Hello, everyone! I'm back. Not sure how many chapters this story will be, but at least a few more after this one. Please enjoy and thank you for reading!
Chapter 2: Downburst
To Kitsunami, everything from after Tails found him was a blur. Once Tails had arranged the medical transport, the pain in his chest made it hard for him to focus on anything. His vision had grown cloudy and his memory hazy. He remembered the sliver of solace feeling the soft comfort of Tails's fluffy fur, hard seats, soft beds, a firm table, a silicone mask. He remembered hearing indistinct chattering between Tails and…a doctor? An engineer? Kit couldn't say. A metal tray, tools… Then nothing.
As Kit stirred, he was able to make note of one crucial thing in his groggy state: the searing pain within his chest was gone. He wasn't able to feel too much of anything, yet his mind was somehow clear. Lightheaded, but clear. Whether it was his body reacting to some sort of pain killer or just the natural process of waking up, he couldn't say. There wasn't much to say, or to feel. No, that wasn't right. He did feel something. A faint warmth enshrouding his right hand. His magenta eyes fluttering open, he looked past his cascading curtain of bangs to the world coming into focus.
He was in a bed that cradled his weight, the blanket over his body thin and a sterile white. Needles with long tubes and intravenous bags attached were embedded in his left arm, the flow of cool saline bringing him a sense of refreshment he hadn't known. On his right was a familiar golden yellow fox holding his hand, gazing expectantly at him with a smile that didn't quite reach his sky-blue eyes.
"H-hey. You're awake," Tails stammered, eyes darting between Kit's face and their overlapped hands. "I…sorry… I wasn't expecting you to wake up so soon. How do you feel?"
"Five…more…minutes…" Kitsunami mumbled with a weak, wry chuckle, unable to hold back a smile. His tail gave a slow wag under the blanket. Turning his right hand up, he gingerly cupped Tails's fingers in his palm. "You saved me…"
Tails's smile warbled, biding mounting tears, not saying anything for a moment that felt agonizingly long to Kit. Swallowing, Tails admitted, "I couldn't do much…"
"What's wrong?" Kit asked, brushing aside some of his hair.
"I just… When we started the procedure, we saw… What did Starline do to you…?" Tails rasped out, choking back tears. "It was like your insides were carbon fiber and chrome."
The words didn't sink in at first, swimming around on the surface of Kit's consciousness. Something felt wrong, though. Was Tails repulsed? It seemed like the operation was a success, but at what cost? He was too lightheaded to string together the information in front of him. He couldn't contemplate anything complex, not now, but his heart yearned for some sort of resolution. He wanted to be noticed and admired, and Tails was the first creature to explicitly see him as an individual, and perhaps the second of two to see him that way after only Surge. There was a cruel irony in the original he was made to supplant not seeing him as a copycat. It made his head buzz with contradictions. His debut confrontation with Tails was one he was dead set on fighting, but he couldn't help but listen. He'd been touched, his heart softening just a bit, just enough for his tunnel vision to be breached. Kit didn't panic—rather, he couldn't in his current state. He could only think to say one thing: "I'm sorry."
"What? No, no, no," Tails quickly replied, shaking his head and putting his hands up. "It's okay, it's not you, it's just…reading your files was different from seeing what happened. Seeing the results…" He sniffled and cleared his throat a bit. "You're no less a person than anyone else. I was just shocked, that's all. The doctors and other engineers from the Restoration put in a new Power Core, one we hybridized and designed to last. We picked types that would complement your agility and speed." Tails brought his hands together, and Kit found himself watching his fellow fox's twiddling thumbs. "Honestly, we were mostly flying blind here. I thought you'd be out at least until the day after tomorrow, but it's only been a matter of hours."
Kitsunami sat quietly, a pang of guilt hitting him. He and Surge joined the Restoration under false pretenses. It was why Kit felt so conflicted about writing that poem for Tails. Yet, it seemed like he and the smartest members of the Restoration pulled out all the stops. If they had known Surge's true intentions and Kit's compulsion to support her, would they have done the same? Or would they have just let him die? How would Tails see him then?
On the other hand, how would Surge react if she knew that Kit had feelings in his heart that directly conflicted with everything that they had set out to do? Maybe it was whatever pain med they put him on after the procedure, but neither problem overwhelmed him. Not yet. It was plainly clear to him that he didn't want to end up having to choose between them, and he would have to talk to each of them.
"Can I ask about the poem?" Tails asked. Kit knew it was an unavoidable topic, but he had no idea how to approach it. Kit balled his fists, clutching the blanket. The other fox reassured him, "Only if you're comfortable with it, I mean… If you don't want to, I won't pry." Kitsunami found himself being handed a folded piece of paper, Tails seeming rather earnest in returning it. "I really liked it, but I get the feeling you didn't want me to see it."
"I mean I did, but…maybe not just yet," Kitsunami elaborated, taking the poem back. It hurt to think about how Surge might have reacted if she only knew about the tempest of emotions that swirled in his heart. Then it hit him. "Is Surge okay? If this can happen to me, then—"
"She's fine," Tails assured, ears drooping a bit. "She…has a kind of failsafe. I'm honestly not sure how else to describe it, but you know how everyone has a little bit of electricity that keeps their brain and heart going? Her electromagnetic propulsion amplifies that by a lot, and runs energy through her whole body. Including through the Power Core. Compared to yours, the net drain on her Core is miniscule."
"Oh, thank goodness!" Kit sighed in relief.
"I think it's not exactly fair," Tails murmured. "Like you were purposely given the short end of the stick."
"Since when was any of this fair?" Kitsunami asked. Tails seemed to recoil a bit, and he offered up no rebuttal. It was only then that Kit realized he'd never actually addressed Tails's desire to know more about the poem. "I wrote it cuz I thought it would help…"
"I'm sorry," Tails mumbled, ears drooping.
Kitsunami shook his head, managing a warm smile as he reassured, "Don't be. I know that these feelings are real, but they just conflict a lot."
"Yeah?"
"Mm-hmm. Tails, I think you're so kind and compassionate. Pretty much the opposite of what I was expecting, thanks to the doctor. I thought it was me and Surge against the world, but instead of trying to kill me, you wanted to help me. It was weird, but…not bad?"
Tails smirked and chuckled at that, his tails giving a slow wag. Kit's own tail swished in time under the thin covers. The golden yellow fox remarked, "I think I get what you mean. Sort of. Where your heart says one thing, but your head or everything around you says something else?"
"Kinda, yeah," Kitsunami replied in affirmation, feeling his cheeks grow warm as he met the gaze of those gentle sky-blue eyes.
"I know a thing or two about being different, feeling lost and having trouble trusting others, but I have no idea you went through so much," Tails said somberly.
Kitsunami slowly tapped the side of his head with his left hand, feeling the tubing tug the stands holding his IV bags up against his bed. "I have no idea either. No memories."
With a lighthearted laugh, Tails remarked, "I'm glad you've got a good sense of humor about it."
Kit set his arm back down, chuckling as lethargy weighed down his limbs and made his chest feel heavy. "I feel like I have to."
"We'll find a way to get your memory back, find out who you were before you were cyberized. We can get you closure, I'm sure of it," Tails assured, holding Kit's hand as a fire burned in his eyes.
"That's a nice thought, but I don't think it'd be better for me and Surge to move forward," Kitsunami sighed. "It's not like things can just go magically back to normal if we remembered what our old lives were like." As the words spilled out of his mouth like a river, he realized he was flatly rejecting Tails's efforts of good will. "I-I mean, if that's alright with you. The fact that you'd want to help me means a lot, it really does! W-we could search for my lost memories if you really wanted. I—" He stopped when he felt the other fox gently squeeze his hand. Those kind blue eyes were welling up with tears, accompanied by a smile as warm and comforting as the springtime sun.
"This life is yours," Tails sniffled, "and I'm more than fine with whatever you want moving forward because I think you're wonderful." In that moment, Kitsunami's mind was an explosion of color. All the emotions that went into his poem flashed into the corners of his vision, ten times as vibrant as when he first put pencil to paper. A smile overtook him, all barriers around his heart washing away. This life being his…that was what had alluded him for as long as he could remember.
The two foxes were startled by a knock at the door. Standing in the doorway was Surge the Tenrec in her usual attire, save for an electrode on her chest and on each temple. Standing right behind her was the director of the Restoration, Jewel the Beetle. From Surge's crossed arms, sly grin and knowing gaze, she gave off an air of bemused yet impatient. Kitsunami felt his heart sank. She asked, "Hey, Small Fry, mind if I cut in? Have a couple words with Drippy?"
Tails looked from the doorway to Kitsunami, hesitant to leave. The blue fennec gave a small, reassuring nod, and the golden yellow fox withdrew his hand and approached the doorway. Very deliberately, he cautioned, "Don't stress him out. He just woke up from an intense operation."
"Scout's honor," Surge assured, offering a mock three-fingered salute. "You'd be surprised by the healing factor the doc gave us."
"Must be from the Metal Virus RNA…" Tails pondered aloud, walking over to Jewel. The two of them stepped into another room, leaving Kitsunami with Surge.
Kitsunami felt his heart pound anxiously in his chest, mind racing to calculate how effective it would be to try to hide his affection at this point. He needed something to break the tension. Much to his relief, it was Surge that broke the tension as she approached.
"No comment on my head gear?" Surge asked with a chuckle as she sat down on the foot of Kit's bed, marveling at the setup of the makeshift in-home hospital room that the Restoration pulled off in Tails's workshop. Her eyes settled back on him. "I know they look ridiculous, Kit. I won't get mad if you say it."
"N-no, ma'am, not at all," Kitsunami stammered, his gaze fixed on the electrodes on her head. "They look…neat?"
"I feel like I came out of a 100-year-old horror novel," Surge deadpanned before offering up a chuckle. "They said it was something about 'monitoring electrical impulses', I think. I wasn't paying that much attention until they mentioned you needing surgery."
Kit's eyes fell to the electrode over her chest. "What about that one?"
Surged looked down. "Oh, this? They're not worried about me draining the Power Core that Doc put in me, but I think they're worried I might overload it. Who knows? Part of me thinks they're trying to read my mind." She looked him in the eye, her expression neutral. No, neutral didn't quite cut it. She was uncharacteristically stoic. "They're giving you special treatment, too. Seems nice."
"W-what? Yeah, I guess. I feel bad he upended part of his home for me. And whatever he and the doctors saw inside me must have really stuck with him," Kitsunami murmured. Heat rose in his cheeks and the tips of his large ears. "But he still said I was wonderful…"
Surge remained silent for a long moment, and in that time, Kitsunami's head was filled with all manner of anxious thoughts as he let his cascading bangs fall back over his eyes. There was no hiding how he felt anymore about the two-tailed fox. He couldn't lie about it, not to Surge nor himself. Was Surge mad? Was she going to cast him aside? Sure, he was smitten for Tails, but realistically, Surge was all he really had. Was this a lapse in his loyalty to her? He was terrified, and all his trepidations were coming to pass. This was the end of—
"Kit," Surge spoke up, snapping him out of his intrusive trainwreck of thoughts. She was stoic, still, save for a gentleness in her normally wild electric blue eyes. "I'm not mad." Those words didn't ease his nerves the way he'd hoped they would. "Actually, I think this is pretty good. Not great or perfect, but good, I guess." That got Kitsunami's full attention. Surge went on, "Starline programmed you to think of me, do anything for me, want what I want, even if it's not what's best for you. Yet, here you are thinking of something and someone other than me. Doing what you want. Kit, you're giving me hope."
Kitsunami was awestruck. Surge took everything he'd been afraid of and put such a positive spin on it. Hope. A life not defined by Starline or by Sonic and Eggman's endless struggle. Yet, he could tell something was weighing on Surge.
"I want you to do what you want, but don't forget why we're here. I'm in this too deep, Kit, I can't stop myself, I don't know how to stop—how to think about me because everything I am is just…hatred," Surge confessed, giving him a sad smile. "I wanna love, but the world ain't showing me how. It's not loving us back."
"It could," Kitsunami abruptly claimed, shocking himself with his own voice. He didn't even think about it. The words just escaped him as soon as they could.
Surge brushed some of the hair out of his eyes. She reminded herself aloud, "You are the smart one." She got off the bed, stretching, relishing the tension being forced from her body.
Jewel and Tails stepped back in. Tails seemed giddier than when he left. Jewel, for her part, looked more relieved than anything else. The shiny beetle looked to the fennec, then the tenrec, then back to the fennec. She informed them, "Kit, I'm putting you on medical leave for a while. Tails and I discussed it, and we figured it'd be best to keep you here while on leave. If something happens, Tails will know how to fix it. I'm sure he'd be happy to show you, too. Surge, we're going back to base."
"Sounds good, boss," Surge remarked with a shrug, strolling over to her while Tails dashed past and back over to Kitsunami's side. Her somber smile remained as she watched the two foxes.
"Jewel is fine," Jewel remarked, her gaze following Surge's.