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The sound of chirping birds echo in the air as the water in the river ripples from pieces of bread being thrown into it. Orange scaled fish swim over to the floating snack to eat it whole before disappearing under the bridge he and Monodramon sat on, the dinosaur ripping off small pieces of bread to throw into the water every few seconds. "I thought they'd disappear by now," they comment as a swarm of the fish come to collect the floating pieces of bread.
"It's not winter," Raito reminds, elbows propped up on the bridge railing, "they'll stay here for a bit until then where they'll enter torpor and huddle at the deepest parts of the pond."
The rain had stopped two hours into their flight towards an abandoned village that Raito had found a few days after finding his warehouse. He could, logically, live there instead of the dilapidated warehouse near the bay but the idea of living alone in a place that's supposed to be filled with people made his stomach churn. He much rather make the daily commute with Rhamphomon to gather supplies when he hadn't budgeted to buy in the city yet. Abandoned but not empty, the village was a gold mine for supplies that people left behind. Of course, Raito checked to make sure what he was using was still, well, usable, and not moldy or rotten or expired. He wasn't trying to have an early death when he hasn't even gotten Rhamphomon to Ultimate properly already, or apologized to his teammates for being such a bitch, or atoned for all the people that weren't able to come back from being cold hearted because he captured them all because he was following orders.
Or finally had Tenma to himself, body and soul.
No, he definitely had too many things to do to die so soon as he pushes himself away from the bridge, stretching his arms above his head. Monodramon throws the last of their bread, coughing up their Sapotama and Raito peers at his reflection on the crystal clear egg as he holds it in his hand. He's gotten different over the months. The Tactics jacket is gone, the first thing he had disposed of once he found a proper place to settle down. To say throwing it away had been cathartic was a lie Raito tells himself not to feel guilty. He'd lit a bonfire once to cook sausages when the idea came to him like a strike of lightning in a storm. Raito didn't think when it did, peeling his jacket off and staring at the logo on the back with his stomach churning, head spinning with thoughts he didn't want to think about. His entire life had been about Tactics. Ever since his parents kicked him out and Naito took him in, saved him from continuing to live on the streets, Raito told himself he'd do everything in his power to make the man look at him and say he had made the right choice, that saving Raito from a myriad of horrid experiences hadn't been a mistake.
And yet, every time, Naito seemed to double down on the idea. He was a disappointment. He was a fool. He was naive. Gullible. A liability to the organization. "I shouldn't have taken you in," Naito had told him once, foot on his face, sneering down at him, "if I had known how little use you'd be to Klay's cause, I should have left you there to be eaten by the wolves. There were certainly better people I could have picked."
Raito had thrown himself into training after that, evolving Monodramon into Rhamphomon, and then trying to force evolve him into an Ultimate to no success. He couldn't live with the idea that he was replaceable, that his life to Naito was expendable like he wasn't a breathing, living human being, but no matter what he did, the outcome had always been the same. He needs to try harder. He isn't doing good enough. Naito was never going to validate him, and it took nearly dying from a death match for him to realize it. Some genius he had been.
Tenma would have realized it the second he had been fired or maybe even earlier, and at the time, thinking about Tenma had made his chest feel tight, stomach fluttering like he was going to throw up when he recalls that bright smile the idiot gave him in the colosseum basement while he was surrounded by cold heart victims. Or the way Tenma had looked when Raito left after defeating Klay, those big round eyes of his almost glossy as he talked to the remaining Team Seven members. God, just remembering the countless amount of times they met to spar and Raito had to leave, Tenma would let him, never one to restrict him even if he looked like he so badly wanted to had made his heart pound a little faster in his chest, threatening to burst through.
Those wide eyes. That twitchy smile. The pink on his cheeks that go down his neck, covering his ears, as he mumbles that Raito better not ditch their next fight. Had he thought of it as a fight, or just another way to spend time with him? When Tenma took his bandanna, never once talking about Raito's various hairstyles without it but always staring a second too long, Raito wonders if he's ever tried it on, or stopped himself from asking to play with Raito's hair now that it wasn't in his usual style.
He wonders if Tenma had thought about being touched like he mattered when he complained about aftercare and if he felt like his heart would burst when Raito came back with everything he could ever ask for, tugging his own shirt over him like they had done more than just beating each other senseless before tangling up in each other's arms so no one knew where Tenma began and Raito himself ended and oh, he was so fucking stupid to have thought otherwise.
Massaging him. Asking him such odd questions. The kiss. He'd thought Tenma was just leading him on, maybe a little confused because it's not like Tenma had friends and maybe he had no clue what they were supposed to do, but they'd kissed. They'd kissed and Raito made sure his mark was on every inch of skin Tenma had. They'd kissed and Raito spent nights thinking about doing more, of wondering if Tenma would want more, and now he was lying on Raito's futon half dead because Raito really was the worst fucking person alive.
His foot catching onto a rock is what pulls him from his thoughts as he trips forward, letting out a squawk when he crashes to the earth, the egg rolling out of from his hand and onto the dirt path. Groaning, Raito sits up, hands and knees stinging from the shallow scrapes as he reaches out to grab his Sapotama.
And pauses at the sight of a white tailed deer fawn sniffing about, tail swishing behind it. "Ah," Raito murmurs, trying to keep his steps light as he gets back onto his knees. "Don't eat the shiny egg on the ground please, that will not taste good." The baby stiffens at the sight of him, eyes tracking his movements as he leans forward to snatch off a branch of berries from a nearby bush. While he didn't want the deer to eat his Sapotama, scaring it wasn't in his best interest either. "Look," he says, holding up the branch and shaking it lightly, "I have berries for you instead." He holds it out, holding his breath as the baby makes a few steps forward.
Carefully luring the deer away from his fallen Sapotama, Raito places the branch on the ground as it finally comes close enough to eat from it and makes a quick exit to his Sapotama, scooping it up and hightailing it down the path with Monodramon at his heels. In these parts of the woods, where wild animals and Digimon lived, it was far better to keep them at a distance than to befriend any of them. The animals would lose their ability to forage and just keep coming to him, which wasn't liable if Raito decided to live somewhere else, and the Digimon—well, Raito didn't think it was possible to have two partners, let alone one that wasn't your mirror reflection.
"I hope that baby has a family," Monodramon says as the weight of the Sapotama in Raito's hands suddenly feels monumental, "it looked like it was alone."
"It's probably just being taught how to forage," he mumbles as he turns the egg around in his hands, seeing parts of himself that he hopes have changed for the better. With no bandanna, he's had to find other ways to style his hair, going for a simple ponytail this time to avoid the hassle of overthinking on his looks. His previous jacket had gotten ripped to shreds at a bounty once, and since then he's been wearing various different styles of clothes he could find at thrift stalls near the old bay marketplace, most being tank tops and cargo shorts. He's even gotten a necklace on, a sodalite pendant that someone said matched the color of his hair which was an odd statement to say to get someone to buy jewelry. Don't you want it to match your eyes?
Regardless, the person staring back at him is nothing like the teenager that had held this sapotama before, eager to prove himself. Instead, as he lets his right hand glow and slams it palm first onto the top of the egg, the person is grinning with his teeth, eyes crinkling from the force of his smile as he throws the glowing blue egg into the air.
"Monodramon!"
"On it!"
His partner jumps into the air to swallow the glowing egg whole, the aura covering them the same shape as it before it shatters into pieces as a roar pierces Raito's ears and Rhamphomon comes swooping down. "Let's go back," he whispers, climbing atop of the dinosaur and curling his fingers in its mane, "we gotta make sure Gekkomon hasn't accidentally let Tenma die."
"Hey! Have trust in him!"
"Oh, shut it," Raito says even though his mouth is twitching upward as he leans forward to hold onto Rhamphomon tighter. Satisfied he wasn't going to fall off, the pterosaur launches up into the air, beginning a steady glide towards the warehouse as its wings began to flap more vigorously.
Burying his face into Rhamphomon's mane, Raito doesn't bother to see where they're going, cheek squished against the dinosaur's neck as he watches the clouds pass them by. In any other circumstance, he'd be trying to touch them, letting his fingers drag through, but all he can think about is Tenma on his futon not in the way he wanted but in the 'I drowned and nearly died' way and well—how many times could you use that as a way of saying you got the person you maybe sort of have a slight liking to in your bed? Raito can count. It was exactly one before people got concerned and it wasn't like he talks to anyone outside of Tenma and Monodramon and he guesses Sone too when he passes by that marketplace but Raito didn't want the only reason for Tenma to be at his house, in his bed, being because Raito almost fucking killed him.
Landing on the ground with a small thud, Raito slides off of Rhamphomon, shaking away his thoughts as the pterosaur devolved back into Monodramon and scuttles after him into the warehouse. Tenma is being sat up against Armalizamon's stomach, still unconscious but with his face flushed pink. Raito pauses at the warehouse's threshold at the sight, blinking slowly as he swallows. Right. Dry drowning. How the fuck could he forget about dry drowning? It was a miracle Tenma hadn't fucking died yet as Monodramon hurries over to take over for the exhausted Champion who instantly shrunk back into a lizard, collapsing onto the floor.
"He's out cold," Monodramon says as he awkwardly holds Tenma up, and Raito huffs, tossing the duffel bag down to take over by dragging Tenma into his arms. He fits against Raito's chest perfectly, cold and breathing ragged, and Raito swallows again, trying to ignore the sight as he turns his head to Monodramon carrying the passed out gecko lizard.
"Check to see what we got in the bag," he mumbles, having just grabbed whatever seemed useful without checking, another thing he internally curses himself for as he shifts to stand up with Tenma in his arms. The boy doesn't even stir as Raito sets him up against the wall on a soft rug he'd dragged out from the front of the warehouse doors so they didn't dirty it with mud from the rain. Not that it mattered much since Tenma was doing it anyway. "Gotta get those wet clothes off you," he mumbles, "and then get some new ones… wash those too…" he makes a mental list in his head as he mutters all the things he needed to have done to keep Tenma from catching fucking pneumonia in a dingy ass warehouse. God, if that happened, Glowing Dawn would have his head—
Wait.
He curses as his palm slams against his forehead. Bringing Tenma here was a mistake in more ways than one. Seeing his bruised skin that Raito wanted to touch. Feeling like the most shittiest person alive as Tenma breathed like he was dying. And now, trying to figure out how the fuck he was going to keep Tenma here without Glowing Dawn firing search parties to find him. Was it too late to drop him at their doorstep? The though makes Raito's skin crawl. They needed to talk. They needed to discuss things that couldn't be done if Glowing Dawn were in the way but they'd be able to help him better, make sure he recovers faster. That would be nicer, better, than the boy who stood him up out of insecurity trying to make sure he doesn't die but was slowly killing him anyway.
He should get him out of here, drop him off at his base and never look back. He should stop being selfish for once and do something that benefits Tenma and not him. He should.
Raito drags over the bag of clothes he's got and sets to work pulling Tenma's wet clothes off him. He sets them away in another bag to wash later, not trying to look anywhere than where he needed to while tugging on freshly clean clothes onto the younger teen. His shirt is big on him, acting more like a dress despite the fact that Tenma's got on shorts and Raito's changed his socks and shoes so he doesn't walk around barefoot or dirties the socks he has on. He towel dries the boy's hair as Monodramon comes back with a bag of medical supplies that were beginning to dwindle.
Combing through semi-wet strands with his fingers, Raito sighs, scrubbing at his face. "Can't believe I did this on a whim," he grouses as Monodramon sits beside him.
"Look at it this way," his partner says, "you can talk to Tomoro once he wakes up."
"Yeah," Raito snorts, "and make a fucking fool of myself because I don't know how to speak. You heard me back there, and subsequently all the other times I tried to talk." He sniffs, shaking his head. "They all end in disaster so what's even the point?"
Squinting, Monodramon drags his claws against the floor. "Maybe, you don't have to talk to have a talk?"
"Fighting after he recovers doesn't seem like—
"I mean by writing it down, or something," Monodramon grumbles, "you're better at actions than talking so do something and I'm sure he'll get it."
Mouth opening and closing, Raito feels his face go warm as he ducks his head, rubbing the back of his neck. "Right," he mumbles, "I should have known you'd know that, given who you are.. ha.. fine, I'll… come up with something." Raito makes a peek out the window, watching the sun shine in the sky. "I know it's a little early, but let's take a nap for now. I'm not leaving him here until he can take care of himself. You and Gekkomon can sleep on the futon." Raito pulls himself closer to the wall, maneuvering Tenma into his arms. He fits like a puzzle piece, like he belongs there, and it makes Raito's stomach twist.
If he had done something sooner, would this have been avoided? If he had told Tenma why he didn't come, would they be doing something different now? Or maybe, if he had gone to the arcade, they'd have been hiding something even more damning from Tenma's team than the fact that they were beating each other senseless. The thought of Tenma being his is something Raito never indulged in even while alone until the day Tenma bit at his lips and thought Raito would let it slide.
Since then, all he could think about was Tenma holding his hand, or sleeping on his shoulder, or letting him kiss him until he couldn't breathe but all of those had been pipe dreams, fool's gold, because Raito seemed to ruin anything he got close to and hugging the shivering teen close, trying to bleed his warmth into him, Raito hopes that he doesn't ruin this budding relationship either—even if it means stripping himself bare to see who he really was underneath all of his bravado.