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Tails rests his head on the dirty apartment’s windowsill, looking out at the grey streets, the distant highways, at the small squadron of bots patrolling the perimeter rhythmically. He hasn’t ever been in the far western side of the Federation, especially not to the extent where Westopolis is only three kilometres of a journey away. A three hour run for his brother, were he travelling at his highest velocity - but Shadow has already firmly refused to go there, for reasons the fox doesn’t know, and likely won’t learn any time soon.
Sonic has checked on him four separate times in the span of twenty minutes - and with each time he comes, with each he tells Tails ‘we’ll be all done soon, kiddo’, Tails grows to believe him less and less. Truly, he doesn’t understand what there is to talk about for so long, that he himself can’t be there. C’mon, when even Shadow is roped into the discussion, surely Tails should be allowed to sit in, too.
But he isn’t, and that’s that.
It is nothing like the grown-up–only discussions he remembers from the old group that took him in, where the smell of alcohol hangs faintly in the air, where loud laughter echoes through the premises late into the night, and where despite all, it made it just that little bit easier to keep to himself for the few hours of respite he would have. They would laugh with each other, and not at him, and it was blissful for those few hours, those occasional evenings. There is no laughing here, nor any temporary neglect on his end - only a tense atmosphere that seeps into the next room where he resides for the time being, and a quiet electrical charge slowly building up around them. It isn’t electricity, actually, but Chaos. Probably from Shadow, his brother would tell him.
Tails could probably fall asleep here, with his head resting on the dirtied concrete, stale wind ruffling his fur and a gentle howling penetrating his ear drums - they’re so high up, right now, and while he hates that thought the more he comes back to it, the view is gorgeous. The way he sits pressed into the wall is punishing on his frail body, though, with the walls not only cold against his skin, but causing a mulled soreness to grow in his joints. I should probably move, he thinks.
But, again, he doesn’t.
Tails doesn’t want to be an adult - never ever in the whole entire world - not if it entails sitting through boring conversations, with people who tried to hurt you only a few hours ago. Silver looked at him with the exact expression that Shadow did, the very first time they saw him - not that he blames them. He is a freak, and he’s. . . kind of okay with the part of himself that has accepted that. His brain tries to reject it every day, like an engine running on the wrong fuel, spitting and spluttering and refusing to take off, but what point is there in rejecting the truth? Absolutely none, that’s what.
Then again, if being an adult means that he can be free, that he can build machines to his heart’s content, run free like the wind, and not tie down Sonic by forcing him to provide for Tails, then maybe the idea sounds a little bit nicer. Could he handle being on his own, though?
“Kid, you doin’ okay?” Sonic pops into the room again, leaning on the door frame as he looks down at his little brother. His quills are tied up, which to anyone, might seem like such a pointless, pedantic little detail, but Tails prides himself on knowing why - he’s either comfortable (think back to Holoska, the morning before they had left for this shithole), or he is stressed; judging by the hedgehog’s strained grin, Tails immediately goes towards the latter.
“Mhm!” Tails forces his voice up an octave, and plasters a smile on his face. He only hopes that it reaches his eyes. “Just lookin’ about. I ain’t ever been west so far,” he attempts an expression of fascination on his face, even if there isn’t anything to be fascinated about.
“That’s great, keed,” Blue answers, “look, it really ain’t gotta take too long now, there’s just a mondo lot we gotta talk through, the four of us, ‘kay?”
The young fox nods, tearing his eyes away from his older brother, even though one of the last things that he even wants right now is to be alone. He looks out of the window, down at the street and craning his neck without actually lifting himself from his sitting position any more. The squadron of SWAT bots is back again, completing the same loop around the block of buildings opposite to the ones they occupy - Tails thinks about them, taking in their dreadful appearance, the fear they impose onto others, the fear he himself is riddled with at the mere thought of sprinting past one in the street.
The little computers in their pathetic brains are all the same: programmed to hunt down movement, pursue no matter what, drag survivors back to the closest base to be roboticised. They think only to hunt, to obliterate free-will. Tails thinks about it a little further: if we programmed sand to think, could we program it to love? But then he tosses that thought in the trash, ‘cause it’s stupid. Chaos, it ain’t like there’s much sand left in the world anyway, save for the silicon keeping Robotnik’s tyrannical reign alive - Sonic really misses the beaches, even though he hates the water, and Tails likes to think that he does too, even if he is yet to see one for his own eyes, yet to visit one for himself.
The city is so foggy today, and not just from the permanent smog that lives in the skies. Terrible flying conditions, that’s for sure - not that they can fly just yet, the Tornado is still in Oil Ocean, they still need to collect the parts they need from wherever Sonic said they had to go.
Tails removes his padded jacket to drape over the windowsill and accompanying wall, letting himself sink lower against said wall, abandoning the dull view from outside. The kit pulls his legs into his body, wrapping his arms around his thighs - he wishes he could curl up into a ball like Sonic or Shadow, but unfortunately, this is his best choice. Trying to listen in, eavesdrop on the nearby conversation gives no merit nor entertainment, and while the kit is not explicitly bored, he does wish they could be somewhere else for now. All of them, or maybe, if you ask him again, he wishes it was just him and Sonic.
Empire City was pleasant. There was anything and everything he could ever want to eat, and he regrets not having accepted another minty cup of hot chocolate before the trio inevitably left - it was quiet, sometimes, and when it was, that made it especially nice. Amy was kind, exceptionally so, even if their conversations at times could be. . . stilted - awkward. There were other kids. There were other kids that he tried to get along with, that he tried to join in on games with, other kids that, to his unsurprise, ultimately saw him as nothing more than a freak; they made it very clear to him, too. Tails hopes that Shadow never brought that up to his brother—
. . . Shadow disliked the Resistance base too. Despite the fact that they had never voiced this to anyone, not even Sonic (he merely assumes), Tails had picked up on it with no difficulty. He prides himself on this, in picking up what others miss, in contorting himself in accordance to those around him. Tails knows which days he should go to Blue for affection, for reassurance, and which days he should just suck it up. He prides himself on this. But Shadow, they had not escaped the stares from other Freedom Fighters, the unsure looks, the whispers surrounding them. And Tails, Tails had seen them fidget with their golden cuffs for most of the time they were in the eyes of others, he had seen them groom and preen their quills obsessively/excessively when alone or behind closed doors, pulling out spike after spike after spike — Tails didn’t call him out on this, but he slipped a few words to Sonic, so he hopes that his brother called them out instead.
“Tails?”
Oh, speak of the devil.
The young kit looks up at the black and red hedgehog, resisting the urge to squirm uncomfortably when the static charge in the air simply increases tenfold. He gives them a smile, or he tries to, at the very least, since judging by their puzzled expression, they don’t quite buy it.
It is only when he spares a momentary glance at the room around him, that he realises just how late it must have gotten. The room is painted in this cyan/grey hue, with only the light from the next room leaking into this one, and the glimmer of Shadow’s bands reflecting the light behind him. Shadow breathes heavy, the fox notices, something probably isn’t right.
“What’s up?” Tails asks casually, but Shadow shakes their head simply, and to his surprise, they join him in sitting on the floor. “It didn’t go well?”
“No. It went as well as it could.” They reply astutely, running their fingers across the scraped and scratched metal of their ring again. The hedgehog’s dark eyes are fixed on the floor, and their breathing falls into something shallow, but rhythmic. Something so obviously controlled, and something that Tails can tell they are holding back, something they are hiding. He isn’t sure if he should pry any further or not, but ultimately, he concludes that it wouldn’t hurt, this one small time.
“Are you okay?”
Shadow huffs, but not in that way when they have a disagreement (or better yet - argument) with Blue, it sounds like something that came deep from their bones, something with about twenty pounds weighing it down, something exhausted. “You’ve been sitting here for forty five minutes. You aren’t bored?” They change the topic intentionally, so Tails carefully plays along.
“I read my book. . .” he says after a brief second passes him by, “an’ I listened to what y’all were sayin’.” Tails gently tacks on, weary of Shadow taking offense to his admission, but luckily, they barely seem to care.
“You should wear your coat; you left the window open. It’s cold.”
Tails nods, however he makes no move to slink the garment around his body, nor to even drape it over his shoulders. The effort feels too great for him to exert energy on at the moment, and right now, he is just waiting for Sonic to come back. He can still hear the blue hedgehog exchanging words with Silver and Knuckles, hence he only hopes that it won’t take any longer than it already has. Forty-five minutes, he thinks to himself mutely, as it truly hadn’t felt all that long to him. The little fox rests his head on his knees again, ignoring the look he knows is fixed on him by Shadow, and attempting to bask in the idle chatter in the next room, and the mild howling of wind emanating from the open window behind him.
Today, and today alone, for this afternoon, evening, whatever it is, he decides that he wants to sit here for a little longer. Normally, he would love to be running with Sonic through the conflict-torn streets of the Federation, winning at races he knows the hedgehog lets him win intentionally, talkin’ about random stuff between, and yet. . .
It’s nice to sit with his thoughts, for a change. Does that make him too grown-up? If it does, scratch that. Tails would take a race over being grown-up any time soon. Sonic should come back soon, he hopes.
Tails closes his eyes, and proceeds to think about what Knothole might be like.