Chapter Text
"Hey."
Knuckles stared down at him. His purple eyes were unreadable, his expression hard to parse against the harsh glare of the sun. Sonic squinted up at him. It was dumb, to think this, but his friend felt almost unapproachable like this. Someone above him. Something above him.
He waited for Knuckles to reply. There was a very silly, sour thought in his mind.
"What are you doing here?" Knuckles asked.
Sonic shrugged. They both knew what he was doing here. It was obvious, really. A week since Tails left, a week since Amy left before that. Two weeks. There was only one person left. One last person Sonic had to make sure returned to what he'd taken from them.
"Making sure you don't chicken out." Sonic eventually said.
Silence. There were some other questions to be asked. How did Sonic get on Angel Island without a ride? Why wait a week? Why had Knuckles waited a week?
Knuckles huffed, and uncrossed his arms, staring down the stairs. "You're more excited about me going on a trip than I am."
To that Sonic just laughed. Knuckles was right if not in the way he thought. Excited wasn't the word. Desperate. It was eating at him on the inside. That was it. Knuckles didn't need to know that. "I just wanna make sure you don't back down, man. You deserve this."
Knuckles stopped on the last step of the altar. Sonic had not stepped on. Sometimes he did. To tease Knuckles. To bug him and get him riled up and it was one of the rare times were he did that to someone intentionally, where they didn't deserve it, and he didn't feel aching guilt. Knuckles never held it against him. Knuckles maybe expected it, even. Probably didn't enjoy it but… Sonic felt like it was something of their friendship. Some part of it. A part, that like any other, he could not stand to loose.
Knuckles, above anyone else, could never know. Knuckles never pulled his punches with him. Knuckles saw him as an equal. Knuckles perhaps maybe even respected him half as much as Sonic respected him, although that he rarely showed. And because of that, Knuckles could never know.
Because he would be furious. He would be betrayed. They would be friends no longer.
Sonic couldn't lose him. Knuckles made him feel normal.
"Deserve is a strong word." Knuckles said, voice tight.
"…you do." Sonic supplied. "You outta anyone ever deserve to get out there and see the world."
Knuckles snorted. Stepped off the altar, shoving him aside—but he didn't mean it, because Sonic didn't go sprawling on the ground—to get past him. "I think you are confused."
"Am not." Sonic rebutted, following after. "Why d'you say that?"
"Because you are the one who has spent a Chaos forsaken amount of time keeping this world in one piece." Knuckles explained. "If anyone deserves to be out there enjoying the world it is you."
Vulnerable. Oddly vulnerable. It wasn't how talks with Knuckles usually went. Sonic suddenly felt paranoid, as if something with him, with how he was broken, had prompted this. He didn't know.
Maybe it was just from Ares. Gaia. Ares felt so far away. Like a distant dream.
But he was here. He might as well.
"Well… you're the one who's spent his whole life keeping a gem critical to the safety of he world safe." Sonic returned. "If it wasn't for you, d'you know how many more things probably would have gone wrong?"
Knuckles looked to him. Scoffed. "I know you cannot do without me."
Sonic laughed. Tossed an arm around Knuckles' shoulder. It was a bit awkward, something which they had been ignoring since the war. Because Knuckles had grown. Sonic had not.
Knuckles still thought he was fifteen. Or maybe sixteen.
…
Knuckles had once told him that the echidna considered someone an adult once they turned seventeen. Or well, what translated to seventeen on a modern calendar. Sonic had missed Knuckles' coming of age, during the war. Apparently Knuckles had held a makeshift ceremony for it. With Tails, and Amy. He didn't talk about it, Sonic didn't pry. At some point though—it was distant and faint and Sonic held onto the fading edges of the memory desperately—he remembered Knuckles saying he would hold such a ceremony when Tails came of age. Begrudgingly, but Sonic had known he'd meant it, he said he would do the same for Sonic.
And now Sonic felt his stomach roll with shame. Knuckles had grown and he had not and hell, he'd even gotten younger technically because he wasn't fifteen, or sixteen, or whatever the hell year he was supposed to be, he was thirteen. He wasn't anywhere close to being of age. And he felt sick because if Knuckles did offer, next year? This year? Gaia, Sonic didn't know. If Knuckles did offer, Sonic would either have to lie—something that he could barely even stomach the thought of, because Knuckles was sharing precious traditions with them out of trust, out of this very valuable, rare kind of trust that he seemed to only have for him, and Tails, and Amy—or admit to having been lying this entire time, and he didn't know which was worse.
Knuckles had grown.
He had not.
Maybe he never would.
"Yeah, you're right." Sonic admitted. He made sure it sounded teasing though. He was genuine but if he let it be too genuine his voice would shake and he wouldn't be able to bite back tears. "But Knux, here's the deal. I've already been all over. I already got my fill of deserving that." Arguable, Sonic didn't say that. "You? You haven't."
Knuckles was silent. Didn't shake him off, though. Sonic gave his shoulder a squeeze. "Try just a month, or two, first. Tails helped you set up security, right?"
"…yes."
"Then you got nothing to worry about." Sonic insisted. "You know how Tails is. And if you're worried about Rouge…" He leaned in teasingly. "…well, let's just say I don't think the Master Emerald is the treasure she's looking for up here."
Knuckles flinched. Sonic watched him go bright red. Next thing he was on the ground, his whole body aching from that alone, but he was laughing, and Gaia it felt good to laugh, he was laughing as Knuckles stomped away, grumbling about how he should just throw him right off the island.
Sonic stayed there, on the ground, propping himself up, catching his breath. His sides ached from that brief bout of laughter. He didn't pause for it. "Y'know I'm right, Knuckles."
Knuckles whirled on him.
Sonic rolled his eyes. "Ignoring the Rouge part. The Master Emerald will be safe. You can enjoy the world, Knuckles. You deserve it."
Knuckles huffed. Looked away. Stared off into the horizon, and was silent for a long while. Sonic let him. He knew how hard it was to take the first step on something he'd set his mind to.
It was hard. But at least Knuckles got the luxury of it being something he wanted to do.
"…can you promise me something?" Knuckles finally said. His voice was oddly serious. Steady. Left no room for humor. "And you must swear to me. Swear to me on whatever you must, but swear."
Sonic hesitated, but he nodded. Stood up. "I can. What is it?"
"You will keep one of the devices which Tails wired to the system. And if the alarm ever goes off, you will come here." Knuckles managed, every word careful, and slow, and deliberate. "You are far, far faster than me. You could get here far faster than I ever could. You will come here, and you will defend the Master Emerald as if it was the world. With your life."
Sonic paused. With your life.
Heavy. Heavy. The weight of a whole world in the sense that it felt like the entirety of his and Knuckles' friendship would hinge on this and this alone. A price tag, attached to it. His friendship with Knuckles. Worth his entire life.
Knuckles would rather have him as a friend or not at all. That's what his brain whispered, anyways, almost traitorously. Knuckles would put the Master Emerald above him. Which was— It was okay. It was fine. That's how it should be, right? That's how it had to be. It was the correct thing. For once one of his friends was on the same page as him, for once one of his friends was right.
…so why did it hurt so much?
He would always put the world before Knuckles, right? It was mutual. It was fair. He'd always put the world before Knuckles. He always would. He… he would, right?
…
"I will." He promised,his voice coming out soft. Quiet. He couldn't get it any louder.
Knuckles looked back at him. "Swear to me."
In his eyes. Barely there. Hidden well. But Sonic saw it. Fear, almost. Fear, this very primordial kind of it, of being at the precipice of an unknown, searching for familiarity and safety wherever possible.
He wasn't begging for it, because he was Knuckles, he didn't beg like that, but it was in his eyes. He was looking for it. For this promise, this reassurance, that it was okay. That he could go.
Looking for it. From Sonic. Sonic could have refused. Kept him here. Kept him here like his heart desperately ached for because he was without Amy, without Tails, and if Knuckles left he wouldn't have much at all left.
But Knuckles had to go. Sonic couldn't keep him. Sonic couldn't force Knuckles to continue shouldering the duty of being the Guardian when for once in his life, for once in his life, Knuckles was daring to let himself want to set it down.
"I swear." Sonic promised. "I swear I'll keep the Master Emerald safe, Knux."
What he swore on, that he left unnamed.
Knuckles relaxed. Just a little. Closed his eyes, nodded,and sighed. "…alright then. I will go."
Sonic beamed. Rushed over, bumped their shoulders together. "You'll love it. Where are you gonna go first?"
Knuckles huffed. "There was that… mobian historic location route in one of the pamphlets you gave me."
Sonic lit up. "Tour of the zones, then?"
"Yes." Knuckles agreed. "And wherever catches my eye."
He paused. "I will only be going for a month, though. I will come back after, to check on the Master Emerald."
Sonic hesitated at that. "…and what if there's stuff you don't get to see?"
"If nothing goes wrong… then I may go again." Knuckles said.
Sonic felt something in him settle. Some ball of guilt and stress. If he did a good job, kept the Emerald safe then… Knuckles could go. And keep going. And keep going. It all hinged on Sonic being good enough.
He just had to be good enough.
"Then let's get you packing!" Sonic decided, and rushed past Knuckles, shooting back a teasing smile. "Before you chicken out again!"
That got an enraged protest from Knuckles, and Sonic laughed, even as the selfish anguish tried to set in.
This was it.
He was going to be alone.
How he should have been from the start.
The silence was, for an agonizing moment, almost everything.
Knuckles stared at him. Knuckles was staring at him. Intently. So intently. He felt almost like Knuckles was begging him. Get up. Stand up. Be strong. Don't be weak. I want to go.
Don't ruin this for me, Sonic.
Sonic couldn't move though. His whole body ached, and it was all he could do to slowly release his death-grip on the rim of the trashcan. His mouth tasted of bile. His arms shook. He felt feverish and dizzy and ill and he couldn't even think about how to salvage this past the headache.
And Knuckles just kept staring.
"…caught a bug or somethin'." Sonic eventually managed to mumble. It came out broken and wispy. He felt the desperate urge to strangle himself, because Gaia, he couldn't have his voice also give out on him, he couldn't do this—
"I… see." Knuckles managed, a bit flatly.
Sonic knew he didn't really believe him. Knuckles had been knocking at the front door for a minute and Sonic hadn't been able to get up to answer. He couldn't move. Everything hurt. So Knuckles let himself in and it was to this sight?
Buying the "it's just a fever" story seemed like a stretch, even to Sonic.
He just watched as Knuckles reached past him for a clean towel. It was embarrassing. It was so embarrassing, Sonic just ducked his head and at least Knuckles didn't say anything as he wet the towel and helped him clean up, and then helped him stand up. Moving hurt. He tried biting back the whine, but Knuckles must've heard it, because as he helped him stumble across the hall from the bathroom back to the bedroom, he looked around. "Where do you keep the painkillers?"
"…n'the kitchen." Sonic replied, quietly.
"I'll get you some." Knuckles said. Not an offer. Just a statement of what he would do.
Sonic wanted to complain. Explain it was all in his head, he was insane and his brain just made up pains because he was weak and whiny and a horrible person. But it hurt. Everything did hurt. His feet and head seemed to be pounding, he felt as if he were covered in pins and needles, or more accurately, as if the Cyber Corruption was crawling just under his skin. He felt horrible. So he did want pain killers. He did want them to work. He just… didn't want them to not do anything, also.
He didn't want to know he was crazy. He wanted to pretend maybe he was still a little sane.
Knuckles helped him onto the bed. He at least spared him the embarrassment of arranging him into a comfortable position, ordered him to do that himself while he left to get the painkillers. And he did, just to prove he was capable, somehow wormed himself into a position that didn't feel like hell, sinking back into it. Biting back a sob.
Be strong. He had to be strong. If he ruined this for Knuckles—
"Here." Knuckles called, when he came back. With a glass of water, a pill, and a can of coke. He offered him the glass and the water first, and Sonic took them noiselessly, downing the pill with the practice of having to do it often enough, and then taking the can of soda when Knuckles cracked it open for him. He wasn't hungry, but he supposed that was maybe wrong and he actually was. He didn't know. Nowadays he couldn't tell. The cold soda in his hands at least helped with the hot suffocating feeling.
"So." Knuckles started. "Where you going to call anyone?"
Was he going to tell anyone he was too weak to even get the door?
"…Vanilla." Sonic managed to lie. He had to get Knuckles to leave. He had to. He felt like the scum of the earth, lying to Knuckles' face, but he couldn't tell him that he'd been like this since they got back from the Starfall Islands and he'd just been hoping if he forced onward for long enough he'd get better. "I… it wasn't this bad yesterday. Thought it was just a cold. Just woke up like thirty minutes ago."
Maybe that was believable. That it had just gotten this bad. That he hadn't even had a chance to call Vanilla. That he was planning to, he just hadn't been able to reach the phone like he couldn't reach the front door.
Knuckles huffed. "Of course you get sick now. I was going to invite you to come with me for a week."
…oh.
Suddenly Sonic felt a horrible wave of desperation. He— He would have loved to go with Knuckles. It would've— He wouldn't have been alone, and Knuckles wouldn't have been stopped by him, and the idea of this was the first exciting thing to him in a while, and all at once that excitement was crushed as he looked away.
He couldn't go. Not like this. He had to recover soon, because it would be entirely up to him to handle any future Eggman schemes. It was all on him. He couldn't be this weak.
"…would've loved to go, Knux." He eventually managed. "…but I think I should actually, y'know, rest for once."
Knuckles huffed. "You think?"
"…okay yeah I definitely should."
"I will call Vanilla." Knuckles settled. "You should try and take a nap. I will stay here until she gets here."
Sonic sunk back against the pillow. "…were you about to head out?"
"I was." Knuckles replied, simply, and stood up. Sonic knew to point him towards where he'd left his phone on a shelf. He watched Knuckles fumble with it a bit, always one to have some difficulty with touch screens, before eventually he was able to get the call going. He shot Sonic one last pointed look, before stepping out into the hallway.
And Sonic… sunk. Stared at the ceiling. Sipped on the soda. Felt some of the fight bleed out of him because… was it selfish? Was it selfish? He'd gotten what he wanted. Knuckles was leaving regardless. Knuckles was leaving, that's what he wanted. And yet why— why did he feel so… disappointed? Broken? Scared? Knuckles found him on the floor, unable to even get up, and— he just— believed him. Believed his lie. So easily. Why was he dissapointed that Knuckles believed his lie?! He wanted that, didn't he?
Didn't he?
…no. Of course not. There was a fundamental difference between what he wanted and what he needed. What he deserved. He needed Knuckles to leave. That's what he needed. Knuckles had to go, and everything would be right again, and he wouldn't have taken anything from his friends in his very selfish bid to save Sage. But what he wanted?
…he wanted someone to see. To see it. His lies. See them, and… and not get mad. Not get rightfully mad like they should. He desperately wanted someone to tell him it was okay. That he could rest and stop being strong for once. But he couldn't, even now he couldn't, as he heard Knuckles calling Vanilla he knew he couldn't because Cream would come with, and he'd go from having to be strong for Knuckles' sake so he could leave to being strong for Cream's safe, who still looked at him with stars in her eyes sometimes, and he couldn't stomach loosing that either.
He was tired, though.
He was so tired.
...
By the time he woke up, Knuckles was gone. Cream was at his bedside smiling, but concerned, Cheese and Chocola with her.
And he had to smile back.
Vanilla took care of him until he was no longer sick.
But to be honest, after that… he wasn't much better.
He must've been though, because she left. He must've looked right, he must've smiled right, he must've said the right things to convince her he was alright, and that he would finish getting better on his own.
She was busy anyways. A single mother, and Cream had school. She was busy. She didn't have the time to stay here shoring him up. He had to grow up. Had to stop being so weak.
That was weeks ago. That hyper-aware grasp of time he'd gained as a result of the loop had crumbled away. Honestly, he had no clue what time it was. How long it had been.
He was better, though, he supposed. His stamina was shot, some days he couldn't get out of bed for a full hour because of phantom pains, other times they hit while he was out and it was all he could do to take a nap against a tree to wait them out, other times he could barely stand, and other times he felt too ill to eat. But it was fine.
Because generally he was better. Recovered. He could run and fight again as needed. He'd stopped a mess here and there already. He'd checked in with some of his other friends occasionally, but he'd learned his lesson from Tails, about being too much, and over-bearing, because the kit had probably felt that way. He didn't force encounters. Anyways it was better he made sure he was on a good day before meeting with anyone. He had fun again, he wanted to believe. He was running and fighting again and having adventures again and that meant he was having fun. That's what it meant.
He was having fun.
He was.
…
He was on Angel Island today.
The alarm hadn't gone off or anything. He'd come on his own. He was at the foot of the altar and it was empty, the Master Emerald wasn't there. Knuckles had it hidden. It was logically still somewhere on the Island, because they were high in the sky, but the island was vast and from that alone it would not be easy to find.
But Sonic still stood at it's usual altar. He stared up.
He could almost maybe fool himself that Knuckles was up there. Sat down. Some angle he couldn't see. He wasn't and Sonic knew. Knuckles had just sent him a picture today. He was somewhere near Never Lake at the moment. Hoping to visit Miracle Planet, he'd said.
So he wasn't here. Sonic could go join him. There was nothing stopping him. He wanted to.
But he also figured no one would ever punish him for what he'd done for Sage. All the trust he had broken, the abuse of power. It was terribly, terribly selfish. The guilt would eat away at him forever. He didn't really deserve to go have fun. Not right now. Maybe later. Maybe later he'd join Knuckles.
But for now he'd stayed put. Came to Angel Island.
…
He and Knuckles had had a fight on that second attempt. It had been Sonic's fault. He'd… not been in the best of spirits. And Knuckles had come to him one day. One of his worse days, admittedly, when he was exhausted and everything hurt and he wanted nothing but to sink into the ground and be swallowed whole. Not an excuse. But still.
Knuckles had come to him with something very important. Something very sacred. The supplies for a ceremony of some sort. Something sacred to him. He'd explained it. That he knew, partly from tales from a childhood that he seldom spoke about, partly from inscriptions scattered all over Angel Island, that warriors who were incapacitated in battle and yet lived to tell the tale were viewed in truly high-regards. They were respected on a level that was reserved for figures of high authority. It was rare, after all, for someone to survive long after being hurt that way. It was believed to be by the will of the Master Emerald, at some point.
Knuckles said he'd deliberated on it. That he didn't know if he had the authority, wasn't sure if he had the right. But that eventually he'd settled on it. He wanted to bestow that honor on Sonic, whatever his Ancestors would think of an outsider to the tribe given that honor be damned.
It had made Sonic feel ill.
Already it had been hard to be around Knuckles during that attempt. He'd gone from an equal to this fragile, broken thing in Knuckles' eyes, he knew he had. Any wrong move, who knows how much worse he'd get. And Knuckles seemed all too sharply aware of his own strength then. Sonic had never before seen him insecure about that. Never. But he remembered catching Knuckles staring at his own hands as if they would do something terrible when the echidna thought he couldn't see, and it made him sick to his stomach.
And then Knuckles, coming in, offering to bestow upon him an honor when the only reason he was hurt like he was because he'd messed up and hurt everyone with his mistake?
He couldn't. He also couldn't explain it right to Knuckles. Couldn't stomach telling him the truth, explaining why he didn't deserve it. It spiraled into a fight which Sonic only made worse, where he made Knuckles feel as if he didn't care for this very, very important offering, and he hated because he did, he just couldn't take it because it wouldn't be right, because it would be enshrining all his lies and crimes and he couldn't do that.
…Knuckles didn't have to offer this time. Knuckles didn't have to worry about if he was a danger to Sonic or not this time. Knuckles could be for the most part worry-free now, about Sonic. Like it should be.
And Sonic ached to apologize for the fight, but it hadn't happened. So all he could really do was stand and stare and look at an empty altar. He wondered how Knuckles did it. How he stomached the loneliness, and the duty. How he squared his shoulders and stood proud and strong so genuinely, so loyally, unyielding to whatever may come. Sonic couldn't do that. He had to swallow back tears and forge a smile and push forwards that way. Lies his lifeline. Cutting corners were no one would see.
Someday, Sonic would tell him how much he admired him. It wasn't in the nature of their relationship, right now, all teasing and playful jabs. But someday, someday Sonic would tell him, tell him how he was so much stronger than Sonic could ever be. Maybe that day Sonic would also be strong enough to tell him how he'd misused the Emeralds. To come clean. Knuckles, above everyone, deserved to know of that.
But that day wasn't today. That day, maybe, would be never, because Sonic was a coward.
For now, he sat down at the foot of the altar, beneath a bright blue sky heavy with the responsibility of possibilities.