Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Kinda lame looking isn’t it?” Charmy said, spinning the little device in his hand as he looked at it curiously, he didn’t mean anything bad by the comment not at all but the sentence made tails head look up from his work desk to stare at Charmy in confusion. The fox looked at his bee friend who was sitting on top of the workbench his wings lazily fluttering back and forth as he looked over tails inventions.

“Hm?” Tails asked confused looking up from what he was currently working on to look at Charmy in complete confusion. Charmy had come over for a play date which just ended in the two talking while Tails worked and Vector sat in the corner looking over files for his next case. 

He eyed Charmy when the bee said that but he didn’t say anything hoping to god that the bee had just framed the words really weird and didn’t mean what he just said because if he did that kid would getting a punishment.

“I mean it’s a really cool idea! But does it have to look like.. that? ” Charmy said Rolling his eyes as he turned over the small tracker in his hands as if he was expecting it to light up like light-up trainers or maybe have bright lights shine out the top. But nothing ended up happening. Because nothing was supposed to happen. It was just a tracker for emeralds. It wasn’t anything special just metal with his two-tail logo on it. 

Tails never really had been concerned about the look of the things he made he was always way more focused that they worked, that they were useful. That he was useful. Did everyone think that about his inventions or just Charmy?

Were the things he made really lame?

“What do you mean?” Tails said with a confused smile trying to act like the comment didn’t hurt. Charmy didn’t mean it, Charmy was tired, he hadn’t slept that night, and he had been kind of grumpy all day. Maybe he had just said it in a way that he didn’t mean. Out of the three kids, he was always the most out there , he wasn’t anxious like Tails or polite like Cream. He was just himself which was something Charmy loved.

Didn’t mean it didn’t hurt though 

“ Charmy ,” Vector said his voice warning, tails was very sensitive when it came to his work. He tried to hide it and tried to not show them but it was obvious. They understood though his machines were basically a part of him. It was understandable that he would get hurt when someone insulted them .

There weren’t many things that would genuinely upset tails. But this was one of them and Vector didn’t feel like having to call Sonic to calm down the kid. Sure he and the kiddo got along amazingly but when he got like that there were only three people who could calm him down.

“I'm just saying! You build all these Awesome and cool machines but they all look kinda lame!” Charmy said rolling his eyes throwing the chaos emerald tracker up and down making sure to catch it because sure it looked lame but he wasn’t going to break it that would just be mean!

“Lame?” Tails asked softly his voice genuine and confused trying to understand what Charmy meant by his inventions being lame. Usually Sonic or Amy or Knuckles or even Charmy himself would call his inventions cool. He had never really been told that his inventions were lame by his friends before. He would be lying if he said that it didn’t hurt a little.

“Like couldn’t you give it a cool paint job or something? Or like add some rockets to it!” The bee said with an excitable look on his face as he gripped the tracker tightly and threw it in the air with a smile. He clearly had no intention of hurting the twin-tailed fox but the minute he had started to talk about this the eight-year-old could feel his heart slowly but surely breaking more and more.

He had put his invention down at this point and was paying complete attention to what Charmy was saying he was picking at his claws scratching them and pulling while he looked down at the small tracker that Charmy was holding.

“It’s a chaos emerald tracker. I can't really put rockets on it..” tails said softly as he looked at it feeling ashamed that he was making lame things for his friends. Was this how all of them felt? That the stuff he was making worked but looked dumb. Maybe he could put more work into making things look cool. His friends were cool and nice so they deserved some stuff that looked just as cool as they were.

“Yeah but c'mon man! You could make it cooler! Me and you couldn’t paint it together!” Charmy suggested as he handed the small tracker to Tails who laid it limply in his hand just staring down at it sadly, something inside him made him want to tighten his grip on it and just crush it underneath his claws. His friends deserved better. Better tech, cooler tech, a cooler friend 

“I dunno it’s not made to be painted... it’s too small and i guess it’s just. It’s just not meant to be painted.” Tails said gently looking at the tracker that he had once been fond of with hatred. He used to tracker for so long to find the emeralds. This entire time had he just been hauling around something that his friends hated and thought was uncool.

“Ughh you should make it more cool next time kay?” Charmy said flashing tails what was meant to be a comforting smile but just ended up feeling belittling. Tails dug his claws into his hand as he tried to look unbothered by the bee's words but he couldn't help but feel hurt by how casually he had said it.

Had they talked about this before? Was all his stuff lame like this that they talk about it behind his back?

“ Charmy !” Vector yelled Walking the bee over the head with a warning look in his eyes, they had been having a decent day despite the bee's grumpy behaviour and he wasn’t about to let the bee ruin it by being a little shit.

“Whaat Vector im just being honest!” Charmy said rolling his eyes before fluttering his wings and flying into the beams at the top of Tail's lap with a smug smirk tails watched as Vector looked at the young boy with annoyance before turning to him with a gentle smile, one that made Tails feel safe. 

“Don’t mind him tails he’s an idiot your gizmo looks cool enough!” Vector said with a smile before walking under where Charmy was messing around in the rafters trying to persuade the small boy to just come down and stop being an absolute pest.

But Tails wasn’t focused on that

‘Cool enough?’ He thought to himself. That wording made it sound like he wasn’t doing enough to make it look cool. And maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he had to make his stuff better, cooler, perfect.

His stuff had to be perfect 

____

Maybe he went a bit overboard in his machine but they deserved for him to go overboard! They worked hard and they took care of him and they were just so nice to him. Tails did love them so much and he wanted them to have nice things. Throughout his time with them, they had given him such nice things so they deserved something good in return.

Currently, he was building a new emerald tracker he had ‘accidentally’ broken the last one. It was lying on the floor behind his bin broken into pieces covered in claw marks that he prayed no one ever saw but him. But they were all nosey which meant he would have to hide it better.

Gently he painted the side in a colour he thought they might like, one he hopes they think is cool. He wanted them to think that he was cool. That the things he makes are cool. He thinks they’re cool; he just wants the same treatment.

It didn’t matter how many times he burned himself, cut his hand or electrocuted himself. His arms were completely wrapped in bandages. Bandages that were bloodstained and not applied properly but that didn’t matter much in comparison to what kind of stuff his friends had to do.

After a painstaking amount of hours with lack of sleep, he eventually completed it. It looked cool. He made it look cool for them. They’d love it now! They’d love him now.

His hands hurt, his eyes hurt, everything about him hurt now. He just wanted to crawl into his bed and die but he couldn’t do that. He gently grabbed the emerald tracker with his shakey hands. It hurts to carry anything now. He just wanted to go to his bed and cry but even then he still walked to the living room holding the emerald tracker with a gentleness as he saw Sonic sitting on the couch playing video games. When Sonic noticed him his eyes widened with worry

“Dude?! What happened to your arms, are you ok?” Sonic said in a panic getting up and practically throwing his remote control down as he looked over at his little brother seeing the boy standing there looking messy and scruffy and his hands shook and held a little fancy device. But all Sonic could see was the thick bandages going up his arms with blood mixed into it. 

Tails had practically locked himself in his worship since Charmy had visited. He was working on something. Sonic hadn’t known what the thing was but the boy had practically been obsessed with it. He barely ate or slept and every time Sonic tired forcing him to he found a way around it and went back to work. Sonic hated how the kid was practically ignoring his requests to sleep. All he was doing was working on that thing. Sure sonic knew whatever Tails was working on would be cool but he didn’t want Tails to hurt himself for this. He’d never want that for his baby brother 

“Yes I’m fine, don't worry about me! I finished my inventions ", Tails said, his hands shaking as he struggled to hold even the small device in his hand. He was so tired. He felt like he was about to drop to the floor and pass out. He just wanted his bed but not wasn’t the time to sleep. He had to show Sonic his invention and make sure that it was good enough. That it was cool enough .

“That’s great little buddy but can I see your arms please I’m really worried and those don’t looked wrapped properly” Sonic said. He could look at whatever cool gizmo tails made later his priority right now was making sure that tails were ok. That he was safe, that he wasn’t hurt and that those bandages look like they hurt a lot 

“But I want you to look at this?” Tails asked his voice gentle and shakey. Sonic didn’t miss the way Tails slightly swayed back and forth on his feet as Sonic held the boy's arms in his hand. The little gizmo shaking in his hands as tails looked down at him with exhausted eyes. It looked like the boy genuinely hadn’t slept in days. Sonic was really worried about him

“It can wait, you're more important!” Sonic said gently his focus more on tail's arms as he went to unwrap the bandages to get a good look at his brother's arms. Knowing tails he hasn’t even bothered to disinfect. He was more focused on the machine than his own health and sadly 

“ LOOK AT IT! ” Tails yelled. His lack of sleep and eating and drinking had made him somewhat agree as he practically shoved the device into sonics chest. The older boy winced as the metal banged off of him.

“Jesus calm down I looked at it now let’s get you something better than those wrappings!” Sonic said only spearing a glance at the small machine. Not even long enough to know what it was he unwrapped the boy's bandages gently. There were so many layers to them that it was taking a while.

“C'mon, don’t you think it’s cool?!”  Tails said trying to pry any but if praise out of Sonic that he could but no matter what he said his older brother just focused on his arms. His arms could wait he just needed to sonic to see his invention 

“Sure dude just-“ Sonic said trying to divert the conversation away from the machine and onto the fact that yet again tails had overworked himself. That the eight year old boy looked barely able to stand let alone stay awake for another hour.

“LEAVE ME ALONE” Tails yelled dropping the machine. A look of horror overtook Tail's face as he stared down at the small now broken device. He let out a choked sound as his body started to shake 

“Dude it’s just an invention it’s not that important!” Sonic said softly trying to get tails to calm down but the minute the words came out his mouth he knew they were the wrong ones. Tail's eyes flooded with tears and the tired boy took a step back almost falling but catching himself as he tried and failed to stop the tears on his face.

Suddenly tails booked it down the hall

“Wait for tails just come back-“Sonic said speeding after him but before he could yank his baby brother in for a hug the small boy's door slammed in his face. Sonic could hear tails crying on the other side. 

“Go away!” He yelled after the hedgehog gently knocked trying to get Tail's attention he really didn’t want his little brother to be upset the kid just really didn’t deserve that  “Leave me alone!”

“I’m not leaving you alone you’re upset tell me why your upset I’ll fix it” Sonic said firmly. He was not leaving his little brother like this. He would rather die than leave his little brother alone in his state.

“ Go away, ” Tails said burying his face in his knees and gently hitting the back of his head off of the door as he whispered soft comforts to himself trying to ignore how bad he felt  

“Is it burnout again?” Sonic asked gently he knows how bad his little brother's burnout can be. Days of recovering in bed, having to practically be force-fed just so he would eat. It was a horrible sight and it broke sonics heart every time 

“I’ll be out here when you’re ready just take your time.. take you’re time and I’ll be right here” Sonic said gently, giving the little boy the tenderness that he deserved. Especially in such a vulnerable state. The kid just didn’t deserve it 

“ Ok..”

And even if tails fell asleep on the other side of the door.

Sonic would wait until he woke up.