair, shutting his eyes hard, making more tears fall.

"STOP IT!"

"Daisuke," I called, my voice eerily calm, "I want to save you. I want to protect you from all of your monsters. I can't watch you hurt anymore. I can't watch you hurt yourself."

Another wire snapped. Daisuke cried out, letting his hair go, eyes snapping open wider than I'd ever thought possible. His eyes once again bore into mine, begging me to let him go.

I couldn't. I couldn't let him go.

Life is meaningless without you.

I was pretty sure I was bleeding to death through my hands. They were going to be seriously mangled after this. The wires dug into the flesh beneath my first layer of skin. The pain was already starting to go numb.

"I'm sorry," I heard him say. "I'm sorry."

"Just hang on, I've got you," I called back, giving a hard pull on the wires and pulling him up closer to me. I prepared myself to do it again.

He was sobbing uncontrollably. I'd never heard him cry this hard. I wasn't sure I'd ever even heard him cry at all.

"Takeru," he called. He looked up at me, his eyes shining with a new, foreign emotion. "Takeru, I.."

The last wires snapped and the pressure on my hands was relieved.

"DAISUKE!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.

"Hey, I'm Daisuke."

"I'm Takeru. I like your name."

"I don't."

There is a thing I want.

There is a thing I need.

There is a thing I love.

What is love?

"What's wrong, Takeru?"

"My stomach's just upset. You know, when it feels funny and tight, and your head gets fuzzy."

"Yeah."

I didn't look down. Again, I was afraid of looking down. I don't like heights. I don't like seeing the sidewalk running perpendicular to the apartment. It's too far down. My head can't take it. My heart can't take it.

You are the mirror I can't look in. You are the one that makes me see my hate.

You are that most perfect art.

The wind was blowing gently again. The sky was peaceful. The birds were all gone and silent.

I smiled to myself. I didn't need to look down. I could just close my eyes.

I closed my eyes, but all I could see was him, standing and smiling in front of me. I leant forward into his embrace. I opened my eyes. I gathered the courage to look down.

There he stood, on the sidewalk, looking up at me and smiling, beckoning me to join him on the ground.

I would not refuse him. I could not refuse him. I kept my eyes open the whole way down.

All or nothing, this is love.