Chapter Text
There was a bird singing on the other side of the canyon. Its rhythmic song echoed through every crack in the stone until it reached a burrow, where it harmonized with a low, steady purr. Sonic normally could not bear to stay still for even a second; soon, he would have to get up and stretch his legs. But the sweet music lulled him into a rare moment of peace, at least for a short while. In either case, he could not move without disrupting his brother.
The younger omega was not much smaller than Sonic, but the way he curled in on himself, muzzle tucked under Sonic’s chin, made him look tiny. He was rightfully exhausted. His heat had only just started to subside sometime in the night, and the days before had been a physical and emotional marathon. Without a trusted alpha nearby, he was left swinging like a pendulum between anxious and affectionate and desperately horny. There were no alphas in their tiny pack, just Sonic, who would go to the ends of the earth for his family but couldn’t provide the comfort of a mate. Still, the hormonal whirlwind of heat was far easier to endure when surrounded by family than completely alone. Sonic and the twin who wasn’t a hormonal mess spent most of the week in shifts. One would stay glued to their siblings side, comforting them, grooming them, making sure they remembered to eat. The other would look after the burrow, watching for threats and keeping the pantry stocked. When Sonia’s heat rolled around, Manic would do the same for her. Sonic might not be an alpha, but he could cuddle like the best of them. Judging by Manic’s blissful purring, he was doing a damn good job.
None of them had slept much, and Manic would be spending the next week making up for it. Sonic could do the same; in fact, a lazy morning curled up with his brother, listening to the birds, sounded like paradise.
Sonic couldn’t sleep. This too was predictable. After a week of barely leaving the burrow, boredom had him wanting to hurl himself into the canyon. This part of the den opened up into the sheer cliff wall, blue sky above, the river below, vibrant painted stone all around. The sturdy tarp at the entrance was tied back in deference to the sunny weather, and the breeze rushing past pulled at Sonic’s fur like it was inviting him out to play. It took all of his self-control to keep from tapping his foot. He couldn’t take off his ‘responsible big brother’ hat just yet. But god, he wanted to. Just a little bit longer.
His chance arrived on footsteps climbing up to the den. A familiar scent let him know that he didn’t have to drive off an intruder. Even asleep, Manic sensed Sonia’s approach. He stirred, letting out a sleepy chirp as a greeting. She lowered to one knee beside the two of them, a fond smile on her face as she ruffled Manic’s quills.
“Looks like he’s feeling better,” she said.
“I think so,” Sonic said. “He’s gonna be a lump for a few more hours, but he’ll have a clearer head when he wakes up.”
“The quiet is a nice change.”
Sonic cracked a grin. He gave Manic a squeeze, causing him to squeak like a plush toy. “Don’t get used to it,” he said.
“I’ll live,” Sonia said. “Because when he’s less of a lump, he needs to take a look at the solar panels. One of them isn’t producing like it should and I can’t figure out why.”
Sonia’s tone was calm, describing only a mild inconvenience that Manic could easily fix in a day or two. But Sonic felt a shock of dread like a firecracker in the pit of his stomach. He imagined the electricity going out, their food spoiling in the heat, the night coming with nothing to dispel the dark. It was an overreaction. The solar panels produced more than enough power to keep the lights on, even if one wasn’t pulling its weight. And as soon as Manic had gotten his wits back, he could set things right. There was no reason for Sonic freak out, especially while Manic was still dealing with mood swings and needed his brother to be a port in a storm.
“How bad is it?” Sonic said. Manic’s ears twitched. The anxious rattle under Sonic’s voice was subtle, inaudible to anyone who didn’t know him well, whose face wasn’t tucked against his chest. Sonic purred louder, pointed and insistent, until Manic slipped back to sleep.
“Not,” said Sonia, who had remained quiet until Manic was no longer in danger of waking up. “We’re still getting enough for the essentials. If it degrades anymore, there could be trouble, but if you dig up some spare fuel cells from the ruins… Well, I don’t think we’ll need them. But it doesn’t hurt to be careful.”
In a heartbeat, Sonic’s tension vanished. The wind through the canyon sang so loud he could barely hear anything else. Still, he hesitated, not sure that he could wriggle out from under Manic without waking him up. “Why don’t you head to the ruins?” he said. “I can stay put until he wakes up.”
“Because I haven’t gotten my beauty sleep, dipshit,” Sonia said. “Besides…” She didn’t need to say anything else. Sonic followed her knowing look and realized that his foot was tap-tap-tapping, an uneven, too-quick rhythm that Manic was sure to hear in his nightmares. Okay, maybe Sonia had a point.
Getting out from under Manic was a delicate operation. He whined like he had been mortally wounded and clung to Sonic with all the stubbornness of an omega trying to stop his wonderful, purring nest from getting up and walking away. He could be soothed only when Sonia redirected his efforts, prying his hands off of Sonic and coaxing him toward her instead. By the time Sonic left the nest, the twins were slotted together like puzzle pieces, purring in sleepy harmony. Sonia’s ears twitched toward Sonic as he left, letting him know that though she was drifting off, nothing could get close enough to harm Manic without first going through her.
A stranger would have a hard enough time getting into the hedgehog family burrow. The canyon’s paths were hidden in plain sight. The most efficient way was a series of rope ladders and rocky handholds leading up the cliffs or down to the river, safe if you knew where to put your feet, but a terrifying ordeal to those who didn’t. They could take the long way around, following the footpaths that wound up and down the canyon cliffs. Manic and Sonia could scale the walls like a pair of squirrels, but Sonic enjoyed taking the scenic route.
To him, miles rushed by in between heartbeats. The wind greeted him like an old friend, even as it threatened to pluck him off the cliffside and toss him down into the gorge. But Sonic trusted his own two feet to keep him on the path as it carried him up and up, until his home was out of sight and the river was a ribbon of turquoise far, far below. At the crest of the cliff, Sonic paused, stretching his arms up to the sky and breathing in the freshest air he’d tasted in days. His legs were sore as his cramped muscles loosened; soon he would feel weightless, unstoppable, as carefree as a leaf on the breeze. Oh, he’d needed this.
The ruins lay on the other side of the canyon, making entrance a bit of a trick. The bridge was intact, but the front doors were sealed shut; any who once held the keys were long dead. Instead, Sonic headed for his usual entrance. A juniper, more twisted trunk than tree, reached out over the gorge. Sonic got a running start before racing up the tree and springing off. For a split second he soared without a safety net. There was nothing between him and a fathomless fall into the canyon, and he heard nothing but the wind rushing in his ears. Time stretched out in limitless directions, as Sonic closed his eyes and stretched out his arms like they would sprout feathers. When gravity began to pull at him once more, he tucked into a ball and pitched through an open window into the ruins.
The so-called Ancients had died out long before Sonic’s ancestors started writing things down. Even then, early Mobian texts tended to be ‘lists of plants that can be used as medicine’ rather than ‘the history of our strange predecessors’ or ‘how their technology works.’ But things that they Ancients built tended to stay standing, and Mobians who were crafty and curious and didn’t mind a bit of risk could pry out a wealth of useful secrets from the worn-down machines. All three of the hedgehogs had learned the basics from their uncle, back when their pack was more than just a trio. But Manic had a real knack for taking a centuries-old tangle of wires and rust and turning into something useful. He was the reason the burrow had solar cells, water purification, fans that took the edge off the most brutal summer days. He’d be able to figure out why the panels were on the fritz, without a doubt. And while Sonic was already combing the ruins, he would keep his eyes out for anything weird, a piece of equipment whose purpose they couldn’t even guess at. There was nothing Manic liked more than a puzzle to solve, never mind the risk that it might blow up in his face.
The ruins were quiet in the same way Sonic imagined an alien planet would be. There was no howling wind to dampen his footsteps. He could never be sure which sounds were the last gasps of barely-functioning machinery and which came from his own imagination. The creaks and hums were louder today than Sonic remembered, and as the adrenaline from the jump continued to cycle through his veins, he remained on high alert. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something unpleasant lurked right where he wasn’t looking. He didn’t want to be away from home for long, not until Manic was back on his feet. Sonic would keep to the well-lit passages, find a battery or two that could be removed without doing too much damage. In and out, and back home in time to put a meal together before Sonia woke up. It was the perfect plan, and Sonic forgot about it within the hour.
As it turned out, Sonic wasn't the only one digging through the ruins. And while he tended to keep a low profile where other scavengers might be snooping about, the alpha that had passed by had taken a slightly different approach. The door to the main stairwell, where so many of the ruins' labyrinthine passages tended to intersect, was marked. The alpha had clawed two gouges into the wall, leaving his scent and a demonstration of what he could do to anyone who went looking for trouble. "Don't fuck with me," the mark said. "I might not start a fight, but I'll sure as hell end one." It didn't have the intended effect on Sonic, who felt tension ease out of him as he took in the familiar scent. This wasn't a warning. This was an invitation.
It was a simple matter to track him down. There wasn’t much need for subtlety when other alphas—the smart ones, at least—backed off at the sight of him. Sonic was neither an alpha nor wise enough to shy away from a tussle with someone much larger and stronger than he was. And Knuckles was always good for a tussle.
Sonic followed his trail until he reached a part of the ruins he'd never seen before. No one else had, because just a few weeks ago the tunnel had been caved in, completely impassable. It must have taken ages to clear a path. Sonic noticed tell-tale marks left by claws on stone, sections where boulders and twisted metal beams had been propped up to prevent another collapse. He wondered what Knuckles thought was down here that could be worth so much effort. Perhaps he'd simply gotten bored of digging in the canyon and sought out a real challenge. Either way, Sonic wanted to play along. He followed the tunnel as it descended, far deeper below the surface than he knew the ruins reached.
The tunnel opened up into a huge circular chamber. The floor was made of glass—well, Sonic hoped it was something stronger than glass—and beneath was an unlit abyss. Steel bands crossed the floor like spokes of a wheel, and that was the only structure that Sonic trusted to hold his weight. At the center, where the spokes intersected, sat a metal pod. At its core was a pane of glass, and inside a single rod that glowed neon green.
Sonic, however, was less concerned about the strange machine, and far more interested in the person examining it. Knuckles stooped with his nose inches from the glass panel. One hand hovered just as close, not quite touching. The other clasped a pendant on a cord around his neck, which faintly glowed the same green. Sonic zipped across the room, keeping his feet off the failing glass floor, and hopped up onto the pod. He sat with his legs crossed at the knee, leaning breezily on his palm. He tipped the cowboy hat he'd swiped on the way by and delighted in the way Knuckles expression shifted from surprise to recognition to outrage as he said, "Howdy."
Knuckles jumped up, making a grab for his hat, but Sonic leaped to his feet. Knuckles was nearly twice his height, but his perch helped keep his stolen prize safely out of reach. "That's a funny way of saying you missed me," Sonic said.
He realized he'd miscalculated when Knuckles gave up on the hat and grabbed Sonic by the ankle. The few times the alpha managed to grab him, an iron grip Sonic didn't have a prayer of breaking, always sent the same thrill up his spine. The only protest he could offer was an "oh shit" as Knuckles yanked him to the ground. Sonic tucked into a roll and popped back up just in time to see Knuckles return his hat to its rightful place. Then he crossed his arms, glaring down at Sonic with an expression Sonic chose to interpret as 'I'm happy to see you but pretending otherwise.' "I've been digging for a week," Knuckles said. "I figured you'd interrupt me within the first day."
"I would've, believe me," Sonic said. "Sorry dude, but you know how it is. Duty calls."
Knuckles didn't know how it is. He wrinkled his nose in confusion, which only grew as he sniffed the air. "Are you in heat?" he said, raising his voice as if he already knew Sonic was stupid enough to leave the den in such a state, but still couldn't believe it. "What? No, I—" Sonic reflexively lifted his hand, pressing his nose to the scent gland in his wrist. His scent was as it should be; that is to say, barely there at all. He had neither an alpha's musk nor an omega's sweetness. Even the betas he'd met had their own flavor, subtle and soothing but distinct. Sonic's scent was little more than a whisper, entirely drowned out by Manic's 'fuck me coddle me I'm in heat' that he hadn't yet bothered to wash off. "Oh hell no dude, that's not me, I've been lookin' after my brother."
Knuckles visibly relaxed, his spines drooping and shoulders losing a bit of their tension. The irritation didn't leave his face, especially when Sonic gave him a huge shit-eating grin. "Aw, were you worried about me?"
Knuckles was not a convincing liar. He scoffed, averting his gaze, as if that would keep his rosy flush from showing through his fur. "What do I care?" he said. "Just because you don't have an ounce of sense doesn't mean it has to be my problem."
"Flatterer," Sonic purred, and Knuckles growled out something rude and unintelligible before turning back to the central pod. The second he looked away, Sonic was right up in his space, peering at the strange, glowing rod behind the glass. "Do you know what this is?"
Knuckles startled as he realized just how close Sonic was. Baring his teeth and tensing his spines was usually a surefire way of getting anyone to keep their distance, but Sonic met his display with a knowing grin and an insufferable absence of fear. Knuckles huffed, planting his hand against Sonic’s side and shoving. “You don’t know anything about the Ancients, do you?”
Sonic suddenly did not care about that, or the pod, or the glowing treasure. Knuckles had nearly knocked him off his feet, and he wasn’t about to let that go without an escalation.
“Gonna give me a history lesson, big guy?” He knew exactly what he was doing, knew that his next action was going to place him in the path of a whirlwind of whoopass, and there was a very real chance he would get pummeled into sand. Worth it. He reached out with one lightning-quick hand, wrapped it around the base of Knuckles’ tail, and gave it a friendly yank.
The fist that sailed over Sonic’s head could have cracked his skull like an egg. Sonic ducked and darted out of arm’s reach. The key to avoiding consequences for his mischief was to stay out of punching range. All Sonic had to do was stay on his toes and cackle as Knuckles’ face changed from brown to red to purple.
“You little shit!” Knuckles snapped in between powerful but futile swings. “I ought to shove you in a locked pod!”
Between the flurry of blows and the unstable terrain, Sonic navigated a delicate obstacle course. It took all his focus to keep his footing, to avoid smashing through the broken floor, to avoid getting smashed through by Knuckles’ fists. His heart was racing, and the smile never left his face. He leaped, ducked, and whirled through an improvised, high-stakes dance. He could have retreated at any moment, could have zipped toward the exit and been out of the ruins before Knuckles blinked. The thought never crossed Sonic’s mind.
Sonic paused just long enough to lean against the pod, swiping his thumb across his nose and fixing Knuckles with a sharp-toothed grin. “Catch me first and you can shove me anywhere you like,” he said.
An impossible challenge, perhaps, but Knuckles didn’t seem to care. He locked eyes with Sonic, who suddenly felt like he was in the path of a charging bull. Knuckles lowered his shoulders, raised his spines, growled out a sound that Sonic couldn’t hear but he sure as hell could feel. It sank into his bones and made him shiver as if they were vibrating at the same frequency. His quills drooped, his eyes dilated, and he didn’t realize he was frozen in place until Knuckles was damn near on top of him.
Oh shit. The realization hit like a lightning bolt, and Sonic’s reflexes took care of the rest. He sprung straight up, kicking his legs out so that Knuckles fist went between them. It struck the pod wit the force of a thunderclap.
Sonic flipped forward to land behind Knuckles, their impromptu contest put on hold as they watched an ancient machine short-circuit. The glass was scattered in pieces on the floor, leaving the neon rod bent out of shape and exposed. Its glow was now too bright to look at directly, and sparks leaped from it to encircle the pod. The whole structure hummed and crackled, the tell-tale sound of machinery that would carry out its intended function, no matter what it had to break in the process. The sensible course was to flee, but Knuckles had already dropped into a defensive crouch between Sonic and the machine, and Sonic was not about to leave him behind.
When it fell silent, neither of them relaxed. Knuckles took a step back, forcing Sonic to lean past his wide frame to avoid taking his eyes off the machine. The quiet of the room did nothing to soften the electric hum of a deadly threat. Every muscle in Sonic’s body vibrated with nervous energy, his legs tense and ready to spring, his quills raised. Knuckles nudged against him, trying to shepherd him toward the exit. Sonic stayed where he was.
And then a screech of metal against metal nearly had Sonic leaping to the ceiling. A slim, double-joined leg unfolded from the central pod and slammed against the ground. It tapered to a fine point, sharp enough to skewer either Mobian like an insect if they were caught in its path. Five more legs emerged in the same way. One jutted out at an awkward angle, twisted out of shape, but the others planted against the ground and lifted the mechanical monster to its full height. Electric green energy flashed through its limbs and shot out like a blowtorch from the one that was damaged. Two more limbs lashed out from the front of the chassis. Like claws—or mandibles—they ended in wicked hooks.
Knuckles threw his arm back, shoving Sonic toward the exit. “Run!” he said, his voice pitched with an alpha’s commanding rumble. Caught off guard, Sonic almost obeyed, but the instinct to follow his alpha’s lead did not run as deep as the refusal to leave a friend to fight alone.
Unlike Sonic, Knuckles did not hesitate. He charged toward the machine, which reared up off the ground. Knuckles skidded to the side to avoid the pointed leg that slammed down where he had been just a moment ago. The impact punched a hole in the reinforced glass. Knuckles whirled around and slammed his fist into the leg before it could lift up once more. Metal crumpled and bent, and the machine skittered to the side as it struggled to keep its balance. Two down, four to go. Sonic didn’t hesitate any longer. He threw himself into the fight as the robot lifted another leg to stab down at Knuckles.
This time he was ready for it. He twisted around the blow and caught the leg in midair. He wrapped his arms around it, shifting his stance as he prepared to hurl his foe like a sack of bricks. He was not prepared for the claw-limb to suddenly extend and crack like a whip, dragging the hooked edge across Knuckles’ shoulder. He shouted in pain, loosening his grip enough that the robot could wrench its leg free. It spun around, slamming another leg into him and launching him across the room.
Sonic’s vision blurred with panic and fury. He saw only emerald green sparks streaking like fireworks as he hurled himself toward the machine. His quills carved through the extended arm before it could retract. The hooked claw, still splashed with crimson, clattered to the ground. The machine jerked and skittered every which way, trying to take aim, but this new combatant was little more than a blur at the peripherals of its senses. Sonic darted untouched between its legs, leading it in a stumbling dance that it couldn’t hope to keep up with. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Knuckles picking himself up. Sonic didn’t bother telling him to run. They could handle this together.
Sonic sprinted in a wide circle, then turned on a dime and launched himself toward the bot. He slammed into one of its legs with enough force to rattle his teeth. The bot teetered to the side, and Sonic skidded to a landing. He was no stranger to spin-dashing a wild beast or foul-mannered alpha, but he’d never faced something this big, or with an exoskeleton of solid metal. He’d left a gouge in its armor, but couldn’t sever the leg, which now rose up to crush him. That left Plan C; keep its attention while Knuckles smashed it to pieces.
The robot’s next strike caught only the breeze left in Sonic’s wake. Knuckles charged back into the fray, showing no sign that his injury had done anything but piss him off. The bot wasn’t going to get a second chance. It swiveled toward Knuckles as he wound up for a punch. Sonic hopped up, swung around its leg, and vaulted towards its core. The world spun at the speed of sound, and Sonic’s vision gave way to blinding green.
Sonic struck the core just as Knuckles snapped another leg like a wishbone. Electricity surged through Sonic’s body, standing his fur on end and making his limbs jerk out of his control. He tumbled to the ground as the bot lurched to the side, seized up by the same neon sparks. As Sonic struggled to his feet, a leg plunged toward him. It was flailing without aim or intent, but it would be no less painful if Sonic failed to get out of the way. His own muscles were not responding as they should, and though he saw time moving in slow motion he felt paralyzed. Not Knuckles, who sprinted toward him, wrapped an arm around his waist, and tossed him aside as the final blow came down. The robot’s leg punched through the floor, sending a web of cracks radiating outward through the entire pane of glass. There was nothing to hold onto as the floor gave out.
Sonic yelled Knuckles’ name as he fell. If there was any answer, it was drowned out by the chorus of crashing rubble. Strength returned too-slowly to his limbs, and as the ground expanded to swallow him, it was all he could do to tuck into a ball and hope.
Sonic felt the impact from his quills to his bone marrow. For some time he was aware only of his racing heartbeat and the aftershocks as pain swelled and faded and swelled again. He struggled to catch his breath, to steady himself, to find his footing. He strained his hearing for any sign of Knuckles—or a monstrous machine seeking to finish him off. As soon as Sonic could move, he did.
At least, he tried to. A steal beam, torn free as the robot fell, lay across Sonic’s legs. His attempts to pull free sent fresh shocks of pain through him, centered on his ankle and shooting up his thigh. Were his legs broken? Sonic couldn’t tell, nor could he imagine how he’d get back to the burrow if they were. Iron bars wrapped around his lungs as heavy and hopeless as his trapped legs. Sonic squirmed, shoved, thrashed, but nothing moved the beam—or him—even an inch. The pain made his head swim, and Sonic forced himself to hold still for fear of damaging himself any further. It took all of his willpower to keep from flailing like a fly in a web. Where was Knuckles? Where was the machine? At any moment, Sonic expected a specter of twisted metal to rise out of the rubble and tear into him like a ravenous predator. Worse was the fear that Knuckles might also be trapped, wounded, fighting off panic and helpless to protect himself. Sonic gritted his teeth, choking back a shout—or a wail—that might tell Knuckles that he was here and frightened and needed him to be okay. That might lure a lurking enemy to his precarious hiding place.
At the sound of movement, Sonic’s body seized up, his quills flexed and teeth bared with primal terror. And when the silhouette in the dust was not a hulking threat, but a worried alpha, the tension left Sonic’s body as smooth and easy as if someone had grabbed him by the scruff. His heart continued to race, but the lignering panic was quiet compared to the low rumble in Knuckles’ chest. Any other time, Sonic would tear an alpha a new one for crooning at him. He wasn’t some flighty damsel or a kid waking up from an nightmare. But now, as Sonic feared he might vibrate out of his own skin, the sound settled him as sure as a hand stroking his fur back into place. “Are you hurt?” Knuckles said, as gruff as ever, and that too made Sonic feel like they might just be okay.
“Can’t move my legs,” Sonic said. “They might be broken, fuck, they better not be broken. Help me out, will you?”
Knuckles gripped the fallen beam and lifted it up. Rubble shifted with each movement, and broken glass littered the ground. Sonic didn’t care. As soon as he had an inch of wiggle room, he crawled forward until his legs were clear of the beam. When they could still move and bend, the bones intact and more or less where they were supposed to be, Sonic nearly blacked out with relief. Every inch of him was sore, and Sonic’s left ankle still protested every time he tried to bend it. If he was home, he would wrap it up and keep his weight off it and bitch to his siblings about how bored he was waiting for it to heal. But as the rubble continued to shift, as long metal limbs clawed free from the pile of steel and glass, Sonic knew that healing would have to weight. He braced his hands against the ground and began the painful process of getting back on his feet.
“Stay down,” Knuckles said, in a tone of voice that demanded obedience. Sonic bristled, opening his mouth to tell Knuckles that saving his ass didn’t mean he could be pushed around. He quickly reconsidered as Knuckles spun, swinging the steal beam like a hammer. Sonic ducked as Knuckles let go, sending it flying. The makeshift missile slammed sideways into the robot, sweeping its remaining limbs out from under it and felling it like a tree.
It didn’t get back up, but a light on its core flashed red. A piercing, high-pitched sound grating at the edges of Sonic’s hearing. Elsewhere in the ruins, he could hear something answer the call for help.
They needed to leave. Sonic dragged himself upright, but his ankle refused to carry his weight. Balancing gingerly on one leg, he pressed his foot to the ground, only to buckle under the flash of pain. He gritted his teeth and tried to push through it. He tried to stretch it out, to ease the joint through its range of movement, but his stubborn attempts weren’t getting him anywhere—except back on the ground if he blacked out from pain. Still he tried, because he couldn’t stay, he needed to run, and if he couldn’t he was done for—
Sonic startled as Knuckles’ hands gripped his waist. He didn’t notice how the thickheaded alpha had managed to get so close without him noticing. Though touching Sonic when he wasn’t expecting it was normally a surefire way to get pincushioned, he found himself leaning in to Knuckles’ steady support. “Don’t try to walk, you idiot,” Knuckles said. “We need to get your ankle wrapped up.”
“I know, I know, I just need to get back home,” Sonic said. But how? He couldn’t run, couldn’t climb, couldn’t stand his ground against the clawed things that prowled in the darkness.
Knuckles made the decision for him by lifting him up off his feet. A growl rattled in Sonic’s chest, ready to come out his mouth as a flood of profanity and demands to be put down, he could carry his own damn self. He couldn’t, of course. More importantly, as Knuckles adjusted his grip, Sonic found himself curled up and tucked against an alpha’s broad chest. The growl died in his throat as abruptly as if he’d just blown a fuse. “Keep it down,” Knuckles said, even though Sonic had gone very quiet indeed. “Do you want to get out of here or not?”
It was hard to think past anything that wasn’t warm and strong and safe. Sonic felt exhausted, as if he was mere moments from sinking into bed after a long day. His mouth lagged behind his thoughts, which lagged behind understanding Knuckles’ words, which seemed less important than the timbre of his voice that said ‘Don’t be afraid. I’ll take care of you.’ But Sonic finally managed to answer, a simple “Fine” that only sounded a little like he was melting. Knuckles mercifully did not comment, only clutched him tighter and ran. Behind them, the ruins echoed with a cacophony that Sonic had never heard, that made him think that they had never been as empty as he once thought. He dug his fingers into Knuckles’ fur and tried to calm his racing heart.