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A small clean napkin dabbed lightly over the remnents of not yet dried green blood on Cosmo's closed third eye, a welcome consequence of her impulsive decision to rip the thing out in an act of defience against Black doom. Absolutely no doubt it hurt, but the adrenaline of the moment made her feel disconnected from the pain, at least until now that is. Stiffing up from what probably was the unfamiliar feeling of the light amount of disinfectant against the skin around and on her empty eyelid, though she guess's it wasnt that unfamiliar, then it was probably the napkin itself. Not that it was cold if anything, now that she was thinking about it, it was mostly just a slight breeze in terms of tempachure. No, what was definately affecting her the most right now had to have been the fox doing the cleaning.
Tails seemed almost professional with how with how he was treating the wound, as professional as she'd know anyway but that didnt change how focused he looked as he patched her up, or how he immediantly asked for a first aid once everything was over. Dragging her to the sturdiest peice of rubble despite her(albiet light) protests just to make syre she didnt bleed out too much. She felt...bad, in all honesty. He should've been celebrating with his friends, but instead he was wasting his time tending to her. She avoided his gaze at the thought, knowing he wasnt technically looking her in the eyes yet feeling too ashamed to care.
"I know why you did it" he broke the silence, concern painting his voice just like it did before when she ripped it out in the first place. Though maybe not quite as panicked, it still carried all the same emotions "But it still sucks seeing you like this" he grimaced, obviously at her pitiful state.
"Sorry..." she muttered, not having meant to put him in such a sour mood "B-but It's fine, really! I do have a pretty strong healing factor so it'll probably grow back sometime!" She tried to reassure him with a smile despite the pain, telling from his unchanging expression however it did little to quell his nerves. "besides, it doesnt even hurt that much!" she added a white lie to sweeten the deal, waving a hand at him vaguely as she smiled. Yet suprisingly enough only most of it wasnt genuine
"To be honest Cos I can't say I fully believe you.." His eyes softened at her, a bit more vulnerable than before as he sighed. "But if you really think youre ok than I guess I have to cheer up", his eyes flickered to look back at hers with a somewhat tired smile made to match before starting to clean off the rest of the now half dried blood on her face leaking down from her forehead to her chin in a practically straight line. If she was any more unlucky some of it wouldve ended up in her mouth, she mentally gagged at the thought.
"For now lets just focus on what you're going to do while on earth!" he changed the topic on a dime, somehow having guessed her discomfort with the topic on her impulsive action. "Right, of course I have to be properly aquainted with all your friends." she both said and thought to herself, not that she hadnt met or actually talked with any of them before. It just obviously wasnt under the best circumstances, the idea of properly hanging out with Amy outside of world ending conflict bringing her a bit of joy as she smiled to herself.
"We'll have to find a place for you to stay too" he added, noting how she was for lack of a better word homeless after all of it was said and done. Though she doubts any sane person would willingly give a darkling like her a home, it would absolutely be something they'd have to concider at some point, so she nodded in agreement. "See if I can eat anything other than humans" she added on top of his, allready grimacing at the worst case senario of her having to eat innocent people to live
"Maybe try one of those elusive Chilli dogs Sonic talked about a couple minutes ago" he stopped her unusually quick spiral in its tracks, nudging her with his elbow as he smiled reassuringly at her. "They're honestly a bit too spicy for me but maybe you'll like em!" he stated, already sounding more chipper.
"That would be nice" she said with a small chuckle, infectiously smiling back. "Trying 'mints' also sounds nice, since you like them so much"
They bounced little ideas back and forth from there, each idea ever so slightly dissconected from the other as they contextualized the first things that popped into their heads. As well as getting more adventurous from the first, from simply eating food to maybe going on adventures with them after this or trying out extreme gear or so many other things, she was feeling a lot more optimistic just thinking about all the stuff she'd do!
"But first" he spoke up, her feelings of excitement coming to a grinding halt as he continued "We have to get rid of what's left of black dooms forces, as if there's that much" right, of course. The unfortunate price of her forced seperation from the hivemind bitting her back as her expression turned back into a frown, "Even though the millitary could hypothedically handle it since they are conciderably weaker I still think we should-" he went on about it, yet she could not for the life of her start actually listening even as he put the actual patch over her eye. Because their torment should've been over, his torment should've been over. They should've had the right to go home, to just take a break after all this.
But they couldnt, because of her. Maybe they wouldnt have had to deal with this if she just hadn't cut herself off, maybe they would've been better off if she just let herself die like the rest of Black dooms scum-
"What?" he asked, an alarmed look on his face as she came back to reality if only for a momment. Trying to look for the last thing she said before going silent but coming short as he continued "You dont seriously think that, right?" he smiled reassuringly as he stood up, or at least he tried to as his smile felt kind of strained. He wasnt even supposed to hear that, so she couldnt even bring herself to reply
"Right?" he repeated, more desperate for an answer as his smile slowly faded. "Because you dont really think that you should've died back there, right?" his voice cracking as she avoided his gaze, "Give me anything else, anything! Just please dont say you wanted to do something as stupid as that" he managed to still somewhat smile despite how emotional he got. She still refused to look him in the eye as he continued, but getting offended when he called the decision stupid.
She slowly stood up in return, having to force herself upright due to her worse for wear circumstances. "And..what if I did?" she asked, hesitant but not scared "I...it would've been for the greater good" she stated, her whole body aching from sheer exaustion yet unwavering in her opinion.
"So you're saying you'd rather..kill yourself other than just let us take care of a few more doom creatures? Is that it?" he responded almost immediantly, yet he sounded more horrified than angry, pausing before the word 'kill' as his previous cheerful smile completely dissapated.
"Thats not what I'm talking about and you know it! Sure they're weaker and sure there are less of them but what if they find a way to multiply!? What if they find a way to get stronger!?-" she argued back, letting out her fears on full display and letting go of her formerly hesitant demeanor, emboldend at his offense.
"Then we'll fight them like we always have! We've done it before we can do it again-!" he interrupted, clearly thinking more with his heart than his head as he accidentally turned their arguement into a yelling match
"You and your friends were all almost killed because of The black arms! You know that just as well as I do!" she yelled back, interrupting him as well as she got more infuriated by the minute at his one track mindset. "I've done so many terrible things, Tails!" she practically lashed out, a harsh transition from what she said earlier. "Black doom ravaged so many planets, hurt so many people, and all I did was stand there and watch!" her voice shook slightly as grabbed at the small horns on her head "I just don't get it! How could you still so desperately want to save me when I've done nothing but cause this world pain and suffering even now!?-"
"Because you're my friend!" he yelled back without a second thought, tears streaming down his face as she let his words sink in. What kind of answer was that? So moronic yet so determind. She knew there were so many things wrong with that argument, so so many things that just weren't worth all of this no matter how you looked at it. Yet she could only say one thing
"Friends?" she asked quietly, somehow never once having concidered the idea as her curled up hands fell limp at her sides. After a moment she was then tackled into a hug, his arms curling around her as her already hurting body completely gave up on her with the added weight. It was clear he didnt care though, squeezing her gently in his embrace as tears she hadnt realized were there fell from her eyes.
"Of course!" he answered, his voice cracking from the tears "And I don't care how terrible you think you are, or how much better the world could've been without you in it. You're my friend, and I dont want you to..t-to..." his words slowly degraded into sobs, and whether he meant it or not truely showing how much he cared as she hugged him back. As much as she could anyway seeing that his arms were above hers.
And in that moment, as corny as it sounds. They were just two traumatized kids crying into eachothers arms on the ground, all that dispair and relief and worry put onto eachother in something that while not exactly pretty still meant a lot. Even after they both stopped crying neither of them let go of the other, just giving eachother a second to breath.
"Tails?" She asked, her voice still shaky and quiet as she opened her eyes slowly. "Yea?" he responded, his voice carrying the same tone as hers as one of his ears perked up.
"How did you..hear me?" she awkwardly looked at the ground as she muttered "Hear what?" He asked, not knowing what she was talking about.
"When I was thinking about...Y'know, and you somehow uh..heard me" she sounded more anxious than before. "Oh-Oh! Uhm, I havent really mentioned it but you actually..mutter when you think too hard?" he replied just as awkward as her as she came to a horrifying realization that she'd just been muttering constantly the whole time shes been on earth "Ah, that's embarassing, huh?" she asked, a faint self depricating smile on her face as he shrugged
"I dont mind it really, it's kinda...cute" well that was certainly a word someone could use to describe the habit of muttering to yourself. Unfortunately for both of them he immediantly back tracked, sputtering something out about how he 'didnt mean it like that'
and 'not that he doesnt think she's cute' and 'wait-no thats not'.
It didnt really matter to her though.
Because she had a friend