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skimmingmilk · 3 months ago

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Pizza and a Pretty Solid Pep Talk

A/N: One shot fic based on TailsTube episode 11

His face burned as the hushed murmurs of students in the corridor whispered past his ears. Dozens of phone screens lit up in their hands and any eyes that weren’t preoccupied by their pocket pixels followed him on his exodus through Spagonia University’s hallowed halls of knowledge. A place he’d always felt safe to explore his ideas, where all questions and theories were welcomed and encouraged and never made to feel like… to feel…

Childish.

Stupid Orbot. Stupid Eggman for creating such stupid dumb bots time and time again. If only Tails had thought to have his tools on him, he’d have dismantled the pile of scrap in seconds and turned his overinflated head into a bowling ball.

He couldn’t even pretend all eyes weren’t actually on him, given that the Miles Electric 2.0’s massive external monitor was floating just behind him like a big, yellow version of his own scarlet letter, leaving no question what social faux pas he’d been branded with. Even if they didn’t watch TailsTube, news would make its way to the student body eventually. He had amassed enough of an audience over the months that surely talk of his most recent show was already trending on random people’s “For You” pages. Students would recognize their school or their professor and curiously click to see what it was all about.

The ornate, glass doors to the university swung open as Tails shoved his way through, frustration still simmering on a low heat as he barely kept himself from stomping down the stone steps like a child who hadn’t gotten his way. Even if, technically, that’s what he was.

“This has been very… cute.”

Embarrassing had been an understatement. Tails had been humiliated. He’d managed to keep his cool for his audience, used to embodying a certain persona for his livestreams that made him sound intelligent as well as relatable. A reliable source of information to combat the swathes of misinformation people like Eggman and other enemies of freedom who crawled out of the woodwork to sow panic and doubt in the minds and hearts of the masses.

All of that would’ve been undone in seconds if he’d let his composure slip, and it nearly had.

Cute.

Tails couldn’t think of anything more insulting than to be condescended to by a fellow scholar.

The intensity of his glare was enough to burn holes into his sneakers on his descent of shame. As he rounded the stone fountain set in the center of the steps, his downturned gaze caught sight of a familiar pair of shoes just at the edge of his field of vision. Tails stopped. His tails, which had been discreetly tucked around his legs, flicked themselves free instinctively. Whether out of irritation or elation was still up to the jury in his mind, but the moment Tails lifted his head, his surly expression softened.

Sonic sat perched on the edge of the fountain with a flat, cardboard box beside him. A lopsided sort of smile pulled at his muzzle as he watched him, waited for him. He wasn’t supposed to be in Spagonia today. He’d been hanging out with the Chaotix in Seaside City for the past couple of days. He’d even gone as far as to make a big fuss about Tails being in Spagonia, claiming he’d purposefully picked the setting for his first livestream on the road to be somewhere Sonic wasn’t close to just to spite him, despite having told him his plans when he first started organizing his itinerary and guest list weeks ago.

But Tails knew, even if Sonic wasn’t always around in-person for his shows, he never missed a single one. He was always the first comment in the chat, always claiming that title too, because no one was beating the fastest thing alive to his best buddy’s streams. This one wouldn’t have been any different, regardless of being in another timezone, on another continent.

“Was in the mood for some pizza,” Sonic volunteered as an answer to Tails’s unspoken and unnecessary question. He knew exactly why he was here.

He’d seen everything.

“Couldn’t get one in Seaside City?” Tails asked dryly, though his tone was a little too flat for their usual banter.

“Nah, they just can’t do it like Spagonia!” Sonic flipped open the lid of the box, revealing a fresh pizza piled high with soft discs of mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, arugula, and garlic; Tails’s toppings of choice. “Might’ve been feeling a bit nostalgic, too. This was Chip’s favorite place to get pizza.”

It might’ve been a ploy to tug at Tails’s heartstrings, but if Sonic had been watching the live stream, then he’d absolutely heard them discussing Dark and Light Gaia. He’d have seen Orbot’s cartoonish rendition of Sonic with Chip, their doodles surprisingly accurate for someone who hadn’t even been invented yet at the time of that particular adventure. Tails’s gaze drifted to Sonic’s wrist, the one Chip’s bracelet sometimes adorned, but it was hidden by the lid of the pizza box so he couldn’t tell if the token was there as a reminder as well. His brother wasn’t often the sentimental sort, but after the events of the Starfall Islands… he’d been a bit more…

Well, as he’d put it himself, nostalgic.

Tails didn’t fight it; he let Sonic’s not-so-subtle attempt at comforting him carry him to his big brother’s side. “It was the only place we took him to get pizza,” he replied, knocking his shoulder into Sonic’s as he settled on the fountain’s edge beside him.

Sonic nudged him back in playful retaliation, then grabbed a slice from the box and held it out to Tails. “Alright, smart guy. Even if we'd taken him to every pizza place on the planet, it'd still have been the first place he ever had pizza with us, which makes it pretty special in my book.”

“You really are feeling nostalgic, huh.” Tails took a small bite, watching as Sonic attempted to wrestle his own slice out without losing too many toppings. “You know what that means. You're getting old.”

“Pfft. Yeah, right. I'm as spry as a hedgehog half my age,” he boasted, kicking up one leg over the other as he took a huge bite.

“No cap, you just don’t have that rizz, fam.”

“Half of those aren’t even words. Stop speaking witch.” Sonic flicked Tails in the forehead, grinning when it got a laugh out of the kid. “You’re cringe, little bro.”

“What can I say? I learned from the best.” Tails stuck his tongue out at him.

“And yet somehow still severely lacking in the sense of humor department,” Sonic drawled, polishing off the rest of his pizza slice.

Tails glanced down at his own slice, but didn’t take another bite as he picked at one of the cherry tomatoes threatening to slide off the end. He was suddenly extra conscious of the sounds around them; the steady trickle of water as it flowed from the fountain into the shallow pool just behind them, the hum of distant car engines in the streets throughout the city, and constant clatter of footsteps on stone as pedestrians passed them up and down the stairs. Watching them when they walked by. Whispering.

Tails’s ears drooped, but even that couldn’t drown them out. “And the rolling with the punches department,” he murmured.

Sonic glanced over at him. “Nah, I’d say you’re pretty good at that.”

“And I’d say you’re pretty biased,” Tails huffed, then shrugged one shoulder self-consciously. “I dunno. Could’ve handled today better. I just let Orbot roll over me completely, which is pretty pathetic on my part considering he doesn’t even have wheels. Or treads.”

Sonic cast a glance at the giant yellow monitor still hovering nearby. “You were hosting your livestream and interviewing someone you really admired. A meeting of the minds, like you said. You didn’t show up here thinking you’d need to square up for a fight. He caught you off-guard on purpose, that was the whole point. His ‘revenge’ scheme, or whatever.”

“Yeah, and I let him,” Tails sighed, slumping forward. “You wouldn’t have let something like that slide.”

“No, but I’m not exactly known for my tact, am I?” Sonic’s smile turned rueful as he tapped his fist against Tails’s shoulder. “Don’t really care what people think of me either, which isn’t super helpful when it comes to building a rapport with ‘em. You know firsthand how many people I piss off on a regular basis, and half the time it’s not even on purpose! Something tells me that professor gal definitely would’ve been one of ‘em. I don’t think she’d have appreciated me trashing her office with busted up robot pieces.”

Tails tried to imagine it, and the picture it painted wasn’t a pretty one. “Probably not.”

“Ya kinda had your hands tied, partner. But you salvaged what you could. You didn’t completely burn a bridge with that professor, after all.”

“What are you talking about?” Tails’s brow furrowed as he stared at Sonic in sheer disbelief. “The interview was a complete disaster. There’s no salvaging any of that. She called me cute. You know what you call cute? Chao, babies, Cream’s tea parties, Knuckles when he understands a reference. You know what’s not supposed to be cute? Scientific discoveries. Cosmic theories. Bridging gaps in the timelines of our planet’s history. I look like a joke. A laughing stock to everyone in a field focused on the pursuit of knowledge. Tori—Professor Victoria—even made up a fake lecture so she could get out of the situation. I checked her class schedule ahead of planning the interview. She was clear for the next hour. But she knew spending even a second longer with me would’ve been a waste of her time.”

“At least she made up an excuse,” Sonic pointed out.

Tails bristled. “What do you mean ‘at least?’”

“If she really didn’t want anything to do with you, she probably would’ve just said so. The fact that she made something up means that, maybe, she didn’t want to burn a bridge with you either. Besides, didn’t she say you guys could continue your conversation another time? I’d like to think she wouldn’t make a point to say that just to be polite.”

Tails blinked, the creases in his forehead smoothing out as he considered the logic behind Sonic’s words. “She’s a professional. An educator. Not to mention an archaeologist and historian. There’s a certain level of decorum she has to adhere to in this line of work. And unyielding patience is practically a job requirement.”

“Then maybe she’ll have some of that patience on hand the next time the two of you cross paths.” Sonic’s eyes crinkled with his smile. “Because she’ll remember a sweet kid who didn't push or press his luck and respected her decision to back out of a conversation that got outta hand, even though he was totally in the right to call her out on it. And she’ll give that kid the second chance he deserves.”

It might’ve been more of Sonic’s bias on full display, but Tails had to admit it helped to hear. “You really think so?”

“You bet,” Sonic assured him, slinging an arm around Tails’s shoulder, the comfortable and familiar weight of his brother’s belief in him made it a bit easier to bear the burden of his own embarrassment and disappointment. “And if she doesn’t, then maybe she’s not the kinda mind worth meeting.”

“Yeah, I guess you have a point,” Tails agreed a little reluctantly.

“I have several, actually,” Sonic teased, gesturing towards his own quills.

Though it was absolutely a joke worth rolling his eyes at, Tails let him have that one since he brought him pizza and a pretty solid pep talk. “I was really looking forward to meeting her.”

Sonic’s cheeky grin eased up at the soft admission and the way Tails leaned against him for comfort. “I know, bud. I’m sorry it wasn’t everything you hoped it would be.” He rubbed his arm, then gave him a firm squeeze. “Wanna try and track down bolt brains before he goes crawling back to old egghead and take out some of that disappointment on him? Maybe turn his empty head into something that’s actually useful. Like a bowling ball.”

Tails snorted and his twin tails fluttered as his mood improved; they really were cut from the same cloth. “Nah. Let him think he’s won this round. I’ll get him back when he least expects it.”

“Atta boy,” Sonic praised, removing his arm so he could ruffle the fur atop his head instead. “Keep me posted. I’ll want popcorn and a front row seat.”

“You got it.” Tails held out his fist and bumped it against Sonic’s before reaching for another slice of pizza. “So you heading back to Seaside City after this?”

“Eh. Figured I came all this way, might as well do a little sightseeing.” Sonic nabbed a second slice for himself. “Whaddya say? Mind if I tag along for a bit?”

Tails shook his head, holding up his pizza like he would a glass for a cheers and Sonic met him halfway. “For a bit,” he agreed, his grin all teasing before his eyes lit up. “Oh, but first—Professor Pickle’s got open office hours in a few minutes. Want to stop by and say hi while we’re here?”

“Sounds good to me. It's been a while since I’ve checked in on the old prof.”

Sitting on the edge of the historic fountain, sharing a pizza between them, and equally recognizable on their own rights, Sonic and Tails might've attracted a few curious stares and been the subjects of hushed conversations. But they sloughed off Tails like cherry tomatoes off melted cheese, because what they thought of him didn't actually matter. Not when he had someone like Sonic in his corner. He knew what he'd experienced, what he was capable of. He knew his own merit.

Someday the world would see it, but for now, Sonic was more than enough.

He could always count on Sonic to see him.

---

A/N: I would’ve had this written faster, but we had a party at work earlier in the day so I was away from my desk for most of it and then I had tummy ache when I got home :( It shouldn’t be so hard to write with tummy ache.

Anyway, I just have one thing I’d like to say: Tails, babes, sweetheart, why is your floating monitor so huge. Honey, how do you take that on the road with you? Where do you pack it? That can’t possibly fit in the tornado, it’s like a 50” television.

The thought of it just floating around behind as he walks through Spagonia was just too funny for me, so I gave up on trying to logic the compatibility and portability of this stupid thing. I love it.

Also I based Tails’s favorite pizza toppings on some of the ingredients that can be found in his recipes in the Sonic Cookbook. I feel like he’d really like curry pizzas based on the spices in his chickpea recipe, but for a more traditional Spagonia pizza, I went with some of the veggies in his fish skewers recipe, as well as combinations I saw on the menu of an Italian restaurant I ate at while I was in France a few years ago, since Spagonia has both of those influences in its design, lol.

Lowkey, part of me also thinks Tails would enjoy a caper, olive, and anchovy pizza… like his recipes also have a salt and vinegar component to them that makes me think he’d be onboard with that xD Not so sure about Sonic though. He's an adventurous guy, but something makes me think he wouldn’t be super keen on that combo, so I played it safe with the cherry tomatoes and garlic. Both these boys love their tomatoes and garlic <3

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