Work Text:
Everything was wrong.
Sonic stares into the spot that Nine had just been in, suddenly so, so cold and his eyes burning.
He had gotten ahead of himself again, forgotten to think. Like always.
He fell back on old times, thinking to himself that these were his friends, different but them nonetheless, and he could trust them. Like Tails, his little buddy, his little brother, who was always there behind him, smart in all the ways Sonic wasn’t.
Sonic knew these other versions weren’t the people he knew, but they were so similar in all the right ways. Amy in her strong sense of what's right and love of nature. Knuckles in his brash, fists-first judgement. Rouge with her cunning words and thought-out movements.
They were different yes but Sonic just felt… so desperate for any sense of normalcy that he trusted them, heart open on his sleeve like before. Even when they brushed him away and didn’t trust him, or went behind his back, he didn’t care. Because he thought he knew them, that they were just like before. They may be different on the surface, but deep down they’re still the same.
Oh, how he was wrong.
He was so, so utterly stupid. He didn’t think, doesn't think. Being quick on his feet helps last minute decisions, on whether to go left or right, or to punch this or kick that. But… just standing still here, he doesn’t know what to do. It doesn’t take much to realise how much he messed up though.
Nine wasn’t Tails, just like how Tails wasn’t Nine. He knew that, now. After he had already messed up. Nine wants a new world, Sonic wants the old one back; he didn’t think they could have different desires for putting all shards together.
He’s shaking now, and his face is hot.
“You’re a complete idiot, Sonic.” Shadows' words cut through the silence like a knife. There’s the sound of his shoes powering up as he jumps down into the temple. “Look at what just happened! All because you had to go and make a new friend who had no motivation to help us in the first place! I told you we couldn’t trust him, we had no reason to.”
There was a reason, Sonic wants to protest, but the words are too tough and his throat fills with cotton, suffocating him. Nine had been so helpful along the way, he made the tech to help stabilise Sonic’s energy, he went against the Chaos Council and sabotaged them when it helped, he helped Sonic get to the prism shards and contain them. Nine was his friend .
“Let me guess, you have a plan?” Shadow mocks, “or was your plan with him ? Because he just ran off, with the only thing able to fix this!”
He huffs, stomping his way over. “Answer me, Sonic!”
A hand takes his shoulder and shoves him, Sonic does nothing to fight it and meets Shadow’s face. The dark hedgehog pauses, now hesitant, and his glower lessening. “...you’re crying.”
“Am I?” Sonic croaks, pulling away to turn and wipe under his eyes. His gloves come back completely wet. “O-oh…”
He’s crying , in front of Shadow . He can't even remember the last time he cried. He awkwardly smiles, “sorry, don’t- don’t mean to flood the place, haha…” he wipes his face hard with the fabric of his gloves. Shame fills him as he sniffles and puts on the best smile he can, but there's no feeling in it and he can feel it cracking.
“Don’t worry, we got this! I-I’m sure nine can understand, we’ll just go to Grim and ask for the- the shards back, okay? I can do it, Nine and I can t-talk it out.” His voice gets shakier and tighter the longer he speaks. He can feel the tears burning beneath his eyes and flooding his water line, and the telltale of the emotions he is trying so hard to push down come up. If he blinks, tears will fall; if he stops speaking, he’ll break down.
Shadow wants nothing to do with his emotions, and frankly neither does Sonic, so if he ignores it and keeps going, it will all go away. He can push back the tiredness, the exhaustion, and everything threatening to bubble up if he just ignores it–
“Just give up, Sonic.”
Sonic shuts up and an ugly sob comes out of him. He slams his hands to his mouth, breathing rough and out of order. “Give- give up ? Shadow–”
“Stop it, just- you’re- ugh ” Shadow groans, looking away. “I mean, stop doing this–playing hero or whatever, okay? …You can’t do it right now so just give up for a second.”
He tilters off into silence, and Sonic tries to wrap his head around what was just said. Stop playing hero – he is the hero, this is his job. He can’t just quit or give up all of a sudden. “But- we need-”
“We can get them in a minute, okay?” Shadow growls, crossing his arms. “Just sit down. If- if” a green hue takes over Shadow and when he continues, his voice is surprisingly soft. “If we’re a team then… both of us need to be in top condition to continue. You’ve been running around whoever knows how long now and you’re a complete mess.”
The dam breaks, and so does Sonic.
He falls to the temple floor, heart pouring out like a broken pipe. Tears stream down as sobs rip through his chest, anger and frustration at himself get washed away by this hollow, cold, feeling of sorrow and loss. Guilt has shredded his insides and crawled under skin, making itself at home. He didn’t mean to shatter reality, he didn’t know that would happen, and he’s been trying so hard to fix it. But he kept fumbling his cards and losing the game. He let the Chaos Council get all three shards; he tried to resolve the problems in each reality but tore them apart instead by bringing trouble to each one.
And that tough Metal Sonic knock off– Sonic wasn’t that annoying, was he? He knew he liked to talk and sometimes went a little too fast for people to keep up, but he wasn’t that egoistic. Right? He got a little competitive at times, but he doesn’t mean to put other people down because of it. Was that really how people saw him?
Nine said he didn’t consider what might happen to the other realities if he fixes the one he’s from – the one that doesn’t exist. He was just so focused on trying to find out how to get back his Green Hill, he didn’t think about the other ones. Maybe he thought they would all merge, and everyone would be able to live together – but Shadow has always said he was too optimistic.
He doesn’t know what would happen, and that… that scares him. He doesn’t want to kill the other worlds, but he wants his back. Why can’t it be that simple?
Sonic is sniffling and wiping the last of his tears when Shadow comes to sit down next to him. He pauses, confused by the sudden gesture, but Shadow keeps his eyes forward, a small frown in place on his face. His eyes are hardened but flicker back to him for a second, green blush igniting.
A smile appears on Sonic's face, not very big or hero-like, but a genuine one this time. He did, after all, give up on being the hero for a moment.
They’re a team this time, him and Shadow.
He clears his throat, feeling a lot better than before. “So, do you have a plan?”
Shadow’s lips twitch up, “I’ll run it by you.”
Maybe he doesn’t have Tails to fall back on, because Nine isn’t Tails, but he does have Shadow. Maybe he can fall back on old times this time, with him.