New Beginnings

Chapter 40 - Conviction

"I need to talk to Espio."

With elation and fear stirring inside him in equal measures Silver stared at the doughnuts floating just above his hands, his words the first thing disrupting the silence in which they had been walking for a while now. Sonic had been surprisingly quiet, but where he would have considered it a merciful blessing on any other day right now it only made all his emotions race through him only more... "Just... about some things. Nothing, um- I mean, everything important," he added clumsily at the curious hum of the Blue Blur, not even sure where he wanted the chat to go; but he despised the quietness and despite his earlier enthusiasm to go talk to the chameleon and tell him how he wanted to make him happy his worries had not taken long to catch up with him. "I'm just not sure..."

"How to begin talking to him," Sonic finished with a surprising amount of understanding, the psychic only able to nod feebly at that. And he didn't; he did not even know what he wanted to say during the upcoming conversation itself, let alone how to ask Espio about what the other was thinking. Leaving, staying, the future, the past... He wanted both and he could have only one, and every time he tried to reason in one's favour the other immediately jumped in and blocked out the attempt with objections and fears, and thus he was spinning in circles while getting absolutely nowhere. Letting the packaged doughnuts sink down onto his palm he sighed deeply; maybe talking to Sonic would help, as it had before.

"M-maybe that's weird, but..." Nervously he swallowed. "Sometimes I'm just... happy, but then I get confused, or angry... at myself, or... wanting to not be here, or... Not- not here-here, just... But other times I do want to be here, because Espio is here, so..."

Beside him Sonic hummed once more. "So you don't know what you want."

"...I do know," Silver objected quietly. "My head and my heart both know, but... they want something different."

"Sometimes that happens." Slowing down his pace the speedster smiled at him, warm and assuring and making Silver smile back timidly despite everything. "I myself am more of a heart-follow guy, but that is very personal. But remember how I told you Espio and I would help you if that ever happened? We can chat it all over and see, if you want. I wanted to talk to you about last night anyway."

"Last night...?" Too much had happened last night, and Silver averted his eyes at the words with his cheeks heating up just barely. Sonic couldn't know, could he...? "I- I mean! Maybe... that's a good idea. To talk. About right now." Because if he had to go talk to Espio like this he'd draw a flustered blank, and that would make everything go awful for sure.

With an amused grin the Blue Blur gestured for him to follow, diverting course with the bags overflowing with all the stuff from the 'supermarket' in his hands. Apprehensively the time traveller followed, to a tinier area overflowing with trees and plants a bit away from the street he doubted he would have seen, and scraping together all his courage he followed Sonic into the shadows. The paths were yellow instead of the black and grey they usually were, he noted, and it was a lot more green too; he'd never seen anything like it, the forest they had gone too ages ago not having such paths inside it. Though, despite its novel beauty he deeply sighed as he padded after the other until they had reached a curious piece of wooden furniture Sonic sunk down onto with no hesitation. "So... what now?" Silver mumbled out, slowly sitting down next to him; he hadn't known people also put furniture outside, though whatever desire to explore and study it he might have felt got drowned out immediately by the clamour in his heart and mind.

"The first thing you want to do is find out what is making you feel so conflicted," Sonic explained, voice calm as Silver fiddled with his gloves. "If I may take a guess; it's because of the future, right?"