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Tails saw it coming.
Everyone did. His brother’s infatuation with a certain peppy hedgehog was something so obvious it became a joke of a sort to tease Sonic about. The way he stammered, the way one of his ears twitched nervously and quills ruffled up when somebody—Tails, or Knuckles, or even Eggman—poked at the topic. The same didn't work on Amy, because they all knew her from way back, back when they were all children, and they all recalled how blatant she’d been about her love for Tails’ big brother.
Back then, Amy was just one of Tails’ friends, because that’s all children had back then.
Whenever Sonic, mute and still at his most reckless phase, left to do whatever adventuring he did on his own, Tails would go stay at Amy’s. She’d hug him, and feed him cookies and cherry pie, and if it’s thundering outside and Sonic’s not around to wrap him up in a blanket cuddle, Amy’d check in, see how bad Tails was doing, and stay over so she could wrap his shaking body in a safe hug.
Before Cream and Charmy came into the picture, Tails had been the youngest of their friend group (and still is the youngest among the friends who’d been orphaned at a young age.) While Tails most of the time forgot just how much younger, and physically weaker, he was among his friends, subconsciously, he knew to go to Sonic, Amy, or Knuckles if he needed them. None of them had parents. Sonic simply decided Tails would be his best little buddy. And with Sonic came Amy and Knuckles, both of whom treated Tails with the same respect Sonic did.
It was a weird group, he admits in his head whenever he thought about it, or whenever kind but clueless strangers thinking he was a lost kit would ask him if they needed to help him find his parents, and he’d innocently tell them his big brother will pick him up soon, only for the strangers to see a hedgehog appear; there’d be suspicion in the strangers’ eyes, then doubt, then confusion when Tails and Sonic would interact in the most familial way, before finally accepting that, yes, those two mobians, both of different subspecies, were apparently brothers. It’s funny how they were perceived back before they became famous, now that he looks back at those memories.
Tails remembers how he used to whine to Sonic about letting Amy tag along sometimes. He’d annoyingly beg, because he’d been five, and while he knew Amy—or Rosy, back then—had a crash on his big brother, all Tails saw was the potential of having more friends. Then Knuckles became more involved in their missions, and Tails was ecstatic about that. A fox kit, two hoglets, and a puggle. It must’ve looked bizarre to everybody else. Mobian foxes are social to the point of needing to live in groups, but hedgehogs and echidnas aren’t. They’re solitary. Independent. They like to have their alone time between social events. So their little group wasn't entirely ‘normal’ from an outsider’s perspective. But they’ve never been normal individuals to begin with. Tails was happy with it.
Then Tails turned ten, and noticed his brother had gone from being iffy about Amy, to being more friendly, to dropping by regularly for her cooking, to… staring at her longingly whenever he thought nobody was looking.
But Tails had been looking. He noticed. He noticed how Sonic would vibrate in anticipation for Amy's muffin, then, when she was looking elsewhere, he'd steal glances her way with a dreamy look. Tails noticed, and in some childish way, Tails worried how this’d change everything.
He now knows how ridiculous of a thought that was, but he was a kit back then, a kit who saw his brother as his favorite person, even on days they butted heads. Sonic is his best friend. But Sonic’s a prickly hedgehog, not a huggable fox; he hadn’t and won’t get to experience some hedgehog habits if not with another hedgehog. The other hedgehog being Amy, Tails’ other friend.
Tails had to see just how much of a hedgehog his brother and Amy can really be at times.
***
Hedgehogs are stubborn
That, Tails is familiar with. But there's Sonic stubborn, and then there's hedgehog stubborn.
The difference: Amy shares the latter.
And Tails gets to see Sonic experience just how irritating it is to be the one worrying about somebody else's stubborn streak.
“Pretty sure the doc said no walking on that,” says Sonic, eyeing the bandage peaking out of the space between the end of Amy's skirt and the top of her boot. The sliced cake on his plate is half-eaten. He hasn't touched his cup of tea yet.
There's a flash of silent disapproval on his face with every risky bend Amy's knee does while she struts about her house, serving the brothers moist chocolate cake slices and tea. The cake is homemade. She'd been walking around to make it. Tails’ sure Sonic's figured that out too, if that frown and anxious ear twitch is anything to go by.
Tails eats and watches, and while part of him too disapproves of Amy's deliberate decision in ignoring the doctor’s medical advice, another part of him relishes in Sonic's hypocritical position. Sonic had injured his leg plenty of times in the past; never once had he sat still during recovery, oftentimes re-injuring the same leg not long after.
Amy rolls her eyes. “Says Mister I-run-on-broken-legs.” She gets herself a slice and counts her painkillers, setting the pills in a small dish for herself.
“I heal fast; you'll take forever. Not the same thing,” Sonic playfully jabs, tries to make it nonchalant. He grabs his fork and, without much effort, cuts his slice and forks it into his mouth. He may be mad, but that doesn't stop him from admiring Amy's baking.
Tails suspects Sonic finds comfort in ignoring just how close they'd gone to almost losing Amy not a few weeks ago. Sonic regularly snacks on whatever she's made. He visits her with the excuse that she always makes something new he wants to try. Right now, as good as the cake is, Tails can see Sonic's not fully focused on it.
Tails can't help but remember just how frazzled his big brother had looked when they'd all made it out of Eggman’s self-destructing base, only to realize it wasn't all of them that made it out after all. Somebody had to have initiated the self-destruct sequence in the control room so the rest of them could get out, and it hadn't been Eggman.
It was all rubble.
A rageful Knuckles had instantly started smashing, digging, listening for any movement.
Tails, with a tight throat and hitched breaths, had frantically tried every which way to get Amy's signal through his Miles Electric.
He'd looked over at his brother, his brave, easy-going, always-victorious big brother, and instead of the usual confidence and price, found a look of shock and silent, ever-increasing panic in his big brother’s eyes. His quills were stiff, standing up. His green eyes darted everywhere. Where to look. Where to even start.
“Can you find her, bud?” Sonic whispered, hopeful, frightened.
It was one of those times Sonic desperately needed his help.
Tails swallowed down his own hysteria threatening to bubble to the surface. He nodded. He focused, adjusted his handled device twice, thrice, going through every possible setting.
A heat signature the size of a mobian hedgehog glowed on his screen. “There! Over there!”
He had to hold Sonic back from just spin-dashing into the rubble, cause a worse cave-in on Amy. No, his brother had to sit back with gritted teeth and watch Tails direct Knuckles to which debris to lift. It was a painstaking process, one where Tails had to be firm on Sonic getting more and more agitated by the minute. It took a lot to phase Sonic, make him lose his cool. This was one of those times.
The moment Knuckles lifted her out, her body battered, bruised, covered in soot, her eyes half-lidded with fatigue and a tired, grateful smile on her lips, Sonic ordered, “Give her to me.” The stiffness and command in his voice left no room for arguments.
He'd looked angry. Sounded angry. Tails had worried Sonic would start a fight with her over this near suicidal act of hers. She might not have been meaning to get caught in the concrete and steel avalanche of the base, but she'd worried them half to death. For what had felt like an hour, the possibility of her being gone forever had crossed Tails’ mind. He didn't doubt the others hadn't had the same agonizing thought.
He fully expected Sonic to go off on her for how reckless that had been.
But when Tails walked into her hospital room hours later, Sonic in the guest chair, it was free of hostility. Amy was giggling at something Sonic said. Sonic kept grinning the whole while, his ears upright and twitching with the euphoria of making her laugh.
Sonic couldn't lecture her about stubbornness. He couldn't tell her to stop being a hedgehog.
She closed her eyes to laugh some more, her half-curled fist politely near her mouth. She might’ve missed the soft, passionate look in Sonic's eyes when he looked at her.
But Tails saw it.
His big brother lost in love.
Now, in her living room, eating soft, chocolaty cake with tea on the side of their plates, Tails watches Amy hobble to the table to take a seat of her own after brewing more tea, smirking lightly.
“I can count on you to carry me around,” she jokes with a wink.
Sonic's ears twist back at her flirting. He chuckles softly. Then asks sincerely, “How's the knee doin’, anyway?”
“Little sore at night. Not too bad.”
“If I tell ya’ to stay put till the bandage's off, are you gonna?”
“No,” she singsongs, raking a happy bite of cake.
***
Hedgehogs are rowdy
It's not unusual for Amy to stop by Tails’ house. It's expected, even. But she usually has manners. Knocks on the door. Or at least let him know she's let herself in.
When she scurries into Tails’ kitchen while he's got burger meat sizzling on a pan, she gives him the finger-to-lips signal to be quiet before running upstairs with a mischievous grin on her face. Tails initially stares in confusion.
Sonic suddenly arrives not a few seconds later, a devilish grin on his face as his eyes scanned the kitchen. His ears rotate in all directions, then perking up at a sound within the house. His grin sharpness. The tip of his tail twitches in anticipation.
He's looking for her.
Tails bites his lip, trying not to find it adorably funny how his big brother is basically playing hide and seek. Sonic used to play that with him when Tails had been younger. Sonic tends to go easy on his speed to give the other person a fighting chance. But where Tails is a sneaky, crafty fox, Amy's a loud, impulsive hedgehog. She's easier to hear.
Sonic gives him a quick glance, and silently questions Tails with a pointed look toward the stairs leading to the rest of the house. A silent question: She went up, didn't she?
Tails, not one to betray his friends, simply shrugs his shoulders and turns back to flip a patty and take the done ones off to cool. He keeps an intrigued ear out, listening as Sonic sneaks toward the stairs. Years ago, Tails used to always pick Sonic's side. He'd help Sonic hide from Amy when she'd be looking for him. Now, when the tables are turned, and Sonic has moments of trying to sniff Amy out, Tails sits back and lets the hedgehogs do their thing without interfering.
From the corner of Tails’ eyes, he catches Sonic keeping his head ducked and ears pinned like he's hunting before disappearing up the stairs. It hits Tails just how unusually tactful Sonic's being. Hedgehogs are prey animals. In another universe, where they'd be born as non-mobian animals, Sonic and Amy would've been Tails’ dinner. Tails sneaks like that. Never Sonic. That was the most fox-like behavior Tails had seen his big brother pull. Granted, Tails can spin-dash, which isn't a fox trait, but it's so bizarre to see Sonic do a fox move after all these years of knowing the guy.
Tails’ ears twitch at the distant sound of Amy's high-pitch squeals of laughter. It's a happy, joyous scream. Sonic snickers, too. Then, a playful growl from one of them, followed by some running, then the couch getting bumped into.
Amy's happy shrieks pierce the air. “S- Stop! Put me down!”
“That depends,” says Sonic, “are ya’ gonna knock it off?”
There's silence. Amy wheezes, trying and failing not to snicker. Tails doesn't know what's going on. He can just guess that she might've shook her head no, because she's back to screaming and laughing. She gets away, or Sonic lets her go—Tails' ears pick up on the quick tapping of her lightweight boots crossing from one room to the next, Sonic's still giving her headstarts.
Tails sits up, happy for them, but feeling more confused than ever.
A slow realization creeps into his mind. His delight turns to shock.
They're courting.
They're hedgehogs. He's always known that. But right now, it's right in his face, and he feels dumb for not seeing the obvious. He forgets how every mobian subspecies has their own love language and customs. Their own habits.
The skin underneath his white muzzle feels hot. His brother is courting their friend. Not just playing. Not just flirting. He's actively engaging in this affectionate but rowdy display Amy had been the one performing for years. The tables are turned, and Tails tries so, so hard to not picture what his brother and his friend are doing when they go eerily silent upstairs, save for Amy's breathless panting from all that laughter.
The couch in the gaming room squeaks, and Tails puts the patties away, sheds off his apron, and hastily heads outside. He needs fresh air. He needs to not hear what they're doing. What his big brother and his big brother’s maybe-girlfriend are doing.
Just kissing, surely. Hopefully no quill biting. Or whatever else courting hedgehogs do.
Tails would be happy for them, if what's happening weren't happening in his house.
Why in his house?
***
Hedgehogs are nocturnal
Just as Tails is. But Sonic is an anomaly; he needs his full eight to ten hours of sleep if he doesn't want to suffer a bad case of brain fog that could mess up his running.
So when they're in Tails’ garage workshop, Tails asks him, “Can you pass me another doughnut?” and hears nothing, he instinctively reaches to remove his noise canceling earplugs. And finds he's not wearing any. His rolling chair squeaks when he shifts to check over his shoulder. “Sonic?”
His big brother is laying on his back on the ugly green couch, one of his arms folded behind his head, acting like a pillow. With the other, he holds up a chocolate glazed doughnut, one of the many he'd picked up from Amy neatly arranged in a box. He stares through the hole, at the boring ceiling with lazy, unfocused eyes.
Curious, Tails tries again. “Uhh… Sonic?”
One of Sonic’s ear twitches. He blinks. “Hm?” He takes a few seconds to gather himself. “Yeah, bud?”
Tails knows him well enough to figure out when his brother is being… off. And Sonic's definitely off.
“Are you okay?” Tails asks.
He expects a lie. A “yeah.” A “Don't worry ‘bout it.”
Instead, Sonic thinks it over. He looks back to the cobweb decorated ceiling through the doughnut hole. He says, “Just goin’ over something in my head. You were saying?”
Tails is tempted to ask what's going on. But he sees it—that look in Sonic's eyes, that same glazed-over stare he'd give Amy when her back's turned—and whatever question Tails has dies away.
His brother is being kept awake by thoughts of a girl in his head.
Tails had been nervous in regards to how things would drastically change between him and Sonic, and him and Amy, if those hedgehogs truly did end up together. Now? Now he sees they'd technically always been together, and the only change Tails has been seeing is his big brother experiencing a love that made him drift off sometimes. It made Sonic panic, and swoon, and chase, and be a hedgehog in love.
It made Sonic happy.
And Tails feels his previous anxiety melt into warm bliss. His big brother is happy. Amy has been nothing but an energetic spiky ball of glee. She's around more, and gives Tails the best hugs.
And Tails can't help but swish his tails like the happy fox he is.
***
Hedgehogs like the dark
Ironic, considering their eyes are one of their weaker senses.
Tails thinks it makes them feel calmer. They often don't realize or remember that others can see better than they could.
At midnight, friends gather on a grassy suburb hill to watch the firework display celebrating the mobian new year. It's dark out, the world only flashing in colors after a sparkly boom in the sky.
Amy's put out a blanket and picnic food for her, Sonic, and Tails.
A few firework pops later, Tails glances beside him, and doesn't find Amy, or Sonic splayed out over the blanket where he'd seen him last. After another boom, Tails takes the chance to look around the grassy hill.
There.
Further down the hill, Amy's flat on her back over the grass, her body quivering from giggling. Sonic's hovering over her on all fours, his paws pinning hers down on either side of her head. His eyes are soft. His grin lacks the cocky, sharp edge. He nudges her muzzle with his, his fur fluffing out.
Their fingers are intertwined.
It goes dark.
A flame whistles as it climbs the sky.
It explodes with a boom, lighting the sky in a marvelous glittering display.
The glow lights up the grass. Sonic had dipped his head. His lips on Amy's, the two of them deaf to the world around them.
They part. They look at each other with stars in their eyes. Sonic laughs softly, dipping down only so that they could rub foreheads.
Tails pretends he saw nothing. He gives them the privacy they think they have.
END