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“So… That was fun,” Sonic teased playfully, ever the one to use humour as a means to cope with difficult situations or in this case, break the tension as Tails, Knuckles, and Amy prepped the Tornado for take off. The gang didn’t seem to find his humour to be especially funny however. The three of them had had more than their fill of the Starfall Islands and after everything that these islands and their ancient infrastructure had put them through, they all wanted nothing more than to get going. Sonic smirked fondly and rested his hand on his hip, his gaze briefly falling onto that of the vast sea beyond the cliffs, on that wide open horizon. “But I guess it’s time we get moving. I know you all have big plans.”
“You’re gonna hardly recognize me when we see each other again!,” Tails lit up, eager to find his independence out there and bolster his confidence tenfold. “I wonder if Cream and Sticks are free? Make a road trip out of it!,” Amy mused with delight, already planning out in her mind what sorts of activities they could all get up to together. “It’ll be good to get back to my island. At least… For a while,” Said Knuckles as he took a deep, content breath of the fresh, evening air.
Sonic beamed with enthusiasm, hopping up onto the wing of the Tornado. “We’re wasting daylight. Let’s go!” The blue hedgehog didn’t even look back to say goodbye to the islands… None of them did. All of their gazes were set on that horizon, eager to meet the future head on. Without hesitation, Tails took off skyward to drop everybody off at their homes for some rest before they’d surely all be on the road again.
He couldn’t have been more proud of them all… His friends and him, they had all gone through a lot together. Sonic was consistently impressed by what they could accomplish together, but more so now by what they could do by themselves. He’d miss them all a ton while they all kept growing without him, free as the wind, but he knew they’d all meet again someday. A friendship like theirs was going to last a lifetime, no matter how much any of them changed!
He’d do anything for his friends, even if it meant letting them go for a little while. Besides… He had a family of his own to return to, and no doubt did they have some interesting stories to tell to him!
—
Sonic peered over the edge of the plane as the ground below changed from meadows into roads, which lead to his hometown. Sonic was an adventurer at heart and had a free spirit to him that hungered to explore… But when all was said and done, there was nothing quite like having a home and a warm bed to come back to after. Tails used an alleyway a couple blocks down as a runway to land his plane, following Sonic down the sidewalk to his humble townhouse. It wouldn’t have been especially easy to discern which house was theirs among all the others if it weren’t for the fact that Sonic’s daughter Periwinkle was in the driveway, practicing her kickflips on her skateboard while waiting for dinner to be ready.
When she noticed her dad and her uncle walking together, she dropped everything and raced over to them excitedly. “Uncle Tails!,” She called out, running right into his arms for a tight hug. Tails laughed and ruffled her quills affectionately, just as happy to see her as she was to see him. “Hey, Peri! It’s been too long. Have you gotten taller?”
She looked up at him incredulously, raising one of her eyebrows. “...No? I saw you two weeks ago and I was the same size.”
“I don’t know about that! You grow a lot faster than you think, you know that?,” Tails held her in one arm, remembering a time when Periwinkle was small enough that he could hold her up with just one of his limbs. Now she was twelve - far too large for someone like him to carry. Tails did miss it when she was so adorable and tiny, but at the same time wouldn’t trade this for anything now that he could talk to her and spend time with her like a proper other person.
Peri shrugged and put her hands in her hoodie pocket, glancing over to her dad, Sonic. She gave him a wave. “Yo,” She said casually. Sonic was a bit envious that Periwinkle seemed far more interested in giving affection to her aunts and uncles rather than himself, but he supposed he could understand it. She saw Sonic and Shadow practically every day; They were a part of her routine. Unremarkable, yet stable. Sonic supposed that it was a good thing that she felt secure enough in this family to feel like she could count on their love no matter what. Being able to take it for granted from that perspective was a compliment in a way.
At least that’s how Sonic generously preferred to think about it, lest his feelings get hurt.
“Hey kid,” Sonic grinned and strolled over to her skateboard, picking it up for her. “How goes it? Where’s your father?”
Peri accepted the skateboard back from her dad, tucking it under her arm and wriggling free from Tails’ embrace. “He’s inside, working on dinner. You were gone awhile - Where were you?”
Sonic laughed dryly. Being reminded of that whole excursion forced him to acknowledge all of the pain and aches that he carried in his joints, having accumulated it all after taking on so much corruption. It took a major toll on his body. Even now that it had been expunged, he still felt haggard and exhausted. He’d pretend he was fine anyway. There was nothing Sonic hated more than giving off the vibe that he couldn’t handle something. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you once we’re inside, ‘k Pearpear?”
“Sure. You stayin’ for dinner, Uncle Tails?,” She looked behind her to Tails, her own tail wiggling eagerly at the prospect of having him over for company. Shadow always made plenty of food in the event that one or more of any of their friends came over. He may have been more on the quiet side, but one of the ways Shadow showed that he cared was by feeding people.
Tails rubbed the back of his neck and shook his head. He was about to decline the offer, but he was then struck with the realization that this might be the last time in a while that he’d get to spend time with his niece. He sighed and nodded. “Yeah, I’ll stick around for some food, sure. I have something I gotta tell you though…,” Tails glanced up at Sonic, who nodded approvingly. Sonic would fold his arms over his chest and wait patiently for this important conversation to take place.
Periwinkle looked a bit nervous, looking between the two and trying to figure out what kind of secret it was that they were keeping from her. “...Okay?,” She pressed hesitantly, searching Tails’ expression for meaning. He got on one knee in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders, meeting her gaze directly. “I’m gonna be gone for a little while… I realized while on that last adventure that I have a lot of growing up to do of my own that I want to do independently of everyone else.”
Periwinkle put her free hand over one of Tails’ and pouted. “...Why? How long will you be gone?... Will you ever come back?...” Periwinkle had never had a moment in her life where Tails wasn’t nearby. He lived across the street where she’d make frequent trips to his house to say hello. Even when she was a newborn she lived in the same house as Tails for awhile before her dads had found a new one for her to grow into. The prospect of Tails being completely out of reach was uncomfortable, borderline frightening for Periwinkle.
Tails could tell she was apprehensive about this choice. His heart squeezed, his body language softening out as he rubbed her shoulders to reassure her. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone for. But you can call and text me as often as you want - I know I will be. You’d be silly to think I’d ever want to forget about you, Peri. And of course… I will come back, after I’m all done.”
Periwinkle began to soothe somewhat. “What are you even going to do out there? Are you going to school again?”
Tails shrugged with some candid honesty. “I don’t actually know yet. But that’s kind of exciting in and of itself, isn’t it? I could really do anything.” He placed his hand against her cheek and smiled fondly at her. “And Periwinkle, I look forward to coming back and telling you all about it, okay?”
Periwinkle smiled and nodded, her tail waggling again. “Okay… You’ll check discord every night, right?”
Tails caught her smile and beamed in turn, as if it had been virulent. “Every night. Promise.” The two shared a tight, warm hug. One that carried a lot of history with it. Tails couldn’t dream of leaving her behind, not after watching her grow up. He loved her to death, after all. And like her, he’d do plenty of growing too. He’d make her and everyone else proud.
Sonic grinned, delighted to see that exchange go as well as it had. Shadow had been listening to this whole conversation, having been leaning out the window by the front door. When Sonic turned to open this door, he jumped when his eyes met Shadow’s own piercing red ones. “FUCK man, okay,” He jumped, clutching his chest and feeling a bit embarrassed about having been genuinely caught off guard. Shadow chuckled warmly, coming around to open the front door and meet Sonic with a hug. “Hi. Welcome home.”
Sonic almost instantly melted into the hug when he smelled Shadow’s fur again for the first time in weeks. He had missed him so much. Clutching his fur, they squeezed each other tightly. “Hi angelface,” Sonic mumbled, connecting their lips together. Shadow pressed his snout into Sonic’s lovingly before looking over to Periwinkle and Tails. “...Dinner won’t be ready for awhile. I’m making korean BBQ style pork belly. The rice will be done pretty quickly and the fresh kimchi is finished, but that needs some extra time.”
He couldn’t help but to drool like a Pavlovian dog when Shadow began listing off the spread he had been cooking up in their kitchen. Sonic hadn’t eaten good in awhile. The promise of Shadow’s lovingly prepared meals was getting him so excited that his stomach creaked pathetically. This on top of the fact that Sonic looked and felt fatigued made Shadow concerned. Sonic was a glutton by nature, but there was something undeniably off about his energy that Shadow was able to pick up on.
Shadow looked between Sonic and the pair of Tails and Periwinkle in the yard and pursed his lips. “Peri, would you mind waiting out here for a little while longer while I talk to your father?,” He asked of his daughter, who gave him a thumbs up. “M’kay. That’s what I was doin’ before you guys got here anyways so. Uncle Tails, lemme show you somethin’... I’ve been working on my kickflip and I’m getting really good at it.”
Tails was eager to see, equally as content to wait outside while Sonic and Shadow spoke in private. The two hedgehogs went inside, Shadow deliberately bringing Sonic to the couch and gently pushing him onto it to force him to take a seat. Sonic didn’t try to resist, although he did seem a bit surprised by it at first. “How’d it go?,” Shadow pressed, returning to the kitchen to tend to the meat while he and Sonic talked.
“Oh, super. We followed the emerald’s signal to this place called the Starfall Islands and found out that Robotnik had the same idea - but that wasn’t before we all got sucked into this cyberspace type thing that this old ancient race set up thousands of years ago. I was able to get out, my buddies got stuck, apparently Knuckles was there too and following a similar signal as the one we were, yadda yadda yadda… Since we were all trapped I had to keep cycling through the emeralds to destroy these guardian titan thingys to free them all, then some other stuff happened. I was in a gun for a second. Like, I was the bullet. It was cool. Robotnik actually cooperated for a little bit so that we could take care of stuff. I think he has a daughter of his own now too? A robot one or something. She’s cool enough.” Sonic recalled all of this as casually as he could, doing his best to mince words whenever necessary. He intended to tell his own tale in a way that wouldn’t make it sound so bad, but Shadow’s attention caught on the over-usage of those emeralds.
“...How many times did you go in and out of super?,” He quizzed, looking up at him. Sonic laughed meekly, scratching his cheek. “Uh… Five and a half, about six? Maybe?”
That explained at least some of Sonic’s exhaustion, but there was more than that too, he felt. “...What else did you put your body through?,” Shadow questioned gently, not wishing to put Sonic on trial here but nonetheless still concerned for his wellbeing. Sonic could tell that he had picked up that there was more to the story that Sonic wasn’t telling… Shadow was smart like that. It was foolish of Sonic to assume that Shadow wouldn’t have been able to detect any of this.
He resigned, sinking back into the couch with a sigh. “Nothin’ gets past you, eh cupcake?,” Sonic laughed weakly. “...When we all got sucked into that cyberspace, I was the only one who was able to get out. Everyone else had been imprisoned and the only way I could get any of them out was by taking on the corruption that was keeping them there. I took all of it on and it didn’t feel great, but,” Sonic put his hands behind his head and folded one leg over the other, “I wouldn’t have done it any differently.”
Shadow nodded, taking care to balance the activity of cooking with listening. “I know you wouldn’t have… Although I do wish you would have taken the time to learn more about the energy you were engaging with before taking on such a heavy load, I understand why you did what you did.”
Sonic shrugged. “That’s just it - I did try to ask around this time, but Sage would barely tell me anything.”
“Sage?”
“Eggman’s AI kid. She had some kind of a connection to the titans but wasn’t able to control them. She hated me. She did warm up to me eventually though. Since I’m, y’know, irresistible.”
Shadow rolled his eyes, but he believed Sonic when he had told him that he wasn’t trying to go into this blind. If his only lifeline had been on Robotnik’s side then it was no wonder Sonic had had to feel around in the dark to get the job done. “You did mention that Robotnik and you worked together momentarily. What spurred that on?”
“The End,” Sonic confessed with a weary sigh. “...It was some kind of weird eldritch space God that wanted to eat our planet. It wiped out the ancients and left all their technology and ruins behind - all that stuff was what we all got trapped in, even. The End itself was stuck in some of that old tech too, like us. The titans were keeping it pinned down. When I destroyed them, it unleashed it.” Sonic turned his body to justify this to Shadow, as if on instinct. “Don’t get mad, I know it was a bad idea - but they were stuck, and…”
Shadow met Sonic’s gaze with sympathy. “I’m not mad,” he reassured him. “You’re here now, so you put it down, didn’t you?”
Sonic untensed, sinking back into the couch again and nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, I did. Robotnik kinda realized that shit was getting real and teamed up with me to prevent the end of the world. I’ll never forgive him for everything he’s put us all of us through but considering the fact that the world was at stake, it… Yeah. It was kind of our only choice. He figured out how to utilize all of that corruption that I had taken on and channeled it into an improved super form. It felt kind of awesome… I felt unstoppable, but a bit wild too. I couldn’t really think straight after a certain point. He made this bigass railgun, loaded me up into it, and shot me at The End. I was able to kill it with the amount of power that I had.”
Shadow could only begin to imagine what that must have looked like, let alone felt like. “...No wonder you look so depleted,” He fretted, finding a good stopping place in his cooking and putting a pause on it to join Sonic on the couch. “Between going in and out of super, taking on so much corruption, running across all those islands to save your friends, fighting giant titans, and being shot out of a gun… Sweetheart… You need a break.” Shadow placed his hand on Sonic’s thigh comfortingly. Sonic folded his hand on top of this one and soothed.
He laughed out of the corner of his mouth. “I don’t need a break. I’m sure there’s a lot I’ve been putting off since I’ve been gone, especially around the house-”
Shadow looked at him seriously. “I’ve been taking care of that. I always have and I always will.” Shadow idly fiddled with Sonic’s hand, giving him loving little touches over his digits. “...You just saved the world from another mass extinction event, and yet still you’re going out of your way to help others. You save everybody all the time, but who's going to save you?,” Shadow murmured, his volume low and warm.
Sonic worried his lip and went silent. He didn’t know how to answer that question.
Shadow pressed his forehead against Sonic’s neck and nuzzled him there. “...You’re home now. Let me take care of you, okay? I like taking care of you.” Sonic almost felt like he could fall asleep from how gently he was being loved on. He had been with Shadow for more than fifteen years and he still felt so stupidly in love with him. Even after all this time, Shadow still had that magic touch that could pacify Sonic. “...Will you let me do that?,” Shadow asked again, his claws gently ghosting up his forearm and making the short peachy fur there stand on end.
Sonic nodded and dropped his weight onto Shadow, relinquishing himself to him. “...Yeah,” Sonic huffed, finally letting himself act as tired as he felt. “...Everything hurts,” He admitted, no longer trying to pretend that it didn’t. Shadow didn’t need to hear it from Sonic to know that it wasn’t just his physical health that had taken a toll… He could see that Sonic had been stressed out by that whole adventure as well.
Shadow smiled and scooped him up, holding Sonic in his lap and massaging his sides. “I know… I’m sure it does,” Shadow validated him in his deep, comforting voice. It reverberated in Sonic’s ribs, the frequency alone feeling as though it could miraculously mend his broken body. “Tell you what… We’re going to have a nice, hot shower together after dinner... I’ll get your fur cleaned up. Then you and I can watch your favourite stream as we head off to sleep together. How does that sound?”
The way Shadow would talk to Sonic made him feel small, but in a good way. He felt so cared for and oddly, he actually felt safe to feel cared for. Shadow didn’t make him feel weaker for needing care… It hadn’t been something that Sonic was used to receiving before their relationship had truly taken off since he had never had parents to do this for him. He didn’t see Shadow as a parent obviously, but Shadow made a very good point earlier; Sonic spent so much time worrying about others that he often overlooked his own mental and physical health.
He was thankful that Shadow was there to remind him to take care of himself, and when he really needed it, to take care of him. Sonic nodded against Shadow’s shoulder quietly at his offer of spoiling Sonic tonight. Shadow smiled softly and compressed his body into a secure embrace. The feeling of being squished made Sonic’s tail wiggle.
Sonic sighed wistfully and placed his hand on Shadow’s white dewlap, carding his fingers through his fur fondly. “You’re always supporting me, Shadow.”
“Always. I love you.”
“I love you too.”