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“That was great! When’s the next one? I wanna beat you at whack a mole again!” Sonic cheered, nudging Tom playfully.
“October. But you better not complain when I crush your high score next time.” Tom smirked.
“Do you guys hear that?” Tails peered into the doorway. “Is the fire alarm broken or something?” He looked back at Tom with a tilted head.
Knuckles clomped past him, a pile of stuffed animals in his arms. “Perhaps danger is afoot. I shall-“
A snore cut off all conversation. The group tip-toed into the living room, to see Maddie collapsed on the couch. Her head was on the arm rest, using her hands as pillows. Drool leaked from the side of her mouth, leaving a little wet spot in its wake. Ozzie was sitting in front of one of the arm chairs, gnawing on a sock.
On the coffee table in front of her, her phone alarm was screeching for attention. Tom swiped the notification away.
He turned to the boys and pressed a finger to his lips. He then up to his wife, tucked her hair behind her ear, and kissed her temple.
“Ew!” Sonic gagged.
“SHHHH!” Knuckles clamped a glove over the hedgehogs mouth. “Allowing her to rest is the least we can do! What honorable tribe excludes one of their own?” He chided.
Tails walked around as quietly as he could. The kitchen sink was empty and the kitchen floor spotless. A vase of flowers sat in the center of the kitchen table.
“Looks like she finished our chores,” Tails whispered after inspecting the house. Sonic dashed away, up the stairs, then came back in a millisecond.
“Completely! It looks like a TV house up there!” Sonic whispered back.
“She must’ve tired herself out,” Tom mumbled. “She’s out cold.”
The three boys walked up to her with wide, curious eyes. Sonic reached out his finger to poke her before Tails swiped it away. “Maybe we could thank her,” Sonic offered. Tom lifted his head to smile.
“You know what? You’re right. Let’s get her favorite for dinner,” Tom agreed. “And dessert.”
He fished his keys from his back pocket and pressed on it with his thumb. “I’ll go get the food. Anyone wanna come with me?”
Sonic didn’t answer and dashed back to the car. “You two gonna stay here?” Tom turned back to Knuckles, who was still staring at Maddie.
“Yes. I shall protect the house until you all get back.”
“And I’ll make sure Maddie stays asleep!” Tails added.
Tom saluted the echidna and followed Sonic out to the car. Even after the commotion, Maddie was still sound asleep on the couch. He sat down with crossed legs in front of her.
Maddie fascinated him. She welcomed him with open arms and an even more open heart. Despite him trying to kill her son.
That’s what stumped him. She didn’t have to. Like with cleaning on her own, she didn’t have to do it for him. For any of them, really, but she did.
She didn’t have to introduce him to Earth’s customs, but she did. For no reason.
Knuckles had seen cuffs on JoJo’s braids and asked Maddie about it. Maddie told him that it’s a thing some people do. She explained that there’s no beneficial reason for doing it except that it just looks nice.
Maddie sat him down at her vanity and spent 10 minutes finding large hoop bracelets to put around his spines. The beautiful gold contrasting with his red fur was enough to mesmerize him. He spent a few hours walking around with the jewelry wrapped around his spines until Sonic said something about it. Maddie just responded that those were his gifts from her.
That’s what was so mesmerizing. Knuckles asked why she was okay with parting with such beautiful trinkets. She adjusted one of the bracelets and said that it makes him look like a warrior.
Now, Knuckles knew he was a warrior. It was obvious to anyone, he assumed. But to have it noticed and embraced by someone that wasn’t an echidna…
Knuckles pulled himself from his memories and focused back on Maddie. She deserved better protection, he thought to himself. Such a selfless healer would’ve been protected in his tribe after all.
He climbed onto the couch and curled up next to her, gently moving her arm to wrap around his back.
The hedgehog isn’t very smart, he thought, but at least he knows how lucky he is with his mother.
Knuckles scowled, jealousy making his fur raise slightly. To have Maddie regard him as her next-of-kin would be the highest honor, but who is he to make such demands?
It would be nice, though. It was thankfully clear to him that Tom regarded himself as his surrogate father. Knuckles brushed that off as pure luck. To have two noble parents would have to be earned.
He decided right then and there that he would do everything in his power to earn the title of being Maddie’s son.
Tails, on the other hand, was impressed by Knuckles’ boldness. The fox was already terrified of asking Tom for a high five, but to ask Maddie to get that close to her?
He stepped forward from the spot on the floor he was standing at. He twiddled his fingers.
Tails thought that the ‘living with Sonic and his family’ thing would be temporary. In fact, it took him three weeks for him to stop feeling terrified that they would kick him to the curb. When it was bedtime, he’d hide under the couch until the morning.
One night, he was awoken by the TV being turned on. The channels flickered until it seemed to stay on one channel. He quietly crawled from under the couch, peaking to see what was happening.
Maddie was curled up on the couch watching a documentary of some sort. The fox kit scooted backwards, and much to his dismay, the floor groaned underneath him.
Maddies head whipped to his direction. Tails braces for the inevitable; yelling, calling him stupid, maybe even kicking him out.
She walked over and asked him what he was doing. When he didn’t respond, just stared at her in terror, she offered to watch the documentary together.
Tails, terrified of upsetting her, agreed almost instantly. Strangely, he felt himself relax as it went on. She mentioned how there were a lot of documentaries, then told him about some people named the Wright Brothers and switched the channel.
He listened to her to be polite, but it fell in place once the documentary began explaining who the Wright Brothers were. She said that she thought he’d find this interesting, but that he could tell her if he was bored.
Tails scolded himself in the morning for falling asleep in the documentary. Well, he wanted to, before he noticed that he was in an attic. A thick blanket was pulled over his small body. Sonic was asleep across from him in a race-car bed, and Knuckles was on a small mattress near him.
Tails knows that parents are supposed to take care of you. But what about people like Tom and Maddie? Who aren’t his parents but take care of him as if it was as simple as breathing.
Seeing Maddie and Knuckles on the couch confused him. It made him angry, resentful, that Maddie hadn’t been the mother to take care of him at birth.
If I can’t be her son, Tails thought, maybe I could be her friend. That was good enough.
He wrapped his tails around himself and settled near her feet.
About fifteen minutes later, Maddie blinked her eyes awake. The living room was swallowed in darkness, the dim light of the kitchen being her only source. The sound of Tom and Sonic bustling about in the kitchen startled her. How long had it been?
Bundles of fur surrounded her body. She looked over, seeing the faint sillohette of Tails sleeping near her legs. Knuckles was tucked tightly under her arm. The echidna twitched then looked up at her.
“How did you rest, Mrs. Maddie?”
Maddie chuckled and stroked the fur on his head. “Good, baby. When did you guys come home?” She whispered.
She pretended not to notice a smile on Knuckles’ face when she called him baby. Vulnerability seemed to embarrass him. “I do not remember. I apologize, I was supposed to be protecting you,” he mumbled. “You have not called me that before.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did it make you uncomfortable?”
“I…” Knuckles trailed off. “No. It’s just…from what I recall, a baby is a human child.”
“Correct.”
“And…by referring to me as a baby, would be to referring to me as your child.”
Maddie couldn’t argue with that. “I…guess that’s true. Kind of like how Sonic calls Tom dad and me as Mom sometimes. Refers to family.”
“Oh, I see,” he muttered. The echidna snuggled closer to her.
“Do you see me and the fox as your family?”
She paused. Maddie didn’t want to push this relationship, but it seems like Knuckles already has her figured out.
“I do, but only if you and Tails want me to.”
They were quiet for awhile. Knuckles spoke up again. If Tails was trying to pretend to be asleep, this is when he failed. She heard a soft purr come from his end of the couch, quickly cut off with a fake cough.
“I would like to be your family.”