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Sonic knows his eyes will never look like that.
He knows, and it hurts, but there’s something in him that lights up, electric and incandescent, when the man with Shadow’s face turns and looks at him like he does, like a friend, like a companion.
Like he trusts.
Sonic can’t help but wonder if it’s because the sorrow doesn’t hang off of him, like a leeching lover, like a Guinevere, whispering sweet lies in his ear and weighing him down.
He has watched her make bedfellows of his friends one by one, watched her hang in the dark edges of their room just waiting for him to leave and curl about them once again. He’s seen her wrap her arms around Shadow, watched him sink into them.
But in this bright and sunny field, there are flowers in Lancelot’s visor, around the edges of his breastplate, and Sonic was the one to put them there.
When the rustle, he can’t tell if it’s because of the breeze or Lancelot’s breathing, and thinking about it too long makes it hard to think about anything else.
Is it weird? He asks this for the hundredth time when Lancelot smiles, dimples appearing on his cheeks and lips parting to laugh. Is it weird, thinking that your greatest romantic rival is the sadness that lives in another man’s heart?
It’s practically painful when Lancelot holds his hands, tightly, thumbs rubbing small circles, mumbling softly, facing the ground with a voice like mossy stones tumbling over themselves.
“Your reality of myself is fortunate to know such a beautiful soul as yourself.”
Sonic feels his knees buckle, and he has to wonder. Is he telling the truth as Shadow would see it, the Shadow at his heels and in the back of his head?
The logical part of Sonic’s brain screams to run whenever he’s around, like now. It begs for escape. It swears they can’t handle this. He has to break or bust and he knows the right answer is to make a break for it.
Run
And still, he’s still, toeing the danger.
It’s never looked back at him so sweetly.
Maybe it’s the romantic in him, or maybe it’s the kid that always loved tails of heroes in shining armor, but something about seeing Lancelot standing tall in the sun, head held high, well, it makes it feel like there are caterpillars in his stomach. He’s worried if he opens his mouth, he’ll make a fool of himself by spitting out butterflies like the silly little nymph of springtime.
He never understood chivalry or courtly love. It all was nonsense and outdated pantomimes.
But those cold hands of sorrow have not laid a finger on this man. They have not dug into his chest or left their claw marks upon his back. She has not wormed her way in to nest in his soul. It’s still so open, so warm. He can feel it radiate when he looks Lancelot in the eye.
And when he smiles… Sonic’s never been so tongue-tied, so two-left-footed, head over heels-
He wonders if he could live there, in the soul of this man. Take up all the space there is there so sorrow can never find her way in.
Is this what love was always supposed to feel like?
Not a weight, or a wound, but lovely and bubbly, all giggly and googly-eyed like he is now standing there, not sure what to say, just looking back at Lancelot.
The man with Shadow’s face.
Not his man, just the man with his face.
Is that bad?
Is it wrong, or are they the same? Is it justified? All he wanted was this and now he has it. Is it selfish to not want to let it go? Sonic knows eventually he has to go home, and when he does, the shutters on those eyes will be closed, that soul barred from him, that warmth gone.
He may never see that smile again, or hear that laugh.
Lancelot leanings in, with that soft voice, with those soft eyes, “Is there something wrong, my king?”
Sonic has to shake his head, laughing to relieve some of the pressure in his chest, least he break. “Sorry about that Lance, didn’t mean to be weird or anything. It’s just…”
How does he say this?
How does he step away?
“You remind me of someone I really love and miss back home.”