A/N:So much for these getting faster. Arc 1 ends in either one or two chapters, not sure yet. Anyway, enjoy and let me know what you think!
1-10
Yamato wakes hours later, much to the relief of everyone. Takeru doesn't throw himself over his brother, though his eyes say he wants to do nothing less than squeeze his body like a ragdoll. But he doesn't and that's only because Yamato stops dead at the sight of the other people behind him.
"Mom… Dad…?"
His dad gives a gruff laugh, the ashes of a recently-smoked cigarette dusting between his fingers. "Who else would be glaring holes into your sickbed?"
It shouldn't surprise him. It's practically the end of the world and he's in a hospital bed. Both of them would of course be worried about him when he's on a bed on his back because he was in the way of a giant monster. But it still shakes something in his walled-up heart. His parents are there, and they aren't screaming at each other and Takeru is between them with Patamon like he belongs there. The two don't stand hand-in-hand, but they are united for the first time in three years and Yamato knows its for him.
He has to look away, squash the bitter feelings like they are nothing because they shouldn't be, because he's strong, he is the older brother, and he is not allowed to cry. Even though he is relieved, he still can't cry.
"Don't try to move," his mother says, not in that soothing voice that he knows other moms have, but with worry and a small tremor. His mom is not the touchy-feely woman of Koushiro's. She is pragmatism, clicked, strict hurry, but she has never hit him, never hurt him on purpose. "Your back got torn by that thing."
"Is it dead?" Vamdemon wasn't a he or she, Vamdemon was a parasite who had killed Hikari-chan and used her for energy and attacked their world and made Takeru cry. Vamdemon was an it.
"I killed him, Yamato." The voice is from above his head, from the familiar orange and white fuzzball that is his friend? Partner? Tunomon. That's what he is. The Digimon's red eyes are wobbling and somehow without arms he manages to hug Yamato's head. "He almost killed you!" The tears seep into his gelled hair and Yamato feebly tries to reach out to him. His arms are stiff and sore and he thinks Tunomon wouldn't let go even if he asked him to. "He cut you like that and there was blood everywhere and I thought you were gonna die!"
Yamato wants to make a sarcastic quip, say something to diffuse the thick fog of tension that is his whole family in one room and he doesn't know how.
So he just settles for a simple "I'm sorry" and lets his partner cry out the panic. Tunomon isn't one for it… but they all had seen what happened to Tailmon.
Wait… that brings up another question, one that forces him to sit up. His father gives him a scolding look, but Yamato doesn't care. He sits up to look Takeru in the eye.
"Where's Hikari-chan?"
Takeru and Patamon both shift nervously, but when his little brother speaks, he only says, "You'd better come outside and see for yourself."