Chapter Text
It wasn't too long after the baseball game that they arrived at the ice cream parlor. An old-timey thing, it was decorated with striped wallpaper and trinkets like trophies and plaques hanging off the wall that Sonic described to them as "ancient" and nothing more. Except for the fact that "the clock on the wall has a bird that pops out and clucks right on the hour! Tom thinks it's a little annoying but I find the little guy downright adorable," to which Tails eagerly turned toward the clock, hoping the hour was soon, and to which Knuckles scratched his head at. Tails could only assume, well, that he didn't know how to read Earth clocks.
With their bowls of sweet treats in hand, the new rag-tag team of heroes took their spots at a table much lower than the one Tom and Maddie were sitting at. Made for human children, Tails guessed— probably toddlers, which was why the plastic chairs seemed a little too big for Sonic and Knuckles.
"Moose tracks," Knuckles read from the label of his own foam cup, squinting as he held it up in front of him. "What is this? They intend to replicate what sounds like a disastrous flavor?"
"No, no, no— it's like, vanilla and fudge," replied Sonic, "and peanut butter, too. Delicious. It's a mish-mash of texture in your mouth all at once—!"
"And what are those colorful tokens on your own dessert? Some kind of medicine?"
"They're M&M's, dude! And Skittles. I just mix 'em all together— I know, I know, hold your comments, I'm totally a madman!"
From the look on Knuckles' face, he had no idea what that meant, and Tails didn't really get that last comment either. Sure, he knew about M&M's and Skittles: M&M's are the ones with the M on them that taste like chocolate, and Skittles are the ones with an S that taste like fruit. But he couldn't understand why mixing them together would be such a big deal. People could just read what the shell said before eating them, right? After all, the literacy rate in the United States was around eighty percent, give or take, unless he had his research wrong...
"What's wrong, bud? Too much smart stuff going on in your head to take a break?" Tails found Sonic staring at him with a smile, twirling his spoon covered in Neapolitan ice cream and every color imaginable from the stains of the candy toppings. "I promise, the mint doesn't actually taste like toothpaste. And if you don't like it, I'll bug Dad to get you something else."
Dad. Right. Sonic the Hedgehog and his parents— humans, not an owl. Not Longclaw. For some reason, Tails caught Sonic switching between their actual names and relations often. Was that an Earth thing, too?
Not that he'd know if it was a universal thing. After all, he never had parents.
"I was just thinking... There's a lot about Earth I still don't know. And I've been watching you for almost a whole year!"
"Watching ain't the same thing as experiencing! To learn the Earth life, you gotta live the Earth life. And you can't do all it has to offer in just a week."
Just a week. Wow— it felt so much longer than that! Granted, the first forty-eight hours were dedicated to stopping Robotnik from destroying the entire galaxy, so it made a little sense why it felt like this had lasted an eternity. The other half of the reason— Tails attributed it to just how new everything was. A new adventure, new people, new lands.
New friends, too. Being around others was exhausting, Tails found out— but it was so worth it.
"So," Sonic continued, "we'll work on that! No one's expecting you to be a master Earther in such a short time, even with that genius brain of yours." He poked the side of Tails' head with his free hand, and the little fox giggled. "I'm not even a master Earther! But, I have been a citizen for almost nine months now—"
"Not an actual citizen quite yet," chimed Maddie from the grown-ups' table.
"—so, introducing... tour guide Sonic, at your service! Next destination: Earth!"
Tails' eyes lit up.
"Really? You'd do that for us?"
"'Course! Has this blue guy ever let you down?"
"Of course not!" Tails replied at the same time Sonic's face flashed with a bit of guilt. He wasn't sure why Sonic would feel that way, so he continued, "You saved the world, and the entire universe! It'll be awesome getting a tour from a real superhero!"
"Hey, don't count yourself out of that, bud— you played a part in it, too. So did that Knucklehead." He pointed over toward the third member at their table, who'd been... awfully quiet for a little while now. But when Tails looked over toward him, he didn't look contemplative or brooding as Tails expected him to; instead, he was happily chowing down on his large cup of moose tracks ice cream.
With both sets of alien eyes now on him, Knuckles added in his own two cents to the conversation: "Of course. We all found our moment. Put your clever mind to use and do not forget that fact, young fox."
Tails shyly looked down toward the table at his own bowl of ice cream, ears bending down as if they were large enough to cover his bashful expression. The dessert was light-green— something that wasn't natural, so food dye, probably— with chocolate chips mixed in. Tails had mints back on his home planet, and mints alongside chocolate, and chocolate mints, but never in this form.
"And what about the tour, huh? You up for that too, Knuckles?"
"I am always ready to rise up to a challenge, hedgehog. What sorts of lands are we to conquer on this planet's surface?"
"Well, we don't have to stick to just the surface! We could climb up the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, Great Wall of China— been there before, it's a great jogging path when you're not getting chased down by an evil roboticist— oh, or mountains like Everest and Fuji— though actually, I'd like it if we could keep the avalanches kinda planned this time..."
As Sonic rambled on, Tails took a scoop and let it melt in his mouth. It wasn't like a regular mint-chocolate combo at all; it was much sweeter, much creamier. The mint lingered on his tongue, and the chocolate chips added a little kick. It was a lot better than what he imagined it could be like just from looking at it.
Sonic was right; watching wasn't the same thing as experiencing. Not at all.