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Chapter Thirteen
"Soooooonic. Soooooooniiiiic. SONIC!"
I groan and put my arm over my face. "What, Tails."
"Come on and look at my light, huh?
"No. I ain't gonna look at your dumb light."
"It ain't dumb! I builded it! Don' you wanna see what I made?" I can feel him bouncing on me. Annoying little furball.
"Get off me, Tails! I'm sleeping!"
"But Sonic, I made it red! I made it red today!"
He won't leave me alone. He's been arguing and arguing and arguing, he won't stop asking me to look at his stupid light. I'm getting so angry, I just want to hit him. I can feel myself preparing to hit him.
"SonicSonicSonic please will you look at it, please, it'll only take a second, please…"
"LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!" I yell, and I fall out of bed onto a surprisingly hard floor. There're screws or something digging into my arm. "Damn it Tails, why do you gotta leave your stuff lying around!" I turn around to let him see how angry I am, but he's not there. I smash my face into something instead and collapse onto my back for a minute, holding my face. That hurt. That hurt a lot. Oh my God did that hurt.
After a few moments I push myself up again, still holding my face with my right hand, and I look to see what I nearly clocked myself with.
A park bench.
I shake my head and manoeuvre around to rest my back against it, and I go to wipe the… the gravel off my arm. Some of it comes off, but the rest of it only smears. I'm covered in sweat again. I decide to leave the dirt alone until it dries and I can rub it off. I use the other hand, the one without dirt on it, to rub at the sweat on my brows. I hate that.
My hands are shaking.
I pull my hand back down and fold my arms back into my chest so I don't have to see it. I'm overtired, that's all. I don't quite remember how I got on this bench, but I remember walking until it was too dark to see, and trying to keep going anyway. The sun is just coming up. I can tell by how the air feels. Between cool and cold. And it's a little bit wet.
I go to stand up and almost fall over. I'm dizzy again. Woohoo. I hope it goes away soon. I already don't feel like running. I think about how far I need to go and try to mentally calculate how long it's going to take me to get there. Leaf Storm… Mirage Road… Crystal Mountain… Mystic Haunt…
Wait.
What?
What did I just say?
When… when was the last time I didn't feel like running? I mean, last night I kinda didn't like the idea, but now it's like… I legit don't want to.
Eggman really is taking everything precious away from me. I rub my eyes and try to swallow the sadness I feel on thinking that. At the end of this, is Eggman going to have everything, and leave me with nothing? Is this what I get for trying to do the right thing?
It can't end that way. It can't. I'm the hero. My actions are completely justified, and at the end will be my reward. That's how it works.
Isn't it?
I shake my head and pick myself up, regretting the action as it makes the dizziness worse.
I have to run for most of the day before I finally reach the Splash Hill Zone. I have to keep stopping on the way there. The dizziness isn't going away, and when it gets so bad I can't see I have to put on the brakes and kneel down for a minute. The closer I get to Splash Hill, the more often I have to stop. Oh boy. And I still have to go all the way back. That thought is not helpful, so I stop thinking it. I can't think about anything negative right now. I'm almost done. I'm almost there. Just two more, and I can stop.
The Chaotix are in this little hut kind of thing deep in the Splash Hill Zone. I guess according to the time zones it was afternoon when I got here… the sun is going down now. It took me all afternoon to find their house. The colour the sun is lending to the already brightly coloured zone is making my head hurt, so I jump down a hill and duck under the overhanging roof of their house to shield myself from it. I'm not sure whether to knock or see if the door is open, but I don't have to do either. As soon as I get there the door opens and I fall through it.
"Sonic!" shouts Vector. "We weren't expecting to see you here!"
I pick myself up off the floor and rub my head. "Yeah well, expect the unexpected, right?"
Vector shrugs. "I guess so." He stares at me for a minute, then looks behind him, his eyes going wide and waving his hands a little bit. "Espio! Hey, Espio! C'mere!"
"I AM here." Espio fades into view beside Vector. He's eyeing me a bit suspiciously. I wave at him a little.
Vector elbows Espio hard. "Be nice Espio… and maybe he'll be nice back!"
"Huh?" I look from one to the other and resist the urge to tap my foot. Well, almost. I've restrained it to tapping my toes inside my shoe.
"Vector and I wanted to go to the Casino Street Zone, but we can't take Charmy." Espio speaks in a quiet, logical voice, staring right at me. It's a pretty intense stare too.
"And we can't just leave him here, that wouldn't be good for him." Vector looks across the room, and I follow his gaze to see Charmy sleeping on the couch. "He needs stimulation while he's a kid, ya know."
"Yeah." I remember my stimulation at his age. Same thing I'm doing right now. What a childhood I had.
"So… since you're here, you can watch him for us, right?" Vector's face is suspiciously blank and I'm not sure why.
I blink a few times. "Uh… well actually, I-"
"Of course he will." Espio manages to stare at me even more intensely. "Sonic's always willing to help a friend, aren't you Sonic."
"Uh, yeah, but-"
"All right!" Vector gives Espio a high-five, waves at Charmy, and pulls Espio towards the front door. "Let's go then."
"Don't leave on us now. We're trusting you to take care of him." Is Espio smirking at me? I sink into a chair at the kitchen table. Why did he have to say that? Why are so many people trusting me to take care of them? They're chattering but I can't hear what they're saying. There's a rushing noise in my head.
Vector slams the door hard on the way out, which seems to clear out my ears. I put my arms on the table and put my head on top of them. I hate this. Can someone not trust me for once? I think that'd be nice.
No, you idiot. If no one trusted you, then what would be the point of all this? You want them to trust you, and then ask that they don't?
Oh great. I'm arguing with myself. Awesome. I wish this day could get even more awesome.
"SONIC!"
I whip my head around to find Charmy bouncing up and down on the couch. Boy oh boy. I forgot he'd had his mind scrambled. He zips over to me, his wings buzzing frantically. "Sonic!"
"Yeah Charmy?"
"I haven't seen you in a long, long, long, long, long time!" He says this really fast and I can barely understand what's coming out of his mouth.
I rub my eyes. "I haven't seen you in a bit either."
He starts yelling and buzzing around and generally being a pain, and I swear if he doesn't stop soon I'm gonna reach over and hit him. "CHARMY!" I stick my hand out and shake my head. "Stop that, willya?"
He sticks his tongue out at me and starts doing loop de loops. I blow air out my nose, hard, and then rub at my head a bit. "Charmy. Charmy. Hey. Charmy. C'mere."
"Why?"
"Because… because I can't do that. You gotta do something we can do together."
"Why?"
That's a little harder. I hope he's not playing the 'why' game with me. Tails used to play it with me when he was younger, only he was actually interested in the literal answers. "Uh… well, you're gonna get bored playing by yourself, and I don't come over a lot?"
He stops flying in circles and lands so close to me I thought he was going to land on me. "Okay."
"Charmy, there's only room for one of us on this chair. Move over."
He blows a raspberry at me, which is not fun, and while I'm wiping my face off he climbs onto the table. I have no idea whether he's allowed to sit there or not, I know Tails wasn't but he also comes with a lot more fur than Charmy does. So I just let it go and sit back in the chair, folding my arms.
"So. What do you like doing, Charm?"
Charmy puts a finger to his mouth and licks at it a little. "Playing!"
"Yeah, I got that. Playing what?"
"Outside!"
I glance around the room and see through the bay window at the front of the house that there is no way we are going out there and doing anything. The redness has deepened into purple. "It's too dark, Charmy. We gotta do something else, okay?"
"Nooo. Outside."
"We're not playing outside. Pick something else."
"Camping!"
"Now there's an idea. You wanna use sheets or just the couch cushions?"
"Everything!" He flings his arms up in the air. Sheets it is.
I get out of my chair, which is a lot harder than I thought it would be. My legs hurt for some reason and the rest of me is almost as sore. Am I getting old or something?
He grabs onto my head and tries to pull on it for some reason, but before I know what I'm doing I've hit him to get him out of my hair. I do not like being touched. I can't stand it. If you're not Tails, get away from me.
Charmy doesn't fall out of the air, but he does start whining about it. I didn't hit him that hard, did I? "Sorry kiddo, it's reflex… I can't help it. Uh… you wanna show me where the sheets are, buddy?"
He makes a face like he's going to be difficult, but I guess going camping is better than whining because he heads on up the stairs with me tagging along behind him. He opens some random purple door and shows me the sheet he wants to use. It's white, with pastel green and pink stripes on it.
It doesn't take me that long to build a couch cushion tent. I used to do it all the time. Sometimes, when it was raining and my uncle wouldn't let me go outside, I would get to take the couch cushions into my room and just leave the tent there for days. Come to think of it, he let me do a lot of things if I couldn't go outside. I remember he used to let me draw on the walls in the closets and stay up way too late.
While I was making it Charmy buzzed around making… uh… helpful suggestions, bringing things to put in the tent, and generally talking nonstop. I didn't mind, as long as he kept away from the tent itself. I don't need him to lose concentration and fall right through the thing.
Eventually I've got that sorted out and he starts pulling on my arm. "C'mon c'mon let's go!"
"Hey calm down. I gotta be careful, I'm a lot bigger than you." I did kinda compensate for the size difference, but there's only so much height you can make out of a sheet and a couch cushion. I crawl underneath the roof and sit down. My head is brushing the top, but I didn't do too bad. He crawls in too, even though he doesn't have to, and then proceeds to show me his collection of action figures. I have no idea who any of them are, since I don't watch a lot of TV, but a good number of them are missing legs and arms. When I ask him why he tells me that he was "gonna mix them all up good". For some reason I think of Tails and the shelf in his bedroom, where he has a set he got when he was a kid not much older than Charmy thinks he is. Tails almost never played with those toys, and when he did, they just stood there and he talked in different voices. I reach over and pick up one of the toys. It's some dude with a blue bodysuit and red underwear. I think I've seen him somewhere before but the paint is so scratched up I can't tell. And besides that he has no head.
Charmy starts dealing out the toys and I try to play with them, I really do, but I don't know who these guys are and apparently I'm "doin' it wrong!". After a while I just give up and watch him play with them. He's not very nice to them, and if he keeps going like that they're going to be useless one day, but I keep thinking of the set in Tails's room and I can't help but wonder which figures are worth more.
He starts pinching my arm and I look down at him. "What?"
"I'm hungry." He frowns and rubs his stomach.
Oh good. What the heck do I do now? Kids are picky, I know that. I poke him out of the tent so I can get out and when I stand up my spine cracks a little. Man it's cramped in there.
I take a look around the kitchen and try and spot something easy I can give the kid without giving him junk. There's a holder with some bananas on it. That should be alright. "Hey Charmy. You like bananas, kiddo?"
He claps and flies up onto the table. I pull the banana off the bunch and go to peel it, but he starts yelling that he can do it himself so I quickly hand it off. He can't quite crack the skin but he keeps at it stubbornly, and eventually he peels it off in a bunch of little strips. The top of the thing is completely mashed up. I take the peelings and toss them in the garbage, then sit down at the table and wait for him to finish.
"Fawnic?"
I realise I've been staring at the floor and look up at him. He's talking to me through a mouthful of banana. "What's up?"
He offers me the banana. He's holding it like it's going to fall out of his hand and it's covered in mushy marks. My stomach turns over and I look away. "Uh.. No thanks, buddy. You can have it."
Now I'm feeling kind of sick so I decide to get up and see if there's any marshmellows for him to have. Not the best thing to do, I know, but I couldn't leave the room or anything and I needed some sort of distraction. And anyway it's not really camping without marshmellows.
All I can find is half a bag of the little coloured marshmellows, badly closed with a tied-together red rubber band, but it's good enough. I look in the fridge and there's a bottle of apple juice. There. I'll give him that.
"C'mere buddy, I got something for ya." I kneel down and he jumps off the table and runs over to me. I pour some of the marshmellows into his hands. "Don't eat them yet, okay? They're for the tent." I pour some of the juice into a sippy cup and we go back under the sheet.
He makes me play Snakes'n'Ladders with him, which I haven't played in a really long time, only he doesn't seem to get the concept of rules and just goes up everything, snakes included, whenever he lands on one. I can't stand losing, even against a kid, so after a while of that I refuse to play.
"Sonic… please? Please will you? C'mon play with me Sonic!" He's got his hands on my knee and he's looking at me with those pleading kid eyes.
"No way, kiddo. I don't get how to play and you won't explain it to me."
"I'll give you a surprise if you win."
With Charmy, that could be anything from a gold ring to the head off the blue superhero guy. But I hate not knowing things almost as much as I hate losing. Now he's told me there's something at stake, not only do I gotta win, but I gotta figure out his rules and win.
We start another game and this time he doesn't go up the snakes. Clever kid. He was playing me all along. He's smarter than I gave him credit for.
It's really hard for me to play this game, because it's entirely up to chance, and I prefer to play games that have even a little bit of skill involved. Knowing if I don't win this game means I don't know what the surprise is is killing me the whole time I play.
I'm losing for most of the game, and eventually get a roll that takes me to the top line of squares on the board. Then I get to within one space of the end. Oh yeah. Take that Charmy. He's halfway down the board.
Then to my utter horror I watch him slowly inch up the board while I can't throw a one to save my life. When he finally makes it to that last square I feel like I just lost a battle with Eggman. I can't believe I was so close and lost it all.
Charmy cheers and has his little piece do a victory dance, but I only shake my head and turn away. I can't believe it. I just can't. That's crazy. I should have won the stupid game. This is why I don't play games. I haven't beaten Tails in years and now I can't even beat a little kids. I know I'm being a sore loser, but when you win all the big battles you start to expect you're gonna win the little ones too.
Charmy tugs on my arm. I look at him sulkily. "What."
"I'm tired." He's not whining this time.
"Go to bed then."
"Can I sleep here?"
"Sure, knock yourself out."
He runs out of the tent and comes back with a little pillow and blanket. He rolls under the roof and puts the pillow down, wrapping himself in the blanket. And starts poking me again.
"What, Charmy."
"Read me a story." I realize he's been poking me with a book.
I look at the book. I vaguely recognize it, but I don't think I've ever read it before. Must be one of those kids books that are everywhere. I open it and start reading. It's about a kid and his mom. His mom sings to him every night when he's sleeping, and then one day the kid sings to his mom when she's sleeping.
When I finish the book, Charmy's fast asleep with his finger in his mouth. I carefully pull the finger out of his mouth and look at the book again.
I wonder where Charmy's mother is. I wonder if she's still alive, and what she'd do if she knew what happened to him.
I stick my head out of the tent to try and see what time it is, and it's well after ten. I guess I'm not getting a Chaos Emerald today, least not until Espio and Vector get back. I don't know what I'm supposed to do now.
Then I realize that was the first time I thought about Chaos Emeralds all night.
I sit back against the couch cushion and pull my knees up to my chest. Come to think of it, I… I haven't thought about the whole shebang since I got here. And honestly… it's been really, really nice. I mean yeah, the kid was kind of annoying, but what kid isn't? I'd be lying if I didn't say I had fun at the end of it all. And I haven't had that kind of fun in a long, long time. And now I kinda miss it. I'm not really that old and yet… I feel really old right now. And I can't remember the last time me and Tails hung out and just did nothing. And I know, I know that saving Eggman is the right thing, but… Tails was right all along. We don't need that kind of stress in our lives. Not just we but… I don't need it.
For one dizzying second I wonder if I'm doing this out of some sort of twisted self-gratification, like maybe I'm not only saving Eggman to make myself feel better, but to make myself feel worth something. There are two things I can do, two things I'm known for. Kicking Eggman's ass and running. If I let Eggman die, would I be letting a part of me die with him? Am I using this strange morality no one else seems to understand just to make sure I still matter?
No. No. I can't think like that. I don't work that way. I'm doing it because it's right. That's why I'm doing it. I do like showing him who's boss, but I don't like him hurting my friends either.
Still, I can't help but wonder if Eggman dying, and me not having to step in and save the day all the time, would affect how people look at me.