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The storm had hit them at the worst of times.
There were huge, bulky grey clouds floating above their heads when Tails started up the Tornado, auguring the possibility of rain falling down in the near future. Neither he nor Sonic wanted to take off with a heavy risk of precipitation present, but they couldn’t back down. Not when there was a chance they might have been facing an emergency.
A pair of Flickies had shown up on the doorstep of Tails’ workshop, and unfortunately, they hadn’t come just to pay him a visit. No, they came with a warning, if their alarmed chirping was anything to go by: Eggman was up to something.
Normally, this wouldn’t get the hero duo overly worried. Eggman was always up to something, be it weaponry development or planning a new attack scheme. The Doctor’s threats were a constant part of their lives, just as foiling his evil plots had become routine for them; if he was getting ready to launch an offensive, then they would be ready to stop him, like they always did.
But the poor birds looked beyond terrified. There was a fear in their eyes and nervousness in their flight that struck Tails as odd — he couldn’t directly communicate with them, but it was obvious that something was really wrong, if they were this agitated.
For all he knew, Eggman had already put his latest plan in motion, scaring the hell out of these Flickies, and they were none the wiser. It wouldn’t be the first time the Doctor got the upper hand, as much as both Sonic and Tails didn’t like admitting it.
They had no idea where Eggman could be this time. Their only hope of locating him was Tails’ radar; if they got any weird energy readings, they’d go check the place out and trash any robots they found. Eggman’s bases always required a lot of electricity to function, which made his activities rather easy to trace down, if you knew what you were doing.
With this in mind, both of them immediately boarded Sonic’s trusty plane and set off for a new adventure.
It wasn’t an ideal time for recon work, but the Flickies had gone out of their way to talk to them, flying all the way from God knows where. Sitting it out and waiting for the weather to improve wouldn’t make any of them feel better. A little bit of rain wasn’t going to stop them from saving the day!
Except… this wasn’t a little bit.
This was a lot of rain.
It started falling all of a sudden, in the form of a faint drizzle that didn’t bother the boys all that much, thanks to their thick fur. In a matter of minutes, though, it’d turned into a full-blown storm, the water now fully soaking Sonic’s skin. With how long it’d been since Sonic could remember such a powerful rain, he had to wonder if Eggman was somehow involved in causing the awful tempest.
The downpour came accompanied by a fierce, unrelenting wind that made manoeuvering a hurdle, even for an excellent pilot like Tails. Sonic could feel it in the little stability the Tornado’s turns had. If the machine’s engine had the ability to complain, it most definitely would’ve been doing so by now.
“Hey, buddy!” Sonic yelled out to Tails, kneeling down on the plane’s wing to avoid the wind blowing him back. “You sure we can hold up in this weather?”
It was more of a rhetorical question than anything. Considering they were currently flying across the ocean with no land in sight, the plane needed to hold up, no matter what, and he was aware Tails was more than capable of keeping them both in one piece. Still, Sonic felt like checking up on him, so he did.
“It’s all good!” Tails affirmed, eyes never leaving the control panel. “Don’t worry, Sonic, this is nothing I can’t handle. But I need the wind to calm down before we land, or we’ll damage the propeller.”
The response was about as reassuring as it could get. Tails sounded genuinely positive that they weren’t in any danger. That was a relief.
Sonic wouldn’t point out the obvious and say that there was no place for them to land just yet, so he merely gave a swift nod, turning his gaze back to the horizon. Keeping his crouched position, he did his best to see through the rain, hoping beyond hope that some accessible island or coast would magically pop up in the corner of his vision.
Luck just wasn’t on their side that day, though. Sonic didn’t see anything, but he did hear something that made his concern immediately spike.
Thunder.
The sound made his ears tense up, and they remained pointy and alert while he attempted to determine where the thunder had stricken. He couldn’t see any lightning, which meant it must’ve come from behind them.
The plane did a sudden, brusque motion, losing altitude as though Tails had momentarily slipped up on controlling it. Sonic grabbed onto the edge of the wing for safety, slightly dizzy from the unexpected shift in wind pressure.
He doubted the lightning had actually hit them. He’d probably be fried meat right now if it had.
…But there was no way to defend yourself from something you couldn’t fight at all.
This was bad. This was really bad. For several reasons, at that.
Sonic quickly shook his head, trying to regain focus. He wasn’t the only guy in trouble here.
In fact, Tails was faring far worse. Even if Sonic had expected it, had known this would be his friend’s reaction from the moment the accursed sound reached his senses, seeing the fox’s current expression still made his stomach drop.
He looked just as scared as the Flickies had hours before. His hands were visibly shaking, and his eyes were wide and frozen on the road ahead, like he’d just witnessed a disaster first-hand.
Considering he was deadly terrified of thunder since he was a kid, he might as well have.
Few things could make Sonic get truly serious, but his best friend getting hurt was a top priority on the list. He’d developed a sense of protectiveness with him that no other person had managed to spark in him so far.
As such, Sonic wasted no time in calling out to him, a rare sense of urgency lacing his tone.
“Tails,” he said, tapping the other’s shoulder. “Tails, are you okay?”
As much as he sympathised with Tails, they simply couldn’t afford his fear to take over him here, not while they were thousands of metres above any solid ground. All Sonic could do was talk to him and pray that Tails could hold himself together until they found a spot to crash the plane.
He threw a glance over his shoulder, frantically scanning the landscape they were in. His eyes caught a glimpse of an island that had appeared in the distance — the land was fully covered by a giant mass of forest, but it had a small patch of beach sand on its coast. Sonic truly hoped the space was big enough for the Tornado.
It was the best they had, so it would have to do, either way.
“Tails, there’s no lightning right now,” Sonic tried again. “There’s an island up ahead. We should do an emergency landing.”
“...Landing,” Tails’ faint voice echoed, fingers digging into the yoke’s surface. “Right. We… w-we need to land.”
“That’s it, buddy,” Sonic gave him a comforting smile. “You’ve got this, okay? We’re almost there.”
The genuine warmth in his voice managed to ease Tails, however lightly.
Well, Sonic almost always spoke kindly to him when he was in need of reassurance, but Tails had found himself appreciating it more as of late. Something about realising that he’d never heard Sonic sound so openly soft with anyone else made him happy, like it really was a tone reserved for him alone.
He’d always liked the hedgehog’s voice. He didn’t speak half as much as some of his other friends, yet his words of praise and encouragement were the ones that Tails held closest to his heart.
They managed to ground him in an instant just now, despite the rather tricky situation they had at hand. That spoke volumes of how much Tails valued him.
Such brutal thunder would usually have left him paralysed, pretty much unable to do anything but cower and pray it’d pass. It was a visceral reaction in him, and Tails himself didn’t think he’d ever stop being intimidated by storms, not when years had passed and he hadn’t been able to face his fear at all.
But he was acutely aware that he could not have a freak out in the middle of a flight. Their well-being depended entirely on his actions. He could do this — never mind the fact he was still scared. He was braver now.
He was braver now, and Sonic was relying on him.
That was more than enough of a motive to get his act together. He needed to keep Sonic safe.
Tails took a deep breath and pulled the Tornado up again. The engine began roaring as he trimmed the plane; they steadily regained the altitude they’d lost, which left him able to focus on actually directing the vehicle in the right direction. It was a task easier said than done, much to his dismay.
Sonic was right, at least. The island was drawing close already, given their current speed. If his calculations went right, they’d be off the plane in the next couple of minutes, which gave him a small boost of courage.
“The wind hasn’t slowed down,” Tails informed Sonic with a frown. “Landing’s not gonna be pretty. Be careful when we descend.”
Sonic gave the boy a thumbs up. With his reflexes, he’d be able to roll out of the plane before it hit the ground and spindash into the beach without any inconvenience, which would leave Tails with total freedom to crash the plane at whatever angle he wanted without hurting Sonic.
They’d worry about the hypothermia-inducing storm and temperatures once they had solid footing to lie on. Things were finally looking bright.
And then lightning struck again.
The effect was devastating. Tails immediately let go of the yoke with a choked yelp, gloved hands rushing to pull down on his ears as he lowered his head. The thunder had been much closer this time —Sonic had seen the ray of light fall down mere metres to his right— and it startled Tails completely, the Tornado once again losing control without the direction of its pilot.
The fox’s entire body was trembling violently, eyelids shut down in pain. The sight made Sonic’s heart ache.
Words weren’t gonna help him time. It didn’t take a genius to understand that. He would be surprised if anything he said reached his friend at all, truthfully. His only chance of being helpful was by taking direct action.
The hedgehog quickly hopped from the wing to the plane’s main body, sitting down on the metal surface, right behind the driver’s seat. As he’d imagined, the water made the metal very slippery, so he dug his shoes into the sides of Tails’ seat to maintain whatever sense of balance he could.
Math wasn’t Sonic’s strong point, at least not in aviation topics. Being optimistic, they only had a few minutes left until the plane crashed into the water, and he probably wasn’t skilled enough to steer the plane in these meteorological conditions. No, he needed Tails for that.
As if on cue, he felt Tails quivering against his legs, the boy’s matted namesakes brushing his fur.
…Tails needed him, too.
That was the last thing that crossed his mind. His next actions were carried out without thinking, as if he was being completely guided by instinct.
Sonic carefully slid his arms across Tails’ torso, pulling the boy close towards him in a gentle, yet determined gesture. The contact seemed to knock some sense back into him, swishing of his tails coming to a halt almost instantly, his ears rising slightly.
The hedgehog buried his muzzle in Tails’ shoulder, a gesture far too blithe for someone headed towards impending doom. Sonic distantly knew this, yet he couldn’t find it in himself to care, just then.
All his attention was focused on the fox in his embrace. On his quiet, shallow breathing, and the softness of his fur against his chest. On the way the boy leaned back into him instinctively, just like Sonic had reached out for him, not knowing what else to do.
It was the first time Sonic noticed how… right it felt to hold Tails like this. How it calmed both of them down without any further need to do anything else, as nice as talking to him was.
(If it calmed him down, Sonic had to wonder what was the cause of the speeding heartbeat he could suddenly hear, resonating in his own chest with a force that rivalled that of the storm.)
“Tails,” Sonic whispered into the back of the boy’s head, surprising himself with the evenness of his voice. “You there?”
Tails didn’t reply, at least not verbally, but he gave a faint nod after a few seconds of hesitance. That simple motion flooded Sonic with more relief than he thought was possible.
He saw his younger friend reach for the yoke once again. Knowing that he’d need space to drive comfortably, Sonic readied himself to hop back onto the plane’s wing.
A hand pulling on his wrist made him pause.
“What’s wrong?” Sonic questioned.
“Don’t.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t… stop,” Tails mumbled, his grip tightening momentarily. “It’s nice like this. I like it.”
“Oh,” Sonic simply let out.
If the statement brought a tint of crimson to his face, it was nobody’s business but his, he decided.
A beat of silence later, he strengthened his hold around Tails, and let his chin rest on top of the fox’s head. He hoped that was enough to let his partner know he was happy with the arrangement.
“Okay, now we should reach the island without any other interruption,” Tails sighed.
The timing for another lightning strike couldn’t have been any better.
Tails jumped on his seat, though Sonic’s grip kept him in place, both literally and figuratively.
“Thanks for the save,” Tails said, relaxing and resting his weight on Sonic’s chest.
When he didn’t perceive any sign of fear or stress invading Tails’ factions yet again, Sonic gave the biggest grin he’d put on all day. It was a shame his friend couldn’t see it.
“You really are enjoying this, hm?” Sonic pointed out, a teasing edge to his voice that didn’t go unnoticed. “Maybe I should do it more often!”
“I’m not,” the other huffed, embarrassed. “And it’s not the first time you help me through a thunderstorm. You do it pretty often already.”
When he spent the night with Tails, anyway. Sonic wondered how many storms he might have had to handle alone.
“But it’s different this time,” Sonic observed, half-talking to himself. “You usually fall asleep super fast after I help you, so we’ve never hugged this long.”
“...Well? Do you, um…”
“Mind?” Sonic finished the sentence for him, chuckling. “Nah, not at all. I like this, too.”
He didn’t think hugs between friends were supposed to last this long, to begin with. But it’s not like Sonic minded that, either. He’d always been different from everyone else, in his own way.
Something told him Tails also couldn’t care less. He was also different.
And that made Sonic glad.
The light-hearted exchange had almost allowed both of them to forget about their initial mission, relaxed as they were in their little bubble. Thankfully, reality gave them a reminder in the form of Tails’ radar starting to beep, with a red dot showing right in the centre of the LED screen.
Sonic glanced up. Finally, the mysterious, unnamed island that had evaded them for so long was clearly in sight!
“The energy reading’s coming from the island,” Tails said, pleasantly surprised by the revelation. “Sonic, do you think Eggman could be there?”
“Dunno, but we need to land there, Eggman or not. We might get to kill two birds with one stone, though!” Sonic announced, already excited at the prospect. “Let’s explore this place when the storm’s over. I got an important duty to take care of until then.”
For emphasis on his last sentence, he snuggled up against Tails. Sonic watched with awe as his silky white muzzle turned a deep red.
That was… so endearing. Adorable.
It wasn’t the first occasion Sonic thought of his buddy as cute, but it was the first he realised why he might have thought that.
(Aside from Tails being objectively adorable, of course.)
“Sonic… you don’t need to keep hugging me all the way until the storm’s over, you know.”
He didn’t, of course. But what if he wanted to?
Sonic was a simple guy. He followed his gut and always did what he felt was right for him. He decided, then and there, that this wouldn’t be an exception.
“I don’t need to,” he conceded. “I want to. …Is that okay with you?”
Tails leaning further into his embrace was all the response he needed. Sonic smiled.