Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

For the past nineteen years, tragedy seemed to follow Sonic like a lost dog; but out of every life he can remember, past and present, Sunset Hill holds a special place in his heart.

He had truly been tested; his parents, who had met as orphans, died unexpectedly when he was too young to remember them; his caretaker from that point became a compassionate owl named Longclaw, who also succumbed to tragedy in the form of a fatal drunk driving accident that sent Sonic back into the foster system at just eight years old.

To make things worse, eight also happened to be the age when he started to remember everything. By the time he met his younger brother Tails in the system when he was just a young fox of six, Sonic had already spent five years grappling with his ultimate fate of impending doom all while simultaneously balancing the struggle of being a young kid without a home.

The realizations came slowly, at first; like a storm looming on the horizon, or maybe an atomic bomb, but he never really understood the who or why or what. And then the flashes of memories started to leak into his psyche— a knife to the chest, a cord around his neck, a gun against his head. Once he remembered, he spent the next ten years wondering how and when the entity he knew as Shadow would strike again.

How and when he would die by his hand again.

The heartache from Frontier Canyon still lingered in the forefront of his memories, which splintered with every reset of his life like a kaleidoscope of faded images in a gigantic, blurry mosaic. Occasionally, he’d remember random snippets of moments from other universes in random Technicolor detail, the sights and smells and emotions as vivid as the people he’d left behind.

And among them was Shadow, who was the only person who seemed to remember just as much of their other lives as he did. But the one thing Sonic could never seem to remember, the one itching detail that seemed to elude him in every universe, beneath all of the love and confusion and hurt and grief of every death he experienced at Shadow’s hand, is the why.

In the decades he spent in each life, a considerable amount of that time was used trying to answer this question of why with any explanation he could come up with, from the mundane (a grudge, a rivalry, or a bet) to the supernatural (an ancient curse, a particularly malevolent bridge troll, or maybe a deal with the devil).

Sometimes there were glimmers of reason, of truth that Sonic can remember, such as something Shadow let slip back when he was Lancelot, that killing him before he could see the other side of twenty was a choice— or rather, an obligation. But nothing solid enough to give that why any structure.

And for whatever godforsaken reason, the stubborn black and red hedgehog refused to share their origin story.

Amidst all of the years he spent in every life by Shadow’s side, Sonic is the one who has to be in the dark, the one completely at the other’s mercy— the hunter and the hunted.

But that didn’t stop Sonic from trying to live. And even though he’d loved and lost a dozen families, time and time again, and even though the grief never pulled back its punches as he endured the losses over and over again, Sonic wanted to fight.

Now he has to, for his brother Tails, who in this life had been recently diagnosed with late-stage diabetic kidney failure, of all things, as the most recent hit in the string of unfortunate events that seemed to plague them. The prognosis wasn’t good, and the twelve-year-old genius was given a handful of years, tops.

The only brutal glimmer of hope they have is to keep Tails on dialysis until they find someone to donate a kidney.

The organ donor waitlist is just as brutal, if not more. Three to five years potentially, a laundry list of similar sob stories, and a dollar amount the likes of which Sonic had only conceptualized in math problems— but if he found a match, it promised Tails a solid 95% chance of survival, which to Sonic made every penny more than worth it.

Now the biggest issue is, of course, that the entire debacle would be very expensive. Two boys out of the foster system without any education aren’t exactly the most qualified candidates for a financial loan for something as major as kidney transplant surgery, but Sonic managed to help them scrape by on racing talent and persistence, putting pressure on the local hoverboard shop owner until she finally caved and hired him. But he still made most of their cash winning drag races to pay individual payments for each treatment, since his boss Rouge mostly paid him in store credits for board maintenance.

With his death date arriving faster than he can afford the treatment, Sonic needs to find a way to make sure he can secure the money before it’s too late.

In a streak of freak luck, however, a hoverboard company picked up one of the local bigger races as a sponsor and is offering a cash prize, one big enough to cover the entire transplant and then some. Sonic’s reputation for being the fastest, fiercest rider in Sunset Hill would hopefully precede him, with the only other competitor to even come close still just a phantom in the night.

And yet… the competition is less than a week away, the day before his twentieth birthday. A date he’s conditioned to know by now isn’t coming for him. And any time now, a certain quilled killer would be.

He just has to survive long enough to win the money for Tails so he can at least keep the one good thing that ever happened in this life alive no matter what.

Sonic would make sure of it.

“Sonic! Are you even listening?” Tails’ voice cracks adorably as he derails Sonic’s chugging train of thoughts and visibly snaps him out of the trance he’d been in.

“Sorry, buddy. I guess I’m a little distracted today,” Sonic admits with a nervous rubbing of the nape of his neck, quickly earning his little brother’s forgiveness, who flashes him a toothy smile.

“It’s okay. I bet you’re thinking about the big race coming up next week. And speaking of…” Tails chirps excitedly, his cerulean eyes wide and nearly sparkling as he moves to retrieve something from his side.

The general noises of the hospital blend into the background now that Sonic has gotten used to spending most of his time not racing here with Tails, keeping his kid brother company while he endures the grueling rounds of dialysis that they’re already struggling to afford. But Tails never lost his spark, especially not for his passion of inventing— in fact, with all the free time he had stuck inside, he could do it now more than ever.

“...I made a new type of booster attachment for your board! I got suddenly inspired the other day and I wanted to have you test it out before the real thing,” Tails gushes, pulling a cylindrical metal tube with some wires and buttons and other doohickeys that Sonic had no hope of understanding from a spot behind his pillow.

Sonic’s heart seizes with pride before it wilts at the neverending thoughtfulness of his intelligent younger brother, who always made sure to do whatever he could to help him race even faster. It certainly made his illness feel all the more unfair.

“Aw, buddy, how do you find the time? You’re amazing,” Sonic affirms in earnest, giving Tails an appreciative smile as he takes the device into his gloved hands to examine it. As usual, the work is pristine, and Sonic can’t help but admire the welding job, especially given that he had limited access to the tools from his lab, crudely set up in a makeshift copy in his room at the hospital.

“What else do you expect me to do in here? Sit around feeling sorry for myself while you get to have all the fun out there on the tracks?” Tails snorts while rolling his eyes at his brother, an annoying new habit he picked up recently in his adolescent phase. But as far as Sonic’s concerned, he gets to be as annoying as he wants as long as he keeps getting older.

Sonic’s expression must have given him away as feeling sympathetic, because Tails snorts again with another huff of faux annoyance.

“Relax, Sonic, I was kidding, I like it this way. I’m better behind the scenes, you know?” The fox chides, his eyes softening as he chuckles with a wisdom far beyond his years. “And to tell the truth, I had some help with this project.”

The prospect of his solitary genius brother allowing a second opinion to influence his personalized invention piqued Sonic’s interest more than the invention itself, a feat only accomplished in the nature of wondering who could possibly match Tails’ intellect enough to have anything to add to one of his projects.

Something twists in Sonic’s gut.

“Really? Anyone I know? Someone ‘round here a secret genius or something?” Sonic jokes, trying to loosen the heavy pit of sand sinking in his stomach.

“Actually… it was the new sitter. The one who used to babysit Cream,” Tails replies with a vocal fry, an embarrassing indication of his deepening voice, but deeply endearing to Sonic, who finds it adorable.

Sonic gazes up to the fluorescent hospital lights as he puts his chin in his hands and thinks, his face fixed in concentration. “Oh yeah… Terry, right?”

He should probably know the guy’s name, since he set up the appointments. But ultimately, the fact alone that his shot-in-the-dark last minute babysitter is working out and they’re getting along is good news, in terms of solving the issue of making sure Tails has round-the-clock treatment.

Especially for after Sonic’s gone.

“Yeah! Well, turns out he actually works on boards too, if you can believe it. Small world, right? Anyways he gave me some tips on fuel efficiency, so I implemented them in the newest design,” Tails explains a little too excitedly, leaning forward and pulling on his nasal cannula enough to nearly tug it off.

Sonic chuckles as he places a hand on his brother’s shoulder, urging him gently back against the pillows. “Hey, that’s awesome. It’s good to see you excited about this,” he says with a side smile, “but take it easy, you know? Didn’t you have another round of dialysis this morning?”

Tails visibly winces, in just a fraction of a second but not too quickly for Sonic to miss, his smile never faltering. “Yeah, but s’nothing compared to having to smell your chili dog farts.”

“And not nearly as deadly,” adds Sonic with an exaggerated wink, eliciting a shrill laugh from his brother that was reserved for him, since other people found it hard to know how to talk to a preteen with an intimidating triple-hundred IQ.

Once their peals of laughter begin to fade out, Sonic glances up at the clock above the door and jolts at the time. “Shit, I’m gonna be late for work.”

He grabs his backpack from the faded linoleum floor and stands reluctantly, every inch of his body resisting the urge to call out of his shift and just spend as much time with his brother as he possibly can.

“Vanilla will be here soon, and I’ll be back later after my shift,” Sonic promises as he slings it over his shoulder, giving Tails a forlorn half-smile that wilts on the corners of his mouth.

“See ya later, Sonic. Lemme know how the new thrusters are! Oh, and be careful— trust me, you don’t want to end up in the hospital. The chili dogs here taste like farts,” Tails warns with a cautious wag of his finger and a giggle as Sonic ruffles his blonde bangs fondly.

Sonic nods and chuckles, “I will,” before finally taking his leave, love inflating in his lungs like a balloon as he heads towards the lobby.

His twentieth birthday is in one week. The race, six days. All he needs to do is stay alive long enough just to secure the money and a donor before his birthday.

One thing remains true as he walks out of the hospital double doors and unlocks his hoverboard from the holding area, preparing to head towards the shop.

If Shadow finds him before the end of the week, there is every chance Tails will die too.

***

Gliding through the streets of Sunset Hill in the golden glow of the evening usually gives Sonic a liberating rush of freedom, but today he feels jittery and exposed, as though he’d gotten up from the operating table in the middle of his own transplant surgery with his chest hanging open.

At least, that’s what he imagined as he tore through his hometown, thinking about whether or not his killer was close.

He passes by the strip mall on high alert, diligent to scan every face in every shop, familiar or otherwise, for that lurch of recognition, that yank of the tether, that crackle of innate fear, as he’d rigorously trained himself to do so.

Not that it had saved him in Frontier Canyon; Shadow avoided him all the way up until the lethal attack and caught Sonic off guard, a mistake he won’t— can’t— make again.

He could be anywhere. All it would take is a momentary lapse in concentration and he could pounce, again. A knife in his back, a bullet in his head— it wouldn’t matter how brazen, because it would kill him too, before he faced any consequences.

Six more days. Sonic just had to stay unmurdered for six more days.

Part of him wants to just hunker down and go into hiding for the rest of the week, but he promised Tails he would make an effort to stop by at least once a day during his stay in the hospital. Plus, he still has to make some money, since he’s spent almost everything in their savings to keep the medical bills and babysitter paid.

Besides, making himself a sitting duck never did him any good in the past, which had been a bitter learning experience. Far better to be a moving target, if he has to be a target at all.

Swerving into the shop’s parking lot with ease, Sonic glides over to the front door before hopping off the board and kicking it up to catch it under his arm in one fluid motion as his coworker Knuckles greets him with a closed fist to bump once he strolls inside.

“Yo, Sonic. Have you signed up for the Suburban Speedway race yet?” The red echidna, who in every life seems to play the role of his best friend, asks as he walks over to the workbench where a dissected board is mounted on the jack.

“Going tomorrow. What about you?” Sonic tosses his backpack over the counter with a little too much ease as it crashes into something out of sight. Whatever, he’d clean it up later.

Knuckles shakes his head, whether in disapproval for Sonic’s dismissal of his own mess or as a response, Sonic can’t tell.

“Went yesterday. You thought I would sit this one out with that much moolah on the line?” He snorts, grabbing for tools and his safety equipment as he prepares to start working on the board. As the only engineer, he’s the most busy during race week, but his pride would never let him skip out on an opportunity to show off his own skills on the tracks.

Sonic, on the other hand, had to go to great lengths to get this job, only landing it because Knuckles begged and maybe even threw in a special undisclosed favor to Rouge that Sonic never asked about.

So he had plenty of free time to practice and win bets in small races. He’d gotten quite a reputation by now, as the fastest thing alive.

And all of it in secret hopes of drawing out his antithesis— his mirror image. The yin to his yang.

In every life Sonic can remember, there’s been one consistent pattern, which is that Shadow’s reincarnation was always just as good or better than Sonic’s reincarnation. In every way, their lives were as parallel as they were entwined, spiraling in free fall.

He’d been the best student, the best popstar, the best soldier, the best spy, the best pirate, the best king— only to meet his perfect match, his true equal, and his ultimate assassin every time.

So in a way, he’d been trying to bait Shadow out of hiding. He wanted to find him first, to not be caught off guard like Frontier Canyon, not beg for his life like he had in Regal Ruins.

If this life is anything like the others, Sonic figures Shadow most likely also has an inclination for riding hoverboards. He’d be drawn to a race like this upcoming one like a bee to nectar.

“Of course not. But don’t be mad when I sweep first place,” Sonic teases with a cocky grin that’s met with an eye roll from his friend.

“You should not be so cocky,” Knuckles warns, pulling a welding mask over his face that muffles the next thing he says, but whether or not he knows that Sonic is unsure, “It will be embarrassing when you lose.”

Sonic laughs in good sport as he settles behind the counter, ready for a long day of taking appointments for Knuckles and trying to upsell board accessories. At the very least, if his assassin were to show up for the race, he would probably know.

Towards the end of the shift, Knuckles is switching the board on and off, hitting the thrusters and nodding to himself in satisfaction as Sonic watches from the counter, admiring the finished product.

“That’s a great board. Tails actually just made me a pair of thrusters just like those,” Sonic chimes up, raising Knuckles’ head to attention as he takes his eyes off the board for the first time in what has probably been a few hours.

Knuckles flips the board around, in a similar fashion that a bartender might perform bar tricks, spinning it quite gracefully for someone with giant fists for hands. “It is one of a kind.”

Sonic purses his lips, curiosity itching his tongue to keep asking more questions. “Oh yeah? What model is it?”

“It is not a commercial model. It is personalized, like yours,” Knuckles replies, jutting the board in Sonic’s direction in a bid to soothe his itching curiosity with a generous offer to let him inspect it.

Sonic takes the board carefully, eyes widening as he turns it over in his hands eagerly. The welding is phenomenal, maybe even better than Tails’ handiwork, which says something. There’s even something a little familiar about the style, especially in the thrusters.

“The owner calls it Excaliber,” says Knuckles, and the word freezes the blood around Sonic’s heart in an instant.

Lancelot.

For almost two decades, Sonic had been waiting for him to show up, and at last the twin forces of fate and synchronicity delivered a clue.

The board belongs to Shadow. It has to.

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“Whose board is this?”

Sonic can barely keep the panic out of his voice as he grips Knuckles roughly by the shoulders, not unlike the way he had gripped Lancelot when he begged for his life.

“You know I cannot tell you, Sonic— what has gotten into you?” Knuckles replies with wide eyes and nose scrunched in confusion— understandably so, since Sonic had never really cared this much about a board’s owner before. Especially not that of a private client, who likely booked with Rouge to remain anonymous.

“Can you make an exception to the privacy clause for once and just tell me? Just their first name,” Sonic pleads, too focused on trying to calm his pounding heart to cringe at how desperate he sounds.

Knuckles pauses for just a moment before shaking his head, reflecting both his answer and apparent disappointment as he pries the board away from Sonic with some effort. “Sorry, but you know the rules. And how Rouge gets when they are broken,” he asserts with a small frown, but it isn’t enough to discourage Sonic, who is determined yet to get some kind of information out of the rule-abiding echidna.

“Okay, fine, but you saw them drop it off, right? What did they look like?” He tries again, in another attempt to tame the nagging feeling about the board. “Technically, you wouldn’t be breaking any rules if you just described them…”

It was a weak argument. But it was still better than not trying at all and getting blindsided in this life before he had the chance to save his brother.

And telling by the exasperated look on his face, Knuckles still isn’t buying it. “I doubt Rouge would see it that way,” he returns with a skeptical eyebrow that basically begged Sonic to just drop it.

But like with everything he does, Sonic can’t bring himself to give up yet. Not with what’s on the line.

“C’mon, Knux, how would she even know? I promise I won’t track down the guy or anything creepy,” he insists, knowing it’s a total lie. If it truly belonged to who he thought it did, he intended to not only track him down, but also lock him in the basement until after the race. An act of self-defense, of course, but nothing Knuckles could ever hope to understand.

Nevertheless, it’s a detail he has to leave out if he ever wants to get any information out of Knuckles, who just looks like he wants to shove Sonic in a locker to get him off his back about it.

“Why do you care so much,” The irritated echidna sighs, a sign that maybe he’s close to cracking under the pressure of Sonic’s unrelenting insistence.

“Believe it or not, it’s literally life or death,” Sonic answers gravely, being unusually honest for once in hopes that the truth would be the final push for his stubborn (albeit loyal) coworker to spill the beans.

However, the suddenly serious sentiment seems to backfire as Knuckles takes the metaphorical beans and tucks them far, far out of Sonic’s reach with a disgruntled and unamused expression.

“You are not as funny as you think you are,” Knuckles grumbles, crossing his arms disapprovingly and earning a dropped jaw from Sonic.

“I’m not trying to be funny,” Sonic nearly whines in impatient frustration, but it’s clear that his friend is done trying to be convinced and holding steadfast in his refusal to risk getting on Rouge’s bad side.

Just as he’s about to let it go, Sonic perks up with a new idea of how to squeeze something out of Knuckles, in a way that would satisfy his precious set of rules.

“What if I just ask you yes or no questions about their appearance? That way you’re not telling me anything, and I still don’t know their name,” Sonic quips eagerly, hoping Knuckles isn’t too keen on the fact that it’s basically the same as just giving a physical description.

And thankfully, it seems that he isn’t, as he places his chin in his fist thoughtfully to seemingly consider this option. When he finally relents with a sigh and a small nod, Sonic has to hold himself back from physically jumping up and down in excitement. With the stakes, any win is a win.

“Okay was he really moody and brooding, kinda like a grumpy, emo starfish?” Sonic asks so fast the words nearly trip over themselves as they spill from his mouth like verbal vomit.

Knuckles blinks, face contorted with confusion that indicated he didn’t really catch all of that. “Uhh, kind of, but not really?”

Disappointment wilts Sonic’s heart, but he isn’t convinced he’s wrong yet. Maybe the question just wasn’t specific enough.

“Did he look like me, except spikier and black with red highlights?”

Knuckles stares at him, as if trying to read his mind and figure out why Sonic would be looking for someone matching that description, and why it mattered so much. But whether he could read minds or not, Sonic knew Knuckles could never truly comprehend the complicated nuance of the romantic rivalry he had with his fated assassin.

“…No.” Knuckles’ short and frankly unexpected answer stabs a dagger of doubt in Sonic’s confidence that he had found Shadow at last, just in time.

He should have known it wouldn’t be this easy.

“Sonic… is everything okay?” Knuckles narrows his eyes, his question slow and hushed as if he detected that danger was afoot. Which, to his credit, it was— a fact that Sonic still has to conceal, for fear of sounding insane. Especially when Shadow had yet to show his actual face in this timeline.

“Y-yeah, everything’s fine! It’s just… uh, he owes me money. F-for Tails’ bills and stuff,” Sonic stammers, and pushes down the pang of guilt for using his little brother’s illness as an excuse that the other seems to actually believe, the tension dissipating like a plume of engine exhaust. Still, his shoulders sag with despondency that he wasn’t any closer to finding Shadow.

Knuckles’ expression shifts to that of one more understanding, nodding in consideration and apparently finding this explanation acceptable.

“I see. I cannot compromise our client clause, but I hope you find him,” Knuckles affirms with a solemn nod and a comforting hand on Sonic’s shoulder, which does ease some amount of the disappointment he feels.

But nothing quite takes the edge off of knowing that his longtime assassin is still out there.

As he glides away from the shop after clocking out, he glances back to catch a glimpse of the neon sign glowing in the hazy evening air, burning the words “Altar Emerald Board Shack” into the horizon as the sun settles beneath it.

All he can think about is how it can’t possibly be a coincidence that the month before his doomed birthday, a board by that name shows up at his place of work, and not some other shop. It feels intentional, fated.

The implication alone makes his instincts twitch like spider legs beneath a magnifying glass.

Unfortunately for Sonic, he really only learned two things from his conversation with Knuckles: one, that either Excalibur is not Shadow’s board and he was mistaken, or it is his board and Knuckles lied to protect his client. And two, it might have been easier to squeeze water from a rock than get Knuckles to leak anything that would violate the client privacy clause.

If it is Shadow’s board, it doesn’t make much sense. Why would he reveal himself when he so clearly had the element of surprise? And it didn’t feel like Knuckles was lying about seeing someone matching his description, either.

So why did familiarity snag his attention from the periphery of his memories?

At times, Sonic can remember bits and pieces of other lives, whether past or parallel he doesn’t know, in tiny vibrant bursts, like butterflies he can never quite pin down in the ever-changing kaleidoscope, twisted by some great hand of fate. When he first picked up the board, he had a fleeting vision of the Excalibur he knew, his royal sword– the image bright and sharp at first, then murky and indecipherable, fading like a dream.

Perhaps it was a heads up, to warn him, to make up for the cold brutality of Frontier Canyon, to remind him that despite it all, the love is still there?

Everything in him bristles at the idea that it could belong to Shadow, in both good and bad ways. But ultimately, it means that the next round of this twisted game of hunter versus hunted has begun.

***

Inside his favorite convenience store, a tiny corner store called Meh Market known for having the best snacks, Sonic can barely focus on selecting a few choice bags of chips as he stares unblinking into the aisle of single-serve plastic wrapped food.

“Ya hear about the new racer? Heard he’s been smokin’ locals, even though he’s a total noob.”

A raspy teenaged voice makes Sonic’s ear twitch involuntarily at the key word, fully distracting him from his task at hand.

“Pssht, he’s no noob. He’s a hacker. I heard his board has crazy mods,” another voice continues, and Sonic can’t help but tip his head a little to catch more.

“Another hedgehog, too.”

Sonic grabs two bags of chips, stonefaced as he strides to the counter as nonchalantly as he can manage, but his heart skitters like a snare drum, vibrating in his chest.

Was the room always this hot? He feels himself getting lightheaded as the cashier calmly rings up his two items, his breath hitching in his throat for too long and burning his lungs.

“...ir? Sir, are you gonna pay for those?”

Sonic shakes himself back into some semblance of normal as he forks over a tenner and mumbles something about keeping the change, all while trying to turn his head to further eavesdrop, losing an internal struggle of preserving self-interest.

But the prospect of being the predator rather than the prey for once is a temptation he can’t afford to turn down.

“Heard he’s gonna be at Stardust Speedway tonight…”

Bingo. Sonic has to sate his curiosity, for better or for worse.

Luckily, the track happens to be just a few blocks from the hospital too. Nothing he can’t make in under a minute at his top speeds, to keep his promise of delivering snacks to Tails.

But just in case… he sends a quick text to the new sitter that he’d be a little late.

Hopping onto his board, Sonic peels out of the parking lot and towards what could be where he’d find his fated killer, if his luck continues. Fear and desperation mire together, and even though he knows he shouldn’t confront him— not yet, anyways— pride won’t allow him to hide.

He won’t lose the game this time.

By the time Sonic closes in on the speedway, the track is crawling with both sightseers and participants alike, the air buzzing with conversation likely filled with gambles and bets for the turnout.

Flooded with star-bright adrenaline, he follows the strings of gossip amidst the chattering crowd, some racers he recognized but mostly bystanders, until he hears a clue that immediately barbs his attention.

“...a custom board called Excalibur, after the legendary sword...”

Pinpointing the voice, Sonic pulls on their shoulder and flips them around to face him. “Who does it belong to?? Tell me!”

Looking back at Sonic is the familiar face of one of his many reincarnated friends, a white-furred hedgehog with five distinctly spiked quills. As he’d had to do in many lives, every time this happens, Sonic refrains from immediately recognizing Silver, and holds his gaze firm as he waits for an answer.

The pale yellow depths of his eyes sparked with something Sonic can’t name. Intrigue? Entertainment? Or just plain and simple confusion?

“It’s mine.”

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In the silence that followed his outburst, Sonic can’t help but feel like he just made a fool of himself, more uncertain in his own instincts than ever. The awkward situation strongly suggests that the board, in fact, does not belong to his perpetual hunter.

Paranoia uncurls like a beast from hibernation, flaring his defenses now that he’d lost his only clue.

“Guess you were expecting me to say somebody else’s name.” Silver cocks one eyebrow as he props one hand on his hip, shifting his weight. His eyes hold a certain keenness, like he doesn’t care about the fact that Sonic had demanded an answer rather rudely.

Sonic shrugs nonchalantly, but his nerves are as fraught as an arrow nocked in a bow. “Guess so.”

Silver laughs, even though it wasn’t especially funny. “Well, don’t look too disappointed. Maybe you could get to know me, instead.” He sticks out a teal-accented gloved hand, inviting Sonic to shake with a chipper smile. “I’m Silver! But my friends sometimes call me Twinkle Snow, ‘cus of my white fur.”

Is he… serious right now? He wants to be friends?

Or is it a ploy? Shadow wasn’t above recruiting their reincarnated companions to his lethal cause through methods of deception, leading them to believe Sonic was a danger to himself or others. If his time in the mafia taught him anything, it was that no one could be trusted.

He has to be up to something.

“What's your story, then?” Sonic’s throat is dry as sandstone as he grips the board in his hands to keep them from shaking. “I haven’t seen you around before.”

It’s half true— while he hadn’t met Silver in this universe yet, he recognized the distinct pull of the ether that contains memories of his other lives, like half-forgotten dreams. Characters he met different versions of, like Knuckles and Rouge, even Tails, playing their respective roles in each alternation. But to Sonic, they were all as real as he was, each and every time.

Often, he’d form strong bonds and relationships with his friends from other lives before his memories fully returned, but he always knew that the recollection itself was a phenomenon only he and Shadow shared.

“Actually, I just moved here from the countryside. Wanted to see what city racing paid like,” Sure enough, there’s a detectable dialect distinct to the farmlands of this region, becoming more obvious the more Silver talks. “Escaped an alcoholic father and a controlling nightmare of a mother. Eventually I realized there was nothing for me there, and I had to rely on my racing skills to get by. That’s when I decided to get my own board custom made,” he scoffs, in a self-deprecating sort of way. “Sorry, that’s probably oversharing.”

“It’s fine.” Sonic replies with a tight smile.

Except it’s not fine, at all. Shadow is still missing, a fact that both relieves and terrifies Sonic to his core.

Suspicion twists inside him. Everything is pointing in one direction, and that one direction is his imminent death.

And yet, he can’t afford to make a scene, to draw attention to himself before his date with destiny, if destiny looked like a grumpy starfish assassin. He thinks of the mesmerizing tinkling of his brother’s laughter after cracking himself up with fart jokes, funny and innocent, and protectiveness swells in his chest. There had been so many people before that Sonic couldn’t save, neither from tragedy nor circumstance, sickness nor injustice— but now he has a chance to save Tails.

“I really need to get a job,” Silver sighs, and there’s an air of sincerity so genuine it was almost naive. “I'm renting the studio above the diesel station right now—” he gestures to the garage down the street— “and cash is already running low, which is why I'm racing tonight. I guess you’re here for the same reason?”

Sonic makes a mental note of where he lives, just in case. “Actually, no. Just stopping by to scope out the competition for next week’s race.”

“Fair enough,” Silver smiles almost apologetically. “I hear the cash reward for first is quite impressive...”

Narrowing his eyes, Sonic feels a competitive smirk creep across his muzzle. He can’t help it, at the end of the day. “Don’t hold your breath. That prize money's as good as mine.”

Yellow irises gleam as the other hedgehog returns a smirk in good sport, lowering his gaze. “I admire your confidence. I hope you can handle being second place from now on.”

The flame of friendly competition ignites in Sonic’s gut and warms his resolve as he leans forward with a raised fist and a knowing side smile. “And break my winning streak? I’ll pass, thanks.”

Despite the heated spark of their combative banter, Silver grins as he bumps his fist to the other’s. The gesture leaves him a little flush, tan cheeks ablaze as he takes one hand to his neck nervously.

“Hey, sorry if this is ridiculously forward, but… would you maybe want to hang out, sometime?”

Something aches in Sonic’s chest. It had been nearly two decades since they’d last spoken, and as much as he dreaded the sharp agony of death, a tiny, ridiculous part of him feels like saying yes would betray whatever he had with Shadow. Across every lifetime, there was nothing quite like their relationship; the joy and pain they shared had knotted the very fabric of them together. There was a kinship in their shared secret, their bond a fortress that could never be breached from the outside.

He thinks about their sweet whispered nothings on the battlefield; their bodies folded around each other on the salt-licking pirate ship; the star-studded skies of Camelot watching over them as they shared forehead kisses and laced fingers, while the fatal poison kicked in.

The intense love, then imminent death. Sonic still can’t make sense of it all.

One thing feels certain: something in him is intrinsically drawn to this board, like a moth chasing the mysterious glow of a candle’s flame.

He studies Silver carefully, realizing that while he could never feel for him what he felt for Shadow, it wouldn’t be difficult to pretend.

“Why do you want to hang out with me?” Sonic challenges, his mind smeared with conflicting emotions. “I’m the competition, aren't I?”

Silver shrugs carelessly. “You seem fun.”

Such an un-Shadow-like answer; nothing poetic or deep, and it didn’t pulse with unspoken meaning.

“No pressure, of course. I won’t be offended.” He holds out a gloved hand, a turquoise ring glowing in his exposed palm. “Do you have a phone? I’ll give you my number.”

For every outstretched second Silver takes to type in his contact info, Sonic’s blood fizzes impatiently, and it isn’t until Silver hands him back his phone that he releases the breath he’d apparently been holding.

As he looks at the screen, the phone vibrates and lights up with a new message from Tails asking him where he was. One exchanged glance with the other hedgehog is all it takes for him to understand the cue.

“I guess I’ll see you around,” Silver pauses for a moment, face pensive as he furrows his brow. “…I don’t think I caught your name.”

Sonic drops his board and steps on it as he flicks on its engine with an easy kick, a plume of exhaust firing out its back pipe. “Sonic,” he calls out with a small salute. “See ya around, Twinkle Snow.”

Silver returns the salute with a smile. “See ya around, Second Place.”

***

After texting the sitter to stay a few extra hours for the second day in a row, Sonic finds himself posted outside of where Silver had said he’s renting in a discreet hoodie, no plan, acting purely on vibes.

The night is slightly chilly, coming out of spring with a breezy evening front that shakes the branches of the tree concealing him, a cascade of leaves raining in the wind’s current. And after what was probably ten minutes but felt like hours, Sonic finally spots Silver stepping out of one of the doors on the second level, phone pressed between his ear and shoulder as he closes the door with full hands.

“Uh, not yet. Still looking, asked the corner shop if they were hiring but uh… no luck, haha,” Silver’s voice can be heard clearly as it bounces off the balcony, right to where Sonic is standing hidden in the street, concealed in shadows.

It’s clear Sonic is hearing the other half of a phone conversation, albeit unintentionally, but he can’t seem to tear his attention away from the tittilating tidbits of interesting information he was gathering from the accidental eavesdropping.

“My roomie? Nah, he works freelance, otherwise I would. But maybe I should try that myself…” Sonic peers around the tree he’s been leaning on, shaded by his hood and hoping Silver is too distracted to notice him lurking.

Roomie, huh?

“I know, but what choice do I have? I can’t keep the bills paid on race winnings alone. That’s crazy,” Silver exclaims, taking the phone back into his hands after locking the door and slinging a duffle bag over his left shoulder. “I’m also not that cocky.”

Yowch. Sonic conceals an embarrassed cough.

“Actually, I’m heading out right now. Yeah, another long one. Alright, I’ll talk to you later then!”

Silver cranks open the building’s rickety black gate and it swings behind him, its own weight slowing its return as he turns out onto the sidewalk and heads the opposite direction of where Sonic is ducked behind a gnarled tree.

Just before the jittery gate closes completely, he slips into the yard soundlessly in the veil of darkness, and just as Silver steps out of sight.

At the top of the garage is a turned staircase with a private patio, next to a white door illuminated by a single lightbulb and marked with a three-digit number.

Tiptoeing up carefully, Sonic pulls out a couple bobby pins from his quills and prepares to work the lock.

He’d learned to pick locks as a G.U.N. agent, though he no longer remembered the details and it was mainly muscle memory. At first, his fingers fumble with the pins and wrenches, rusty and uncertain, no doubt scratching the inside of the knob to within an inch of its life.

But eventually, he feels the gratifying click, the sighing give, allowing himself a small smile of satisfaction as he turns the knob at last.

Rather than risk flicking on a light switch for someone on the street to spot the glow through the windows, he flips on the stark white torch of his phone and shines it around uselessly, until he realizes that it’s a little too short-range to not move around to investigate.

Taking cautious and gentle steps, so as to not alert any neighbors or pets, Sonic scans his phone light around the flat, taking note of each detail and waiting for something to pop out to him as a clue.

Inside, the air is cool and stagnant, the AC having blasted all day in the midst of the summer heat wave. It’s surprisingly clean, and smells faintly like eucalyptus and the faded aftertaste of wet wipes.

Funny, he didn’t take Silver as a neat freak. Deduction ruled it was likely the roommate he mentioned.

For the most part, the main room is noticeably devoid of personal belongings, which supports Silver’s claims that he just moved in. Fair enough, Sonic thinks, since he also mentioned being tight on cash.

The board should be here, since it had been picked up by its owner long before his shift had started today. Of course, there is the miniscule possibility of a second board with the same name floating around, or that the name is a complete coincidence and was never linked to Shadow, and this could all just be a miscommunication error on Sonic’s part, but… well, he just had a feeling.

But after combing through every poorly-lit inch of the tiny two-bedroom apartment for way too long, Sonic is hit by a realization that would have saved him a lot of time and effort, if he wasn’t so impulsive.

The board wouldn’t be here, because it was with Silver.

All he did was break into an empty apartment.

At least he’d had the forethought to send the sitter home once Tails fell asleep, Sonic thinks to himself numbly, fighting off waves of self-criticism that make his head spin.

The rattle of the gate outside catches Sonic’s ear as it twitches towards the sound. And since Silver recently left… This must be the roommate he mentioned.

Panic surges through his veins, causing Sonic to move faster than he ever has through the apartment as quietly and as quickly as he can.

Time to cut losses and dip.

Heavy footsteps accompanied by the jingling of keys round the corner just as Sonic slips out of the doorway, shutting the door gently with inaudible precision.

Scrambling behind a potted plant in the pooled shadows of the patio, he resists the temptation to peek yet, hopefully concealing himself just in time.

He realizes too late he forgot to relock the door. Would he notice?

Sure enough, as the key slides into the lock, he pauses. Jimmies the handle. Then looks around, as if he can tell an intruder is nearby.

Right at where Sonic is hiding.

And it takes everything in him to hold back the involuntary whimper that wants to escape out of his throat as soon as he gazes upon the face searching for him from the doorway, painted with suspicion.

A face he’s waited nearly twenty years to see again.

Sonic somehow manages to stay perfectly still, despite his shock, hoping the darkness obscured him, his pulse a thundering drumroll.

Then Shadow turns away, and slips inside.

All the fight left his limbs in an instant as he slips to the ground in a puddle of nerves, guts loose, muscles watery, as the realization sets in.

Shadow is here, in Sunset Hill.

Once again, his fated assassin tracked him down, outsmarted him. And once again, he was going to kill him.

So why did Sonic have such a strong urge to run right into his arms?

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

After breaking into Silver’s and, in some sick twist of fate, Shadow of all people’s shared apartment, Sonic doesn’t see Silver for almost two days— time he spends almost entirely spying on the apartment, trying to pinpoint Shadow’s whereabouts as sand slowly trickled from his own doomed hourglass.

To make matters worse, his research is rather inconclusive, aside from the apparent fact that they had complete opposite schedules in that Shadow was never home when Sonic was free to spy. The mere fact that he’s here in Sunset Hill is blood-curdling in a way Sonic hasn’t decided is good or bad.

Shadow, less than a mile away, after nearly forty years apart.

The idea alone makes Sonic’s insides feel like a beehive, buzzing and writhing with anticipation, though he can’t quite ascertain whether or not he wants to see him.

The answer isn’t so easy. There were so many things he liked about Shadow, traits other people used to describe someone they liked, but words like funny or smart or kind are simply too reductive and one-dimensional to describe someone of his depth; not to mention, they failed to describe him at the surface level, by design, thanks to his tough exterior.

Over decades and decades of chipping away at the hard outer shell of his edgy personality, Shadow slowly revealed to Sonic sides of himself that were poetic, creative, stubborn, reserved, wise. He admired how demonstrably gentle with wildlife Shadow was, as if tapped into the natural world in some fundamental way. Reading was his favorite pastime, and books he enjoyed were philosophical, deep, if often melancholic.

And he loved deeply; this much had been made clear when he lost his sister Maria in an earlier incarnation and never was the same after. To everyone else, Shadow was closed off and cold; but to Sonic, he was a lonely poet, with a haunted house for a heart and a moat around its perimeter.

Of one thing, Sonic is certain: what he feels transcends love; it’s understanding, appreciation beyond a simple list of attributes.

Shadow was like a tapestry that grew more detailed with every incarnation; perhaps the raw material began as a simple expanse of goodness, of loyalty, of creativity and imagination, but with every life he lives— and every life he takes— another section of elaborate beadwork is stitched through the silk. Each piece of knowledge gained became a jewel in the border; each new experience a new intricate patch of embroidery. All this texture that made him so endlessly interesting, made Sonic want to run his fingers over every inch to explore him, understand him. Unravel him.

How can anyone who’s only lived once compare?

But even though they had loved each other in so many lives, they haven’t talked in four decades— Frontier Canyon had been so brutal, so breviloquent.

Sonic can’t help but acknowledge the craving he feels to drop everything and go to Shadow, the insatiable draw to his soul— even if it results in his death. Their intense love, reduced to a sense of both permanence and impermanence.

A yearning so complex it defies all reason.

Sonic stares at Silver’s contact info and the blank conversation where he had typed out and backspaced paragraphs for Chaos knows how long. Some part of him still feels like they might be in cahoots, hence his hesitation, but then again Silver genuinely seemed none the wiser.

If only he could just talk to Shadow, before he pulled the rug on their lives. Silver could certainly be a buffer, but would that even stop him? Their mutually assured destruction meant he wouldn’t face consequences for harming anyone in this timeline, should he decide to sacrifice Silver in the name of whatever curse afflicted them.

A curse even Shadow himself wanted to be rid of.

He recalls their first meeting as G.U.N. agents, two days after Sonic had lost his mother, and how Shadow had consoled him.

Which means he knows Sonic’s heart– knows how much he loves, how much family means to him, what losing them would mean. Surely he would understand the situation, if Sonic explained it.

Right?

With a sigh, his thoughts on the matter retreat for the night and he places the phone down decidedly for the last time before forcing himself into a restless slumber.

***

Three days before the race, Sonic feels more than ever like his entire nervous system is a live wire in a hurricane, but years (decades upon decades, arguably) of practicing nonchalance in the face of terror has trained him into the cool mask he’s currently wearing as he braces himself for one of the most intimidating battles yet: the doctor’s office.

But if Tails is nervous at all, he’s hiding it better than any amount of training could ever do for Sonic.

The way his entire presence lights up when Sonic finally breaches the room in the early morning with a bag of his favorite sugar-free mint candy is enough to solidify the conviction deep in his heart— confirming that yep, he’d do just about anything to save his brother.

“Sonic! Come check out what we’ve been working on! Terry showed me more cool board tips, I really want you to try them out!”

Sonic tries to put on a brave face, but can’t seem to shake the feeling that something awful is about to happen, as if his killer is waiting to pounce on him the instant he steps outside this hospital room. Desperation anchors him in a way that makes him never want to leave, never want to walk away from Tails’ smiling face as he talks about his newest inventions.

At least he seems to be really happy with the new sitter, Sonic thinks to himself. He’d have to make a point to thank him later.

After several, but not nearly enough, minutes of Tails nerding out to Sonic excitedly with stars in his eyes, a group of doctors and nurses in long white coats holding clipboards wheel Tails out of the room for his procedure, a routine checkup to see how dialysis is helping.

Sonic gives him a weak smile and waves as he disappears into the hallway, and with a suffering sigh, takes out his phone.

The last message swells with a little thumbs up icon, indicating that it had been seen and understood. Sonic sighs again, this time with a bit more relief, knowing that once he secures this race money, at least he could arrange for Tails to have ongoing care.

He just needs to survive until he finds a donor. And Sonic just needs the money to let him do so.

The doctors finally bring Tails back in on his gurney, their grim demeanors starkly contrasting the fox’s colorful delight once his blue eyes land on Sonic, as anxiety wraps a noose around his stomach.

“I’ll get right into it,” Dr. Sorders begins, clearing her throat as she props thick-framed glasses up her beak. “Despite the triweekly dialysis treatments, the toxicology report suggests the diabetic nephropathy has continued to advance. The glomerular filtration rate has dropped to below 15% functionality.”

Sonic shifts his eyes to the nurses, trying to read their body language to figure out how he’s supposed to react to what sounded like a boatload of gibberish. He can see Tails plainly wearing his confusion in his periphery, and tries to hide his own.

“Which is to say, and I am sorry to say so, that young Mr. Prower’s condition is declining more rapidly than we anticipated. Essentially, this is considered stage five kidney failure, which is also known as end-stage renal disease, and is…” She suppresses a cough, expression grave as the news she’s delivering, “...fatal without an immediate transplant.”

Despair plummets in Sonic’s stomach like a stone.

“Unfortunately, without a donor match within the month, his condition will continue to decline. Normally, dialysis can buy up to five additional years before needing a transplant, even in stage five. But in Mr. Prower’s case, it could give him one, maybe two additional months, tops. And that’s if we’re lucky.”

“H-he’s already on the transplant list, isn’t he?” Sonic is quick to ask, pulse pounding. “Can’t you just bump him up?”

The duck-billed doctor pushes her glasses up once more, shaking her head slowly. “Not with his blood type. Matches are few and far between, unless it’s between relatives.”

Sonic can’t bring himself to even glance at Tails, scanning the beads of sweat gathering on the doctor’s clammy forehead, echoing his own.

“How long…” Sonic swallows a lump dryly, “is he gonna have to wait?” Dread in his bones told him he already knew the answer.

A grimace flashes across Dr. Sorders’ face. “Hard to say. Usually recipients wait years on the transplant list before a match is found. Since you don’t have years, your best bet is to find a living donor, which will be tricky without living relatives.”

“A living donor?” Sonic repeats, a light bulb igniting in his skull, like the answer was so obvious. “What about me?”

“While it’s possible, it’s not very likely that you are a match, given that you two are genetically unrelated,” the doctor replies flatly, brow creased.

“But it is possible,” Sonic retorts, desperation clawing up his esophagus once again. “You could have me tested, right?”

“We could, yes.”

“Wait… Sonic, are you sure about this?” Tails, who had been unusually quiet this entire encounter, pipes up at last, causing the other two to snap their heads in his direction.

Sonic nods vehemently. “Absolutely, buddy. I said I’d give anything to make sure you’ll be okay and I meant it.”

Tails frowns adorably, only hardening his resolve. “Yeah, but a whole organ… I can’t ask— ”

“You’re not. I want to do this,” Sonic grabs one of Tails’ hands, the one without a heartrate pulse monitor, giving it a gentle squeeze. “You’re my little brother, okay?”

Turning back to face Dr. Sorders, Sonic stones his expression. “So test me. We can do it right now.”

The duck chuckles, in spite of the circumstances. “I understand the eagerness Mr. Hedgehog, but there’s an order to these things. We have to set up appointments, and the soonest would be in…” She scans the clipboard closely, pinching her glasses to adjust. “…one week from today.”

Sonic’s heart fell through the floor.

His birthday is in four days.

Which means he’d likely be dead before then.

“At least it’s after the big race,” Tails says with a beat of relieved laughter, forever an optimist, Sonic’s role model for a good attitude even in the bleakest of situations. But nothing can relieve the burning knowledge that no amount of money can save him without a donor.

“Is there any way to go in sooner, actually?” Sonic can only hope he doesn’t sound as pitiful as he feels asking. Tails shoots him a quizzical look that he ignores for his own good.

“Not unless someone cancels, but we can certainly call you if that happens.”

“Yes, please do,” Sonic replies urgently, with Tails cocking his head in befuddlement. “The sooner we know the better.”

“S-Sonic, it’s okay, you should focus on winning…”

Sonic gives his hand a soft squeeze as he turns to gaze at his concerned younger brother. “It’ll help me win to know I did everything I could, okay?”

With a wordless nod, Tails turns away with what almost seems like guilt as Sonic meets the doctor’s eyes with a question.

“The test isn’t gonna be one of those waiting-three-weeks-for-results situations, is it?” Sonic almost accuses in a tired tone, cocking an eyebrow.

Dr. Sorders chuckles, shaking her head. “No, same day results, rest assured. We wouldn’t want to drag this out too much.”

Tails tugs on Sonic’s hand, pulling his attention back to his bedside. “Look on the bright side, it’s not like things can get much worse.”

But they could. Shadow could jump out and kill him any day now, ruining his last chance to save Tails.

No. He can’t let that happen.

Sonic decides right then and there it’s time to take matters into his own hands.

He will live past his twentieth birthday, no matter what.

Taking out his phone, he types a quick message to Silver and hits send.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Over the last few lifetimes, Sonic had several recurring dreams of the white-haired girl with red eyes since seeing her in the galactic war, though few and far between and always as mysterious as her initial appearance.

Last night was one of them.

He could taste the sour tang of blood and sweat, the scratchy coarseness of his Mobian uniform. The deafening sound of the sky being cracked down the middle like a rib cage. The fiery rain of cascading ships, shot down midair.

And then, her.

White hair, red eyes, a black shapeless dress, drifting aimlessly in a place she didn’t belong. A place none of them belonged.

Your reckless actions will endanger the world.

What reckless actions? He would wake up screaming. What are you talking about?

The same feeling always lingers.

Whatever instruments of fate are being royally fucked with by their perpetual cycle of reincarnation, their entire relationship a snake eating its own tail, it seems bigger than just them.

Sonic can feel it in his marrow.

She probably knew the why he’d been seeking. But the grenade had robbed him of any more answers, any other clues that he spent decades trying to parse who or what she could have been. A fairy, a witch, an angel, or perhaps a demon— someone he had angered long ago.

Someone who treated him like a threat.

In the grassy hills of Camelot, Sonic had asked Shadow why. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last. And Shadow had admitted the stakes went much farther than just them.

Because the world would end.

Your reckless actions will endanger the world.

One thing the white-haired girl made clear to Sonic is that the fate of the world is surely hinged to his inevitable demise.

But why? And what world, if he keeps getting killed in every life?

And would she ever show up again?

Sonic shakes his head, trying to dissipate the worrying remnants of his nightmare like an Etch-a-sketch and failing to do so.

Real life isn’t much less of one, though. With three days remaining on his final countdown, and knowing Shadow is surely plotting his demise right now, the only burning question that remains is why he hasn’t struck yet.

It also doesn’t feel right that in spite of the stakes, he still has to go to work.

Not for nothing; the shop is the ideal place to prepare for the race that’s now only two days away. Somehow, it seems like the least of his worries after Tails’ latest prognosis.

It’s more than enough to distract him from the frustrated echo of Knuckles calling out his name to snag his attention as Sonic spaced out staring right at him.

And it isn’t until Knuckles fakes out an actual punch before he reacts, snapping back into the moment with a defensive jolt, arms braced for the bluff impact.

“Hey!! What gives?!” sputters Sonic, swatting his friend’s namesakes out of his face with a grimace.

Knuckles pulls his fist away with an annoyed smirk. “That’s what it took to get your attention? Are you that stressed about losing to me for your birthday?”

Sonic’s eyelids drop to an unamused straight line, because while Knuckles is aberrantly right, there was no hope in explaining why he certainly is not in the mood to pass witty banter back and forth right now. Not with the heavy weight on his psyche, dragging down his usual competitiveness like an anchor of anxiety.

“Can we not today, Knux?” Sonic asks in a tired sigh, leaning back into his chair despondently with a dismissive wave as a motion to drop it.

No such luck.

He can feel the atmosphere shift as Knuckles gazes at him with sympathy swimming behind his violet irises; which only deepens Sonic’s sigh because the last thing he wanted to do was throw himself a pity party at work.

“How is Tails doing?”

Sonic curses under his breath for being so obvious. Of course Knuckles would want to know, and deserved to, but he had barely come to terms with the devastating update himself, and he grappled with the idea of concealing the poignancy. But Knuckles would eventually find out, one way or another, whether or not he spared him the grueling truth.

“Ehh… he’s, um… they said he’s…” Sonic struggles to get the words out, strangled by emotion in his throat, “a real strong kid. They said if I’m a match, he’ll be fine in no time!”

Having spent most of his lives learning how to selectively lie, Sonic settles with some half-truths, since they’re all he can manage.

Knuckles seems to accept this with a solemn affirming nod. “He is lucky to have a brother like you.”

Sonic gives him a wilted smile, mind drenched in the chaos of concern over Knuckles’ words, despite the wholesome sentiment.

I’m no good to him dead.

“Yeah, I’m lucky to have him too.”

Knuckles nods again, his eyebrows scrunching in thought. “Who’s been watching him while you work, now that Vanilla has that new job?”

His question reminded Sonic just how bad he’s been about meeting the new babysitter, despite hiring him earlier in the week as per Vanilla’s recommendation. He hardly had the time to juggle a whole new person he’d just end up leaving, anyways.

“Oh, she gave me the number of the guy who used to watch Cream some years ago. Terry’s his name. Tails really likes him,” Sonic offers with a pair of raised eyebrows, purposefully neglecting to mention that their entire relationship was still confined to a text chat.

“Terry, huh? I knew a Terry many years ago who had killer instincts on a board,” Knuckles returns, a look of contemplation coloring his expression.

Sonic lifts his eyebrows even more. “Huh, no kidding? Tails says he’s good with boards… Maybe it’s the same guy.”

Knuckles chortled, shaking his head. “Hah. Doubt it. He was a mean polar bear who hated kids.”

“Oh. Probably not, then,” muses Sonic, realizing (and momentarily forgetting he was trying not to reveal) that he had no idea what kind of person Terry was, or whether or not he was a kid-hating pro-boarder polar bear. “Or maybe actually, I don’t know.”

As expected, the red echidna shoots him a disapproving look. “What do you mean? Haven’t you met the guy?”

Oh, oops… Heat blooms across Sonic’s muzzle as he curses at himself again over his verbal slip. “Not yet, I’ve… been busy.”

Frowning, Knuckles shakes his head, showcasing a disappointment that was more than warranted. “You trust people too easily.”

“I know, I know! Jeez, I mean, Vanilla put in a good word, and she’s met him, and she wouldn’t recommend someone for Tails that she didn’t totally trust,” Sonic defends, despite his own judgement twisting a blade of guilt inside his chest.

With a giving sigh, the other relents. “I suppose that’s a good point…” he says carefully, voice still laced with judgement of his own that Sonic felt he totally deserved. “But it seems like poor etiquette.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Sonic waves away the lingering implications with a dejected sigh, mentally noting to at least meet the guy before his destined death date in three days. The least he can do is make sure he isn’t leaving his brother in the hands of some twisted psychopath.

Especially since he’s already dealing with one who had him on his next-to-kill list.

Once on his lunch break, Sonic whips out his phone to check the unread messages from the morning to see some from Tails and one from Silver, who finally responded to his proposition from yesterday afternoon.

The chat shows a few bubbles of typing before they ceased, indicating that Tails either took him seriously or got distracted by the very subject of their conversation. Sonic can’t decide which is worse, but finds himself hoping it’s the latter.

He takes a sharp inhale before tapping on the unread message.

And Knuckles thinks I’m too trusting, Sonic smirks to himself at the address he’d already been to prior to the formal invitation, knowing that his intentions were impure. With any luck, and if today is like any of the other days he’d been spying on them, Shadow shouldn’t be home around that time.

A perfect opportunity for an ambush and rigorous questioning.

As soon as the message is read, he closes his phone to clock back in from lunch to spend the rest of his shift plotting for tonight.

The rest of the day speeds by in a blur, and the instant he clocks out promptly at 6 without so much of a polite farewell to Knuckles, stuck with the queue of boards to work on before the big race, he checks his phone once more only to see a worrying text from the sitter.

Sonic’s heart sinks to his stomach. He can’t even find it within himself to be frustrated at anyone but himself, since Terry had been so helpful and Tails liked him so much. Mostly, it just stung that he asked to leave early on the night Sonic needed him most.

Sighing, he types out a frenzied explanation laced into a request and sends it to Vanilla with his fingers crossed that she could come through for him tonight. Everything, his life, Tails’ life, rode on the information he planned to gather from his interrogation of Shadow’s hopefully unsuspecting roommate.

But seeing as he only has less than an hour to scrape together some sort of plan, and even less time to keep checking his phone for a response, he decides that whether or not Vanilla came through, it’s absolutely imperative that he talks to Silver tonight.

With that goal in mind, Sonic hops on his board and speeds hastily towards his lonesome abode on Angel Island to ready himself for what the night has in store.

***

A little before 7pm, Sonic pulls up to the rickety black gate outside Silver’s address with nothing but hope and an ambitious goal.

In the time he’d taken to prepare, he’d manage to accomplish little more than freaking himself out, and planned to rely on his improv skills that had yet to be graded. Nevertheless, he dismounts his hoverboard to yank open the gate with a sense of false confidence he hopes will be his saving grace as he makes his way up the steps and rings the doorbell, mind blank to still his nerves.

“Sonic!” Silver exclaims with a cheerful smile as soon as the door opens, “Wow, you’re early. I was just about—”

“Can I come in for a sec? Gotta use the bathroom,” Sonic interrupts, inviting himself inside without waiting for a response from the dumbfounded hedgehog who steps aside to let him.

“S-sure, ahah, no problem,” stutters Silver with an awkward beat of laughter and a befuddled look as he watches Sonic scan the apartment. “Uh, first door on the right down that hall…”

With a hesitant click, Silver shuts the front door, which opened into the dining room and kitchen areas, rooms Sonic had only ever seen in the blanket of darkness with a phone flashlight. And like it had been when he first investigated, they were jarringly clean and barren, save for a few dishes Sonic can only assume to be fresh, paired with the smell of a recently home-cooked meal.

“Thanks,” he replies as he dips into the bathroom with the intention to put together some sort of plan to knock Silver out and subdue him for questioning. Turning on the fan to cover the noise of his searching through the medicine cabinets, Sonic peels through the selection of pills and medications for anything that could help him.

After a few minutes and a disappointingly destitute turnout, Sonic fake flushes the toilet before “washing” his hands and exiting the bathroom feeling more hopeless than before.

Standing in front of the sink with the water running, Silver turns to greet Sonic with an embarrassed smile. “Hey, sorry, while you were in there I decided to clean up my dishes before we go. My roommate hates messes,” he explains, pulling a dripping plate out and placing it on the dryer rack.

“Fine by me,” Sonic replies, brain still churning trying to form some idea to set his plan in motion, scanning the kitchen and praying for a stroke of genius to hit him in the head just as his eyes land on the frying pan behind Silver.

A lightbulb blinks on in his mind.

“Almost done, sorry,” Sonic’s victim apologizes, head turned away from the danger slowly creeping up behind him, the fated frying pan and makeshift weapon raising up until Sonic drove it back down against Silver’s head, hard.

With a loud clang and surprised groan, the white hedgehog crumples to the ground as the dishes he’d been holding clatter into the sink. Sonic doesn’t waste any time in gathering his lifeless body and dragging it to a nearby chair and zip tying his hands and ankles to its extremities.

It was a chaotic and slightly ill-conceived plan, but it was the best one he had. Silver lived with a serial killer and he was estranged from his family, so hopefully no one would report him missing anytime soon.

Blood blooms like a rose in his white fur. Sonic pushes down the guilt gnawing on his heartstrings like vultures on a carcass.

“S-Sonic? What’s… ow, my head… what’s going on?” Silver groans, voice groggy and slurred in a way that suggests he might need to go to the hospital.

But Sonic has more pressing matters to worry about first.

“Cut the crap. I know Shadow put you up to this. How much money is he offering you to get close to me?”

“Who…? What, no! No one offered me… dude, that’s not why, please believe me,” Silver begs so sincerely Sonic actually starts to feel bad, but he can’t let himself get distracted.

“Don’t play dumb. We both know that won’t work,” Sonic says, trying to sound threatening but the shake of his voice makes him come off unsure. “Was it a grand? Five grand? C’mon, don’t be shy, I know money’s tight out here. Shads offered you a real sweet deal, didn’t he?”

“S-Sonic, I promise, I swear no one put me up to this. I don’t— I don’t even know who that is,” Silver begs, yellow eyes wide and bright like headlights in the dim room. One of his pupils is dilating, Sonic notices, a further indication of his growing need for medical attention.

Uncertainty begins to slither around his heart in a way he tries to ignore as he huffs, “I told you, the jig’s up. You don’t have to pretend not to know him anymore.”

“I’m tellin’ the truth!! I have no idea who you’re talking about!” Sweat mired with dripping blood from his injury dribbled down his forehead in a watery pink streak. “Please, you have to believe me. Check my phone, anything, I swear I’m not lying!”

“…Bullshit, you literally live with the guy.”

“Wh— wait, are you talking about Terry?”

Sonic’s heart drops into his stomach like an anvil. “Terry?” He parrots, mouth agape.

“M-my roommate’s name is Terios… goes by Terry,” Silver says carefully, “is that who you’re looking for?”

It can’t be the same one, right?

As if through cosmic intervention, his phone chimes to remind him of a text he’d gotten ten minutes earlier.

From Terry.

A throat-clearing from behind makes all the hairs and quills on Sonic’s body stand on end.

He turns around, eyes wide.

Shadow.

Leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed darkly, red eyes nearly glowing against the dim backdrop, watching his every move.

“This is a bit much, Sonic. Even for you.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

“Terry?”

Silver confirms out loud what Sonic had been afraid of in one simple word, one innocent question.

“It’s you,” Sonic whispers, voice hoarse and suddenly weak, “it’s been you this whole time?”

Shadow shrugs, but it’s far from nonchalant; it’s stiff, apologetic, self-loathing. “I’m sorry.”

The two words carry a heavy weight of the rest of every apology from the last few decades, sorry for last time, sorry for hiding in plain sight, sorry I have to do this again.

“But… I got your number from Vanilla. You babysat for my cousin years ago,” Sonic murmurs, stumbling back, vision starry. “All this time, I looked for you, kept my ear to the ground listening for you, and you were right here all along…” Disbelief colors his entire expression. “How can you be here?”

“I scrubbed my trail. Changed my name. Memorized your schedule to avoid you,” Shadow admits, jaw clenching and unclenching. “Every conversation felt like Russian roulette. I haven’t relaxed for one moment over the years I’ve been here.”

“But you… you’ve been hanging out with Tails, my brother Tails,” Sonic shakes his head, unable to merge the two versions of Shadow and Terry in his head. It certainly wasn’t like Shadow to get close to Tails, of all people. Like with any of Sonic’s friends.

Sure, Shadow and Knuckles didn’t always get along. But he and Rouge always got along just fine, which is where Sonic had expected to see Shadow pop up since they tended to gravitate towards friendship in every universe. On occasion, Shadow and Amy had even gotten close, and he was liked very much by Vanilla and Cream; but he and Tails always had an innate disconnect, a rivalry, even. At least, Sonic thought so.

Apparently he had been wrong. Tails’ beloved new friend Terry had been Shadow all along.

And honestly, he has no idea how to feel about it.

“He looks up to you, you know,” Sonic can’t keep the accusatory tone from his shaking voice. “Were you just using him to get close to me?”

Guilt tears over his face. “I mean, yes, at first. But…” Shadow trails off, voice thick with an emotion Sonic can’t name. “I had been keeping my distance, staying just parallel of your life. I never meant to let this go on for so long— but to my credit, I was expecting to meet sooner.” Now it’s Sonic’s turn to look guilty, but the emotion is brief and quickly replaced with its former indigence before Shadow goes on.

”That first day you texted me, when I met your Miles— Tails— I was planning how to kill you, just a week shy of your birthday. But you were late, and instead we spent those hours waiting talking about you. That was when I realized how much we had in common. Next thing I knew we were building those thrusters together, and I couldn’t help but be in awe of him. So intelligent, so caring, so positive in the light of such misfortune. It helped me understand why you love him so much in every life. And despite my best efforts not to… I do care.”

He winces at the word like it’s a terminal disease.

In every other universe, Shadow had always referred to Tails as “the fox” or “the yellow one,” so hearing his nickname as well as his given name uttered in that husky voice is a rarer gem than a Chaos emerald. Sonic runs a hand through his quills, feeling at once frantic and weak. “You… genuinely care?”

“Yes.” The answer is quick as a whip.

In some ways, there’s a level of relief knowing that the two people he loves most in the world love each other, which isn’t a luxury always granted or guaranteed in any life. If he’s being really honest, it’s always been one of his best case scenarios, where he could share the love he has for both of them with both of them. At the same time, there’s an underlying sense of betrayal that led to this moment.

“Why? I know how you feel about the inconvenience of loving people.”

“I know it’s important to you,” Shadow insists, expression etched with the same pain from Camelot. “I was going to give you enough time to save him, before…”

Before you die.

Before I kill you.

The unspoken promise of a dozen lifetimes. Sonic’s face contorts as he grapples this, panic swirling in his gut.

“Are you going to kill me now?”

“I think I have to,” Shadow says at last, in a quiet voice, “or you’ll try to stop me.”

“But Tails… I could be a match,” returns Sonic with the familiar claw of desperation closing around his throat. This was it, the dreaded worst-case scenario he’d been so frightened of seeing to fruition, arrived at last. The frustration alone feels cruelly suffocating.

Not again…

“I’m sorry,” Shadow closes his eyes. “Look, I’m sorry, alright? You might see him again in the next life anyways. And maybe he won’t be sick and dying.”

Like a detonated grenade, Sonic’s rage implodes. “That might be the most fucked up thing you’ve ever said.”

He had expected Shadow to meet him with heat of his own, but instead he looks appalled at himself. “I didn’t mean—”

“You know it’s different in every life. Sometimes he’s there, sometimes he’s there but he’s not my Tails, and sometimes I’m completely alone until you find me and kill me.” Sonic kicks away a fork that had fallen on the floor when he attacked Silver, wishing it was one of Shadow’s ribs instead. “Do you know how exhausting it is, to do this over and over and never know if any of it will even last?”

“Sonic…”

“And what if this is the last time? What if we don’t come back?” Sonic insists. “Tails is just an innocent kid. How can you sentence him to die? Just so you can fulfill some twisted vendetta you have against me? Chaos, I hate you.”

“It’s not the— arrghh.” The groan is deep enough to rumble the earth. “I would give anything in the world not to have to do this. You know that, Sonic. You’ve seen me grapple with it life after life, death after death. Back on my spaceship, you said you trusted me. Trusted that I did this for the right reasons. Nothing has changed.”

“No. You’ve changed. Ever since Camelot. The cold killer outlaw who attacked without warning, that wasn’t you,” Sonic fires back, forcing himself to reign in his breath and adds, “Look, just let me have the three days to win the race money and try to find a match before then.”

Shadow lowers his gaze, fists curling and uncurling the slightest bit. “How are you going to do that?”

“I bet I can get them to test me within the next three days,” Sonic starts, the plan coming together as he speaks. “If I’m a match, they can still use my kidney, even after you kill me. Then we both get what we want.”

He holds his breath, sensing that he’s close to finding the chink in Shadow’s armor, to driving the spear in. And for a second it looks as though the darker hedgehog might concede, the way his shoulders ease slightly, but he shakes his head vigorously as if to shake off an intrusive thought.

“Why not?” Sonic urges, trying to keep the whimper from his voice, “You said before you wanted to give me time to save him. So why won’t you let me try?”

“Because you might run.”

Sonic crosses his arms. “I won’t run.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

He had a point. Sonic thinks of his great escape from the Toy Kingdom where he had served as a jester, of how sure he had been that Shadow, the king, wouldn’t find him. Of how he had underestimated how deeply the impetus to kill him ran, once he was recaptured and personally murdered by the king.

“I promise I won’t,” he acquiesces, holding his hands up in surrender. “I’ll let you kill me when the time comes. Scout’s honor.”

“With absolutely no due respect, I do not believe you.”

“So don’t leave my side, ever,” Sonic urges, sensing that he is so, so close to prolonging his death via eroding Shadow’s walls while narrowly avoiding his patience. “You’re already close to Tails. If we both race, we can win more money which should more than cover the bills for the transplant, at which point you can kill me. There won’t be a chance for me to run.”

Shadow takes several hair-raising moments to parse this. “What about at night?”

“I can just stay here, right? Silver already kinda knows, and Tails already wanted us to hook u— I mean, hang out.”

“That’s another problem. Silver.”

Silver perks up at the sound of his name. “What was the question?”

Sonic turns towards the bloodied white-furred hedgehog and asserts, “Don’t worry about it.” Then turning back to Shadow, “We’ll deal with him later.”

“Okay…” Silver drones, clearly confused.

“…Okay,” Shadow echoes, much to Sonic’s utter shock and equal delight.

“Okay??” He parrots, perhaps with a little too much enthusiasm as his dark counterpart grimaces with his arms crossed.

Shadow lowers his head to glare at Sonic, growling “Okay.” The second time has a clear underlying message: don’t make me regret this.

“Okay???” Silver’s final delirious reply is willfully ignored by both other hedgehogs, seeing as they were in a world of their own that left him completely in the dark.

“The deadline is three days. Three days to find out if you’re a match. Three days to win the money,” Shadow says, voice somber and dripping with austerity as it often did.

Sonic nods, expression grave as the sentiment behind it. “And whether Tails has a donor or not, we die.”

Shadow looks away, unable to meet the other’s eye as he whispers, “It’s the way it has to be.”

It’s a terrible deal, but the only one Sonic has.

A loud groan snaps their attention back to the body slumped in the chair as Silver shifts sluggishly.

“I uh… I think I need a doctor,” he drawls, eyes crossed and unfocused, now just an innocent victim that Sonic had violently dragged into their mess.

“Shit,” Sonic mumbles, rubbing his temple with one hand, “I think he’s right. What have I done?”

The dark agent shakes his head and shrugs with a slight smirk, “Not your finest hour.”

“What am I going to do now??” Sonic rakes his fingers through his quills.

“What were you planning to do?”

He bites his lip. “Leave him here until I could save Tails?”

Shadow nods sagely, leaning casually against the doorframe, as though they had not been discussing the finer details of mutually assured destruction. “A very sane course of action. It’s a real shame that lobotomy in Rockwell Labs didn’t take.”

Silver groans again, his head thumping against the chair every time he dives in and out of consciousness.

“So leave him tied here regardless,” He continues, “We can free him before we… you know.”

“Die. Right.” Sonic puts his hands behind his back and begins to pace. “Not exactly ethical, though, is it?”

“I think that line has already been crossed. Danced over, even. A veritable foxtrot over the boundaries of morality.”

A fair point; the plan is a disaster. “I guess I can’t just let him go… He’ll go to the police and we’ll get arrested.”

“We?” Shadow looks affronted. “I’m not the one who assaulted him with a frying pan.”

“You confessed to premeditated murder in front of him,” argues Sonic, eyebrow raised; to which Silver elucidates with a bleary groan.

Shadow frowns, bringing a hand to his chin pensively. “We could try blackmailing him.”

“You don’t need to blackmail me, I promise not to tell anyone— if you just let me go. Ugh, I’m dizzy,” Silver pipes up, head bobbing heavily on his neck. “Please. I don’t want any part of this.”

A kind of erratic laughter bolts up Sonic’s throat, imagining this is how it probably felt to be a hit-man with hostages. “There’s no way you’re not going to the police about this,” he returns, feeling at once apologetic. “For the record, I had no idea you weren’t involved.”

Silver nods, but it’s more of a loll. “I figured, and I think I get why. Even if I don’t really… get it, or why Terry wants to kill you in the first place.” Adjusting himself in the chair with a badly disguised grimace, he goes on, “But maybe he has his reasons too. Honestly, I wouldn’t go to the police, because they’d just think I’m crazy. So… you have my word.”

Sonic looks at Shadow, who shakes his head. Then Silver adds, “Please. I’m in like, a lot of pain, and I can’t see too well. I need— urkk— medical attention.”

His will falters. Shadow spots the subtle guilty twist in his face and lowers his gaze. “Sonic… it’s not worth the risk. You have to keep him here.”

Silver flits a glance between them, eyes wide but expression oddly vacant and dreamy. “Someone will find me. I can shout pretty loudly.”

“You’re just asking to be gagged at this point,” growls Shadow.

Silver winces as he strains against the zip-ties on his wrists, looking up at Sonic intently. “Please, I just want to forget this ever happened.” Another groan. “Oww, my head.”

Sonic mentally weighs out his options, or at least tries to, but his mind is a hissing pit of snakes. The confrontation with Shadow had left him wrung out and freshly devastated, not to mention anxious about how he was going to save Tails. There’s hardly any brain space left to deal with accidental captives.

Leaving Silver here does seem like the easiest solution, but shame pulsed through him at the thought.

And yet, Shadow was right. If Silver went to the police, there was no chance of saving Tails. No chance of getting in early to be tested as a donor.

But then again, maybe he wouldn’t need to. If they were taken into custody, he and Shadow would be separated. Then he wouldn’t be able to kill him in the next seven days. Sonic would live past his birthday, and surely they could perform a simple donor test from jail. Surely such allowances could be made if he turned out to be a match.

Had this been bad enough to justify imprisonment? Possibly not. Even if he was charged, he’d almost certainly be granted bail. Safety from Shadow, however, was not guaranteed in the least.

In any case, letting Silver go seems like the best course of action. After many lives on both sides of the law, the police didn’t scare him. Cell or no cell, bail or no bail, there would still be a chance of saving his brother’s life— without leaving an innocent man bound and gagged in his own apartment.

Sonic steps forward, eyes fixed on Silver’s bonds, as does Shadow.

“You can’t let him go.” His voice is soft yet firm. “I’m sorry. If we end up arrested and separated, I won’t be able to get to you before your birthday. And I can’t let that happen. I can’t.”

Silver’s gaze flicks once again between the guy he literally met yesterday and his roommate of some undisclosed amount of time. “Very weird energy in here.”

Pulling out a switchblade, Sonic prepares to cut him loose. “It’s just cruel to leave him here when he’s innocent.”

Shadow lays an insistent palm on his shoulder, tugging him ever so slightly back. Sonic knew he could do it harder if he needed to. If he wanted to physically stop him, he could.

It’s times like this he hated that they were so alike, so evenly matched; there were few who could even lay a hand on the hero of Mobius, a title he earned across a few lifetimes. Most of all, he hated that Shadow was willing to use his strength, when Sonic found himself holding back.

“You were willing to leave him here in order to save Tails before,” Shadow says. “The stakes haven’t changed.”

Sonic rolls back onto his heels. “So, you’re saying you’ll kill me now if I let him go?”

Self-loathing snaps across Shadow’s weary face. “I’m sorry. It’s the way it has to be.”

Coldness spreads through Sonic’s chest like a wave. “With what weapon?”

He pulls out a long blade, one he must have had concealed in his quills.

Silver’s eyes widened. “You were serious when you threatened to kill him, Terry??”

Shadow’s gaze snaps to Silver. “Oh, it’s not a threat. I am going to kill him. And my name is Shadow, not Terios.”

Despite knowing the forceful thrust of his voice was intended to scare Silver, not him, it still has that effect on Sonic.

It isn’t the killing itself that frightens him— the promise of pain is not the root of the deep, lurching fear in his stomach. It’s the astonishing weight of never, so devastatingly absolute, so impenatrably permanent. He would never live a normal life, with his friends and lover, never grow old beside them, never laugh at the inside jokes they spent years curating again. Even when he would inevitably return, reincarnated into new roles, new lives, new characters— he would never be who he once was to them.

That never is hurtling towards him like a train.

Silver looks at him in astonishment, but his dim gaze is dizzied. “And you’re fine with this? It’s just like, just a fun little… deal you’ve made?” His words are effortful, breathless.

“I’ve murdered him a few times myself,” Sonic says, pulse hammering against his temples. “It’s kind of our thing.”

Letting his chin drop to his chest, Silver grunts, “I… definitely have a concussion. I… do not feel good.”

Speech slurring drowsily, his head swings like a pendulum. The blood in his white fur had dried into a brown crust haloed around his forehead, but there was no telling what kind of damage had been done internally.

For all they knew, his brain could be swelling against his skull as they spoke.

Despite the estrangement from his family, Silver undoubtedly had people in his life who cared for him. He was someone’s son, grandson, brother, friend. Sure, a person in his own right, but Sonic knew better than anyone how the ripple of grief moves through the ones we love.

If something were to happen to him here, they would mourn him for long after Sonic and Shadow were gone.

“I’m letting him go.” The decision strikes him as sharp and sudden as a stab wound.

Shadow takes another step closer. “Don’t, Sonic. Don’t let it end like this. I’ll kill you before you can save Tails. It’s either him, or this guy you met yesterday.”

“Hey,” Silver interjects, slurred. “I thought we were friends.”

“I’d like to save both, actually.” Sonic’s voice is a hot snap, stomach clenched into a fist. He slides the knife under the plastic constraints, popping them off.

Will calling Shadow’s bluff work? Or is he about to feel a blade in his back?

I’m sorry, Sonic murmurs inwardly to Tails. I’m so sorry if this doesn’t work.

The skin on Silver’s wrist had been rubbed raw under the harsh tight plastic, leaving pink lines on his wrists and ankles, throbbing lightly against Sonic’s touch.

He can practically hear Shadow’s mental indecision behind him as he shifts his weight, a heaviness to his breathing.

But no knife. No death.

Even with the discarded zip-ties scattered on the ground around him, Silver doesn’t move immediately. Fear spikes through Sonic’s heart that he’s already beyond help, but after several agonising beats, he finally brings his hands to his lap, the movements slow and clumsy.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, eyes fluttering closed, then back open, then shut again as though the tide of sleep is pulling him under.

“Listen, Silver,” Sonic cups his face, pulling it up to look at him. “Can you listen to me?”

He nods, jaw grazing Sonic’s palm, but his eyes remain shut. “We can take you to a hospital, but you can’t go to the police. Because Terry here will kill me if you do. The second we hear sirens, that huge knife of his will be in my chest. Do you understand? I will pay for what I did to you soon enough. I really will,” He swallows hard, the brief image of Knuckles and Tails at his wake so devastating it nearly steals the breath from his lungs. “Do you promise me?”

Silver nods again, a lolling swoop like a hawk diving for prey.

Sonic looks back to Shadow, whose face is etched with anger, a kind of self-loathing that he hadn’t been able to do what he’d threatened to. “Let’s get him to the hospital.”

As they rope one of each of Silver’s arms around their shoulders, Sonic’s blood thrums with the small victory. He had called Shadow’s bluff, and won. Shadow didn’t kill him the instant he cut Silver’s ties. Which meant there has to be hope that he might let him live past twenty.

He’d changed his mind once before, under the sparkling stars of Camelot. He could get him to change it again.

He has to believe.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Silver obsequiously plays along when they tell the ER doctors that he’d fallen badly in the apartment— though perhaps only because staying conscious required all of his energy. Shadow being his roommate no doubt aided their story, and he’s quickly discharged with some sturdy painkillers and strict instructions to rest. After dropping him back off at the scene of the crime, Sonic finds himself alone in the front seat of Shadow’s car as they drive to Vanilla’s to talk to her and Tails.

Sonic, next to Shadow. Alone.

To anyone else, it’s a moment of astounding normality. The dark hum of the road, the still-warm lidded styrofoam coffee cup from the hospital, some nameless rock band on the radio. Shadow’s coat, blanketed over Sonic’s shoulders after he began shivering soon after departing the emergency room. A low thrum between them, vibrating in the places their skin might have touched but don’t. The blare of headlights, the sprinkle of stars, the shards of cat’s eyes shining beneath bumpers on the side of the road.

Astounding normality, but with Shadow.

Together, again.

There are so many things Sonic wants to say, to do. He wants to reach out, to touch Shadow and make sure he’s real, trace his fingers over the familiar outline once more. He wants to tell him how he is, has always been, in every way that matters, his one true home. He wants to reminisce about the past lives and experiences he’d had to keep buried until now: the salty sting of the Blue Coast, the star-studded valleys of Camelot, the dystopian beauty of the Galactic War. All memories they’d shared— survived, in a way. Stitched into the tapestry of their love, the new beads it had gained.

But he doesn’t do any of that.

Here in Sunset Hill, Shadow is not the soft-hearted devoted knight, who fell to his knees with remorse upon their demise. Here he is Terios, manipulative and conniving, infiltrating Sonic’s life from the very beginning with ulterior intentions.

And Sonic has no idea how to bring Lancelot back. Bring them back, quickly and deeply enough to make him want to keep them both alive.

For now, it has to be enough to just exist together, suspended in amber, a brief but indeterminable peace.

Three days. Hardly an infinity, and yet infinite nonetheless— in possibility and in raw potential.

Vanilla is preheating the oven for cookies when they pull up in cordial silence, greeted by an aroma of batter and a warm smile at the door.

“Oh, I love to see you two getting along,” she surmises, “I had a feeling you would.”

Sonic is the first to speak up, almost compulsively. “You could say that.”

Looping his arm around Sonic’s, and sending a suggestive elbow into his side as he does so, Shadow smiles sweetly. “Actually, we just got back from a date.”

“Oh?” She stills a little, clutching the mixing bowl in one hand and the whisk in the other. “Seems like it went well.”

“Y-yeah, so uh, I was hoping Tails could spend the weekend here,” Sonic adds in a stammer, reading the exact moment Vanilla realizes he’s wearing Shadow’s jacket as a blush tints the apples of her cheeks that matches his own. “Where is he, anyway? We wanted to, um… share the news.”

She nods, hiding behind an airy chuckle as she turns to open the oven. “He’s playing with Cream in the computer room. I’m sure they’ll be delighted to hear he’ll be staying for a weekend sleepover. And I must say, you two are just adorable together.”

Now that the blush has spread across all their cheeks, Shadow and Sonic excuse themselves to find Tails down the hall in the computer room.

As soon as they breach the door frame, which both of them had ghosted throughout this life just parallel of each other, Tails chirps happily as he and the young bunny beside him glance up from the desktop.

“Sonic!” He swivels in the chair, leaping out and nearly knocking it over and he runs over with a smile across his maw. Sonic engulfs his baby brother in a bear hug, careful to be gentle with his fragile frame as he spins him around.

“You came with Terry! Does that mean you guys are friends now?” Tails is so excited, Sonic almost forgets the hidden morbidity just so he can celebrate candidly alongside the excited fox.

“Even better,” Shadow coos, placing a hand on each of the brother’s shoulders. “We’re more than friends.”

Blue eyes shoot wide open. “Wait, you guys are best friends?!”

Shadow suppresses a chuckle as Sonic runs a nervous hand through his quills, bemused by the sheer innocence. How else to paint a centuries-old soul-bound romantic rivalry nicely?

“Uh, more like… lovers.” An understatement.

Tails blinks in disbelief, and Sonic worries for a second that he might disapprove before his expression lights up. “Woah, really? You hit it off fast!”

Guilt cuts through him like a knife. “Well… it feels like I’ve known him my whole life.” Another understatement.

“Aw, I’m so happy for you guys! I totally called it when I said he was your type!” Tails sighs happily, cupping his cheeks as Cream giggles besides him with a blush of her own.

“Thanks for being so supportive,” Sonic confesses, throat tightening with emotion. He hadn’t expected so much unbridled joy on the back of a lie— although he supposed the foundations of it are true enough. Love hardly encapsulated even a fraction of his convoluted feelings for Shadow, but he doesn’t have the words to explain it to a terminally ill tween. “I was, uh, scared to say something sooner. I hope I didn’t catch you off guard.”

“No way. I needed some good news this week,” Tails replies with an enthusiastic shake of his head, pausing to look at Shadow. “Don’t break my big brother’s heart though, all right, Terry?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Shadow replies roughly, a thousand emotions pulsing beneath his words.

Something throbs in Sonic’s chest.

If only this were real.

He’s lost count of how times over the extinguishing years he had wished for this moment, the simplicity of their love as soft as firelight on their face as they kissed by the hearth, a thousand tiny pleasures and kindnesses adding up to an entirely ordinary love story.

But their love story isn’t like that. It’s blood, and pain, and death, and an awful cycle doomed to always repeat.

Desperate to quell the grief tugging below his ribs, Sonic decides to press on. “So, I was wondering if you’d be okay spending some time here for a few days, with Vanilla and Cream, while we, uh… look at places together?”

Tails wiggles his eyebrows, expression unreadable, but there’s a hint of amusement to it. “You want to move in with him already?”

“You know me, I like to take things fast,” says Sonic with a charismatic grin, eliciting a satisfying groan from the grumpy hedgehog on his arm. “Achem. I um, hope that’s okay with you.”

Tails shrugs. “It’s not like I can stop you. You’re the adult here, you can make your own choices.” He turns to gaze up at Shadow, who wraps a possessive arm over his partner’s blue sagging shoulders, daring him to a duel lest he not comply.

Blinking, Sonic buffers for a moment. “Uh, good point I guess. Just wanted to keep you in the loop.”

“Besides,” the young fox adds, “now I get to die happy knowing I was right about you being a bottom.”

“Tails! That is—!” Sonic yelps, face immediately beet red. “That is so inappropriate! You’re not even thirteen yet, how do you know what that means?!”

“Pfft, relax. First of all, I’m pretty sure I’m aroace. I don’t care about that stuff enough to actually look into their detailed meanings, but I understand the general idea,” replies Tails boredly with a small wave of his hand. “The PG version, I promise.”

“Please do me the favor of never bringing this up again,” Sonic pleads through his palms, and Shadow can’t help the subsequent bark of unexpected laughter.

After seeing him so sullen and unforgiving, Sonic is relieved to catch the glimpse of rosy flush in those tan cheeks, the edged point of his fanged as he laughs, the golden flecks in his crimson eyes like stars. It’s a reminder of how beautiful Shadow is, the one he’d fallen in love with.

Who, across many lives, loved him back all the same.

Resolve steels inside him like a freshly forged blade.

He will win Shadow over.

***

The apartment is still bloodstained like a crime scene when Shadow unlocks the front door later that evening, long after Silver had no doubt drifted into a dreamless, drug-induced slumber.

The dirty dishes, still haphazardly strewn across the double sink as well as the kitchen tiles, stick out in the otherwise spotless flat that smells faintly of copper. Shadow takes a moment to fill a water bottle that he uses to quench the plethora of houseplants decorating the stark surfaces, vibrant and well-fed. Sonic studies the spines of the leather-bound books of poetry and literature classics pressed between ornate bookholders, carefully curated by his specifically melancholic taste. He spots a collection of media on the mechanics of hoverboarding, inspired by Mobius’s best racers.

All of it glaring evidence that this abode belongs to Shadow, the one true consistent throughout Sonic’s lives.

It’s almost too late by the time they arrive— just shortly before midnight— and the day has been long and fraught, so they head straight into his bedroom. Sonic’s heart pounds with every step down the hall, the beat so heavy and fast he fears Shadow can hear it too. But he says nothing as Sonic traipsed behind, watching his back quills ripple as he opens the door.

The room is nothing spectacular, if a bit tame, but it feels like Shadow. Like stepping inside his very soul and curling up next to the fire of his heart. Sonic places his overnight bag neatly on the ground next to the bed.

“This is nice,” Sonic shatters the silence with a laughably mundane statement. Yet it was all he could think to say as Shadow flips on a bedside lamp quietly, washing the room in soft golden light.

“Thanks.” A handmade card with recognizable drawings on the bold yellow cover jutting out on the bookshelf catches Sonic eye, his hands gravitating toward it as though magnetized to anything that had to do with his brother. Examining it in his hands, he traces the crudely-drawn outline of his two favorite people, depicted through the crayon art of a twelve-year-old genius.

“I’ve always wanted you two to get along,” says Sonic, the words like a too-tight belt round his chest. “Would have been nice to enjoy it longer.”

Shadow nods, then averts his gaze. “I’m looking forward to racing alongside you again,” he admits, suddenly sounding boyish, insecure, like a kid showing a drawing to a friend for the first time.

Sonic swallows before he can nod, bitterness chasing down his next words. “Me too.”

Hand pressed to his chest, Shadow takes a steadying breath, but says nothing. It’s akin to a moment Sonic remembers with Lancelot, the arduous devotion to his king that brought him to his knees. A prayer, an oath— his heart he swore.

“So… you gave away Excalibur, huh?” It’s difficult to keep the tease from his voice and the delicious reaction it elucidates from Shadow, who begins to stammer defensively.

“I would—! He was just borrowing it, obviously,” he sputters with a blush darkening his muzzle, “The guy was broke and couldn’t pay rent. I lent my board so he could win a few races and pay me back, but then he crashed it, so I made him fix it. He probably put it under his own name, because he’s paying for it.”

Sonic can’t help the chuckle that escapes as he pictured a much more realistic rendition of Silver than he had painted of himself their first interaction, and part of him swells as the reassurance that Shadow, perhaps channeling Lancelot, still coveted Excalibur.

“Still, the fact that you let him borrow it…” he muses, raising an apprehensive brow that suggested Shadow was not cleared of his crime.

“He owed me money,” Shadow defends, the slight whine in his voice saccharine and delightful. Sonic wonders what else he has to say to hear more of it.

“How long exactly did you live together?”

Sonic hates that he asks like it’s already past tense, wincing involuntarily at the bitter tone in his voice. An untrained ear might have misinterpreted it as jealousy, but the question is more accurately rooted in pity, in sympathy for Silver, and for this cycle of doom.

“…A few years.” Shadow is staring at the despondent walls, lacking in personal decoration and giving off more of a model home for interior design. Clean, precise, and modern— it isn’t immediately obvious that the place is lived in, let alone supply any clues to how long.

“And no family photos? I guess you and Silver have that in common,” Sonic comments, pointing to scanty framed art pieces along the wall.

“You know why.”

He’d been this way since their second incarnation, nearly two centuries passed by now— with the possible exception of Camelot— but Sonic knew he hadn’t always been this way. He remembered a time when Shadow used to live and breathe for his family, but there’s no way of knowing whether there’s a fixed point or the walls had been constructed slowly over time, brick by brick, stone by stone, until one day he’d looked up and they were impenetrable.

Impenetrable, but for Sonic. And that meant something.

“You didn’t kill me,” he says slowly, “when I cut Silver loose. You said you would, but you didn’t. Or couldn’t.”

Shadow’s entire body stiffens but he says nothing.

“Why not?” Sonic probes. Quiet seconds roll before them like the ebb and flow of waves, the silence wholly alive.

Then he whispers, “Because I’m…”

He trails off, never to pick the sentence back up.

“Because you’re what??” Sonic urges, taking a cautious step towards him.

Red and black quills shake. “Never mind.” Before Sonic can say anything else, Shadow jerks a finger over his shoulder. “Bathroom’s that way.”

Sonic recoils at the dismissal. “What, you’re not scared I’ll climb out of the window or something?”

“There’s no window,” Shadow replies dryly, looking wrung out.

In the tiny, clean bathroom Sonic shrugs off his coat, brushes his teeth, runs a thick-toothed comb through his quills before scrubbing his face raw. He slips into red flannel pajamas and heads back to the bedroom, where he notices the curtains are now drawn shut.

Shadow is sitting on the edge of the bed, stony-faced. Beside him on the monotone comforter is a pair of steel handcuffs.

Sonic stares at him in disbelief. “Are you actually going to cuff me to the bed?”

Elbows on his knees, Shadow sinks his head into his hands, his silence a terrible confirmation.

“Don’t you think that’s a bit much.”

“I have to sleep sometime,” he mumbles into his palms. “And you might take advantage of that time and run. Or knock me out and tie me up like you did to Silver.”

Sonic can’t decide if he should be offended, or turned on. “Why do you even have those?”

“Same reason you carry a knife. Just in case.”

Sitting in the spot beside him on the bed, mind and pulse racing, Sonic holds out his wrist. The tension between their bodies is palpable, an electric cackle, as Shadow snaps the first cuff around it. Then he reaches over Sonic’s lap and fixes the other round to a slat on the headboard, turning the tiny key in the lock with a metallic click.

Panic bolts up Sonic’s spine at the feeling of being trapped, helpless, small— shoving it down as Shadow crosses the room and drops the key in the top drawer of his desk.

Trying to get more comfortable, Sonic shifts around until he’s under the covers with his head against the pillow, grunting every time the cuff pulls awkwardly on his wrist. A shudder racks through him from head to toe and he’s back in the cages, that awful lab, restrained like a feral beast, prodded and humiliated, frozen and drugged. Gangly limbs and crusted fur, damp from the day’s fresh torture.

In his darkest moments, Sonic regretted going back for Shadow. He might have lived a normal life, broken this awful curse.

The stark and terrible vision might have been just that: a vision. A work of imagination.

But from the white-haired, black-robed girl’s appearance in the Galactic War, he knew it was real.

If he turns twenty, it would destroy everything.

And so maybe it is too much to hope for, that Shadow might consider keeping him alive this time. Maybe he’s better off searching for that why, at long last. Not just a vague outline, but every dimension of truth, every nook and cranny of their fate. The complete, unabridged story.

But Chaos, he wanted. So much.

“I’m so sorry,” Shadow finally says, turning to look at Sonic, eyes rimmed with tired pink.

“Are you?” snaps Sonic, if only to give the desperate emotions in his throat somewhere to go.

The assassin looks pained by the question, no matter how rhetorical. “Do you really need to ask me that?”

When there’s no response, Shadow kneels down to pull out a beige blanket from under the bed, placing it on the hardwood floor beside it. He removes his jacket, then the cotton shirt beneath it and folds it into a pillow. Sliding under the blanket and, at the same time, out of his pants, which had been smoothly unbuckled under the stealth of darkness. Turned away from him, from what Sonic’s strained eyes can tell.

Sonic tries not to let his eyes linger into a burning stare against Shadow’s bristled back.

“Won’t you be cold?” Somehow, his voice sounds louder in the dark.

“If you’re uncomfortable, I should be too.”

Sonic’s cuff scrapes against the headboard as he adjusts positions. “And I’m the martyr.”

Silence swells between them, taut and fragile. Sonic can almost hear the frantic whir of his brain, almost feel the tense muscles in his body. A gust of wind rattles the window in its frame, shaking it by the bones.

“Talk to me, Shads,” he urges in a low voice, “Maybe if we work together, we can figure out how to put an end to this.”

He’s expecting resistance, but he has to try. His mind returns to Camelot.

No. No, no no. I need to undo this. No. I won’t let you die this time. I’ll… I’ll figure something out.

There’s the white-haired girl, the crystal clear image of devastation— but if Shadow relented back in Camelot… maybe he would now, here.

“This is how it has to be. Goodnight, Sonic.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

After tossing and turning for what feels like hours, Sonic eventually sleeps in fits until he’s awoken by a yell of agony. Bolting upright and forgetting that his wrist is cuffed to the headboard, he winces as it yanks at an awkward angle.

Shadow is roaring raggedly, almost feral, as though some invisible hand is peeling the very skin from his chest as Sonic’s eyes strain to find him in the darkness. The sound vibrates off his ribs, lights a match to every nerve.

“Shads,” Sonic says urgently. “Hey. Shadow.”

Screaming still.

“SHADOW!” Sonic yells, tugging futilely at his bonds, so intense the urge to go to him.

Shadow awakens at last, the sound dying suddenly in his throat, his body jerking and startling.

“What was that?” breathes Sonic, heart pounding as he flops back onto his pillow.

A brief pause, then quietly: “Just a nightmare.”

Sonic has seen this before, on a pirate ship off the Blue Coast in scintillating cerulean waters, just before he plunged a dagger into his captain’s chest. His eyes, stinging from sun and salt, watching limbs juddering against the wooden deck, before pressing up against his back, hushing.

Sonic rolls over the revelation in his mind, unsure of how to approach it. If he goes in too strong, Shadow could clam up. And yet… it feels important, somehow. As though the nightmare had something to do with him.

“You get those a lot,” Sonic whispers into the night.

“Yes.”

Still his body lies unmoving, save for the soft rise and fall of his chest. Sonic, eyes now cleared of sleep, can tell from his outline that they were facing each other. A shard of silvery moonlight slicing through a gap in the curtains illuminated the ridged outline of his jaw, a tangle of red and black quills splayed against the navy blue pillow.

The screams echo in the caverns of Sonic’s mind. “Is it the same thing every time?” He asks, trepidatious.

A single nod.

“The Galactic War? Rockwell Labs?” Sonic fights back a shudder. “They haunt me, too.”

Another beat, then Shadow rolls over to face the window.

They lay awake in fraught silence until the sun dipped the valley in orange. The peach light washing through the curtains pours over Shadow’s tense body, quills prickled. Sonic notices dull red patches of damp fur along his shoulder blade, fresh and coppery.

He’d been clawing at himself.

“Do you want coffee?” He suddenly asks gruffly, as though he felt Sonic’s eyes on him.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Shadow sits up and makes his way to a dresser where he pulls out a plain cotton shirt, similar to the one he used as a pillow last night. He tugs it over his head, moving his quills through and around it before grabbing his pants from the crumple on the floor and starting to work them over his ankles.

Sonic rattles the handcuffs pointedly. “Take your sweet time, by all means.”

“Shit, sorry.” Clamboring to his feet and abandoning the pants, Shadow shuffles awkwardly to the bed, half-dressed.

Don’t look at his boxers, don’t look don’t—

“Remember the coffee from that hotel in Neon Palace?” Sonic blurts, in a bid to distract himself.

For some reason, this is also the wrong thing to say. Fresh tension builds in Shadow’s arms as he reaches across, and something untraceable flickers behind his eyes.

“We probably shouldn’t talk about Neon Palace,” he replies, every syllable measured carefully.

“Why—?”

But before Sonic can finish his thought, he remembers something suddenly and vividly— the shameless shucking of their expensive sartorial attire, impatient hands desperate to explore every inch, an eager tongue flickering ardently over his, the desire so raw and intense his entire body flooded with heat. He mentally clutches at the memory so it doesn’t disappear, but in a moment it’s gone, leaving only rose-tinted cheeks in its wake.

The cuff loosens at his wrist, Shadow’s bare fingers delicately brushing against his naked palm, and Sonic is suddenly agonizingly aware of how close they were. How easy it would be to rest his freed hand on the narrowest point of Shadow’s waist, to bring the other to that clenched jaw and tug him down.

But Shadow turns quickly away, leaving the air around them cold.

One thing is clear. Shadow remembers it all, and Sonic does not. For a fleeting moment, he almost understands the walls Shadow built up. How it must hurt, that his partner has forgotten so many intimate details of their many lives together?

And more importantly: Why does he forget and Shadow does not?

Why does the past only come in fractal shards, while Shadow holds the vast and complex landscape of their existence in his memory? Sonic can’t remember when it started; everything prior to the ARK has faded like a sun-bleached polaroid. Memories of the lives he’s lived since then are dull but distinct, but before that is murky, patchy, blurred with old age, swallowed by fog.

Is it merely an effect of living so many lives that were so similar, or had the recent brutality of Rockwell Labs destroyed his cognition on a deeper level? Could the suppressed memories be a trauma response?

So many questions, and never any answers.

For now, Sonic just has to focus on the only thing that matters: saving Tails.

***

Due to unforeseen weather conditions, the race was pushed back a day. Possibly two, depending on the forecast, which promised a genial weekend, so far.

So many fates depend on it staying that way.

That isn’t even Sonic’s biggest problem, which is that there is still no donor, and he isn’t scheduled to get tested as a potential match until three days after his birthday.

It would only solve his problem if he actually turns out to be a match, Chaos willing. A scheduled operation was out of the question, but Shadow could kill him in a way without harming the vital organs.

A shudder ripples through him at the thought. Sonic’s no stranger to pain, but he’s no masochist, either.

“Are you okay?”

Sonic laughs, but it’s a brittle, unconvincing thing. “Are you seriously asking me that right now?”

“I—” Shadow’s mouth freezes, the rest of the sentence trapped behind the cage of his fangs. “You’re right. It was a dumb question. Of course you’re not okay.”

His stare puddles at the floor until, with great hesitation, his hand decides to search for Sonic’s somewhere in the middle of this small, circular wooden table on which they’re drinking the coffees Shadow prepared.

Finding it, then lacing their bare fingers together, like they had between cages. There’s a cage between them now, in the form of a promise.

Sonic suspires a cooling breath as he sips the steaming liquid, eyes bleary and no doubt bloodshot from the lack of sleep. He can feel the heat on his tongue, but it tastes of nothing— not for a lack of flavor, but because it is tainted by worry. Not like the rich, dark coffee in Neon Palace, bitter and potent and delicious, like they were. And as much as he tries to access the memories in the locked vault of his mind, he can’t grasp them in full, can’t peel them back like a ripe fruit, to expose the core.

Whatever it is Shadow remembers, Sonic can feel it buzzing between his phalanges.

“For what it’s worth, I am truly sorry about Tails. I will do everything in my power to help you save him.” It’s probably the first honest thing Shadow has said across many lives, many decades. Hope tickles in Sonic’s cranium as his ears twitch in interest.

“…Why?” The word is tired, underslept.

“It’s important to you,” replies Shadow, his own ears pressed back. “When do you… find out, if you’re a match?”

Sonic scoffs uneasily. “Next week. So uh, gotta figure that out today or tomorrow. They said my only chance is if there’s a cancellation, so um, I’m kind of waiting for them to call me.”

Face fixed in some unreadable thought, Shadow furrows his brow. “Maybe… maybe we can appeal for priority donorship. He’s just a kid, a special kid at that, there has to be some form or request you can submit.”

The pleading in his voice is so visceral, it grabs Sonic in the ribs. “You think… that’ll work?” He rasps, hardly able to believe what he was hearing.

Maybe Shadow can still be reached.

“I can’t say for sure, but it would take the pressure off you being a match. All you’d need to worry about then is raising the money, which I imagine will be pretty easy, between you and me.” His voice is firm and steady, like he was gaining confidence by the second. “Certainly there’s a way to bump him up the list.”

“That’s what I said!” Sonic exclaims, then his shoulders sag as he remembers the doctor’s response. “But… I don’t know. They made it sound so hopeless.”

“Well, let’s take today to look into it. And maybe you can get that test early.”

His hand slips away, leaving Sonic’s fingers alone and cold where they missed his company. Shadow abandons an empty coffee mug in the sink, as Sonic stares into his own half-drunk cup, no longer steaming.

“Why are you being so nice?” He asks without taking his eyes off the sorrel liquid.

After a beat, Shadow turns around with a heartbreaking smile cracked into his muzzle.

“I’m here to kill you, not ruin you.”

Sonic sighs, “Is there a difference?”

Returning his sigh, Shadow leans against the counter with crossed arms. His hands were damp from rinsing his dish, and Sonic wished he could help them dry with his own.

“I’d say so. Does it ever cross your mind to imagine that I don’t want to do this, either?”

“But you won’t tell me why,” Sonic insists, a fire starting deep in his belly. “Don’t you think if it was that important that I’d understand?”

“Like I said, I’m not here to ruin you.”

With that, the brief normalcy ends swiftly.

One resounding truth echoes back: that Shadow hates killing nearly as much as Sonic hates dying. And whatever it is, either the guilt of carrying out his demise or his alleged care for Tails or some mixture of both, it’s keeping him— and for now, his brother— alive.

But if he can’t get that test before the race to midnight on his birthday in two days, he would have no choice but to kill him anyway.

***

The rest of the day drawls along in obscene mundanity, tauntingly pleasant. For now, they enjoy small sandwiches outside of a bakery run by his friend, Amy. But it’s hardly the time for any talk the size of their sandwiches as the two male hedgehogs slump solemnly at a two-top table under an umbrella.

“I don’t even have a back up plan for if I’m not a match,” Sonic sighs before sinking his teeth into his decadent lunch. “And petitioning for a donor will take time I don’t have.”

Shadow finishes chewing with his hand in front of his mouth. “First of all, it’s we. I’m going to help you as much as I can.”

“My hero.” The words are dripping with sarcasm, not unlike the mustard dripping down his chin, unceremoniously bright.

Shadow poorly hides his disgust as he wipes at his own muzzle with a clean napkin. “I don’t suppose we could find a list of patients earlier on the donor list than Tails and tie them up just like you did Silver. Then he’ll get their slot.”

Sonic stares at him. “I can’t tell if you’re joking.”

“Why not?” Shadow shrugs. “You’ve already crossed that moral line. What’s once more?”

“We can’t,” Sonic insists, trying to persuade himself just as much as he sets the sandwich down with a shaking head. “It’s not right. What if that person dies waiting for another match?”

“Why should that matter? I thought the whole point was to save Tails before you—”

“Are brutally murdered, yes,” Sonic folds his arms across his chest, angling his body away in his chair. “That doesn’t mean I can let just anyone die, Shadow.”

Shadow huffs, as though the moral concerns were trifling and inconvenient. “Bribery?”

“Of an organ donor?” Sonic shivers at the bitter summer breeze drifting through the patio. “Same issue. Another person could die.”

“What about bribing the doctor? Or the receptionist, or whoever’s in charge of the transplant list?” Shadow doesn’t seem to notice, or perhaps care, that the proximity of their tables made private conversations difficult, quite incriminously so.

Sonic shakes his head, hoping no one had been in earshot for any of that. “It’s all the same problem. The slot has to come from somewhere.”

“So, in conclusion, you’re fucked. Tails is fucked. And you don’t want to do anything about it.” Shadow says, so matter-of-factly.

The insinuation that the whole situation is somehow Sonic’s fault makes him crack. “Okay, wiseguy, maybe if you could come up with any ideas that don’t involve kidnapping and manslaughter,” Sonic retorts, anger rising in his voice. “And it would be awesome if you could stop treating me like some moron just because I have a heart.”

Ignoring the hot snap of his tone, Shadow reaches across the table to smudge a lick of mustard from the other’s lip. “Honestly, I would kidnap literally anyone to save someone I love. But I respect that you won’t.”

Sonic pauses, heart hitched in his throat. “Do you, though?”

“What?”

“Respect me.” There’s an insistent thrust to the words, underpinned by rage but also deep insecurity.

Shadow lowers his gaze, licks his lips. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“No, I’m serious.” Sonic demands, but his half-lidded eyes and subtle smirk belie his steeled words. “Are my rigid morals stupid to you?”

“…Mine are just as rigid. They’re just different.”

“How so?”

Shadow considers this for a moment, as though balancing an equation. “If a hero is someone who will give up love to save the world, then a villain is the reverse. Someone who will give up the world to save love.”

“…There you go again, calling yourself a villain.”

“Isn’t that how you see me?” Shadow shrugs. “There’s no line I won’t cross to save a loved one. Some would say that a villain makes.”

Sonic laughs, albeit bitterly. “You go out of your way to make sure you don’t have any loved ones.”

A heavy pause, in which Sonic fears he may have wounded the other too deeply, but then Shadow mutters, “I have you.”

A particularly strong gust ripples the dark purple skin of their umbrella, bending the metal skeleton outward at an awkward angle. As Shadow moves to fix it, Sonic watches with his mouth agape, struck both by the impact of his words and the piquant sight of muscles rippling under his collared shirt, white tuft of hair peeking out where it’s unbuttoned.

It feels almost unfair that Shadow had to say those words while looking that hot. Rude, even.

Something deep in his belly stirs as Sonic fights the heat of his cheeks, unable to pull his eyes from his lover’s body as he settles back into the chair. A gentle waft of freshly baked bread and nutty chocolate swirls out of the café’s doors and dances around their table, sweetening the moment and just as much, leaving a bitter aftertaste.

There’s a practiced stillness to Shadow’s posture once he’s sitting, and Sonic knew him well enough to recognize he wanted to say something, or ask something.

Resisting the urge to rest a palm on his knee, Sonic breaks the silence to ask, “Okay, what is it?”

Shadow opens and closes his mouth a few times, as if deliberating denying there was an it, but then some internal resolve hardens.

“Why did you come back?” He asks stiffly, staring ahead. “To the ARK. You were free.”

“You knew what was going on?” Sonic replies in astoundment. He’d been sure Shadow was so pumped full of drugs that he had no idea what was happening around him. His last vision was of him with that vacant stare, limp body, the crusted puke on his chest fur.

“Barely. But enough. You escaped, and then you came back.”

Sonic takes another massive bite, chews for a few drawn-out moments, gulps and nods. “I did.”

“Why? You would’ve won.”

“At the time, it didn’t feel like a win.” Licking each of his mustard-stained fingers with a small pop of his cheeks, Sonic polishes off his last bite with a long sip of coke and a satisfying burp.

“It doesn’t make sense.” Shadow, who, at some point, devoured his own food quite neatly, dabs at the corners of his mouth with a napkin, and it’s difficult not to admire how he always manages to look breathtakingly beautiful— even when engaged in the messiest of affairs, such as eating one of Amy’s mustard and turkey sandwiches. Her recommendation, of course.

“We don’t make sense.” Sonic smiles ruefully. “You would have done the same for me.”

“That turned out to be one of our worst deaths.” Shadow’s eyes flutter closed. “Killing you, after you came back for me…”

“Still better than being kept alive as a guinea pig,” Sonic jokes, but his tone is austere. There was nothing funny about the ice baths and the starvation, the endless spinning and cold steel bars, the crackling electricity of cattle prods, the sterile brutality, every day bleached white and cruel.

Then, through the heavy black clouds of the conversation, a fork of lightning in the form of a realization struck, so obvious it feels like a physical blow.

“That’s it!” Sonic exclaims, thumping a palm on the table loudly.

Shadow’s eyes snap to the sound, a look of absolute bewilderment on his face. “What?”

“Guinea pig!”

An eye-roll. “Oh, yes, now everything makes sense.”

Sonic shakes his head passionately. “No, listen, a few weeks ago some doctor approached me about signing up for this clinical trial for this pharmaceutical company. Told ‘em I didn’t want to be their guinea pig. But,” He pauses to take a deep breath, “I bet they’re still looking for patients to sign up for the clinical trial. They even offered to pay me!”

Shadow mulls this over, inhaling a long breath of his own. “I’m not sure I see how that solves our problem.”

“Think about it. They have to do blood work for all new patients. That means, if I sign up, I could skip the line and figure out if I’m a match for Tails today.” Sonic muses, piecing parts of his idea together out loud. “I won’t even have to actually take the drugs, since you’re going to kill me in three days.” If I don’t think of something else to stop you by then.

Shadow grits his teeth, jaw clenching. “Are you sure about this? It sounds sketchy.”

“How much damage can they do in three days? If it gets me a blood test today or tomorrow, won’t it be worth it?” Sonic feels jittery with the realization, with the sliver of hope. “If I’m a match, I’ll sign up to be Tails’ donor for when I die. All that leaves is kicking some ass in the race.”

Shadow frowns. “Seems ambitious. But okay.”

“I’m not giving up yet,” Sonic retorts with a smile spread across his face— always an optimist, even when it was downright absurd to be so. Even as another one of his lives reaches its crescendo.