Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As the sky turned to a flaming orange blaze with streaks of yellow and a light red tint, mimicking the burning bonfire in front of him where his family was gathered. Sonic thought back to the events that happened a mere 24 hours ago. Sonic was still quite shaken up by the events, and he couldn’t understand how his brothers weren’t still totally freaked out, because he sure was. Not that he would ever admit to such a thing, because he’s a hero, heroes don’t get scared after their near-death experiences, and being scared is SO uncool.

He could hear everyone laughing, as if nothing had happened. But it HAD happened, he was still shaking at the thought of how it had felt to plumet down to earth. He could still feel the burn, as if he was on fire, his brain going blank and his limbs going numb. Plummeting to earth from all the way in space was definitely NOT what he had thought to put on his bucket list that night, in the bar, with Tom.

Tom. He had almost died that day, at the G.U.N facility, and all Sonic had done was sit at his side and plead, he didn’t check to see if he was breathing, nor did he check for broken bones. He just sat there with tears in his eyes, not daring to let them fall. He was pathetic.

Sonic found himself on a log where he was barely perched. His knee bounced against his elbow, one hand supporting his head, the other pulling on his back quills. The rough bark rubbed against his soft cobalt furred legs. His eyes were now solely staring up to the nebula in the sky, after having been looking around the forest frantically, waiting, waiting… waiting for… waiting for something. Anything.

Sonic almost jumped out of his skin as a tough hand grazed his shoulder. Recovering from the humiliation he felt flush his cheeks, as he focused back on the present, just to see his dad staring down at him with a concerned look on his face.

“You okay there bud? You seem kinda...” Tom looked Sonic up and down, analysing his terrible prawn like figure. “Stressed, to say the least,” he finally announced, a slight frown creeping on to his lips.

Desperate to regain himself, Sonic let his arms fall to his side and his hands found the log and tightened a grip as hard as he could muster. He straightened his figure to resemble his normal perky, proud self. The blue mobian put on the calmest natural smile he could muster as he turned to look his dad in his eyes.

“Yeah, I’m good, though I think I had a few too many s’mores, cus’ my stomach doesn’t seem to be doing so well,” he all but rambled out, at least some of it was true. He, tails and Knuckles had gotten into a bit of a competition to see who could stuff the most s’mores

Tails, the poor kid felt queasy after his 4^th. Sonic start to regret his decision as he was the one to suggest this idiotic idea, after twenty minutes of burning his mouth on what you could only call charcoal, trying to keep up with the echidna, And Knuckles was still going, mumbling something about being an ‘echidna warrior’, or some jazz like that.

“You sure it wasn’t because you downed 5 chilidogs one-after-the-other?” Tom suggested with a slight smirk, clearly thinking back to how the cobalt hedgehog’s peach muzzle had turned green, after scoffing half the chilidogs without even taking a breath in between.

“Well, that wasn’t my smartest of ideas.” Sonic admitted as he rubbed the back of his neck, and his cheeks blushed a light pink.

“None of your ideas are smart Sonic.” Tom retorted, his tone a little less teasing, a small smile still gracing his lips.

Sonic knew he wasn’t exactly the smartest, but he wasn’t supposed to be, being smart was Tails’ thing, he thought as his gaze turned back to both of his brothers being smothered by Maddie, who was, by looks of things attacking them with a wet paper towel, saying something about chocolate and fur not being a good mix.

Sonic’s thing was being fast and acting before thinking, which usually ended in him running straight into the danger or running his mouth. “May I remind you,” he finally announced, “That pretending to be Walters was your genius idea, not mine,” he said in a matter-of-fact way as he waved a finger towards his father’s broken arm.

Tom’s shoulders tightened slightly, his smile faltered, looking down at his cast, clearly not needing a reminder. “You-uh…” His voice slowed and went a little softer as he spoke hesitantly. “You never told me what-uh, what happened while I was in the hospital.” His gaze turned up to the nebula in the sky.

Sonic gulped as he followed his dad’s gaze up to the sky above. The nebula was a strong reminder of what had happened, the bright orange fireball with a purple and blue mist around the warm center.

“I…uhm.” Sonic started to stammer out, his eyes slowly turning glassy. He felt an arm snake around his shoulders. As he leaned into the touch, Tom slowly stroked the speedster’s arms, slightly ruffling his short blue fur.

Tom’s voice was calm and slow as he spoke to his son. “You don’t have to bud, it just seemed like something was on your mind and I thought, you might want to talk about it.”

Sonic helplessly rubbed at his eyes, begging them not to let a single tear fall. “I broke our oath,” he said slowly, his voice breaking slightly. He tried his best to regain himself before he spoke again. “I took the emerald and I flew up to the eclipse canon to find Shadow.” He almost choked trying to say his name.

Tom could feel the blue hedgehog shudder under his touch, his voice shook as he looked back down into his son’s eyes, but Sonic just let his eyes fall to his shoes.

“I attacked him f-for what he did to you.” He tried to swallow his distress down, he knew Tom was okay now, why was he still so upset about it? “I didn’t know if you were okay, so I took my revenge out on him.”

Tom didn’t know what else to do but sit next to his son, comfort him, and listen. He had no idea that this was what was happening while he was in the hospital, resting.

“We were on the moon and those things that you told me, your words went through my head, and I realised that I was doing the wrong thing.” Not wanting to share everything, Sonic chose his words carefully, some things are better when they’re not said. “I finally got to talk to Shadow, I just wish we didn’t have to wait till the last second to talk with our words instead of our fists.”

A small smile creeped back onto his face “So you do listen to me.” Tom chuckled lightly as he squeezed Sonics arm. He didn’t like seeing his son so sad, but he knew it would do him some good to talk about it. Sonic was the type that, if you don’t ask him to talk about his feelings, he’ll just bottle them up. Though the kid loved talking, feelings really weren’t his strong suit.

Sonic scoffed lightly as he looked up at his dad with a ‘seriously?’ look plastered on his face, as his dad just chuckled again. He wrapped his arms around Tom and buried his face into his father’s chequered shirt. His dad’s hand stroked his blue quills and scratched behind Sonic’s ear with the other.

Suddenly Tom and Sonic found another pair of arms wrap around them, Tom looked up as his eyes met with his wife’s, when Maddie looked down Tom followed her gaze down to see his youngest son wrap his arms around Maddie’s legs and Sonic’s back. A grunt from Sonic indicates Knuckles has joined them in their family hug, the echidna tended to hug with a lot of…passion.

“Love you guys,” Sonic admitted to his family, with a soft whisper of a voice. Because he did.

***

“I’M BAAAACK” Sonic called out to his family as he appeared from the woods. He had gone to get his guitar from his old cave after Tom had pulled out his own. Tom had taught Sonic a few songs on his guitar, and they had been talking about getting Sonic his own guitar so that he didn’t ruin Tom’s, but that had reminded Sonic that he DID have his own guitar.

“Hey, Sonic.” Maddie called out sweetly from next to the fire pit, she turned to look up at her husband who was tuning his guitar, “So, what song are you guys going to play?”

Tom seemed liked he’d perked up at the question, though his gaze still solely focused on his guitar pegs. “Probably a classic that I’ve taught to Soni-”

“UGH...noooooo,” Sonic cut in. “That means it’s going to be one of those OLD songs from like, 100 years ago.” Sonic preferred upbeat songs, at least, as long as they weren’t a sob story, then they were perfect. He though back to his old cd’s, he quite liked that band, what was it? Cold apes, or something.

Sonic’s thoughts were interrupted as he sat down to tune his guitar. “Sonic, you loved these songs when we practiced them.” Tom looked at his son as he said this, but Sonic eyes were trained on his instrument. “And they’re not that old; I used to listen to these when I was your age.”

“Exactly!” Sonic exclaimed as he looked up from his guitar to meet his dad’s eyes. “That was AAAGES ago.” He starred up at Tom with a completely serious expression, not even considering the fact that what he had said was not only rude but also completely unhinged.

“Sonic, how old do you think I am?!” Tom asked, a hint of disbelief in his voice.

Before Sonic could give another unbelievable answer, Maddie butted in, warning Tom. “Don’t open that door unless you actually want to be roasted by him.” A laugh sneaking in as she remembered the last time someone asked Sonic to guess their age.

“Alright, I get it they’re not that old,” Sonic agreed, though he still thought they were.

“So, which one are we playing, dad?” Sonic asked, sitting up and holding his guitar on his lap, his fingers ready to play, buzzing with anticipation to start.

Tom’s heart fluttered a little, he loved it when his boys called him dad. He looked down at his wife as he pulled his casted arm away from her back, placed a soft kiss on the top of her head, and then turned his gaze down to see where he was going to place his fingers. He turned his gaze back over to the blue hedgehog that sat across from him, “How about we do Maddie’s favourite, do you remember which one that is?”

Sonic reluctantly agreed, he didn’t actually mind this one too much, he just found it a bit too sappy, but the actual guitar part sounded quite cool. Obviously, he would never actually admit to liking one of Tom super lame old songs, out loud.

“Tails, bud.” Tom called over to the two tailed fox who was currently arguing with his eldest brother about who knows what. “Are you going to sing, while me and Sonic play?” Tom was glad that all his boys liked music just as much as he and Maddie did.

Tails turned around to see Tom and Sonic looking back at him, smiling and holding their guitars up to show their proof, as Maddie was looking for something in her rucksack. He was a little hesitant but honestly, he’d rather sing than continue to fight with Knuckles, honestly it was like arguing with a brick wall. “Uhm…sure but, I only know one song is that the one we’re doing?”

“Yep, that’s the one kid,” Tom said waving the kit over to join them around the fire pit.

Tails walked over toward the end of the log Sonic was sitting on, Knuckles walking not too far behind him. He looked up to see the sky was a dark blue with freckles of stars, the half-broken moon shining down at them, creating a natural spotlight for the family. He watched as Knuckles sat down on the log in between the one he and Sonic were sitting on, and the one where his parents were sat.

Sonic looked over towards his mum, but his smile faltered as his gaze fell onto the object in her hands, his mouth now slightly agape he looked up to meet her eyes and then back down to the item.

An old video camera.

“N-no no, I am NOT doing it if you’re going to film it, no way,” Sonic stammered out. Now, he was no stranger to this video camera, whenever they went out, his mother always dragged that thing with her, why she didn’t just use her phone, Sonic wasn’t sure. He remembered her telling him once it was more ‘authentic and nostalgic’, whatever that meant.

“Oh, come on Sonic,” Maddie whined to her son “It’s for the memories, it’s no different to when you record yourself doing your dances. If you’re all going to play a song, I want to have it with me forever, please.” She practically begged.

“Fine, okay but no posting it okay!” Sonic knew Maddie was no stranger to posting things on her socials, usually embarrassing photos of him.

“Alright now that everyone’s here, Knuckles do you want to start the beat off?” Tom asked in a very cheery way, he was clearly exited to show what he’d been teaching his sons to his wife.

“Okay, lord of the donuts,” Knuckles replied, his foot tapping out a beat.

Sonic started the 1^st riff, his fingers strumming the strings softly, once he knew he got the beat down, he closed his eyes and basked in the serenity of his guitar, his foot tapping along to his own beat. Tom joined in with his own beat, it wasn’t as simple as Sonic’s, but it was still just repetition, how Tom did it with one arm in a cast, Sonic had no idea and was even a little impressed. They finally got to the lyrics and Sonic opened his eyes to watch his brother sing, without actually looking at him because he knew that would scare him.

Tails took a big inhale, then exhaled slowly, focused his gaze on the burning blaze in front of him that was the firepit, and started to sing.

So, so you think you can tell

Heaven from Hell?   Blue skies from pain?

Tails voice was really nice, Sonic was very proud of his brother, usually when they practiced just for fun Tails would freeze. He was a very smart kid, but he was very shy and would get stage fright even if it was just the two of them, so for Tails to just jump in with no hesitation in front of all the Wachowskis, Sonic was the proudest brother ever.

As Tails finished the first verse, Sonic decided to jump in for the second verse, he turned to look his brother in the eyes, gives him a light smile and sung with him.

Did they trade your heroes for ghost?

Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze?

As the two sung together Maddie couldn’t help but smile, her boys were so talented she was so proud of all four of them, as she turned to look at her husband he turned to her at the same time, a big smile on his face as he swayed to the beat. Her heart did a somersault when she heard him sing the chorus, Sonic and Tails singing harmonies.

How I wish, How I wish you were here

We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year

Tom’s voice was perfect for the chorus, Sonic and Tails acting as backing singers as Tom took the stage, Sonic’s gaze shifted to Maddie, who was looking at her husband with pure adoration. He knew it was dumb and sappy, but he hoped that he too would find that kind of love one day.

Knuckles joined in on the singing on the last line, with his soft but low husky voice that mirrored Tom’s.

The same old fears, wish you were here

The music died out slowly, the last notes welcoming in the heavy silence, as smiles were shared within the Wachowski family around the campfire.

***

The sky was now a glowing midnight black; the campfire had been put out a couple hours prior as everyone had gone back to the tents to get some shuteye. Tom and Maddie were in their own tent which neighboured the one that Sonic was sharing with his two brothers, who were at this moment fast asleep as were his parents, but he himself, was not.

No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t sleep. So, he didn’t.

He thought about his conversation with Tom as he eyed his tent door. ‘None of your ideas are smart Sonic’ Tom had told him, and yeah, he had to admit he was starting to understand where his dad was coming from. But what else was he supposed to do?

Sonic got out from under the blanket he was sharing with his brothers, without trying to wake them, or at least the small corner of the blanket he had gotten. Knuckles was cuddled up with half of it and Tails didn’t have much of it anyway, so Sonic covered his younger brother with the remaining cloth and made his way to the door. He unzipped it as slowly as possible, much less to his desirers, and once it was finally open, Sonic managed to trip over the tent’s perimeter.

Once the blue idiot cleaned himself off, he peered inside the tent to get one last glance at his brothers’ tranquillity, because that was not often a word used to describe Sonic and his brothers, he noticed the kit shivering and so closed the door and sped off into the woods, leaving a faint blue line behind himself.

As Sonic raced through the calm early summer night, he realised how long it had been since he’d snuck out at night just to go for a run. It was nice to not have to think, not that he did that much anyways, but he missed the freeness of running in the cool air, the wind passing through his quills, his mind captivated by the scenery.

The past couple of days had been a lot, he’d barely processed what had happened, at some point he was in London and the next thing he knew, he was on the MOON!

With shadow. Sonic wished he got to know Shadow better, if it would have been under different circumstances, they would probably be friends. Even with the way they had met Sonic thought that, had he gotten more time, they really could have got to know each other, they had already bonded a lot on the moon, discussing their losses.

Sonic knew Shadow had a family, that girl in the picture he had picked up at the G.U.N military base, what did he say her name was…? Maria, that was it. When commander Walters had told them of the incident, he said innocent lives were taken with it, Maria was that innocent life, Shadow had almost destroyed the world in revenge for her. She must have been very special to him.

Sonic could still hear the pain in shadow’s voice when he spoke her name, the way his eyes glistened under the stars that he gazed upon, looking for her, his normally burning crimson eyes had gone a beautiful hazel brown. That smirk that Shadow pulled as their hands had intertwined, while the chaos energy was turning them super, illuminating their figures, it had made Shadow’s eyes pink as well as his highlights, which Sonic still thought were pretty cool-

His thoughts were interrupted as his cobalt and peach coloured face collided with a tree, sending him flying backward to the cool grassy ground with a thump!

“Ugh…what the.”

Sonic took a while to shake himself back up, for the second time after sneaking out, at least no one was there to see him make a fool of himself he thought, as his gloved hand was brought up to his forehead rubbing small circles like that would do anything.

Well, no person. However, when Sonic’s eyes were no longer spinning, he spotted a couple of crimson marbles staring at him from behind a tree a few feet away, and not the tree that had so rudely interrupted his thoughts.

Now, Sonic was no animal expert, but he didn’t know many creatures with such ruby red eyes, and albinos weren’t often found in the depths of the Montana forests.

Crimson eyes locked with emerald ones, and a subconscious thought immediately came to Sonic’s mind, it’s Shadow.

No, it- it couldn’t be, what else could it be, or who else- NO, no way, why would he even think that, but it could be…, Him. No, it couldn’t be he died, shadow is dead, though Sonic wished he wasn’t.

Before he could think much more on the matter, the flaming orbs had disappeared, gone in a second, now Sonic’s eyes felt lonely without the comfort of those bright rubies staring back at him.

He was just thinking about Shadow, so obviously he thought it was him, there are plenty of animals with red eyes in Green Hills, he had watched a documentary a little while ago with Tails, it was probably one of them.

Sonic set off again, still pondering about this strange encounter. What animals had they talked about again? Sonic should REALLY start paying attention when he watched documentaries with his little bro, but they were SO BOOOORING. Ugh, which one was it…, there were tree frogs, but they would be lower down, it could have been an albino alligator, or maybe an owl.

Once Sonic had arrived back to his camp, trying to filter through all the possible creatures it could have been, on his way back, he came to the conclusion that he was going crazy, and he had hallucinated them. Yep, that'll work, for now.

He half-heartedly unzipped the opening to his tent, and, without so much of a thought more, collapsed next to Tails, who was cuddled up next to Knuckles.

 With no consideration for closing the tent door again, Sonic finally fell asleep, with the cold night breeze ruffling his fur.

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.

Chapter Text

The laser felt like fire on his fur, a beam penetrating straight through his heart. The glow of the sun-colored death trap matches his bright yellow glow from the master emerald’s powers, his blinding counterpart was practically glowing next to him.

His arms burned, his voice was forced, sweat was rolling down his muzzle and onto the rest of his body and yellow fur started to appear blue again. No, no he couldn’t, not yet, not now. He couldn’t give up now, everyone was depending on him, this was in his hands; he couldn’t let go yet. Everyone was depending on him.

“Can’t…Hold… nghm... Much……. LONGER!” He breathed, he thought his heart was about to implode, he felt his grip on the energy loosen, his body started to drift further away from the cannon. He was about to slip away, but the cannon was still facing the earth, everyone down there was about to die, and it’ll be HIS FAULT.

Who even was he, if he wasn’t a hero?

He let out a low scream as the laser pushed him away, he was now completely back to blue, his arms were flailing in front of him as if that would get him any closer. His eyes were on the verge of closing tightly shut, never to open again. His gaze drifted to the glowing figure, who was still attempting to hold the ray from hitting the earth.

“You’re pathetic, Sonic,” the figure mouthed to him, before they too got pushed away by the laser beam.

A line of crackling fire whooshed in between the two hedgehogs and sped straight to the earth at supersonic speed. A massive ‘BOOM’ went off and an explosion went off behind him. He didn’t have much time to react as one of the pieces of earth smashed into him, knocking him completely unconscious.

He was falling.

Sonic was falling.

Falling.

***

Sonic bolted upright in his bed, he was drenched in sweat and so were his sheets, his eyes felt teary, and his muzzle was wet (had he been crying?). The room was dark except for the small sky window that let a beam of dark blue light into the attic.

Sonic looked around to make sure he hadn’t disturbed anyone, thankfully his brothers were still completely knocked out, and deeply asleep. He was surprised that his nightmares hadn’t been waking his brothers up.

These nightmares were a reoccurring thing now; he used to have them often before this, about Longclaw, the image of his newfound parents falling off the empire state building or Tails lying unconscious in the snow. But now, ever since the events of the eclipse cannon, these horrors happened every night, what could have happened and full of ‘what ifs.’

The first few of these were scary - they were bad and Sonic would find himself curled up in between his parents on their bed, quietly sobbing. His brothers were none the wiser to what had happened. Now though, Sonic had unfortunately gotten used to these night-scares, he still hated them and often found himself sobbing quietly in the middle of the night, with just him and his thoughts for company.

Sonic used to love sleeping, he didn’t admit it, but he liked it - it was a nice way to relax, but now he barely ever slept, and he hated the idea of it. Once his brothers were asleep, he would sneak down to Tom and Maddie’s room, begging them to stay up so he didn’t have to sleep. The idea of sort of terrified him, and he hated that.

What kind of person is afraid of sleep? Maybe Shadow was right, maybe he was a weakling, pathetic.

On nights like these Sonic would often try and avoid sleeping at all by reading or playing video games, sometimes he even did some drawings that his parents put up on the fridge. And yeah, that usually made him very tired, it often hit in the afternoon making everything seem slow, but that’s nothing the fastest creature alive can’t fix with a quick run.

He often got told that running away from his problems wasn’t going to fix anything, but that didn’t matter to Sonic, he always ran. If running was going to help free him from these thoughts, then he’d run like there’s no tomorrow.

Sonic slowly got up from his bed, put his shoes and gloves on and stretched, making sure to watch his step and not walk on the creaky floorboards. He made his way over to the window. He glanced back at his brothers who were still sleeping soundly and gave them a small smile, he hoped that they didn’t and never would go through what he’s going through right now.

The window was already ajar - thanks to the summer heat, it often made the attic the hottest room in the house. But this was only early summer, the big heat wave hadn’t even started. Sonic jumped up and grabbed the window ledge, slowly heaving himself up onto the roof.

Once he got up there, he walked away from the window and sat near the edge of the roof, his feet inches from hanging over the edge. He laid down, hands up behind his head and his bright azure quills splayed out underneath him.

On multiple occasions Sonic had found himself stargazing on his roof in the middle of the night, the cool night summer air ruffling his fur and messing up his quills -which were already unkempt enough. A blanket in the cold season to keep warm, and if either of his brothers couldn’t sleep or just weren’t tired, he would bring them up here too. Though it was usually a place just for him.

Tom had taught him a few constellations on their camping trips and family road trips, Knuckles never really seemed to care, and Tails already knew them. So, Tom enjoyed bonding over that sort of thing with his son, and Sonic liked it too.

His gaze drifted to the bright shattered moon, and something came to his mind, something that was said on the moon, when they were looking at the stars. Something Shadow said.

“The light shines, even though the star is gone.”

Sonic didn’t really understand what that meant at the time and hadn’t really thought about it - even now he didn’t understand. He wished he could ask Shadow about it, he wished that he could’ve asked Shadow about it. Before, because he’s dead…right?

But what if he WAS alive still, would that be crazy? Was Sonic stupid for thinking that? Of course he is, he saw the eclipse cannon explode while Shadow was pushing it. Well actually he was unconscious, so he didn’t see him. So it’s a possibility...he had to be going crazy, right?

Yeah, he’d seen eyes looking right into his soul that looked an awful lot like Shadow’s, multiple times, but that didn’t mean anything right?

Sonic sighed to himself, running one of his paws over his face and then letting both his arms fall flat next to him, on each side. Since when did he care about Shadow so much? The guy tried to kill him! But they also became friends, and he did look pretty cool, like if Sonic had a twin that lived in a Hot Topic.

Obviously not as cool as Sonic, duh. But still…pretty cool. He would never tell him that though, like ever. Sonic could feel himself getting flustered at his own thoughts, just to have tears back prickling into his eyes when he remembered that he CAN’T tell him that ever, even if he wanted to.

He got up from the roof and looked over the distance...why was he thinking about Shadow so much? This was definitely not normal, there was no way he was going to bed now, especially not with these thoughts. He was basically begging for a nightmare before he even closed his eyes.

***

The air was still nice and fresh, the sky was a lighter shade of blue than before, but it was still quite dark. So that meant it was the perfect time for a run, any time was good for a run really, but Sonic was just hyping himself up a bit. He bounced on his heels, stretching and adjusting his shoes.

And before he knew it, he had jumped off the Wachowski home and was now zipping through Green Hills with a bright neon line of blue trailing behind him. The wind blew through his quills, and the air was blowing his tuffs of fur every way. The quiet of the night was nice, but never fully silent, which is why Sonic liked it so much, especially in the summer when the air was fresh and breathable.

The birds chirped high up in the tall trees that he passed, the cicadas and crickets were buzzing, and the frogs were croaking from near lakes and ponds. Normally people find these sounds irritating and annoying, particularly when they were trying to sleep in the summer heat.

But Sonic frequently found himself enjoying these sounds a lot; he wasn’t very fond of a quiet environment. Like a regular animal his hearing was slightly more heightened than the average person, so loud bustling surroundings weren’t great either. Although he did enjoy blasting his music as loud as possible, so maybe when he was in control of the sound it was easier for him. Huh, he’d never thought of it that way.

His thoughts were soon forgotten once again though as he sped up a bit. So far, he’d run out of Montana and made a quick visit to Idaho but soon after he turned back, and he had now returned to the Green Hills forests. He found a big lake that looked familiar, but he brushed it off and went near the edge, not keen on going too close because this hedgehog was not prepared to take a midnight dip.

Sonic zipped past a big hole in the ground but kept running anyway, not paying it much mind. His thoughts soon caught up to him though as he skidded to a halt and tripped over a root that was sticking out of the ground - thank chaos no one saw that! He got up, brushed himself off and quickly made his way over.

He stared down the hole, an ‘oh’ shape formed on his mouth and his eyes widened slightly. He swiftly jumped down and landed on the ground with a small thump and started to look around at his old cave.

He saw this place not too long ago, he even brought Tom with him, and they looked at Sonic’s incredible art if he did say so himself. His cave looked a bit different though, like a raccoon had gotten in and rummaged through his old stuff. But that couldn’t be right, it looked…clean? Things were in neat piles, his old bean bag was pushed into the corner of the room, a clear shape was marked into it like someone had been sleeping there.

Whoever it was must look an awful lot like Sonic because it was like the person had curled up into a ball which was something only he could do. His attention was brought to his ‘state of the arts security system’ that was lying on the ping-pong table, not far from where he had left it last time he visited but still had clearly been moved.

Sonic grabbed the pair of nun-chucks and gave them a little test; he quickly found himself on the floor after taking a hit to the face. That’s definitely going to leave a bruise.

“Yup...still works.” He muttered quietly to himself, rubbing the side of his face. He got up slowly as to not hurt his head anymore. From across the room, he noticed his drawing on the rocky wall of the cave; it gave him an idea. He moved around the cave looking for an old pack of crayons, it didn’t take very long to find them.

On top of an old rusty green and yellow oil tank sat a open box of miss-matched, dirty, all broken Crayola crayons. Sonic made his way over and took them off the metal tank, to get a closer look at them. It seemed like they had been used recently, the yellow and beige seemed smaller than the last time he used them, although that was eleven years ago.

Sonic walked over to where his old drawing sat and started to draw a new one of his newfound family.

 He was as careful and as precise as possible, he represented his parents with two stick figures, one on the right and the other on the left. He then drew a big red blob next to Maddie, gave it some downwards spikes and Knuckles was done, he then drew a smaller yellow and orange shape next to Tom with two triangles on each side of it that had white edges, he had now drawn his little brother. Now he just had to draw himself.

Even though he was a lot older than the last time he had drawn the picture next to him, and he had had extra time to practice, his style had pretty much not changed at all. He put the dark blue crayon down and walked away from the wall to admire his creation. Even if it wasn’t a drawing that would be put in a museum anytime soon, Sonic was very proud of his masterpiece.

Though it could do with a bit more work because there wasn’t really a background, maybe he would come back tomorrow or something so that he could finish. The light that shined into the cave through the hole in the ground above indicated that it was getting close to sunrise, if the light blue sky and a disappearing broken moon was anything to go off of.

If he didn’t get back before that, Knuckles would be up and notice that Sonic wasn’t in his bed, and even if he had his moments, he wasn’t the best at making up excuses. So, Sonic put the pack of crayons back where they were and jumped out of the hole.

He rolled up in a ball and landed in the mix of grass, dry forest mud and sticks that cracked under his back when he sprawled out. Sonic pushed himself off the ground and got up, not paying attention to the noise he was making.

He was about to zip off before he noticed a pair of eyes that were staring right at him. A pair of crimson eyes, it was very early in the day, and the figure wasn’t hiding, in fact they were in the open, so he could see all of them. Their fuzzy dark ears, their fluffy white chest, their red highlights and their... jet boots?

Sonic lifted his gaze back up to the crimson eyes, which were staring directly into his soul, these eyes weren’t anyone’s eyes, those were Shadow’s. The figure standing in front of him was definitely, undeniably Shadow the Hedgehog.

“Sh-Shadow…?” Sonic stuttered, a little taken aback by the whole situation.

The darker hedgehog replied with a short and curt “mph”, brows furrowing a little and his eyes looking the blue devil up and down, as if he were analyzing him.

Sonic felt his quills bristle and his fur stood on end, his eyes were still wide, and his brain still refused to comprehend the situation he was in. They had a bit of a staring contest - well as close to one they could get - as neither hedgehog wanted to make eye contact, and looked swiftly away if they did.

There was still plenty of noise that could be heard: the crickets and the birds, the twigs being stepped on, the wind blowing through the leaves and making ripples out of the water, Sonic’s heartbeat slamming loudly against his rib cage.

Even though all those sounds could be heard, loud and clear, between the two hedgehogs it was like a wave of silence had washed over them. They didn’t say anything, which, by the way, was almost impossible for Sonic. But something in that moment, somehow, kept him silent. It was just a quiet understanding.

Shadow let out a sigh, he thought about how the blue idiot was usually very talkative, and why in this moment he actually kept his mouth shut. Normally he wouldn’t be complaining about such a thing, but even when his outside demeaner was quiet and composed his head was loud, too loud. And he wouldn’t mind using Sonic’s cheerful rants to cancel out the noise.

Sonic watched his counterpart’s every move, from his unreadable facial expressions to him readjusting his quills to him fiddling with his inhibitors. They stood in peace for a while, he wasn’t sure how long, but it felt like days.

His family always joked about how Sonic runs on his own clock.

The silence was deafening to his blue ears. He wanted to say something, but what?! Because ‘Hi Shads, remember me? I’m that blue guy from a couple weeks ago, you know the one you tried to kill, anyways wanna be friends?’ wasn’t really his best introduction.

As much as it was paining him to come up with something, he was going to talk to the edgelord. But before he could, the dark hedgehog walked away and jumped down the hole like it was just a normal day.

Sonic got up, turned and stared out across the lake. The sky was now a very light blue and there was a yellow into orange gradient, which was being mirrored by the water’s reflection.

“Uh-oh,” he muttered to himself, it was now past sunrise., Knuckles was now definitely awake, and Sonic was screwed. Deciding not to waste any more time, Sonic sped off in blue blur and tried to come up with his best excuse.

And after that he would think about what. just. happened.

It was so awkward and yet it was nice...it was a good change from Sonic running his mouth and ruining things with his rambles. And now he knew for sure, Shadow was alive.

Sonic stood on a cliffside for a minute, watching over Green Hills in its early hours. He took a small breath and leapt down the hill, speeding into the town and weaving between the streets until he got back to his house.

Sonic thought about how the darker hedgehog had acted, and it was not very different to how he had.

Although Shadow didn’t say anything, not a damn thing, nothing! He gave a small ‘mph’ and that was it! Sonic thought the guy had died, and all he got in confirmation that he hadn’t, WAS A DAMN ‘MPH’!

Well, at least he knew it was definitely Shadow. And he was definitely alive.

It was nice to think about.

Shadow the Hedgehog is alive.

Chapter Text

Sonic’s mind was going crazy; he originally went on a run to clear his thoughts. But somehow, they had gotten louder, overtaking everything. He felt like he was drowning...Sonic wanted to tell everyone, anyone that Shadow was okay!

But his mouth was sewed shut.

Sonic’s head was screaming with questions. How was Shadow alive? How did he survive? Is he okay? What happened? Where is he staying? If he survived, did Robotnik survive too?

The sun was now high in the sky, early morning light splayed across the town and through the tree branches. The birds were singing, and the cicadas were humming.

Sonic was running at a slow pace, his thoughts overtaking his movements. He wasn’t too far away from his house now. He was in the wood that surrounded the Wachowski home, which was still quiet at this time.

He saw the garden in an opening between the trees, but something else had got his attention; out of the corner of his eye Sonic saw a big red figure, who seemed to be advancing towards him. His foot tripped on a tree root, and he found himself tumbling to the ground.

Sonic rubbed his head and pushed himself up from the forest floor. The figure was still moving towards him; their features slowly becoming clearer. He was wondering who it could be - even though they were closer they were still at a distance. Who could that-

A gruff voice spoke, “Hedgehog.”

Shoot!

Sonic tried to seem natural, but his lack of sleep and the shock from seeing an unexpected face were not working in his favor. The echidna was now directly in front of Sonic, his red brows furrowed as he studied the hedgehog.

“Can you inform me on why, when I awoke for my morning training, you were not asleep like the fox?”

“Good morning to you too, Knux” Sonic sighed, he wasn’t exactly good at lying, nor did he like it, but something in the back of his mind told him he had too.

He wanted to tell him why he’d been out all night, he really did, but he was still trying to understand the fact that Shadow was okay. Meanwhile his brain was going a million miles an hour, asking himself questions he didn’t know the answer to.

If he told Knuckles what he’d seen, he’d have to explain why he was awake, and in the woods in the middle of the night in the first place. Sonic wasn’t sure he was ready for that, not that his brothers would judge him, but his mind just couldn’t take it.

He was a hero, dammit!

His parents shouldn’t know either, but these night terrors were already happening when it was just the three of them (and before that too). It was a surprise neither of his brothers had found out, he was usually terrible at hiding things, hence why he was hesitant to tell the echidna about the surprise hedgehog he had witnessed that morning.

Knuckles, who was standing in front of Sonic and looking down at him with his arms crossed, seemed to have a bit of a worried expression on his face. His red brows furrowed towards the hedgehog in front of him, his breathing felt a bit off, a bit faster.

“Hedgehog,” Knuckles stated, hoping that the bluntness of his tone would tear the hedgehog from his spiraling. He knew why, and his parents would know why, but Sonic did not know that. He thinks he can’t seek comfort in him for those reasons, but the hedgehog was wrong.

“Knux…I-I can’t...” was all Sonic managed to choke up. He rubbed at his eyes, why were they so wet? Sonic looked up at his brother, he didn’t often cry in front of him, but they were brothers, so it was inevitable.

Knuckles didn’t like seeing his brother in pain, he couldn’t just let him suffer like that. He was his older brother; it was his duty to care for and be there for his family. No matter what.

He moved a few steps forward and opened his arms out in front of him. Sonic lightly slumped against him, letting out a few sniffles.

“I wanted you to inform me when you were prepared,” The echidna said softly, while rubbing his hedgehog brother’s back. “It seems though, that you can never be prepared to talk about such topics. No training could prepare anyone to talk about their fears.”

Oh.

Sonic had now started crying quietly, sniffing back his tears discreetly as to not interrupt his brother. “Yo-you…know about...that?” He hated how shaky his voice was.

Knuckles let out a soft sigh and rested his head above Sonic’s, “I do, and I understand your pain…but you don’t have to hide it, not with us.” Knuckles voice was hushed, he could feel Sonic struggling to breathe, he squeezed his brother a bit tighter but still loosely as to not hurt him.

“Even the greatest and toughest of warriors have fears in the night, and they cry too.” He could still feel the blue hedgehog trembling underneath him, so Knuckles tried purring quietly in an attempt to calm his brother. “You are safe, hedgehog.”

Knuckles sighed. “You are not the only Wachowski to have fears of the night-times, I too have them. And I am a noble warrior.” Sonic laughed through his tears, though he choked a bit.

“What ab-about?” he managed, followed by a hiccup that he laughed off. “Casper chasing you through a haunted house?” he pulled away from the red echidna to smile up at him.

Even with a tear-stained muzzle the hedgehog could still crack a smile, and a joke.

Knuckles looked up in thought for a minute. “Well it was a ghost, but it was not Casper and not in a haunted mansion,” Sonic was a bit intrigued now, he hadn’t meant for his brother to take it literally. He wiped away his tears and looked up at the echidna who was still deep in thought.

“The creature said his name was King Boom Boo, and he was chasing me in an ancient temple. He did not look like a king and I could not understand him.” Knuckles admitted, shuddering a bit at the memory but quickly forgot it.

Silence fell upon them when Sonic decided to hug his older brother and bury his face in his red fur. Knuckles spoke quietly, “you seem calmer, would you like to discuss your terror?”

Sonic just hugged him tighter, “nah, it’s okay…, thank you, though” even if he couldn’t see Sonic’s face he smiled at him, at his older brother.

Knuckles cleared his throat a bit, “I would like to teach you to meditate, sometime soon,” He felt Sonic sigh but he reluctantly agreed, and that made a smile appear on his muzzle. “May I take you back to our residence, hedgehog.”

Sonic chuckled a bit at that, “sure, Knux” so Knuckles let the blue hedgehog pull away from their hug so that he could bend down a bit to be at the same height as the speedster. Sonic got onto Knuckles’s shoulders and let him carry him back through the house.

Even though they were outside of the garden, not in the middle of nowhere and Sonic easily could’ve gone inside the house himself, he let Knuckles carry him through the garden into the front door, up the stairs and in front of their parents’ bedroom.

His brother lifted him off his shoulder, and put him down gently on the floor. “You off to do warrior things now?” Sonic asked, smirking a bit, even though he still had tears in the corners of his glassy eyes.

Knuckles smiled down and agreed, he ruffled the hedgehogs quills a bit and knocked on the already ajar door. “See you,” He whispered. And Sonic just smiled as he watched the echidna walk down the stairs and outside the house.

He turned to the door and took a deep breath, Sonic pushed open the door which let out a squeak, as he squeezed through the gap, towards his parents’ bed.

***

Tom’s eyes opened slowly, he was still quite groggy. It wasn’t his alarm that had woken him up, he doesn’t usually sleep through it, but he may as well check just in case. The time on his phone read, 6:50 am. He still had a few hours before he had to get up.

He rubbed his eyes and sat up a bit in his bed. Maddie seemed to still be sleeping so it wasn’t her that had woken him up, but as he searched around the room, he saw what might have been the reason.

Outside his door, two shadows could be seen under the small gap. Tom could hear their hushed voices talking on the other side, although he was unable to hear what they were saying.

Now Tom knew his kids pretty well so it wouldn’t be hard to deduce who it was outside of his bedroom. Tails got up at a reasonable hour, not too late but not late either. Knuckles usually got up around this time to go do…warrior training, whatever that meant. Which left Sonic, who would go to bed late at night, wake up in the middle of the night and then would come to sleep with Tom and Maddie, he would then wake up late morning.

The reason for the hedgehog waking up in the middle of the night though, was not his fault. Because the poor kid had nightmares, almost every night. Tom and Maddie both wished they could do something to help him; their hearts broke a little every time Sonic would follow them to their bedroom and beg to stay up.

So, if it was Sonic standing outside the door, who was the other one he was talking to? Knuckles had normally already left by now, had the blue hedgehog woken up his little brother, that would be unusual it must’ve been bad if he did.

Tom wasn’t able to put much more thought into this though, as the hushed voices had now stopped, the door moved open with a small squeak and over the bed he could see a pair of fluffy dark blue ears and dark blue quills. The room was still quite dark with the curtains closed, so Tom turned on his bedside lamp.

A soft light filled the room, suddenly a blue hedgehog appeared at the foot of the bed and crawled over to Tom, he heard a few sniffles as Sonic came over and wrapped himself around his stomach.

“Hey buddy,” Tom whispered to his son “are you alright? Did you have another nightmare?” He felt him shake his head into Tom’s T-shirt a few more sniffs and hiccups escaped him.

Tom sighed, “I’m sorry kid,” He stroked his back with one hand and scratched by his ear with the other, “Do you wanna talk about it?”  he suggested.

“N-no no please,” Sonic stuttered, he hated being vulnerable like this. His breathing quickened.

“That’s okay don’t worry about it, Shhh Sonic it’s alright,” Tom tried to calm his son down but his breathing was getting more ragged and he could feel tears rolling down his muzzle.

Tom decided to try to get up, he heard Sonic protest, but it would be for good reason, he had him sit on his hip and Sonic immediately clung to him. Tom went over to his closet and took out one of his shirts that he had worn recently, Sonic did not want to let go of his dad, so he struggled putting it on him, but eventually he got there.

He laid back down in his bed with Sonic still attached to him, the kid was sniffling with tears in his eyes, but those sniffles soon turned into a hushed wailing. This had now woken Maddie up, she asked what was wrong and tried to comfort the hedgehog but not much seemed to be working.

Eventually though, Sonic cried himself to sleep and Tom followed soon after still stroking the blue hedgehog who was now curled up into a ball on top of him.  

***

Sonic opened his eyes slowly, still a bit groggy from sleeping. His throat felt sore, when he rubbed his eyes, they were wet and the t-shirt Tom had put on him, now had a small splotch of wear he had wiped his tears.

He nuzzled his head back into his dad’s side, he felt behind his ear being scratched and held on tighter to Tom’s side, balling his fist around his shirt.

“Mornin’ kid,” Tom spoke softly, “Do you want some breakfast?” he suggested.

Sonic didn’t really want to get up and he didn’t want to eat, but his stomach was telling him otherwise. And his dad was probably also hungry, so he would feel bad for keeping him in bed.

“Mmhm,” He hummed.

He felt Tom give a sigh of relief above him.

“Well, I’m going to have to get up then.” Sonic answered his father with a groan of protest. “Yeah, I know kid, but once we eat something we can lounge in the living room, okay?”

Sonic sighed, usually he liked moving around. running every morning, busying himself with his brothers, but on the mornings after a very bad night he wouldn’t dare leave Tom’s side.

“Can I have a different t-shirt?” his voice was a bit horse, but it would wear off soon enough. “This one’s a bit… wet.” He grumbled when Tom laughed at that.

“Course kid, but can you get of me, so I can go get it.”

Sonic slid off his dad’s front and crawled onto the edge of that bedside. He watched as Tom got up from his bed, went over to his wardrobe and opened it. Before he could pick a t-shirt off the clean rack though, Sonic voiced his displeasure and pointed to the t-shirt that Tom had worn yesterday.

Tom looked him in the eyes and sighed, “You had to pick that one, you really are weird.” He shot him a side eye, “Okay, okay I get it, now arms up,”

He sighed and let his dad help him change into the dry T-shirt. It was dark blue and had a hedgehog on the front, which was wearing sunglasses. It was a birthday present Sonic had gotten for Tom. It fit well on him but on Sonic it was huge, almost like a dress.

Sonic stood outside of the ensuite waiting for his dad to get changed. He fidgeted with his gloved hands and every so often taking a deep breath in, some of Tom’s sent coming from the shirt and comforting him.

Sonic jumped when his father opened the door, startling him away from the wall he was leaning against, his quills puffed out, he stared at Tom eyes wide.

“Oh, sorry Sonic I didn’t mean to scare you.” He knelt to his son’s level pulling him into a hug, he stroked his quills back down and held him close for a bit. 

Sonic hated how he melted into his father’s hold, he hated how he was sniffing and having to aggressively wipe at his tears, pretending that they didn’t exist. He hated feeling so…pathetic.

“You’re pathetic, Sonic,”

He pushed away the memory from his nightmare.

Sonic walked down the stairs and into the kitchen, holding on to Tom’s hand and looking down at the floor. Once in the kitchen his dad lifted him onto the counter next to the stove, not too close though, ‘we didn’t need that incident again’ He thought.

Tails was already sitting at the table in the dining room, empty plate in front of him and sipping on a glass of apple juice. “Morning, your up late Sonic, are you alright?”

Sonic hummed in response, not wanting to lie but also not ready for his little brother to find out he had a nightmare, and that has nightmares almost every night.

“He’s alright kiddo, don’t worry.” Tom gave a reassuring smile to Sonic and whispered to him in a hushed tone, “Talk to him about it soon, please.”

Sonic nodded and whispered back “I will.” ‘At some point’ Was the unspoken part of that sentence.

“Tails, buddy, have you had breakfast?” Tom called out to the kit.

The two tailed fox wandered into the kitchen, empty plate in hand “Yep, but I thought you were supposed to be at work today, Tom? He put his dirty plate in the dishwasher and sat on one of the stools by the island.

Sonic’s eyes widened, he was supposed to go to work? Why was he still here? It’s all his fault he shouldn’t have gone into his room this morning. “What, but Tom,” he sounded distressed, he needed to calm down.

“Hey, no Sonic, look at me,” he said abandoning his frying pan of bacon, Sonic looked up at his dad tears welling in his eyes again, “it’s okay, I called wade earlier to cover my shift.”

“But I-I could’ve come with you...” he choked a bit rubbing at his eyes, forcing the tears away not daring to let them fall.

“Today was a stay-at-home day I’m afraid, I didn’t really want to go in today anyway.” He wrapped his arms around his son and swayed him a bit, he felt a smile against him.

“Uhh...Tom?” Tails squeaked.

“Yeah kiddo?”

“I think the bacon is burning…” he admitted, voice trembling a bit.

Before anyone was able to react, the smoke detector started beeping.

Sonic and Tails both covered their ears, while scowling. Meanwhile Tom was rushing around the kitchen, trying to get his and the blue hedgehog’s breakfast of the heat, and then trying to turn the smoke detector off.

After a bit of panicking and a few mistakes, the kitchen was quiet again.

Somehow Tom had made the device louder and do a different beeping cycle before he managed to turn it off. At the time, that had not been very pleasant, but they were all laughing about it now.

Once Tom had replaced the burnt breakfast, he made some toast and sat with his son in the dining room. Tails had gone off to his workshop -the Wachowski’s garage- which left the duo alone once again.

Sonic had shuffled his chair closer to his dad’s and leaned against his side, while they ate their breakfast in moderate silence. Which Sonic didn’t often enjoy, but it was comforting for now, so he let it be. Not feeling like he needed to fill the silence, it was nice.

After breakfast, both went to play some video games. Tom had put on Mario kart, probably to get his son a bit more awake. And in case you were wondering, Sonic totally beat his dad in that last race, completely fairly and not at all because of an unsuspected blue shell.

They hadn’t played for long though, because even though he was still competitive, Sonic was none the less tired. Having not slept much the previous night.

They both stayed on the couch together, until lunch when Knuckles and Tails had walked into the living room looking for Tom, so that they could make lunch. Just to find Sonic curled into their dad’s side.

 (He was later told that Tails had apparently flown above them, stole Tom’s phone, took a picture and sent it to Maddie.)

After he was very rudely awakened by Tom to go make lunch. They all sat together at the table and Sonic had asked him to sit on Tom’s lap.

“Hedgehog,” Knuckles started mouth full of food, “Why are you adorned in Donut lord’s garments?”

Tom sighed from above him, “Knuckles, talk after you’ve eaten.”

Knuckles swallowed his food before speaking this time, “Apologies father.”

“Is it for the smell, Sonic?” Tails asked, his namesakes flicking behind him.

He felt a bit taken aback by that, he didn’t really know what to say, nor did he want to explain why he was being clingy to Tom. Though eventually he would have too.

“W-what?” He stuttered out.

His little brother’s ears flattened a bit, “O-oh well you know, how the smell of a loved one can be quite comforting, if you miss them… or if something happened to them.”

He should’ve known his little brother would know why, it also wasn’t the first time he had done this, so he shouldn’t have been surprised that he had picked up on it. As for Knuckles…, well he had his moments.

 Sonic sniffed his shirt again, Maddie always thought it was odd but somehow Tom had always understood.

“I do not see the appeal.” The echidna said from across the table, mouth still full of sandwiches.

“Knuckles, chew please, then you can talk,” Tom sighed again

“I express my sorrow once again.”

Tom let out a small laugh, at the absurdity of his eldest son’s vocabulary.

“But Knuckles you did the same thing,” Tails received both of his older brothers tilting their heads in question. He let out a giggle at the gesture, that both were probably unaware of.

“Yeah, when Tom and Sonic went camping together, we missed Sonic, so we slept in his bed.”

Sonic couldn’t believe what he was hearing, they really missed him that much, “Wait- really? Oh my- guys that’s so nice.”

Tails smiled, cheeks dusted pink and his tails flicking.

Knuckles crossed his arms over his chest, “I did no such thing.” He pouted, cheeks dusted a deeper shade of pink.

“That’s very sweet, that you both missed your brother, but did no one miss me?”

“Not really, sorry Tom,” Tails said sheepishly

“No.”

“Wow, how kind.” His dad said in a monotone voice.

“Guess I’m just the most important member of this family.” Sonic said with, for the first time today- a smile.

Tom ruffled his quills, while Sonic attempted to swat at them, “I liked that camping trip we should go on another one soon, altogether. What do three think?”

Sonic looked up at his dad with a big eager smile on his muzzle, tail thumping lightly against Tom’s leg. If they went to where they went last time maybe he would see Shadow again, he still couldn’t believe he saw him there. 

But what if he wasn’t there anymore, he could run as fast as him and could teleport, Shadow could be anywhere right now! He really should talk to Tails about this, well he should tell everyone but let’s just focus on letting the genius know first.

Speaking of his little brother, Tails interrupted his thoughts.

“But Tom we just went camping, last week.”

“Well yes but it’s summer, that’s the best time for it. Not that we can’t do it in the winter, but I think it’s more fun in summer. Why, do you not like the camping trips?”

“No, no I do,” Tails blurted out “I guess I just never thought of it that way.”

They continued talking about organizing a camping trip soon, Sonic was excited at first, he did really like camping. After a while though his thoughts started trailing off.

Noticing this Tom asked Knuckles and Tails to load all the dirty stuff into the dishwasher, and him and Sonic would make some popcorn, so that they could watch a movie all together.

Even though he was feeling better now, Sonic still stayed close by to his dad. He had put the blue hedgehog on his shoulders, so that he could reach the microwave and put the popcorn in.

Soon they all sat down ready to choose a movie, Knuckles sat in the recliner chair, Tails and Sonic leaned onto their dad, on either side of him.

“So what movie are we watching?” Tails asks.

“I think I’ll let blue guy answer that one, Sonic what do you wanna wa-”

“Speed! Please, pleeease can we watch speed.” Sonic pleaded before Tom even got the chance to ask him.

“Really, Sonic you’ve seen that a million times. Is they’re nothing else you want to watch?”

He sighed; you can never watch speed too many times after all. “Fine, fine. Okay what about John Wick?”

“I don’t know buddy, I think that might be a bit violent for Tails.”

“It’s not that bad. Come on please.”

“Sonic it’s rated R; I don’t think that a good Idea.”

“Well, I don’t know then.” Sonic huffed.

“Can we watch star trek?” Tails suggested quietly.

“Sure kid, Sonic are you okay with that?”

“Yeah, sure that’s fine, but only if it’s the 2009 one.”

“Yes, definitely that one.” The twin tailed fox chimed in.

“Okay I guess we’re watching star trek.”

After the movie had ended Tails and Knuckles played Mario kart, meanwhile Tom and Sonic started preparing dinner together.

In the Kitchen Sonic stood on a stool, by the counter. He was helping Tom by cutting the onions for the chilli, while his dad prepared the mince.

“Are you feeling better now, buddy?”

He turned to look at his dad, vision blurred slightly because of the vegetable that was making him cry. “Yeah, thanks dad.” He smiled

Tom chuckles at the emotionless tears in the corner of his eyes. He came over to him and hugged Sonic tight, “You’re welcome kid,” he said ruffling between his ears.

They heard the door open, and watched as Ozzy bounded over to Maddie, tail wagging madly behind him.

“Hi, Ozzy.” She cooed to the dog, his mom checked on how his brothers were doing before coming to the kitchen.

“Maddie!” Sonic jumped down from his stool and ran over to her, she picked him up and hugged him tight.

“Hey Sonic, are you okay? How’s your day been?” she questioned stroking his quills gently.

“It was good, I totally beat Tom at Mario kart,” he laughed when Tom muttered ‘did not’ from the stove. “Did you see grumpy cat today?” Sonic asked intrigued.

The grumpy cat was just a funny brooding cat, but he also reminded Sonic of a certain brooding hedgehog. He likes thinking that the cat is Shadow, Maddie knows that he’s really interested in him, so she always updates her kids when she sees him. Because he’s one of her regulars at the clinic, she sees him quite often, so she has lots of stories to tell about him.

‘Did Shadow like cats? Would he like the grumpy cat?’ He thought.

Sonic pulled himself out of his thoughts when he started receiving scratches behind his ears, resulting in light purring sound.

“I did see grumpy cat today; I’ll tell you and your brothers about what he did later.” She smiled and put her son back on the stool. “I’ll help you two with dinner in a minute, I just need to go change out of my work clothes.

When Maddie came back, her and Tom made chili dogs, while Sonic helped by putting things in the pot and sitting on his dad’s shoulder so that he could watch the hot dogs spin around in the microwave.

They all ate dinner together at the table, Maddie talked about the grumpy cat and her other clients, Tails talked about his new invention he was working on, Tom talked about how unfair his game of Mario kart with Sonic was, and Sonic threw in a few quips about how his dad nearly burnt the kitchen down that morning.

Tom received a small earful from Maddie about how he should be more careful. Sonic felt a bit guilty about the fact that it was him who had distracted Tom, but laughed about it with his little brother anyway, trying to push the thought away.

He then almost choked on his chili dog, forgetting that he was still chewing, this made Tails laugh even more.

***

The sun was setting over the beautiful Montana forest. Sonic was sitting on the roof again, feet dangling off the edge. His thoughts were all jumbled up.

Everything about Shadow was worrying, he didn’t even know if he was still here. What should he do though? Should he go see him, (if he was still here) although he might scare him off. What would he even say?

Should he tell someone? He did say he was going to tell Tails, but what would that do? If he told his parents, would they report him to GUN? Because he definitely did not want that for him.

He just got out of a fifty-year stasis! And the poor kid is still morning his only friend, even if she’s been gone for decades, Shadow only just lost her.

It must have been horrible for that to be his last memory before he got put into stasis, ‘No wonder Shadow had been so upset in Tokio.’

Sonic couldn’t even imagine how he would feel if that had happened to him.

Losing his family and then being locked away for years on end, not knowing when he’d be let out. The memories of his loved ones being hurt, playing over and over again in his mind.

He couldn’t bear the thought.

Sonic heard the squeak of the skylight being opened, heavy footsteps, attempting to be soft against the roof tiles, Knuckles had come up to see him.

“Sonic,” The echidna spoke softly

His eyes widened in shock; he actually said his name. Not ‘hedgehog’ or any of his weird nicknames, no he called him Sonic. It was a bit surprising at first to hear his brother call him that- he didn’t exactly do it very often, but he liked it.

The blue hedgehog turned his head to look up at his older brother. “Hey Knux, what’s up.” He smiled.

“I would like to train you, in the skill of meditation.”

Right, he had agreed to that. Well, the least he could do was try, Knuckles was just trying to help after all.

“Alright then big guy, teach me your ways.” Sonic got up and they both went to sit on the top of the roof, legs crossed and facing away from the setting sun.

“Your mind must be clear of all thoughts, focus on the sounds of the nature.” The echidna said calmly, “close your eyes and see the empty.”

Sonic tried paying attention to what his brother was trying to tell him; he closed his eyes and listened to the noises surrounding him. The part about clearing his thoughts though, that one wasn’t so easy.

“Uhh…Knux, how do I clear my thoughts? And..uh, what exactly do you mean by ‘see the empty’ how do I do that?”

“Don’t ask so many questions, hedgehog,” he said bluntly, “just take deep breaths, focus of the noise of the creatures if you must.”

He took a few deep breaths, listened to the birds, crickets and frogs, all while the sky was getting darker, even though he couldn’t see it.

Sonic didn’t know how long they’d been sitting in silence for, to him it felt like hours. But when he opened his eyes, he was met with a sky that wasn’t much darker than when he had closed them.

“Thanks, Knuckles I appreciate this, but I think running might be a bit more my style.”

“It is normal not to understand straight away, you must have patience. Practice whenever you can.”

“Y-yeah I know but I have other ways of distracting myself, that involve a bit more movement, and less…sitting still and doing nothing.”

Knuckles sighed next to him and opened his eyes, “I understand, not all warriors have the same methods to obtain the calm.”

“You never know I might use this at some point, when I need to calm down and can’t run. So, thank you, Knuckles” he said calmly

Knuckles got up from where he sat on the curled roof tiles, “You are of the welcome, hedgehog.” Sonic laughed.

He watched as his older brother jumped down from the roof and started walking towards to woods, confused Sonic called out “Knux, where you are going?”

“Warrioring!” Knuckles shouted back from the midst of the forest.

Sonic laughed a bit at his brother’s weird training desires, not like he can judge when he goes for a run at the random-est of times.

“Hey..,Sonic?” a small voice said from behind him.

He turned around to see Tails hovering just above the skylight, “Hey bud, you alright?”

“Yeah, Tom said you wanted to talk to me…about something.” He said slowly

Sonic sighed, of course he did, “Yep I do, I’ll be down in a minute.”

“Okay.” Tails smiled, before heading back into the attic.

He got up from his spot and took one deep breath of the early night summer air. Sonic jumped down into their shared bedroom, leaving the window ajar. A beam of the setting sun, filtering onto the wooden floor, of the room.

Chapter Text

Tails sat on his bed, twiddling his thumbs and his tails flicking slowly behind him. Sonic was sitting on his own bed, crossing his legs and shifting uncomfortably. They both looked up a few times, before they locked eye contact.

Sonic sighed, well might as well get it over with. “Alright, do you…” he started slowly, the words hesitant on his tongue. “Do you get nightmares?”

His little brother looked at him, a bit taken aback. “Uh - yeah, I get those sometimes. Why do you ask, Sonic?”

“I-I..,” He wasn’t sure how to go about this, where was he even going with this? “I get them too… I wake up and go on a run to clear my head.” His voice cracked a bit. Even if he was only talking to his brother he really needed to get together and stop being so… pathetic.

“You’re pathetic, Sonic,”

He shook the thought away.

“Oh,” Tails said, voice wary, “does that…help with them?”

“Sometimes, I did that yesterday. But something was different...” he felt so nervous, like he was telling his brother a secret that was as valuable as the master emerald. Something he shouldn’t know about.

What if Tails freaked out or called GUN? What if he told their parents and they call GUN? What if his brother understood, but then Sonic brings him to where Shadow was, and he isn’t there anymore? What if he was hurt and didn’t see it last time so he…he...

He needed to stop; Sonic was banning the word what if from his vocabulary. It was better when he didn’t think at all! This was terrible.

“I saw something,” He continued abruptly, not caring to address the random space-out. Although he usually didn’t have to; his family were all quite accustomed to his odd behaviour.

“I saw someone, that I wasn’t sure I was capable of seeing ever again.” His head was low on his shoulders… now what?

“You didn’t see Eggman did you?” his little brother gasped.

“No-no, even with his track record, I don’t think he’s coming back from that.” He laughed a bit with his brother.

“Who was it then?” The kit asked, head tilting to the side.

As Sonic opened his mouth to speak, bracing himself for the response, out of nowhere, Knuckles came walking up the stairs and strolled past them, while tossing the Master Emerald in his hand like it was a baseball.

Sonic span around so fast he nearly got whiplash, he twisted his sheets in the process too, so his legs were tangled in between the blanket.

“Knuckles? Where on earth did you get that!” His voice cracked a bit with the sudden change in octave, but he didn’t care.

“Get what?” he said, thumping down backwards onto his mattress.

Sonic tried to get up to stand in front of the echidna’s truck bed, except his legs were caught up in the blanket. Instead of jumping off the foot of his bed, he went tumbling over it, faceplanting into the floorboards.

“What was that?” Tom yelled from his room.

“Nothing!” the three shouted back.

Maddie came walking up the stairs to the attic, stopping halfway, “It didn’t sound like nothing.” She smiled.

Sonic flipped onto his side and got up while rubbing his forehead, “I’m fine, don’t worry mom.”

She looked him up and down, then turned around, “If you say so Sonic,” she sighed. “Night boys.” Maddie called when she got to the bottom of the stairs.

A chorus of ‘night’ and ‘goodnight’ echoed back down to her.

There was a beat of silence before Sonic slowly walked over to his older brother’s bed, staring daggers at him, eyes darting from Knuckles’s face to the green emerald.

“You have the Master Emerald!”

Knuckles turned his gaze to his paws before reverting the blue hedgehog’s confused face. “Oh yes, I do.”

“Since when?” Tails chimed in, walking over and sitting on the floor in front of Knuckles.

“And how?! You said that they had scattered around the world, that it would take ages to find them.”

“Where were they, clumped together or spaced out? Maybe they did scatter, just not as far as we thought.” The fox suggested.

Knuckles sat up in his bed. “Why so many questions?”

“Cause it’s kinda a big deal Knux!” Sonic sat down next to his little brother.

“Well, when you show up randomly with an emerald we thought didn’t exist anymore, I think it’s normal to ask questions. Even if Sonic is being a little dramatic.”

“Excuse me, I am not dramatic.” he huffed, crossing his arms.

“Okay, silence, I’ll answer your questions.” Knuckles sighed.

The two looked at each other and then turned to their older brother expectantly.

“I was training in the woods when I heard noises coming from a hole, in the forest ground. I called out to it and a dark figure appeared out of the nowhere. He asked if I had acquaintances with the blue hedgehog, and he asked if I wanted my emerald back.”

Sonic couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“And he gave me the emerald,” he said, like it was part of a bedtime story. “Oh, he did want to give you a message, hedgehog.”

Sonic could feel his face heating up; Shadow wanted to relay a message to him. So, he didn’t hate him! Were they friends...? Okay maybe not friends-

“Sonic?” Tails said slowly.

He snapped out of his fantasy; Knuckles was holding something out to him. Wait, was that…a letter?

Did Shadow write him a letter? Sonic wasn’t sure, he shook himself fully out of his fantasy. He hesitantly took it, holding it gently on his palms.

“So, what are you going to do with the emerald, Knuckles?” Tails continued the conversation, while Sonic took in the beauty of a piece of folded crumpled up paper, as if it was a gold bar.

“I will be honouring it with a new, confidential hiding spot.”

“Oh okay... wait, who did you say gave it to you?”

“The more impressive hedgehog; I offered to battle for it, like warriors, but he refused.”

“Shadow’s alive!?” Tails whisper-yelled.

“That’s what I was gonna tell you bud,” Sonic breathed, still taking in the letter. “Before Clifford here came bouncing in with an emerald in tow.”

“Who is Clifford? I am Knuckles.”

Sonic looked up at the twin tailed fox with a flat expression, which made the kit laugh.

“How did you even get him to give it to you?” Tails asked.

Knuckles grumbled and laid back down in his bed, “The impressive hedgehog said it was bothering his being.”

Tails nodded in thought.

“Did uhm…” Sonic now felt it necessary to ask a few questions about the hedgehog; “did he look alright, was he in pain? You said he refused to fight, is he injured? Tired? Did it look like he’d eaten something?”

“Wow Sonic,” Tails snickered, “Shadow must be really important to you, seems like you care a lot about him,” The kit smirked knowingly. “But I thought you already saw him, shouldn’t you have the answers to your questions?”

Sonic’s face reddened; Tails was right, why did he care about Shadow so much? Because he was a good friend, and he worried and cared about everyone? Yeah, we’ll go with that.

“I-I…I don’t, he’s not important to me, well he is but, it’s. Argh, you’re making my thoughts get all messed up.”  His little brother just laughed at him more.

“I care about everyone, and I want him to feel safe; he didn’t exactly have a very nice life, living around GUN.”

Tails smile dipped, “None of our childhoods were great Sonic,”

“W-well yeah, but I think there’s things we don’t know. I mean you saw that lab, it didn’t exactly look very homey.” Definitely could’ve used a bean bag chair and some comics, he thought to himself.

“…I forgot he actually grew up there.” Tails whispered sadly.

“And he lost his one and only friend… he feels like she only just died... even though it was fifty years ago.” He whispered back.

“I couldn’t even imagine that happening to me.” His brother said.

“Well, I couldn’t imagine myself in your situation, nor in Knuckles’. I just want to be there for him, he needs friends, a family. A place to call home.”

“Yeah…”

They sat in a comforting silence for a bit.

“You’re a great brother Sonic.”

“Aww, thanks lil’ buddy, you’re a great brother too Tails, I’m glad to have you.”

They smiled towards each other, until Knuckles decided he wanted to be included in this brotherly moment too.

A loud snore erupted from him, making the other two jump a bit out of surprise, and then started laughing.

“Alright, imma’ take that as my sign to get oughta here, I’ll leave you with snoring beauty, shall I?” Sonic got up and headed toward the trap door, gently stuffing away his new prized possession.

“Thanks, but where are you going?” Tails got up too and made his way to his airplane bed.

“I’m sleeping with Tom n Maddie tonight,” he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

“Oh,” Tails squeaked, he ran over to his brother and wrapped his arms around him, “Please don’t have a nightmare tonight,” he squeezed tight then let go, ran back to his bed and jumped in.

Sonic smiled, “Thanks buddy, you too.” He went down the stairs quietly and headed for his parent’s door, fiddling with the hem of Tom’s t-shirt he’d been wearing all day.

***

Maddie lay on her bed, book in hand, laughing when she heard her husband let out what sounded like a shriek from the bathroom.

“Maddie!” he called, he sounded panicked, but she knew the sheriff well, fearless until... “Mads please, code bug...Oh god it’s moving.”

Maddie put a bookmark in to keep her place and set the book aside on her nightstand. She walked around the bed slowly to get to the ensuite, where her ‘fearless husband’ was getting cornered by a creature most-likely three millimetres long.

She pushed open the door to find quite a scene. Tom had jumped up onto the far edge of the bath, with one leg half out the window, and he wielded a bottle of hairspray to fight back at his miniscule opponent.

He pointed to the sink; she closed the door behind her and went over to it. The sight in there was exactly what she was expecting, a tiny spider with reasonably long legs, sitting peacefully on the plug.

She slowly turned her head towards her husband, staring daggers into him. “Tomas Michael Wachowski, really?”

“It came oughta no wear, Mads! Gave a shock that’s al-” he tried his best to explain but got interrupted by knocking on the bathroom door.

It was pushed open, and a blue hedgehog popped his head round the corner. “Wow, full name huh, what’d he do this time?” he smiled lopsidedly.

Maddie side-eyed her husband and snickered; she took out the stool from inside of the cupboard under the sink and put it down for her son to stand on.

Sonic walked into the room, where he could see his dad in the most uncomfortable position, looking like a failed attempt at a burglary. He got up onto his stool and looked at where his mom pointed in the sink.

“Oh, a spider.”

Maddie was about to explain to her son that his sheriff father had shrieked at the sight of the small eight-legged creature, when her words fell dry out of her mouth.

Did Sonic just…

“Sonic! Did you just eat that?!” Tom said, voice panicked.

The blue hedgehog just shrugged, “Yeah, it’s not as good as I remember though…”

“Wha- Sonic!” Maddie stammered out. Was this safe? She knew that was normal for an earth hedgehog, but Sonic ate human food... she’d never seen him eat bugs before!

Sonic’s ears flattened against his head.

Tom sighed, finally getting out of his corner, “Kid I told you before, you gotta stop eating the bugs, we have perfectly good food here. You don’t need to eat the bugs anymore.”

Anymore?!

“Yeah, I know, I just thought you might want me to get rid of it, was that not why you showed it to me?”

Tom scratched behind his ears while Maddie stood to the side, frozen in shock.

“Sonic, you know we wouldn’t make you do that.”

The blue hedgehog smiled up at his dad.

“Alright, you mister,” he booped the speedster’s nose, “need a bath.”

“What, why?”

“Because you smell bad,” Sonic scowled at him, “and you’ve been wearing that all day, so go take it off and put it with the dirty stuff.”

Sonic huffed on his way out.

“What was that?” Maddie asked, staring at her husband dumbfoundedly.

“You didn’t know?”

She shook her head.

“Well, you should ask him about it.”

She looked him up and down, “You sure this isn’t another ploy to get out of bath duty?”

“Maybe,” he admitted; Tom leaned down and gave his wife a quick peck before darting out of the room, “Don’t forget, extra bubbly for the one and only Sonic the hedgehog.” He stammered out.

She laughed a bit, going over to the bath and kneeling next to it.

“Come on Sonic!” she called out to the reluctant teen.

He let out a grumble when he entered the bathroom once more.

***

Maddie was knelt in front of the bathtub, rubbing shampoo into her son’s quills, Sonic had his back to her and was playing with the bubbles.

“So, Sonic?” Maddie started tentatively.

“Yeah?”

“When did this whole bug thing start?”

She felt him tense a bit, “Oh, well, when I first came to Earth, I had to eat something. Once I got older, I started finding actual food. I’m honestly not sure why I did that.” He laughed.

“I remember when me n donut lord were out on the lake, and there was a spider on the oar, it looked cool, so I picked it up to get a good look at it. I went to show it to Tom, but he looked really scared. He told me to get rid of it, so I ate it.”

Sonic laughed a bit at the memory, “He looked so freaked out; he was ready to jump out the boat!”

Maddie laughed with her son at the absurdity of it. Once she had calmed down, Maddie asked him another question.

“So, you were a bit like an earth hedgehog? How did you know what to eat, and that you could eat bugs?”

He sighed, “Longclaw taught me to do that,”

“Oh...”

“It’s okay, I guess- it just reminds me of her.”

Maddie scratched behind Sonic’s ears, “Well, you don’t have to eat them every time you see a bug. In fact, I would prefer if you didn’t.”

“Even if Tom screams?”

“Even if Tom screams.” Maddie laughed.

He nudged into the ear scratches, “Mmmm” he purred.

She kissed the top of his head, between his ears. “Okay then, I’ll let you finish up in here, and then you can come find me and Tom.”

“Okay, thanks Maddie.” He turned around to face her and smiled.

She smiled back and left the room, closing the door behind her.

“So, how did it go?” Tom asked from his spot on the bed.

“Good, I guess I never thought about what it was like for him before he met us.” She sighed, getting into her own side of the bed.

Soon after, Sonic came and squeezed himself in between his two parents.

Maddie stroked his quills and fur while Tom scratched his ears.

He hoped that being close to his parents, and the laughs they had beforehand, had cleared his mind enough.

***

It was the next morning, Sonic had gotten up and had his breakfast and was planning on going for a run, but then he remembered the letter. The letter that Shadow had written for him.

He had almost forgotten to take it out of his quills last night, he somehow managed to hide it under his socks and gloves, without his mom seeing. How did he do it? He had no idea.

Sonic sat on his bed cross legged, running his gloved finger over the fold of the paper. He was now able to notice a few more things about it, the paper itself seemed a bit dirty. He flipped it around and laid it on the mattress of his race car bed.

On the front of the paper, in blue crayon, there was one word scribbled down as close to the centre as one could eyeball it to be. It took a second to figure out the word, it being in crayon and slightly messy handwriting, although it was quite neat for a chunky pastel.

Blue was all it said, what was that supposed to mean? Normally on letters it would say the name of the person they’ve addressed it to; did Shadow not know his name? No, that couldn’t be it, if he knew Shadow’s name, then the black hedgehog probably knew Sonic’s name too.

Maybe it was just a nickname, that’s sweet (and also unlikely). He sighed.

“You know, that’s not going to open itself if you just keep staring at it.”

He lifted his head and saw Tails standing by the trap door, hands on his hips.

The kit walked over to him and sat on the edge of Sonic’s bed. “Why don’t you want to open it?”

Sonic sighed again, “It’s not that I don’t want to bud, I just- I don’t know what to expect.”

“Come on Sonic, just open it, before I do it for you.”

Sonic jerked his head back up, “Uhh no, I don’t think so,” he scoffed.

“Well open it then.”

“Fine, fine…can open it by myself though?”

“Oh, it’s one of those letters, is it?” Tails raised a brow and got off the bed.

Sonic felt taken aback, blush creeping onto his muzzle. “Wha- Tails!”

The twin tailed fox just giggled and stuck his tongue out at his older brother.

“Out!” Sonic pointed to the trap door and watched as Tails ran down the stairs.

He then went back to staring at the piece of paper like it had personally offended him.

He flipped it back over to see the fold so he could open it. Sonic took a deep breath in (as if that would do anything), held the paper in his hands and opened it.

The writing was as neat as it could be when written in crayon. Like on the outside, the crayon was a cobalt shade of blue that matched his fur. That was a nice coincidence…

To Sonic Blue

Cave by the lake

When the sun hits midday

The day after you get given this

See you later.                                

 -Shadow

Well, he couldn’t argue, it was written by Shadow.

How was he supposed to know what cave he was talking about though? Scratch that, he has a cave? Like Sonic did. Was he using Sonic’s cave? Although he didn’t say it was his cave.

Wait a minute, he did know Sonic’s name.

But why did he cross it out?

He sighed, fell back onto his bed and then spoke under his breath.

“This hedgehog dude, what am I gonna do with him?” he muttered.