[fanfic] Digimon Adventure: Toilet Paper & Toothpaste

[higuchimon]

Title: Toilet Paper & Toothpaste
Friendship: Jyou & Ogremon
Word Count: 2,276||Status: One-shot
Genre: Friendship, Humor||Rated: G
Challenge: Digimon Friendship Challenge 2: Digimon Adventure/02 Arc: round 3
Summary: You make do with what you have in the Digital World. In every situation.

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Ogremon stared up at the sky overhead, wishing that there was some way he could climb a tree or a mountain high enough and just bash at what he saw until it shattered. That world up there was just not natural. Sure, he’d seen cities and the like enough in the Digital World, though he seldom spent much time in them. That was one reason that he lived on File Island. It was easy to avoid places like that there.

The other reason was that was where Leomon lived, of course, but he didn’t even take that into account. He’d live wherever Leomon lived, and they’d happily fight one another until one of them lost. Then they’d wait around for the loser to be reborn and start it all over again. What else did he need out of life, anyway?

And because of those stupid Dark Masters, I can’t even do that right now! He glowered some more at the sky, shifting his arm carefully. Most of the pain seemed to be gone, though he tried not to even notice it. He was a Virus. Virus Digimon didn’t feel pain, they inflicted it on other Digimon.

He glanced over to where Palmon, Gomamon, and their human partners were talking around the campfire. He supposed it was getting sort of late in the day, though how they could figure it out without the sun to really go by was beyond him. Some human thing, more than likely. He’d seen Jyou looking at something on his wrist a few times before they decided to stop and rest.

He shifted again, wincing. If MetalEtemon hadn’t already been dead, he would have hunted him down and killed him. Stupid metal monkey, crashing almost on top of him! What kind of a fighting technique was that. And then killing Leomon! The nerve!

“Hold on.” Jyou came over towards him, a fresh roll of toilet paper in his hands. “Let me check on that.”

Ogremon grumped a little but didn’t really protest as the boy unwrapped the makeshift bandages and probed at his muscular arm. There was the slightest bit of a wrinkle to his nose, though Ogremon had no idea of why. It couldn’t be the smell. Ogremon bathed every spring, whether he needed it or not.

“I think it’s all right now.” Ogremon held back from wincing at one especially deep probe. This kid wasn’t even a real doctor! But…he was the best Ogremon could come up with at the moment, whether he liked it or not. I’ve gotta be at my best when Leomon comes back.

Jyou stared down at it, then looked up at him. “It’s better, but it’s not all the way healed yet.” He pulled out another roll of toilet paper and started to carefully wind Ogremon’s injured up again. The burly Digimon refused to admit that the pain eased the more that he did this.

“You’re good at this.” He would say that much, at least. If he didn’t keep on their good side, then they wouldn’t want him around, and he had to stick around with them to get back at the Dark Masters. There was also the fact that he actually meant what he said. Not that he would really admit that out loud.

Jyou shrugged a little. “Kidos have been doctors for centuries. It runs in the family.” Ogremon wasn’t all that good at noticing nuances in people’s voices most of the time. He usually didn’t need to. The usual way he communicated was avoiding someone’s attempt to attack him or attacking someone else. But this time, he did notice something. It was very faint, and he hadn’t the foggiest notion of how to describe it, but there was just something about the way that it was said that caught his attention.

“I don’t even have a family,” Ogremon grumbled. Could you count Leomon as a family? Probably not, not the way that they fought. “Wouldn’t know what to do with one if I had it.”

“Heh.” Jyou almost seemed to smile for a moment. It was still strange for Ogremon to see someone baring their teeth and not think if they were going to attack him. Though with those puny teeth, he didn’t think that he had anything to worry about. “There, how does that feel?” He tightened the wrappings one last time, keeping them in place with some carefully positioned clips, all tucked out of sight. Ogremon approved of that; if he’d seen someone with an injury like this and the clips were visible, he would’ve aimed right for them.

Ogremon tried to move his arm a bit, more to get the feel of the new bandages than anything else, and nodded. “It’ll do.” Humans could be creative, he realized. He’d seen toilet paper before, but it had never occurred to him to try to use it to wrap an injury.

Of course, normally he never bothered wrapping his injuries. He just let them heal on their own, sometimes slathering a few crushed herbs on them if he found some. Most of those twinged and ached a lot when he moved into colder areas. He didn’t think that this would. At least not as badly.

Jyou settled down next to him to sort things in his bag again. He picked up one bottle and looked at it. “If it’s hurting you, then take a couple of these. They should help with it.” He opened it up and tapped out a couple of small white pills. Ogremon bent down to look at them, and laughed.

“Those little things could help with something hurts?” Really, what would humans think up next? He poked at one with one finger. “What is that, anyway?”

“They’re called aspirin.” Jyou’s voice sounded a touch strangled now. “Uh, also, there’s something else that might help you.” He started to dig into the bag some more, and pulled out a long tube and a small brush of some kind, along with a bottle. “Come on, there’s a pond over there we can use.”

Ogremon scratched his head with the other hand. “Use for what?” He was following along, though. He wasn’t really in much pain, but it was a little difficult to get to sleep sometimes. He wasn’t sure what a pond or whatever it was that Jyou had pulled out of that bag would have to do with him getting rest, though.

“You’ll see.” Jyou dipped the small brush into the pond and shook it off, then unscrewed the top off of the tube and held it over the brush, squeezing. Some sort of gel came out of it, and Ogremon sniffed, trying to catch a hint of the aroma.

“Minty.” He’d chewed mint once, by accident. It wasn’t an experience he intended to repeat. “What does that do?”

Jyou paused for a moment, and even Ogremon could all but see the gears turning in his head. “It can help with pain in the mouth.”

“But I don’t have any pain in my mouth!” Ogremon protested at once, wondering just what this human was up to. He didn’t think the kid would try to hurt him, nor would he even be all that capable of it. But brushing his mouth with mint? What kind of an idiot wanted to do that?

“And you don’t want to get any, do you?” Jyou could move quickly when he wanted to, and Ogremon flailed briefly in shock as the gel-covered brush was shoved inside of his mouth. His first reaction was to strike out at the attack, but all he hit when he tried was an overhanging tree branch. He fell on his back, and Jyou jumped on top of him, rubbing the brush around on his teeth and tusks.

He wanted to ask what the kid was doing. He wanted to ask a lot of things, but it was impossible to do so when he had a twelve year old on top of him. Jyou’s arm was stuck halfway into Ogremon’s mouth, and it was all he could do not to instinctively snap his jaws together and break it off. Leomon wouldn’t like that. Leomon wouldn’t want to fight him if he hurt one of Leomon’s friends.

Leomon was so going to owe him for this once he got back.

“This isn’t so bad, is it?” Jyou asked, still scrubbing fiercely. “Oh, I think I see a cavity. You should get that checked out if you find a dentist somewhere.”

“What’s a dentist?” At least that was what Ogremon wanted to ask. Given that he had a human partially in his mouth, the words were more of an annoyed grumble in the back of his throat.

Jyou apparently didn’t expect an answer, as he kept on scrubbing. Finally he jumped back and gestured towards the pond. “You can rinse your mouth out now.” He even looked pleased about what he’d done. Ogremon shot him a few annoyed looks, but did as he was told. He didn’t really want that minty taste in his mouth another moment if he could help it.

He gulped down several mouthfuls of water, swishing it around to get all of that disgusting foam that the gel had turned into out of him. He spat it back into the pond, and rubbed at his lips with the back of his hand. “What did you go and do that for?”

“Here, drink this.” Jyou offered him the bottle, which was a suspicious shade of blue, and Ogremon eyed it. “It’s not poison or anything. It’ll help some more.”

Since he hadn’t answered the first question, Ogremon was tempted just to throw it away. But once again, Leomon rose up in the back of his mind, arms folded across his chest, staring at him balefully. If you want that fight with me, do as he says. It was nothing but his imagination, but Ogremon swigged down a few gulps.

He didn’t even bother to swallow, though, spitting the foul minty liquid out. “What in the hell was that?”

“I’ve just brushed your teeth for you.” Jyou smiled triumphantly, washing the brush in the pond as well. “Was that the first time you’ve had them brushed?”

Ogremon blinked, rubbing at his mouth again. He could still taste the mint, and it wasn’t getting any better. He hoped that they ran across something to eat soon. He was really going to need to chow down to feel halfway normal again. “What do you brush your teeth for?”

“I guess that’s a yes.” Jyou packed away his tools and zipped up the bag. “You brush your teeth so they’ll stay healthy and you won’t lose them. I also gave you mouthwash. That helps, and it helps to keep your breath fresh too.”

“Did it have to be mint?” Ogremon considered chewing on a tree branch. Some of these trees could be really tasty. “And what’s a dentist, anyway?”

Jyou stood up, tossing the strap of his bag over his head. “Mint is all I’ve got. But toothpaste and mouthwash come in all different flavors on Earth. You could probably find some here if you looked hard enough. A dentist is a doctor who takes care of your teeth. One of my cousins is one.”

Ogremon grunted as they headed back towards the camp. It wasn’t all that much of a problem, not now that he’d gotten used to it. A good meal or two would put his mouth feeling back the way that it should, and it hadn’t hurt all that much. Certainly not as much as some of the punches in the mouth Leomon had given him in the past.

“What did you do that for?” He wanted some kind of an answer for that more than almost anything right now.

Jyou rubbed the back of his head, grinning a bit ruefully. How could humans manage with such tiny teeth? Did Jyou brush his teeth too? He didn’t really want to get close enough to smell and find out. It was bad enough having the taste of mint in his mouth. He didn’t really want it in his nose. No more than it already was.

“Well, your breath wasn’t really all that good, and since I’ve got to get close to you to check on your arm, I thought it wasn’t that bad of an idea.” He laughed a little. “I wasn’t sure how you’d take it, though.”

Oh. That explained why Jyou hadn’t really said anything about it. He grinned some. “That’s sneaky of you. You’d make a pretty decent Virus.”

Jyou stared at him, then laughed nervously again. “I guess that’s a compliment from you, isn’t it?”

“What else would it be?” Who would want to be compared to a Data or a Vaccine, anyway? They were always so sweet and goody-goody; it made him sick to his stomach just to think about it.

And there he was, hanging out with Datas and Vaccines, talking to them, letting them do anything that they wanted, all because he wanted to get his revenge and have File Island back to normal so he could fight with Leomon again someday.

Well, at least he wasn’t going to be nice about it. He smacked the back of Jyou’s head a bit gruffly. “But next time, you’d better ask!”

“Sure, Ogremon.” At least, Ogremon thought that was what Jyou was trying to say. It was a little difficult to be sure, since he had fallen forward from the force of Ogremon’s friendly thwack and his head was buried in the dirt. Ogremon kept on walking.

Friends were nice, but payback was better.

The End