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“...Aaaaand this should be it! Everything you need to know about the school, in one neat piece of paper. How’s that for a welcome gift?”
Tails was trying his best not to display on his expression just how confused he was by the piece of paper Charmy had just handed to him. It took him quite a bit to realize that the thing in the middle of the sheet wasn’t just a random assortment of lines and scribbles, but rather a drawing of the floorplan of the aforementioned school.
Certain parts of the map had symbols and numbers sketched over them, and Tails could flip the paper to find out what they meant. Some of them simply showed the name and function of the area they were placed over, while others led to one or two paragraphs of information that… might not be as relevant as one would hope. Mostly rants about other students and teachers.
But Charmy had taken time out of his day to draw it for him, and so Tails would keep it and cherish it forever. The paper was already kind of crumpled but that wasn’t an issue – he could just scan it and download it onto his phone when he got home.
“It’s perfect, Charmy. Thanks a lot for making this for me!” Tails offered him a sweet smile. He took the sheet of paper and stored it neatly into his folder. “I think it’s going to be very useful for my first day of school.”
“You think so?!” Charmy’s eyes lit up. “Whew, I’m glad! I was starting to get a little worried once the black pen ran out mid drawing and I had to use red…”
“Yeah— hey, why did it sound like you weren't confident in your own map?” Tails raised an eyebrow.
“I mean… you’re a smart guy! I didn’t really think you’d really…need something like this, you know?” Charmy shrugged.
Tails let out a nervous chuckle, scratching the back of his neck. “Just because I know how to build a plane doesn’t mean I know all about a school I’ve never really been inside of. Or… well, I suppose I haven’t been inside of any school, ever.”
“Huh? Never ever? Not even like, elementary? Day care? Nothing?” Charmy turned his chair around so he was facing Tails. “Did you get like, homeschooled or something? By a super genius?”
“Nothing like that either, I just… Y’know…” Tails pursed his lips as he shrugged. “…Live and learn, y'know?”
"Oh, so you're like Vector then! I get it now!" Charmy nodded, receiving a confused expression from Tails in return.
"Vector said he couldn't afford going to school for most of his life, so he had to learn everything in the streets! He takes online courses for stuff nowadays, but he still managed to do well without school for quite a while."
"Something like that, yeah!" Tails smiled and nodded, even though it wasn't really the whole picture. "There used to be a lot of great inventors in West Side Island, I started out by copying them and then trying some ideas on my own."
"Man, you're so cool Tails. I wish I was even half as smart as you, maybe then Espio would stop bothering me about homework."
Tails was glad his fur was so thick, or else Charmy would have been able to see the warmth spreading across his cheeks because of the compliment. His eyes darted back and forth across Charmy’s mess of a room, trying to find something other than the bee’s beautiful amber eyes. They eventually landed on his bag.
"Oh, that reminds me! I brought you something."
Tails reached for his bag on the floor, putting it on his lap so he could better fetch for what he needed. A big box that filled almost all the available space of said bag was taken out and placed over the desk after Charmy carelessly swatted off some of his school supplies towards his bed (so messy!). The gift wrapping was a striped black and yellow pattern, and it was also decorated with a purple bow.
“Go ahead! You should be the one to open it,” Tails put his hands behind his back, his blush only intensifying, “it’s a gift for you.”
“For me?!” Charmy pretty much jumped off his chair. He bonked his head on the ceiling before landing back down – but fortunately he always wore a helmet for whatever reason. Tails found it cute. And handy, that happened pretty often.
“It’s not my birthday or anything, you didn’t have to do it…” Even though his voice was somewhat shy, his hands were tearing through the gift wrapping like it had just threatened his whole family. Tails was a tiny bit offended that he didn’t even comment about the matching color scheme, but the look of surprise and happiness in Charmy’s face as he saw what was inside more than made up for it.
There were two more boxes inside of it. One of them contained what looked like a circuit board with a bunch of chips and electronic bits embedded into it. The other had a similar looking board – but with pins that faced downwards to attach the main board – as well as a bag containing a multitude of LEDs, motors and other small components.
Tails waited for Charmy to ask what exactly all of that was, but he was too busy inspecting everything with his mouth wide open in amazement. He went ahead anyways. “You always tell me you want to get into electronics someday, so I got you an Arduino! They’re circuit boards that you can program to do a bunch of things. You can even make some simple robots with them!”
Charmy paused. He put the board he was holding down very gently. Tails could already tell his ears were going to ring for the rest of the day.
“You got me a ROBOT MAKING KIT ? That’s so cool Tails, thank you so much!” Charmy flew out of his chair again, but this time towards Tails. Luckily his chair was against the wall, otherwise the tackle-hug would have definitely brought them to the ground and made the fox even more flustered than he already was.
“I’m glad you like it so much!” Tails let out a nervous chuckle. “I still have like… two hours before I have to catch my bus, so I can teach you a bit about how it works if you want.”
Charmy quickly released Tails and went back to his chair. “Oh sure! Also, I think you got me two Ard ...thingies by mistake? You can keep one of them, just one is more than enough for me to get started.”
Charmy pointed at the second circuit board. Tails took it and plugged it on top of the main board as a demonstration. “Oh no, this is a shield! They’re like expansions that you put on your Arduino so it can do more things. This one I made myself, it’s so that you can plug the LEDs and other things directly without having to worry about soldering and resistance and all that.”
“You made it yourself?! Wait, why am I surprised at this point,” Charmy held up the shield, pointing at the two-tails symbol painted on it, “you even signed it for me.”
It’s so you remember me when you start having fun , a voice deep inside Tails wanted to say. But what he let out instead was, “Of course, so you know where to take it in case something goes wrong. Insurance is always going to be free for you of course.”
“Awww, so romantic.” Tails was halfway through coming up with an apology when he realized Charmy was just teasing him. The bee was too busy looking at all the different colors of LED to notice Tails’ gay panic, thankfully.
“I don’t want to be too overbearing, so I’ll juuuust…” Tails reached across the desk for Charmy’s laptop. With a few clicks and some waiting, he already had the programming environment downloaded and ready to go. He also pulled up some tutorials and documentation.
He then slid the laptop over to Charmy and gave him a reassuring smile. “…Put these here and let you figure everything out. You can ask me for help, of course, I just don’t want to accidentally end up doing everything on my own.”
“Aye aye!” Charmy did a little salute at Tails before getting to work. “They don’t call me the best member in the Chaotix Detective Agency for nothing, though!”
“They call you that?”
“Vector calls me that when Espio isn’t around.”
It took him a little while to figure out the different kinds of pins and the board’s programming language. But once that was done with, Charmy was blazing through the tutorials! By the end of this first demonstration, he had already programmed a LED light show controlled by a series of buttons and a potentiometer. Which was… basic, of course, but the speed at which he achieved it greatly impressed Tails.
Tails often wondered why people categorized Charmy as a dim-witted person. Sure, he might be loud and often times a little all over the place, but he wasn’t dumb . He was quick learner and an even quicker actor. He was always eager to help – even if he wasn’t really qualified to do so – and didn’t hesitate to speak up for those who couldn’t.
Plus, he was a member of the Chaotix Detective Agency, as previously mentioned. He wasn’t only there because he was Vector’s adoptive son, he had all the right skills for the job (and the cuteness for making people choose their agency over the others). His intuition was always on point, and even though he wasn’t so quick on linking evidence together, he could get information out of people pretty effortlessly. Even Tails sometimes got a little scared of how well Charmy was able to read others.
He was afraid Charmy would figure out he had a massive crush on him . It wasn’t like he was doing a very good job of hiding it either. Maybe he already knew? Charmy could just be playing dumb and pretending he hasn’t noticed it because he doesn’t feel the same way. Maybe he was uncomfortable by it but was too nice to tell that to Tails. Should he be looking out for hints? He was terrible at noticing those. Maybe Charmy never actually liked him as a friend to begin with, maybe—
“Uh…Tails? Doesn’t your bus arrive in like five minutes?”
Tails snapped out of his mind zone and checked his watch. Sure enough, he was five minutes away from getting stuck in Grand Metropolis and having to stay over at Charmy’s place for the night. Which would usually be a very fun scenario, had he not just engaged in gay panic mode.
“Ah, shit! Sorry Charmy, wish I could give you some more tips but I can’t miss spaghetti night with Sonic!” Tails haphazardly shoved the remainder of his belongings into his bag and put it on as he got up. He gave Charmy a quick fist bump before rushing out of his room and down the stairs.
Both Vector and Espio were out for business, so there was no one to give him a ride to the bus stop. Flying there was the fastest and safest option, but that didn’t mean Tails was looking forward to it. His bag was considerably lighter after handing his gift to Charmy, but every pound counted when it came to flying. Not to mention the chilly night temperatures – which wouldn’t deter him either but was still incredibly inconvenient and could potentially make him catch a cold.
But complaining would get him nowhere, so off he was to the bus station at last.
"Ulala, how could you do this to me?! I thought we were friends!"
That was definitely not the "hey buddy, welcome back!" Tails was expecting to hear as he entered his home. Sonic was on his in front of the living room TV, wearing his newly acquired VR headset and wielding the controllers that came with it. The spaghetti was still uncooked over the kitchen counter just like when he left, with no signs of ever being touched. Terrific.
Sonic had funky music blaring on his ears at max volume, so he didn't hear Tails get in, lock the door behind him and start preparing their dinner. It was only when he smelled tomato sauce that Sonic remembered he had to make dinner before Tails got home. He quickly paused the game and took the VR headset off and… Mission failed.
"Hey buddy, welcome back!" There it was, Tails rolled his eyes. "Sorry, I got carried away for a moment. How was your time with Charmy?"
"It was alright." Tails stuffed his face into a cupboard so Sonic wouldn't notice his face clearly said otherwise. "What were you playing?"
"Alien Dance VR! It came out like… Last month or something, but I only found out about it today. It's pretty entertaining!"
"... Don't you mean Space Channel 5?"
"Um, no?" Sonic raised an eyebrow at him. "Space Channel 5 is real."
Tails didn't have time to unpack that. "Sure it is but didn't they make a video game based off themselves?"
"Yeah, this is a spin-off of that! You can play as the aliens in this one, it's pretty innovative. I just wish the levels weren't so long, they really suck you in once you start one of them!"
Tails acknowledged that with a nod and went back to cooking. Usually he’d instigate Sonic to talk more about whatever had kept him from actually cooking dinner so he had something to do while he waited for the water to boil, but he already had enough in his head for one night.
Sonic must have noticed this. Not like it was hard to notice when Tails was upset, he really wasn’t the best at concealing his emotions. Plus, the hedgehog was extra attuned to them as he had spent most of his life living and taking care of Tails. He had a look of confusion on his face as he finished putting the gaming equipment back in its proper place.
“Something wrong, buddy?” Sonic asked, then quickly spoke up again once he noticed Tails’ lips start to pronounce a no . “Don’t give me that, it’s all over your face.”
Tails shot him a glare before he started to add the pasta and salt to the water. “I don’t want to talk about it right now, okay? I just need a hot meal and a night of rest. School starts next week and I need to prepare for that.”
“Pfft, like it’s hard. You just toss some books and pencils into your bag and do what you’re best at!” Sonic gave him a thumbs up.
“Have you ever been in a school?”
“…No? It can’t be that different from just… y’know, living, right?”
“You don’t know that.” Tails leaned his back against the counter and crossed his arms at Sonic. “And neither do I. There’s only so much the internet and movies tell you about it – and most of that isn’t even real anyways. They exaggerate it for the views.”
“What, you think they don’t have three different kinds of anime clubs in real life schools?” Sonic was clearly joking this time . “Chill! You’re already covered for most of the curriculum anyways, you can just relax and… get acquainted with your classmates! I’m sure you’re gonna get girls all over you when your first A+ turns up.”
That got him a glare from Tails.
“Or… boys all over you? I don’t know what you’re into, buddy, don’t give me that look.”
“That’s not the point!” Tails exclaimed, lowering his voice for the next sentence. “The point is… I’m going there specifically to make friends my age, but no one is going to want to be friends with the weird kid that knows calculus but not how the cafeteria works.”
“Come on, now you’re just being hypocritical. That’s movie teenager behavior, not real-life teenager behavior.”
“Is it now? Maybe I’m a movie teenager. Maybe I just don’t fit in with the real-life teenagers.” Sonic rolled his eyes. Drama king.
“Did something happen at Charmy’s place? Do I have to talk to Vector about it?” Sonic knew there was no way to stop Tails when he got dramatic, so he sidestepped around his attitude instead. Tails hated that he knew how to make him speak.
“No! Nothing happened and we had fun! At least I had fun, Charmy probably hates me at this point.”
There it was, the opening Sonic wanted. Tails immediately realized he had said too much and turned around to focus on the pasta. Sonic raised a hand to his chin but didn’t push any further into the subject. Both of them knew Tails would end spitting it out sooner or later.
“Let me take this to your room at least.” Sonic walked up to Tails and picked up his backpack. “Hey, this is way lighter than before! Did you give him the nerd package?”
“Yes, I gave him the nerd package .” Tails couldn’t help but crack a smile at that. “I think he liked it. Wash your hands on your way back, it’s almost done.”
“You got it!” Sonic zipped upstairs, and Tails was alone enough to let out a long sigh. He knew he wouldn’t make it past dinner without telling Sonic about his crush on Charmy.
It wasn’t like he wasn’t comfortable telling something like that to Sonic – of course he was! They were brothers, helping each other through thick and thin no matter how major or minor the issue at hand was. This was really not a big deal compared to the things he had confessed to Sonic in the past – all of his feelings of self-hatred and the ugly side of his gentle and loyal personality most didn’t even know existed. But…
Sonic wasn’t really the best person to be talking about these things with, not right now. His experiences with romantic love had been… very messy, to say the least. Dating Shadow for a few months was fun while it lasted, and their breakup was amicable – despite how much Sonic blamed himself for it.
His relationship with Amy only got more complicated, however. She would avoid him for days at a time, and one day when her, Sonic and Shadow were hanging out together, she just exploded with all sorts of repressed feelings and personal issues. All of them Sonic blamed himself for because of his own mental health issues. Things had already been sorted between the three of them, but Tails had no doubt Sonic still held the whole situation on himself alone.
And then there was Jet. Sonic had no romantic feelings for him as far as he was aware , but Jet did. Feelings he confessed to Tails after one particular trip to Angel Island. Feelings he would have to eventually confess to Sonic whether he was ready to accept them or not, since Jet was even worse at reading people than Tails was.
That meant that Sonic had barely any time to rest and heal his complicated feelings, and Tails didn’t want to be the one to reopen that wound. Sonic already had way too much responsibility placed on himself, both from his personal life and from saving the world multiple times . Even if Sonic was the only person he could open himself to about his issues, Tails would have to refrain from doing it this time for the sake of his mental health. As much as that damaged his own .
While he was monologuing in his head, Sonic had already come back to the living room and was setting up the table for their dinner. One plate for himself, one for Tails, two glasses, some orange juice and eventually the meal itself when the fox finally came out of his mind zone. Sonic was still awfully quiet – the silence was almost smug , if that was even possible. Only Sonic could achieve something like that.
Tails went to wash his hands and came back to sit opposite to Sonic at the living room table. He served himself some spaghetti and tried taking a bite. He put food on his fork and brought it closer to his face, but his mouth wouldn’t open. Not without words spilling out. He knew Sonic was stealthily glancing at him between his own bites. And then finally, he let it out.
“…Sonic, what does love feel like?” Tails immediately stuffed his mouth with as much spaghetti as anatomically possible to keep himself from saying too much just yet.
It was almost possible to see a loading bar above Sonic’s head. The hedgehog froze while sipping his glass of orange juice, probably trying not to spit out its contents in surprise. After a few seconds, the glass was put down to reveal Sonic’s newfound shit eating grin.
“I see you did have fun at Charmy’s.”
“Shut up.” Was what he meant to say, but his mouth was still full. He took care of that before attempting to speak up again. “Answer me, asshole.”
“It feels different for everyone.” Sonic replied without skipping a beat.
Of course, the generic and unhelpful yet technically truthful answer. Tails should have been expecting one of those. That was as far as the rational part of his brain wanted to push the subject onto Sonic. Unfortunately, the part of his brain that was gay for Charmy (pretty much all of it) forced his mouth to keep talking.
“Then what…what did it feel like for you? With… Shadow?”
Tails immediately knew he had messed up. For a very brief moment, he could see a wave of sadness wash over Sonic’s face. The one thing he wanted to avoid was making those bad memories become fresh in Sonic’s mind yet again, and that was what he had just done. Though the hedgehog’s expression just as quickly morphed into… something Tails would place between nostalgia and homesickness, if that made any sense.
“Oh, you know.” Sonic shrugged, playing difficult.
“No, I don’t . That’s why I’m asking.” Tails wiped the sauce off his muzzle with a napkin.
Sonic paused, and for a moment Tails thought he was about to break into song as if they were in a Disney movie.
“This is going to sound really weird, but it felt really fun to just… taunt him, to watch him get out of his stupid I’m the ultimate party pooper act for a little while, just enough to get him to put passion into the things he did. I’d invite him for races pretty much every day so I could provoke him enough to see him put everything he’s got into them. Even when I lost, it was always such a thrill!”
Tails nodded along. That really… wasn’t how he’d describe his feelings for Charmy.
“And it sorta worked! Shadow has gotten out of his shell way more ever since then. He can still be blunt and straightforward and sometimes have an attitude, but he genuinely cares for people and is very polite and considerate and… Ahem, you get the idea. I wouldn’t say that was all me of course, Rouge and Omega did most of the work if I’m being honest. But I like to think that I helped somehow. It’s not like I actively set out to make Shadow into a better person when I started dating him, of course. It just… sorta happened, I guess? Live and learn and all that.”
Tails pursed his lips. Oh wow, that was a lot of information he didn’t really have access to before. It was a nice insight into the mind of Sonic and how his thought process usually went. But it was also… completely useless to him!
“Well, enough of me monologuing. I seem to do that a lot.” Sonic shot him a smug look. “What does love feel like to you ?”
“Me?” Tails furrowed his eyebrows. He hoped hearing about Sonic’s experiences would help him put the feelings into words, but he was still struggling. “Um… It’s just nice.”
Sonic made a gesture asking for Tails to go on, which only made the fox glare at him. “It’s just… nice! I don’t know what you want me to say! There’s no… grand reason, no thrill and no… becoming a better person. I just like spending time with Charmy.”
Sonic was doing the thing again. The thing where he said just enough with just the right words (or lack thereof) so that Tails ended up spilling everything without needing to be poked and prodded. And it was working .
“When I spend time with him it feels… nice. It makes me feel warm inside. Sure, he also does that whole thing where he thinks I’m a super genius that knows everything and does no wrong, but he feels much more… I don’t know, genuine? It feels like he’s trying to take me off the pedestal instead of putting me on one.”
“Like… he treats me like a teenager! A real one! He invites me to do teenager things instead of going oh you’re probably too smart for that – I’m not ! I just want to make some friends my age and not have to worry about the whole world exploding every two years or so. And… he’s helping. I can relax near him. It feels nice .”
Tails gave the whole speech while staring at his plate, he couldn’t bear to know what sorts of faces Sonic was making at him. Though he did put his glance back on the hedgehog once he was done, and… Tails could swear he saw him shedding a tear before putting that dumb smug smile back on his face.
“I didn’t even have to ask who your crush was.”
“I hate you so much.” Tails couldn’t help but burst into laughter. He had to wipe away a few tears himself by the time he was done. Their spaghetti had already gone cold, but neither of them cared by that point.
“Did you tell him already?”
“What? No never. I don’t want to ruin it.”
Sonic frowned. “Ruin it?”
“I mean, yeah? Charmy is probably going to think I’m some sort of weirdo. Like, having a crush on one of the two friends in my age range? That’s really pathetic.” Tails let out a small chuckle to go with that, but Sonic didn’t say anything in response. He just looked sad.
“Tails…”
“I know! I know I shouldn’t speak about myself like that, but… yeah! What if it goes wrong and he’s uncomfortable near me? I can’t lose a friend like this. Not him and not now .”
“Tails, that’s… not how this sort of thing goes.” Sonic had hesitance in his voice. “You two are good friends, that’s… something so minor like that isn’t going to break you guys’ friendship.”
“But what if it does ?”
“It won’t , and if it does then it wasn’t a friendship worth having in the first place.” Sonic knew when it was time to cut the joking tone and be serious. And it always hit Tails hard.
He still had his doubts, of course, but he trusted Sonic’s judgement over his. He was the one with dating experience after all.
“Thanks.” Was all he managed to say in return, and the two of them went back to eating. Tails was always the one to finish last, and he got up to take both of their dishes. He tried grabbing Sonic’s, but the hedgehog was holding onto it with an iron grip.
“Tails. Promise me you’ll tell him.”
“Sonic, I have to wash the dishes.” Tails rolled his eyes. Sonic persisted.
“Promise it to me.” Sonic was… unusually serious about that. There was no sign of joking in his voice and his expression was stern. “I want to hear you say it.”
“Geez, fine! I promise I’ll tell him… eventually. I’m not ready yet.”
Sonic’s grip on his dishes gradually became weaker until Tails was finally able to take it from him. That was weird.
“I’m sorry, just… don’t let that sort of thing go unsaid, you know? It’s… just don’t. Please.” Sonic let out a small sigh.
“Don’t make the same mistakes I did.”