Title: Always Follow the Rabbit
Author: Mrpointyhorns aka Blemery
Beta: Takato The Dreamer
Rating: R
Status: In Progress
Part: 16
Pairings: Taichi/Koushiro
Warnings: Slash
Spoilers: Season 1 and 2, plus some of the movies (nothing blatantly but there)
Summary: Taichi's has started to settle in his life, and while that can be quite nice, he and Koushiro have never been better, it can also be a bit disappointing, especially his dead-end job. The only thing interesting that ever happens is when he has to babysit his nephew. Until Koushiro detects a disturbance that is about to give Taichi the adventure he craves.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by someone else. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Taichi forced his eyes to remain closed. It was only with his eyes closed that he could pretend that he was pretending to live in his dreams. He pretended to pretend that he was in his dreams and Koushiro was still there with him. They were still home on Earth and they would make stew and drink wine. Taichi would complain about his job, and Koushiro would sympathize with him. But he had to keep his eyes closed. If he even let a little light in he couldn't pretend to pretend.
On the edges of his mind he knew that he was only pretending to pretend. He knew what the reality was, and he knew that he was forcing himself to live in a pretend world of his dreams, because he was too afraid to do otherwise.
A little closer to the center, he didn't know that he was pretending to pretend. But he knew that he was pretending. He knew that his dreams weren't reality. However, he wanted to hold onto those dreams to keep the dreams in his minds eye because if he looked past the eye, he saw demons and haunting pictures of Koushiro being burned alive, or killed by the explosion. Or calling for his help. He didn't want any of those things. He wanted to be back home in his boyfriend's arms and to only worry about whether or not he should invite Sora over, or if he and Koushiro were ready to adopt. So he forced himself to pretend. He pretended that he was pretending, even though he knew he wasn't at every level.
At times his eyes would creep open, and he would see light seep in and reality would return. He felt the hot tears that always welled up and rolled down his chin making his pillow damp and chilly. "Koushiro." He whispered or sometimes. "Please." And twice. "I'm sorry." He would become too aware after that and clench his eyes shut, pulling the blankets over his head and forcing pictures of Koushiro into his mind. Ones of him smiling or laughing. Or ones of him hair tousled and eyes half-opened whispering for Tai to come closer.
"SOMEBODY HELP!" The scream continued with no words.
"Kari!" Taichi sat up in bed eyes wide with fear and panic. He jumped up in his boxers and t-shirt. He rolled out of the bed bumping into the RV wall. He grabbed his digivice. He stumbled on the steps out of the bedroom and into the RV hall by the bathroom. "Kari! I'm coming!"
"Tai!" The screaming continued.
Taichi stumbled out of the RV and into the sand of the desert. Then he stopped. He looked around in confusion. Reality swarmed him. He wasn't home, or in the digital world. He was in some other world and the girl screaming wasn't Kari. It was Rika. She was pinned to the ground by a yellow and white digimon with fox like features. She was struggling to get away, but the digimon was quickly restraining her.
"Hey stop it!" Taichi yelled.
The digimon snapped its head up and looked at him. "Another human?"
"That's right. Leave her alone." Taichi moved closer to the digimon. She was near the camper's table on the ground. As though she had jumped Rika when she had been sitting there and knocked her off.
"I don't think so. Both of you will be coming with me. Sandiramon will pay a nice sum for your return." The digimon stood up, a hand on the girl's upper arm. The girl struggled and struggled but couldn't get out from her grip. "Stop moving."
Rika jumped at the command and stopped staring up at her. The fear from when Taichi first saw her returned. He felt anger burning in him and he moved even closer. "Get away from her!" He grabbed the girl's arm near the digimon's hand and tried to pry the digimon off of her. "She's not going with you. She's staying here with us."
"Us?" The digimon said looking up.
"Pepper Breath!" Agumon's attack came in and hit the digimon on her chest. She immediately let go of Rika. Taichi grabbed Rika, putting an arm under her legs and picking her up in a bridal position. He moved them back to the RV. Putting distance between Agumon and the other digimon, when he reached the door of the RV he opened it and set Rika down. She didn't go inside through. She stayed at the door to watch the fight.
"Who are you?" The other digimon recovered sitting up and glaring at Agumon.
"Agumon's my name, now you better back off. I won't let you hurt Tai or Rika." Agumon stood opposite of Taichi and Rika. He hadn't come from inside the RV like Taichi had. Tai remembered hearing Agumon say that he was going with the others to help them look for something. But Taichi didn't remember what. Taichi looked past Agumon, and he could see the distant view of the crumbled prison behind him. It was about half a mile away, but clearly that's what it was. Taichi clenched his jaw and fist and turned back to the fight.
"I'll be the one taking them to Sandiramon, but thanks for capturing them for me." The other digimon took a defensive stance.
"I don't think so." Agumon jumped at the other digimon, biting her forearm with a cross fire attack.
The other digimon kicked Agumon in the jaw and jumped back. Her fist lit up with blue flames arms ready to punch. "Terrier Tornado!"
Taichi looked up as a whirl of wind hit the other digimon. Stingmon, ExVeemon and Pegasusmon where there as well and Taichi immediately had an idea. "Catch her if you can guys."
"Catch her?" Stingmon questioned looking behind him, where Taichi couldn't barely see Ken and the others sprinting towards them.
"Got it," Pegasusmon said swooping in and hitting the other digimon with a beam of green light. ExVeemon was looking back at the other guys too, but Pegasusmon had a hold of the other digimon quickly, and Agumon jumped up grabbing the rope that they used to pack up the tents, he quickly helped tie up the other digimon.
"You're taking orders from humans? I don't understand," The digimon said struggling to get out of the binds.
Taichi satisfied with that the digimon would be restrained even if she did manage to break the binds there were five digimon ready to pounce if she did. He turned to Rika. "Are you ok?"
"Yes. Thanks Tai for saving me." Rika looked up at him her eyes big and bright. He smiled at her knowing that she was opening up to them and trusting them, and they could reinforce the trust by saving her. It felt great!
"No problem." Taichi hugged her with one arm briefly. She looked a little embarrassed so he backed off.
"Tai! Tai!" Agumon jumped at him landing on Taichi. "You're up! You're awake. You're back!"
Taichi hugged his partner, but tears came to his eyes again. He knew that Agumon had been really worried about him the last couple of days, and the reason why hit him hard. He buried his face against Agumon's shoulder and tried not to cry. He couldn't help aching for Koushiro, but he knew he couldn't return back to bed. People needed him. He couldn't let them down even if his heart felt heavy and his soul felt completely empty. He knew he wouldn't let his friends down again. He would do whatever was needed here and then make sure they all returned home safely. Though he wasn't sure if he could follow them, the only home he had left was when his eyes were closed and he force himself to pretend.
"Is everyone okay?" Takeru said as the guys finally caught up to the digimon. Pegasusmon returned to his Patamon form and landed in Takeru's arms. "Are you okay?"
"I'm okay. Taichi said to catch her, so I helped." Patamon smiled at Takeru and Taichi noticed that he didn't even ask Takeru if it was okay. Patamon new that Takeru didn't mind if he listened to Taichi when Takeru wasn't around or wasn't able to instruct. This was unlike Veemon or Wormon. Veemon might have listened to Ken and Wormon would probably listen to Daisuke, but that's because they DNA digivolved together before and when they did then Ken and Daisuke were their partner, so even at their rookie levels Ken was like a second partner to Veemon and Wormon trusted that Daisuke wouldn't do anything that would upset Ken.
"That's good. I'm glad you could help." Takeru hugged Patamon tight.
Terriermon ran over to Rika and looked up at her. He stayed there until Wallace and Lopmon came over. Wallace reached down to rub Terriermon's head. "Nice going. I think you caught up to Agumon right in time."
"Why's he looking at me like that?" Rika asked.
"Wallace said I should do whatever it took to protect you." Terriermon hopped up onto Wallace's shoulder opposite of where his brother was. Rika smiled looking up at Wallace.
"What are we doing with the digimon?" Daisuke asked standing over her with ExVeemon and Stingmon standing guard. Ken stood by them overlooking all three.
"Well she's the first digimon we've seen in this place, that we didn't bring with us. So I thought we could interrogate her," Taichi explained. He helped Agumon off of him and walked over to Daisuke and Ken. "She might be able to give us answers to our questions."
"She can start by explaining why she attacked Rika!" Daisuke yelled turning his attention to the other digimon.
"She already said that," Agumon said from Taichi's side. "She said that she was going to take her to Sandarimon."
"Okay then…"
"Wait," Taichi interrupted Daisuke. Daisuke deflated slightly. Taichi looked at the new digimon. "Find out what her name is first."
The guys all looked at the digimon, but she didn't open her mouth to speak. She just sat there staring at them with an expression that Taichi couldn't place. After she didn't speak for sometime he said. "Put her in the passenger seat of the RV. If she can't even answer that question, she isn't going to talk. But we have plenty of time to wait."
Ken nodded. "Right. Stingmon if you could assist with this."
End Note: Happy New Years! Thanks everyone for reading and extra thanks to those who review. I have been writing massive quantities for this story and some others. Even though this work is getting a ton of pages to it, I still feel like there is a long way to go so I'm trying to post shorter chapters to hopefully stay ahead that way I post consistently, even if that's only about once a month.