Sonic and Tails Brotherly Oneshots (Sonic Boom version)

Chapter 17

    This is for Día de Los Muertos Day, this time with some Knuckles comfort. I know that this book is mainly about Sonic and Tails, but I was thinking that there has to be more of these stories with Tails and Knuckles; after all Knuckles is more the "overprotective brother" of the group, especially to Tails.

    Everyone all over the world knows that Día de Los Muetros (Spanish for "Day of the Dead") was about honoring those who had died, whether it be friends and/or family, and remembering them. In the case of a certain two-tailed fox, it was clearly no exception; just because he moved on from the pain of it, doesn't mean it still hurt. Tails was currently sitting in his workshop doing some tinkering to his stuff. But one could plainly see that his mind wasn't fully on it. At one point, he looked up at the windowsill upstairs at a white flower pot that housed a tiny green plant. That said plant was Cosmo. Tears pooled in his eyes as he remembered what she did. As heroic as her sacrifice was, it had a huge amount of sadness that in the end, Tails and Cosmo weren't meant to be. Feeling his sadness win, he decided to head inside his house so that he didn't ruin anything on his desk.

    Once inside, he took deep, calming breaths to fight off the tears. It would've work if it weren't for two tears that managed to escape from his closed eyes. He decided to call Sonic, but then remembered that he was on a dangerous solo mission to stop Eggman for a few days. He hoped that his big brother was okay; he missed him. A knock sounded at the door, interrupting his thoughts. "Who is it?" he said.

    "It's me, Knuckles," said the visitor from the other side. "Mind if I come in?"

    Tails smiled a little. "Not at all," he said. "Honestly, I wouldn't mind some company at this point."

    At that, Knuckles opened the door and came in. Upon laying eyes on the fox, hew immediately knew something was wrong. "Hey, you okay, little buddy?" he asked.

    Tails shook his head. Confused and concerned, Knuckles came over to him and knelt down next to him. "What's wrong?" he asked. "You miss Sonic?"

    Tails nodded. "And not just that," he said, his voice thick with sadness which he failed to hide. "Do you know what day it is?"

    Knuckles scratched his head, trying to think of an answer, until his eyes landed on Tails's calendar. On it were written the words "DAY OF THE DEAD" written in red letters. His mind started to put the pieces together as he then glanced back at Tails. Carefully studying his facial expressions and body posture, it finally clicked. "It's Cosmo as well, isn't it?" he said.

    Tails nodded once more, finally bursting into tears. Acting on instinct, Knuckles reached out his arms towards the fox, but stopped short, hesitating. He didn't want to scare him, and he was also uncertain on how to approach this; Sonic was the expert on this sort of thing. His brain racking with any ideas, he took a deep breath and asked, "You okay for me to hug you?"

    He didn't need a verbal answer for that. Tails just looked up at him before running forward and jumping at him, throwing his arms around him and burying his face into his neck, nuzzling him as he began crying. Knuckles froze in place with wide purple eyes, surprised at the sudden reaction. Unsure, he slowly wrapped an arm around Tails until he saw that he wasn't refusing it. With a sad but sympathetic smile, he brought his other arm around him and held him close, gently rubbing his back. "Want to talk about it?" he asked.

    Tails just shook his head, which Knuckles understood; Cosmo's death had hit Tails the hardest out of all of them. He was about to ask him something else when a crash was heard outside. Tails shot his head up, frightened. "What was that?" he said.

    "I don't know," Knuckles answered. "Let's go find out."

    Putting Tails down, the two headed outside, only to see that the crash was actually from a few jerks who thought it would be a good idea to trash Tails's workshop. Seeing that one of them was heading right for Cosmo's flowerpot, Tails instantly ran to stop him, getting there just in time for him to yank it off the windowsill and put it somewhere safe. Glaring angrily, the jerk advanced on him. "What the heck?" he growled.