Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Hey Sonic, what's up?” Tails walked over to the couch and plopped down next to Sonic on his left. Sipping on his juice box and dangling his feet over the edge, before turning to look at his brother.

Sonic’s head snapped out of his thoughts, he was thinking so much, people scared him when they spoke, if he didn’t know they were there. HE WAS THINKING!!

SONIC WASN’T MEANT TO THINK!

What was going on? This was happening a lot recently, Sonic jumping 15 feet in the air after someone talked to him when he was overthinking. Overthinking! Sonic never thought. If anything, he underthought.

Sonic scrambled to find the tv remote and paused the episode of ‘La Última Pasión’ that he was catching up on, seeing as his family was obsessed with it, especially Knuckles. He was being forced to watch it too, but it was quickly forgotten once Sonic’s thoughts started taking over.

Sonic turned and put up a smile to disguise his distressed mind. “Hey bud, nothing much, what’s up with you?” Sonic said so cheerfully, Tails didn’t notice the well-covered undertone of ‘Actually I’m definitely not okay, and I’m freaking out but I can’t tell anyone, but I can’t keep secrets and now I’m thinking! And I have no idea what’s going on-’

Sonic’s just gotten better at putting up his mask, he guessed, if even Tails didn’t notice. Or maybe it was just because he was excited about something, so he didn’t notice, the reason Sonic knew this was because the twin tailed fox was practically buzzing in his seat.

“I can’t wait for later; I’m so looking forward to it!!” Tails was smiling from ear to ear, the back of his feet hitting the edge of the couch, his tails flicking from left to right and his hands held up in fists shaking happily.

Sonic turned his head slightly with a confused look in his eyes but an actual smirk weaving its way onto his lips. “Woah buddy, what are you so excited about?” he asked his little brother, genuinely intrigued by the fox’s sudden animated demeanour.

Tails face lit up in shock “Sonic, I cannot believe, you would forget Saturday game night!” a teasing air to his tone, his hands on his hips in a mocking stance.

Sonic felt like he had been hit with a brick.

Saturday family game night was his and his brother's favourite part of the week. Sonic was so busy thinking and stressing that…, he forgot to be a kid. But Tails only thought about being a kid, an innocent, kind-hearted child. Even though the kit was the smartest of the family, he was also the youngest so, it made sense that such a small thing as family game night made him this happy.

Tail’s gaze turned up to look at his older brother, who had yet answer. He noticed Ozzy getting up from his bed next to the coffee table and moving towards Sonic…and the dog started licking his face. Tails slapped a hand to his face and started laughing.

“Ugh Ozzy, what gives dude?” Sonic complained as he waved his hands around, trying to shove the dog away but Ozzy just persisted.

“You know Sonic,” Tails interrupted Ozzy’s smothering of kisses, resulting in the canine whacking Sonic with his massive golden retriever tail instead. “Dogs can sense emotions like when you’re excited, angry…, stressed.” He hesitated on the last one, not wanting to break the mood, his smile faltering a bit.

Sonic’s shoulder’s tensed, so his brother and his dog could tell he was overthinking, he knew he didn’t do it much, but he didn’t think he was that obvious. He didn’t want Tails -or Ozzy- to worry about him, so he did what he did best, apart from being awesome sauce and running super-fast—changing the conversation.

 “So, I know you’re always excited for family game night, but you seem to be ecstatic about this one, why’s that?” Sonic put his most convincing ‘I’m really interested in this and not thinking about anything else,’ voice. Although he was genuinely trying to distract himself from his thoughts.

Ever since that night in woods last week, when he saw those eyes. Those burning crimson eyes. Shadow’s eyes-

Tails interrupted his thoughts again -thank chaos- by answering the question that Sonic asked. Sonic noticed his little brother’s perky, silly smile was back in his tails flicking and his feet tapping impatiently against the air.

“It’s me and Tom’s turn to choose the games!!” he exclaimed enthusiastically, “and we missed the last one because of that mission, so it feels like we haven’t played a game in foreverrrrrrrr” Tails said in the biggest over-exaggeration as he sprawled over the rest of the couch, his head falling just next to Sonic, his arms and legs flailing all over the place.

Sonic took the opportunity of his little brother leaving himself open, to take advantage of one of the kid’s weaknesses. He was ticklish.

Tails started giggling and kicking as his brother used his hands as spiders over the fox’s fluffy middle and under his arms. Tails tried to push Sonic off him and failed. Pushing only unbalanced him, and Sonic fell heavily, giving Tails a face full of blue fur, and an extreme weight squashing the air out of him.

Knuckles, being the big oaf that he was, jumped up on top of his younger brothers and squished them into the couch. Sonic could feel his bones being crushed, and his brother’s bones breaking under him.

“KNUCKLES!” Sonic and tails shouted at their brother, only slightly annoyed.

Knuckles jumped up off his siblings and onto the table. “Aha! I am of defeating you weak, dishonouring children.” Knuckles shouted, flexing his muscles and hosting a massive smirk on his face.

“Dude—” Sonic began as he rubbed his head, peeling himself off the couch. “What?” he demanded in confusion, staring up at his brother with a dumbfounded expression.

“Knuckles! What was that for?” Tails complained, stumbling onto the floor and immediately face planting into the carpet.

Before Knuckles could give a dense excuse for an answer, they heard the jingle of keys, and Ozzy bolted for the door. Before anyone could stop the hound, he was barking madly. It unlocked and in came Tom and Maddie.

“Hey Ozzy!!” Tom mumbled as he was showered with sluggy, gross dog kisses, like the ones Sonic had endured a few minutes prior.

“Doughnut lord!!” Sonic greeted his father but came to a halt in the hallway once Tom came into full view, Maddie was on the porch not too far behind carrying some groceries. “You’re fixed!” he exclaimed.

Tom starred at him, dumbfounded, before following his son’s gaze down to his arm. A huff escaped his lips. "Yeah, I’m all back to normal, kid, all bones intact.” A smile lit his face as he bent down to ruffle the hedgehog’s fur.

“Could I get some help please, boys?” Maddie asked, her face buried in bags. There was only a couple, but his mom refused to make multiple trips. All the more challenging for him and Knuckles.

They both stared at each other before bolting out the door, almost knocking Tom over, pushing against each other. Sonic got to his mother first and made a quick motion, grabbing the bags, one in each hand. As he turned to run back through the doorway and into the kitchen, his right hand suddenly felt very light.

He looked up, just in time to see a smug smirk on his older brother's face. The echidna went to snatch the other bag from Sonic but no way he was going to let him beat him over the shopping, again! He travelled back through the hallway and into the kitchen, staying out of Knuckles’ reach.

This was completely normal for the teenagers, routine even at this point. Every time Maddie brought any bags that needed to be put away, whether or not she needed help, she would always get it…, to some extent. Knuckles and Sonic bolted to the door, almost knocking someone over during the process, and fought about the whole interaction: the most bags carried, the heaviest bags carried, fastest getting the bags and bringing them in and how fast it got put away. The rest of the Wachowskis didn’t seem to care frankly, as long as the shopping got put away intact and properly, they had no problem with it.

Unless they were the one who got almost knocked over. And sometimes did.

Whoops…

As Sonic heard his older brother tumble his way through the dining room and into the kitchen, he yelled, “Fastest person to put away the groceries doesn’t have to do chores tomorrow!” He knew Knuckles always forgot where everything went, and Sonic had already emptied half of his bag.

Knuckles grumbled in response. He made quick work of getting things away into cupboards, only for Maddie to come into the kitchen and start reorganising his hard work.

“And the blue blur wins again!” Sonic said triumphantly, standing on one of the stools around the kitchen island. “No chores for me, baby. Woooo!”

Suddenly a finger jabbed at Sonic’s tummy, and he almost fell backwards off the seat, but thankfully Maddie had passed behind him, supported his back so he didn’t topple over and pushed down on his shoulders, grounding him to actually sit.

“Not a chance kid, no shopping competition is going to get you out of chores,” Tom said, a light air to his tone, leaning over the island next to where Sonic was sitting.

“Ugh come on, I won fair and square,” the teen complained to his father.

“Good for you bud, but you're still doing chores tomorrow.” His father ruffled the fur on the top of his head and headed to the living room to see Tails playing with Ozzy. “So buddy, what games are we choosing for tonight?”

Tails with the biggest brightest blue puppy dog eyes anyone had ever seen, turned to his father, “Can we please play Monopoly, please, please, please please, pleeeeeeaseee?” He was practically begging, pleading for his dad to say yes. But, to his dismay, that was not the word Tom chose to bless Tails’ ears with.

Tom looked down and stroked between the kit’s ears and his back, the two tailed fox had his arm wrapped around Tom’s leg like a lifeline. “Sorry little guy, you know what happened last time.”

Boy, how could anyone forget that one?

A whimper escaped Tails as tears prickled at his eyes, he didn’t know why he got so upset over such little things, he didn’t understand why his emotions felt so out wack. He always used to get bullied about it when he still lived in his village (well, that and his tails,) he knew it wasn’t a big deal, yet he would get so upset over it, and other small things or changes.

“I know kid, I tell you what,” Tom pried his son’s arms away slightly and crouched down to his level. He looked into his eyes, but Tails seemed to avoid his gaze, opting to looking at his shoulder or the floor. “How about next time it’s our turn to choose, we can play monopoly, okay? How’s that?”

Tails shook his head and smiled at his father, wiping away the tears on the brink of falling. “I’d like that,” he admitted, voice quiet and squeaky.

Tom patted his son's shoulder and stood up, “Why don’t we play some card games tonight,” he suggested. He grabbed a deck of plain playing cards from the shelf he and Tails had been standing next to. “I’ve got a good one I used to play with Sonic that I haven’t taught you guys yet, and you can choose another one too.”

“I know what to play! I can’t reach the card shelf, though.” Tails’ voice was back to a happy squeak rather than his sad squeak. He lifted his arms up and flashed a bright smile to his father.

Tom shoved his pack of cards into his pocket; he bent down and put his hands on the foxes’ sides and lifted the kit up and onto his hip. “Alright buddy, what would you like?” He moved closer to the shelf to give Tails enough room to lean over and grab something safely.

Tails’ tongue stuck out as he searched the shelf for the card game he was looking for, “Oh, it’s that one!” Tails exclaimed and lent over his father’s arm to grab the deck from the shelf.

His son reclined back comfortably into Tom’s arms and looked up at him, beaming. He held the deck up to Tom’s face and showed it to him. He let out a light groan and then a small chuckle.

“UNO!” Tails squealed excitedly.

“Good choice buddy,” Tom said, ruffling his son’s bangs and setting him back down on the floor. “I’ll set this up and you go tell Maddie what you want on the snack plate.”

Tails passed his pack of cards to his father and smiled his bright smiled. He walked out of the living room and into the hallway, heading to the kitchen.

***

“No Sonic, a chilidog is not a snack it’s not going on the plate, you know that. Now come on, choose something else.” Maddie told him soft but firm, the mom voice as he called it.

“Ugh, you guys are so uncool.” Sonic breathed, falling dramatically over the island.

“Yeah, yeah. Right Knuckles, what kind of grapes would you like, we have cotton candy, black or red?” his mother asked, completely ignoring Sonic and opting to ask her other son the stupidest question ever.

Knuckles turned to look Maddie in the eyes, she stared back expectantly while the fridge beeped at her for standing with the door open too long. “Is this one of your confusing human jokes?” Knuckles exclaimed, dumbfounded.

“Yeah, okay, stupid question.” She said and lifted out three enormous bunches of grapes.

“That is so not fair, that’s so many grapes! I only want one chilidog,” Sonic huffed sitting up properly again and crossing his arms.

“Sonic,” his mother warned, “You know we’re having chilidogs tomorrow, if you keep this up you won’t be getting any.”

Sonic audibly gasped and clutched his invisible pearls, “You wouldn’t dare.”

Maddie shot him a warning look, before turning to her youngest who had walked into the kitchen, his tails up and the tips flicking from side to side. “Hey Tails, have you and Tom finally chosen some games for later?”

Tails looked up at his mom and smiled softly, “Yep, we’ve chosen some card games!” he giggled and sat next to his brother. Staring at Sonic, he poked his cheek. Tails turned back to Maddie and questioned, “What's up with him?”

Maddie just shrugged and started arranging Knuckles’s grapes on the tray.

“What Is the purpose of your face, hedgehog?” Knuckles said, mirroring Tails’ confusion.

Was he really getting this upset over a chilidog? There were other foods, but chilidogs will always have the top spot. “It’s hard to choose just one, okay?” He admitted.

Maddie passed behind him and ruffled his quills. “It’s not the decision of a lifetime, Sonic.” She huffed lightly.

His mom then turned to Tails. "What would you like on the snack board, sweetie? Hopefully, you can make a decision in this century,” she joked and shot a glance at her middle child.

Tails tore his gaze from his brother and turned to Maddie, bright baby blue eyes shined it the early evening light, his fingers twitching and his feet swaying on the high stool. “Did you get those mint flavoured KitKats?” He giggled excitedly.

Maddie opened one of the corner cupboards and pulled out a green and red packet of KitKats “These?” she asked, smirking.

“Yes, can I have some of those please Maddie?” Tails questioned politely. He always was polite.

“Of course, sweetheart,” his mom confirmed she passed by him and ruffled his bangs and then poked Sonic in the back of the head, the kid was sitting on the stool, figure slumped slightly in heavy thought, hand holding his head up until Maddie’s light prodding where his head fell dramatically off its perch.

“Hey, what was that for?” Sonic flailed, voice cracking mid-sentence. His mom just giggled softly at his reaction, which only agitated him more, he huffed in response to her.

“Now that we’ve all aged an additional 60 years, have you chosen something?” Maddie exclaimed, she was now arranging Tails’ KitKats on the snack plate.

Sonic huffed again, he would not take all these remarks from his family, it wasn’t his fault he was indecisive!

He made a point of clearing his throat, “Actually I have,” he announced, and before he could continue, his little brother interrupted him very rudely. Though he was kind of polite about it.

“Hurry up, Sonic, we don’t have all day!” Tails, who had had enough of his older brother’s antics, squeaked, the words laced with a joking tone.

Sonic scoffed “As I was saying, I have chosen…Drum roll, please!” He looked around when no one made a sound Maddie was leaning against the counter, arms crossed and a lopsided smile on her face, Tails who was on Sonic’s left looked up at him interest still lingering seeing as he was making such a big deal out of a snack, and Knuckles was just scowling at him.

“Wow, tough crowd,” Sonic admitted.

Maddie stared him down, getting fed up with her son. “Come on Sonic, it’s not the most important decision of your lif-”                

“COOKIES!” Sonic shouted, cutting off Maddie. He huffed a small smile, “Chocolate-chip cookies from the cookie jar…, Please.”

Maddie dramatically let her arms fall to her side as she walked over to the jar that sat on the counter opposite to the one she had been leaning against. She let out a comical sigh “Thank goodness for that!” she exclaimed, a teasing smirk appearing as she did so.

Tom’s head popped out the side of the opening on the side of the kitchen, smile plastered on his face, “Hey, what’s the holdup?” he complained, he looked around the room, noticing that everyone had answered his question by pointing to Sonic, “The usual, got it. Sonic you choose the same thing every time, why does it take you so long?” he questioned, knowing full well he wasn’t getting a straight answer.

Tom, in-fact never even got an answer.

Sonic retorted with a grumble and jumped down from his chair, “Can we just go play games,” He pleaded, not waiting for a reply as he dragged his brothers off their own stools and marched through the dining room, and into the living room where Tom had set up a game of Uno.

***

Game nights with the Wachowskis had always been chaotic -and always will be-, sometimes it was for more obvious reasons and sometimes, Maddie and Tom forgot they were playing games with three anthropomorphic animals from different planets, instead of actual kids. This did not matter though because in their eyes it was just family game night, with their perfect, dysfunctional, crazy family, and tonight was no different.

“KNUCKLES,” Sonic yelled in disbelief, “HOW MANY +2 CARDS DO YOU HAVE!?” He dramatically fell backwards on to the couch once Knuckles had put down his tenth plus two cards, not that Sonic knew that because he had stopped counting after the third one had been placed, and he just starred jaw wide open like a deer in headlights.

Knuckles chuckled, visibly proud of himself. “Payback,” he admitted, a massive smirk plastered onto his muzzle.

Sonic gawked at him a moment longer, before he regained his composure and smiled to himself, “Jokes on you Knucklehead” he followed his statement by proudly slamming his blue plus two onto the coffee table.

Tails, who had been giggling to himself throughout the entire match, was next, because his dad, who sat with his head in his hands, had been finished for quite some time. Tails who had his own little trick up his sleeve, played his plus four, he’d been waiting to use it for a while. He gave a shy ‘sorry’, though he didn’t exactly sound very convincing.

It was now back to Knuckles because, like her husband, Maddie had also finished and even won that round quite a while ago. The echidna let out a happy gruff “Uno,” followed by “yellow” and placed yet another plus four card.

Sonic’s triumphant smile was quickly wiped from his muzzle, he looked at the pile and to Knuckles back and forth a few times before face planting into the table with a loud ‘thud’ “I didn’t even know there were that many plus cards in the game!” he practically cried. He shamefully started picking up his cards from the deck.

Ignoring his brother completely, Tails placed down a yellow card with a happy sing song of the word “Uno,” a bright smile and his namesakes flicking behind him contently.

“Aha!” Knuckles exclaimed triumphantly, placing down a reverse card. “Victory is mine!” he declared to the table, Maddie cave him a pat on the back as some sort of congrats.

“Yes!” Tails practically squealed placing his own last card down, he smiled proudly towards Tom, and his father ruffled his bangs.

Sonic aggressively threw his card down onto the table, crossing his arm and huffing, “I do not lose, Knuckles definitely cheated, a saw him look at my cards!” he tried to make excuses but clearly, they all knew better.

“An echidna warrior does not need to ‘cheat’, we are simply better than you hedgehog,” Knuckles boasted.

Sonic just retorted with a groan.

***

“Does everyone understand the rules now?” Tom breathed, sounding a bit fed up at this point, which, to be fair, was reasonable. He had just attempted to explain the rules to the card game they were about to play to Knuckles, who wasn’t the best at understanding card game rules.

From across the coffee table, Knuckles stared directly into his father’s eyes and answered with a curt “No.”

Maddie watched from beside Knuckles as her husband dropped his head into his hands with a groan. “Okay, why don’t I play with Knuckles, just to help him out a bit,” she suggested.

When everyone around the table agreed, Sonic was happy to finally be distributing the cards. He used the entire deck and made four equal piles. Maddie grabbed her deck before Knuckles could.

Sonic went first. He picked out two cards: four and five. “Two fives.” He exclaimed proudly, he watched intently as Maddie pulled a card out of her own deck and put it down, she claimed it was a five but the look his older brother had on his face betrayed that.

“BULL!”

Sonic turned to see his younger two tailed brother smiling ear to ear, “I said it first,” Sonic said, his thumb pointed towards his chest.

“Did not,” Tails giggled, Tom shook his head in agreement with the kit.

Sonic opened his mouth to retort, but no noise came out, as his attention was caught by something outside the living room window. It was dark outside the sun had almost completely set, some purple clouds were the only colour in the sky.

In the front garden, hiding behind a bush, someone’s head poked over the top, a pair of fluffy ears flicking to the sounds of the night. Though it was dark, there was one thing that was very clear to Sonic, a pair of eyes staring right back at him through the window.

Crimson eyes.

Unmistakably the same ones he had seen last week in the woods, the same burning red eyes, filed with pain, anger and revenge, the same eyes he saw that night on the moon. Shadow’s eyes-

“Sonic!”

He blinked, and the eyes were gone, he must have been hallucinating…, right? A hand waved in front of him, snapping him fully out of his daze. He turned towards Tom, who had a concerned look on his face as he stared at the blue hedgehog.

“You alright their bud? What you lookin’ at?” he questioned.

“Mfine, just…got distracted, that’s all,” Sonic lied.

Tom got up from the couch and sat next to his son, and gave him a side hug, squeezing his arm lightly. “Well, it’s getting late, how about we finish this game and then we’ll get you all tucked in, how does that sound?” he smiled down at his son and then looked around the table.

Maddie raised an eyebrow towards her husband “Because that’s realistic.” She said in a deadpan voice.

This made Sonic and Tom laugh, as they have played this game together, they know full well what Maddie was talking about. It reminded Sonic of the time when they took two hours to play one game, it had taken so long Sonic had fallen asleep multiple times throughout.

To their surprise, the game ended twenty minutes later, and to the surprise of only his brothers, Sonic had won. This was not a surprise to his parents though, because ever since they taught the game to their son, he had been the master at it and won every single time.

“Alright,” Tom declared, standing up and clapping his hands together, “Bedtime, all three of you,”

Sonic, who was now not tired at all, thanks to the intensity from the game of Bull. He made puppy dog eyes -something he learned from Ozzy - toward his father. “Nooooo, I’m not tired anymore,” he complained.

Tails quickly followed his brother’s example, puppy dog eyes and pleading to stay up, he wasn’t really sure why because he was quite tired, but if his brother got to stay up, then so did he.

Maddie stood up, hands on her hips, “Not you too, Tails,” she sighed smiling.

“Okay, old-fashioned way it is,” Tom said, a big smile plastered on his face. Sonic knew what his father was about to do and tried to scramble but it was too late. Tom had swooped his son up from where he was siting, holding him by his sides and flinging him over his shoulder. He used one hand to support the blue blur’s back to make sure he didn’t fall off.

Maddie then swooped up the two tailed kit while he was distracted and laughing at his brother, she held him high up, with both of her hands before passing him to her husband. Tails sat on Tom’s other arm, holding onto his head for support.

Sonic lightly slammed his fists against Tom back and kicked his feet, squirming but no harm behind it. Meanwhile, on Tom’s other side, Tails was contently swinging his feet in the air giggling, his namesakes flicking behind him.

Knuckles, who felt a bit left out because he didn’t mind going to bed and honestly saw no reason to rebel against his parents’ decisions, wanted to be picked up as well. He liked it, because it felt like a victory celebration. Standing up, he turned to his mom and lifted his arm’s up, stating his request, “Up, please”  

Maddie turned her gaze down to see her son with his arms up and a small smile on his muzzle. She smiled fondly at the echidna, “Aw, of course sweetie,” she cooed. Maddie picked Knuckles up and put him to her side, he latched on tightly, but not too tightly, he knew his mom was fragile and tried his very best to be as gentle as possible. She held him close, wrapping her arms around him and stoking his quills. And if Maddie was very quiet, she could hear the light rumble of a purr, something Knuckles didn’t often do.

Tom and Maddie exchanged a look of fondness, smiling at each other, proud of their silly little family. Tom started to walk towards the stairs but not before a few abrupt stops and shakes on the way, that made Sonic and Tails laugh. Maddie followed close behind carrying Knuckles carefully as to not jostle him, the echidna was now practically falling asleep in her arms.

They got to the attic and stood in front if their sons’ beds, Tom let Tails jump off his arm into his bed, he then stood, back to Sonic’s bed, and shoved him off his shoulder, the hedgehog did a sort of flip while falling from his dad’s shoulder and landed with a ‘thump’. Maddie carefully lowered Knuckles onto his bed, who was now fully zonked out and snoring lightly.

Tom went to turn their fan on because in the summer the attic could get quite hot, meanwhile Maddie did her routine of goodnight kisses and hugs. Tom soon came over and did the same. “Night boys,” they both whispered softly.

“Night, guys,” Sonic whispered back, curling into a ball on his mattress.

“Mmmm nightmm,” Tails added slowly falling asleep too.

They both laughed quietly and left the boys to sleep. Though Sonic wouldn’t be doing much of that, but he may as well try.