tails + "how long do you think you could hide that" perhaps
The Sonic Boom really should have been warning enough. However, growing up around them meant that Tails had more or less tuned them out. Sonic coming and going at his own speed (Mach 2) was simply a fact of life.
Plus, Station Square had always been pretty noisy. There could have been a thousand reasons that the sky suddenly shook. Especially since Extreme Gear had just crossed the speed of sound, and plenty of teenagers were using them more often despite them being restricted. (But like, who was going to catch them at that speed? Sonic? Even if the mayor asked him to, he’d just give them a high five.)
So no, Tails did not react. He’d learned to tune them out when working years ago; most of the time, he could even sleep through them.
Fatal error number one, really.
But Tails would never have expected Sonic to turn up here.
After all, despite being gifted a New Station Square penthouse, Sonic never came here.
At best, it was a place for Sonic to store all the Sonic-The-Hedgehog-themed gag gifts his friends gave him over the years.
(And yes, Tails is a little creeped out by the sheer amount of it, despite being the one to purchase at least a third of it. When he arrived at night, he’d tried keeping the lights off so he could pretend it wasn’t as decked out as it clearly was in the daytime, but the glow-in-the-dark shower curtain jump-scared him. His tails had stayed bushy for a full half-hour after. Ugh.)
Sonic hadn’t been able to get out of legally owning it, either. So despite still being a nomad in name and practice and worldview, Sonic T. Hedgehog officially had an apartment in New Station Square. Which meant to save face he would absolutely, never, under any circumstances, come here.
And he especially wouldn’t come here looking for Tails.
That’s what Tails thought, at least, until, a minute after the Sonic Boom, the door burst open.
Tails, clad in an oversized Sonic Sez T-Shirt, blinks up at him. As embarrassing as the shirt is, he’s glad he’s wearing it, because what’s underneath is way worse.
“Way to check in,” Sonic says, in lieu of hello. “‘Yeah, I definitely am going home after this,’” he mimics. “‘I’ll just be working on some software updates for Tailsblr, don’t worry, you can go check out the Spagonia ruins, I’ll be fine!’”
“I don’t sound like that.”
Sonic arches a brow.
“I don’t!” Tails, embarrassed, scrunches his face up in a pursed-lip pout. It’s incredibly tough-looking, he knows. “What are you doing here, anyways?”
Sonic glances around at the Sonic-themed apartment. “...Are you going to make me say it, or-”
“Never thought you’d call this ‘your’ apartment,” Tails mumbles.
“Okay, point.” Sonic leans in the doorway, effectively blocking Tails’s only exit, unless he busts open a window. Which he doesn’t want to do. The Sonic-themed-stained glass would be almost impossible to duplicate, and Amy paid good money for that birthday… ‘gift’. “You gonna tell me what you’re doing here, though? And why you haven’t checked in with anyone?”
Tails crosses his arms over his chest. He definitely doesn’t look petulant. Wincing ruins it, but he does his best to play it off, putting on an annoyed expression he’s not sure Sonic totally believes. “...no.”
Sonic, predictably, eyes Tails. And the shirt he’s wearing. “I came all this way though?” he says, faux casually. “Nice digs, by the way.”
“I figured it would be good camouflage.”
“Hiding from me got that serious, huh?”
What is there to say to that, exactly? Tails huffs, but ruins it with the way he toes his foot against the ground. Unsocked, because his usual ones are washing – and he couldn’t, surprisingly, find any Sonic-themed socks among the mess. He could’ve found slippers, but his paws were big enough as it was.
Sonic, as always, takes it upon himself to fix it. He steps closer, unsubtly poking around him trying to find an injury.
Tails turns away, trying to avoid Sonic getting too close, but it’s a losing battle with a decisive defeat when he winces again. Sonic sees it, because of course he does, and capitalizes on it immediately.
“We really have to do this the hard way?”
It sounds almost petulant. Tails huffs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about-”
“It can’t possibly be more embarrassing than hiding here of all places.”
“Who said it was embarrassing?”
“Then you’ve got to give me an explanation, because otherwise that’s what I’m going with, bud.” Sonic intentionally challenges him, maybe knows deep down that it’s something else. When Tails doesn’t offer an explanation though, Sonic just sighs. “Alright, guess I’m just gonna assume you’re hiding out here licking your wounds…”
Tails grimaces. There’s no putting it off or getting out of it, is there?
With a sigh, Tails finally stops squirming away, though his tails continue to swish in annoyance. But the battle is over, and he knows he’s lost. So with a grand, over-dramatic sigh, he lifts the shirt, which loosely conceals bandages, and more importantly, a back brace.
“I have to wear it for another week,” he grumbles, lowering the shirt back down, because an oversized Sonic Sez Stay In School! shirt (...did they even ask Sonic before they made that slogan?) is way less embarrassing than the medical brace. “More, in theory, but by then I’ll be mobile enough to make myself a cool exoskeleton so I can go back to helping.”
Sonic raises both brows. “I, uh,” he starts, looking for a moment at a loss for words. He stares.
Tails decides to cut him a break. “I’ve been using the sketch pads here to draft out all the important parts of the exoskeleton,” he continues, “And honestly, I’ll probably keep using it for a while after this heals, because it’ll be useful for heavy artillery. Similar to what I used around the time we met Shadow, just with actual support, because it was pretty uncomfortable-”
“Okay, that’s great, but, I fail to see why you’d… hide that?”
Tails’s whiskers twitch. “It’s hard to move. Meaning I can’t help with anything going on.”
“Yeah? And that sucks, but it’s not– you should’ve told me.” How long did you think you could hide that, anyways? It's not a big deal, not to be on missions, but- I mean, there's more than matters than just that."
“It's not a big deal, injuries just suck,” Tails cuts in, cutting Sonic off from any other unnecessary worry, or so he hopes. Sonic stares at him blankly. “Besides, you would’ve felt like you needed to check in a ton, and you- you’ve been itching to go and do things again. And it’s important to stop Eggman’s newer plans. I’d just have slowed you down.”
“Slowed me down.” Sonic tilts his head to the side. “I guess, from a certain kind of view, I could maybe, sort of, see that logic.” Tails almost feels relieved, before Sonic adds, “You know, if I was heartless. Which you know I’m not. So I'm serious, please tell me it's something else.”
Tails squirms under the scrutiny. He shrinks in on himself, crossing his arms tightly over himself despite the ache it causes. All the while, Sonic is still looking him over, puzzling it through. Letting Tails’s silence and inability to refute that speak for itself.
Tails sees the exact moment Sonic notices. He cringes. This was exactly what he was hoping to avoid.
Because the thing is, Sonic always hid away when he was injured or sick or dealing with too much. Sonic was all about the power of friendship, sure – but that was for Eggman. When it came to interpersonal problems, or god forbid physical weakness, Sonic was suddenly a cool loner. He’d always make some offhand comment about seeing a part of the world he hadn’t seen before (a dwindling number every day) and then they wouldn’t see him again for days, weeks, or months.
And, well.
It wouldn’t be the worst trait to pick up on. The whole world agreed that Sonic was a cool role model – the whole apartment around him agreed! Why would he be a bad role model here, too?
And if Tails was ever going to be a hero in his own right, too, well… Shouldn’t he learn to take care of himself?
“Ah,” Sonic says, eloquently. He opens his mouth, presumably for a speech, and comes up short again. He shifts a hand to his chin, clearly thinking hard.
“I think I smell something burning,” Tails says.
“Does no one trust me to do speeches anymore?”
“I honestly think you’ve gotten worse.”
Sonic levels a half-hearted glare, but the tug at the corner of his mouth tells Tails he’s not actually offended. Sonic reaches for his bangs, half-heartedly ruffles them. “Yeah. That’s why I’m trying to take my time and think this one through.”
Tails doesn’t duck away from the affection. But he can’t help but shrink into himself, just a little. Not in a bad way – but he hasn’t felt shy in ages. He feels like a kid again, which is exactly what he was trying to avoid.
Sonic must pick up on it, because he frowns a little. Then, punches Tails’s shoulder, light enough not to jostle his back. “Growing up doesn’t mean not leaning on your friends anymore,” he finally says. “We’ll always be around. You know that, right?”
Tails has a lot he could say to that – about being around.
He wisely keeps his mouth shut.
Sonic reads into it, sighs despite himself. Of course Tails should’ve guessed it was written on his face. They’d managed years without words. “Okay, yeah, but that’s an extreme circumstance – and you could’ve… should’ve had our friends around,” he says. “If I had actually kicked the bucket – that’s what I would’ve wanted. Our friends looking out for you.”
The unfairness of it all burns. “It's not an extreme circumstance when you already almost died again.”
Sonic rakes a hand back through his quills. “I really have gotten worse at speeches,” he mutters. “I don’t know. I’ve always been like this, though, keeping... issues to myself – but you haven’t.”
On account of being four years old, Tails chooses not to point out.
“Yes, okay, don’t look at me like that, I know you were a kid and kids need help and that’s okay! Good, even! But I always thought it was nice you didn’t get mad when I did stuff for you, even when you got older.”
Tails scuffs his goes against the floor again. “Because you like doing nice things for other people.”
“Sure,” Sonic agrees. “But it’s not like… -I always chose to look after you. Could’ve stopped whenever. Vanilla offered, sometimes. But I didn’t even let Knuckles babysit you unless it was like, an emergency-emergency.”
Tails’s face feels hot at the mere idea of being babysat at all. Impossible standards, he knows, for being four.
“I didn’t think you even minded being looked after, since we were always friends, not just… you know.” The word that doesn’t exist, Tails thinks, for their exact kinship. Siblings is closest, but there’s both more and less there, that the word doesn’t always fit. It's a puzzle piece that only mostly matches. “But then you were getting so good at things that had nothing to do with anything I taught you. Doing your own thing, being your own you,” Sonic continues. “...I guess I just never thought you’d take after me so much. I'm surprised, that's all.”
Tails ducks his head. The shirt is in his field of vision though, and it strikes him as the most absurd thing about all of this. Having a heart-to-heart, after all these years, in a room absolutely suffocated in Sonic merchandise.
Tails clearly isn’t the only one with a hero worship problem. The whole world seems to agree that Sonic's a role model.
He can’t quite find the words to say, ‘How could I have possibly taken after everyone else?’
“You’re giving yourself a lot of credit,” Tails says, managing a small smile, despite everything. “...Deserved credit, but still.”
He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, where he knows a gigantic Sonic head plush (six feet tall and just as wide) is looming. A gift from Vector.
“Saying I’ve got a big head?”
“I think they actually made it to scale,” Tails says with a grin. “But the important thing is… You don't need to think it's all you. You said it yourself, that I have all my own good traits. So I can’t let you act all guilty for my bad traits. Maybe I would’ve been like this anyways, who knows. But you don’t need to take credit, okay?”
Sonic blinks at him.
“I’m growing up. And maybe I didn’t need to hide away, or at least I could’ve told you where I was going,” Tails acknowledges. “But those are my mistakes to make. Okay? Not your responsibility.”
Sonic still looks surprised. But he seems to chew on that, still deciding whether or not to agree.
But Tails is older now. About as old as Sonic was when he set out against Eggman.
It’s only fair to give him a little leeway, right?
So Sonic finally nods, still looking contemplative. “Just remember you’re not on your own,” he says. “You’ve got your own thing to figure out – I respect that. But I don’t want you to forget that we’re here because we actually care. What I was saying earlier… the thing is, we’re your friends. It’s not babysitting or looking after you anymore. Even then, we liked you and wanted you around. But now? You’re with us because you’ve got skills, and we want you there. I want you there. So remember that, okay?”
Tails’s chest feels warm. Pride, he thinks. The pride of knowing he’s made Sonic proud.
“Okay,” he says, feeling a little more confident.
Sonic smiles, lopsided. The same smile on most of the trademarked merchandise around them.
It’s such a perfect match for the poster behind him that Tails has to suppress a laugh.
“What?” Sonic asks, turning to follow Tails’s eyes. “What’s- Oh, very funny. I can't help that that's my good side. I'm not even doing the thumbs up!”
Tails grins, but there’s no malice behind it. “Thanks for coming here to check on me,” he says sincerely. “I’m okay though, just sorry for worrying you.”
Sonic ruffles his bangs again. “You’re never going to have to be sorry for worrying me,” he promises. “I’d miss it too much if I stopped.”
An hour ago, Tails would’ve felt worse, hearing that. But it doesn’t sting. Sonic can both worry about him, and know that he’s growing up and can make his own choices.
“C’mon,” Sonic says, officially ending the heart-to-heart. “I put some sonic-shaped cereal in here the other day when I saw it in a store. Five rings says it turns my tongue blue?”
“You’re on,” Tails agrees, knowing it’s a losing bet.