Hey Everyone! Well, this is a new story from Ice! Hooray! Don't worry for any readers of Kidnapped, I'm still working hard on that one, this is just something I've been working on for a while. I am really excited about this story and I hope readers get to be as well.
Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon or anything in affiliation with it.
WARNINGS: TAITO! Underage college drinking! Slight tendency to bash Sora! If you have very strict morals or just love Sora as a character, you might want to turn back now.
Matt's POV
"Aw, come on Matt! Come with us! It's going to be fun, I swear; I mean really, you'll be with me! How could that not be fun?" I sighed as Tai ranted on and thought more about what he was proposing in the first place. It was our first year in college and Tai was already a big face in the drinking scene; he started basically the second after his parents left him here. Of course, the oldest of the digidestined had stuck together and we were all at the same college where everyone but me had already begun drinking. Even Izzy and Joe would drink on occasion with Tai and Sora but I generally stayed away. Seeing the effects of alcohol on my father had set a horrible template for alcohol and while I could tolerate other people's drinking, I wasn't sure if I was quite ready to dive in yet which, of course, brings me back to Tai who is still talking to himself.
"I mean, so what if his head got a little stuck, we greased him down and got him out of there quickly enough, so what do you say Matt? Will you come and drink with us?" I raised an eyebrow at my wild-haired friend and rolled my eyes.
"If I say yes, will you finally stop talking?" Without a word, Tai nodded to me enthusiastically and I chuckled to myself at his goofy smile. Then beginning to walk away, I called back my answer to him.
"No thanks!" I could already see the pout that had found its way to Tai's face as I continued walking away, that is, until I was lifted from the ground and carried back in the direction I came.
"TAI! Put me DOWN!" Tai had thrown me over his shoulder and without a word just continued carrying me down the hallway of the dorm.
"Oh Yama…You should've know that if you say no to Taichi Kamiya….well….you just can't say no to me! You had to know that I have alternative methods of getting you to come with me." Growling under my breath, I started to kick despite the fear that Tai would actually drop me but still determined to fight my way out the situation. Tai merely chuckled and held me tighter until he put me down in the back of his car which was conveniently parked right outside the dorm. Sighing in defeat, I gave in and looked up at my smirking friend.
"Alright, if I agree to go will you at least give me some time to change into some better clothes and get ready?" My eyes widened in fear as Tai giggled like a school girl and hugged me before letting me back into the dorm to change.
A half hour later, I heard Tai groan loudly for the thousandth time that night. I shot a look into my room where he was sprawled out on my bed and pretending as though he was dying of boredom.
"Maaaaaaatt, are you ready yet?? I want to go and get out of here! They've probably already started drinking without us. Hell, they're probably already drunk! How long does it take you to change?????????" I chuckled at Tai and continued styling my hair to its normal perfection.
"Well, if you hadn't forced me to make you something to eat, I might've been ready a while ago so blame your stomach." Tai then joined my reflection in the mirror.
"Hey, it is never good to drink on an empty stomach."
"How would you know? I don't think yours is EVER empty!" I dodged a flying tube of toothpaste and laughed at Tai's grumpy face; it was just too easy to get under his skin. His face then changed back to a pout.
"Can we please go? Your hair looks amazing, please?????" Rolling my eyes, I grabbed my cell, my keys and some money.
"Lead the way." Tai took a moment to cheer to himself in success before finally heading out the door, with me following close behind.
I looked over at Tai's excited face as I slammed his car door and made my way up the driveway. Tai grabbed the soda out of the back seat and eagerly ran up to the front door, pushing it open and saying his hello's to everyone inside. Taking my time, I listened to the lively crowd as I continued my way to the door. Tai poked his head out and found me standing right outside.
"Come on!" Suddenly he grabbed me by my arm and yanked me inside. On my way into the living room I noticed a bedroom to my left and then turned to see everyone on the couch and chairs in the living room staring at me. Sora immediately got up from her seat and ran over to hug me, spilling a tad of her beer on the way over.
"Matt! I'm so glad you could make it!" I gagged for a moment before returning her hug; she absolutely reeked of alcohol.
"Hey Sora, nice to see you too." Sora pulled away to look me up and down once before stumbling a bit and then speaking again.
"Tai told me that he would get you to drink with us sooner or later." She flashed me a big smile before seeing someone else and running over to them. I looked over at Tai timidly before crossing my arms over my chest and looking back over everyone around me. Tai rolled his eyes at me and tugged on my arm again leading me into the next room.
This room seemed to have more promise and less drunk people. Only a few people were scattered across with most of them sitting and watching television on the far side of the room. Preferring the less crowded area, I took a seat on one of the couches. I watched as Tai said hello to a few of his buddies and then joined me on the couch. I was just glad that he hadn't left me to myself yet.
"Hey dude, sorry about Sora. I probably should have warned you that she gets pretty drunk and when she's that drunk she'll get really giddy and friendly, if you know what I mean." I chuckled a bit and shook my head thinking about it.
"No worries Tai. This whole thing is just weird though. I don't know if I want to drink anymore." I then received a whack on the arm followed by the pouty face.
"But Maaaaaaaaaaaaatt, you promised! I mean, if you're not going to do it now, you know I'll just get you to do it at some other party I drag you to. You might as well just get it over with! And besides, I'll stay with you the whole time. I won't let anything bad happen to you." I looked over to my friend and couldn't help but melt at the sad look on his face.
"Fine, fine, alright. I'll do it, but you'd better keep your promise. I don't want to be left alone." Tai nodded to my request and immediately handed me a beer while popping one for himself as well.
"Hey, but if you're drinking too, how are you going to remember that I'm even here?" Tai stopped chugging his beer and turned back to me with a look of disbelief.
"Oh Matt, you really need a schooling in all this. One beer is not going to do barely anything to me I've drank so much in the past few weeks. And don't worry; I'm only going to drink one or two. I've got your back so you can drink the rest of them." He flashed me a grin and waited for me to take a sip of my own.
(---)
Three beers later, I was pretty much wasted. Tai was always within five feet of me, but at this point I wasn't really in the right mind to care anymore. Many people had left so I wasn't as uncomfortable and even though I was wasted, the only of my motor skills that was significantly affected was my balance as I stumbled through the small house. Standing up from the couch Tai and I had been sitting on for the past hour, I walked back into the first room where I had seen Sora but sadly, she had left at this point…or so I thought. As I turned back around to go back to sit with Tai, Sora was suddenly right in front of me. I could tell that she was even more wasted than earlier.
"Um…hey Sora…what's up?" She put her face really close to mine and my eyes were burning from the amount of alcohol on her breath.
"Are you drunk yet Matty? 'Coz I'd r-really love to s-sh-share a secret with you, but-you, you have to be drunk first." Her words slurred but I could still understand her so I nodded merely because I was curious to find out what the secret was but before I knew it Sora had her arms behind my neck and she looked like she was about to go in for a kiss.
"Whoa, whoa…Sora…" I unlatched her arms and stepped to her side, stumbling a little, and spoke again, "I'm sorry but I don't feel that for you, not even when I'm drunk."
Sora moped for a moment before nodding to me. I started to walk away but felt as her foot slid between mine and I was immediately on the ground with her on top of me. My body instantly went tense and before I could do something stupid like my father would do, I curled into a ball as a defense mechanism. I felt as she tried to lick my ear and whispered things to me but I held my fist back until suddenly she was off of me and strong arms were tugging on my shoulders.
"Alright Sora, party's over. Somebody take her home?" I heard Tai's voice and right away I relaxed and started to stand. Fortunately when I fell again, Tai was there to catch me all over all over again. I looked up to him meekly. He smiled warmly back at me.
"Looks like the party's over for you too there buddy; you're toasted." I chuckled at his comment and blinked as my vision got blurry. Tai looked at me concerned for a moment and then began searching the crowd.
"Hey, Daryl?"
"Yo, Tai, what's up dude?"
"Hey, do you think my pal could sleep in your room tonight? He's not gonna make it back."
"Sure no problem, I'm probably gonna be out all night anyway. Just don't break anything." At this, Tai grinned a 'thank you' and looked back down to me.
"Ready to get up now?" I nodded to him and unsteadily got back to my feet. Tai slowly led the way to the room at the front of the house and I recognized it to be the first door on the left as we came in earlier that evening. Making sure I didn't fall over, he got me into the room and shut the door behind us. I took a look around and immediately noticed that the room was a mess. Clothes were everywhere, bursting from the dressers and the closet and covering the arm chair in the middle as well as the floor. The second thing I noticed was the very large bed by the window which was shortly followed by the doorway to the bathroom. Disregarding my balance issues for the moment, I made a leap for the bathroom. Once I got there I closed the door and began taking care of business.
"Matt! Are you okay in there?? You leapt like there was no tomorrow!" I flushed the toilet and washed my hands, opening the door to a very shocked Taichi.
"I just really had to pee, that's all." I shot him a big smile, sighed deeply, and then flung myself onto the mattress my eyes suddenly very droopy. I heard Tai chuckle and dared a glance up at him. I had to pause for a moment when I saw how much emotion was placed behind the look Tai was giving me but before I knew it, the moment was gone and Tai rolled his eyes at me and my drunkenness.
"What??" I stared Tai down as he sat on the bed next to my curled up body.
"Oh, nothing; just blackmail is all." At this, I shot into a sitting position.
"Hey, now that's not fair! You're the one that made me drink in the first place. You can't use this against me!" Tai started laughing at how much offense I was taking at his comment and I realized that the whole thing had been a trap to get him some blackmail. I glared daggers at him but when that didn't seem the stop his laughter, I then resorted to attacking him physically. We play wrestled for a while until my muscles grew too tired to fight anymore and he eventually had me pinned on the bed. I stared up at him, our breathing labored, and just waited for him to get off of me.
For the second time that night, I saw an intense amount of emotion in Tai's expression, but especially his eyes. I could tell that he was fighting himself about something, but yet again before I could figure it out, he had moved to the other side of the bed. Trying to laugh it off, I spoke.
"Ha, well, you won that round Kamiya but next time I'll get you." I tried to stand and would've fallen if not for Tai's arms catching me again.
"Dude, you are really trashed." I chuckled and nodded to Tai when I felt safe to stand on my own.
"Yeah, you can definitely tell if I lose to you in a fight." I flashed a smile to Tai as he stuck his tongue out at me and before he could reply, I changed the subject. "So are you even drunk at all?"
Tai shrugged, "I'm kind of tipsy. I had a real good buzz going there for a while, but it died down when I lost you." I raised my eyebrow at him to urge him to continue; sadly Tai didn't get the memo.
"When you lost me?" I reiterated. Tai looked down to fix his shoes as he spoke, meaning he was obviously hiding something from me.
"Yeah, when you left the couch and then five seconds later I found you with Sora trying to molest you." Ignoring the hint of jealousy in his voice for the moment, I couldn't help but put forth a comment.
"Yeah, is Sora always like that when she's drunk? Because flat-out, that was just creepy and actually, quite frightening." At this, Tai looked back up at me confused.
"Why was it frightening?" I shot him a look and he chuckled. "Okay, I know that having Sora, lifelong friend and member of the digidestined drunk and basically on top of you is really scary in itself, but there had to be something else for you, Ice Prince Yamato Ishida to say it was 'frightening.' So spill it."
At first, probably because of my drunken stupor, I had to think hard on how to answer this question. While Tai knew basically everything about me, there was one thing he didn't really know about; my father and his fight with alcohol. I mean, Tai knows that my father sometimes drinks excessively but I've never told anyone some of the consequences that he forced onto me, but my thoughts were interrupted by another question.
"Are you alright? I mean what? Do you like Sora or something?" I instantly paled and blinked in fear before looking Tai dead in the eye.
"Tai please don't ever say that again. It wasn't that, not at all." I faintly heard Tai sigh before I continued. "I just…thought that…I would hurt her if I tried to get her off of me."
"Hurt her, how?"
I fidgeted in my place and tried to finish this conversation, "I just…can't even tell my own strength now because of the alcohol. I thought I might've pushed her off me and into something. I don't know."
Tai must've noticed my uneasiness because he merely nodded and leaned back to lay down on the bed with his hands behind his head. I sighed to myself in relief and sat down next to him again. I glanced back at his face and noticed how pensive he looked.
"What are you thinking about?" Tai raised his eyebrows and shook his head at me before answering.
"Nothing really." I rolled my eyes.
"Yeah, right. I think I've known you long enough to know when you're thinking about something. I'm drunk Tai, not stupid." Tai smiled at this for a moment before shaking his head again. I raised an eyebrow and was about to ask again when Tai sat up quickly and ended up with his face very close to mine. My initial reaction was to move away but for some reason I didn't want to move. I felt Tai's breath on my face and took a deep breath of my own as I watched him slowly raise his hand until it finally touched my shoulder and he turned his face away.
"I'm sure that you'll tell me what's wrong when you're ready to Yama." I blinked at Tai as he smirked at me knowingly. "Just like you've known me long enough to know when I'm thinking, I've known you the same amount of time and I can tell just as much when you're hiding something."
I continued to blink like mad not really knowing what else to do. Eventually, Tai had shifted in his position and was about to stand.
"Tai?" Raising his eyebrows, he turned to me and his face was close to mine again. I didn't know what was coming over me but I was determined to figure it out somehow through my drunken stupor…until there was a knock on the door. Tai and I both blinked and shifted away from each other as Tai shook his head and moved to open the door.
I grimaced when I saw Sora's passed out body in the arms of some random guy I had never seen before.
"Dude, what the hell?" Tai seemed pretty upset at this arrival and grew even more-so when Sora was not-so-nicely dumped into Tai's arms.
"Yeah, um, dude, like, I was taking her back to my place but she just like all the sudden started talking about all this weird digi-something stuff to me and I dunno man. She mentioned your name and some other random crap, I just thought she was crazy but then she threw-up a few times and passed out. So I brought her back here." Tai looked at the guy in awe.
"Well, what do you expect me to do? Can't you just take her back to her dorm? Or your place?" The guy shrugged at him and turned to leave.
"She's your burden now dudes!" Tai's jaw dropped as he watched the guy walk off. If Tai could emit steam, this entire house would be foggy by now. With a sigh, Tai turned back to me.
"I guess it's time we all head to bed anyways, eh Tai?" I couldn't help but chuckle somewhat at the look of sheer annoyance on Tai's face as I got up to close the door and help him relocate Sora from his arms and into the bed. We placed her down gently on the side nearest to the bathroom just in case she woke up sick again.
"Damn…" I looked over at Tai, paused for a moment to stop seeing double, and asked why he was cursing.
"There's only one pillow and it's definitely not big enough for the three of us to sleep on." I looked down, saw the oddly very small pillow on the bed, and shrugged.
"Let Sora have it, I mean, she is the worst of us so she needs a little comfort." Tai smiled at me for a moment and nodded before moving to put the pillow under Sora's head. He then shifted to lie down in the middle of the bed and motioned for me to turn out the lights and lay down on the other side of him. After turning out the lights, I carefully made my way to the other side of the bed, tripping on some clothes on the way and finally crawling up the side of the bed that was nearest to the wall. Outside the window, a street lamp was lit brightly so I was still able to see at least what most of everything was. I sat up for a moment to get my balance back and then I leaned back and surprisingly felt Tai's arm behind my head. I looked over at Tai who was lying on his back with his left arm outstretched.
"Tai? What are you doing?" Tai looked over at me and rolled his eyes.
"I told you that I would take care of you and there are no other pillows. I mean, unless you want nothing to lean your head on."
"No, no. I do. Thanks Tai." I flashed him a smile before laying my head back down on his arm and closing my eyes. In doing so, I remembered just how drunk I was as even in the darkness of my eyelids everything was spinning. I placed a hand to my forehead and made a disgruntled noise. Tai immediately turned towards me asking me if I was okay.
"Yeah, it's just everything is spinning…" I opened my eyes and found that Tai's face was close to mine again. I stared into his concerned eyes and breathed heavily as my focus regained itself. Tai blinked slowly as he stared back at me and I realized that he had his hand behind my back to hold me steady. I looked down and away from his eyes for a moment.
"Are you okay? Matt?" When I didn't respond, Tai moved so that I had to stare into his chocolate eyes again. It was my turn to blink slowly as butterflies arose in my stomach. Remembering his question, I nodded and breathed heavier. I felt as Tai's hand slowly slid up my back to my shoulder and following through up to my neck.
Cupping the back of my neck, Tai stared deeply into my eyes silently questioning me. All I could do was stare back into his eyes as Tai slowly closed the distance between our lips. The kiss was tender at first as our eyes closed and our lips glided across each other until I felt Tai's grip on my neck slowly intensify. I moved my hand to Tai's lower back and pulled him closer to me as our passionate kiss progressed.
It felt right. Was it wrong of me to want it? I knew it was happening but I didn't know what I was doing; I knew that I was kissing Tai, but does that mean that I like him? I'm not quite sure but I knew that I never wanted that moment to end.
Nevertheless, it did. Tai instantly pulled away from me as Sora shifted in her sleep next to him. Frightened tremendously, I moved away from Tai and listened as they conversed for a few moments.
"Hey Sora, you okay?"
"Yeah…I'm okay Tai, just really tired. Can I go back to my own bed?"
"No, I'm sorry Sora you're going to have to stay here for the night you're too drunk to walk back."
"Oh…damn. Then can we go to get breakfast in the morning?"
"Sure Sora but you have to go back to sleep now, okay?"
"Mmkay…g'night Tai…" I could feel as Sora shifted on the bed and as Tai was moving back towards me.
"Matt?" I closed my eyes to make it seem like I had passed out. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to make out with Tai some more but I was too confused and too drunk to think. I heard Tai sigh to himself before lying back down.
What am I going to do?
Well? What do you readers out there think? Kind of a cliffhanger, what will Matt do??
The CONTINUATION of this story depends on YOU. More than likely, I will continue to write this story no matter what but depending on the amount of feedback I get will really determine if I post more chapters here so do your part!
Please Review!!!
Hope it was enjoyable and thank you for reading!