Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

An orange two-tailed fox, sitting among grass and water- very obviously taller than the last time we saw him.
All curled up and alone, with a melancholy feeling around him.
he rolls over to lay on his back and up in the night sky, much more lively then he is.

"This is pitiable." Tails states quietly to himself.
The words and questions and blatant ranting stack up in his mind, slowly building and building up till-

His communicator rings harshly through his thoughts and the soft ocean noise.
He quickly scrabbles to pick it up.

The last connection he and his brother have. Something he made, and he's glad for it. He'd swear that was his only strike of genius through this situation.
The work was perfected to the best of Tails’ ability, although the time it took to get simple text or voice messages seemed to be taking longer, Tails even asking Sonic to date all his messages, just to see how long they really took.

“April 8th 2023”

It took around 3 weeks to get to Tails this time. Sonic seems to only be getting further and further from earth. Tails sits up and curls around the phone for comfort, looking at the preview of the audio message.
Tails blinks slightly, and clicks play.

“-eeeyyyy Tails, little guy!”

Tails chuckles softly at the cut off “Hey” Sonic started the audio with.

“Well you’re not that little anymore, huh?.. Time really flies when you’re flying across space! Well, let me cut to the chase.

Happy birthday, Miles Prower! 16, yeah? I’d never forget that. Big guy number, way past your first year of being a teen.
You’re growing, Tails. Based on the pictures Amy begged to send to me through your communicator, you’re the tallest one of the gang now! Make fun of Knuckles for me, yeah?”

There’s a quiet moment in the audio. A pause, a breather.

“I’m sorry. That I wasn’t there for your birthday. But I’m on my way. I didn’t even get distracted, I swear! Just got caught up with the guys I was telling you about.

You’re the best brother. And I’ve been a pretty crappy one.”

Tails stares at the screen as he hears a light hearted laugh from the audio.

“We don’t deserve you, Tails. I love you, kay? See you in a pinch.”

Tails nods as if Sonic were really there watching him, and watches as the audio ends.
Tails rests the communicator beside him in the grass and looks up to the starry sky. Tilting his head, he waits to see a shooting star.

The shooting star doesn’t come, and Tails sighs. Picks himself up and his communicator, and stands in the grass for a moment.

Tails presses record on the communicator.

“See you soon, Sonic. I’m counting on you!” He says with enthusiasm as he presses send on the communicator.

Tails sighs, his eyes drooping to his feet- losing his previous enthusiasm. Tails is tired, and sleepy and- god, he just really needs a nap.
It’s draining to miss so many people.

Tails looks up to the water shore once more to take a deep breath, and walks back to his custom hover bike.
Hopping on, he puts on his goggles and drives away from the quiet night. His break.

Chapter Text

As Tails approaches the base he takes off his goggles.
Hopping off his bike he notices someone inside. Well, someones.
At first, he gets excited, it might be Sonic!

But as he looks through the window, it’s just Cream and Charmy. They haven’t talked in a bit, it’s been a couple of months. Maybe 9? He can’t remember.
It was the only date he wasn’t keeping track of.
He quietly walks into the base, helmet on his side- goggles on his head messily holding his fur back and communicator in hand.

“It’s a little late to visit..” Tails says softly as the two other teens look back at him.
Cream looks back to Charmy and shrugs, she’s been a lot quieter since Sonic left.

Charmy speaks up happily, flashing a generous smile.
“Espio said we could spend the night catching up! It’s been a hot minute!”

Tails tilts his head to the side and quietly nods.

Cream silently eyes the communicator in Tails’ hands.

“Did Sonic message you?” She asks fairly bluntly.

Tails looks up back to Cream and nods, she clearly wants to know how Sonic is doing after around 2 years of almost no Sonic.

“He’s… Coming to visit. For my birthday. I- don’t know how long he’ll stay but-”

“Aw, c’mon Cream! We came here to catch up with Tails, not pester him about Sonic.” Charmy interrupts, smiling to Tails.

“Right…” Cream says, walking over to the futon and sprawling herself across it lazily.
“Any new gadgets? Me and CB brought over homework from school in case you ever wanna get your grades back up.” She suggests softly.

“You’ve always been the smartest and most responsible out of the three of us, Tails! What happened? You’ve been skipping school for like… I don’t even know, since like- October, man!” Charmy chips in.

Tails shakes his head and tosses his helmet and goggles to the sides, and kicks off his shoes.
“What is the school gonna do about it? Call my parents?” Tails states sassily.
He walks past Cream and Charmy, over to the kitchen- that’s only been supplied thanks to Amy and Mrs.Vanilla.

“Aw, c’mon! School is so boring without you!” Charmy says dramatically sitting on Cream's lap.
Cream grumbles and pushes Charmy off as he giggles slightly “And annoying.” she responds.
“You think so?” Charmy sits down on the floor next to the futon.
“The other kids have more room to make fun of us now!” Cream says angrily, throwing her arms over her head.
“Aww, they always did that though!” Charmy chuckles.
“Mmm…” Cream only grumbles in response.

Cream and Charmy have only been acting more siblingly since Vector and Vanilla got together, fighting over things or purposefully annoying each other.
Tails shrugs softly as he takes out a day-old pizza from the fridge.

“Woah hey! Mom got you new food this morning, use it!” Cream shouts after noticing the cold pizza in Tails’ hands.

“No, it’s fine.. I don’t want to waste this anyway…” Tails shrugs.
Charmy stands up and suddenly is at Tails’ side.
“I’ll have the pizza. Get some actual food, dude!” Charmy says with a smile.

“Ughh… I don’t understand why can’t I just heat up the pizza..” Tails groans as his twin-tails wrap around each other in annoyance.
“Don’t give me that. What do you want to eat?” Cream asks as she gets up from the futon to Tails’ other side.

Chapter Text

Tails, Cream and Charmy covered in blankets and dreams as the light of the still-turned-on TV. Through the light Cream and Charmy are sleeping softly on the futon, arms wrapped around Tails much like how their cloths got all bunched up from moving around and laughing.

Tails, though. Still awake. Begrudgingly, but awake. Alone in his consciousness, scrolling through the streaming services' show options of the copy paste drama variety.
Wasn't his plan to spend the night with Charmy and Cream.

Then again he didn't really have a plan in the first place.
It's fine.
It's whatever.

He looks around the room quietly, Cream and Charmy on his side, food on the coffee table that's been pushed to the side in favor of the bed form of the futon.
Looking to the entrance to the base, lay extra back-packs- respectively belonging to Cream and Charmy.
Charmy's bag wide open and the mess from the open pouch falling onto the floor- pens and detective files, school note books and.. Tails' homework.

They actually did bring it.

Tails shimmies himself away from the legal sibling's grip, putting a pillow in-between where he used to rest.

Silently walking over to CB's bag, he gently pulls the stack of paper from his bag.

It's a pretty hefty stack- but as Tails goes through his homework, he notices that the ones that are the easiest are finished, written in forging, even signed with his name.

"Aw, jeez..." Tails mutters softly.

Guess detective work makes you pretty hard to track, too.

Tails walks past the futon and his friends, to the stairs to his upstairs bedroom. He hasn't used it in a bit, still covered with old blue prints of gadgets he stopped working on.

He pushes the door open as quietly as he can, picking up scrap and paper as he tip-toes to his desk.

His desk. Dusty. It's making him feel like he has to sneeze, but he is stronger then this. There's a few sketches and tinkering gadgets across the desk, but the main one is his old plan to modify the tornado to have space-traveling capabilities.
He scrapped it a while back. Gave up on it, really.

He silently shoves the blue print off his desk, and places his unfinished homework.
Sitting at his desk and looking over the months of school work is embarrassing- math and science are easy, he can use Sonic's old history books for well.. History, but it's just so much.
Everything. All right there. Basically the whole school year minus August, May, and June.

He really has spent too long away from school...

Chapter Text

Cream pokes her head through the creaked open door, morning light spilling in from the skylight onto the dusty mess of Tails’ room.

Tails, still on his desk, but looking like someone knocked him out- all sprawled out and drooling over the homework paper.
Cream quietly walks to Tails’ side, where she’s been finding herself recently- she bends over the sleeping fox to see just how much school work he finished in the hours of the night.
A decent chunk, not nearly all finished, but it’s good progress. Cream smiles to herself as she notices the little doodles Tails drew on the corners of his paper, she knows he’d never settle for a boring assignment like these.

Cream makes up her mind and stands back straight up, putting her hands on her hips and spinning around to discern the mess surrounding herself and friends.

Patting Tails on the back, she runs back out of the bedroom and down the stairs, to shake awake her step-brother.

“Get up you fuzzy mess! We’re here to clean up the mess of this house, not your hair!” Cream quips, smiling down at the drowsy-now-awake bee.

“What…? I thought…” Cream shoves Charmy off the futon, onto the ground as he groans sleepily. “You thought wrong! C’mon, you're more use to me awake!”

“Fine, fine.. Did you like.. At least tell Espio we’re gonna be here a bit longer..??” Charmy says, rubbing his face and moving his hair out of his face.

“He can figure it out himself, c’mon! It hurts my soul knowing Tails has been living like this.” Cream states dramatically.

Charmy shrugs, standing up and stretching himself.

“Dose Tails even have stuff to like.. Clean? Maybe it’s not ‘cuz he misses Sonic, maybe it’s just ‘cuz he’s uh…” Charmy looks over his shoulder to a glaring Cream.

“...Neeevermind. Jeez. I can take a hint.” Charmy says, putting one hand up.

“Listen, we clean at least Tails' room, and we can leave. You can go back to playing hoverboards with your band friends or whatever.” Cream responds, crossing her arms and scoffing, albeit a little uncalled for.

As Cream and Charmy tidy up for Tails, the bright rays of the sun start to awake the juvenile fox. His face curls into a scowl as he hides said face in his arms.
Wrapping into a ball while on a chair half-asleep causes him to fall from the desk onto the ground with a loud pained groan.

“Oww..” Tails whines as he sits up from under his desk.
As Tails goes to stand back up, he hits his head on the bottom of the table only making his groans of pain louder.

Chapter Text

2023, May 14th, 2 weeks after Sonic’s message.

The stars themselves move, space hardly holding itself by a string as quills rip through it like only fire could to paper, only simply described as beautiful.
Gold fades and flickers off, the brilliant glow only leaving blue fur and a ripped coat in its wake- the startling light slowing down in unconscious unawareness.

An almost authentic shooting star.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Tails sits up from his own bed this time, drowsy slightly, but more refreshed than awhile ago. Charmy and Cream have been visiting more often, and even though it’s only been 2 weeks, Charmy’s been practically living with Tails.

He can’t complain much, Charmy is definitely a way to get a better sleep schedule due to how loud he doesn’t realize he is. The only time he really can sleep is when CB is also sleeping, which he somehow can always land on around 9 to 11 pm.

His room is cleaner now too, despite how he detests to Cream cleaning it for him, he really does feel less cramped, and now he can sleep on his actual bed now too!

Tails gets up from bed, blanket still wrapped around him as he heads to the bedroom door, past his desk full of almost-finished homework.

He really should feel proud of himself, even though he’s still waking up at 4 in the morning.

Walking back downstairs to see a sleeping bee on the futon- with the TV still on. Sure Tails doesn’t pay any bills but he doesn’t like wasting power like that..

Whatever, it’s fine- he just turns off the TV. Tails walks past his friend to the kitchen. He’s gotten his sleep schedule at an okay-point- not perfect, but he still can’t say he eats much. Mostly snacks throughout the day.
And he’ll be perfectly honest, he’s been lying to Cream about if he eats actual meals, and it’s not like Charmy of all people will actually pay attention to what Tails is eating, he forgets to eat for 2 days before finally remembering he needs food to stay alive.

But today, Tails doesn’t feel like just eating poptarts and chips.

Too bad too, he just got a stash from Amy the other day.

Tails rummages through the freeze for a moment before pulling out a single popsicle and a bag of frozen chicken.
He pulls out a plate, throws the chicken on it and puts it in the microwave for 5 minutes. Way too long but he doesn’t really care.

The only light that illuminates the fox’s face is the dim light of the microwave and a soft buzzing noise as it heats up his food.

As Tails begins to not pay attention to the sounds and lights around him, the window in the kitchen begins to shake, and just as it catches his attention-

Chapter Text

The lights are out. The shock wave caused the windows in the base to break and for Charmy to wake up. Something happened.
The two boys exchange glances before rushing to the door and scrambling to put on their shoes, and they both run outside.

The nearby town in the distance seems to also have it’s power go out, and Tails can hear car alarms.

“What the hell??” Charmy blurts out, utterly confused at the situation as he looks up to Tails.
Tails eyes dart around for a moment before looking back over to CB and shrugging.

“You were awake, when’t you?” Charmy asks, tilting his head.

“Yeah- but like. I don’t know! It hurt my ears- and shook the house before even making any noise. It came from that direction, I think.” Tails says, slightly flabbergasted as he points past the town to the ocean.

“Look at the clouds!” responds Charmy, pointing at the clouds in the distance, seems to be pushed out of the way for something.

“Sonic..” Tails says under his breath.

“Huh-?”
“Charmy get your clothes on, we’re heading over there!” Tails yells suddenly, running back inside the base.

“Jeez alright-” Charmy follows Tails back inside, kicking off his sandals and putting on his sneakers.
Tails had already rushed upstairs, to what Charmy imagined to get to the Tornado.
Charmy sighs, still slightly overwhelmed. Grabbing his pilot coat and goggles for himself and Tails, he walks upstairs.

“I know this is really possible to be Sonic dude, but if it isn’t, don’t be too disappointed, alright?” Charmy sighs, leaning on the door frame of Tails’ workshop/bedroom.

“What else could it be? Gaia?” Tails snaps back, unveiling the Tornado in all its unused glory.

“Just sayin’, man…” Charmy groans, walking over to Tails’ side.

CB hands Tails one of the pair of goggles, and hops up into the Tornado before Charmy gets to say another thing.
Charmy sighs and brushes his hair out of his face before following in the Tornado with Tails.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Flying through the sky in the Tornado, Charmy watches the moon set peacefully before speaking up.
“We’ve been flying for a bit now, you sure the blast came from this way?” He asks.

“Positive.” Tails glances back to Charmy for a moment before looking back to where he’s going.
Charmy sighs softly. Was not what he wanted to be doing at this moment. It was 4:46 in the morning, god damn it! He has school in the morning.

Who is he kidding, he doesn’t really care if he skips a few classes to sleep.

“Charmy?” Tails calls out, gripping the controls of the plane.

“What’s up, man?” Charmy looks over to Tails.

“Do you really think it won’t be Sonic?..” He says sheepishly.

“There’s like.. A 70% chance. It seems like a dramatic entrance Sonic would make.” Charmy laughs softly.

“Right… I have no idea what I’ll do if it is or isn’t him…” Tails glares slightly as he sees the sun start to rise in the distance.

“If it isn’t? We go home. If it is? We go home with Sonic.” CB responds.

Tails nods slightly. From the clouds parting, the boys see an island that looks like an asteroid hit. The island is swarming with military-esk vehicles, and for a moment, they’re worried about G.U.N. troops before seeing a different logo on the side of one of the choppers.

Both boys have a sigh of relief before a spotlight is hit on their plane.

“Oh shit.” Tails frantically looks for a place to land as Charmy stares at the destroyed island around them.