A/N: Tails ventures to the area within the forest where Sonic and he meet, in order to be around each other without suspicion of the doctor.
Yet, something seems...off about his friend.
Sprinting ahead, he didn't even think to look back. Memories swirled in his head of the familiar spot, where he would run when the nights suffocated him and all thoughts distorted and spun until they were unrecognizable. Where outstretched arms greeted him, and a smile was soon to be placed on the kit's face; there was an unspoken agreement to meet, once the sun laid past the horizon, an hour after a light blanket of darkness encompassed their valley.
He did not know if it was right, but the forbidden nature of his visits made it ever the more enticing. How his heart pumped the first time he made a daring escape, with guilt and excitement anew. The path he takes as he scales down from his window and onto the gravel paths is now automatic. If he looked close enough, he could spot grooves in the grass which his route stepped on.
The fox stepped forward and sighed at the clearing of trees he knew would lead to comfort; beaming at the swaying branches, he set his gaze and determination forward onto the circling within the forest where his hero often accompanied. His assignment jacket worn on his shoulders, the kit held the edges snug to his skin as the chill evening air bit at his fingers.
"Sonic?" He walked into the clearing, peering behind the trees and plants adding to the darkness, swallowing the knot in his throat. "Sonic, are you here?"
"Hello, little buddy."
The fox's ears swirled as he pivoted, the hedgehog balancing his back onto the bark of a tree. His arms were crossed firmly against his chest as he looked up at the stars, a faint smile on his face. If there was any malice burning into the edges of his entrance, the boy didn't notice. Beaming, he quickly skipped forward. "Sonic!"
He was only met with a cold gaze, the smile wiped from his hero's face, and Sonic's expression vacant. His ears dropping, he stopped quickly in his path as he tried to scan the older boy's face for the reason of his cold welcoming. He laughed as he always does when his logic splinters and crackles from beneath him. He lightly held the gaze of his hero, pushing past the hollowing sensation that built throughout his chest.
"Are... you alright, Sonic?" His quiet inquest was shortly cut off by a laugh– snarling and foul– ringing through the forest. It took him a moment, after the shock, to realize that it was Sonic's laugh that made him want to escape and never look back into the woods.
As his laughter ended, Sonic shifted when he heard the shuffle of the kitsune's feet, smiling as the younger's panic caused him to snap a twig beneath his feet as he took a step back. Dread built its way through Tails collarbones, shaking at how Sonic's smile resembled more of a coyote ready to end its hunt than his running hero.
Sonic began to saunter towards the child, looking down as he raised his posture. "You know," Sonic snickered, looking away with a snort before calmly meeting the fox's blue eyes. "I was thinking about not coming here tonight. Leaving you hanging. Seems fitting." The last phrase was delivered sharp, causing the fox's countenance to drop even further down, his ears painfully pinned to the fold of his head.
Tails began to talk through the clamp in his voice, whimpering out something sweet and shattered, but was cut off and found himself shoved onto the dirt and roots with a shout. He breathed through the water collecting in his vision, not thinking too intently on whether it was from the pain or confusion, and pushed himself up on the ground to look up to his surrogate brother. The blue figure knelt down to grab ahold of the boy's chin and meet their gaze, searching for anything within the boy's eyes, while a huff of cool fog leaves his mouth and his shoulders sag.
"But I thought I should make it pretty clear, just so I don't see your face again." He hiked the child's torso towards him again, grabbing the tuff of his jacket. The child in turn grabs ahold of the hedgehog's arms, never taking his gaze away from his mentor's eyes. "So here it is: stay away from me." Pushing the boy back down onto the dirt, he rises and walks away from his admirer, stretching his arms skywards. His back still faced towards the dejected figure on the ground, he laughs. "I don't need a freak slowing me down."
"N-no! Wait!" The dirt kicked up from his boots, sliding into the mud as he outstretched his arm and scrambled to his feet. Clear water wavering over the corners of his eyes, he shuddered heavy breaths. "I... want to be like you. I want to be a hero- Like you, Sonic!" His pleas shattered through the air, scratched and pleading from his throat; shaking and thin, yet conviction strong. His body shrunk, folding in on itself with shame and his core, somehow not broken completely, felt hazy and muffled. "But I don't know how." They released– cool emotion poured down his cheeks, slow as a poem with words chosen just perfectly. Smaller than he'd ever felt, his soul and hope compressed into his words, raw and open and bleeding: "Can you tell me how?"
Oh, how when the world sits still it is never truly silent? Even when all seems slow and purposeful, the wind will sound in the distance; the seconds of the clock practically felt in the atmosphere, when still they are clouded with fear. Surely the way the elder's brow furrowed, the shadow resting on the hedgehog's face, should give way to some misguidance; but the next words spoken rang so violent, so true, that the fox had no choice but to listen.
"You? A hero?" The teen's prod was even more javelin-like in its bluntness than the last. The night seemed to grow even dimmer. A faint pause tightened the elastic, before a hardening cackle rang through the leaves, and the blue figure held his torso in his fit. He rose, so calm, to prove to the child that his laugh was nothing more than a muse, and the mere mention of his wish was not humorous at all: it was humiliating. "Don't make me laugh, buddy."
Tails did not know that the word that caused his heart to beat with fervor and push on through any endeavor could be molded into a dagger, built purely for him. He set his gaze ahead, shifting in and out of focus, longing to not listen, but like in all things, he would listen till the end. His hero, his friend , looked him up and down, before smiling. "A weak, treacherous brat like you can stay with Eggman for all I care."
The fencepost within his mind was torn down, and no years of training of "stay calm, do not respond, and cry later" could have armored himself for his brother reaching into his mind and pulling out his essence. Long forgotten sobs reached the surface, and the child began to weep; albeit silent, as all good children do. Another chuckle came from his hero, prompting the fox to glare half-heartedly from his watery vision.
"Stick to your day job, kid," The hedgehog turned and bid him a calm wave of the hand. "You'll never be a hero." A blue haze was left in the path, and all Tails could do was watch as the fractured pieces of his reality feebly tried to come together.
How poetic: he ran to find the one he looked up to more than the sun itself, only to run back to the one he knew he should have trusted from the beginning.
The familiar sight of the building, his home, even through the tears and dissociation, was one welcomed with the open arms and hope that had been dwindled in the forest. His body shaking from the shock of the blows, he shuffled through the lightly lit hallways towards the one person he knew would shield him from the cruelty of those he trusted, as he had so many years ago.
The laboratory door was left just as it was– cracked open from when he quickly excused himself earlier that night. Face dry and red rimmed, the fox slowly approached and saw the back of his father. A shuddering breath came out choked, crackling in the middle and end, and the doctor turned around. All Tails could hear was the shuffling of papers and the mentor's pivot, as he opted to focus his vision onto the tiles on which his feet were planted.
"...Tails?" The older man took a humble step forward, reaching into the air in front of his mentee. "Are you alright?"
"Father," he breathed, reeling the weight of the atmosphere, the planning, the secrecy, all the misdeeds committed weighed down onto his mind as he addressed the one who swore to protect him, and that was all it took.
Ringing and motion overtook his senses, buckling knees with the symphony of destruction laid in the child's journey. With the steadfast constant of his father's embrace – rocking him, humming a familiar melody, the kit's frame tucked beneath his chin, he sobbed and screamed; guttural and raw, the grip tightened around the child's shoulders. Time falters and snaps when overcome with terror, and he could not know how long he remained there, held in the vice like grip of his mentor, mummering comforts into the slight tuffs of hair always remaining atop the boy's ahead.
What he did know, for absolute certainty, is that he trusted Sonic the Hedgehog– and he would believe him, even now.
"What preparations are to be made for tomorrow, father?"
He would trust in him that "Tails" will never be a hero.
But more importantly...
He'll trust that Miles will be nothing more than a villain.