Big Brother

Chapter 1: Brother's Feud

Disclaimer: I do not own Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic and co. are owned by Sega.

The Mystic Ruin is often visited by many people for the feeling of peace that being out in the wilderness can sometimes bring. However if anybody did visit the vast valley on this night expecting that tranquil feeling they would be very disappointed due to a large amount of shouting which gave off a very different vibe.

The shouting was coming from a house on a hill not far from the train station, close to the cliff side. It wasn't the biggest place to live despite all the nearby free land but it was enough for the pair that resides there. This was the workshop of Miles Prower, better known as Tails but it housed both the orange anthromophic, twin tailed fox but also his adoptive older, Sonic the Hedgehog, the anthromophic blue hedgehog who uses his ability to run at the speed of sound to keep Mobius safe. Normally the pair were as close as you can get to a friend but currently the two heroes were having a spat.

The loud shouting mostly consisted of "I hate you" and "you can be jerk at times". The door opened and three Mobians came out. One was pink hedgehog with green eyes who wore a red dress and red boots with a white strip down the middle. Unlike most hedgehogs she wears hers down hugging her head like human hair. This individual was well known for wanting for spend time with the blue speedster but even Amy Rose could tell that this wasn't the time.

"We'll just let ourselves out. See you guys after you make up" she called inside the hose before closing the door before sighing.

"Well, that was great use of my time" another voice said, this one male. The speaker was a creature called an echidna. He had purple eyes, red fur and a white birthmark on his chest in the shape of a crescent. His spines resembled dreadlock and green and yellow shoes with an odd buckle which resembled a Lego block. He was Knuckles the Echidna who would rather be protecting the Master Emerald instead of here. He only agreed to come to this get together to get Sonic to shut up and get off his island.

"I'm sure the Master Emerald will still be there when you get back. Do you think we should go back in and help?" Amy asked, not happy that her time with her future husband was being cut short.

"It better be as it's a lot more important than them and their stupidity. I think we should leave it to them" was the reply she got from Knuckles. It did not help her mood.

"You would put that rock before two of your closest friends" she asked, folding her arms and looking annoyed.

"It is my sworn duty to protect the Master Emerald. You know that if someone like Eggman gets their hands on it we will all be in big trouble" Knuckles replied returning the arm folding and madden look at the pink hedgehog. "Personality I think Sonic has had this coming for years but why Tails chose to fight over a board game is beyond me".

"How could you be so cruel?" she shot back.

"Think what you want to." Amy looked like she was going to summon her deadly Piko Piko Hammer and beat her point into Knuckles but was interrupted by a cry from the younger Mobian in their presence.

"Please, no more fighting" exclaimed the cream coloured rabbit. She had brown eyes and the big ears that were well associated with her species. Her orange dress with a blue ribbon like design near the top matched her orange and yellow shoes. This was the overly polite Cream the Rabbit. In her hands was Cheese, who was a little blue creature known as a chao who wore a red bow tie to make him more recognisable that other chaos. He made a chao noise sadly afterwards as if to help back up her point.

The older female's face softened. "I'm sorry Cream, I know that this may look bad and I'm not making it better" she apologised. Her friendship with Cream was almost parallel of that of Sonic and Tails so it was safe to say that Amy was her best friend but she valued each and every one of her friends so to see and argument this big between two of her friends that normally got along well was a little distressing.

"How could this happen?" the rabbit asked, trying to understand just how this scenario came about. This got the other two Mobians thinking about the night they had just gone thought.

"I was surprised that Sonic agreed to play DVD Cluedo" Knuckles said. "He's not well known for thinking. I guessed Tails was going to win".

"Although you're wrong about Sonic as he is not dumb, I properly would have guessed Tails would have won as well" Amy admitted, seeing the echidna's hidden insult.

"Tails would never cheat" Cream added, "so why did Mister Sonic say he did?"

"He didn't mean it" the hedgehog explained. "Sonic just doesn't like losing, especially that badly. I love him with all my heart but that detective work was similar to the Chaotix on a bad day".

"True. But why did he show everyone those pictures of Tails when he was younger?" the rabbit enquired again. "Didn't he know that Tails was embarrassed by them?"

"He knew" the Master Emerald guardian said bluntly.

"Then why?" Cream's innocent mind couldn't understand why Sonic, the person who had saved her and the world many times, would do something so mean to the one he called his little brother.

"Well..." Amy started but couldn't figure out how to explain it to the six year old. Before she could though the echidna took it upon himself to open the rabbit's eyes to the 'truth'.

"Sonic didn't want to be shown up by Tails so in order to show that he holds the most power in their relationship he decide to make Tails feel... bad as would you say".

"That's awful. What should we do Amy?"

"I don't know" she said after thinking about. She closed her eyes and looked down in order to prove what she was feeling. "Tails must have been holding this in for a long time for him to explode like this."

"Like I said before, I'm saying out of it and I suggest you do the same" Knuckles said before he started to walk off. "I'm going back to Angel Island. I suggested this meeting to be tonight so that in case Sonic did something stupid and I wasn't able to be given a lift back, Angel Island would be close enough to Red Mountain for me to climb back on." And with that he dashed off towards the mountain to once again protect the Master Emerald.

"He's right, for once" Amy said cause Cream to snap her head towards the speaker of that statement in surprise.

"Really Amy?" she asked. It was not like her best friend to agree with Knuckles especially on a topic like this. Cream expect Amy to burst in there and force them to stop but to leave them to settle the argument by themselves didn't seem right.

"They need to do this. Sonic and Tails need to get this off their chests and afterwards their friendship will be stronger than ever" she said, her mouth showing a reassuring smile.

"Really?"

"Really. Come on, I'll walk you home" she said and after agreeing, the pair started to walk towards the train station. Although they seemed happy both of them were still worried about the feuding brother, the shouting having become less frequent but still there. The same though was running through their heads.

"Please let them make up soon".

The blue hedgehog with green eyes and famed red and white sneakers plodded down on the sofa. It hadn't been a good night for him. He wasn't doing that well at Tails' new board game so half jokingly he said Tails cheated although his little brother had figured out the case so quickly that he wouldn't have been surprised if it was true. Must like he would of, Tails bragged which he would normally been okay with but he had been feeling stressed. He may make it look easy but the life on Sonic the Hedgehog was anything but. Fighting robots, avoiding Amy, stopping Eggman, bugging Knuckles, keeping the world safe, acting like a good role model for Tails, it wasn't easy but he made it through.

Recently though life had been a little tougher than normal. Turning into a werehog and fixing the world after it was broken by an evil deity would do that to you. But what concerned him was losing Chip. The little imp had stuck to him like glue during the Dark Gaia incident and naturally they bonded so when he stayed in the earth's core it hurt. Sure he had the bracelet that Chip had left him but it was no replacement for his lost friend. This feeling had been causing him to have some weird dreams about him dying and some red head human, it was hazy but it was so clear it was like a memory he never had but it didn't make sense. He had never met a human with red hair and he was pretty sure that he hadn't died. Something about that made him think about Shadow and Silver but aside from that he had no clue and that really annoyed him.

Then there was something that he would admit to anybody, at times not even himself. Tails was growing up and needed him less and less and although he knew that the kit could look after himself just fine, the thought of being needed scared the blue hedgehog. He liked being needed and wanted by his little bro and worried if they would drift apart when they got older; after all they were very different people.

And then there was the flipside of that problem, being need too much. Sonic cherished the time he spent with Tails while they were saving the wisps from Eggman's theme park in space but not only did he have to keep the wisps safe but also the kit while he was working on the translator. Things went well, even when he had to push Tails in the lift so he could fight the Egg Nega Wisp without him being hurt but a nightmare of his ended up becoming a temporary reality when Eggman used his laser to control Tails and turn him against the blue hedgehog. Thankfully the laser ran out of juice before any real fighting could take place but it still made his heart sink when it happened. Yep, it wasn't easy being Sonic.

So Sonic kind of snapped and showed everyone some pictures he had of Tails when he was younger in order to get back at him, after all half of the reason he had taken them and kept them over the years was so he could use them to embarrass his younger bro. He didn't mean any harm but then the usually mild mannered kit sort of blew up, shouting about how he always has to win and that he just couldn't be happy for him. Maybe he felt underappreciated but then again so was he in the big brother department. Maybe trying to tell the kit to go to his room and cool off wasn't the best idea but now Tails was doing just that although he said it was because he wanted to, not because Sonic told him to do so. He had seen Amy, Cream and Knuckles leave and tomorrow he would say that he was sorry they had to see that, Tails was going to like it or not.

Speaking of his two tailed friend, all movement upstairs had stopped. Since he was the older one the blue speedster decided that he should be the bigger one and headed upstairs only to that the door to Tails' room was closed and the light inside turned off.

"Maybe he's asleep" the hedgehog thought as he opened the door slightly and saw his little bro asleep in bed. The orange fox's blue eyes were currently close and a bit damp which told Sonic that he may have been crying before he nodded off. The fact that his own red and white sneakers were on the floor beside the bed meant that he had no intention of coming back down tonight. Tails was sleep on his side, facing the window which caused his three bangs to become scrunched up against the pillow. Sonic sat down on the bed next to him which caused the kit to wince a little. At first speedster thought he had accidentally sat on one of his brother's two fluffy Tails that he uses to fly and keep up with his unbelievable speed but couldn't feel anything so assumed that the kit maybe having a bad dream. He naturally rubbed Tails' back.

"I'm sorry" he said quietly as not to wake him. "I didn't know that you had been feeling this way. You can talk to me; I'm your big bro. But that doesn't make what I did right so I'm sorry about that. It wasn't right of me to show those pictures and I was kidding when I said you cheated. I was certainly never going to win that game".

He sighed and noticed the kit shiver a little and went over to the window and closed it. While he was doing that he noticed the sky was packed with stars and the moon was shining brightly. That was one of the things that he loved about this place, the lack of light pollution made it a great place to star gaze. It was always a breathtaking sight and it never failed to calm him down.

"You know better than anyone all the things that I have to go through. You know, you've fought Eggman and you know how everyone is. But it difficult being a big brother; there's a lot to do but you make it so much easier by being the best little brother I could wish for". He turned to leave but before he did he spoke again. "If you can hear me, just know that I would never hurt you and that I'm so sorry". With that off his chest he left the room and closed the door gently behind him before he headed down stairs and turned on the TV, hoping that something funny was on.

After the door had closed Tails opened his eyes. He had heard Sonic coming up so he decided to pretend to me asleep. He didn't know if he was meant to hear what the blue hedgehog was saying but he did get the impression that his older brother was genuinely sorry for all the pain he had caused.

"I know he doesn't mean to hurt me but he can be so thoughtless at times" he thought. He moved over to the window to look at the stars just as his big brother had done. "I know how hard it is to keep the world safe and dealing with everyone can be kinda stressful, I'll admit that. But is it really that hard to be the older brother?" he wondered. At times Tails felt like the older one, having to keep Sonic in line but how hard was it really? "Sonic makes it look easy so it can't be that hard. I bet I could do it better" he continued thinking.

It was at this point that the two tailed mechanic noticed a shooting star in the sky. "Wow, you don't see that everyday" he mentally exclaimed. He then remembered that wishing on a shooting star can make that wish come true. Part of him felt stupid wishing a star but he could see that harm in trying it. He bowed his head, closed his eyes and put his hands together like he was praying.

"Shooting star, I wish that I had a chance to be the big brother". He opened his eyes and stared to feel tired. "I'll apologise in the morning" he thought before getting back in to bed. The only thing he could hear was the TV which made him think about his older brother. "What are the odds that my wish will come true? Not very high I imagine. Oh well."

He closed his eyes and started drifting off. His had one last thought before he fell in asleep.

"Good night Sonic."