Guarded

Author's notes 1:

Hi all! This story takes place during Rivals 2, specifically with Silver from a good future. He and Espio are thus not yet in a relationship, but rest assured that is not going to be long in the world this fic takes place in. It's definitely budding already: Espio is having considerations and Silver is on the brink of falling hard. If anyone knows what a good tag for this specific scenario is, please tell me so I can add it. And enjoy!🍀

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"You're always so guarded," is the phrase Silver figures might very well characterise his whole life.

It makes him want to yell, grab everyone who says it by the shoulders and rattle them to their bones until the truth of the matter has firmly been knocked into their skulls. Yes, he wants to tell them, yes, he is guarded, and because of that their world is still alive. If it hadn't been for him stumbling upon Eggman Nega as a little kid and being told in crystal clarity what the man had wanted to do with Selenite City and the planet at large, it'd have been over of them.

Which nobody else seems to realise.

Or care about if they do.

"I just don't get it," his mother, not that his mind attaches much of a face or a sound of her voice to the memory, had chastised him one day, some time after the first fateful meeting with that madman Silver had readily decided would be his archnemesis until the end of time. "You always used to be so outgoing and cheerful. When did you become so guarded?"

In his memories Silver defies how that confrontation actually went and yells back at her, shows her what he learned later about just the extents Eggman Nega would go to get what he wants, and she is... not shocked. Not horrified. Not sorry. He doesn't dare think about how she would have reacted, though it doesn't matter anyway, since he hasn't gone home to her and his father in years. Same as with school. "Stop looking out of the window. Stop being so distracted. Why are you being so guarded?" had been flung to the back of his head every single day when every noise had made him jump and scour the world outside, because what if it had made for the onset of an attack by Eggman Nega? Also there he'd turned his back on it all and left to never return. He was more than fine with it all, his guardedness making him the one person keeping an eye on things in a future where everybody thought no harm could ever befall them, and thus once Eggman Nega had risen into a true world-endangering threat it had been only Silver who was ready to take the fight to him immediately. And that has led the both of them here, to this place called Quartz Island in the past.

The past is just as uncaring about the dangers the world faces as Selenite City is, though at this rate he honestly isn't sure if he can ever expect something else.

Except for one person.

Quietly Silver steps beside his enigmatic companion, if he can call Espio a companion. At the very least, someone who offered his help- someone who proclaimed he believes the things Silver is saying. That's more than anyone else has given him here, Silver notes with a sour huff, merely flicking back an ear at the curious golden glance sent to him from the corner of Espio's eyes. But Sonic is being as much of a nuisance as always, Knuckles has been nothing short of a jerk, and even Shadow has gone right back to being as unhelpful as possible. The people they have in tow are equally useless as well, unwilling to listen or getting in the way or both; it's nothing short of woefully frustrating.

But he has to keep moving on, Silver urges himself. He's the one person who can stop this disaster from happening, and thus it does not matter if everybody else is against him, because he's always been enough, and he will be enough, and he will save this world and his future and all the people in both.