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They were a couple weeks into traveling together when Sonic was finally able to nag Tails into taking, in his words, “a proper bath”, which turned out to be dunking himself in the nearest local lake that Sonic had deemed clean enough. Afterwards the two of them had sat down together on the sand, with Sonic making a rare trip to one of the human towns that dotted the zones they passed through to “buy” a proper hair comb, and he made it back before Tails had even finished shaking the water out of his fur. It took a bribe of mints to get Tails to actually sit still long enough for Sonic to brush his fur.
While Tails had initially thought it would just be a bit uncomfortable, the focus and care Sonic was showing while brushing his fur- slowly brushing his fur- had long since passed unusual and was now heading into unnerving. Tails fidgeted under Sonic’s gaze, trying not to draw the hedgehog’s attention too much in case he asked what was bothering the young fox.
It didn’t work. “What’s up, bud?”
Tails tried not to squirm at the question. “Just- I don’t get why you’re bothering with brushing my fur. It’s not like I’m dirty or anything. At least not all the time.”
Sonic hummed under his breath, tongue sticking out while he untangled a particularly rough patch of fur, all while trying not to tug on it and hurt Tails. “Yeah, I didn’t really get stuff like this when I was first told about it. Figured as long as I had my legs and they worked, I wouldn’t really need anything. ‘Side from the important organs like my heart and lungs and brain, that is.”
“No, I don’t think you need your brain,” Tails mumbled under his breath, and Sonic flicked one of his ears- though it was lighter than it normally would have been. “As long as my tails don’t get tangled together I should be fine, right?”
“That’s the thing, ‘should be’ doesn’t always translate to ‘will be’,” Sonic said. “Stuff like this is annoying and definitely way more boring than running or flying, but it leaves us free to do all the fun stuff without getting distracted. Imagine if you accidentally flew into the ground because you were distracted by your tails being all itchy, or I crashed into a tree because my pelt felt all gross. That would be mondo uncool.”
“... Fine. I guess I see why it matters,” Tails mumbled under his breath, slightly grumpy about it, even if his fur was already beginning to feel a little bit less… disgusting. “Is it going to take much longer, though?”
“Nah, we’re basically almost done, I just gotta get this last bit untangled. Man, your tails are fluffy. But when you grow up, you’re gonna have to do this all by yourself, because I am not taking care of your fur when you hit the greasy teen years.”
“Really? That sucks.”
“Yeah, it kinda does. Just remember, stuff like this is important, so never forget to-”
---
“-take care of yourself, Sonic, are you even listening to me?”
Sonic blinked, like his mind had been far away and was just now coming back to his body. “Sorry, buddy, what were you saying?”
Tails ran the comb through his fur maybe a bit harder than was necessary. “That you really should take care of yourself better.”
“Give me a break, I spent six months in space jail,” Sonic said, but it sounded different than normal, like the joke was an automatic reflex instead of something he actually thought was funny.
He had been doing that, since they got him back from the Death Egg and defeated Eggman. He had been doing all of this. Drifting off, staring into space, speaking without seeming like he was all that invested. And Tails didn’t like it, no matter how much it seemed to be the new “normal” for Sonic, no matter how many times he did it.
He was doing it again, in fact, literal seconds after Tails had last spoken, and he flicked his brother’s ear to bring him back down to Mobius- but what he hadn’t been expecting was for Sonic to jump halfway out of his seat, whipping around to face him with an expression halfway between alarm and… genuine fear. “Watch it, kid!”
Tails blinked, lowering his hand hesitantly. “I-I just flicked your ear.”
“I know, I know, I’m just a bit jumpy. Six months of nothing but boredom will do that to you.”
Sonic returned to his original position, but now Tails noticed that his shoulders were tense, and his quills were raised more than they should be, although they did lower when Tails got closer again. He tried to shrug it off, but the small details of how Sonic was behaving just kept coming back to him, nagging at him at the most inopportune of times.
He returned to his task, now working on the shorter fur on Sonic’s back, so the quills didn’t bother him. He tried to hum a comforting melody, just like how Sonic used to do for him, but the sound stopped abruptly when the comb parted fur, and Tails saw a scar- a nasty one- that looked recent. Looked like it hadn’t been treated.
Ah.
Sonic had once again gotten that glazed, faraway look in his eyes, but Tails didn’t try to snap it out of it this time. Maybe his brother needed to be somewhere else aside from his own body at the moment.
When he was done, Tails carefully tapped Sonic on the shoulder, but the hedgehog still jumped a bit, and something in Tails’ chest twisted into an uncomfortable knot.
“I’m done,” was all Tails said, trying to keep the shake out of his voice, and not entirely succeeding. “I know there’s still cleanup to do, so if you want something to keep you busy you can go do that.”
“Yeah, sounds exciting.” Sonic didn’t sound excited. “I’ll go bop some of Eggman’s bots, and I’ll check in with you in a couple days, you cool with that?”
Tails wasn’t. But he smiled and nodded anyway, and the knot in his chest tightened to an almost painful extent when Sonic sped out the door without a moment’s hesitation. He looked down at the brush in his hands, noting how old it was, how rough it looked.
Tails wasn’t used to not knowing what to do, or asking anyone aside from Sonic for help. He was used to fixing machines, to repairing what was already broken. He didn’t know how to fix someone instead of something. He didn’t know how to fix someone who wouldn’t even admit they were broken.
The brush clattered to the floor, useless.