Notes: This one's a short chapter since I wasn't feeling very inspired by this story this month. Enjoy regardless!
The hum of the vacuum cleaner could be heard throughout the workshop as both hedgehog and fox cleaned up the place. It was just starting to get warm again after winter, and Tails had been hit by the spring cleaning bug. Unfortunately for Sonic, he'd been in the house when his little brother decided it was time to bust out the brooms and dusters. Not that the speedster minded helping him with the chores, not at all. But for the first time in months, there was no snow on the ground, nothing was muddy, and the sun was shining. It was still kind of chilly outside, but it looked nice and warm, and that's what mattered. He wanted nothing more than to run around to his favorite areas of the Mystic Ruins and to take a long nap in a tree. But of course, Tails had to get his cleaning itch today, and if they didn't act on that itch right away, the workshop would remain a mess for months to come.
"You just had to pick today to clean this place, didn't you Tails…?" Sonic muttered under his breath as he dusted around the base of the TV, eyes glancing to the sunlight pouring in from the living room window. His nose was itching almost as much as his feet now, and they'd just gotten started. The duster he was using was an old one, so it kind of just blew the dust around more than it picked it up. The hedgehog paused, feeling a tingle in his sinuses. He took a sharp inhale and then sneezed violently, blowing loose dust everywhere.
"Gesundheit!" Tails shouted over the din of the vacuum cleaner.
"Thank you!" Sonic airily yelled back before sneezing again and backing out of the dust cloud he'd made. "Alright, I gotta clean something else while all this settles," he sniffled quietly to himself. He put the duster down on the coffee table and made his way upstairs, since Tails had the kitchen pretty much covered.
Sonic's bedroom was pretty small, but he also didn't spend a lot of time in there, so it worked out. He often slept outside, or wasn't home altogether. He had very few personal possessions; a few souvenirs from around the world, his extreme gear, and an old beat-up guitar. The only things left were his music and video game collections, which resided downstairs in the living room, and some clothes. His wardrobe consisted of a couple different jackets and hoodies, an army's worth of high tops and skate shoes, and his socks and gloves. He'd spent most of the winter in one coat and one pair of boots (aside from his regular trademark sneakers), so he hadn't opened up his closet in a while. He was almost afraid to see what it was like inside, but figured that this was as good a place as any to start reorganizing.
He slid the wooden door open and peered inside. The damage wasn't too bad- most of the closet wasn't in total disarray. His shoes, at the very least, were still inside their boxes in order to keep the dust off of them, and were neatly stacked. He peeked into a few of the shoeboxes to remind himself of what he owned. 'Hey, if the weather keeps up, I might be able to break out a pair or two of these. They're no good for running in, but dang if they don't look good.' Aside from his old SOAP shoes and his boarding sneakers, he had lots of other shoes in similar styles. Almost all of them were red. Okay, maybe he had too many pairs of sneakers, especially considering how rarely he changed out of his usual ones, but he couldn't help it. He had a weakness.
He didn't care nearly as much about his jackets and sweatshirts, since he usually only donned them when it was cold out or if he was trying to blend in with a crowd. He pulled a couple of them out and tossed them on the floor behind them, as they either had rips or were so old he was surprised he hadn't gotten rid of them sooner. The only old jacket he refused to get rid of was a light blue and pink one from his childhood, one that used to be part of his favorite outfit. While it was out of style even before he bought the thing, he still had a soft spot for it. It had been way too large for his younger self, but now fit him almost perfectly. There was no way he could bring himself to remove it from his wardrobe.
The top shelf of the closet was where all the trouble was. Boxes, bags, and just random objects and bits of clothing were shoved up there with absolutely no regard for organization. Tails would have been appalled. The shelf was far out of Sonic's reach, so he quickly dashed out of the room to grab a chair to stand on. He snatched one of the kitchen chairs and brought it back up to his room, placing it in front of the closet. He jumped on top of it and reached up towards the top shelf, trying to see what he could pull down without causing an avalanche of stuff to fall down, crushing him into a hedgehog pancake.
"Oh, come on… Almost there…" he grumbled, standing on his tiptoes and reaching for whatever was on the top of the pile. He knew he wasn't exactly the tallest hedgehog in the world, but this was ridiculous. "How did this junk even get up here in the first place? Ah, ah, ah… Gotcha!" he exclaimed, having finally reached the topmost plastic bag. One of the bag's handles must've been caught on whatever was under it, however, as half of the closet's contents ended up falling off the shelf with the bag. Sonic let out a loud yelp as he went down, the weight of everything falling on him knocking him off the chair and onto the floor.
He vaguely registered the vacuum cleaner downstairs being turned off, the whole house quiet except for the sound of Tails flying up the steps. "What happened? What broke?" the fox gasped, glancing around upstairs before he saw inside Sonic's room. The hedgehog's foot was sticking out of the pile of boxes and bags, and he could be heard groaning underneath it. Tails stifled a laugh. "Bested by gravity once again, I see?" he said, touching down to the floor and standing just inside Sonic's room.
"Hardee har har, wise guy," Sonic's muffled voice came from under the pile. "You gonna help a guy out or just stand there all day?"
"Yeah, yeah. Here, give me your hand." The hedgehog stuck his hand out of the heap and Tails grabbed it, pulling him out and getting him back on his feet. "What is all this stuff, anyway?"
Sonic shrugged, rolling his shoulders. "Not sure. I was going to go through it all, I just didn't expect it to come down all at once." He placed his hands on his hips and looked at all the bags and boxes now littering his floor. Going through each of them would take forever, but just shoving them all back on the shelf would defeat the purpose of ever taking them down. He looked sideways at Tails. "You wanna help?"
"Might as well," he said, crouching down next to a box and removing its lid. "It'll get done way faster if we work together."
And that was how the two ended up spending the next hour and a half sitting across each other on Sonic's bedroom floor, rummaging through all manner of items. Notable finds included: Chip's necklace, which was now around Sonic's wrist, various medals for saving the world, a trophy for placing first in an extreme gear race, and a shoebox filled with newspaper clippings detailing some of Sonic's older victories against Eggman. A lot of what they found was just old junk that wasn't worth keeping, so they were sorting everything into keep, trash, and donate piles.
While fishing through a stack of old papers and letters, Tails' fingers hit something a bit softer, more worn than everything else. Intrigued, he pulled out an old envelope, yellowed with age. It felt more like cotton than paper, causing him to believe it had been handled quite a bit. "Hey Sonic, what's this?" he asked, holding it up so his bro could see.
Recognition immediately dawned on Sonic's face. "Oh, I've been looking for that!" he exclaimed, sitting up straight. "Go on, open it up! It's about time you saw what was inside."
Tails' expression changed from curious to concerned in an instant. "Why? Is this some 'birds and the bees' thing? Sonic, will the contents of this envelope ruin childhood innocence for me forever?"
The hedgehog laughed, doubling forward and pulling his hands in towards his gut. "Chaos Tails, it's not The Talk," he squeaked. "Just- just open it up already!"
"Okay, fine!" the fox smiled, opening up the envelope. "Please, you haven't even given yourself that talk yet. Huh?" He pulled out a photo that was almost as old and yellowed as the envelope that was holding it. It was bizarre, though, as the image quality made it look like it had been taken with a modern-day camera. In fact, the date at the bottom was fairly recent as well; the photo had apparently been taken in June of the previous year. Which made sense, considering the picture was of Sonic blowing out the candles of his birthday cake on his 20th birthday. But if the photo was fairly recent, why did it look so old? Unless… "Sonic… You didn't."
"Didn't what?" The hedgehog smiled, knowing what the kit was getting at.
"You gave little-you a picture of your 20th birthday party? When we both know that our younger selves don't remember anything from when they were here?!" He gasped, not sure whether to be angry with his friend or not.
"Well, to be fair, it wasn't my idea. My older-self gave that photo to me. I was just completing the cycle. It's a stable time loop! No paradoxes whatsoever," he defended.
"Of course it was your idea, it was you!" Tails exclaimed, waving the photo in Sonic's face as the hog struggled not to laugh. "Man, I hate time travel. The fact that this can all work out without a problem is giving me a headache!" he laughed. He supposed he couldn't really be mad about the whole thing, since everything turned out for the best in the end. "I think you owe me a real explanation for this."
"Real, as opposed to…?"
"Chalking it all up to 'shenanigans'."
"Okay, real explanation it is," Sonic said, taking the photo from him. "Okay, so back when we were the younger us, I just found this photo tucked in my glove one day when I woke up. I know now that that must've been the day we'd gone back to our own time after defeating the Time Eater, but back then I had no context. It was just a photo of what looked like me, eating my 20th birthday cake, taken years in the future. I didn't know where it came from or what I should do, so I figured I would just wait for the date on the photo to come. So I stuck the thing in that envelope and waited. So last year, when I had my party, you took that picture of me and I recognized it right away. Once all the time travel stuff had come into play, it became sort of obvious that I had to give my younger self the photo. Because, you know, back when I was him, I got the photo from older-me. Who is me now. Is this making any sense?"
Tails smiled sarcastically. "Maybe," he said, taking the photograph back. "It's so weird though. This picture traveled through time, was a mystery for so many years… was there even any reason behind it?"
"I haven't the slightest clue, bud," Sonic shook his head before diving back into the pile of old items that lay in front of him. "Definitely a cool souvenir from that adventure, though! We should probably get that in a frame before it gets in any rougher shape, it's pretty neat." He shifted through some more boxes until he pulled out a beat-up old baseball cap. He placed it on his head, tilted sideways of course, and attempted his best Blue Steel face. "What do you think? Do I pull off the look?"
"Hmm…" Tails scrunched up his face in thought before leaning over and turning the hat so it was all the way backwards. "There, now it'll go great with that ugly jacket you bought when you were eleven."
The hedgehog gave the most pained face he could muster. "You dare insult my favorite outfit? Just for that, I'm never ever getting rid of it. In fact, I think I'll put it on right now."
"Oh no," Tails shook his head as Sonic shot up and went to his closet.. "No, no no no you had better not- I can't believe you even still have that!" he gasped. Sonic pulled the hideous windbreaker off of its hook and slipped it on, smiling like a loon all the while.
"Tails, I'm keeping this jacket until the day I die. Actually, maybe I'll be buried in it. That's not a bad idea."
"Sonic, you've just dropped down a rung on the friendship ladder. Just so you know."
"Or I could leave it to you in my will."
"MULTIPLE RUNGS. You are just- you're plummeting down the ladder, Sonic!"
Sonic laughed, and instead of taking the jacket off, he zipped it up and stuffed his hands into the pockets. He wasn't going to be taking it off anytime soon.
Notes: So yeah, this story is really falling on my backburner now. I had this chapter pre-written except for the ending, and I still have a couple more chapters in a backlog so I can keep posting, but I haven't written anything new for this story in a while. Which, honestly, I don't want it to go on forever, so that's probably a good thing. We'll see how I feel when I get to the end of my backlog, but we've got at least two months left, maybe three until that happens. It's not that I've fallen out of love with the characters or anything, it's just that... I've kind of done all I really can with Zonic and Scourge at the moment. There's only so many times I can write about them dealing with the same issues, y'know? My mind's drifted to other characters (namely, Knuckles) for the time being.
That being said, the writing project I am putting my heart and soul into right now is SylvaniaSchoolofMagic on Tumblr, and now SylvaniaMagicSchool on deviantArt! I'm sure we'll drag that story to FFN and/or AO3 at some point, but the best place to experience it is on tumblr, given the multi-media approach we're taking to it. Please please please go check out that story, we've been getting some very kind feedback on it but it's really not a lot for all the work we put into it. All we want is for it to reach more people and for it to get a few more comments. So if you've been searching for something new to read, I highly recommend it.
We're still taking in new people to join our Sonic Discord Chat! It's a fairly small intimate group, and we love posting art, writing, and brainstorming together. It's a lovely community and we'd love for it to grow :) Send me a message if you're interested! We're all 18-20somethings so please, no one under the age of 16. It just makes things easier on us. Thanks!
