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“Listen, it’s not that I don’t appreciate your feelings, it’s just that this isn’t appropriate. You don’t really love me, you love your idea of me. You’ll understand when you’re older,” Sonic said.
“But… but Sonic, I love you!” Amy insisted. Sonic sighed.
“Just please, try to think about what I’ve said, okay? And be sure to go back home to your parents. I’m sure they miss you.”
“Okay,” Amy said. Her head was hung low as she started walking away from the hedgehog and fox.
Sonic sighed again. “I feel for her, I really do. Kids her age, they get this idea of what a famous person is like in their head, they think they’re in love, and they can get obsessive. I just hope she takes what I’ve said to heart, and that her parents help her get over this infatuation with me.”
Tails nodded, but he couldn’t help feeling apprehensive. HE had once sought out Sonic, in very similar circumstances. But where the famous blue hedgehog had rejected Amy, he welcomed Tails with open arms. Was he so different from Amy? Sonic seemed disappointed and upset when Amy ran up to them, professing her love; was he disappointed and upset when Tails told him how much he admired him?
For the next few days, Tails acted a bit distant from Sonic. Whether it was the time Sonic tried to wipe Tails’ cheek for him, and the fox responded by pushing his hand away and wiping it himself, or the time he pretended to be asleep before Sonic could tell him a bedtime story, Tails was slowly going back to the way he acted before he started calling the hedgehog his dad.
“I’m really worried,” Sonic said to Knuckles. “He hasn’t acted like this in over a year.”
“Maybe he’s just maturing. You know, getting embarrassed about having his dad kiss him and stuff.”
“Maybe. I hope that’s what it is.”
“Well, do you have any idea what else it could be? Anything strange happen to you guys before he started acting like this?”
“No, nothing…. Wait. You remember me telling you about that girl, Amy Rose?”
“The girl who stalked you on social media and followed you guys into the grocery store to profess her eternal love for you?”
“Yeah, her. I was saying some stuff about how she didn’t know me, that she was in love with an idea of me, you know. And I was saying to Tails how sad it is that kids like that get these ideas in their heads about famous people.”
“Forgetting about how you met Tails.”
“He’s been the center of my world for so long, I just kinda assumed he knew how important he was. Maybe what I said has him questioning that.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m gonna have to try to tell him how I feel, and explain to him why he’s different. This is gonna be rough; I SUCK at putting how I feel into words.”
“Coulda fooled me,” Knuckles said, moving in for a kiss.
“That was nice, but not right now, I’m too worried about Tails.”
“Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
***************************
There was a knock at the door.
“Hey Tails, can I come in?” Sonic asked
“Yeah, come in,” Tails answered. “No dad today, huh?” Sonic thought as he opened the door.
“Listen, Tails, we need to have a talk.”
Tails heart dropped. He was waiting for this moment since they saw Amy. “You’re just like Amy, you’re delusional and you need to leave,” he could almost hear him say. And he’d deserve it, Tails thought, for the way he treated Sonic when he met.
“So, you know how Knuckles and I are dating?” Sonic began, which confused Tails greatly.
“Yeah,” he said, with a puzzled expression.
“Well, my parents would have HATED it. I was about 14, a few years older than you, when I told them I liked guys. They did not take it well. They said all kinds of mean and nasty things to me, things I have no intention of repeating to you and would do anything to keep you from hearing period. They told me to repent, and if I didn’t, they’d make me leave the house.”
“What did you do?”
“I left. Lived on the street for a bit. Hung out with other kids like me, ones from broken homes or kicked out for who we were. We did what we needed to do to survive, by ourselves. I think you can relate to that, right?”
“Mhmm,” Tails said, thinking back to his time living by himself on the street.
“I don’t… I don’t really want to go through the details. There’s still a lot of pain with a lot of those memories, with our gang of freedom fighters and Ivo Kintobor’s experiments. Maybe I’ll tell you someday, but for now, just know that before I was the Eggman battling hedgehog I am today, I was just like you; alone on the street. So when you caught up to me, and you told me you were alone, I knew I had to help you. You were so young, way too young to have to live like that. I don’t think I could ever look at myself in the mirror if I just walked away from you like that. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“No,” Tails said.
“The difference between you and Amy is; Amy has a place to go home to, people that she loves and who she trusts to take care of her. You didn’t have anyone, and, well, that made me want to take care of you. You needed someone to take care of you, and I think I needed someone to take care of. I know that if it weren’t for you, I would have fallen back into some bad habits. And there’s no way I could have beaten Eggman that second or third time without your help. And without you, my life would be completely empty. You’re not a fan with an ideal of me in your head; you’re my son, just as much a part of me as I am of you.”
“So, you need me, just as much as I need you?”
“That’s the long and short of it, yeah.”
“Wow. Thanks, dad, I really needed to hear that,” Tails said, pushing away a tear.
“I love you, Tails, and I always will,” Sonic said, kissing Tails’ forehead.
“I love you, too, Dad. And… uhm… dad?”
“Yeah, sweetie?”
“can you read me a bedtime story tonight?”
“I would love nothing more,” Sonic said.