A/N: Hi everyone! I really wanted to write something with Takeru and Patamon/Angemon fighting. So, this become sort of an evolution piece throughout the years. It belongs to my AU world but that shouldn't bother too much (just add a lot of bad things happening over the years and ignore the epilogue). I'm also looking for a new Beta because my existing Beta has become less active on the site. You can go to my profile for more info. :) Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Digimon belongs to Toei Animation and Bandai.
Fighting
1. Adventure, Takeru/Tokomon, 8-years-old
"He is."
"Is not."
"He is."
"Is not."
"Takeru…"
Tokomon's desperate whine seemed to end their prolonged disagreement about PicoDevimon. However, Takeru refused to take Tokomon's stress and pleas into consideration as his young mind needed something, someone, to offer some explanation to the emptiness he was feeling.
Why couldn't Tokomon understand that they needed to take the matter into their own hands? Taichi was gone, Sora was gone, Koushirou, Joe, and Mimi were gone. Everyone was gone, even Yamato… They couldn't just sit there and wait like little children for someone to pick them up, they would have to move on their own. And PicoDevimon knew about the Digital World. Maybe he could eventually find them a way back home.
Home…
Home, where he could eat sweets, and play video games, and be tucked into his own soft bed by his mom….
Takeru could feel the tears that were starting to form in his eyes. However, he was too immersed in his wishful thinking and the fighting to reflect on the growing despair and increased irritation the situation was making him feel.
Why wouldn't anyone listen to him!
Now even Tokomon was disagreeing with him, thinking he was just a baby who needed to wait patiently for others to protect him. He was eight-years-old!
If Tokomon didn't want to be with him then he didn't need to.
"Takeru…" Tokomon wailed, sensing the crossing point the young human was about to reach. More than that, the small Digimon could sense that frustrating PicoDevimon observing the situation keenly couple twenty meters back.
What could they do? They had nowhere else to go. There was only desert and water, and this cursed amusement park.
If he had been Angemon he could have flown to seek for Yamato, could go and look for the others — but he couldn't.
Once again he couldn't evolve even if needed, being too small and useless.
He couldn't even get Takeru to listen to him!
The coldness that had started to form on the child's expression began to scare the small Digimon. He wasn't scared of his partner. But, he was afraid of losing him. Theoretically, he could protect Takeru from nasty viral Digimons – if he could evolve – but he couldn't protect Takeru if he didn't want his help.
Didn't Takeru realize he was all he had?
That he had waited for so long just to meet him.
How unexplainably important their friendship was to him.
That he was his reason to die, to come back, to live.
"Takeru, please listen to me!"
But the small boy had already turned away from him, refusing with every ounce of his being from accepting his help.
2. Adventure 02, Takeru/Patamon, 11-years-old
Takeru had been in a foul mood for few weeks. Patamon could read between the lines of more forceful door closings, how Takeru dropped his school bag a little bit higher off the ground when coming home, how his human partner's general answers had become a word or two shorter.
Iori had seemed to become worried over Takeru as well.
The phone call from Yamato had suppressed Takeru's bad mood for few days but every time they were in the Digital World Takeru's normally easy-going attitude changed a tiny bit towards more rash actions.
Patamon sighed from his place on the school table. Takeru was currently in basketball practices and customarily Patamon had stayed at home waiting for Takeru to come back home. But unlike usually, sleep evaded the small Digimon's waiting hours this time around.
Takeru hadn't of course snapped at him a single time, the tone of Takeru's voice taking that accustomed softer stance like all the older Chosen did when speaking with their partners. Takeru was smiling more sincerely, and more often, when speaking with him.
But still…
Takeru hadn't even vented his anger out to Iori because he was the smallest and had done nothing wrong. The teen hadn't snapped at Hikari even though there had been few occasions when Takeru seemed to have turned away from the situation to keep his feelings at check. And he hadn't argued with Miyako either, but that was most likely was due to their age difference more than the fear of upsetting the girl like with Hikari. Takeru's foul mood hadn't even provoked a fight with Daisuke, despite how likely outcome that might have been.
However, Patamon wasn't sure if that was a good point all around. Partner and everything — or most essentially because of that — Patamon praised himself a great deal for knowing Takeru's persona. The evolution sequences only strengthening his view. Takeru was the most important person to him, but it would have been misleading to say that when angry, Takeru wouldn't have had an offensive persona.
Of course, to the orange Digimon, that wasn't a negative opinion – it was a fact of life. Similar to Agumon being able to transform to both MetalGreymon and SkullGreymon. And Takeru was never intentionally evil.
But Takeru was a brutal fighter. Someone who kept his own stance in an argument, willing to do anything in favor of his own goal.
Patamon had gotten a preview of it whenever they had fought on the kids' first adventure to the Digital World and a full-scale demonstration when Ken had been acting out as the Digimon Kaiser.
Takeru was a person who would use all the stops to hurt an opponent in order to gain an upper hand in a fight.
Patamon had the idea, something that he reflected of knowing as Angemon, that sometimes words were able to do much more damage than punches. Yamato and Taichi could manage to bruise each other or get a few scuffs here and there, but Takeru had the ability to do different sort of damage.
And Patamon wasn't sure how aware Takeru was of all that.
All in all, if Takeru wouldn't outlet his anger or if the dispute in the Digital World wouldn't be solved soon, Takeru's foul mood would grow to point it would blow up on someone's face.
Unfortunately, Patamon didn't know what to do. Takeru was more willing to listen to him even in his fits of anger, but that only helped to drag Takeru out of possible fighting situations, however, it did nothing to resolve the anger.
And Patamon really didn't want to fight with Takeru, because he too, became so genuinely happy to be able to spend time together after so many years apart.
3. Takeru/Angemon, 21-years-old
"Takeru!"
Angemon's shout echoed in the house but Takeru had already managed to storm to the living room seemingly refusing to listen to anything the angel Digimon had to say.
"Takeru!" Angemon was not going to let the situation to get completely out of his hands, storming after the young man who, once again, seemed to be touching the edge of his breaking point.
Not that he would have been surprised by that the slightest.
No one could handle all this.
No one.
Takeru's agitation sometimes reminded him of their youth, but then it could have been brushed off to the next day.
Nowadays… Takeru's mental distress was overthrown on anyone stepping in too close.
All the other Chosen had taken hits, clearly extremely surprised how offensive the group's youngest member could be when pushed past the breaking point.
Everyone understood, or at least tried to, with the best of their ability, but Takeru had that skill to open up wounds people didn't even know they had.
As a result, the relationships between the Chosen were sketchy at best. And if they would someday pull out from all of this, there would be a lot of mending needed to be done later on.
Angemon wasn't sure whether he himself minded Takeru's foul mouth or the hostile attitude.
Because Takeru wasn't really hostile against him.
He could see it so well, how a couple of layers down he was trying to offer a sense of comfort, a sense of reason in all this madness to a young man who was so tired of fighting.
Takeru wasn't against him, not in the same way as they had fought so many years ago during their first time in the Digital world. They didn't have differentiating views or different concepts of life – maybe they never had had, even though it had felt so at the time.
No, he was fighting with fatigue and fear, despair and trauma.
And there was no reasoning when fighting with something like that.
Unfortunately, he was starting to run out of comfort, out of hope, as well. He was plagued by the feeling where, against all odds, you try to comfort someone by saying that is all going to be okay in the end, even if those words sound hollow even to your own ears.
For a brief moment, Angemon felt so young, like that small Tokomon in middle of the fight with an 8-year-old Takeru. In a fight of no reason, isolated from anything and having no help or guidance on what on Earth to do with a fragile human being that was falling apart.
Maybe he was reaching his breaking point as well.
But like then, he wouldn't be willing to give up on Takeru without a fight.
It had always a little bit worried him, why only they had been fighting? He had never witnessed any fights between any of the other chosen and their partners. There had been some brazen discussions, but none of the other Digimons had ever challenged their partner to a point of a clear argument.
Nevertheless, he had never been able to follow along Takeru's plans if they were outright irresponsible.
Just like he hadn't been willing to get along with PicoDevimon or approve Takeru's quest to hunt down Digimon Kaiser, he wouldn't let Takeru isolate himself now.
Angemon didn't know when he had learned to argue.
Maybe he was a natural with Takeru.
And he wasn't perpetuated the slightest by the flying books, the raising tones or the struggles to get away from it all.
He would just yell back, fight back.
As long as it kept Takeru on fighting for something.
4. Takeru/Angemon, 28-years-old
Angemon didn't know if anyone would ever call their fights arguing.
Nowadays, it was extremely rare for them to raise their voices at each other.
But they could both sense them.
Fights.
It was not so much about disagreeing opinions, fighting the views of the other or choosing the right way to move forward.
It had become an outlet of anger, of distress and moments of despair. A showcase of the dark side inside both of them. A side that they both wanted to suppress as deep as possible, so instead of shouting it out with the loudest voice possible, it was buried under silence.
Buried with wishes and hopes that time would heal all wounds.
Their fighting had evolved from their childhoods' unpolished quarrels of yes and no, dog and cat, Numemon and Gekomon – at least Angemon hoped that to be the case.
Of course, the reality wasn't always that perfect, but mostly their fruitless arguments had become an accustomed bickering that was more for entertainment than anything else.
Takeru had once said that human's sometimes called those types of fights the old marriage couple arguments.
Nevertheless, years of fighting had truly made them less wary of their words.
Sometimes, Angemon thought that maybe, in reality, they had already fought everything through.
It didn't seem that farfetched idea. All the words they had said, all the scars that they tore open for the sake of it, all the new wounds they had made and later accepted. There wasn't really anything to tear open anymore, both souls bared for the other with all the unmasked pain, hate, and remorse they had been forced to go through.
And they were still there.
And always would be.
In some sense, it was a relief that he didn't have to worry anymore of Takeru refusing to be his partner or ending up their friendship over a disagreement.
Of course, he never should have really feared that, but a young heart has specific fears before time brings confidence.
It wasn't really fighting against each other anymore, it had become fighting with each other.
And now that fighting meant that Takeru was sulking somewhere in the yard, most probably at the back of the house to throw some hoops to clear his head.
Even if their fighting might have changed, Takeru's will and ability to keep his worries to his heart had not.
If Takeru didn't want to speak with him during breakfast, well, he wasn't any more willing to go and annoy the irritated human.
For an over 6.8 ft tall angel Digimon, Angemon could sulk very well in the porch side, and wait for his partner to come around.
Idiot.