Work Text:
They were gone.
The shadows were still and quiet. They encroached into every inch of the space which they could, clawed their way deeper in and deeper in, like stains he couldn't clean off. He let them. There weren't that many windows, opening the curtains didn't make much of a difference. And he didn't want to turn on the lights because then he'd get excited, as he ran back and saw them on, and for a second maybe he'd believe someone was back, and he wasn't so alone anymore.
Sonic was so tired.
The world, predictably, kept spinning despite this, which one might argue was the point of him risking his life every other week. The world, still spinning, people, still living. But not for the first time he'd wished it'd just stop. He was fast and yet he couldn't seem to catch up. Every adventure it seemed to spin faster. Slipping by him. He wanted to stop. To let it just take him. But he couldn't.
It wouldn't help anyone, really.
As far as everyone was concerned, things were back to normal. Business as usual, his friends just a little farther away than normal, a ten minute run that used to be five. Nothing big. But for him it was, because that distance felt sacred and earned and he'd already taken it once, and so he did not chase after them no matter how desperately he wished to because he could not take it again. Besides, he had other friends, he figured someone would argue. He could hang out with them.
Some part of him also whispered he was a danger and a bother. So he kept his distance for now. He had to be… better, anyways.
Speaking of. He found his way outside, with steps he'd practiced probably too much to best hide any remaining limp. He didn't think about it. About the pain and wounds which lingered. They were healing, the pain would go away It wouldn't and he knew and he'd keep lying to himself because it would only keep piling on and he'd be able to move on. No one even asked him if he was okay, after Doug and Manu. They followed up, he looked better by then, so he excused it as a fever and they took it. And he figured perhaps he always looked just a little out-of-sorts, and with who he was people just assumed Eggman had had something punch him to a pulp at some arbitrary point of the day before they saw him, and so no one really asked. Bruises were nothing really, a limp easily ignored, any winces excused away as soreness and with a smile and "a good workout!". It was tiring. Sometimes he couldn't even smile. Sometimes people would ask and he'd stare for a little, he'd wonder if they'd push, but then he realized they probably wouldn't because that wasn't who Sonic the Hedgehog was and he'd just move the conversation on.
The day was sunny and bright today. He stopped at the entrance to his garden and stared. It wasn't dead. He'd been working on it. Not as diligently as he used to. Most of his effort went to the seeds Amy had given him, really. But it wasn't dead, and he supposed that was a win, because he wasn't dead either, and so long as the garden wasn't dead in some way that suggested there was still… Hope.
Still him. Still someone to save the day, whatever the cost may be.
He fumbled for his phone. Wandered to the sprouts that came from some of the seeds Amy had left him. Framed the picture so that only they were visible, and sent it to Amy. He debated attaching a message. He'd been sending her updates. He never sent words though. If he did he felt he'd only beg for her to come back. And out of the three of them, she still sent him updates. Tails only told him whatever he was working on was probably too complicated to explain, and he didn't press because he didn't want to bug his bud. Knuckles often forgot he even had a phone, replied sporadically, and if he ever did send photos, they were blurry and half-covered by his mitten. It made Sonic's day when he did, but he knew there was nothing he could do or say that would make Knuckles remember to reply more often.
And so he relished Amy's semi-regular updates. But often she expressed she was exhausted, and so he tried not to push.
Today, he seemed to catch her at a good time. She sent back a GIF of a doodled sprout breaking soil with a smile on it. It got a tiny smile from him.
They look so good! She told him, even though he felt she would have said that if the pots merely had seeds in them.
What are you doing today? He asked her, instead, sitting down on the ground, uncaring of the dirt. He wondered if she still smelled of roses and bread, or if she'd found some perfume to replace that once passive scent.
Volunteering to clean up a creak. She explained. And maybe tend to a garden? You can do that apparently. You should volunteer to do that, Sonic, you're so good at it.
He stared at his garden, and it was alive and not dead and yet it didn't feel lively at all. He stared at Amy's message perhaps for too long. Certainly for too long, because Amy sent another message before he could reply.
Organizer is here. I have to go! Talk to you later! And he knew she wouldn't reply anymore. So he sent back a small okay and stared at the screen for a while longer again, and then stood, and headed back inside again, where there were mechanical parts strewn about on the coffee table not because Tails was here but because they made good fidgets for when he got too anxious thinking about the little fox. Tails said they could do a voice call soon, although he'd said that a couple of days ago. He'd wait until he couldn't stand waiting anymore before bugging him about it again, because Tails was busy. Something about midterms coming up? But Sonic knew he'd do just fine.
Tails was awesome like that, after all.
He looked at the clock, and it was noon. The shadows were still all over, and suddenly it was too quiet in the workshop, so he fumbled to find the TV remote but he knew that wouldn't fix it. He should do something today, he figured. Go on a run at least. Keep up appearances, as little as that really mattered. Maybe go see if Eggman was making some sort of mess that he could clean up.
He headed upstairs instead. Passed by Tails' room, passed the door without looking at it or opening it because Tails' stuff still in there would feel too much like a fresh wound, and after that feeling the only thing that would follow was guilt for feeling that way, and he didn't want to go there, not today.
Instead, his hand caught the handle of the bathroom door. He didn't look at the door, though. His eyes were on the pictures in this narrow hallway, hanging from the walls were they fit, and some part of him numbly noted they were getting dusty. Maybe he should clean them, honestly he really ought to.
…One of them was taken on Angel Island. Just him, Tails, Amy, and Knuckles. He couldn't remember the occasion, exactly. He wanted to say it was the first time they showed Knuckles what a camera was? But he wasn't sure. Memories were fuzzy in his head in a way that should have alarmed him more, but compared to the hell of the Cyber Corruption, everything was fine and so he didn't bother. As long as he knew who was who and what they meant to him, he'd make it be fine.
…but Gaia how he missed them. And that was the guilty part, the embarrassing part, because they would go days, weeks, months without seeing him, and they dealt with it just fine. They couldn't chase after him, they couldn't catch up to him, and they lived with it just fine, as if nothing, and here he was, trying to have that same level of respect for them at the very least, trying to give them space so they could go off on their own, and it hurt. It hurt so much, and he knew that was unfair to them, feeling that way was so unfair to them, but still it hurt and all he could do to help it was just nothing.
He was scared of growing up. Because he knew they'd just drift further still.
But he'd gotten used to a lot of pain. He'd probably get used to this pain as well.
He pushed the bathroom door open. Not fully. Just a little. Just enough that from here, he could see the mirror.
Could meet tired green eyes. Stare.
He wondered what they saw. When The End broke free. He remembered, vaguely, Knuckles making some comment about him being soaked after killing it. It was his first hint, his only hint almost, at least that he remembered, that his friends saw something else. That everyone saw something else. His first attempt, when Sage died, he'd been so afraid of coming down. Both because he failed Sage, and because he didn't know what he'd say when his friends eventually asked about The End's appearance, because they would ask, there was no way they wouldn't. At least… that's what he thought. But they didn't. He wondered what it was they saw.
He only saw his reflection staring back.
He remembered The End, arms stretched, staring back at him, inviting him to rest. He remembered too many of it's words with too sharp a clarity. It's Key, he was the Key, but he had to be something more if it looked like him.
He flinched away from the reflection, and slammed the bathroom door shut, all too suddenly aware of the fact his heart was pounding. He was scared of it. Of his reflection. Of his face. Because he just remembered every time The End took to the sky and— Gaia. Gaia. Why did it look like him? He didn't understand, he didn't.
Did people see themselves when they saw The End? He felt someone would have mentioned it if they did. He… he was scared of being associated with it. He was scared of not knowing why he looked like it. Which was it? Did he look like it, or did it look like him? Who came first? It was older, so did it…
For a moment, for one terrifying, selfish moment, he wanted to run back to the islands. Track down the Tiger. Beg them to please figure him out. Tell him what it was he was. A monster? A mistake? Something else? He was terrified of labs but he'd let them do anything, anything they had to, because he wanted to know. He needed to know, desperately. What he was. Because he was so tired of being scared of the unknown. He was dangerous, that he knew. But how dangerous? He needed to know.
He was so tired.
He made a note to cover all of the mirrors in the house. And wherever else he was going to crash. He couldn't stomach them. Not right now.
He didn't know if he'd ever be able to again.
Not while he didn't know what he was.
