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"It's unfair."
Tails should not be up at four in the morning, but here he is, having a breakdown over a nightmare that should have been temporally long disconnected from its cause.
(Should have, he insists, but Sonic looks at him with a bitter look in his eyes and shakes his head, as though he understands.)
He grips his bedsheets tightly as his brother silently sits on the end of the bed—not so far that Tails can barely acknowledge his presence, but not so close that he feels uncomfortable.
But Tails knows he's listening.
"It's so unfair, Sonic. Why do I have to remember? Even though I'm not there anymore, even though it's not happening anymore, I— It hurts so much."
His fur is all frazzled, and the taste in his mouth is revolting, and it feels like his heart is about to tear itself apart remembering all the nauseating words of unseen people he'll forever remember, and yet...
"I'm... I once tried to, I tried to go back home"—though there was never a home there—"once. I don't know what I was looking for there, but it felt so wrong, Sonic, because, because—"
Not a single person remembered who he was.
Or maybe they did, but they didn't show it, when he braved the visit to West Side Island all alone. The animals there treated him normally, as though it never happened, as though he was always just a normal fox, but that's not—
That's not what happened, but—
His eyes water. It all felt, so, so wrong.
"No one remembers how they hurt me." There's so much bitterness in his tone. "Why do I have to live the consequences of their actions while they just get to go about their lives?"
What was the point of any of it? He was hurt so much, and for what reason?
"They never apologized to me, and now it's like— It feels all so, pointless. It's so unfair."
What was the point of it all if no one remembers?
"Just—" A sniffle escapes him. "Why do I... It's like I'm the only proof it ever happened. Those memories, they're so vivid that there's no way they're not real, b-but..."
His voice breaks, and can't help the gross wetness that runs down his face.
"The irrational part of me can't help but to wonder, what if it was just me. What if I was the problem? That's right, I was always... I was a-always just—"
The blankets unravel from his body, and it's like he's been stabbed with a million needles from the sudden exposure to cold air.
Because that's how he was, a small fox left standing in the cold as the others laughed and jeered and slammed the door in his face.
He was always too sensitive, too weak, too easy to hurt.
He was always just...
Tails feels a pair of arms tenderly wrap themselves around his back as he falls forward, and the next thing he knows, he's enveloped in a pleasant warmth.
Warmth that he once didn't have.
His brother holds him as though he's the dearest thing in the world, combing the fur on the fox's back with his hands, offering a physical sense of comfort as Tails cries into his shoulders.
"I don't w-want to be alone, I don't..."
But you're not alone anymore, he thinks he hears Sonic say, but Tails shakes his head rapidly.
"N-No, it... It feels like I'm the only one who hurts like this, and it's so..."
His grip tightens around Sonic's back.
"I'm the only one who remembers all of this, and I feel alone because— because there's no one to tell me that they were there and to acknowledge that— it all happened and that it was real..."
It's unfair.
"It— It hurts so much more to be forgotten than it does to just... go through it. If they're just going to forget, then at least let me forget, too. It's not fair."
It's unfair. It's unfair.
"If I'm just going to live the rest of my life being repeatedly reminded of it, then I'd just— I'd rather just... disappear at this point. It's too much, Sonic. I don't— Will it ever get better?"
It's unfair, it's unfair, it's unfair.
"I can't... forget. I can't forgive."
It's unfair that others have hurt and left him with permanent wounds, and left his life without ever apologizing for or facing the consequences for any of it.
It's unfair that they then forgot about it, leaving him with no opportunity to obtain closure.
It's unfair that despite everyone else moving on, he's still suffering, living as the only proof of what happened, many years later.
(It's unfair that he can't simply move on. And unbeknownst to the fox, Sonic understands.)
(The hedgehog understands more than he could ever admit to Tails. But he can't just tell him that, so the only thing he can do is stay there, cradling his little brother as his sobs only grow louder.)