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“Nick, c’mon! We have to return to dad’s side.” Andrew says to him, trying to drag him away from where he is glued on the glass between them and a bunch of newborn babies.
“But I wanna see Miles!” He whines, standing on his toes so that he can see the babies in the back, but he fails to recognize any that might be his baby brother.
“Aren’t you worried about mom?” Andrew’s question takes him aback, and he turns to him fully, nodding with a tinge of guilt in his face. He lets Andrew drag him, the boy’s bigger hands clasping his, and he eyes his brother’s broad back. Despite them being Irish twins, Andrew is more well-built, and taller than he is, which always results in people thinking he is a lot younger, ‘ the baby of the house’. With the arrival of the youngest, that is going to change. Nicholas smiles to himself, he is going to be the best big brother ever! They are in front of their mother’s room in a short while, and Andrew gently knocks the door. Their dad welcomes them with a stern, but concerned gaze.
“Where have you been? You missed your mother’s arrival!” Tom asks, and they sheepishly avert their gazes.
“I’m sorry, Dad. Nick was a bit curious about our brother, and I didn’t want to let him go alone.”
“But you were curious too, Andy!” Nicholas says with a higher tone, and he is immediately shushed by his father. He tilts his head, then hears a shuffling in front of him. He raises his head to see his mom trying to look up to them with a tired smile on her face.
“Do I hear my boys there?” Her question invites them to her arms, Andrew and Nicholas rush to her side in a heartbeat.
“Mom, are you okay?”
“Yeah, hon. Just a bit tired, is all.” Andrew smiles up to her and Nicholas lays his head on her legs. She chuckles, and pats his head. Tom comes near them and puts a hand on Andrew’s shoulder. Nicholas lifts his head, to face both of his parents.
“When will we see Miles?”
“They should be preparing him. He’ll be here in any minute.” Nicholas excitedly nods, and Andrew chuckles.
“You guys saw him, right? What does he look like?”
“You’ll see.” His father answers with a smile and he pouts. As if on cue, a nurse comes in with their brother in a crib, and they hold their breaths to face him for the first time.
“Alright boys, go sit on the couch so that you can hold him.” Tom quietly says as he takes the baby from the crib, and Maddie thanks the nurse before she goes. The boys are quick to settle on the couch, and Tom hands the baby to Andrew, instructing him to support the baby’s head.
“He is so tiny!” Andrew quietly says, and Nicholas lays his head on Andrew’s shoulder to get a better view of the baby.
“Hey there, Miles!” Nicholas says as softly as he can, and the baby opens his sky-blue eyes, and a little smile appears on his lips.
“Look, he’s smiling at me!” Nicholas excitedly says, and Andrew nods.
“He must have really liked his name.”
“Of course he does! I found that name after all!” Nicholas boasts, and Andrew grins to him. Tom takes out his phone and tells them to smile for the picture, and knowing Nicholas’d want to see it, he shows it to him without having to be asked. The picture captures one darker skinned boy, he has his black hair in shoulder length braids. Beside him is seated a more slender and paler boy with jaw length curly brown hair. And the baby in the older boy’s arms is nearly blond, and palest of them all. Tom jokes that Maddie must have run out of ink gradually with each of the boys, and Maddie giggles. Despite the happiness surrounding Nicholas, the unease in his gut overcomes it.
‘This is wrong. We don’t look like that.’
The thought pulls Sonic out of his dream, and he struggles to adjust to the complete darkness. He rubs his eyes and he is suprised when unshed tears contact his hands. He sniffs, suddenly someone touches his shoulder and he yelps. Quickly clasping a hand over his mouth, he turns to his left to face Knuckles.
“Knux, are you trying to scare me to death, dude?” He whisper shouts, frowning, and he guesses Knuckles’ rolling his eyes.
“You were crying. Did you have a nightmare?”
“Crying? Nah, I wasn’t. Totally! You don’t have to worry now, big guy. Let’s go back to sleep.” Sonic attempts to pull his blanket over him and lay back down, but the hand on his shoulder keeps him from moving.
“I recall we’ve agreed on not lying to each other.” Knuckles replies, giving Sonic’s shoulder a suprisingly gentle squeeze, before taking his hand away. Sonic groans, then kicks off his blanket from his leg and stands up. He approaches the attic door and Knuckles follows suit. They go down the stairs as silently as possible, and Sonic winces whenever the stairs creak under his foot. They reach the living room and flop down on the couch. Knuckles turns to him, contemplating how he should make Sonic talk because as much as the hedgehog loves talking, he insists on only talking about what he wants. If he feels like being secretive, it’s nearly impossible to make him tell what Knuckles is curious about.
“It wasn’t a nightmare.” Sonic mutters, and Knuckles raises a brow, but stays silent. He guesses Sonic is too sleepy to act nonchalant, and sighs. Sonic turns away from him, and his eyes trace the design of the carpet under their feet.
“It was a strange dream, we were children of… y’know...” Sonic sheepishly says, and Knuckles does a double take.
“What do you mean? Aren’t we already their children?”
“We are. But in my dream we were their real, no, sorry, biological children. “
“Oh.”
“Yeah.We were humans. You took a lot after mom, I was a mix of them and Mi- Tails took after dad. In fact, I saw the day he was born.”
“And that made you sad, why? It doesn’t sound like an unpleasant dream.”
“Yeah, that is the deal. It isn’t unpleasant at all. We were all so happy there, and I was… I was happy to imagine that reality. Maybe too happy.”
“I apologise, Hedgehog, but I still fail to see why you cried over this dream that you think made you happy.”
“Don’t sweat it, Knux, I don’t understand it myself.” Sonic mutters, laying more comfortably on the couch. He crosses his arms on his chest and closes his eyes, trying to make sense of his emotions to not worry his brother further. Knuckles closes his eyes too, and hyper-focuses as if to find a technique that will allow him to tap into Sonic’s mind and untangle him from his mess of thoughts.
“You were named Andrew. I called you Andy.” Sonic says, breaking the silence since he is bored from all that fruitless thinking. When voiced, he realises the name, especially the nickname, sounds ridiculous on the Knuckles he knows. He snorts, and Knuckles grins.
“It sounds very strange.”
“Yeah, it really is something.”
“What about you?”
“Huh?”
“What were you called in your dream?”
“Oh! Nicholas. You called me Nick.” Knuckles looks him up and down, and nods.
“What?” Sonic asks, raising a brow, Knuckles smiles.
“It kind of fits.”
“How?!”
“The nickname doesn’t sound too different from your actual name. “ Sonic’s eyes widen, and Knuckles smirks.
“So-nic. Oh my God! You’re right!”
“I guess I’m obliged to call you Nick from now on.” Knuckles teases and Sonic groans.
“Don’t make me regret telling you about this!”
“I doubt you will. You love talking, Nick.” Sonic pouts and Knuckles laughs, reaching out to ruffle his head. Despite his annoyance, Sonic allows him.
“What about the fox? What was his name?”
“His was the same. Miles is a human name too, y’know.” Sonic explains and Knuckles hums. They fall into a comfortable silence with Sonic occassionaly muttering, until he speaks up once again.
“One of the things that made me happy the most about my dream was getting to meet Tails when he was born.”
“I agree. It would be satisfactory if we had.”
“Yes! Think about it, he’d never be bullied because we’d be there to protect him!”
“He’d get to have parents earlier. And attend school.”
“He’d enroll into a college to be an engineer! He could even win the Nobel Prize!”
“What is the prize of Nobel? Is it a treasure?”
“Kind of. It’s awarded to successful people.”
“Hmm. It sounds like something the fox could win.”
“If he was human, that is. I doubt anyone would want to award aliens like us anything.” Sonic says, and after taking in Knuckles’ raised brow and parted lips, he realises maybe he shouldn’t have opened up this much.
“Hedgehog, would you want to be a human?” Sonic’s taken aback from the swiftness of the change in conversation. He didn’t think Knuckles had it in him to corner Sonic about his feelings, but he wasn’t all that suprised. Knuckles takes everthing on in a stride, barges head-first into every situation, it’s no wonder feelings are involved on the list of that situations. On the contrary, Sonic evades, dodges and runs away, and it is, to no one’s suprise, no different for his emotions. He refuses to face them.
“Me? A human? No! Why’d I wanna trade this handsome speedy hedgehog’s form to a furless slow-poke’s?”
“Hmm. Maybe to not be an alien? To not have to run?”
Sonic’s mouth falls open, and he can feel Knuckles’ last word trigger something inside of him. A mantra burried deep into his soul, a shield that protected him. His resolve, his promise.
Never stop running.
He feels tears pooling in his eyes. He wanted to stop sometimes, he recalls. He wanted to be crystal clear once, instead of a blur. He wanted someone to see him, that’s why he was so overjoyed that he cried when Crazy Carl first noticed him. It reminded him of his existence.
“I…” He stammers, but only sobs come out instead of words. Knuckles’ violet eyes widen, and he shuffles to get closer to Sonic. He wraps his arm around Sonic, and he shivers in Knuckles’ embrace.
“I have to admit, your dream sounds pleasant. But I wouldn’t trade my reality with it.”
“Y-You wouldn’t?”
“No, of course not. My life… no, our lives were painful, full of losses and failures. But they made us who we are. People in your dream? They are just pitiful imitations of us. Even though they are brothers like us, I can’t imagine a world I never battle the fastest thing alive or get run over by a fox kit.” Knuckles declares, and Sonic wetly giggles while wiping his tears away. When Sonic looks up to him, he takes it as a signal to keep on talking.
“Besides, without the hardships we faced, our strengths’d be non-existent. I’d never be a warrior, fox wouldn’t be an inventor at his young age. And you wouldn’t be a hero in the sense you are, now.”
“Yeah, I get it. No self-discovering road-trips or saving the world. We could never be who we are. I don’t want that, too. I just thought if we were born into this family, we could magically be protected from the tragedies but keep the blessings in our life.”
“Maybe this will teach you to think deeper before weeping, hedgehog.”
Knuckles teases, Sonic groans, this is why they can never have heartfelt moments. Sonic elbows his side, effectively breaking out of their embrace Knuckles has the nerve to fake being hurt, and Sonic frowns.
“Don’t you think that I missed you calling me shallow, Knucklehead! And quit the act, I know it didn’t hurt. Sadly!”
“You want to wound me? I change my mind, I’d gladly replace you with this Nick.” Knuckles teases further, and Sonic gasps and places a hand over his mouth, mostly for theatrics and to hide the grin he can’t supress.
“You hurt me, brother. Just when I was about to say I’d never want Andy instead.” He says, making his lower lip quiver for extra effect. Knuckles looks at him sideways, and snorts.
“Fine. I declare truce.” He says, and opens his arms to invite Sonic in a hug. Sonic snickers and throws himself into Knuckles that knocks him fully on the couch, and squeezes him to death.
“Thank you, Knucklehead. You’re the best!” Sonic mutters into his shoulder,
“You’re pretty tolarable yourself. Still no match for Nick, though.” Knuckles says, but the way he returns his embrace tells Sonic the exact opposite. Still, he pulls back with a groan, and zips up to the attic, Knuckles shakes his head, a lop-sided smile on his face, and follows suit.