A/N: Prompt for this chapter is jam.

Dripping Water
Chapter 13 - stalled time (Shoutmon)

As soon as Taiki's mother left, Akari dropped the Xros Loader off in Taiki's room.

Shoutmon crept out. The others crowded the screen worriedly, but let him go alone. They'd learnt, over the weeks of being in the human world, that they couldn't move around as freely as in the digital realm. There was Taiki's mother to consider in the house and that was all, but adventitious noises raised suspicion in such a quiet abode. And at school there were too many people, too much potential for chaos… So they explored cautiously after school but stayed in the Xros Loader otherwise. Which meant they missed things. And when they slept in Taiki's room while Taiki was still awake, they missed things as well.

They all wondered, and Shoutmon wondered most of all because he saw the most. He was always the one out of the Xros Loader in the digital world, the one by Taiki's side. And here, he stayed up the longest of all of them… and that made sense, because he was the one who'd called to Taiki, who'd asked Taiki to take on the burden of his dream –

No. He could never call his dream a burden, even if it became exactly that for someone else.

Maybe Kiriha had a point when he said dreams were those sorts of things. Maybe Taiki had a point, too, to say it was selfish to have such dreams that saw sacrifice. Maybe Kiriha had another point in saying dreams were that sort of thing that demanded sacrifices, and that someone who didn't dare to dream wasn't really living.

Or maybe Kiriha was being too harsh. Someone who lived and breathed and talked and ate was most certainly alive.

'I just don't get it,' Shoutmon mumbled to himself. Taiki was getting into less fights in the digital world but had more bruises, on his back and under his eyes. And now everyone was panicking about a little rain. He supposed that was another difference between the digital and human worlds.

Akari was downstairs, getting towels out of a closet, but she heard the clanging of his microphone. 'Is everyone else wandering upstairs?'

'No, they stayed in the Xros Loader,' Shoutmon explained. 'In case Taiki's mother came home and we weren't playing attention.'

'Probably for the best.' Akari bit her lip and closed the closet door, arms full. 'Maybe you could take some food up to them? Pick sweets; that way you can just blame me.'

Shoutmon looked at her doubtfully, but obeyed. There were jam donuts that the others and Akari would enjoy.

'Thanks,' Akari said, as Shoutmon handed her one. She was still staring at it though, when he got back downstairs. 'Hey, you'd probably have a better idea. How long is Taiki staying up at nights?'

'I don't know,' Shoutmon admitted. 'I just can't stay awake that long, even with coffee.'

'That idiot,' Akari snapped, slapping the towels down and making Shoutmon jump. 'Too much caffeine's not good for the body or the mind.'

'Really?' Shoutmon was worried, and not just because he'd been partaking in the beverage himself. 'What does it do to the body and mind?'

'Uh… well…' Akari looked as though she'd been caught off guard, twisting her fingers together. 'Coffee has lots of caffeine in it, which keeps you awake. But it also makes your heart beat faster and your fingers and toes go cold and your hands shake and you irritable and… what else…' She mumbled something Shoutmon didn't catch, then added. 'And not sleeping properly. No amount of caffeine will help that; it's just a short-term thing. And you don't concentrate properly or eat properly and you wind up slower overall including things like your immune system so you get sicker faster too –'

'Uh, Akari?' Shoutmon interrupted her. 'What's an immune system?'

Akari rubbed her forehead. 'The thing that stops you from getting sick.' She paused. 'Do digimon even get sick? Viruses, maybe?'

'We do get viruses,' Shoutmon said thoughtfully. 'So an immune system is like a firewall?'

'I guess.' Akari shrugged. 'I'm not very good with computer terms.'

The pattering of rain was suddenly even louder, and Shoutmon ducked for cover as Akari went into the hall. He could hear them though: Akari and Taiki's mother, in the entrance, though he couldn't make out their words in the rain.

And then he could see them as they came back, with a soaking wet Taiki with them.

.

Shoutmon finally understood what Akari had been trying to say. And he also understood that rain was different here than in the digital world. Rain carried sickness, or predisposed to sickness. And caffeine and worries and not sleeping or eating properly predisposed to sickness too.

The net result was that Taiki got sick: a fever and a foggy head and stuffy nose. And Akari was forbidden from coming over because the children had exams that were far too close to risk anyone else getting sick. So it was just Taiki's mother… and when she rested, the digimon.

Humans really were different to digimon. They could work themselves to the bone and it wouldn't affect their bodies, only their mind. They could worry about things and it only affected their fighting ability insofar as it affected their judgement. But human minds and bodies were more intricately connected. And their lives, here in the human world, were far more complicated than having a single missive.

'I'm sorry, Taiki. I should've tried harder to understand.'

But that wasn't all it was. Taiki had tried to shield them, too. Maybe parts of it was his own ignorance, because Shoutmon doubted he'd always offer coffee if he'd known it was bad for Shoutmon too. He didn't feel any of that though: his heart beating (did digimon even have hearts?), or being irritable. And was Taiki irritable? No, he was more listless, if anything. Tired, though? Definitely. Not doing as much. Not being as efficient.

Taiki had been trying to function beyond his limits, but one could have only caught that if they knew where his limits were. Last time Taiki had just collapsed, and rested a bit and was back to normal, but this…

Then again, that was exertion on a battlefield. It seemed peaceful, everyday lives were far more complicated.

.

'Sleeping involves not doing anything else,' Shoutmon remarked. That was a common theme amongst all species, he was sure.

Taiki guiltily set down his book. 'I can't just sleep all day,' he protested. But his face was still flushed which meant he still had a fever, and if Shoutmon focused on him long enough, he seemed to sway slightly, to and fro.

'There's a time for fighting,' Shoutmon said thoughtfully, 'and a time for rest. There's a time to sleep, to eat, to laugh and to cry. There's a time for each and every little thing we can imagine, but doing all of one thing at once just means we'll have to bank up everything else as well. That's what Jijimon said once.' He shrugged. 'Sometimes that's a good thing. Do all your crying so you can laugh tomorrow. Fight the battle today so you can rest in peace tomorrow. But sometimes it doesn't work. Like if you've got a line of enemies, and if you take out the first line, then the second will charge you, but if you don't attack first, you've got some time between charges in which you can rest and regroup. Though you know this already. You're our strategist.'

'That's more often Zenjirou's strategy,' Taiki corrected, though he did occasionally use the wait and see approach himself, particularly if they were in a defensible position and short on numbers. He wasn't the sacrifice one's troops in a blitz attack. That was Kiriha's preferred method, though it wasn't as simple as that either.

He understood that. He respected that. He was just too idealistic to ever employ that himself. And that was both good and bad.

What Shoutmon was talking about though was a different aspect to battle tactics, and life in general. 'Some people don't have all the time in the world,' he tried to explain. 'Our seniors are facing their last matches of junior high school. Some of them won't join clubs in senior school because they're aiming for university. And then there's people like Tatsuya who simply won't survive that long.' He almost bit his tongue with the last part. He hadn't meant to say that, ever. It just slipped out. And saying it made it just that more real.

'The friend you haven't spoken to since the incident?' Shoutmon asked. 'Are you really okay leaving things like that?'

'I wonder why everyone's asking me that now?' Taiki mused. 'You and Kiriha I can get, since we didn't know each other before and both of you are quick to call me out… but Akari and 'kaa-san too?'

'I don't know how I feel being compared to Kiriha, considering there's not much love lost between the pair of you,' said Shoutmon. 'But some things are more obvious when you don't have reserves, I guess. And you're just stretched too thin. Doing too many things means you're not putting your full effort towards one thing in particular, doesn't it?'

'Sometimes,' he agreed. Yes, that was the case, wasn't it? And it was also the case that he couldn't pick one thing or another which meant he wasn't wholly invested in one of them. In his friends, yes: Akari and Zenjirou and all the digimon…

'The only times I've seen you put your foot down,' said Shoutmon, apparently thinking along the same lines, 'was when you thought I was being selfish, and when your friends are at risk. Because of that though, I can't believe you would be satisfied with leaving things as they are. With Tatsuya… but also with Akari and Kiriha, and probably Zenjirou too. He's been helping behind the scenes, you know. Those clubs you promised but couldn't get to in the end.'

'I shouldn't have promised,' Taiki said, slowly. 'I couldn't handle all of that, and it's worse to promise and then pull out than not promise at all.'

'Well, Zenjirou covered you so it was all good in the end.' Shoutmon set his microphone down and climbed onto the bed. 'You just need to remember your own limits and those things you really can't compromise on.'

And there were apparently more of both than he did tend to recall.

'What about dreams?' Taiki asked, after a far more comfortable pause than before. 'Do dreams have to be one of those things you can't compromise on?'

Shoutmon thought about that. 'I think it depends,' he said finally. 'I want to be the king of the digital world, but I could be happy with someone else, so long as we got peace out of it. It's just that there's no-one who will take those reins, so somewhere along the lines wanting peace turned into wanting to create that peace. There's still room for compromise in there, I think. If there wasn't, I don't think we'd have as many friends as we do.'

'Friends,' Taiki repeated. 'Not just allies.' And maybe it started the other way around for Kiriha, but he remembered the shade of Mailbirdramon above them and wondered if they'd turned into friends somewhere along the way as well.

'Friends and allies,' Shoutmon said. 'You can lean on us a little more.'

'Hindsight.' Taiki huffed a laugh. 'It's much easier to see how much trouble I cause everyone after it's all done.'

'It's not done,' Shoutmon corrected. 'You're stuck in bed for the rest of the week, remember? And then there's exams.'

'And then I need to apologise to everyone, and talk with Tatsuya… and then back to the digital world.' His words caught up with him slowly. 'I'm sorry; I'm assuming…'

'An extra day won't hurt,' Shoutmon shrugged. 'We've stayed a fortnight already. But I don't understand something.'

'What is it?' Taiki asked curiously. Shoutmon seemed to have adjusted to life in the human world pretty well. Then again, he'd been so occupied with other things, he hadn't been paying all that much attention. And he should have, because who else was going to look out for the digimon especially while they were in the Xros Loader?

'Isn't taking care of yourself something you shouldn't compromise too?'

…and he really didn't know how to answer that. 'I just… I get wrapped up in other people's dreams, I guess. I couldn't forgive myself that once, and since then…'

'And now?'

And now he was worrying far more people (and digimon) than before, but as far as forgiveness went…

'If you don't ask, you'll never know.'

Kiriha said Tatsuya was disappointed, but in the same way Kiriha was disappointed. That didn't mean they were beyond forgiveness. That meant…

Kiriha has also essentially asked what he lived for. He should think about that, after avoiding it for so long.

There wasn't much else to do while sick… except rest and study.