#and comes to a head during the climax of fibula and metal's story like it's Super important

[son1c]

y'all don't even know about what happens after fibula encounters femur that first time... because, like, sure, he runs away from her. he flees the graveyard and disappears into the woods because he can't bear to face her.

but he doesn't go back to eggman. he can't. he's panicking too much to think straight. stumbling through the trees, overwhelmed by a cavalcade of emotions brought forth by seeing his sister again. he thought she was dead, but she's not. he thought, if she was alive, that she wouldn't care about him anymore. but she does. clearly--since she was visiting his grave, and leaving him gifts.

fibula is CRASHING through the woods, making so much noise and not caring at all about how many plants he's trampling underfoot. the flickies are pissed. he doesn't care. he doesn't even see them.

all he can see is his sister's face--older. her eyes, confused. because she doesn't recognize him.

and it hits him all at once the situation that he's in. undead. stitched together with chaos energy and mechanical legs. a monster. he never cared before. in fact, he actually thought it was pretty cool to be a monster. but his own sister's failure to recognize him causes his still heart to twist painfully.

is this really right? everything he's done since being revived, all the torment he's caused and ENJOYED causing... he's rethinking it now that he's seen femur again. because even though being a menace has made him happy, what would his sister think? would she be disappointed? or, worse...

would she be afraid of him?

the thought of it causes him choke and stumble, and by this point he's made enough of a ruckus to attract the attention of a certain blue hero... who of course, starts on a quip about how he wasn't planning on kicking any zombie butt today, but...

and then sonic sees The Absolute State(TM) that fibula is in, and whatever he was going to say dies in his throat. cuz he's seen a lot of stuff, but one of his enemies crying their eyes out? gotta say, this would be the first time. meanwhile, fibula is NOT EXCITED about running into sonic, because spilling so many tears--which are actually just liquefied chaos energy, aka the stuff KEEPING HIM ALIVE--has left him exhausted, and he doesn't think he has any energy left to fight.

and he's right! because he collapses shortly after sonic steps closer, his ears perking up curiously after fibula chokes out something about his sister... and when he wakes up some time later, he finds himself strapped to another metal table (different from the one eggman revived him on).

as it turns out, fibula's little "face down in the dirt" stunt from earlier made sonic think he was dead. like DEAD dead, for real this time. so, our favorite blue hero dragged fibula back to tails' lab to see if he could fix it. (tails, of course, was baffled by the situation, but a chance to examine eggman's handiwork up close could be useful regardless of the fact fibula is less tech and more flesh than most things the doctor works on.)

immediately, fibula tries to break free, but tails has that shit locked down, so the restraints don't budge. then, fibula remembers seeing femur earlier, and resigns himself to laying on the table. it's not that he's given up, it's just... this might be the worst day of his life (and the competition is pretty steep, so that's really saying something).

meanwhile, tails isn't sure what to do. by this point, he's noticed that fibula is awake, but sonic isn't around--he ran off once it was clear that tails had the situation under control--so he doesn't have his big brother to guide him. and he doesn't even really know fibula. since this is the first time they're directly interacting (before this, all tails would've heard was wild tales from sonic, amounting to nothing more than spotty secondhand knowledge).

and the thing is, fibula has no idea who tails is either. all he can see is that he's a kid. and fibula has a very strict rule against hurting kids (because they remind him of his sister. who is apparently still alive. and doesn't recognize him. oh, man--)

fibula forces himself to say something. "you don't look like you work for eggman," probably. with his typical snark, but it lacks its usual bite.

tails would scoff. an astute observation from the guy who was clinically dead a few minutes ago, he thinks. then, he tells fibula that he doesn't work for eggman, because he's on the opposite team.

that makes fibula grimace. great. so, he's strapped to an ENEMY'S table. and then he remembers running into sonic after having his little freakout in the graveyard, and everything starts to make a little more sense.

and of course THAT is when sonic saunters back in, probably with a snack in hand like, "how's it goin' in here, tails?" all casual-like. but he Knows. and fibula knows that he knows. and fibula is DETERMINED to act like nothing happened and sonic didn't see ANYTHING and nothing is wrong. so he instantly snaps back, because now he can focus on being a jerk again instead of whatever awful feelings have been brewing in his gut since last night...

and tails watches. he watches as fibula and sonic bicker and comments on fibula's strange state of not-life, not-death but fibula ignores him on purpose... until tails gets fed up and states bluntly that maybe he shouldn't've revived him, even though sonic asked, cuz he's so mean.

and there's half a second where fibula has nothing to say. SONIC helped him? even though they're enemies? but then fibula sneers at sonic and says "your mistake."

and sonic has that fucking look in his eye... you know... the one where he thinks he knows everything. the "we'll see about that"-type look. and fibula hates it so much because it just adds to his Inner Turmoil(TM). like, he's evil now! he's evil! and bad! and a no-good, rotten hedgehog!

and he's also strapped to a table. and owes his not-life to a tiny little fox, apparently.

and for the first time since sonic showed up, fibula looks at tails. he looks him right in the face with his unsettling orange eyes that shouldn't be. and he says, "your big bro thinks he's got it all figured out. but you're the smart one, i can tell. so i'll take your word over his."

and tails kinda like... falters. cuz he wasn't expecting that? and fibula doesn't realize it, but what he said reveals a lot of his inner conflict to tails. cuz he's right... tails IS the smart one. and when tails eventually lets fibula go, and fibula scampers back to the empire, tails is left wondering about fibula and his cracked facade