Things Best Forgotten
Disclaimer: Regrettably, I don't own Sonic the hedgehog, Tails, or any of the other characters in this story. (And, I don't even want to own Tails Doll!) They are property of Sega and Sonic Team. All references to Sonic X are also belonging to 4Kids TV.
Hey, everyone! Long time, no post! You won't believe how busy I've been (and still am!), but I haven't totally stopped writting as you can see! This may be the last chapter for a little while, at least until my life gets a little less hectic! Thanks very much to my repeat reviewers: tailsfan007, ChibiRyou, Rae Logan, Koike, Zachary W, Asher Tye, Kitsune-SuperFox, cari la fenix, brave kid, Super Dragon, Drandu, Double Dee Dee, Shika Kev Prower, and Pokelad! Man, do I feel loved to have such loyal fans! Anyways, this chapter is somewhat longer than the first ones have been; just consider it a reward for your patience up till now. What surprises is Tails and Sonic in for from the infamous Tails Doll this time? Well, not much, but I guarantee you'll love it anyways!
Chapter 3: A New Companion
Morning came too quickly to the fox and hedgehog that had been up a good part of the night from Tails' vivid nightmare and its accidental results. Never one to sleep in long, if at all, Sonic still woke up with the sun, feeling rather well rested despite the excitement that had disturbed his sleep earlier. Carefully, the blue hedgehog managed to escape the embrace of his little brother's furry appendages without waking the peacefully snoozing fox. After the fright Tails had gotten last night, Sonic had no problems in allowing the young fox to sleep in this morning to make up for the lack of sleep he got last night. Tiptoeing silently downstairs, Sonic made his way towards the kitchen in order to have a hot breakfast ready for his slumbering little brother when he got up.
Hardly an hour later, the scent of freshly cooking bacon and eggs assaulted the unconscious kit's sensitive nose as he slowly woke to the welcome smells. At first, Tails forgot the events of last night as he quickly sat up in Sonic's bed in surprise. His memory caught up with him a second later as he remembered why he wasn't waking up in his own room. Slightly paranoid at the possibility of a repeat of his accident in his own bed last night, Tails tentatively felt his side of the bed with his hand to check for dampness. Relieved that he hadn't relieved himself in the bed again, Tails shot a glance over to where Sonic had been sleeping last night. He wasn't very surprised to see that the blue hedgehog had managed to slip out undetected while he was still sleeping, and Tails now understood where those delicious aromas were coming from and who was responsible for making them. He was about to hop out of bed and head downstairs for his share of the great smelling food when he happened to notice an odd lump in the covers on Sonic's side of the bed.
Curious to the strange anomaly in the otherwise pristine bed sheets, Tails slowly lifted the heavy comforter off of the mysterious object. His hands both shot up to cover his mouth as a short yelp of surprise escaped from his throat at the revelation of the object resting comfortably on the bed next to him where Sonic had been laying earlier. Posed on the mattress before him so that it was staring right at Tails, was that strange doll he had found in the closet the day before.
"That you, bro?" Sonic's voice was heard calling up the stairs from the kitchen below. Despite the soft noise he was producing in cooking breakfast for two, he had overheard the yellow kit's short yelp from upstairs and probably assumed that the sleeping fox had accidentally rolled out of bed or something.
"Yeah, I'm all right, Sonic," Tails shouted loud enough for the hedgehog one floor down to hear. Tails picked up the eerie doll and again took a close look at its strange and oddly repulsive stitch-working. He paid careful attention to the mysterious red gem attached to the strange mannequin's head by a long, drooping piece of metal wire. Something still struck the yellow fox as familiar about the crimson colored crystal as it seemed to radiate its own inner glow, albeit so slight that no one would be able to normally see it. Sonic's right, Tails thought to himself as he set the doll back down on the bed carelessly, this thing really does creep me out. Maybe I'll just put it back in its box after breakfast. That's when Tails' mind brought up the interesting question that he couldn't believe he hadn't asked himself earlier. Wait, how did that thing end up right here where Sonic was sleeping? It's not like it can move on its own, so…
Tails only had to think for a moment to realize the only possible answer. Sonic?! Why would he put this thing here to try and scare me after helping me so much last night?! Then again, it's the only thing that really makes any sense. Tails kept pondering the puzzle in his mind as he slowly got out of bed and walked towards the stairs to the kitchen/dining room below. By the time the young fox got down the stairs and entered the conjoined living room, he already thought he had the answer to the strange riddle. Sonic probably thought that I would like that doll keeping me company while he went downstairs because it might have been one of my favorite stuffed animals a long time ago. He would never do something like that to scare me after what happened last night, even though he does sometimes have bad timing with his little practical jokes.This brought back an instance in Tails' memory to him of when Sonic had thought it would be funny to dismantle the Tornado's engine completely, forcing Tails to rebuild the entire thing perfectly in minutes once Eggman had unexpectedly attacked later that day.
"Yo, Mobius to little bro, come in please!" Sonic tried to get Tails' attention as he caught the fox with eyes glazed over, betraying that the yellow kit was lost in one of his frequent daydreams. "Are you gonna stand there all morning, or do you want some grub while it's still hot?" the azure hedgehog brought his brother's mind back to the task at hand.
"Oh, sorry, Sonic," Tails said as he snapped back to reality at the sound of his big brother's voice and the sight of the large breakfast laid out on the small kitchen table in front of him. "I was just kinda spacing out there for a while," Tails explained as he took his seat at the far end of the table that offered a good view of the living room beyond.
"I could kinda tell, bro," Sonic playfully chided his little brother as he also took his seat across the table from Tails. "Well, what da ya say we just dig in?" Sonic recommended as he filled his plate with various sausages, strips of bacon, a couple pancakes, and filled his glass with orange juice.
"Sure, I'm starving!" Tails quickly answered as he heaped twice as much food as Sonic had taken onto his own plate. He opted however to fill his glass with refreshing cold milk instead of the hedgehog's preferred juice. He saw Sonic scowl slightly at the tall glass of the white substance. The blue hedgehog hated almost any dairy product besides cheese and ice cream. Tails remembered asking him about it once and getting an answer that had something to do with him being lactose intolerant or something like that. Tails ignored the look of disgust on his older brother's face as he began to shovel the freshly cooked food into his mouth.
Sonic could hardly believe his eyes as his little brother quickly finished off his overstuffed plate and started to reload it from the food laid out on the table between them. "Good grief, little bro! Where do you put all that after you eat it?!" Sonic questioned his seemingly championship eating brother. He never ceased to be amazed at how his small brother could have such a huge appetite all the time and yet never gain a pound from eating too much. Of course, the fox's bottomless stomach did explain why the kit would spend a whole half hour in the bathroom some nights, but Sonic never tried to let Tails know that he had noticed this as well. Some things are better off a secret, Sonic thought to himself as he tried to change the topic in his mind from the somewhat unsophisticated area he had unintentionally arrived at. Remember your motto big guy; don't ask, don't tell. I think this is one of those times that you really don't want to know.
Tails had not interrupted the hedgehog's thoughts as he had sensed the fact that Sonic's last question was one in which he really didn't want an explanation anyways. Besides that fact, Tails was once again busy devouring a plate full of scrambled eggs and sausage patties which rendered him unable to respond except with a small shrug of his shoulders. The fox started to take a long drink from his tall glass of milk in front of him as he momentarily looked up from his plate so as to tilt his head back without spilling the white liquid all over himself. A split second later, however, the mouthful of milk Tails was about to swallow was all over Sonic instead as Tails suddenly spit the milk back out his mouth like a high-pressure dairy product shower head.
"Hey! Awww, gross, bro!" Sonic shouted as he quickly jumped to his feet after the soaking he received from his little brother. As he quickly grabbed a napkin to try and wipe the repulsive white liquid off of himself, he noticed that Tails wasn't even moving and seemed to be transfixed by something in the living room beyond the hedgehog's shoulder. "Hey, you OK, bro?" Sonic changed quickly from anger to concern as he noticed the young fox's large blue irises had now expanded to fill almost the entire surface of his large white eyeballs. Turning to trace his younger brother's trance-like stare, Sonic saw the source of the fox's sudden surprise. Sitting on top of the TV, just visible over the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room, was that weird stuffed animal that vaguely resembled Tails.
Tails didn't even seem to notice that he had given his older brother a shower of liquid dairy products as he began muttering to himself at the sight of the doll staring back at him. "No… it can't be! I… I left that thing on Sonic's bed! It can't be right here, it just can't! This doesn't make any sense!" Tails finally broke his gaze off the figure of the doll sitting comfortably on top of the TV as if it had been posed there as he ducked his head almost into his still half full plate of food and grabbed two tufts of yellow fur on the top of his head in both fists.
Sonic noticed the fox's extreme reaction to the diminutive doll as he immediately tried to calm his brother back down. "Take it easy, OK, bro? It's just an old stuffed animal that looks like you. There's nothin' to be afraid of!"
"Yeah, Sonic, but it just keeps following me!" Tails shouted, still scared out of his wits.
"Tails, you know better than anyone that a stuffed animal can't just be following you around!" Sonic tried to reason with the distraught fox cub.
"But remember last night, when it was on my bed even though I put it under my bed before we left?" Tails brought up the similar situation. "And then this morning when you put it in bed with me after you got up? Tha…" Tails cut himself off in mid sentence at the sudden revelation he had just had, "Wait a minute! You've been doing it all along! With your super speed and your…"
"Whoa there, little buddy! Back the mental breakdown train up for just a sec!" Sonic broke in, slightly angry at his brother's last assumption that he would try to scare the kit again after what happened last night. "I haven't ever touched that stupid doll, I swear! I didn't move it on your bed yesterday evening when you weren't lookin', and I most certainly didn't place it in my bed after I got up this morning either!"
"But, that's the only thing that makes any sense, Sonic!" Tails shouted again as he faced down the blue hedgehog that he thought was lying to him. "You know that thing scares me, so stop it already!"
Instead of showing that he was deeply hurt by the fox's sudden lack of trust in him, Sonic simply sighed as he buried his own rising anger before it could escalate the situation at hand. "Look, little bro," Sonic began his defense as he struggled to keep his voice perfectly calm and indifferent despite the hurt he suddenly felt at the kit's accusations. "You know me. I do like to play little jokes on you from time to time, but don't I always stop when I can tell that it's goin' too far? Remember how I cleaned everything up for you last night and made sure you were all right? There's no way I would do something like this to you after seeing you last night, and you know it. Now just calm down and forget about that creepy doll, 'kay?"
"I… But… Oh, I'm sorry, Sonic!" Tails said as he snapped back to his senses and realized that he had just accused the same person who had comforted him, cleaned his soiled bed, and slept with him last night for trying to play a cruel joke on him now. Tails looked sorrowfully into his older brother's eyes as tears welled up in his own for his brutal words to him a second ago.
"Hey, don't 'cha go gettin' all teary eyed on me again, bro," Sonic stopped the fox as the tears just started to fall. "I know ya didn't mean a single word ya just said to me earlier. It's just the fear still left from last night in ya tryin' to escape."
"Thanks for always understanding me, Sonic," Tails spoke to his brother in the sincerest of gratitudes while he wiped his short burst of tears away with one of his yellow furred arms. Emotional outburst finally over, Tails immediately got back to the question at hand, "But, if you haven't been moving that doll around, and I certainly haven't, then who is?"
"Beats me, buddy!" Sonic light-heartedly replied as if an inanimate object moving around the house on its own wasn't anything to be worried about. "Maybe you have been carrying it around with you, but you just never noticed. Like I said yesterday, that thing was probably a toy you had when you were little, so you might be unconsciously taking it with you wherever you go and just not remember it. Kinda like looking for your shoes everywhere until you realize that they're still on your feet!"
Tails let out a short burst of laughter at the inside joke. A week ago, Sonic had gotten a rather large cut on his foot after destroying one of Eggman's machines and landing in the sharp, metal debris from it scattered all over the ground. Tails had made sure to put a large bandage over the wound once they managed to get home, but the process involved Sonic removing his trademark footwear. The hedgehog was forced to go barefoot the rest of the day until they both went to bed that night. Since he always took his shoes off before bed though, Sonic simply put them back on first thing when he woke up the next morning. However, a cup of coffee and an hour later, Sonic remembered his injury the other day and that he was supposed to still be barefoot. Tails laughed again as he recalled the frantic shouting of Sonic as he dashed around trying to locate his special footwear, only for Tails to point out half an hour later when the hedgehog finally stopped moving long enough for him to notice that his shoes were already on his feet! Needless to say, the blue hedgehog had been so embarrassed that his blushing had almost turned his whole face purple.
"Ha ha ha! Sonic, you always know how to make me feel better!" Tails thanked his comical older brother.
"Glad I'm good for somethin' more that a hedgehog sized target board," Sonic joked as he finally managed to wipe his face and body clean of his brother's earlier milk eruption.
"Oooops, sorry, Sonic, I didn't mean to!" Tails apologized as he finally noticed the mess he had made a minute ago.
"Nah, don't sweat it, bro. As long as I don't have to drink the stuff, I have no problem in wearing it!" Sonic alluded to his great dislike of the white fluid he now wiped off of the table as well.
"Still, if I really am carrying it around with me all the time because I like it, why does that thing freak me out so much?" Tails brought back the subject as he resumed eating his breakfast at a somewhat more normal pace.
Sonic just shrugged his shoulders as he also resumed his interrupted meal. As the blue hedgehog reached for another sausage patty with his fork, a sudden loud knocking on the front door across the house in the living room startled both Mobians. "Who would come over this earl…" Sonic started to wonder out loud as a yell came from the direction of the closed door.
"Soooonnnniiiicccc! Hey, are you here, you runaway date crasher?! Open this door!" the voice of Amy was clearly heard from the doorstep outside as the solid wooden door was pounded by a great force from the other side. Clearly the aggravated pink hedgehog wasn't waiting for someone to answer the locked door as she attempted to use her hammer to barge inside.
Sonic and Tails exchanged a quick glance at each other. Sonic motioned with his eyes and an almost imperceptible nod of his head towards the stairs to the second floor as he made a figure with two fingers of a person jumping off a ledge and running away. Tails gave a single nod of acknowledgement as he understood the unspoken plan. Sonic would run upstairs and jump out the second story window in his room while Tails let Amy inside so the pink hedgehog wouldn't see the blue one get away. Both brothers stood up and walked into the living room together. With a quick nod to each other again, Sonic took off up the stairs in a blue flash. Tails hesitated a moment before walking up to the pounding door that couldn't take much more abuse.
"I know someone's in there!" Amy's voice again shouted through the sturdy door. "Tails! Open up or else I'm going to smack you into the next century!!"
The irate yelling and threats coming from the other side of his house's only entrance offered very little incentive for the young fox to comply. Tails wondered again why he had to put up with Amy's crazed rampages while Sonic always got to run off. With a heavy sigh and a slight cringe, the yellow kitsune at last opened the thoroughly tortured, solid oak door.
Amy's giant Piko Piko Hammer suddenly stopped in mid-swing as the front door to Tails' house opened, barely missing clobbering the poor fox in the gut as he stood in the now open doorway. "Well, it's about time, Tails!" Amy huffily shouted as she barged her way indoors past the kitsune that was still cringing in anticipation of the near-traumatic hammer whack. "OK, Tails, now tell me right now where Sonic is hiding!" Amy yelled at the young fox that had just managed to close the front door on its miraculously still intact hinges.
"What makes you think that Sonic is here?" Tails calmly tried to engage the irate pink hedgehog in a game of wits in which he would be the assured victor, instead of a game of brute force in which he would soon become flatter than Sonic in a falling ceiling trap in some treacherous zone somewhere.
"Don't you try to trick me, Tails! I know Sonic came here and stayed with you yesterday night instead of going on his date with me! As a matter of fact, for all I know, YOU might be the one who made him ditch me last night!" Amy began jumping to conclusions as her hammer again came up in a menacing pose to strike the frightened kitsune. "You'd better start talking fast, Tails, or I might take my anger out on you instead!!" the pink hedgehog threatened with absolutely no hint of doubt present in her voice to convince Tails that she wouldn't follow through with her plot.
"Please, Amy, I didn't do anything; I swear!" Tails shouted as he backed up against the door shaking his extended hands in front of him at the mad female's advance.
"Don't tell me that! I can tell that he was here because there are TWO plates on your breakfast table! And I also heard that you and him went into Station Square together yesterday evening, too!" Amy practically screamed as she came within inches of the trapped fox. "Now, where did my little Soniku go, or do I have to beat you until he shows up to save the his screaming little brother?!"
Tails though fast before answering because he could tell that a wrong answer now would mean a painful lump on his head for the next week or so. Finally, the frightened kit lowered his arms to his side and slumped his shoulders in mock defeat. "OK, fine, Amy. You got me. Sonic did come here yesterday afternoon and decided to spend the rest of the day with me, but he never mentioned a date! Then, this morning we had breakfast together, and he just dashed off on his morning run before you got here," Tails gave the convincing and somewhat true response to Amy's question. Never very talented at lying however, Tails involuntarily crossed his twin tails behind his back like normal people would cross their fingers while telling a fib.
Amy, in her rage, missed the tell-tale give away of the fox not giving a straight answer as she tried to think of where Sonic might have gone. "Did he happen to tell you where he was going by any chance, Tails?!" Amy again questioned the trapped fox as her voice's volume decreased only slightly.
Tails gulped down a knot in his throat before he answered her forcibly asked question, "No, he just said he was going for a run somewhere and that he would be back sometime later, but he never said when either." At the compounding lies Tails was being forced to supply to keep his head from growing a painful lump and his best friend from having the same fate, his two tails behind his back wound into a tight spiral as he visibly cringed at the effort of trying to keep his composure.
Amy noticed the painfully obvious strange actions of the yellow kit at last, but, luckily for the kitsune that was a horrible lier, she came to the wrong conclusion as to his source of discomfort from his current body language. "Hey, Tails! Are you OK? You look like you're about to explode or something," Amy softened her voice at the straining yellow and white fox cowering in front of her.
"I… I just remembered that I had to go to the bathroom really bad when you knocked!" Tails quickly rolled with the excuse Amy had just given him. "Sorry, but I really can't hold it anymore! I'll talk to ya later!" Tails shouted as he quickly rushed past the confused pink hedgehog and up the stairs to the second floor in record time.
"Hey wait! But what about Soni…" Amy's tried to ask the retreating fox before she heard the sound of the upstairs bathroom door slamming shut. "Ooooohhh! Why does everyone always run away from me like that?!"
Realizing that Tails wasn't going to be coming back downstairs for a while and that she had probably learned all she could from him anyway, Amy turned the leave the vacant living room via the front door. However, she paused for a moment to examine a strange stuffed animal on the TV set near her that she hadn't noticed earlier. Wow, I didn't know that Tails could stitch! she thought to herself as she rotated the horrific doll in her hands to see every aspect of the shoddy workmanship. Actually, looking at this thing, I don't think he can, really. Maybe if he wanted me to, I could get Vanilla to teach him how so he could fix this thing up, Amy pondered telling the motherly rabbit about Tails' most recent fascination. Finally making up her mind, she quietly replaced the grotesque doll on its previous perch. Nah, he probably didn't even intend for me to see it at all. He'll probably just stick to machines anyways! the pink hedgehog thought as she let herself out the door to Tails' house and calmly walked off towards her own home in hopes of finding Sonic there waiting for her.
Tails was very relieved when he finally heard the front door to his house shut with a soft slam. He did not dare to sneak back out of his bathroom to check if the irate pink hedgehog had really gone, however. Although his story about needing to go to the bathroom really badly had been mostly a hoax to escape from the dangerous range of Amy's hammer, Tails had found that his little lie, like the others he had given Amy a minute ago, held a grain of truth as he sat down on the small toilet to answer nature's call.
A minute later, Tails opened the bathroom door as he prepared to walk out, relieved in more ways than one, as a sudden voice scared him and made him glad that he had just finished emptying his bladder a second ago.
"Awww, Gees, bro! Next time light a match or somethin', will ya?" Sonic called out from the hallway in front of Tails where he had just materialized out of nowhere.
"Ahhhh! Sonic! Don't do that to me!" Tails shouted as he was once again surprised at how the hedgehog's speed allowed him to seemingly appear out of thin air.
"Heh, sorry, bro. But, hey, thanks for takin' care of ole Cupid's Hammer for me!" Sonic quickly mentioned. "That whole bathroom emergency thing was good timing!"
"How did you know what I said to her, Sonic?" Tails asked at the shock of the blue hedgehog overhearing a conversation that he was probably a mile away from by the time it took place.
"Meh, I tried to go out my bedroom window like we planned, but it was stuck. I was about to try yours instead, but Amy was already inside and could have heard me sneakin' around. So, I decided to lay low because you probably wouldn't let her upstairs anyways!" Sonic detailed his botched escape plan and quick substitute.
"Then that means you heard me lie," Tails spoke as his face went downcast.
"Well, I can't say that any kind of lie is a good thing, bro," Sonic tried to console his morally distraught brother, "But, in this case, what you did was to protect someone else and yourself, so I think we can let this one slide, OK, buddy?"
"That still doesn't make it right, Sonic," Tails stared at the blue hedgehog with large, blue eyes as he wondered how he could just let the fact that he had just lied to Amy several times slip on by as if it was nothing.
"No, it doesn't, little bro," Sonic replied as he mentally berated himself for not having such high moral standards like his younger sibling. "And, I'm the one who made you do it, so it's my fault, and I'm sorry for putting you in that situation, little buddy."
"It's OK, Sonic," Tails decided to dismiss the trivial matter. "I don't mind covering for you every now and then."
"Sure ya do, bud!" Sonic revealed how much he really knew about the way his actions affected his little brother. "I even wonder myself if it's really fair to have you deal with that crazy woman when she's mad like that while I just hide under my bed! I mean, I'm supposed to be the big hero, right? But here I am, scared to death to face an angry girl and sending my little bro to do it for me!"
"Yeah, but I bet we'd both rather fight Eggman's robots any day than Amy when she's angry!" Tails joked as he and Sonic started laughing together at the comical truth.
"You said it, bro!" Sonic spoke between guffaws, "Amy treats dating as if it were a war! She probably even calls it her secret campaign, Boyfriend Blitzkrieg!" At this hilarious statement, Sonic added to the humor by suddenly snapping to attention and raising a perfectly stiff arm to the sky in a mockery of a famous dictator that he had just compared to his girlfriend.
A moment later, Sonic and Tails totally lost it as they began laughing uncontrollably. Both creatures now rolled on the hallway floor in laughter as they clutched their sides in sharp pain at the self-induced spasms. Tears from both the pain and the intense laughter welled up in their eyes as they slowly both regained their composures.
"Man, I should get a patent on that one!" Sonic commented on his quite possibly the best joke ever invented. "Come on, bro. I say we go for a run this morning and work off that huge breakfast in time for a good lunch, my treat!"
"You're on, Sonic!" Tails shouted as he dashed downstairs into the living room again.
"Hey, no head starts!" Sonic yelled after him as he pursued the yellow fox to the door. He noticed however, that Tails had not left the house yet and instead stood next to the TV with something in his hands that he was looking at. "Come on, bro! Just leave that weird thing there and let's go catch some sunshine!"
"Hang on, Sonic," Tails replied. "If I really am carrying this thing around with me everywhere, and I just don't know it, then maybe I should take it with me this time, too. I mean, after all, spending more time around it might make it seem less scary to me."
"Whatever you say, little bro," Sonic impatiently shot back at the stalling fox. "Just don't be gettin' all chummy with that little doll and forget about me!"
"Ha, yeah right, Sonic!" Tails countered the hedgehog's sarcastic concern. "Like this ugly thing could ever do anything to replace you!"
"You never know, bro!" Sonic jokingly responded. "So, are ya ready now to go get some fresh air?"
"Sure thing, bro!" Tails answered with a mischievous grin as he clutched the doll loosely in two hands, not needing anything but his tails and feet for the time being.
"Hey, that's my line!" Sonic commented as his younger brother instantly dashed out the open door and away down the stairs leading up to his house on the cliff top. Sonic walked outside calmly and shut the door securely behind him before looking back off into the distance at the rapidly fading image of his speedy little brother. "Heh, this won't take too long to catch up!" Sonic muttered to himself as his feet peddled in place in a red and white blur. Then, the blue hedgehog shot off like a bullet to easily overtake his brother despite the fox's tremendous speed and sizeable head start.