Chapter Text
Tails knows something is up with Sonic. In the few years they had been living together he had never acted so… strange for such a long period of time. There was the occasional emotional outburst or misunderstanding that would cause silence for days on end. But this was nothing like that, and there was no reason Tails had been able to find. The exploding of the eclipse cannon was now over two months ago and the usually bubbly blue blur had seemed to be doing fine. But lately, he's been acting different, more separated from the household… and awfully tired all the time.
“Good morning Knucks! Tails! Maddie! Tom already at work?” Sonic feigns energy as he walks towards the table, finding the first open chair, and sitting down.
“I’m right here Sonic.” Tom takes a sip of his coffee, looking directly across the table at the hedgehog.
“Oh… My bad. You seemed to blend right into the new color of the dining room.” He laughs.
“The dining room has been this color since we had that unfortunate encounter with Robotskees in our kitchen, Sonic.”
“Hmm well, perhaps it just looked new in the morning light.”
“Or maybe, somebody's been staying up past their bedtime a bit too much, hm?” Maddie sets a plate of food in front of Sonic and then herself, taking the seat next to him.
“Or maybe, you’re somehow making cookies in the middle of the night in our kitchen without any of us knowing with the hedgehog that punched my light out.” Tom chuckles to himself, obviously not taking his own words to heart.
This however makes Sonics posture straighten, fear spiking through his body as his quills try not to change noticeably. This only makes Tails more certain of his hypothesis.
“That is impossible! We watched that hedgehog sacrifice himself for Earth.” Knuckles pushes into the conversation, his chest pushed out. “I will honor that hedgehog for the rest of my days for helping save my new home.” The motion pushes his chair back from the table. Since his grounding and then road trip with Wade he had finally returned and settled into the home. Tails remembers fondly the few days when Maddie kept pestering him about tracking Knuckles. His chair at the table was the only one he sat at, with several small carvings on the handles and base that Tails had warned might make the parents upset. When they found out Maddie was actually really happy to see. Tom, however, thought it looked out of place but quickly warmed up to the echidna's woodworking when he got a painted fish figurine for Father's Day that year. Which was totally not an idea Tails helped plan with him.
“C'mon Tom, we’ve talked about your sleepwalking habits. I will say that a lot more snacks are going missing recently. If any of you boys want to confess to that.” Maddie picks at the scrambled eggs in front of her with the end of her fork. Her eyes look at each of her kids, and they land on Sonic.
He fidgets in his seat before perking up. “Ummm guilty! What can I say, I’ve got a bit of a fast metabolism.” He marks his exclamation by downing the rest of the food on his plate.
Tails can feel his eyebrows furrow as he frowns. He can hear the alarm bells in his brain ringing. Not even ringing anymore, straight up shouting at him. He doesn't know how, but he knows Sonic is hiding something. From everyone, it seems. With all this information, Tails starts to formulate a plan.
It’s a simple plan really, especially coming from himself. Just pretend to be asleep and see where Sonic goes. He’s sleepy all the time now so there must be something he’d doing at night instead of going to bed.
“Goodnight Sonic and Knuckles!” Tails snuggles into bed as he sees the other two start to relax into the night. Sonic turns the lights off and zips to his racecar bed. He can hear Knuckles lightly punch his bed before lying down. He remembers him saying he had gotten too used to the ground and needing to make a mold for his body compared to the memory foam mattress he now slept in.
“Goodnight Tails!” Sonic pulls up the covers and turns on his side, his back facing the boy.
“Yes, goodnight Fox.” Knuckles replies.
Tails almost forgot why late-night stakeouts were never his thing. He could feel his eyes start to droop as the time ticked away. Knuckle's breathing slows into a soft but noticeable rhythm in the quiet attic.
It's then that Tails hears a faint shuffling too close to himself to be Knuckles. In a beat, he hears Sonic zip up and onto the roof. He briefly pauses to look down on the other two from the half-open window. “I’ll be back soon guys,” Sonic whispers and zooms away.
The fox bolts from his bed, flying over to Knuckles, landing directly on his stomach. “Knuckles! Wake up! We have to go follow Sonic!”
The echidna sits up. “What is happening? Who is attacking?” His voice is still drowsy as he tries to shake himself from sleep.
“You’ve noticed Sonics been acting weird, right?” Tails runs around the room grabbing his backpack, putting several trackers and energy readers into the pouches.
“Well, yes. But I had assumed he might be heading towards hedgehog adulthood. Before we know it he may be laying the pelt of a ferocious beast at our doorstep for Donut Lord's approval or presenting his mate to him and the Pretzle Woman.” He cartoonishly mimics the actions as Tails looks at him in wonder… and slight fear of what kinds of beasts Knuckles could be thinking of.
“That would be cool but, he's just being too shady for it to be puberty. I think we should find out what he's up to.” Tails flies up through the window. Knuckles meeting him swiftly on the roof.
“It could also be that he has no one of his kind to talk to. Teenage angst as I’ve heard the lord of the donuts say.” Knuckles looks over the horizon. It was dark, the moon waxing into fullness doing its best to illuminate the world around them.
“There might be some truth to that.” Tails thinks about how silly he’ll feel if that ends up being true. Sonic is their friend and it wouldn't feel great to know that your friends dont trust your word. But he still wanted to find out for himself. “I think we should still check this out.”
“I trust you, we won't know what he is up to until we have confirmed it for ourselves. Which way fox?” Knuckles clutches at his shoulder, rolling his arm in its socket to warm up.
Tails looks at his energy reader to find nothing. “I'm not picking him up at all, he's either someplace I can't get a reading on him or he's out of my range.” He frowns, maybe this is a bad idea.
“Then we shall wait. Or…” Knuckles crosses his arms with determination.
“ONWARD FOX! There are only so many places he can hide from us!” Knuckles holds at one of Tails’s legs as he does his best to carry the two of them over the forest.
“Anything on the reader?” Tails scopes the treeline below as Knuckles looks at the small device in his glove.
“Yes, I see a blue dot and a yellow dot very close together right ahead.” Tails face morphs into a quizzical one.
“I have that running on an energy level that should only read Sonic. Unless…” Tails isn’t able to complete his thought as he feels Knuckles's grip on his leg loosen. Making the echidna fall down into the sea of trees. Tails flew down after him, only to find him standing comfortably on the dirt below, having used several tree branches to cushion his fall. And make a Knuckles-sized hole in the forest canopy.
“If there are two readings here. That means Sonics not alone. It can also mean he’s in trouble.”
“I was thinking the same thing. Now let's go.” Tails follows behind Knuckles. Knuckles holding the small machine in front of him as he runs.
“He should be heading towards this clearing.” Knuckles hands the device back to Tails who quickly looks at the small screen to confirm that there are two noticeable dots moving before his eyes. He notices a distinct pattern of movement from both. The blue dot runs ahead but waits for the yellow to catch up and then runs around the yellow dot. It looked… oddly familiar to him. The yellow dot going towards blue and repeating the same motion before they appeared to run off.
“They should be coming up on us soon.” Both of them stay in the shadow of the trees. The night wind blows on their face as they wait, each not moving a muscle. The open area illuminated by the moon sits silent. It felt like a game, who would give up their location first?
A flash of blue pushes into the clearing, Sonic rolling out of a ball into a landing pose. His eyes never leave an unseen target, a small smirk on his face. His breathing was labored like he had been at this for a while.
“Get ready knuckles, we don’t know what Sonics been dealing with.” Tails whispers, trying to track where the unknown energy source could appear from.
He hears a popping noise and a red slash spreads across his sight in a split second Sonics face is in the dirt with an unknown figure on top of him.
“RUAHHHHH!!” Knuckles charges, Tails quickly behind as he gets closer to the figure. He quickly takes in the black and red hedgehog he had seen before.
“Knuckles wait!” It was too late. Shadow slides out of the way of Knuckles punch before quickly slamming him to the floor.
Shadow looks over at Sonic who has now found his way back onto his feet. “You lied to me!”
Sonic holds both hands out, trying to calm the other. “Woah woah Shads. I didn’t tell them anything just hold on-” He tries to step towards the other.
“Don’t follow me.” And with that, he teleports what Tails can only assume is away from them.
“Sonic, are you okay? Why were you fighting Shadow alone?” Tails questions. Sonic seems to go silent, his face drooping with disappointment.
“Why did you guys follow me?” His voice is soft and unconfident.
“We wanted to know that you were okay.” Knuckles dusts off his arms as he walks close to the hedgehog. Sonic takes a step back.
“I was going to tell you guys eventually…” He seemed so… quiet. “He wasn't ready yet…”
“Are you okay Sonic?” Knuckles tries to put a hand on his shoulder but is met with empty air.
“I… Don’t wanna talk to you guys right now. Leave me alone.” A flash of blue light remains before dispersing and he's gone, leaving Knuckles and Tails in the open space cold and dirtier than before they had left their beds.
The night air sinks into his fur, the adrenaline subsiding leaving him to shiver.
“Shadow is alive.” Knuckles tries to wedge a conversation starter.
“And Sonic knew… And Sonic didn’t tell us.” Tails ears droop, and he tries not to think about why he wouldn't tell his friends. Why he kept this a secret from them.
“Calm your heart, Fox. Sonic must have a reason to not explain himself. Now come, we should get some sleep to apologize in the morning.” Knuckles was right, there was nothing either of them could do to change what had happened. Forcing any more tonight would only make things worse.
Knuckles notices how much the fox is shivering and lifts the boy into his arms, Tails accepting the warm embrace of the other. Both of them are silent, knowing there’s nothing left to talk about. The trek home is a blur as Tails does his best not to fall asleep in Knuckle's arms, the rhythmic tapping of his feet against the dirt almost enough to subside the face Sonic made from his mind.
The echidna sets Tails at the front door, both make their way inside with Knuckles walking ahead to get to the attic. Tails pauses for a second, looking over towards the living room to see the blue hedgehog already asleep. His face pointed away from the fox. Tails walks towards Sonic, noticing only a thin blanket on him but stops. He turns back and walks up the stairs, he wants to give Sonic the space he needs after tonight. An apology would come tomorrow, maybe over breakfast.
“Knuckles do you still have some of that money you got from Wade's bowling competition?” Tails asks while once again sitting himself in bed. Trying not took look at Sonics unmade bed beside him.
“If you are referring to my half of the bounty obtained from a ferocious battle of a son usurping his father in the bowling of ball then yes, I do.” He punches his mattress.
“Good, we’re going to need it tomorrow.”
“Whatever you say Fox, goodnight.”
The two are now left to silence in the dark, the room feels bigger than usual. A certain hedgehog usually fills the space between the two boys. Tails tries not to think about him downstairs as he drifts off. His mind comes back to the two dots, blue and yellow, blue and yellow. Blue running forward and circling yellow when it arrived. If he had been back on his old planet and seen that he would have probably guessed they were courting. But Sonic and Shadow had never met another hedgehog before, it just wouldn't make sense unless it was instinctual for them. There was no way for him to know for sure. The tingling comfort of sleep finally envelops Tails’s mind. Hope that everything will go okay tomorrow.